Rman's Reading Corner For WZ 2200

[Rman Virgil]

-------->

* An other MUST read that is joined at the hip to Asymmetric Warfare.... & it's FREE.

* It's called Terminal Compromise and its author, Winn Schwartau does a bang-up job of portraying in a fictional context such very real threats as "Cyber Terrorism", "Cyber Espionage" & "Cyber Warfare" vis-a-vis "Command & Control".

* The Author is also a world renowed expert in this field & owns a company specializing in network security.

* You can grab a copy of
Winn Schwartau's Terminal Compromise  HERE

- Enjoy !, rv

[Rman Virgil]

------->

* What a find ! Like new, got it used for only 2 bucks.

* Put together in 2002 by the folks at Popular Science & published by Time-Life Books it's a treasure trove of photos & descriptions that any coder, modder or artist of WZ 2100 would go gaga over with inspiration, IMO.

* I certainly am goin to town with it on the 2200 project.

* It's called: "21st Century Soldier: The Weaponry, Gear and Technology of the New Century"

* Get your hands on it. You won't regret it, methinks strongly.

- RV

[doom3r]

LoL this is a DECUPLE post 
Btw, have you read every book you are talking about??

[Rman Virgil]

LoL this is a DECUPLE post 
Btw, have you read every book you are talking about??

* Yep.

* I read at variable speeds.

* I can linger over a verse for days, for example.

* On the other hand, non-fiction I mostly read @ 20,000 - 25,000 words per minute. I use a technique I mastered in the early '90s. It's called "Photo-Reading" & with application anybody can read as fast as they can turn the page.

* Like I suggested with that "verse" comment, I approach literature differently. For a number of reasons I don't Photo Read fiction I have a taste for. I'll sip it, like a triple-filtered whiskey.

- Cheers, RV

EDIT:

* BTW.....

* Most all the works listed in this thread inform the Warzone 2200 sequel we are working on. (A complete listing of resources is located on our site wiki which will soon go live.)

* Pumpkin's timeline & backstory to WZ 2100 is loosey-goosey sketchy.... basically incomplete.

* In WZ 2200 we've addressed that such that our timeline goes back to actually encompass 180 years in detail (though on the GPM side we pick-up were 2100 ends and carry it foward a 100 years to 2200).

[doom3r]

Nice, i didn't know about the photo-reading tecnique, i'll see if i can learn that too.

But of course I wont use it with literature.

[Rman Virgil]

Nice, i didn't know about the photo-reading tecnique, i'll see if i can learn that too.

But of course I wont use it with literature.

* Kwel.... you won't regret it esp if your trying to keep-up with a lot of subjects (your own interests, school, career) - like the sciences, technology, current events in business, whatever.

* Like I said earlier, Google, Wikipedia, How Stuff Works, Principia Cybernetica and other such net resources can be invaluable & are certainly convenient but they CANNOT take the place of Primary Sources (& their aggregation in book form). So, if you have to do a lot Non-Fiction reading..... you cannot beat this technique for speed, retention & comprehension - it is the "bomb", so to speak.

* Best of luck on your journey to mastery.

- Cheers, RV

[Rman Virgil]

-------->

* One last recommendation before I head for my sabbatical till sometime Jan '08...

* New E-Edition just released of Bushido - a classic work which you can grab HERE

* This is a MUST read if you are in any way into "Warrior" codes of conduct which in this particular case infused the culture of an entire nation's body politic & day to day mores..

* On A Side-Bar: Warzone 2100 had these 5: The Project, The Baba (aka Skavs), New Paradigm, The Collective, Nexus.

* The CAM side of the 2200 project further developes all those 5 groups comprehensively as more fully detailed & robust factions with the ability to ally (The Project & The Seven Scav Nations work together, for example). ALSO - we add 4 more new factions to the mix, all fully integrated as well.

* Each Faction has a very distinct origin, culture, tech & martial "Personality".

* One of these Faction "Personalities" is based on "Bushido".

* I ain't sayin which one yet

- Cheers, RV

[doom3r]

* Kwel.... you won't regret it esp if your trying to keep-up with a lot of subjects (your own interests, school, career) - like the sciences, technology, current events in business, whatever.

this is just what i wanted to do with photo-reading  ;D

[Buginator]

...
* The CAM side of the 2200 project further developes all those 5 groups comprehensively as more fully detailed & robust factions with the ability to ally (The Project & The Seven Scav Nations work together, for example). ALSO - we add 4 more new factions to the mix, all fully integrated as well.

* Each Faction has a very distinct origin, culture, tech & martial "Personality".

* One of these Faction "Personalities" is based on "Bushido".

* I ain't sayin which one yet

- Cheers, RV

Why must there only be 24 hours in a day?  Never have time to do everything we all like to do.

Anyway, I was just wondering, you guys plan on having a separate AI for each faction?  That would really be some cool possibilities!
I have that option on my TODO list, along with 10000 other things I must do.

Perhaps throw us a bone with the faction 'motto' ?
The last game I recall that had semi-unique factions was ... well, I'll list the factions, you can guess the game.  Terran Confederation, Retros , Merchants, Bounty Hunters, Pirates, Militia, K****  (the last one would give it totally away. )  Yeah, this wasn't a RTS, but I still think of it from time to time.  Then I recall how annoying it was when they would say the same things over & over.  LOL

[Rman Virgil]

Why must there only be 24 hours in a day?  Never have time to do everything we all like to do.

* Know the feeling.

Anyway, I was just wondering, you guys plan on having a separate AI for each faction?  That would really be some cool possibilities!

* Yep. The personalities have diff names based on past MP styles: "Octopus", "Eagle". "Orca", "Wasp"... et al.

Perhaps throw us a bone with the faction 'motto' ?

* Have detailed histories for each faction (9 all told along a 180 year Timeline) with a distinct philosophy that is reflected in the "a.i. personalities" martial style, the tech featured, units used as well their GFX and that of their structs / encampments.

* For example: Scav fortifications & towns are built outta "Cargo Containers" (an added Map Feature in WorldEdit).

* Faction "Mottos" is a great concept. Thanks for bringing it up. Hadn't devised any yet.

* Hmmm... that's got me inspired. I'll get to it & have some to post here before New Years. Sweet.

* I will reveal this:

* One of the factions is led by a woman & her name is "Selene Van Dyke".

* There is also an association with Dr. Alan Reed.

* She is the daughter of his collaborator at the Princeton Advanced Institute & later partner in "Synaptics, Inc." - a Sir "Fitz" Van Dyke, also the founder of what later became known as the "New Paradigm" (Selene leads a different faction, a splinter off the NP).

- Regards, RV.

EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, we do have one "Motto" already. It is uttered by the chief of chiefs of the Seven Scav Nations, Akbar of the Scar.

* It's origin is the historical figure known as "Crazy Horse" & the motto is:

* "It's a good day to die..."

[Rman Virgil]

------>A Second Motto:

* WZ Creators were VERY sketchy in their Time Line / Backstory & that includes "The Project" which is front & center stage.

* We've dealt with that in detail.

* "The Project" has been thoughly modeled on the work of Amory Lovins & his Rocky Mountain Institute (along with his oft collaborators William McDonough & Paul Hawken... the web addy is rmi.org).

* So... the working Motto for "The Project", as of this moment, is:

* "Less is more..."

* If you look at the site (rmi.org) you'll have a wealth of info to deduce the why's, where-fors & how's of this reconsituted "Project".

- Cheers, RV

[Rman Virgil]

------->

* McKenzie Wark, author of "a Hacker Manifesto" has published a new work that is positively seminal.

* It is called: "Gamer Theory" & to read it is to to have your "Doors of Perception" (Aldous Huxley) swung wider than you could have ever imagined on your own.

* A real milestone in understanding "Games" & the "Gamers Mind".

- RV

[Per]

* McKenzie Wark, author of "a Hacker Manifesto" has published a new work that is positively seminal.

* It is called: "Gamer Theory" & to read it is to to have your "Doors of Perception" (Aldous Huxley) swung wider than you could have ever imagined on your own.

* A real milestone in understanding "Games" & the "Gamers Mind".

What was so great about that book? I thought it was rather shallow, and couldn't even finish it.

[Rman Virgil]

What was so great about that book? I thought it was rather shallow, and couldn't even finish it.

* If you're refering to "A Hacker Manifesto", I sorta agree. (see**)

* But "Gamer Theory" is a whole other story - a quantum leap in this Aussie's intellectual evolution & by any rigorous literary metric, superb, profound, & John Coltrane jazzy-tasty.

* I'd say in the same phylum as  Douglas Hoffstader's classic, "Godel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid" or Robert Pirsig's "Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" or Carse's "Finite & Infinite Games", IMHO.

- RV

** EDIT: I should, I will, qualify that assessment in all fairness to authors maturing thought over the years.

* I agree as far as v.1.0 of "AHM" published some 4 years ago (if I recall)..... the latest (available only in electronic form) v.4.0 has much to recommend it in substance..... (basically that intellectual property creates "class" divisions) though, again, some (25% ?) are turned-off by the style of discourse which is admittidly experimental.... going so far as to compare it to a failed attempt at Biblical Quatrains.

* Plus I think some few self-proclaimed "hackers" have an over-inflated self-image bordering on delusions of grandeur & even hinting at that "master-race" psychosis (though they like to see themselves as Cyber Robin Hoods) which leads them to believe that nobody can trully express what goes on in their skulls 'cept themselves & yet they don't bother to unless you include proclamations of moral & intellectual superiority, IMHO.

* 'Course if they indulged as much in nookie exploration & as in code jacking manipulation their perspective would probably be a little more level-headed (oddly enough, as a direct result of explosive carnal relief with non-inflateable, thoroughly agreeable, cheer-leader type babes).

* Again, these are just my humble opinions & like the expression goes - opinions are like arses, everybodys got one.

[Rman Virgil]

What was so great about that book? I thought it was rather shallow, and couldn't even finish it.

* In all fairness to McKenzie Wark's "A Hacker Manifesto" the predominating assessment is more along these lines:

Jean Baudrillard on "A Hacker Manifesto"

This text by Ken is unprecedented, in its content and construction, its movement, what it produces, everything, is a jubilation.

It makes me laugh and interests me. It interests me completely.

* This was published recently in the Harvard University Press Blog.

* For those of you not familiar with Jean Baudrillard the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has the following to say about him:

French theorist Jean Baudrillard is one of the foremost intellectual figures of the present age whose work combines philosophy, social theory, and an idiosyncratic cultural metaphysics that reflects on key events of phenomena of the epoch.

* If your interested to judge for yourself you can access v.4.0 of "A Hackers Manifesto" HERE

* Again... be forewarned, the style of discourse is aphoristic dense which is an acquired taste & if you donot possess this langorous sensibility the reading will drive you to distraction.

* His "Gamer Theory" is more transparently written & likely more accessible to the general reader.

- RV