Archive for May 15th, 2008

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PMOG: The Passively Multiplayer Online Game

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

My Habits Make me a Pathmaker in PMOG

My Habits Make me a
Pathmaker in PMOG

Education is an adventure. We quest for knowledge throughout our lives, whether its the daily news, OTJ, or sitcoms. Every fact collected in our minds a tool for accessing new information and clarifying the old. Every fact is also a weapon in debate, which are battles in society’s perpetual war of ideas.

The Passively Multiplayer Online Game (PMOG) takes this principle and let’s you keep score. Deploy mines on websites to wreck other players’ concentration. Set up portals on websites to teleport other players to sites of similar interests (or, as is often the case, RickRoll them). Leave crates filled with treasure for other players to stumble upon (one of my favorite activities).


Indie badge for players who can go 24 hours without using google

Indie badge for players who can go
24 hours without using google

(I can’t get this badge.)

Earn badges for changing your web-surfing habits. Go 24 hours without using Google. Read xkcd once a week for four weeks. visit 100 websites in a 24 hour period (first badge I got, and wasn’t even trying). You can view the complete list of badges and archetypes here.

Create quests for other players to take by setting up a series of lightposts around the Internet for them to follow, exploring websites as they go. All the while earning datapoints, which increase your level and may be spent on new items at the shoppe.

The game is currently in the beta-testing phase, and there’s much room for improvement and expansion. Sign up now to earn your PMOG “Beta Tester” badge, but remember that, as a Beta, you will experience issues. I’ve had to scrap some missions I was building and start over from scratch because the Mission-Generator application is somewhat buggy.

Most of all, have fun. Learning is a game, and with PMOG you can keep score.

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Science Etcetera, Jupiterday 20080515

Thursday, May 15th, 2008
  • A peer-reviewed journal paper has extended the connection between CO2 and global warming back 800,000 years. Did I mentioned this paper was peer-reviewed?
  • After decades of searching, NASA has discovered a young supernova, about 140 years old (All day yesterday, people thought NASA was going to announce aliens).
  • young supernova

    Young Supernova

  • TED Talk: “Rock Star Physicist” Brian Cox explains the Large Hadron Collider (HT Oranchak).
  • Cell phones can change your brainwaves and behavior (HT Clint).
  • It is shown that eating less leads to a longer lifespan than regular exercise in mice.
  • People with bad teeth are more likely to get some forms of cancer.
  • A variation in the GLUT2 gene causes people to have a sweet tooth.
  • The middle class is smoking more pot.
  • Instant Messaging is actually “an expansive new linguistic renaissance.”
  • The UK is releasing its UFO archives. Time to settle down with my tin-foil hat for some extended reading.
  • UFO Maps a Google Mashup

    UFO Maps a Google Mashup

  • Check out this gallery of alien-looking sea slugs.
  • Honda robot conducts the Detroit Symphony.
  • China’s devastating earthquake was the result of a collision of land masses between India and Asia.
  • The Interior Department has declared the polar bear a threatened species because of loss of Arctic sea ice, but warned against using this to address Global Warming.
  • McCain’s climate-change page stole it’s design from Mother Jones.
  • RL computer bugs, invasive ants in Houston are shorting out computers and electrical boxes.
  • Music can enhance the tast of wine.
  • Cool proof that your brain makes up what your eyes can’t see. Human eyes are proof we were either not designed or designed by an idiot.
  • The video that convinced Disney Executives to go ahead with the movie TRON: