Posts Tagged ‘gaming’
“It is named the ‘Web’ for good reason”*…
Perspective, from John Atkinson.
* David Foster Wallace
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As we enjoy our leisure, we might recall that it was on this date in 2001, at the European Computer Trade Show in London, that Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft. The MMORPG (Massively-Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game) was released in 2004.
“Dinner was made for eating, not for talking”*…
Still, talking is, more often than not, part of the program. How to increase the odds that the discussion will be as tasty as the dinner? Alex Cornell has the key:
One of the most complex social situations you will encounter is the 45 seconds that elapse while deciding where to sit for dinner at a restaurant. Your choice should appear natural, unbiased and haphazard if executed properly. Timing is everything.
These 45 seconds determine how enjoyable your next 2 hours will be. Once the pieces start to fall into place and people take their seats, your choices narrow. People sit, seemingly at random, and if you don’t take the appropriate measures, you’re inevitably stuck at the least interesting end of the table.
I have compiled the above infographic to assist you with some of the common configuration patterns…
More at “Musical Chairs.”
* William Makepeace Thackeray
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As we fiddle with our forks, we might recall that it was on this date in 1931 that tables of a different sort became the main event in Nevada, when the economic pressures of the Great Depression (and the opportunity to entertain workers arriving to build Hoover Dam) moved the state legislature to legalize gambling. But it wasn’t until after World War II, when Bugsy Siegel decided to go (sort of) legit and took control of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, that the Land of Casinos began to glow in the way that, to this day, it does.
Ocean’s Ten…
One can’t be too careful. It’s something of a relief, then, to find Money Mumbo Jumbo’s “Ten Safes Capable of Protecting the World’s Riches“– from Fort Knox and the Doomsday Seed Vault to Karl Lagerfeld’s tres chic accessories cache.
Still, lest one rest easy, consider the Antwerp Diamond Center’s vault (pictured above): It was considered the safest precious stone repository in the world, protected as it was by 10 layers of security– including Doppler radar, magnetic field locking system, seismic sensors, infrared detectors and a main door lock with over a 100 million possible combinations. One can read here how it was that, nonetheless, a team of thieves made off with over $100 million worth of sparklers from the vault.
As we contemplate life in the Age of Schlage, we might recall that it was on this date in 1931 that the State of Nevada legalized most forms of gambling. Anxious to cash in the the tourist boom that was expected to follow the (then-imminent) completion of Hoover (nee Boulder) Dam, the state legislature in effect simply legitimized what was an already-flourishing (albeit illegal) gaming industry. (There was nothing that the State legislature could do about Prohibition, then in effect; but then, liquor was already flowing freely, if illicitly, in Nevada, as elsewhere in the U.S.)
Ever watchful for ways to attract more visitors, Nevada also eased the threshold for divorce– and became a “divorce haven.” (Prior to the no-fault divorce revolution of the 1970s, divorces were quite difficult to obtain in other states.)
Nevada State Journal
March 20, 1931
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