Gosh, another month gone by already?
Casino flop poker - Uh, near as I could tell, this is simply a normal game of poker played against the house and other players simultaneously. Or maybe also something to do with the patterns on the cloth table surface.
Auto racing board game - A roll and move NASCAR racing game with an extra die that either doubles your movement or lets you change lanes.
Playing card shuffler with differential hand count capability - Almost self-explanatory. Can be programmed to deal a certain number of cards each turn.
Electronically-scored game providing audible feedback and method of use - A buzzer for a game. You heard me. A little further examination reveals that this is supposed to be an improved buzzer for a game, specifically a dart game or some other barroom type game.
Card game and methods of play - Some sort of CCG which requires cards of types warriors, techniques, powers and fields. And also comes in a "battle binder".
Card game with moving cards - A video poker game where you have to select a good poker hand from cards that move around.
Variable point generation craps game - Dice, cards, and lottery balls all combine to make an extremely chaotic version of Craps.
Method of playing a dice game - A reissue of a patent for a simple gambling dice game.
Board game - A design patent for Paradice.
Dice game - Looks like you roll three to five dice, and that's it. The bulk of the description goes into details about how the payout is calculated.
Catastraphe - Sorry!, for up to 8 players.
Galactic board game method and apparatus - Cool. A board game with magnetic pieces, where the object is to move your piece closest to the middle without attaching to the center piece or opponent's pieces. Appears to have been invented by a Chiropractor.
Advanced games and puzzles - Some kind of board game and puzzles with polyominoes, which I didn't grasp.
Coming up next month: Khet: The Laser Game aka Deflextion finally receives its patent.
Yehuda
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Internet Professionals in Jerusalem
Last night I went to the second informal meeting of "Internet Professionals in Jerusalem" at Hillel Cafe on Emek Refaim street.
Brian Blum of the blog This Normal Life sat down right next to me. Brian wasn't there in his capacity as a blogger but for a startup venture he will be launching sometime soon. Turns out that Brian's daughter and my daughter are also in the same class at school.
Another blogger was Raphi Salem of Website Strategy Marketing. Raphi's blog is purely a professional blog supporting his website business. The remaining twelve or so people were either website designers, hosters, or graphic artists.
The meeting had its obstacles. The acoustics and background noise made it difficult for 15 people to communicate, regardless of how we arranged the small square tables. A waiter tried to tell us that we weren't allowed to arrange the tables in our acoustically optimum square but had to arrange them in a straight line for some reason. We pretended to comply but then ignored him.
There was no real agenda, so we had to scrounge around for what to talk about. Eventually, Charlie Kalech of J-Town Productions and Raphi took leading roles in asking some guided questions. I left after an hour, a coke, and a tasty little chocolate cube thingy.
Game News
Russia Today notes the gradually increasing market for board games in Russia.
Patent Arcade brings up an old patent for the game of Bingoes, which is Bingo with two extra rows and columns.
In Vermont, a knife fight broke out over a board game, but as usual, they don't tell us which board game.
Yehuda
Brian Blum of the blog This Normal Life sat down right next to me. Brian wasn't there in his capacity as a blogger but for a startup venture he will be launching sometime soon. Turns out that Brian's daughter and my daughter are also in the same class at school.
Another blogger was Raphi Salem of Website Strategy Marketing. Raphi's blog is purely a professional blog supporting his website business. The remaining twelve or so people were either website designers, hosters, or graphic artists.
The meeting had its obstacles. The acoustics and background noise made it difficult for 15 people to communicate, regardless of how we arranged the small square tables. A waiter tried to tell us that we weren't allowed to arrange the tables in our acoustically optimum square but had to arrange them in a straight line for some reason. We pretended to comply but then ignored him.
There was no real agenda, so we had to scrounge around for what to talk about. Eventually, Charlie Kalech of J-Town Productions and Raphi took leading roles in asking some guided questions. I left after an hour, a coke, and a tasty little chocolate cube thingy.
Game News
Russia Today notes the gradually increasing market for board games in Russia.
Patent Arcade brings up an old patent for the game of Bingoes, which is Bingo with two extra rows and columns.
In Vermont, a knife fight broke out over a board game, but as usual, they don't tell us which board game.
Yehuda
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Ignore Invitations from Quechup
If you got an invitation from me to Quechup, ignore it. In fact, I advise you to boycott Quechup altogether.
Unlike other social media sites where, when you sign in, they scan your contacts and ask you which ones you want to invite, Quechup simply invites everyone you ever emailed or from whom you've received an email without asking or even notifying you.
This is so dumb as to be beyond belief. They invited mailing lists, customer support to whom I have contacts, listservers, people I've told to sod off, etc, etc. Whoever designed this system is a moron. And worse than just being a moron, it is making everyone angry, and for good reason.
Some companies deserve the benefit of the doubt for a mistake, but this one doesn't. Quechup belongs in the dustbin of failed startups.
Yehuda
P.S. All mail to me originating from quechup.com is now automatically forwarded to spam@quechup.com .
Update: Quechup decided to get even smarter, and now sends all of the invitations with the email address and reply address of your supposed friend, and removed the word Quechup from the subject line, so that it's harder to automatically spam them back. Hard to believe they aren't doing this on purpose, now.
They also added an "unsubscribe" link to the bottom of their mails, allowing you to opt out of receiving more emails from them. Typical spammer behavior would indicate that this is just one more way of collecting email addresses, but I decided to give it a try, anyway.
Unlike other social media sites where, when you sign in, they scan your contacts and ask you which ones you want to invite, Quechup simply invites everyone you ever emailed or from whom you've received an email without asking or even notifying you.
This is so dumb as to be beyond belief. They invited mailing lists, customer support to whom I have contacts, listservers, people I've told to sod off, etc, etc. Whoever designed this system is a moron. And worse than just being a moron, it is making everyone angry, and for good reason.
Some companies deserve the benefit of the doubt for a mistake, but this one doesn't. Quechup belongs in the dustbin of failed startups.
Yehuda
P.S. All mail to me originating from quechup.com is now automatically forwarded to spam@quechup.com .
Update: Quechup decided to get even smarter, and now sends all of the invitations with the email address and reply address of your supposed friend, and removed the word Quechup from the subject line, so that it's harder to automatically spam them back. Hard to believe they aren't doing this on purpose, now.
They also added an "unsubscribe" link to the bottom of their mails, allowing you to opt out of receiving more emails from them. Typical spammer behavior would indicate that this is just one more way of collecting email addresses, but I decided to give it a try, anyway.
Monday, September 03, 2007
My First Game Closer to a Second Print Run
But don't despair. Jack, the publisher, is in discussions for a second larger print run. If it comes about, it will probably be less lovable and unnumbered, but slightly cheaper.
For some reason, some Stargate fan published the list of Teal'c's five favorite board games. Funny and worth the read if you're into Stargate.
Caitlin Johnson, a high schooler writing Teen Beat for the Post Bulletin, is not only into board games, but into Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride.
Also into German board games is Phil Schwartzmann of the podcast Voice of S60, as he relates in this interview.
MasterMalaysia is a trivia board game about the country, developed by a branch of its government.
Cardplayer.com tells us that a number of poker professionals started as Magic: the Gathering players.
And rounding us off, Chabad.org goes all kabbalistic about the game of Scrabble.
Yehuda
Fraternizing with the Enemy: Israeli and Palestinian Bloggers Meet
As some of you may know, I sometimes contribute to the Good Neighbors blog. Good Neighbors is written jointly by Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, and Sudanese.
As everyone knows, many of the governments of each of these parties hates one another; in particular, they all hate Israel, more or less. Furthermore, it is fair to say that most of the citizens of each of these parties hates one another, based on what knowledge they get from their government influenced media.
Nevertheless, people are often like people everywhere, some smarter than others, and some more self-aware than others. In the Middle East's case, there exists an entire undercurrent of people who don't buy into the hate story. They may not like what some foreign government or army does to the citizens of their country, but they also don't get swept up in the fervor of militancy.
The bloggers in this group are one such group of people. Thankfully there are many others like us.
I may be a bit of an unusual example of someone to belong to such a group, as I actually still have quite a number of right-wing beliefs. The only thing that really separates me from a classical right-winger is that I don't believe that suffering on the "other side" is irrelevant. I believe that their own government, and fanatics on "their side", are hugely responsible for this suffering [however, see below], but I don't think it's irrelevant, just because "they're" still trying to kill us, and always will be.
The other Israeli's on the site are, I believe, far-left in one degree or another, which means that they believe that a two-state solution, enacted as soon as possible, has a decent chance of bringing about a peaceful resolution to our current Israeli crisis. I certainly don't believe that.
Anyhoo ...
For some reason or another, Dalia, one of the Palestinian bloggers, suddenly called for a get together yesterday. It was to be our first meeting. As such things go, we ran into a few difficulties.
Of course, anyone outside of the country wasn't going to be able to make it. We couldn't meet in Israel proper, because the Palestinians couldn't go there. There were many places in the PA that we couldn't meet, due to legal and safety concerns.
A meeting in or on the outskirts of Ramallah was suggested, but I refused to meet there, as I am still terrified of what happened to the two Israeli soldiers who were mutilated several years ago. This is despite the fact that I know some Israelis go into and out of Ramallah every day without much difficulty.
Instead, we decided to meet in a location near Har Gilo. But here the Palestinians were terrified to meet me if I was wearing a kippah, which I always wear, for fear of a) being in the crossfire if some crazed fanatic decides to kill me, or b) being assumed to be a collaborator. After some deliberation, I decided to wear a baseball cap. It irks me to have to hide that I'm Jewish. But a small amount of compromise on certain issues is doable.
The Israeli bloggers who were coming were Yael from Step by Step, Tzedek, and me. The Palestinian bloggers were Ramzi and Daliah. Ramzi is a Christian Arab living near Har Gilo in the outskirts of Bethlehem, while Daliah lives in the Ramallah area, I think.
Ramzi picked a cafe where Palestinians and occasionally Jews from Har Gilo congregate. I picked up Yael and Tzedek at the Jerusalem central bus station and took them back to my apartment. I started some chocolate chip muffins thinking they would be ready before we had to leave, but we ended up leaving before they were done.
I took some games with me, naturally, including Backgammon, Checkers, and cards. Only later I realized that I had forgotten the dice for Backgammon. In any case, we didn't end up playing.
Ramzi and Daliah were going to meet us in their car south of the tunnels to Gush Etzion. They couldn't just wait for us at the side of the road. Palestinians sitting in a car at the side of a road are considered suspicious. If soldiers come to check them out, they may get stuck waiting two or three hours, depending on the mood of the soldiers who check them.
So they drove up and down once or twice. With the magic of cellular phones, we eventually met and drove to the cafe.
Everyone else at the cafe was Palestinian. It was obvious that I wasn't, and especially that Yael wasn't, but no one bothered us. We chatted about world politics, blogging, health, and all sorts of things. We took some pictures. I had a coke, the others had coffee.
When it got dark, Ramzi told us that he had already paid, which Yael and I protested. But when we then went to his house, I no longer gave it any mind. I say house, but perhaps palace is more the right word. It was large, stylish, and gorgeous.
Here we met Ramzi's parents. Ramzi's father used to be a doctor in Jerusalem, but was no longer able to work there as of several years ago.
Ramzi's grandfather is an exile from Jerusalem. Ramzi's father still refers to his old house there in the present tense even after 40 years of exile. The house we were in was only built recently and was his way of reconciling to the fact that he knew that they weren't going back.
From Ramzi's parents, I expected and got the usual litany of complaints about the occupation and the wall, and even some conspiracy theories about how the Israelis use the bombings to their advantage, blah blah. So, there were many points about which we disagreed.
On the other hand, I heard some things which I didn't expect. Their complaints were less about the fact of security itself, which they grudgingly understood, but about the apparently senseless acts of humiliation that they suffer.
Palestinians may be stopped and checked, ok. But why for two or three hours? When they are searched, they may be subject to pushing and discourteous behavior for no reason. Their goods are sometimes ruined in the name of searching.
Ramzi's grandfather was held up for over an hour on the way to the hospital while suffering a heart attack because of lack of the proper papers, even though Ramzi's father had them for himself.
And so on and so on.
It was difficult to hear. I still blame the fanatical Muslims for the need for security and checkpoints and searches, but I can't blame them for insulting, rude, and devastating behavior from Israeli soldiers. And these soldiers are my children and brothers. Why would they do that? I guess I've always known that some soldiers act like that and I just dismissed it because I felt that the general guilt falls on the other side. But the issues are separable. You can have security, and not have ill-behavior. You can have checkpoints, and not make it impossible for innocent families to travel to each other when they're not passing anywhere near Jewish neighborhoods. And if you must check them, why not check them courteously and quickly?
My general attitude about the situation's ultimate resolution hasn't changed. Christianity had to undergo a Protestant Reformation in order to change from a fanatical militant religion to the one it is today. It took many many years of bloodshed and schism. The same thing has to happen to Islam. Moderate Islam has to wage war for the hearts and minds of the people against radical Islam. Much blood will have to be shed. It will take generations. There is nothing any Israeli can do - not right, not left - to make peace with radical Islam.
I don't believe in hope. I think hope is the cause of our suffering. So long as people hope that they can achieve victory, there will be no surrender to peace. I want more hopelessness and willingness to compromise. Instead of useless politics, I believe in getting to work. I can't make peace with every Muslim, but I can continue to treat well and courteously everyone who treats me with respect. I can't trust absolutely - one never knows when the friend you make will come into the hands of someone who threatens to kill his entire family unless he goes out and kills a Jew. But I don't have to let that possibility make me indifferent to the humanity that exists on the other side.
When all was said and done, Ramzi was just like any Israeli guy, and Daliah was like any Israeli woman. Except that they weren't Israeli.
It was also nice to meet Yael and Tzedek face to face finally. I ended up having to leave early to return to my daughter at home, while Yael and Tzedek stayed to look around Bethlehem some more.
Oh, by the way, Yael: the muffins were great. Really, really great.
Yehuda
Update: corrected Tzedek's name.
As everyone knows, many of the governments of each of these parties hates one another; in particular, they all hate Israel, more or less. Furthermore, it is fair to say that most of the citizens of each of these parties hates one another, based on what knowledge they get from their government influenced media.
Nevertheless, people are often like people everywhere, some smarter than others, and some more self-aware than others. In the Middle East's case, there exists an entire undercurrent of people who don't buy into the hate story. They may not like what some foreign government or army does to the citizens of their country, but they also don't get swept up in the fervor of militancy.
The bloggers in this group are one such group of people. Thankfully there are many others like us.
I may be a bit of an unusual example of someone to belong to such a group, as I actually still have quite a number of right-wing beliefs. The only thing that really separates me from a classical right-winger is that I don't believe that suffering on the "other side" is irrelevant. I believe that their own government, and fanatics on "their side", are hugely responsible for this suffering [however, see below], but I don't think it's irrelevant, just because "they're" still trying to kill us, and always will be.
The other Israeli's on the site are, I believe, far-left in one degree or another, which means that they believe that a two-state solution, enacted as soon as possible, has a decent chance of bringing about a peaceful resolution to our current Israeli crisis. I certainly don't believe that.
Anyhoo ...
For some reason or another, Dalia, one of the Palestinian bloggers, suddenly called for a get together yesterday. It was to be our first meeting. As such things go, we ran into a few difficulties.
Of course, anyone outside of the country wasn't going to be able to make it. We couldn't meet in Israel proper, because the Palestinians couldn't go there. There were many places in the PA that we couldn't meet, due to legal and safety concerns.
A meeting in or on the outskirts of Ramallah was suggested, but I refused to meet there, as I am still terrified of what happened to the two Israeli soldiers who were mutilated several years ago. This is despite the fact that I know some Israelis go into and out of Ramallah every day without much difficulty.
Instead, we decided to meet in a location near Har Gilo. But here the Palestinians were terrified to meet me if I was wearing a kippah, which I always wear, for fear of a) being in the crossfire if some crazed fanatic decides to kill me, or b) being assumed to be a collaborator. After some deliberation, I decided to wear a baseball cap. It irks me to have to hide that I'm Jewish. But a small amount of compromise on certain issues is doable.
The Israeli bloggers who were coming were Yael from Step by Step, Tzedek, and me. The Palestinian bloggers were Ramzi and Daliah. Ramzi is a Christian Arab living near Har Gilo in the outskirts of Bethlehem, while Daliah lives in the Ramallah area, I think.
Ramzi picked a cafe where Palestinians and occasionally Jews from Har Gilo congregate. I picked up Yael and Tzedek at the Jerusalem central bus station and took them back to my apartment. I started some chocolate chip muffins thinking they would be ready before we had to leave, but we ended up leaving before they were done.
I took some games with me, naturally, including Backgammon, Checkers, and cards. Only later I realized that I had forgotten the dice for Backgammon. In any case, we didn't end up playing.
Ramzi and Daliah were going to meet us in their car south of the tunnels to Gush Etzion. They couldn't just wait for us at the side of the road. Palestinians sitting in a car at the side of a road are considered suspicious. If soldiers come to check them out, they may get stuck waiting two or three hours, depending on the mood of the soldiers who check them.
So they drove up and down once or twice. With the magic of cellular phones, we eventually met and drove to the cafe.
Everyone else at the cafe was Palestinian. It was obvious that I wasn't, and especially that Yael wasn't, but no one bothered us. We chatted about world politics, blogging, health, and all sorts of things. We took some pictures. I had a coke, the others had coffee.
When it got dark, Ramzi told us that he had already paid, which Yael and I protested. But when we then went to his house, I no longer gave it any mind. I say house, but perhaps palace is more the right word. It was large, stylish, and gorgeous.
Here we met Ramzi's parents. Ramzi's father used to be a doctor in Jerusalem, but was no longer able to work there as of several years ago.
Ramzi's grandfather is an exile from Jerusalem. Ramzi's father still refers to his old house there in the present tense even after 40 years of exile. The house we were in was only built recently and was his way of reconciling to the fact that he knew that they weren't going back.
From Ramzi's parents, I expected and got the usual litany of complaints about the occupation and the wall, and even some conspiracy theories about how the Israelis use the bombings to their advantage, blah blah. So, there were many points about which we disagreed.
On the other hand, I heard some things which I didn't expect. Their complaints were less about the fact of security itself, which they grudgingly understood, but about the apparently senseless acts of humiliation that they suffer.
Palestinians may be stopped and checked, ok. But why for two or three hours? When they are searched, they may be subject to pushing and discourteous behavior for no reason. Their goods are sometimes ruined in the name of searching.
Ramzi's grandfather was held up for over an hour on the way to the hospital while suffering a heart attack because of lack of the proper papers, even though Ramzi's father had them for himself.
And so on and so on.
It was difficult to hear. I still blame the fanatical Muslims for the need for security and checkpoints and searches, but I can't blame them for insulting, rude, and devastating behavior from Israeli soldiers. And these soldiers are my children and brothers. Why would they do that? I guess I've always known that some soldiers act like that and I just dismissed it because I felt that the general guilt falls on the other side. But the issues are separable. You can have security, and not have ill-behavior. You can have checkpoints, and not make it impossible for innocent families to travel to each other when they're not passing anywhere near Jewish neighborhoods. And if you must check them, why not check them courteously and quickly?
My general attitude about the situation's ultimate resolution hasn't changed. Christianity had to undergo a Protestant Reformation in order to change from a fanatical militant religion to the one it is today. It took many many years of bloodshed and schism. The same thing has to happen to Islam. Moderate Islam has to wage war for the hearts and minds of the people against radical Islam. Much blood will have to be shed. It will take generations. There is nothing any Israeli can do - not right, not left - to make peace with radical Islam.
I don't believe in hope. I think hope is the cause of our suffering. So long as people hope that they can achieve victory, there will be no surrender to peace. I want more hopelessness and willingness to compromise. Instead of useless politics, I believe in getting to work. I can't make peace with every Muslim, but I can continue to treat well and courteously everyone who treats me with respect. I can't trust absolutely - one never knows when the friend you make will come into the hands of someone who threatens to kill his entire family unless he goes out and kills a Jew. But I don't have to let that possibility make me indifferent to the humanity that exists on the other side.
When all was said and done, Ramzi was just like any Israeli guy, and Daliah was like any Israeli woman. Except that they weren't Israeli.
It was also nice to meet Yael and Tzedek face to face finally. I ended up having to leave early to return to my daughter at home, while Yael and Tzedek stayed to look around Bethlehem some more.
Oh, by the way, Yael: the muffins were great. Really, really great.
Yehuda
Update: corrected Tzedek's name.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Get Ingenious for PC for Free Today
You can get a free copy of Knizia's board game Ingenious for the PC today at GiveawayoftheDay.com . It sells for $18 on Amazon.
It needs to fetch an activation key from the site during setup, but otherwise doesn't appear to have any other catch. I didn't see any spyware or have to provide my email address to receive spam. You have to download, install, and start the game today. And if you need to reinstall it at some later time you're out of luck. If you buy it on Amazon, it can be reinstalled at any time and comes with support, too.
It's a well-done version of the game, although the cheering spectators sound effect gets old fast.
And it's a good way to try out the board game.
Yehuda
It needs to fetch an activation key from the site during setup, but otherwise doesn't appear to have any other catch. I didn't see any spyware or have to provide my email address to receive spam. You have to download, install, and start the game today. And if you need to reinstall it at some later time you're out of luck. If you buy it on Amazon, it can be reinstalled at any time and comes with support, too.
It's a well-done version of the game, although the cheering spectators sound effect gets old fast.
And it's a good way to try out the board game.
Yehuda
Things that Boggle
Boggling 1
Tal and I played a half-dozen games of Boggle this evening. There's no better way to spend quality time with your daughter, have fun, and expand your mind and vocabulary than an engaging word game. Tal learned some new words and surprised me with some great finds that I missed.
English classes around the world spend their time drilling you with grammar and spelling lessons, pathetic workbooks, and lifeless, dull exercises. God knows why. I can teach English better in half the time and have happier children in three basic steps:
1. Read books. Any books, so long as there are new vocabulary words in each one.
2. Write something. Anything.
3. Play word games.
Boggling 2
Somehow, I have gotten myself involved in an impromptu interfaith meeting tomorrow with some left-wing Israelis and Palestinians. And all because of the Good Neighbors blog.
Boggling 3
The Orlando Sentinel covers an idiotic soccer league which decided that scores, winning, and losing were Bad, so they decided to drop them from their soccer games.
Hopefully, none of you think that just because I've argued against all-or-nothing win-loss scenarios in gaming that I support dropping competition altogether. Nothing could be further from the truth. I argue that we need to further encourage competition beyond the mere win or loss of a single game.
In other words, success and loss should be measured by how hard a challenge you've faced and whether you succeeded in facing and overcoming the challenge, regardless of the outcome of the present game. In an easy game, "winning the game" isn't enough. Against overwhelming odds, you have to set your own standards of victory, regardless of the knowledge that you can't win the game. Dropping competition and challenge altogether is just plain stupid.
Nephilim has published a free downloadable cooperative board game called Carnival of Souls. A little too much dice-rolling, I think, but it's got a neat theme.
Yehuda
Tal and I played a half-dozen games of Boggle this evening. There's no better way to spend quality time with your daughter, have fun, and expand your mind and vocabulary than an engaging word game. Tal learned some new words and surprised me with some great finds that I missed.
English classes around the world spend their time drilling you with grammar and spelling lessons, pathetic workbooks, and lifeless, dull exercises. God knows why. I can teach English better in half the time and have happier children in three basic steps:
1. Read books. Any books, so long as there are new vocabulary words in each one.
2. Write something. Anything.
3. Play word games.
Boggling 2
Somehow, I have gotten myself involved in an impromptu interfaith meeting tomorrow with some left-wing Israelis and Palestinians. And all because of the Good Neighbors blog.
Boggling 3
The Orlando Sentinel covers an idiotic soccer league which decided that scores, winning, and losing were Bad, so they decided to drop them from their soccer games.
Hopefully, none of you think that just because I've argued against all-or-nothing win-loss scenarios in gaming that I support dropping competition altogether. Nothing could be further from the truth. I argue that we need to further encourage competition beyond the mere win or loss of a single game.
In other words, success and loss should be measured by how hard a challenge you've faced and whether you succeeded in facing and overcoming the challenge, regardless of the outcome of the present game. In an easy game, "winning the game" isn't enough. Against overwhelming odds, you have to set your own standards of victory, regardless of the knowledge that you can't win the game. Dropping competition and challenge altogether is just plain stupid.
Nephilim has published a free downloadable cooperative board game called Carnival of Souls. A little too much dice-rolling, I think, but it's got a neat theme.
Yehuda
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