Author Archives: Pace Arko

NWN, a Time Suck on so Many Levels

A few weeks ago, as a sort of birthday present to myself, I bought a copy of Neverwinter Nights. I went into it with my eyes open. I knew I was about to mainline the gaming equivalent of heroin and … Continue reading

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Scientists Build Polio Virus From Scratch

As has already been made plain by the advances of the XX century, individuals are gaining a greater ability to do greater damage over a larger area. And a few months ago this trend took a dangerous step forward. In … Continue reading

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The Yin and the Yang

By the way, check out Mark Pilgrim’s Dive into Accessibility to learn various simple methods to make your site accessible. Another screed I posted at Nanodot some months back. Will we better as gods than as mortals? The evidence, based … Continue reading

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Transcending the Shallowness

This is another little mini-essay that I’ve culled from my posts at Nanodot. Now that the future is here, if not quite manifestly obvious, should we even waste our time with human desires anymore? That is a question technically savvy … Continue reading

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The Vanguard of Cultural Evolution

A week or so ago, I wrote an interesting reply to a post at Nanodot about the persistence of the geek factor throughout human history and prehistory. I liked it so much I’ve decided to reproduce and amplify it here … Continue reading

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XHTML looks terrible in WebTV

All the sites I’ve built look terrible in WebTV. At least I know it’s WebTV’s fault. If everything I make validates as strict XHTML and CSS, then it’s not my fault. Today is a pretty slow day. Yesterday I just … Continue reading

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Baby Screams, Fuel Cells, Paranoia and the Semantic Web

Over the last few weeks I read: About Sonic weapons based on backmastered baby screams. An interesting article critical of the semantic web concept. I, being a markup purist, am a true believer in the semantic web idea. Another interesting … Continue reading

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Take back the Web!

Or at least the dot-org part of it. Over last 5 or so years, ICANN has allowed, without any struggle, the Domain Name System to be dominated by large corporations who use it to enforce, some would say in a … Continue reading

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Africa, Big Buildings, High Speed Trains, Robot Ears and Eyes

Two of the staples of cyberpunk are gleaming superbuildings and crushing inner-city poverty. I just read an article about information technology in Ghana that just oozed cyberpunk. Amtrak must die? Sure but, let’s start thinking seriously about real high-speed rail … Continue reading

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Mark Pilgrim Continues to Drop Science

I know I cited his pages a few days ago but, it just keeps getting better. I feel like an idiot. Mr. Pilgrim is writing about the gritty aspects of improving web accessibility much better than I ever could. Please, … Continue reading

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