Pem’s Tech Blog

Each channel is 6 MHz.  2 says early systems 200 MHz (33 channels), now up to 550 MHz (91 channels).  But 2 seems old (maybe year 2000?), and 5 shows up to 1000 MHz bandwidth.  2 says post-1989, digital cable and mpeg compression allowed 10 TV channels on a single 6 MHz bandwidth analog channel.  Digital Cable also allowed them to use encryption (instead of just simple scrambling) (also allows more data).  Of course in 2011, we have HDTV and also better video compression.

1 says we share a single CMTS with our neighbors, possibly 4,000 to 150,000+ cable modems.  The CMTS (cable modem termination system) connects coaxial connections to the internet via ethernet interfaces, which is HFC (hybrid fiber coax).

1 claims our internet upstream is a single 2 MHz channel, and our download goes over a single 6 MHz channel…  Shared with hundreds of neighbors!  The upstream is time-shared.  While the downstream is just shared.  My interpretation is, we share a single wire with hundreds of neighbors, with a bandwidth of 0 to 1000 MHz.  Most of this wire is used to send everyone the same TV channels (ie, we get every channel, but to view it we need a TV box that decrypts the channels that we subscribe to).  We time-share (with hundreds of neighbors) a single 2 MHz band for uploads.  We use a single 6 MHz channel for download, shared with hundreds of neighbors.  So everything our neighbors download, we also download.  The only thing that stops us from seeing our neighbors’ downloads is encryption, and the fact that our cable modem filters out the packets that don’t have our cable modem’s address on it.

1 seems to be from 2000 (ie, 11 years old).  It does mention that the cable provider can decide to add a new channel for internet, and split the base of users that share that channel.  So this could mean that even if our shared wire covers 1000 people, that could be split into 100 people over 60 MHz.  So, our internet might be on the 900 MHz band, shared with 100 neighbors.  Plus, on the 906 MHz band, is another different 100 neighbors’ internet connection.  etc

Because our connection is shared with lots of neighbors, they throttle our connection based on usage, and in some locations are considering per-user bandwidth caps.

If it were up to me, I would say 1000 / 6 = 166 channels, so we should just ditch the cable TV channels, and dedicate them all to internet downloads!  However, there’s probably other factors to consider beyond my simplistic internet-greedy preferences O:-)

Economics: sending everyone the same TV channels is an efficient way to send lots of video data.  They can also keep the price of internet lower, by separately selling the cable TV bandwidth (and phone line bandwidth).

Bottleneck: There might be a bottleneck somewhere else, such as the CMTS.  I’m totally speculating on this.

Finally, keep in mind that I think the articles I read (1, 2) were from 2000, and a lot might have changed since then.  So maybe in 2011, more of the 6 MHz channels are dedicated to internet?  I’d be curious to find out more.

Links:
1. http://www.howstuffworks.com/cable-modem.htm/printable
2. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cable-tv.htm
3. http://www.linktionary.com/c/cabledata.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_modem_termination_system
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_cable_television_frequencies
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_cap
8. http://lifehacker.com/5215011/which-is-worse-bandwidth-caps-or-throttling

Pem (Admin) :: 2011/01/23 (Sunday, January 23, 2011) :: Computers / Tech, Internet / Web :: No Comments »

There’s a 40 min video of Jeff Bezos (amazon.com CEO / founder) with Charlie Rose (talk show) talking about the release of the Kindle 3.  I found the last 10 min (the part which isn’t about the Kindle 3) especially interesting:

1) Quote: We make it easy to try stuff on.  How do you make it easy to try stuff on?  By making it easy to return.  Oh, I see, yea.  And we try to make people not feel guilty about it.  You know, buy 3 pairs of jeans, and return 2 of them – it’s ok, don’t worry about it.  It’s okay with you?  Yea, it’s okay with us.  Keep the one that fits. End Quote.  So, there it is, from the horse’s mouth…  They want you to order 3 pairs of clothes, keep the one that fits, and mail the other 2 back.  Hmm, guess that attitude will keep both (mail package delivery) and (returns processing) busy <:-p

2) Talks about Bill Gates’s business vs. philanthropy theories (the basic idea is that business tends to be more productive, but philanthropy can address specific areas that the free market neglects) (and by people with excess savings).  Mentions experiment where they gave a random population of poor fruit farmers in India “the equivalent of winning the lottery” (uh, I guess $500 must have been worth a lot more in that specific part of India?), and it didn’t significantly affect their likelihood of getting out of poverty.

3) Often, people in our society love to argue about things before there is any data, or where they might be basing their ideas more on some arbitrary morality than on actual data and specific well-defined goals.

4) The internet and mass communication is shifting the amount of money that business spends to be a higher ratio of (actual value creation) vs. (excessive marketing fluff).

http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/2618
-> It’s the 40 min video dated 2010 Jul 28

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/12/10 (Friday, December 10, 2010) :: Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

I’m probably going to sound like one of these pompous self-proclaimed intellectual guys who goes around saying that Go > Chess (in fact, I can’t help but sympathize with that kind of attitude)…  So anyone who reads this, please take anything that sounds like negativity against Poker with a grain of salt.  I have nothing against Poker.  I think it can be some fun.  But I like Magic a lot better, and overall, I think Magic is by far more interesting, more intellectual, more enjoyable, and more worthy of your time (assuming you should be spending your extra time on such things at all).

Continuing from my previous post…  This dynamic nature (new sets, and the annual rotation) of the Standard Constructed format is what I love about Magic.  I am not exactly against static classic games like, for example, Poker and Chess and Go.  But I don’t find them particularly interesting, compared to other more modern games (card games, board games, video games).

The type of thinking you need for chess is better done by a computer program, than by a human.  It’s the same old thing over and over, and it has been studied to death.  To do well is simply about mindless rote training – not about strategy, thought, creativity, or innovation.  This is why I say such games should be played by computer programs – not by humans.  It’s simply less interesting, unless you’re writing AI code.  And there’s simply not any room for anything new – strategy, creativity, innovation, content, art, back story, enjoyment, design, change, etc.  Chess is just about picking the right move based on thinking enough moves ahead.

Meanwhile, besides memorizing probability and statistics, Poker is mostly just about keeping a straight face, or bluffing out your opponent.  I think Poker can be fun, but mostly just to for the math and AI code.  It’s simply less interesting than Magic.  And don’t get me started on how to make Poker entertaining to the general public, they (apparently) had to dumb it down, and mix in obscene amounts of money, sex, controversy, stress, and whatever it takes to gets attention – as long as it’s not the least bit intelligent or respectable or interesting.

I’ll end with an excerpt from an ESPN article on professional poker players who play Poker for money and Magic for fun.  I was kind of surprised that Poker appears to be the only non-physical game (ie, non-sport) that ESPN covers…  Unless it’s a first step towards covering more “brainy” (less physical) games, then this simple fact is pretty damning – I mean, Poker can’t be that “brainy” if it’s on freaking ESPN?

Don’t get me wrong…  I think Poker and Chess are great.  Just not that great.

Here’s the excerpt:

> With new cards being brought into circulation every few months, the game has stayed fresh for most of the converts. “Poker is a job, ‘Magic’ a game,” said Parker, who played “Magic” online to unwind after his long days of poker. “I never want to play poker in my free time. ‘Magic’ you can. You can’t make a living at ‘M:TG,’ but it’s just the more enjoyable game.”

> “‘Magic’ is a better-designed game, and I’d play it constantly if I didn’t have to make a living,” Williams said. “We play, relax and have a good time. It helps keep me sharp. I still play every day, either online or with the guys. If I get knocked out, I can always find a game of ‘Magic.’”

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/columns/story?columnist=wise_gary&id=4259905

And here’s a neato MTG Poker deck:

See, despite my ranting, Magic and Poker can live together in harmony.  No worries…

2010/11/22: I guess being more in depth and time consuming can also be a huge drawback. With rare exceptions, you don’t want a hobby (such as getting into a game like Magic or Poker) to distract you too much from your other more serious responsibilities! Again, I like Poker too… Just not as much as I like Magic.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/10/11 (Monday, October 11, 2010) :: Games, tcg :: No Comments »

I want to add (to my previous post) that I am already missing some of the cards that are rotating out, which represent some potentially awesome deck ideas that I never got to see really come to fruition.  In light of this, the past few days (or weeks), I’ve made an effort to get some exposure to deck ideas that will be dead (or at least significantly changed) after the rotation.

My most recent example is a very fun White Green deck that I created to make Felidar Sovereign’s unique win condition work.  I didn’t play it anywhere except the tournament practice rooms, but I had a lot of fun with it.

I actually won games with Felidar Sovereign’s “you win” ability.  Other games, the huge life boost kept me alive longer than my opponent.  There were games where I had as high as 131 life, and there were games where Wall of Reverence healed me 12 life from a pumped up Knight of the Reliquary.

Alas, The deck totally relies on cards that are going to be rotated out, especially Wall of Reverence and Knight of the Reliquary.  There’s nothing in Scars of Mirrodin with this amount of defense and heal (plus, Knight of the Reliquary can also become a strong attacker).  There might be a viable post-rotation deck that can use Felidar Sovereign, but it would be very different without these two cards.

Btw, I’m not in any way attached to or focused on this particular deck style.  I partly just picked this example because I noticed that in my previous post I forgot to mention mono White (with Ajani’s Pridemate, Serra Ascendant, Soul Warden, Soul’s Attendant).

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/10/11 (Monday, October 11, 2010) :: Games, tcg :: No Comments »

Oct 1 2010 was the date of my first time seeing the annual rotation with Magic the Gathering.  A new set is released, something like every 3 months, and then once a year (on Oct 1), they rotate out the 4 oldest sets.

In this case, 3 of the sets rotating out are the "Alara Block".  The Alara block includes Shards of Alara (a 249 card set released 2008/10/03), Conflux (a 145 card set released 2009/02/06), and Alara Reborn (a 145 card set released 2009/04/30).  The 4th set rotating out is Magic 2010 (a 249 card set released 2009/07/17).

At the same time, a new set is released, in this case Scars of Mirrodin.  So after the rotation, we lose 4 sets (Shards of Alara, Conflux, Alara Reborn, Magic 2010), leaving us with (Magic 2010, Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, Magic 2011, and Scars of Mirrodin).  This once a year rotation is the biggest annual change in the Standard constructed format.  There will still be new sets coming (next is Mirrodin Besieged, scheduled for 2011/02/04), but it won’t be until 2011/10/01 that we rotate out (Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, and Magic 2011).

Magic 2011 was released on 2010/07/16, which was before I started playing MTGO (Magic The Gathering Online).  So this is both the first time I’ve seen a new set released, and the first time I’ve seen a rotation.  It is pretty interesting / exciting, to try to predict what kinds of new decks will be viable and/or popular after the rotation.

Jund will be losing key cards that allowed it to swarm the field with strong 2 and 3 and 4 mana drops: Putrid Leech (which can be a 4/4 for only 2 mana), Sprouting Thrinax (which replaces itself with creature tokens), and Bloodbraid Elf (which has haste, and gives you 2 spells for the price of 1).

The Bant deck will be losing Knight of the Reliquary (very strong defense) and Sovereigns of Lost Alara (which let you search Eldrazi Conscription).

I don’t think Blue White control is losing anything significant.  My impression of mono Red is that it’s gaining more than its losing, including Koth of the Hammer.  Not sure if White Red landfall is affected, but in terms of planeswalkers, it loses Ajani Vengeant, but gains Koth of the Hammer and I guess the option to go White Red Blue for Venser the Sojourner.

New stuff is going to include lots of artifacts (and artifact creatures), artifact counters, and the infect mechanic (ie, poison counters).

These are just some of my vague reactions, and I don’t pretend to know what will become the most viable, or powerful, or popular…  But I definitely have some deck ideas that I think will be a lot of fun to try out!

Finally, I’ve noticed that for MTGO they delay the releases.  On Oct 11, Standard hasn’t rotated yet for MTGO.  Scars of Mirrodin cards become legal after the Oct 13 downtime, and MTGO Scars of Mirrodin prerelease starts Oct 14.  Since I have other plans for the weekend, I probably won’t pay any attention until Sun night Oct 17.

Oh, and hopefully I will get back to my MTGO vocabulary posts soon, and not let Magic itself distract me too much!

Rotates Out, Oct 1 of 2010: Alara Block and Magic 2010:

New Set Released, Oct 1 of 2010:

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/10/11 (Monday, October 11, 2010) :: Games, tcg :: No Comments »

Abjure.  Sacrifice a blue permanent.  Counter target spell.

Game Play Comments:

Blue has a myriad of variations on the original Counterspell, which counter a target spell.  Though for the most part none of them are quite as good as the original Counterspell.  Cancel costs an extra mana, Mana Leak can be diffused if your opponent pays 3 mana, Deprive requires you to bounce a land.  Others only counter certain types of spells (creatures, non-creatures, targeting spells, artifacts, etc).  Double negate can counter 1 or 2 spells.  Mindbreak Trap can counter any number of spells, and costs 4 mana (or 0 if it’s his 3rd+ spell this turn), and it’s technically not a “counter” – so it works on spells that can’t be countered (such as Terra Stomper and Emrakul the Aeons Torn).  Effects that bounce your own cards (such as Into the Roil) can be similar to a Counterspell (if he targets your field card, then you bounce it, causing his spell to basically fizzle).  Redirect and Swerve change the target of a spell.  That’s a lot, yet this is not, by any stretch, a complete list of the variations on Counterspell.  In fact, my examples were only from the current Standard format.

Abjure is one of the few counter spells that costs less mana than Counterspell.  It’s not in the current Standard format, and it combos with Hatching Plans (also not currently in Standard).  What if Abjure were in the current Standard format?

Abjure requires you to sac a Blue permanent.  This makes it a lot harder to use than if it would let you sac any permanent – because then you could use non-blue tokens (Eldrazi tokens, Khalni Garden tokens, etc).  Additionally, lands are (usually) colorless, so you can’t just sac an Island.

It might still combo with some Blue permanents that let you draw 1 – such as Spreading Seas, or Sea Gate Oracle.  And Fieldmist Borderpost makes it more like "pay 1 mana and sac 1 land”.  But even if it’s worth the sac (in exchange for the reduced converted mana cost), it would be easy to end up in a situation where you don’t have any blue permanents on the field.  Or in a situation where you’re paying 1 mana and 1 usable permanent instead of just paying 2 mana (or 3 mana).

If the text read “sacrifice a permanent” (not just a blue one), then Abjure would easily compete with other counter spells.  Either that, or it would only work in a deck with more cards like Hatching Plans, and maybe Spreading Seas, Sea Gate Oracle, Fieldmist Borderpost.

One final note.  Abjure says “Interrupt” rather than an “Instant”.  Interrupt used to mean it’s faster than Instant (in YuGiOh they have counter traps that are faster than traps and instant spells).  However, Interrupt no longer exists, and any old cards that say Interrupt are now just synonymous with Instant.  Since Interrupt has long been deprecated, in Standard you will only find Instant spells (not Interrupt spells).

abjure [ab-joor, -jur]
–verb (used with object), -jured, -jur·ing.
1. to renounce, repudiate, or retract, esp. with formal solemnity; recant: to abjure one’s errors.
2. to renounce or give up under oath; forswear: to abjure allegiance.
3. to avoid or shun.

1. to renounce or retract, esp formally, solemnly, or under oath
2. to abstain from or reject

Vocabulary Comments

In the flavor text, Ertai is expounding his virtues (ie, bragging), and it is annoying Mirri.  Bombast is not very intellectual (and thus not very Blue), so Mirri decides that if Ertai doesn’t stop going on and on with his bombast, then Mirri will have to make him abjure the bombastic claims.  The flavor text says Mirri considers to cause this by killing Ertai.  This could mean Ertai is threatened into abjuring the claims, or that Mirri is abjuring the claim by killing Ertai, or that the claim is abjured in the sense that Ertai’s magic is shown to not be so powerful after all.

So either you are making your opponent abjure his casting of a spell, or you are abjuring the spell itself.  In either case, the casting of the spell has been abjured.

Abjure can generally mean to avoid, shun, abstain from, or reject something.  However, it has the connotation that you will renounce, repudiate, retract, or recant something in a manner that is formal and solemn.

This could have meaning in a legal sense, where a person is asked to abjure (or recant) their claim, position, belief, or stance on an issue.  Such as Galileo Galilei, or Giordano Bruno, or Martin Luther, each having been asked to abjure claims by officials of the Catholic church.

In the US today, we tend to make more of a distinction between illegal action and illegal belief.  Illegal belief tends to be a stronger form of legislating morality.  For example, it’s okay to believe in the further legalization of marijuana or prostitution, as long as you don’t take actions that illegal.  Of course you can still have plenty of unreasonable laws and persecution over someone’s beliefs, but we now tend to persecute the person based on an action, rather than directly on their stance.  Though there’s probably exceptions, or it could (in some cases) only be a level of indirection.

I can not abjure my allegiance to Magic Vocabulary – I can not abjure my claim that there is a myriad of GRE vocab words in the world of Magic cards, just waiting to be discovered!  How can one abjure this claim, when even the word abjure itself is in fact the name of a Magic card!

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/09/09 (Thursday, September 9, 2010) :: Games, magic vocab, tcg :: No Comments »

Abeyance.  Until end of turn, target player can’t cast instant or sorcery spells, and that player can’t activate abilities that aren’t mana abilities.  Draw a card.

Game Play Comments:

This is prior to the current Standard (Type 2) format, so I’ve never actually used Abeyance.  However, I can compare it to a card that is – Silence.  Silence is also an instant, only costs 1 white, and doesn’t allow the opponent to cast any spells for the turn.  However, Silence doesn’t let you draw a card, and it doesn’t prevent activation abilities.  Overall, I like the effect of Abeyance better, even though it doesn’t stop creature spells.

Where might I use this card if it were in Standard?  White healing deck, to keep my white creatures alive for a turn.  Blue White control deck (or Blue White Black or Black White) to stall.  The draw 1 (self-replacing) aspect is important.

abeyance [uh-bey-uhns]
–noun
1. temporary inactivity, cessation, or suspension: Let’s hold that problem in abeyance for a while.
2. Law . a state or condition of real property in which title is not as yet vested in a known titleholder: an estate in abeyance.

1. a state of being suspended or put aside temporarily
2. ( usually preceded by  in ) law  an indeterminate state of ownership, as when the person entitled to an estate has not been ascertained

Vocabulary Comments:

In Magic, Abeyance means the opponent puts on hold doing certain actions.  Abeyance holds in abeyance the target player’s ability to play instants, interrupts, sorcery spells, and activation cost abilities.  These actions are put on hold, held in abeyance for one turn.

In US law, abeyance means a temporary hold on the official ownership of the property, in the situation where ownership is not yet clear (or not yet vested).  For example, if we don’t officially know who really owns the property yet, then the ownership is in abeyance – on hold as unknown until it’s determined.

In general, abeyance means to put something on hold (temporary inactivity, or not yet decided or resolved) – in a temporary state of suspension or cessation.  Such as (but not limited to) a Magic player’s ability to perform certain actions, or the not yet officially determined ownership of property.  The Magic player’s actions are held in abeyance.  The ownership of the property is held in abeyance.  Our decision or our resolution of a problem is held in abeyance.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/09/09 (Thursday, September 9, 2010) :: Games, magic vocab, tcg :: No Comments »

The Paris mulligan is good – but not good enough.  I propose we fix it.

Mana screw by drawing only 0 or 1 in your opening hand doesn’t happen often, but it happens often enough that it needs to be fixed.  This is possibly the worst thing that can happen in an opening Magic hand (ie, to draw only 1 or 0 lands, and then have the top 10 cards in his/her deck have only 2 or 1 or 0 lands).  This ruins the game by basically giving one player an unfair auto-loss.  The existence of this scenario insults Magic by dumbing it down to the simplicity of a coin flip (heads you win, tails I win).  It creates a scenario in Magic that is simple blind luck (and dumb luck), where the game is already lost by just having a really bad opening hand, which can happen even if the deck is designed with as many as 24 to 30 lands.

The Paris mulligan protects against the scenario, to some extent.  But the probability of 1 player ending up with 1 less card, or even 1 or 0 lands after the first mulligan, is still high enough, even in a deck with 28 lands, that Magic is still significantly plagued by mana screw.

I propose some ideas for a tweak to the Paris mulligan:

A) Mulligan is free if your deck has 20 or more lands and you drew 1 or 0 lands.  If your 7 card hand has only 1 or 0 lands, then you can choose to reveal 20 land cards to your opponent, and then mulligan for free.  Repeat this until you draw at least 2 land cards.

B) Mulligan is free if your deck has 40 or less lands and you drew 6 or 7 lands.

C) Make the first mulligan determine who decides who goes first – instead of flipping a coin.  Before flipping to see who decides who goes first, each player has the choice to Mulligan.  If both players or no players mulligan, then flip to see who decides who goes first.  If one player mulligans, then the other picks who goes first.  After this, you get another chance to mulligan.

D) Make the first mulligan reduce your hand count by 0.  So you draw 7 cards, then you can mulligan to 7, then you can mulligan to 6, then you can mulligan to 5.

E) Make the first mulligan reduce your life point by 1, instead of card count.

Any of these ideas (or a combination) would fix the mana screw design bug, without doing something to radically change the game.  An example of radical would be to have two decks, one with your lands and one with your non-lands, or to have no lands at all.  So I am not asking for a radical change.  Just a minor tweak to the Paris mulligan that would succeed where the Paris mulligan has clearly failed.

I think idea A is great choice.  Except that I realize there may be some concern about having to dig 20 lands out of your deck and show them to prove that you have 20 lands.  Same problem with idea B (having to show them 20 non-land cards).  This is the reason I suggested ideas C, D, and E.

A simpler version of A and B is actually what used to exist before the Paris mulligan.  And overall, the Paris mulligan is simply worse than what we had prior to the Paris mulligan.

The way the mulligan used to work was, if a player had 0 or 7 lands in his starting hand, then he can show the opponent his/her hand, shuffle, redraw.  Only once.  Frankly, the Paris mulligan was a step in the wrong direction.  Based on that, here’s another mulligan idea:

F) If a player has 0 or 1 or 6 or 7 lands in the starting hand, then he/she can shuffle and redraw the 7 cards.  In fact, we could even let the player do this twice.

Just doing F or would fix the problem (or, bringing back the original mulligan would at least be better than the Paris mulligan).  The point here is for the mulligan to combat mana screw, rather than to be an overall second chance at drawing some combo (or avoiding an opening hand full of high mana cost cards).  However, if we want that second aspect, then we could do some combination of these mulligan ideas, such as F followed by a Paris mulligan.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/09/08 (Wednesday, September 8, 2010) :: tcg :: No Comments »

Augury Owl.  When Augury Owl enters the battlefield, scry 3.

Game Play Comments:

When October 1 of 2010 hits, the standard constructed format (my opinion at the time of writing this is – by far the best and most important constructed format) will be only 5 sets (Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, Magic 2011, and Scars of Mirrodin).  Based on the most recent releases (2010 Jul 17, 2010 Oct 2, 2011 Feb 5, 2011 Apr 23, 2011 Jul 16, 2011 Oct 1), there are 5 sets released per year (between Oct 1 to the next Oct 1), and the oldest sets get rotated out (in this case, Magic 2010 and the 3 prior sets) once a year on Oct 1.  I ran into Augury Owl in a standard constructed deck, since it’s in the Magic 2011 set, and I really liked the flavor / feel of the card.

As for actually using Augury Owl, for a converted mana cost of 2, the scry 3 is good, and fly is good.  However, I tend to compare Augury Owl to Wall of Omens.  In general, I don’t like 1/1 attack as much as as Wall of Omen’s 0/4.  In general, I like draw 1 better than scry 3.  Another comparison would be Preordain, which lets you scry 3 and draw 1.  That said, Augury Owl may work better in a certain kind of deck, where the scry 3 and/or fly are particularly useful.  Or in addition to Preordain and/or Wall of Omen.

Augury
1. the art or practice of an augur; divination.
2. the rite or ceremony of an augur.
3. an omen, token, or indication.

Augur
–noun
1. one of a group of ancient Roman officials charged with observing and interpreting omens for guidance in public affairs.
2. soothsayer; prophet.

–verb (used with object)
3. to divine or predict, as from omens; prognosticate.
4. to serve as an omen or promise of; foreshadow; betoken: Mounting sales augur a profitable year.

–verb (used without object)
5. to conjecture from signs or omens; predict.
6. to be a sign; bode: The movement of troops augurs ill for the peace of the area.

Scry
to divine, esp by crystal gazing

Descry:
1. to see (something unclear or distant) by looking carefully; discern; espy: The lookout descried land.
2. to discover; perceive; detect.

Vocabulary Comments:

I like the Augury Owl because he/she is wise and can see the future.  I like to think of the Augury Owl staring closely at my deck, like a crystal ball, to see the top 3 cards (or to fly ahead to descry what’s coming).  The Augury Owl is an augur, and he/she can augur what the next cards will be.

However, the Augury Owl doesn’t just see the future, he/she affects the future (since you can rearrange the 3 cards on the top or bottom of your deck).  In this way, the Augury Owl is an augury of me drawing the cards I need for the current game scenario (and of me using these cards in the near future of the current game).

I’ve seen scry called short for descry, but scry also has the connotation of looking into a crystal ball.  While the connotation to descry is more general, looking carefully to discern and perceive.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/08/29 (Sunday, August 29, 2010) :: Games, magic vocab, tcg :: No Comments »

What I love about this talk (and the TED talks in general) is the general visionary idea.  Hours spent on gaming could have stronger real life productivity benefit, beyond just “having fun”.  I’m definitely not in what seems to be a fairly popular (and sometimes narrow-minded and/or extremist) camp that wants the sole purpose of any game to be “fun”.

Just using the word “fun” instead of “enjoyment” sounds limiting.  A lot of my favorite games tend to be more strategy-driven or thought-provoking.  Fun has a connotation that can suggest inane simplistic thoughtless enjoyment (ie, mirth and amusement).  I worry that “fun” can have a connotation of cheap senseless silly amusement.  To some extent, I am all for that kind of fun – I just don’t think it’s required for a game to be great.  I also like games that have a more serious feel.

I liked some of the Nintendo DS and iPod touch games, just because they were innovative, and had some great touch screen interfaces (yes fun was important here).  I like Bioshock because of its feel and experience, the gameplay strategy, the storyline and visuals, and especially the integration of some ideology / philosophy debate.  I like Magic the Gathering because the game is heavy on math (statistics), creative problem solving, a focus on planning and development (of decks and gameplay strategies) outside of the actual game matches, and learning how the different card rules work (though often I think the details should be more intuitive) (I was also excited to see some vocab words – and I’d love to see more).

Some examples of game ideas that have more practical benefit are…  Edutainment games.  Training simulations.  Games like McGonigal references, that focus on real world problem solving and edutainment.  Games that focus on solving more specific problems, such as the FoldIt protein folding game.

But one thing I’d personally like to see a lot more of, is just more educational content in regular non-edutainment games.  Two great examples are (Vocabulary words in Magic the Gathering) and (ideology / philosophical ideas and debates in Bioshock).  This can at least solve real world problems indirectly, by having people be more educated (and more capable of intelligent thinking and problem solving).

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/08/19 (Thursday, August 19, 2010) :: Games :: No Comments »