Who am I?
Who am I? I am the greatest gaming machine ever invented. I am never late to market, never outsold and never exclusive. I have games of every genre and play style from the simplest of puzzles to major epics to rival the output of Hollywood. I cater to all demographics, all markets and all nations. Sure, I am a little more expensive at first, but upgrading me to the latest and greatest internals will costs less than a Playstation 3. I can take every single peripheral you can dream of and all in a true universal connector standard. I can display graphics to make the so called “next gen” consoles look positively 8-bit. I also come in all shapes and sizes, from giant towering neon lit water-cooled over-clocked élite gaming stations to smooth onyx hi-fi black units smaller than a loaf of bread. I am all inclusive. I connect my players into the world wide gaming network that has been running and growing for 20 years and has a billion other players of all races and nations. Through me every bit of information you could want to know, and quite a lot of information you wouldn’t is at your fingertips. I always reward creativity and I love indie designers, home brewers and small studio developers. I enable a collective gaming voice of opinion and debate made up of individuals disseminating gaming news through a million gaming websites and podcasts, all of which can all be stored on my massive hard drives or synced wirelessly to portable devices. I outsell every other gaming platform because I am so flexible you can even work out your taxes while playing minesweeper. And yet, for all my powers I am often described as humble. I humble? I who’s mouse clicks can shake the very foundations of this world! I am the greatest gaming machine ever invented! I am a PC.
The SAS, the Paras and the Police decide to go on a survival weekend
together to see who comes out on top. After some basic exercises the
trainer tells them that their next objective is to go down into the
woods and catch a rabbit, returning with it ready to skin and cook.
Night falls.
First up — the SAS. They don infrared goggles, drop to the ground and
crawl into the woods in formation. Absolute silence for 5
minutes, followed by the unmistakable muffled “phut-phut” of their
trademark silenced double-tap. They emerge with a large rabbit shot
cleanly between the eyes.
“Excellent!” remarks the trainer.
Next up — the Para’s. They finish their cans of lager, smear
themselves with camouflage cream, fix bayonets and charge down into
the woods, screaming at the top of their lungs. For the next hour the
woods ring with the sound of rifle and machine-gun fire, hand
grenades, mortar bombs and blood curdling war cries. Eventually they
emerge, carrying the charred remains of a rabbit.
“A bit messy, but you achieved the aim; well done”, says the trainer.
Lastly, in go the coppers, walking slowly, hands behind backs
whistling Dixon of Dock Green. For the next few hours, the silence is
only broken by the occasional crackle of a walkie-talkie “Sierra Lima
Whisky Tango Fanta One, suspect headed straight for you…” etc. After
what seems an eternity, they emerge escorting a squirrel in handcuffs.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” asks the incredulous
trainer. Take this squirrel back and get me a rabbit like I asked you
five hours ago!
So back they go. Minutes pass. Minutes turn to hours, night drags on
and night turns to day. The next morning, the trainer and the other
teams are awakened by the police, still holding the handcuffed
squirrel, now covered in bruises with one eye nearly shut.
“Are you taking the p***!!??” asks the now seriously irate trainer.
The police team leader nudges the squirrel, who squeaks:
“Alright, alright, I’m a rabbit!”
Found on Arnies
Earth seen from 4 billion miles away, photographed by Voyager 1 on June 6, 1990.
Of the “pale blue dot,” astronomer Carl Sagan said, “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Now, I have seen everything.
My friend Duncan will love this one!*
Basho
*He’s a sheep farmer.
Author, visionary, philosopher and icon. A great man has died today.
His last blog entry summing it up in classic style,
Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.
Please pardon my levity, I don’t see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.
RAW
I have long been a fan of Wilson’s works, especially the brilliant “The Illuminatus Trilogy,” which is one of the most sex packed, drug fueled masterpieces of all time.
In it he satirizes more genres, insults more dogmas, ties together more conspiracy theories and speaks more truth than an entire branch of Waterstones.
This is the book that invented the word Fnord and popularised Eris and Discordia.
A massive book, a great work.
But he wrote more than that, in his excellent Prometheus Rising he attempts to draw together a cogent and fantastic philosophy regarding the human self and man’s potential in this universe.
He explains human experience in terms of biological circuits and imprints. It is one “model” of the experience and as such it is interesting and it is valid. Together with the outline and explanation of different imprints and how they are formed, Wilson provides exercises so that the reader can come to his own conclusions through his own experience.
A true counter-culture Icon, he was loved by the Internet generation who immediately took him to their hearts as his message is part of the spirit of the internet and on a personal level a great influence on my philosophy.
RAW, gone, but not forgotten.
Hail Eris, keep the pasta flying and always have the courage to see the Fnords.
Basho
