Interesting website for sci-fi geeks like me.  Haven’t listened to the radio shows yet, but just reading the content makes me think this will be a fun site to dig through.

Sci Fi All The Time – Hour 25 Online is a science fiction radio station that’s been broadcasting since 1972. They’re available online now and have a very nice archive of interviews with science fiction authors and other luminaries.

(Via Metafilter)

Well, we are back from our excursion to the great northwest.  Thoughts and pictures of the trip will follow soon enough.  Hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

It’s three weeks until GenCon, a gaming convention that’s been around for approximately forever, attracting many thousands of geeks every year to make a pilgrimage to the midwest – previously to Milwaukee, and for the past three years to Indianapolis, IN.

I find it interesting to consider how time works – or, rather, how it feels. Three weeks feels like a long time when you’re looking forward to something, doesn’t it? You feel like a kid crossing off the days, thinking about how many more Xs you have to put on your mental calendar before the event arrives, whether it’s your birthday or a trip to the amusement park or something else equally exciting. I’ve felt that way about GenCon in the past, and indeed I still feel that way now. 

Well, sometimes, anyway. See, this year for the first time I’m taking a more active role in the experience. I’m running 16 hours worth of the fine line of Alleged Enterprises games (if you consider two games a "line"). One of those games, This Game Sucks, is also being sold at the Game Publisher’s Association booth. The other, Boy Meets Girl: A Tragedy, is not being sold anywhere. Hell, it’s not even DONE yet. It’s close, content-wise, but we haven’t even started the rules yet and there’s a bit of layout work to be done on the gameboard and…well, a lot of other stuff. What’s truly bizarre is that all five sessions of This Game Sucks are sold out – 15 people have signed up for each, meaning that 75 people are clamoring (sort of) to see what we have to offer. That’s three games running simultaneously, and if any of them bring along friends without official session tickets, we’ll have four tables going at once. Even Boy Meets Girl is starting to fill up – more than half the seats are filled at all three of those sessions, and while I don’t expect it to be a big hit I’m pleased to see any interest in a game that has absolutely no buzz about it whatsoever.

What this is about, though, isn’t the excitement over the games. It’s about time, and the perception of it. Today, instead of saying "Geez, I have to wait three whole WEEKS till GenCon??" I found myself saying "Holy shit, I only have THREE WEEKS to get ready??" Three weeks is either a painfully long time or the blink of an eye, apparently.

Oh, wait a minute. I have more than three weeks. Before I’m running our first session for 15 or so eager (or evil) gamers, I have three weeks, two hours and 19 minutes. 

What could possibly go wrong? 

Apparently a couple in Italy took about 50,000 Euros from a woman in her 40s by convincing her that they were vampires and if she didn’t pay up, they would impregnate her with the son of the Antichrist. No, really.

The man, a cabaret singer, and his girlfriend took the money from their victim over four years by selling her pills at 3,000 euros each that they said would abort the Anti-Christ’s son.

Of course, the really disturbing part of this is that on some level I find myself disappointed that I don’t know anyone as gullible as this lady. 

Whilst the fearless webmaster and his lovely bride are away for their honeymoon, I will be attempting to hold down the fort around the Green Scissors camp. This means that regular readers (numbering in the solid single digits, I believe) might be treated to brilliant, well-thought out discussions on a variety of subjects.

Well, you MIGHT be treated to such things. More likely, you’ll end up getting a small boatload of crap related to sports, geek-centric news and poorly written ramblings about stuff you’re not interested in. In other words, it’ll be business as usual.

 RIP Scotty.  All "beam me up" jokes left to the reader.

‘Star Trek’ Star James Doohan Dies (AP) – AP – James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died early Wednesday. He was 85.

(Via Yahoo! Top Stories)

A keyboard with hot keys that not only change function based on the app you are using, but also change the icon on the button itself?  Not worth the $200 it would cost, but I’d take one as a birthday present and happily use it.

Interview(s) With the Creator of the Optimus Keyboard –

Thanks to all those who bombarded me with these over the weekend. Atremy Lebedev, the creator of the Optimus ninja OLED keyboard. Lebedev is planning on mass producing this thing in a year or so and sees the price at somewhere in the $200-300 range. Two folks interviewed him, asking him all sorts of pithy questions.

Beat me about the head and neck if you must, but I’m not sure this is more than an "interesting hack." I’ve used enough Nostromo gamepads and swappable keyboard solutions to realize that ergonomics is quite a bit more important than shiny keys, but that’s just me and I’m crazy. Human interface design hasn’t changed much since the Altair or even the typewriter, and there’s a very good reason, but let’s give this mad Russian inventor the benefit of the doubt. [Thanks, Everybody]

Related
Optimus OLED Keyboard

Interview mit Artemy Lebedev [ Riesebergserver]
First Look: The Optimus Keyboard [Primotechnology]

(Via Gizmodo)

 Stories like this make me hope that the country will see the problems that the Republican party is having and make some changes with their votes the next time around.  As much as some would like to lay everything at the President’s feet, he is only the biggest sign of a party with some curious (to put it politely) methods for conducting business.

GOP Scrambles to Fill Veterans’ Shortfall (AP) – AP – Fellow Republicans warned House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay more than a year ago that the government would come up short — by at least $750 million — for veterans’ health care. The leaders’ response: Fire the messengers.

(Via Yahoo! Top Stories)

 What’s that you say SCO?  You mean you already knew there was no infringing code in Linux?  And you went on a legal rampage anyway?

Corporate scum at its worst.  Here’s a thought, why not try to create a product that customers would actually want to purchase and then sell it? 

SCO in 2002: "there’s no infringing code" – A recently unsealed internal SCO e-mail shows that SCO couldn’t find any UNIX code in Linux. Can you say "legal shakedown," boys and girls?

(Via Ars Technica)

 This strikes me as another example of politicians not having a clue about technology.  The specific content they are offended by is not produced by the game manufacturer.  it is a hack that was created by gamers.  Passing stricter enforcement of the rating system won’t change anything because the hacks will still be produced.

Next they will ask the maker of Sims to put safeguards in so you can’t drown characters in a pool or lock them in a room with no doors. 

Senators fight hidden sex in ‘Grand Theft Auto’ (Reuters) – Reuters – Two high-profile U.S. senators, Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Rodham Clinton, are incensed over pornographic content "hidden" in the popular video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," and are demanding action from either the government or the game’s maker.

(Via Yahoo! Oddly Enough)