The struggling, infighting, name calling, and outright legerdemain which is taking place right now on the official Lichtenbergian web site has me tired and somewhat frightened. As a break from a nasty fracas, I thought I’d offer here, in among peaceful–very quiet–lacunagroup hills, another distraction away from all the bickering.
I was going to introduce The Outline Game by making reference to Herman Hesse’s novel Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game, but after stumbling over this, I don’t want to say too much and be accused of trying to make some sad little addition to an already imposing wealth of mumbo-jumbo. I’ll merely say I was inspired in my adolescence, after reading Hesse’s novel, to conceive of this game. Not able to recruit players, I soon forgot about it, but I was recently reminded of it while reading a description of the ancient Eastern strategy game Go (another perfectly acceptable Lichtenbergian distraction, by the way). The passage touched on the “cosmic” implications of the game, and I wondered if Hesse was inspired in part by Go when he wrote The Glass Bead Game. I then remembered the game Hesse’s novel inspired me to envision back in the Seventies, and that led to something of an epiphany. Back in the Seventies, the game would have been very difficult to chart, elaborate and preserve with nothing but pencil and paper; but now, computer layout software should make it relatively easy to play. And I also realized that it could be the Lichtenbergian pastime, par excellence. It’s a creative undertaking, a form of poetic composition, masquerading as a kind of encyclopaedic gathering-in of knowledge in true Enlightenment fashion. No single participating player has to bear the burden of The Whole, however, so its vaulting ambition is quite easy to bear.
The game is for any number of players and the object is to create an outline for some imaginary topic. The outline itself becomes the work of imagination inspired by the fanciful topic. The topic could announce it’s fanciful nature: A Tour in Autumnal Twilight or The Thoughts of Five Silent Stones or The Cheese Ambulance, etc. Or the topic might not betray a whiff of fancy: Shrubs of West Central Georgia or The Facts About Adoption or Bass Fishing. The players are to elaborate an imaginative outline for the topic, mingling knowledge and whimsy, until the result reads like a kind of poem. As we speak, Dale is finding the best computer software to use to develop an outline in the manner the game requires. Stay tuned. I’ll update this post with a possible link to our playing area, etc.
To give you some idea how the game unfolds, here’s the nuts and bolts description I sent to Dale:
A Topic or Subject or Title is chosen, pertaining to materials natural or fanciful or a little of both. Players set about creating an “outline” for this theme, subject, topic, or title by offering various headings, sub-headings, and other embedded delineations. The group as a whole decides when the outline is complete. The outline is to be read as a creative expression, so choice of headings and sub-headings and so on is the meat of it.
Start by proposing some headings numbered with roman numerals. If there is a I there must be at least a II. (This rule applies at all levels of headings.) If someone proposes a IV first thing (why not?), there must also ultimately be a I, II, and III. (This, too, applies at all levels.) Further numbering is a choice; though, again, if someone skips forward and introduces an X, then V, VI, VII, VIII, and IX must also be produced. (Applies at all levels.) Roman numeral headings can then be added at any time, as can any sub-heading, etc.
Once you have a roman numeral heading, you can choose to embed capital letter sub-headings. If someone proposes an A, however, there must be also at least a B. From there it’s up to the group, above restrictions and rules applying, as to how many sub-headings to include for a heading. You might also, as a whimsical challenge to the group, start a sub-heading by choosing an E and expect A through D to be supplied subsequently. Once you have a sub-heading you can choose to move to ordinal numbers embedded within: with a 1 and 2, at least, by the time of completion, but ultimately as many as the group wishes. Then of course lower case letters: a, b, then c, d, etc. After that you could go to lower case roman numerals, I suppose, and we could formulate further conventions. As with the Hindu conception of the cosmos, at a certain point it’s elephants all the way down. No heading need have further sub-delineations, of course
The game would be most rewarding if players could view the whole outline as it’s developing and then easily insert either titles or further embedded headings as they see fit.
I am now jotting down a date in February and a time. Players should send topic suggestions by way of comments to this post. The topic which is timed and dated closest to the time and date I’ve just jotted down will be the first one we go with.
Well, exactly. Almost everything I use is shareware, freeware, etc. There’s a whole lot more of that stuff available for PC than for mac. I’m spoiled … I never pay for anything.
Plus, I just hate the whole closed-in, propietary system mac has going. PCs are much more “open.” For instance, using my Ipod just drives me NUTS. Those things should work just like a thumb drive, IMHO. Instead you have to work through crappy itunes. I kind of feel like Apple is this little kingdom unto itself. Which is fine, if you enjoy being one of its subjects.
You should probably go look at all the free open-source software available for Macs.
There are mp3 players out there that I’m sure work just like a thumb drive, I guess. Are there? Do they work? You can actually manually drag your music over to them? Like a thumb drive? That would be a whole lot better.
Proprietary… that’s like when the Dell on my circulation desk stops cold three times a day to let me know it can’t validate the operating system installed on it, right? Because, like, it’s calling home to the mother ship to check in? That kind of proprietary?
(BTW, I never get to do the Mac/PC flame wars on other websites, because that’s just tacky. So this is a lot of fun.)
Well, not THAT much fun. I don’t hate Apple. Actually Apple came up with most of the really cool ideas that the PC guys later ripped off. I just hate itunes, specifically. I’m neutral on Apple. I just happen to prefer PC, mostly due to it being more of an open platform with more stuff to choose from. I’m not passionate enough about it to start a flame war. Mostly it’s just a tool. You like your blue hammer? OK, fine. I like my red hammer, too. We’re cool.
And, like I said, my household has both.
Thanks to everyone for chiming in. The Sound Editor I use is Cakewalk, which is now called Sonar in its most recent incarnation, and I’ve always been happy with it. But I haven’t exactly slept around, if you know what I mean. I think Sonar exists for the Mac; I’ll check into it. Alas, it still is about cost, ultimately. Let me ask this: if I want to get away with not buying another desktop for ten years and if I want the ability to do sound recording and video editing (and those are not essential “needs” by any means, just whims I might indulge when my mood is favorable) and if I want “processing power” that will not limit me down the road, what are your recommendations?
Ten years? Are you for real? I replace my laptop every three years, and even that is stretching it. Speaking of which, it’s about time to replace the one on which I am typing at this very moment.
I have a laptop that’s about six years old that’s sitting in my closet right now, and about the only thing it’s good for is … well, let’s see. It’s a good paperweight, I suppose. I would never try to actually use it. It would probably explode.
If you’re going for longevity, go for the most powerful machine you can possibly afford to buy. But this flies in the face of your affordability issue, I realize.
In other words, there’s an inverse ratio thing going on here. The more you spend, the better machine you get, the more like it’s going to last you another year or two. The less you spend, the more likely the machine is going into the trash in two years.
Longevity will cost you.
But longevity, by my definition, means four years, ABSOLUTE MAX. Especially if you plan on doing video editing.
Computers age in dog years.
Planning to keep a computer for ten years for something like video editing, even low level, is like planning for ten years from now in Iraq. Jeff is right about that, although of course a Mac will last you a lot longer. The iMacs in my media center are 10 years old and are just now being outlcassed. My old laptop is five years old and the only reason I replaced it was to get more memory for Finale, if you will recall.
For video editing, you want a Mac. If nothing else, it will give you GarageBand and iMovie and iDVD for free. I have two sound editors that were either free or cheap shareware, and of course the Mac rules the audio/video/creative world.
Laptop or desktop?
Not to put us back on track, but…
Hidden in your pants is A Hollywood Story that’s huge…
Playing the part of “one needing instruction” has indeed been instructive. In many ways. Thanks.
I am in total agreement with Jeff on the Red Hammer/Blue Hammer thing. I prefer PC only because that’s what I have always used. Although I do remember playing “Spellecopter” on an old Apple in elementary school.
I also prefer PCs because Mac users annoy the hell out of me with their smug, self-satisfaction. It’s like how people from New York always feel the need withing the first minute of conversation to tell you they’re from New York. Like we’re all supposed to be impressed. You have a Mac? How lovely. I can do everything you can do, only cheaper.
You forgot to mention the pity with which we smug Mac users look on you. Stockholm Syndrome is a terrible thing. Bless your heart.
(The cost issue of course is currently no longer true, if you go and compare apples to added-on-enough-to-match-out-of-the-box-apples.)
And this just in from the NYT. It’s articles like this that allow me to roll my eyes when Windows sufferers say things like “Macs are more expensive.”
And no, what happened to the columnist would not have happened on this machine. If you’ve never watched a Mac set itself up the first time you start it up (and seamlessly bring over all your documents, applications, and settings), of course you think we’re smug.
It’s like the old MS-DOS days, which of course are not over, because even Vista is actually just MS-DOS with a half-ass Mac interface, when we smug Mac folk would show a PC user how we copied files: just drag them over to the target disk and drop them. “Bushwah!” they would cry. “What’s wrong with
c:\ [incomprehensible hieroglyphics that didn't work if you didn't type them exactly like the computer wanted]? Damn smug Apple Macintosh user!”And for what that man ended up paying, he could have had one of these with one of these thrown in. Without the hassle of having his brand new computer snatched away for a week.
Cheaper my ass.
I do believe Gates made a Faustian pact to get what he got, and stealing from Apple was part of his ticket price. So it’s a futile gesture of moral outrage on my part. A sad way to exclaim “See, my hands are clean!”
But there are many ways to clean your hands. I also look at the open-source Linux world as a potential Beulah Land. Whoever thought decisions about computers would have us trodding a moral landscape? I should open a computer store and call it Pilgrim’s Progress.
I do agree that there have been numerous complaints about Vista. But I use XP and have ZERO problems. ZERO. And you can still buy machines running XP.
Just to re-iterate — the Mac world may be a safer world, a smoother world, but that’s because it is a closed-off world. Macs are like taking a trip to Epcot at Disney World. It brings the world to you in a neat little sanitized package. PCs are more like actually venturing into the wild unknown. Occasionally you will be eaten by a tiger.
re: “eaten by a tiger”
Just so we’re clear, in the PC world that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. You would not dream of deliberately buying a car that behaved the same way.
I can’t imagine getting a thrill out of knowing that your computer is unreliable, and admitting it. “I deliberately don’t save my work because I never know if my virus software’s attempt to update itself is going to lock the whole thing up, and that’s just so damned exciting to me. Beat that, Mac snobs!”
And it makes me smile in a way that is smug even by Mac standards to hear that the PC world’s safe haven is MS’s version of Mac OS 9.
An insecure, clumsy version of Mac OS 9.
It makes me break out in applaudity.
Seriously, though, can you thrill-seekers give some examples of the kind of excitement we Mac users are protected from?
Speaking for myself, my computers are not unreliable. I haven’t lost a BIT of information in more than a decade. In fact, the last time I had an irretrievable data loss was on my Apple Performa. It’s a big reason I switched over. Didn’t you just mention you had a data loss to to external hard drive falure? Hmmmmmm?
I just knew this would turn into a flame war. We just can’t help ourselves.
And, irony of ironies, I’m typing this on a Mac.
As for thrill-seeking, just go to http://www.download.com and nose around a little.
My biggest frustration for macs/Apples has ALWAYS been that I have a devil of a time getting “under the hood,” if you know what I mean. In PCs, that’s never an issue.
Again, I say this as I type on an Apple.
The external hard drive was not, of course, an Apple product. And hard drives are born to fail as the sparks fly upward. I’m talking about OS/BIOS/The Registry snarkiness, the kind of thing that requires you to “go under the hood” to keep your computer functioning.
Mac OS X, of course, is Unix-based, and you can do all the Terminal crap (fsck much, anyone?) that your little heart desires. If that’s what you mean by “under the hood.” I’m not sure what you think you can alter on a PC that cannot be altered on a Mac, and without the suspense of whether it’s going to bring down the computer.
Cheap/free software? That’s it? Yes, I know download.com. That’s where many Mac people get their stuff, too. (I prefer Apple’s website.)
I am sincere in asking again, what are the thrills on a PC that are unavailable on the more advanced operating system?
A vast array of peripherals from which to choose.
A vast array of software from which to choose.
A vast array of hardware from which to choose.
More ways of doings things. More choices. Again, more openness. It feels more “bottom up” than “top down.”
That’s really all I meant.
I don’t mean to imply that you can’t figure out a way to do something on a mac that you can do on a PC, or vice-versa. Both can perform pretty much the same tasks, as we all know. There are just many more ways of doing it on a PC. You don’t have to SUBMIT.
That whole “more stuff” argument is about as dated as the “cheaper” argument. I have more software on my laptop at this moment than I know what to do with:
Each of those categories includes the industry standard, and much of the rest of it is freeware/shareware. (iMovie, anyone?)
I have both a program and a widget to generate lorem ipsum text (in fake Latin, Greek, Finnish, Etruscan, Swahili, and Quenya, plus it will anagrammatize). I have a comic book program. I have a nap program. I have a time tracker/invoice generator. I have a program that uses the laptop’s motion sensor to make light saber noises. (Ha!) I can capture live sound from the web; convert YouTube video to QuickTime; I can gray out everything but the windows of the program I’m working in; I can do my taxes and balance my checkbook. What the hell am I missing?
How do you get any printer on the market to work with a Mac? Plug it in. Hit
Print.As for hardware, I admit defeat on that one. We are forced to buy from Apple instead of from a gazillion other manufacturers. It’s a wonder we don’t shoot ourselves.
Mmm. Seems like I have touched a nerve here. Take a deep breath. Think calm, soothing thoughts.
Exchanges between True Believers and Sophists always run this way.
Somewhere in there is the fantasy of the PC, bugs and all, as a more true embodiment of Homespun American Democracy. Unlimited choices of programs like those vast prairie spaces or those Carnegiesque dreams of unlimited productivity and infinite resources. Getting under the hood the way any American can roll up his or her sleeves and tinker, tinker, tinker till the thing being tinkered transforms through innate handy-man genius to become the new vehicle for our collective destiny. PC like wagon heading west, full of dreams, canned peaches, and grandma’s linen packed in a trunk. PC like the Joad’s truck clattering its way to CalifornEyeAye. PC like the tractor that still works after all these years. Or PC as nearly free and available as the public education opportunities that keep this nation great. Every man a legislator and a prophet and a scholar.
American primitive. Exactly.
And that previous was not a rant. It was smug.
I can make it worse: I have Microsoft Office on my computer, and I don’t have to use it. Ever. All
.docitems open automatically in Pages, all.xlss in Numbers.And of course PowerPoint kills. Everyone can agree on that.
I know either platform is a matter of what your fingers are used to, but the one thing that I will never get used to on a PC is the lack of consistency in user interface. Command-Q is from God. All else is less. Selah.
(BTW, the reason MS Office documents open in iWork applications is because I tweaked the system to do that. Under the hood, if you will. And all that meant was that I pulled up the Info panel on a Word document and selected Pages from the Open With… menu, then clicked the box to open all such documents with Pages. Done.)
By the way, how is The Rivers of Luxembourg shaping up. Is it done? Was it fun? Do we want to start another one?
Once I get a new computer, I will join you. My hope is that the mechanism requires no overweening individual charismatic investment (i.e. leadership) to provide satisfaction to participants.
Or if I wanted to open it with Word, I could right-click on it and choose from the contextual menu. I hear PCs can do that, too.
I don’t think Rivers is done. I think we need your depth of vision to bring it to completion.
If you’re serious about visiting the Apple Store, we could do that Friday afternoon/evening or Saturday. Saturday might be fun–I want to take Ginny to the Dekalb Farmers Market, but then we could meet up at Lenox.
Now that, for me, is the true drawback of going with Apple. There are few things out there that make me as deeply paranoid as going to Lenox. Talk about shaking hands with the Devil. I was gratified to see in a recent commercial that Best Buy now carries Apple. I accept my caste, I know my place. O I’ll go to Lenox. Just to get out and pretend to pass as human. I’ll put up with being eyed with annoyance or being visualized as a smoked carcass feeding some clamoring line of partygoers.
JuanAmplePhallus
I don’t think Lenox is much like that these days.
Having failed to stoke the fires of the fragfest here in a while, lemme say that if having a unix based machine on your desk doesn’t get the ol’ propeller head a’spinnin’, nothing will. Long before there was download.com, there was wustl.edu and all those other grand repositories hidden around where only the in crowds could find them. With what were they practically overflowing? You got it: unix and xterm freeware. Whaddya know? That stuff all runs on my mac! Oh, yeah, and as running my java ide from home? Eclipse works better than on the XP box I use at work. And I don’t need to install a unix emulator (cygwin) to be able to make decent use of cvs.
’til the mac’s got unix, I would have been with windoze (actually, OS/2 before that), but now that I can really get messy with mac (and develop credibly on it) I’m pretty well converted.
hee hee hee
Well, let’s see where we stand:
–cheaper: check
–more “stuff”: check
–two-button mouse: check
–geekier: check
I’m afraid that leaves only “the best games” argument, and I would hate to think that anyone but the Cheetohs crowd would take refuge in that argument.
Consoles won the “best games” argument a couple of years ago. I will readily concede victory to uSoft on this one, so long as we are talking about the xBox360, not windows^whocares.
But I LIKE Cheetos.
I too admit to the occasional orange-crusted finger.
Wah! I can’t eat Cheetos.
Lichtenbergian Aphorism for the Day:
Every new day is like the next bag of Cheetos: we think THIS TIME we’ll find a way to keep our fingers dry and clean. Needless to say…
RangyBodypartQuincy
To follow up on a couple of things. I write this from a MacBook Pro. Happy times. New e-mail address. Who knows when glovernet server will be back up and running.
Got to visit Buzzword and play on the outline. It has an interesting shape. Time to take stock, maybe. Is it done? Do we start another one?
How do we know if we are playing the game successfully? I eagerly await your suggestions, particularly as to responding to tone. Also, is there a risk of being too over-awed by the “academic” dimension of this? In my mind it could be a way to explore knowledge and imagination, but it’s not about trying to make a true reference work or a true scholarly treatise. It’s just a structure. I hope none of us had bad experiences in high school English class with “making outlines” and have been left cynical and ravaged. For me it’s the nestling nature of the thing and the “epistemelogical pose” that is interesting.
I, for one, am challenging myself to stay away from modes of intellectual discourse that are already part of my repetoire and just respond to the unknown nature of the topics.
In other words, I think our attempts will “improve” as we continue. If we continue. Is this, as activities go, a dead end?
Test.
Another test. I wrote a comment with a new e-mail address, and I guess Dale must moderate it?