Okay, so if plywood is real wood and medium density fiberboard isn't, what do we call MDF with birch veneer? What do we call actual solid birch? How about three cubic feet of solid nonlaminated wood -- just a myth?

"More wood than wood."
-Tyrell Lumber

@# Remmelt

If you enjoyed Passage, you should check out the game Jason Rohrer made after Passage, Gravitation:

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/

Gravitation moves from the idea of simply watching this sort of thing unfold (the story of a life told in a matter of seconds, the end of the life of an old woman) to actually implicating the person playing the game in the outcome of the "life" that is being presented. Gravitation is, in this sense, somewhat more abstract, but it's pretty successful in realizing its goals.

The idea of involving the player in the outcome of the scenario, even in the limited scope of a game like Gravitation, is one of the things that separates video games from other ...well, I'd say "forms of art," but we could just say that this is one of the qualities that can make games, and video games especially, unique experiences for the audience (or reader, or player, whatever).

Games like the Graveyard (and other work done by or presented by Tale of Tales) seem very much like the sort of vivisection of ideas we see in fine art all the time -- highly concentrated snippets of art that can have implications deep, wide and/or far, but which are often, in and of themselves, utterly banal.

@Tom (#119)

"You don't get to decide what goes into my lungs. I do."

I've decided that garlic and onions are going into your lungs. What are you going to do about that? Start lobbying early, 'cause you're gonna have a hard time winning any legislation with this logic as an underpinning.

Where did all you brainwashed fascist wannabes get that "your right to smoke stops at my lungs" slogan from? Did any of you think it through?

"Your right to write insipid drivel stops at my eyeballs."

"Your right to play loud music stops at my ears."

What are you mindless pussies going to do when you come across a real problem?

"GE's right to dump PCBs stops at my skin?"

Too late! Real problems are going to have to be dealt with upstream, yeah?

And what's enough for you? I quit your religion. I quit your cocaine. I quit your heroin. I quit your prescription painkillers. I still smoke cigarettes. Sorry, so sorry. I'll work harder to make you happy, because clearly I'm not doing enough for you. I reeeeeeealy want you to be happy.

As heartbreaking as that is, it seems like the loss of all those textbooks is "only" an example of a malicious act by an individual, as opposed to an example of the complete failure of the education system in Detroit (or the United States, in general). Sweet Juniper, the Flickr user linked to here, writes that "on the third floor of the book depository, there had clearly been a major fire." That's gonna have had a ruinous effect on a warehouse full of books on the floor below.

According to a discussion in the forums at atdetroit.net, the building "was destroyed by fire in the late 80s by a disgruntled employee." There are a lot of insightful and interesting comments about this building in that short thread.

Here's a photo of the outside of the building, in case anyone's curious:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snweb/54492761/
This picture is especially fun for the fact that it shows the roof with the collapsed skylight/garden featured in Sweet Juniper's set.

@ eclectro (#27)

This is a great point to raise! If the calender is a collection of images of Ford cars that have been modified in various ways by club members, I don't see how the club could be infringing on Ford's "intellectual property" even if they're selling the calender in a for-profit venture. All the club would have to do is carefully document exactly what user-created modification is being depicted and they should be set. ...Assuming they can financially survive the court case, of course.

If the calender is meant to depict user-created modifications of Ford cars, how else could the club possibly achieve their goal except to print pictures of the cars?

@Pork Musket (Nos. 5, 11 & 14)

It doesn't seem like anyone has really replied to the point you're raising, so I'll give it a try. I have to say, though, it seems that if you have read Schneier's article, as Mr. Doctorow implores you to do, you are misunderstanding the point being made and, hopefully unintentionally, introducing a degree of FUD to the discussion here.

As has been pointed out, and as you observe yourself, the example you provided isn't terribly malicious. It's on par with trying to connect to what appears to be an open network only to find that it doesn't provide a connection to the Internet. No big deal.

But the point you're trying to make, obviously, is that if you're using an open network and you enter your bank account information, that information can be recorded by people running the network you're using. Okay, that seems intuitively plausible.

But so what?

This situation means that when one is using an open local network as an Internet connection, one should avoid transmitting sensitive information over that connection. That seems like good advice and is a kind of low-level common sense for using the Internet on par with "Don't double-click on unexpected attachments that purport to be naked pictures of Martina Navratilova," et cetera.

No matter how useful, I think we can get off the "Can we really trust the Internet?" train of thought at this point -- that is not what is being discussed here.

Schneier and Doctorow are writing about running an open network, not accessing one.

To the extent that he addresses being vulnerable while using one's own open local network, Schneier actually uses exactly the argument you're raising, except in reverse -- you should be focusing on securing your computer, not your network. From his article:

"[M]y computers are much more at risk when I use them on wireless networks in airports, coffee shops and other public places. If I configure my computer to be secure regardless of the network it's on, then it simply doesn't matter. And if my computer isn't secure on a public network, securing my own network isn't going to reduce my risk very much."

So the point Schneier and Doctorow are making stands -- the risk of running an open local network is lower than it may seem to be and the benefits largely outweigh that risk.

@7 "'Christian Atheism' is to Theology as 2 is to binary."

2 in binary is 10. Your simile is kind of confusing.

#8: "being captured and interrogated vs. being a passenger on a flight knowing you're going to burn in a fiery crash"

Is that really the choice? How about:

being captured and interrogated vs. being taken to a prison, having a lawyer assigned to you and enjoying the protections of the law under which you are being accused;

being captured and interrogated vs. having a really horrible experience in an uncaring system that, at least, is fundamentally designed for the protection of all people; or

being captured and interrogated vs. eating cake.

You can make emotional claims like "being alive for a split second as your skin melts and you gasp for air as burning jetfuel fills your lungs before you *actually* die" and I can make funny claims like "eating cake," but both of us are going to have to actually show that our claims have some basis in reality.

...Actually, I don't have to show that about my claim, since it's just satire and isn't intended to be taken seriously. Perhaps we can receive your claim the same way.