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<channel>
	<title>Armed and Dangerous</title>
	<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org</link>
	<description> Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life's simple pleasures...</description>
	<pubDate>Sun, 04 May 2008 01:55:15 +0000</pubDate>
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		<item>
		<title>Oderint, dum metuant</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=294</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=294#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:24:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>General</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=294</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In Nablus, a young man is kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists
&#8212; who then set
him free on learning he is an American because they don&#8217;t want to end up like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi so recently did.

I am irresistibly reminded of a piece of cynical wisdom from the
mouth of the mad Roman emperor Caligula, born of experience in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In Nablus, a young man is kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists
&mdash; who then <a href='http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1149572654519&#038;pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull'>set
him free on learning he is an American</a> because they don&#8217;t want to end up like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi so recently did.

</p><p>I am irresistibly reminded of a piece of cynical wisdom from the
mouth of the mad Roman emperor Caligula, born of experience in dealing
with the barbarians of his day: <em>Oderint, dum metuant:</em>  &#8220;Let
them hate, so long as they fear&#8221;.</p>

<p>It is best of all to be loved, of course.  But Islamists will never
love the khufr; not even the most self-abasing of the postmodern
Left&#8217;s bootlickers can make <em>that</em> happen.  The next best thing
is that jihadis should crap their pants when they think about the
death-from-above consequences of molesting Americans.</p>

<p>I would actually prefer to have them fear molesting &#8220;all civilized
people&#8221;, rather than just &#8220;Americans&#8221;.  Unfortunately, I don&#8217;t see the
will to instill the required level of fear anywhere but in the U.S.,
and I don&#8217;t consistently see it here.  Not a single Democrat is
willing to talk about <em>making the active enemies of our civilization
fear its wrath</em>, which is one of several reasons I can no longer
consider voting Democrat.</p>

<p>Then there are the practicalities. The U.S. military is implicitly
defending all civilized people whenever it waxes a jihadi, but in our world
of nation-states it would be a bit much to require it to explicitly
retaliate for the death of (say) a Frenchman.</p>

<p>Still&#8230;having even bush-league terrorists fear harming Americans
is a good start, and as neat a vindication of George Bush&#8217;s foreign
policy and the war in Iraq as anyone could ask for.  The war is not,
after all, breeding terrorists; it&#8217;s killing the leaders and
frightening the small fry into letting go their victims.</p>

<p>Caligula may have been a mad bastard, but understood the
barbarian mind and the stringency necessary to deal with it better than most 
of today&#8217;s politicians.  Since they will not love us, let them be afraid.  Very, very
afraid.</p>

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			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=294</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Monkey feces and other forms of communication</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=293</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=293#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:43:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Administrivia</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=293</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have extremely strong convictions about free speech and robust debate.  Thus, I was rather unhappy the first time that I decided it was necessary to delete a comment on this blog.  The rule I published at that time was that comments that were both (a) anonymous, and (b) content-free vitriol, would be [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I have extremely strong convictions about free speech and robust debate.  Thus, I was rather unhappy the first time that I decided it was necessary to delete a comment on this blog.  The rule I published at that time was that comments that were both (a) anonymous, and (b) content-free vitriol, would be subject to deletion.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, as this blog has become more popular, some semi-regular commenters have descended to the level of monkeys throwing feces.  Often the feces are flung in my direction, but that bothers me very little.  What concerns me more is that an increasing percentage of comments are  not about ideas but solely about the personalities and motives of other commenters. That is not a useful direction for the blog, even when the accusations being hurled are justified ones originating from sensible people.  The entire tone of the blog is being lowered.</p>

<p>Therefore, with great regret, I must announce that I am considering banning commenters who are persistently and virulently disruptive.   This would not be from any particular desire to control the wrongdoers&#8217; behavior, rather it would be to relieve more civilized persons from the temptation to get into slanging matches with the wrongdoers. I hope not to have to actually take this step; I hope this announcement will serve as a warning to those who need it that they must moderate their behavior or begone.</p>

<p>Bannings, if any, will not take place in the dark of night; my notion of honor forbids this.  Should I ban anyone, I will do so publicly with an accounting of my reasons in each case, and accept any criticism that ensues.</p>




]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=293</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Massive Intelligence Raids Follow Zarqawi&#8217;s Death</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=292</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=292#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:40:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Terror</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=292</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NEW YORK (Disassociated Press) - In a surprise sequel to the death of top al-Qaeda
terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this morning, police have executed
raids and searches on dozens of newsrooms and editorial offices
belonging to a shadowy and ill-defined network called the &#8220;MSM&#8221;.  The
resulting haul of intelligence on terrorist objectives and strategy
has been described as &#8220;priceless&#8221;.

&#8220;It&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>NEW YORK (Disassociated Press) - In a surprise sequel to the death of top al-Qaeda
terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this morning, police have executed
raids and searches on dozens of newsrooms and editorial offices
belonging to a shadowy and ill-defined network called the &#8220;MSM&#8221;.  The
resulting haul of intelligence on terrorist objectives and strategy
has been described as &#8220;priceless&#8221;.</p>

<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s no secret that these `Main Stream Media&#8217; organizations have
been handing the terror network a lot of its talking points,&#8221; said one
spokesman.  &#8220;Increasingly, terrorists have been shaping their strategy
around media operations, relying on their tacit partnership with the
MSM to achieve shared political goals.  Cracking the media side of the
operation may be the most effective way to cut off the terrorists&#8217;
oxygen.&#8221;</p>

<p>Representatives of the New York Times, the Reuters news agency, the
Guardian, and other apparent targets of the investigation declined to comment,
except to blame U.S. President George W. Bush for millions of 
hitherto-undisclosed Iraqi civilian casualties, higher gas prices, 
several extragalactic supernovas, and the Hindenburg disaster.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=292</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Commands and Colors: Ancients</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=291</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=291#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Jun 2006 04:33:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>New on my website</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=291</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve put a new page up on my website about the excellent Commands &#38; Colors: Ancients game.  It&#8217;s just couple of variant rules and some scenario results now, but may grow in the future.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve put a <a href='http://catb.org/~esr/commandsncolors.html'>new page</a> up on my website about the excellent Commands &amp; Colors: Ancients game.  It&#8217;s just couple of variant rules and some scenario results now, but may grow in the future.</p>]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=291</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>I have received a death threat</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=290</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=290#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 May 2006 03:11:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Terror</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=290</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Well, this is novel.  I&#8217;ve just received a terroristic death threat.  From
an idiot who failed to obscure his return path.  Here it is, precisely as
I received it mere minutes ago:


From salehizadeh_atc@yahoo.com  Sun May 21 22:44:42 2006
Return-Path: 
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.1 (2006-03-10) on snark.thyrsus.com
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,DNS_FROM_RFC_ABUSE,
	DNS_FROM_RFC_WHOIS,UPPERCASE_25_50 autolearn=no version=3.1.1
Received: from snark.thyrsus.com [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Well, this is novel.  I&#8217;ve just received a terroristic death threat.  From
an idiot who failed to obscure his return path.  Here it is, precisely as
I received it mere minutes ago:</p>

<pre>
From salehizadeh_atc@yahoo.com  Sun May 21 22:44:42 2006
Return-Path: <salehizadeh_atc @yahoo.com>
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  s=s1024; d=yahoo.com;
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Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 19:43:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: hhh hyftyf <salehizadeh_atc @yahoo.com>
Subject: Islam
To: esr@thyrsus.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-UID: 24454
X-Keywords:                                                                                                    
Status: RO
Content-Length: 343
Lines: 12

We have your address.

               YOU WILLBE KILLED
               YOU WILLBE KILLED
               YOU WILLBE KILLED
               YOU WILLBE KILLED
               YOU WILLBE KILLED

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
</salehizadeh_atc></esr></salehizadeh_atc></pre>

<p>I will report this threat to the appropriate authorities.  I guess
all my writings about terrorism and Islam struck a nerve somewhere.</p>

<p>Here&#8217;s a message to whoever is behind this threat: Maybe you think
you can intimidate me, or that threats like this will stop other
bloggers from speaking the truth about your barbaric mass-murdering
death-cult.  Well, screw you and the camel you rode in.  I will not
be silenced, and <em>we</em> will not be silenced.  All you do
with terroristic threats is to demonstrate your evil nature, 
confirm our resolve to resist you, and speed the day when your
diseased ideology will be wiped from the face of the Earth.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=290</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Testosterone makes people stupid</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=289</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=289#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 May 2006 19:21:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Firearms</category>
	<category>Politics</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=289</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Yes, testosterone makes people stupid.  No, I&#8217;m not talking about the
men who secrete and metabolize it, I&#8217;m talking about the nervous old
women of both sexes who pronounce upon it as though it were some sort
of demonic drug.

Latest in this parade of absurdity is a study of the effect of handling
guns on male testosterone.  [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Yes, testosterone makes people stupid.  No, I&#8217;m not talking about the
men who secrete and metabolize it, I&#8217;m talking about the nervous old
women of both sexes who pronounce upon it as though it were some sort
of demonic drug.</p>

<p>Latest in this parade of absurdity is a study of the effect of handling
guns on male testosterone.  Lurking behind the study is a clear agenda &mdash;
the designers wanted to show that guns cause violence.  Jonah Goldberg rightly 
<a href='http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ=='>slams</a> this
nonsense in National Review Online, reminding us that conservatives may
after all be good for something.</p>

<p>I read Jonah&#8217;s column while a shreddin&#8217; track from Joe Satriani&#8217;s
new album <cite>Super Colossal</cite> poured out my speakers.
Hearing what Satch does on a fretboard definitely raises my testosterone
level.  Should we be banning electric guitars for their
aggression-inciting effects, now?</p>

<p>The study involved hot sauce, which I&#8217;m pretty sure <a href='http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=79'>raises mens&#8217; testosterone levels
too</a>.  Are we to forbid the import of capsicum peppers on this
account?</p>

<p>There&#8217;s no end to this sort of silliness, short of recognizing that
the people who propagate it are self-panickers who, if the entire
planet turned into a brightly colored and harmless Nerf-world
tomorrow, would fear their own shadows.</p>

<p>The fault lies not in guitars or hot sauces or testosterone or
firearms but in the self-panickers&#8217; tendermindedness and moral
infantilism. It&#8217;s &#8220;Mommy!  Mommy! The bad thing made me do it!&#8221; 
amplified and projected on everyone else.</p>

<p>To which the only counter is two words: <em>Grow up!</em>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=289</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Animal imagination?</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=288</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=288#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 May 2006 21:51:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Science</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=288</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[About a month ago, one of my regular respondents asked me to blog
about self-awareness in animals.  I&#8217;m doing so now because it will be
useful for an essay I&#8217;m planning to write about ethical and legal 
definitions of humanity.



Let&#8217;s start by defining a slightly more abstract category, what
science-fiction fans call a &#8217;sophont&#8217;.  A being [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>About a month ago, one of my regular respondents asked me to blog
about self-awareness in animals.  I&#8217;m doing so now because it will be
useful for an essay I&#8217;m planning to write about ethical and legal 
definitions of humanity.</p>

<a id="more-288"></a>

<p>Let&#8217;s start by defining a slightly more abstract category, what
science-fiction fans call a &#8217;sophont&#8217;.  A being or animal is fully
sophont if it:

<ul>
<li>Shows behavioral evidence of self-awareness, e.g knows it has a mind.</li>
<li>Shows awareness of the existence of other minds.</li> 
<li>Communicates abstractions using language.</li>
<li>Invents and uses tools.</li>
<li>Can reason about counterfactual hypotheticals, e.g. can answer
    questions of the form &#8220;What would things be like if a fact I am 
    now observing to be true were not true?&#8221;</li>
</ul>
</p>

<p>(That last one may seem odd to those of you not familiar with 
primate ethology, but bear with me&#8230;)</p>

<p>Normal human beings pass all these tests.  Few animals are known to
even come close to passing all of them &mdash; but the &#8220;are known&#8221; is
necessary, because in some cases animals might pass all of the tests
other than tool use without being able to communicate that to
humans.</p>

<p>Some people feel quite strongly about animal rights.  Their
position does not, however, generally spring from an assertion that
animals are sophonts; rather, it seems to come down to an
unwillingness, or inability, to distinguish between sophont status and
<em>sentience</em> &mdash; that is, being able to feel.  In practice,
while theoretically even insects can feel, even PETA members tend to
ascribe sentience only to animals that can exchange recognizable
emotional signals with us &mdash; which is to say, basically,
mammals.</p>

<p>The mamalian repertoire of behaviors for communicating states like
fear, affection, anger, boredom, and playfulness is remarkably
conservative.  So much so that humans can have meaningful emotional
communication with cats, dogs, and raccoons, a datum that would be
astonishing if we weren&#8217;t so used to it!  Some mammals are so good at
this that we routinely keep them around for pleasure.</p>

<p>Even dogs and cats exhibit little evidence of sophont behavior,
though.  They can learn tricks by reinforcement, but they don&#8217;t use
tools, they show only very weak problem-solving intelligence and even
less evidence that they have a theory of mind or self-awareness.  One
test animal behaviorists use for self-awareness is whether the animal
will try to remove a smudge from its face when it sees itself in the
mirrors; cats and dogs generally fail this.  Sentience is less than
sophont status.</p>

<p>There are, however, interesting borderline cases among the animals.
Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans, dolphins, whales, seals,
otters, elephants, a few species of birds, and even octopi and squid
have all displayed not merely sentience but suspiciously sophont-like
behaviors. Here are some data:</p>

<ul> <li>Great apes can learn sign language and use it in original
ways, including coining new terms and making puns; they also make and
use tools and have complex social patterns recognizably akin to human
ones. Some apes can pass the mirror test. Some handle abstractions
tolerably well, and there is a famous incident in which a gorilla named
Koko speculated to its trainers about an afterlife after its pet
kitten died.</li>

<li>There is some, disputed, evidence that dolphins can in fact learn
to use iconic languages.  Nobody who has interacted with dolphins at
any length is in any doubt that they have minds, recognize human
beings as having minds, and have a lively sense of humor (not
infrquently they try to include humans in their play).  They can count
and have at least a limited ability to handle abstractions.  Claims
that they are sophont at human level are not established by evidence,
but nobody who has studied the evidence would be much surprised if
they turned out to be.</li>

<li>Elephants use tools, engage in complex vocal communication (parts
of which are infrasonic, entertainingly enough), have elaborate social
behaviors, play jokes on their trainers, and apparently grieve for
their dead. They pass the mirror test. And they really do have long
memories; they&#8217;ve been known to wait years for a chance to take
revenge an abusive human.  <a href='http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/302feature1.shtml'>
New evidence</a> suggests they may be very close to human in
intelligence and self-awareness. </li>

<li>Some parrots and crows <a href='http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/avc/emmerton/default.htm'>can
count</a>.  Some talking birds appear to graduate from mimicry to
using learned words to express emotional states, and a few seem to
make the jump to talking about the emotional states of
humans.

</li><li>Mediterranean squid have a very high brain-mass-to-body-mass ratio
(this correlates with various indicators of intelligence in mammals).
They been observed to solve mechanical problems (how to extract the
tasty food fish from the corked bottle) by examining their
environment, thinking for a while, then acting quickly and correctly.
Octopi and squid appear to communicate within groups using color
flashes made with chromatophores in their skins; nobody know what
they&#8217;re communicating, exactly, but the potential bandwidth of that
channel is extremely high. There is even some evidence of <a href='http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/cephpod.html'>observational
learning in octopi</a>. </li></ul>

<p>Significantly, the birds who seem to be using speech, and the apes
who handle abstractions best, are animals that have lived with humans
for a long time.  Even cats and dogs, though not very bright compared
to elephants or dolphins or chimps, accasionally show flashes of
self-awareness (for example, by recognizing themselves in a
mirror).</p>

<p>Given all this animal data, what&#8217;s left as a unqiquely human capability?
Though interpretation of the experimental results is controversial, one thing
even the cleverest nonhuman primates seem to have problems with are 
conterfactual hypotheticals.</p>

<p>Imagine a table with two red balls, three green balls, and an upright
paper screen large enough to hide a sixth ball behind it.  To human beings, the
following two questions are both eeasy and nearly indistinguishable:</p>

<ul>
<li>How many green balls would be in the room if there were a green ball 
behind the screen?

</li><li>How many green balls would you be able to see if the leftmost green
ball were red?
</li></ul>

<p>But these two questions are subtly different.  The first is a what-if
that is consistent with all visible facts: the second is a what-if that 
<em>contradicts a visible fact</em> (thus &#8216;counterfactual&#8217;).</p>

<p>The brightest non-human primates handle questions like the first one
pretty well, but questions like the second one rather poorly.  They don&#8217;t
seem to have have the capacity to construct a full-blown hypothetical
universe in their heads and reason about it despite what observable reality
is telling them.</p>

<p>(This test has only been done with primates.  You need to have a
language in common with your subject(s) to do it; primates can use
sign language or symbol tiles, but communication with other possible
quasi-sophonts is far more limited so far.)</p>

<p>If this test is to be believed, what distinguishes humans from other
higher primates is not reasoning ability but imagination!</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=288</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Eurogame Phenomenon</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=287</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=287#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 May 2006 04:37:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>General</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=287</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I enjoy strategy games.  I&#8217;ve been playing them since the heyday of
the elaborate hundreds-of-tiny-counters hex-map historical-simulation
wargames in the 1970s and early 1980s.  But those games don&#8217;t get
played much any more, largely because they took so long to set up and
learn; after 1985 or so younger gamers moved to computer simulations
instead, and as the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I enjoy strategy games.  I&#8217;ve been playing them since the heyday of
the elaborate hundreds-of-tiny-counters hex-map historical-simulation
wargames in the 1970s and early 1980s.  But those games don&#8217;t get
played much any more, largely because they took so long to set up and
learn; after 1985 or so younger gamers moved to computer simulations
instead, and as the hex-wargame genre stagnated many old-school gamers
eventually abandoned it in favor of military-miniatures gaming.</p>
<a id="more-287"></a>
<p>Ace game designer Greg Costikyan (coincidentally, an old friend of
mine) has a <a href='http://www.costik.com/spisins.html'>different
theory</a> about what killed old-school wargames.  He tells a lurid
tale of mismanagement and blunder; I have little doubt it&#8217;s true, but
I also think he understimates the impact of computer gaming.</p>

<p>Be that as it may&#8230;in the late 1990s we started to see a new wave
of fresh, innovative game designs in a different style.
<cite>Settlers of Catan</cite> in 1995 was the harbinger.  This game
of trade and civilization-building featured an elegant combination of
simple mechanics with tricky, relatively deep strategy.  There are
several possible routes to victory in Settlers, all requiring both
positional tactics and careful management of constrained resources.
The game is made more attractive by colorful, high-quality physical
furniture and tasteful artwork.  It can be played lightly and socially
or in an intense minimaxing mode, and (importantly) is really designed
for three or four players though it can be played one-on-one. It
rewards repeated playing.</p>

<p>These became signature traits of a huge freshet of new games that
hit the U.S. market in the new century.  Other standouts have included
<cite>Puerto Rico</cite>, <cite>Domaine</cite>, <cite>Power
Grid</cite>, <cite>Alhambra</cite><cite>, </cite><cite>Shadows Over Camelot</cite><cite>,
and </cite><cite>Ticket To Ride</cite>.  Most of these games are imports from
Germany, republished in English; the style is generically known as
&#8220;German games&#8221; or &#8220;Eurogames&#8221; and I&#8217;ve heard it alleged that in
Germany these games are a mass-market form of family entertainment
rather than being confined to gamer-hobbyists, science-fiction fans,
and technogeeks as they still mostly are in the U.S.</p>

<p>I&#8217;ve long thought that the Eurogame is in part a response to competition
from computer games.  Computers do the detail-crammed historical-simulation 
game better than you can with counters and a board, so they got steamrollered.
Eurogames, on the other hand, do something computer games are poor at &#8212; 
face-to-face multiplayer games &#8212; and they do it with furniture that&#8217;s 
pleasant to look at and handle.  Silly as it sounds, Puerto Rico would
lose some of its play value without the colorful wooden barrel-tokens
it uses for commodities.</p>

<p>The newest wave is Eurogame-like designs that are aiming to retake
some of the territory the old-school games lost to computers.  I got
to play two of these recently, <cite>Commands and Colors:
Ancients</cite> and its sibling <cite>Memoir &#8216;44</cite>, and was
favorably impressed.</p>

<p><cite>Commands and Colors: Ancients</cite> does what old-school
ancients games like the old SPI PRESTAGS (Pre-Seventeenth Century
Tactical Game System) aimed to do &mdash; reward players with a good
feel for ancient-period tactics. If you know how Alexander or Scipio
Africanus used missile troops and skirmishers; if you know how
Hannibal used cavalry differently from infantry, and why; if you
understand the difference between phalanx and manipular tactics
&mdash; then these games will give you the sorts of results period
commanders got.</p>

<p>In <cite>C&amp;C Ancients</cite>, for example, I was able to use
bowmen to disrupt my opponent&#8217;s formations and goad him into entering
the engagement range of my heavy infantry just as a period commander
would have done.  I used to do stuff like that in PRESTAGS too &mdash;
the difference is that <cite>C&amp;C Ancients</cite> gets the feel
right with far simpler and cleverer mechanics.  Two bits of business
that stand out are the use of multiple blocks per unit to simulate
attrition steps, and the special symbol-marked dice (rolled in groups
varying in size with the unit&#8217;s combat strength) to replace lookups on
a combat results table.</p>

<p>Simpler makes a difference.  It made the game faster to learn and
play; and, because I wasn&#8217;t spending as much mental effort on the
mechanics, I could think about tactics more (and that&#8217;s the fun part).
Overall, I&#8217;d say this game is an excellent design and a clear
improvement over the old-school ancients games I remember.</p>

<p>I wasn&#8217;t quite as impressed with <cite>Memoir &#8216;44</cite>, a variant
of the same system applied to WWII-era gaming.  I don&#8217;t think the
C&amp;C mechanics work as well for modern warfare.  Still, it&#8217;s a
respectable effort; I&#8217;ve played many WWII games that weren&#8217;t as good.
And if your figure of merit is how much realistic tactical feel one
can get per paragraph of rules text, it scores pretty high.</p>

<p>Some of these differences are down to technology.  In the old days,
thick rulebooks full of tables full of numbers were the only kind of
presentation we could imagine.  But the kind of manufacturing and
printing needed to produce Eurogame-style pretty pieces and custom
dice is far less expensive than it was, and that suggests
possibilities that are just beginning to be exploited.</p>

<p>I hope these are the beginning of a trend.  I miss the old-style
hex wargames almost as much as Greg Costikyan does.  Is it too much
to hope that that experience might be coming back, with simpler
rules, in brighter colors?</p>

<p>I sure hope so.  I&#8217;d never give up the railroad games and the
colonization games and the trading games I&#8217;ve learned to enjoy.  But
they&#8217;re&#8230;bloodless.  Sometimes you want to send your panzers rumbling
forward on a misty morning north of Kursk, trade broadsides with the
French fleet off Trincomalee, or orbital-insert your drop troopers on an
Arachnid hive-city.  Eurogames, as we&#8217;ve known them, wouldn&#8217;t get you
there.  Maybe, now, they&#8217;re growing into a genre that will.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=287</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Memetic Success</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=286</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=286#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:52:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Culture</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=286</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Bwahahaha!  My sinister master plan for world domination is
working.  Straight from the pages of the highest-quality general-news
magazine in English, check 
this out!  The money &#8216;graf is the last one:


Moreover, the ease with which the internet spreads
wrong-headedness&#8211;to say nothing of lies and slander&#8211;is offset by the
ease with which it spreads insights and ideas. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Bwahahaha!  My sinister master plan for world domination is
working.  Straight from the pages of the highest-quality general-news
magazine in English, check <a href='http://economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=6826185'>
this</a> out!  The money &#8216;graf is the last one:</p>

<blockquote>
Moreover, the ease with which the internet spreads
wrong-headedness&#8211;to say nothing of lies and slander&#8211;is offset by the
ease with which it spreads insights and ideas. To regret the glorious
fecundity of new media is to choose the hushed reverence of the
cathedral over the din of the bazaar.
</blockquote>

<p>There&#8217;s an old saw to the effect that there&#8217;s no limit to what you
can accomplish if you don&#8217;t care who gets the credit.  More precisely,
when your signature memes start showing up as generative metaphors in
elite and popular usage <em>with your name stripped off them</em>, you
know you&#8217;re winning.</p>

<p>Winning, that is, at the only game that is really interesting &#8211;
changing the world.</p>

<p>(Hat tip to my blogson Walter Hunt over at <a href='http://www.walterhunt.com/blog/?p=11'>Stone of Remembrance</a>,
though I&#8217;d have seen it anyway in my weekly <cite>Economist</cite> and
later did.)</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRSS>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?feed=rss2&amp;p=286</wfw:commentRSS>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>In the Belly of the Beast</title>
		<link>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=285</link>
		<comments>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=285#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:43:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>esr</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Software</category>
		<guid>http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=285</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the beautiful-irony department, I have just learned that my name
and copyright now appears in the EULA (End-User License Agreement) of
a Microsoft product.  A vector-graphics editor called &#8220;Microsoft
Expressions&#8221;, apparently &#8212; thanks to Martin Dawson for the
tip.



The history behind this is that GIFLIB is open-source software for
hacking GIF images &#8212; the direct ancestor of libungif, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In the beautiful-irony department, I have just learned that my name
and copyright now appears in the EULA (End-User License Agreement) of
a Microsoft product.  A vector-graphics editor called &#8220;Microsoft
Expressions&#8221;, apparently &mdash; thanks to Martin Dawson for the
tip.</p>

<center><img src='graphics/eric-in-eula.png'/></center>

<p>The history behind this is that GIFLIB is open-source software for
hacking GIF images &mdash; the direct ancestor of libungif, which is
the name under which the codebase is more widely known these days.
The original software was by Gershon Elber for DOS; around 1987 I
ported it to Unix, cleaned up the architecture, added numerous new
features, and wrote documentation.  When Unisys started to jump salty
about the GIF patents in the mid-1990s, I handed the project off to a
maintainer outside U.S. jurisdiction, Toshio Kuratomi.</p>

<p>I have no idea why the copyright on this EULA is dated 1997, I
think that is a couple of years after I passed the baton to Toshio
Kuratomi.</p>

<p>Subsequently I did a lot of work on libpng, implementing 6 of the
14 chunk types in the PNG standard and designing a new more
object-oriented interface for that library.  So if you use open-source
software that handles either of the two most popular raster-image
formats, it is rather likely that you rely on my code every day. Yes,
that includes all you Firefox and Netscape and Konq and Safari users
out there.</p>

<p>And now, my code is in a Microsoft product.  This may not be the
first time; in fact, thinking about all the other places it would
have been silly for Microsoft to pass up using libpng and giflib,
it probably isn&#8217;t even the dozenth time.</p>

<p>I&#8217;m OK with this, actually.  I write my code for anyone to use, and
&#8216;anyone&#8217; includes evil megacorporate monopolists pretty much by
definition.  I wouldn&#8217;t change those terms retroactively if I could,
because I think empowering <em>everyone</em> is a far more powerful
statement than empowering only those I agree with.  By doing so, I
express my confidence that my ideas will win even when my opponents
get the benefit of my code.</p>

<p>Besides&#8230;now, when Microsoft claims open source is inferior or not
innovative enough or dangerous to incorporate in your products or
whatever the FUD is this week, I get to laugh and point.  Hypocrites.
Losers.  You have refuted yourselves.</p>
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