podcast friday

[sabotabby]

 Go listen to the Wizards & Spaceships episode "Some People Call Me the Space Cowboy." No particular reason. It's about Space Westerns, problematic representation, and why Firefly was bad, actually.

Comments

[selki]

Yes, Steve Jackson, of Steve Jackson Games, like I said. I don't know where your reply is coming from or why I would be perceived as needing to be excused. I volunteered for SJG at many conventions demoing their games in the 1990s, thereby earning free swag and games from them, including an early prototype of the Frag DeadLands board game, and various GURPS books, and, of course, *Hacker*, the board game inspired by the SS raid. I was a member of the Electronic Freedom Frontier and of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, I was aware of the raid at the time and the near-destruction of SJG thereby (I'm pretty sure it was also talked about on comp.risks at the time, or at least once the lawsuit was filed, as being computer security (overreach) related) and of EFF's amicus brief, and I read Bruce Sterling's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hacker_Crackdown 1992 book with great interest. For those who've read this far and want more context, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service

[greylock]

Aha!
So, back in the day, when I was involved in gaming circles, when Steve Jackson was mentioned, it was always a riff, because you had to determine if you were talking about the UK or US game designer.

Obviously my attempt at being flippant didn't translate at all. So, I should apologise.

But how we laughed back in the day at the stupidity of the US SS. It usually involved references to Paranoia! and Illumunati (the latter is still my favourite card came of all time).

I do have the Sterling book in hardback somewhere, a relic of my days of hanging around "cyberpunks".

[selki]

Thanks for clearing that up!

Oh, I FREAKED out a guy I'd started to date when I mentioned playing the card game Illuminati. It turned out he took all that seriously. We were not together long.

I think I culled the Sterling book at last while prepping to move in 2019 (gave boxes of books to the library). I hope someone else bought it at the library fundraiser used book sale.

[greylock]

One of my favourite bits from The Simpsons is the Reverse Vampires bit, which I swear was based off Illuminati. It reminds me of Illuminati's basic concept"
Ahem. OK, here's what we've got: the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people, under the supervision of the reverse vampires, are forcing our parents to go to bed early in a fiendish plot to eliminate the meal of dinner! We're through the looking glass, here, people.