Nothing and Some More

Daily Kos has a transcript of the Stephen Colbert closing at the White House correspondents' dinner. And there are so far 52577 people saying thank you to Stephen for it

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.
But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

MobyGames has an interesting overview of Interactive Fiction, the past and the future

The Case Of Randolph Carter is a work of interactive fiction which is playable in your web browser.

And Inform 7 allows you to write interactive fiction in plain english (only for OSX and Win32 so far).

The wood-slatted crate is in the Gazebo. The crate is a container.Mr Jones wears a top hat. The crate contains a croquet mallet.Instead of taking the crate, say "It's far too heavy to lift."

and when I type take the crate, I will get the answer : "it's far too heavy to lift".

Unfortunately, this is in english only.

And speaking of game with words and adventures, /. has an overview of recents releases in the role gaming world: Generic Dungeons, Universal Dragons.That includes GURPS For Dummies

And in the comments, a few more interestings games:

Kill Puppies for Satan: An Unfunny Roleplaying Game: the system is minimal in the way that particularly irritates people who would rather be playing rolemaster or millenium's end. you have only six stats, for instance, and that's counting generously. one stat is how many people hate you

Primetime Adventures: Roleplaying games are about telling stories - why not make them about television shows instead?

Ninja Burger: The RPG 2nd Edition: Ninja Burger, the world's only fast-food chain run by ninja, is looking for new recruits. Do you have what it takes to work for them? Pirates need not apply!

And The Forge is a site dedicated to the promotion, creation, and review of independent role-playing games. An independent role-playing game is a game is owned by its author.

A nice 404 page

On /. again a discussion on Guantanamo started by a presentation of Marvel's Civil War where the SuperHeroes (tm) are fighting the law.

Today, Marvel Comics is releasing the first in its miniseries Civil War, which can only be described as a gutsy comic-book series focusing on the whole debate over homeland security and tighter government controls in the name of public safety.
The seven-issue series once again puts superheroes right back in the thick of real-world news, just as DC Comics has Batman battling al-Qaeda in a soon-to-appear comic and Marvel's X-Men continue to explore themes of public intolerance and discrimination.
It also recalls the plotline during the Watergate years when Captain America's alterego, disillusioned by White House politics, stopped donning the patriotic costume.
But with Civil War, hero is pitted against hero in the choice of whether or not to side with the government, as issues ranging from a Guantanamo-like prison camp for superheroes, embedded reporters and the power of media all play in the mix.

Wikipedia, as usual, has a page Civil War, Marvel Comics' big crossover event for summer 2006.

And the comic book is available in your favorite comic book shop and soon as cbr/cbz files on your favorite P2P network.

Why ABCDEFG and not FUCKED? On MetaFilter, Why do the letters of the alphabet occur in the particular order that they do? has some answers (via Kottke)

Dan Simmons: How to write well

Can someone really be taught how to write well?
As an elementary public-school teacher of 18 years, as well as in my former role of gifted-talented educator, national language arts consultant, sometime college lecturer, and occasional writer-in-residence for advanced programs for adults who want to become writers, I can answer that question with an emphatic yes if the question means – Can people of all ages be taught to improve their writing skills by quantum leaps?

Lambda the Ultimate: Rethinking Linguistic Relativity or the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is becoming more acceptable.

Webstemmer is a web crawler and HTML layout analyzer that automatically extracts main text of a news site without having banners, ads and/or navigation links mixed up.

Wikipedia in RDF: Wikipedia³ is a conversion of the English Wikipedia into RDF. It's a monthly updated dataset containing around 47 million triples. (via Danny Ayers RAW)

Jane Siberry (before the name change) tries to sell her music (as mp3) with a self-determined pricing: the buyer decides how much to pay, since november 2005 (via the freakonomics blog)

Some stats (as of Apr 15 2006): 17% accepted a gift from Jane (i.e. downloaded the mp3 without paying), 37% paid by determining price and 46% says they will paying Later:46%and the average price per track is $1.14 - 8% Paid Below Suggested: 8% - 79% Paid At Suggested and 14% Paid Above Suggested.

A webcam that tracks your face... em... a video...em... that demonstrates... em... what can be done (and an exemple of nice marketing: what works better for you? the fancy logitech pages for video effect or his... em... video ?)

Speaking of advertising, Mark Cuban says "live ads" are the only way for ads to survive: The future of the TV commercial is from the past...

And CBS is launching InnerTube, a tv using flash video

Les Sphinx contient les lettres des trois dernières années de la vie de l'auteur, prostituée genevoise."Rien n'y fera jamais. Ni morale, ni loi, ni prison, ni police. Les vraies Putes ne mourront jamais."