My friend Chad sent me an awesome image of Burning Man, so I located myself on the map for all the world to see:

Click the image for larger versions of the image and for the full photo.

Another sweeping, extraordinary tour of human history by Mr Diamond. History has become increasingly interesting to me (in my old age no doubt) and he makes it doubly interesting by couching it in a larger argument about the perilous course of the modern world. He even manages to leave the reader with a shred of optimism after pointing out the parallels between rampant present day resource depletion and the same depletion that preceded the collapse of numerous previous human civilizations.

At times a bit too postmodern for its own good. (Being postmodern before modernism even existed is no excuse, I don’t forgive Joyce either.) However, amid the winks and nudges is a pretty funny movie.

I gave a presentation at the Austin Games Conference with Michael Grundvig on the subject of using web technologies to create clients for MMOs and other multiplayer online games. The slides, for interested or insomniac parties, are available in PDF form.