Just ran across another Victorian map of London, in additional to the impressive Greenwood’s Map of London 1827, there’s also Dr. John Snow’s 1859 map. Snow used a map published by James Reynolds in 1857 to plot epidemics of Cholera, as documented nicely on the site.
Rock Scissors Blog is a cooperative blog written by a group of (roleplaying) game writers and developers.
Here’s one interesting idea from there: Forever Young, or Nearly So, which proposes that the various classic D&D demi-humans (halflings, gnomes, elves, dwarves) might be considered as different generations of a single highly long-lived race.
Peter Seebach has written The Hacker FAQ, a document designed to explain to managerial types how to handle “hackers”. He’s also sold it to IBM and, at their request, written a complementary piece called (naturally) The Manager FAQ, to explain the curious habits of “suits” to hackerkind.
I like the manager document better than the hacker document, which comes too close in my eyes to painting hackers as highly creative and prodigiously talented Heinleinian supermen, but I sense there’s a sales-pitch angle here. Why should we put up with these stubborn weirdos that play games all day? Because they’re incredibly productive creative types, and they’re just decompressing when it looks like they’re lazing about, it says.
Well, maybe sometimes, they’re just lazing about.
The Robert E. Howard
United Press Association is A website catering to Howard scholars
, featuring such wonders as a complete listing of everything found on Howard’s bookshelves and critical articles like a comparison of Conan vs. Bambi.
Big Dead Place is a site with stories about working in Antarctica:
Many of the early explorers who came to Antarctica were underfunded buffoons who did not first consult Appropriations Subcommittees before facing the unique and exciting challenges that Antarctica offered for the future. As a result, they lacked innovative leadership, and died miserably of starvation while freezing to death.
…
In fact, the main purpose of the United States Antarctic Program, as stated by an external panel report published by NSF, is to establish a physical and political presence. This presence is kind of like hopping out of the car to stand in a parking space so no one nabs it while your friend drives around the block. (Our friend in this metaphor would be the as-of-yet nonexistent technology to cost-effectively extract minerals or hydrocarbons from Antarctica.)