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Thou sluggard
Jul. 11th, 2009 09:19 amIn all this recent kerfuffle about ZOMG sperm!, I haven't yet noticed any of the media coverage making reference to John Wyndham's 'Consider Her Ways'. Which you'd think would be obvious. A small kduo to the first mainstram commentator to do so, I think -- tell me if you spot one.
(And a very large kudo if anyone spots a mention of Gene Wolfe's interesting but rather baffling 'In Looking-Glass Castle', which is also relevant.)
In other news, thanks to the people who came up with ideas and who helped me test my PHP -> MySQL problem the other day -- it turns out it was indeed in the server configuration. The hosting tech support eventually told me that they've set it up deliberately so as to forbid any communication with external databases. The reason being that they see this as a major security risk. (I didn't ask them why; I'd lost most of the will to live by that stage.)
(And a very large kudo if anyone spots a mention of Gene Wolfe's interesting but rather baffling 'In Looking-Glass Castle', which is also relevant.)
In other news, thanks to the people who came up with ideas and who helped me test my PHP -> MySQL problem the other day -- it turns out it was indeed in the server configuration. The hosting tech support eventually told me that they've set it up deliberately so as to forbid any communication with external databases. The reason being that they see this as a major security risk. (I didn't ask them why; I'd lost most of the will to live by that stage.)
The curse of ABP
Oct. 16th, 2007 11:15 amAdBlock Plus is a very useful Firefox extension. Except when you're laying out a page containing some ads, and spend ages wondering why the images are displaying properly in IE, but not in FF.
Luau lowdown
Apr. 4th, 2006 09:59 amOne of the things we do as part of the sales follow-up thing is to ask people for suggestions for settings for new games, and one of the most popular -- from the American customers -- is "a murder mystery set at a luau".
Now I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) they don't mean a game in which the characters are Polynesian tribal elders and someone's poisoned the taro paste, ie it's "a murder at a luau-themed party" rather than at an actual luau? But if so, what characterizes a luau-themed party? How is it different from a barbecue, other than in details of food and costume? What I'm driving at is, what associations does luau conjure up in the American mind, and what sorts of plots and characters are they thinking of?
I'll ask this in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
brits_americans as well, but I wondered if any of you guys had experience of such a thing, or had any vague idea of what it's about.
Now I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) they don't mean a game in which the characters are Polynesian tribal elders and someone's poisoned the taro paste, ie it's "a murder at a luau-themed party" rather than at an actual luau? But if so, what characterizes a luau-themed party? How is it different from a barbecue, other than in details of food and costume? What I'm driving at is, what associations does luau conjure up in the American mind, and what sorts of plots and characters are they thinking of?
I'll ask this in
brits_americans as well, but I wondered if any of you guys had experience of such a thing, or had any vague idea of what it's about.George Graham Rice
Feb. 9th, 2006 03:48 pmOK, I think we've established that he is extremely obscure! -- the US-type folks on brits_americans didn't have any more clue than you guys did. I think I'll get back to our author and suggest she drops the reference. Thanks everyone for replying!
He was a notorious stock promoter / swindler, best known probably for his book My Adventures with Your Money -- there's a good account of him here. Maybe deserves to be better known!
brits_americans didn't have any more clue than you guys did. I think I'll get back to our author and suggest she drops the reference. Thanks everyone for replying!He was a notorious stock promoter / swindler, best known probably for his book My Adventures with Your Money -- there's a good account of him here. Maybe deserves to be better known!
Obscurity of reference?
Feb. 9th, 2006 11:35 amA quick bit of market research for something an author has sent in for one of the games.
Have you heard of the late 19th century American figure George Graham Rice? If so, what do you associate him with? (No Googling etc, just what comes off the top of your head please.)
And, if you've got this far, please do comment with "Nope" if that's the answer (rather than just not commenting), will give me a better proportion of recognition level!
Edit: OK, that's enough now, thanks! See next journal entry for explanation.
Have you heard of the late 19th century American figure George Graham Rice? If so, what do you associate him with? (No Googling etc, just what comes off the top of your head please.)
And, if you've got this far, please do comment with "Nope" if that's the answer (rather than just not commenting), will give me a better proportion of recognition level!
Edit: OK, that's enough now, thanks! See next journal entry for explanation.
Latvian scam?
Dec. 19th, 2005 08:02 pmWhile I was away we had an inquiry from a person in Latvia who wanted to buy a game. He asked for our bank details so he could BACS the money across to us directly. My esteemed business partner, who was looking after this sort of thing in my absence, responded by asking why he couldn't use a credit / debit card / Paypal like everyone else? We've not heard back from that yet...
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but this screamed "SCAM!" to me. Not sure exactly what use our bank details would be to a scammer, though? After all we have the bank details of all our authors / affiliates etc, so we can BACS them their royalties and whatever, and I've not yet thought of a way to use that information to fleece them?
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but this screamed "SCAM!" to me. Not sure exactly what use our bank details would be to a scammer, though? After all we have the bank details of all our authors / affiliates etc, so we can BACS them their royalties and whatever, and I've not yet thought of a way to use that information to fleece them?
