joeyh writes:

Long ago we had MOOs, MUDs, etc, and they were text based. Just words, you know.

As far as I can tell, there are still quite a few that thrive today. 8) I feel less crazy about my other major hobby now. I've found that there's a lot more flexibility in text-based virtual worlds.

(Disclaimer: I run (and play) text-based MUDs and have not even read the article in question as I don't subscribe to LWN.)

I had this weird thought last night while being haunted by my poetry explication for English class. Though it in fact has little to do with poetry, only English.

So, in Shadows of Isildur, you have two different "classes" of emotes, so to speak. The canonical emote starts with yourself followed by whatever action you are performing, e.g. "A weird dude scratches his head." The second type allows you to insert yourself anywhere in the emote, e.g. "Tankards crashing all around him, a weird dude slams into the bartop."

So the first type will often indicate a loose sentence. The subject comes first, followed by the details, verbs, direct objects, etc. The second type will generally be a periodic sentence, with a delay coming first and then the subject somewhere later on. No wonder these come across as annoying when overused; periodic sentences can often be thought of us as more formal and should be spaced out unless you're James Joyce. Then again, lots of people don't enjoy James Joyce. Read: I am making fun of JJ. In fact, I don't even remember what type the majority of sentences in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man were, or if there even was a majority. Only that they were exceedingly long.

This is probably a strange and bizarre thought, but hey -- can't say strange and bizarre thoughts aren't good for making something unique to remember it.

Note: definition of emote: A command used on talk systems and MUDs to indicate the performance of an action, usually a facial expression of emotional state.

I spent a bunch of time today (and last night for that matter) up top on Shadows of Isildur. Got a bunch of stuff done, actually. Working on finishing up my staff documentation project so that I can get on to other things.

I'm currently loving gedit's UI. It's just so... nice. I can't think of any other way to describe it. Whatever funnyness I was having before with tabs seem to have been resolved, and I know that certain awesome people are working on getting rid of annoying pop-up windows for error messages and searching. Word.

Edit: Oh, forgot this:

I'm sure that I know at least a few people who could certainly benefit from this article. Probably myself included, though for the last month and a bit I've dramatically cut down the time I spend on certain forums (nudge). There is a point where you realize how stupid it is to care about things like making sure to read every thread, and checking post counts and other mundane silly things.

Steve Pavlina also has an article regarding effective e-mail using, for any who find themselves spending inordinate amounts of time daily in their mail reader.

In light of the recent flame wars on TMS over the readmission of MercThievia to the listings, I've nixed the TMS link I used to keep here. Hai has pointed out MudLab.org to me, which looks like it'll be taking its place as a good general MUD discussion forum. The TMS discussion board has long been a well-avoided pit of flames and commercialism at any rate. (And their boards are excruciatingly slow to boot.)

As I haven't ever really been a big poster there, I can't really say that I'm leaving the thing.

Chad, you are crazy. Every time the world seems stable, you manage to come up with some great ambitious idea to disrupt it. What you're brainstorming is a ton of work, but if comes through, it could be amazing. The community could really benefit from something like this, in a multitude of ways. (Namely, finally having a commercial game that isn't a piece of shit.) I'm especially glad that you wish to release whatever code you may develop for use by others. Never failing to give back. <grin>

Among other budding projects on the horizon is Syrian Sands, a historical roleplaying MUD based on Middle-Eastern culture, for any enthusiasts in that area. They're still in the early stages of building and development, but the head admin's a particularly good friend and acquaintance of mine, so it should be interesting to see where things go.

Sometimes it would rock if there were more than 24 hours in a day.

Concerning Shadows of Isildur: I'm technically back, though feeling a little boggled about where to jump in again. It's a strange feeling when you've gone for so long without doing a whole lot of stuff. Lots to catch up on.

Kildclient is a pretty neat graphical MUD client for *nix, using the GTK toolkit. I like it better than I did GNOME Mud. See, it lasted all of twenty minutes, whereas GNOME Mud probably lasted 5. Such an improvement!

I just can't get away from telnet on a GNOME-terminal. Too used to it now.

Goddamn. I missed the one year mark. Two days ago I hit the 1-year mark for being staff at Shadows of Isildur RPI MUD, though I'm officially on hiatus at the moment due to real world busyness. Hopefully that means I'm over the hump!

I'll likely be popping in several times over the next week; although I still have a lot on my plate, next week is spring break, so I'll have somewhat more time. You have been warned.

A recent story in Wired News presents an interesting take on where all the new gizmos and gadgets that have hit the markets recently will take people in the future. Frankly, I find the thought that we're all going to become insensitive, self-centered recluses to be a little ludicrous and pessimistic; then again, I like my music on shuffle, my newsfeeds, and my timesavers that allow me to see or hear what I want, when I want it.

Though the context of cybersex aside, I found this quote to really hit home on a few things:

Yet anyone who participates regularly in an online community -- sexual or otherwise -- knows the strength of the relationships that develop.

This is so true, and one of those things that I wonder if anybody else has noticed. Apparently they have. There's something about hanging around and chatting with people that you've never met before and share obscure talents and interests with that develops some strong bonds. It's really weird, and hard to explain to anyone who's never experienced the effect.

Just for laughs, I'll throw in a comment on one of those "related stories" that are linked at the bottom of the article (you guess).

I should have known that the best cyber occurs in games: MUDs, MUCKs and MMORPGs, oh my.

With my observations from the topside at one of the best, I'll say that though I can't really judge on quality, it certain to hell does appear... often enough. Dodge and run. And if you're looking for it, well, then that's a different story.