The Sunken Library

I have some mixed feelings about Diablo 3, and as is the custom among my people, I will now share those feelings with you in annoyingly granular detail. (more…)

“Do you have to have everything post to everything?”

My social networks are all tied to each-other in a tangled alchemical summoning circle of co-linked properties. Sunkenlibrary posts to tumblr and twitter, tumblr posts to twitter, twitter posts to facebook. I’ve heard the frustrated cries of people who follow me on multiple social networks, and I admit to a certain callused disregard for their cluttered and overfull newsfeeds.

I realize that the “Right” way to use these various networks is to just maintain a completely independent presence on each of them, but not to put too fine a point on it: Social networking isn’t my real life. I can’t dedicate several hours a day to keeping up with every single network (trust me, at the speed I read, it’d take at least that long). So I have to cut corners, truncate, shorten, and otherwise combine content.

That said, I’m making an effort to clean house, at least a little. I could spend a paragraph describing what’s-tied-to-what, but suffice it to say that I’m working on dialing back the post spam. Facebook will still get just-about-everything I send to just-about-everywhere, but I’m trying to dial down everything else.

If you’re seeing this post from your favored network, and you have an opinion of what you’d like to see LESS of from me, please let me know.

My birthday was this week, and as a present to myself I’ve decided to give me a ton of extra work! (more…)

I work for the government. If you’ve payed close attention to anything I’ve written (or if you do some creepy cyberstalking), you can get much more granular about my roll within the US democracy. For the purpose of these posts, we’ll just say one thing: I get a LOT of unsolicited emails from angry and… very uninformed individuals. I can’t reply to them, but I CAN give them some basic advice on fear-mongering. (This format is borrowed directly from the esteemed John Scalzi, who sometimes grades his hate mail).

Today’s edition of Rumors from morons: Obama is using a stolen SSN.

Email forward subject: FW: You won’t believe this…!!  though maybe you will…

The short version: Obama is using a stolen social security number to disguise that he’s not a US citizen. (more…)

I work for the government. If you’ve payed close attention to anything I’ve written (or if you do some creepy cyberstalking), you can get much more granular about my roll within the US democracy. For the purpose of these posts, we’ll just say one thing: I get a LOT of unsolicited emails from angry and… very uninformed individuals. I can’t reply to them, but I CAN give them some basic advice on fear-mongering. (This format is borrowed directly from the esteemed John Scalzi, who sometimes grades his hate mail).

Today’s edition of Rumors from morons: Dhimmitude

Email forward subject: What Does This Word Mean?… “Dhimmitude”

The short version: Muslims don’t have to participate in Obamacare because Obama (being a muslim) snuck in an exception. (more…)

You’ve managed to reach the city of Baltimore/Tucson/Yourtownville, where you’ve hooked up with a small team of survivors. They’ve fortified four blocks. A suburb, an apartment, a police station, and a farm. Some of your camp-mates are fighters, some are builders, some are scavengers, leaders, or scientists. The undead are everywhere. You can only survive if you can Rebuild.

I’ll save you a lot of time if you’re in a hurry. Rebuild is a fantastic game and you should play it. There are links to various versions at the bottom of this post, one is even free. (more…)

I’m going to say something that’s likely to annoy hardcore iPad gamers (shut up, they exist). Infinity blade is a fantastic tech demo, but a horrid game. I suspect that makes me some kind of heretic, reviewers everywhere can’t seem to stop gushing about how beautiful Infinity Blade is, or how dynamic the combat can be. I feel like the sole peasant in the crowd, shouting “It’s quicktime events!”

Someone has to say it. Infinity Blade is an unfinished tech demo which replaces legitimate gameplay with an infinitely (haha, accurate advertising!) repeated single level. (more…)

I have walked the path Dear Esther laid out for me twice. Once, back when it was a free fan-made modification for Half-Life 2, and again, when it returned renewed as a fully realized work of art, released on Steam. The world is bigger this time, and significantly more beautiful. But even if the game had been identical to the mod, I would still have payed for it. I owed the creator for the earlier experience.

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A post apocalyptic future, a malfunctioning amnesiac robot, a machine gun, and a LOT of running, jumping, and ducking behind cover. Welcome to the world of EPOCH.

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