New links

Unless you're fluent in either German or Dutch, you'll just have to enjoy the photos of my photogenic friends, the dynamic duo Ann-Christin and Dirk. Permanent links over there to the right, amonst the other blue words of magicalness.

Technorati Tags: blog

Flocking fantastic

You may or may not be aware of Flock - a new Firefox based browser. It's a super tasty piece of software. It's got that firm Firefox base, onto which you can spread all your favourite plug-in goodness, but the icing on this particular cake is the Web 2.0 functionality. You can blog straight from the browser (as I'm doing), post to, and view pictures straight from, flickr, and you can set it up so your favourites and your del.ico.us tagged pages are one and the same, across browsers. It also manages said favourites and RSS feeds in the same nifty interface.

Excitingly, it's just the first of a number of Firefox based browsers (and tools like Greasemonkey) that try to redefine the browsing experience, which has been surprisingly static since Netscape first exploded on the scene.

Technorati Tags: flock, blogging tools

First Snow

It's snowing! Much earlier than last year! It's certainly not going to stick, with the mercury hovering around a balmy zero degrees, but it's somehow very uplifting all the same.

Back home, snow frequently meant no school, since the school heating system couldn't handle the cold, and the busses couldn't navigate the twisty rural roads. I guess there's a Pavlovian connection deep in my mental wiring between the sight of snowfall and a pending fun day off playing outside. Why don't we play anymore?

I am an elf

A night elf to be precise. I've done a terribly thing. With just a little egging on from a friend, Tom, I succumbed after a years worth of holding out against World of Warcraft. For those who are blissfully unfamiliar, it's one of those Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games or MMORPGs (why make an acronym like that?).

I've been playing for a week now, and while I'm already prone to game addictions, this thing literally sucks you in. The world they've created is immense, textured and beautiful. But the most amazing part is how much fun it is playing with real people. I've played games online before, mostly first person shooters, where the object is to kill all the other human players. This brings frustration, and annoyance when it becomes apparant that most of your online host are twelve to fourteen year olds who think calling somone gay repeatedly in overly squeeky pre-pubescent voices is the height of wit. Whoever introduced microphones to online gaming should be shot, and I don't mean virtually. But I digress, the point is, you play against, rather than with, your fellow flesh-and-bloodies.

In Warcraft, players have objectives to fullfill that involve killing non-human characters where killing is involved at all. Actually the process by which you could kill another human player is deliberately esoteric, and the state temporary. Instead, it is often necessary to team up, frequently with complete strangers, and I've been amazed by their levels of generosity and kindness. I've had people go well out of their way to help me, when there is no game mechanic to reward them for doing so. The internet has gotten a pretty bad rap for antisocialism. It's nice to see the fundamentals of human-relationships (making "friends") and a little goodnaturedness and altruism emerging in this context.

Technorati Tags: blog, warcraft, gaming

Politicking

Hello hello,

I've been uncharacteristically silent lately, I'm not quite sure why.

Autumn is really settling in over here - the trees are mostly non-green, and working their way slowly through their annual strip-tease. Temperatures hover around 10 degrees, and the beautiful blue skies we've been enjoying here lately lead to treacherous declination in atmospheric warmth after sunset.



As for the title - you're probably not aware, but Finland passed a simply daft copyright bill here last Wednesday. Myself and Alex were protesting outside the parliament the day before, and today we were signature hunting for a petition beseeching the President to exercise her constitutional powers and send the bill back to Parliament for further consideration unratified.

On another note I've been having a series of very vivid, very strange dreams. Everything from being sent to jail (I was taking the fall for something, and was peeved), to being involved in bizarre US election results.