While I was hanging out at Dave’s, trying to figure out what was going on with Sarah’s computer, I saw Earth and Beyond in action. Pat and Dave are big fans of this game. Earth and Beyond is similar to EQ… except you don’t have to spend all your time killing stuff, it’s not very crowded, and the graphics are far, far better. Yikes! It took me about six months to break my EQ habit, and this game looks even more dangerous. Fortunately, as the FAQ makes quite clear:
Q: Will there be a Linux or Macintosh version?
A: No.
So it looks like I’m safe for now.1 Although poor Pat sure was disappointed that I didn’t rush right out to buy or construct a PC just for that particular game. “Well, I think I’ll call Elana,” he said. “If you cannot be turned to the Dark Side, then perhaps she will.”
NEVER!
Anyway. So late last night I decided to brush up on RSS. No, check that — late last night I decided to figure out what RSS is in the first place. All I knew was that Moveable Type automatically generates these strange index.xml and index.rdf files, and damned if I knew what either file was about. Sad but true.
So first I found a description of RSS 1.0. Hmmm, okay, interesting. Then I skimmed a few pages on RDF. All right, I think I’m sorta getting it. Then I ran into RSS 0.92, which looks pretty different. And then I found people talking about RSS 2.0. And it seemed like all of these versions were being promoted and used. Eh? What’s going on?
A few more Google searches later, and all became clear. Turns out there’s a
holy
war
going
on. Oh, swell. By the time I finished slogging through all the flames, proclamations, and hurt feelings, it was past midnight. I suppose the one good thing about my brief foray into the wonderful, wacky world of RSS was that it happened to end with Aaron Swartz’s brilliant response to the whole mess. Wow. Maybe he really is a boy genius.
1. Of course what with the impending release for the Mac of Neverwinter Nights, Master of Orion III, and Freedom Force, my “safety” is somewhat up in the air these days.