Believe it or not, there are things I like. Here are a few.
253 is a hypertext novel by Geoff Ryman. This is a novel that would not work on paper. There’s also an invitation to participate.
(After I wrote this rave, 253: the Print Remix was published. Maybe it can work on paper after all.)
The best-written coming out story I’ve read: Matthew’s Advice on Coming Out.
Need a graph, but don’t have the time or tools to lay it out? One word: GraphViz. Write a text file defining your graph’s nodes and edges, feed it into GraphViz, and out pops your graph in pretty much any format you could want. The software is powerful, flexible, open source, and perfect for scripting. Life is good. (If you’re looking to plot equations, there’s gnuplot.)
Adam Back asked a revolutionary question: what if costs a sender of an email message a little bit of CPU time to guarantee the message is delivered? The short answer is that if such a system were widely deployed, spam would cease. This idea is implemented in hash cash, which uses digital signatures to create a flexible system of electronic postage. Rates are controlled by the recipient, and the sender bears the cost. Hash cash is technically fascinating and easy to use, but has a fatal drawback: its success depends on widespread adoption. It’s frustrating that such a good idea languishes.
Cut Web crap with Privoxy. It’s a free proxy that filters Web junk: banner ads, cookies, and more. It’s very configurable, available for many operating systems, and runs silently. What more could you want?
For editing plain text files on Windows, the shareware editor TextPad beats Notepad hands down. Search and replace text in multiple files with one command. Easily search for text through an entire directory tree. Syntax highlighting. Its customizability & macro features let you quickly do work that would take hours in Notepad (or Word, for that matter). How many other editors lets you use regular expressions as search criteria?
Best of all, it’s well designed. Its interface has small, intelligent touches that leave me wondering why big-league word processors aren’t designed half as well.
There are lots of good popular Webcomics, so I’ll recommend one that’s a bit more obscure but can stand with the best: Joseph J. Anthony’s A Stray to Botaram.
I can spend hours reading the TV Tropes wiki.
ZBS radio serials: sassy science fiction, melodious mysteries, modern spiritual fantasy, and more!
The Zompist Phrasebook, “the last phrasebook you’ll ever need”.
Last updated 29 May 2008
http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/Raves/index.html
All contents ©1998-2002 Mark L. Irons