Architecture of Authority- May 24, 2008 Via Boing Boing, here's photographer Richard Ross's exhibition of Architecture of Authority (Aperture Press, 2007). John R. MacArthur's accompanying essay discusses these "unsettling and thought-provoking pictures of architectural spaces that exert power over the individuals within them":From a Montessori preschool to churches, mosques and diverse civic spaces including a Swedish courtroom, the Iraqi National Assembly hall and the United Nations, the images in Architecture of Authority build to.http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2008/05/architecture-of-authority.html Japanese highways = Alpha Complex- May 22, 2008 All transbot passengers, autocar drivers, and other future victims should check out Ken Ohyama's breathtaking photos of Japanese highway interchanges. They remind me of Joe Nishizawa's photos of underground Tokyo that I linked in "Alpha Complex made real" (April 16, 2008).I'm not sure where you'd fit these overpasses and cloverleafs in an underground city -- but Alpha Complex, like any state of mind, can be a big place.http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2008/05/japanese-highways-alpha-complex.html Running PARANOIA for the first time: How-to- May 20, 2008 Another fine resource on the leading PARANOIA fan site, Paranoia-Live.net: Citizen No. 5127 has collected many helpful links from the P-L.net forums about gamemastering PARANOIA for the first time. These posts are publicly available (RED Clearance):New at GMing...any tipsAdvice neededNew to PARANOIAI want to GM, but I need some infoCurious about GMing a gameFirst-time PARANOIA GMGMing PARANOIA for the first time!5127 also lists four posts in the Gamemaster-only forum. To see these, register at..http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2008/05/running-paranoia-for-first-time-how-to.html PARANOIA articles in Signs & Portents magazine- May 19, 2008 On Paranoia-Live.net, loyal citizen CPUreaucrat has compiled a reference list of PARANOIA-related articles in Mongoose Publishing's in-house magazine, Signs & Portents. These articles are various and uneven; that said, the recent entries by Gareth (The Traitor's Manual) Hanrahan are uniformly worthwhile. Gareth is even now finishing up the first new PARANOIA supplement in many months, The Big Book of Bots, to be published later this summer.http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2008/05/paranoia-articles-in-signs-portents.html eBay auctions nonexistent PARANOIA product- May 18, 2008 An inexplicable eBay auction for the never-published and nonexistent PARANOIA mission Spin Control prompted a Mongoose Publishing forum thread detailing the "Spin Control" publishing history. In brief: "Spin Control" has been published in Alpha Complex Nights but, to date, nowhere else. The product in the eBay auction doesn't exist and has never existed. So what does this seller think he has 990 copies of No idea.http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2008/05/ebay-auctions-nonexistent-paranoia.html RPG.net Gaming Index reaches 10,000- May 14, 2008 On an industry mailing list, RPG.net's Shannon Appelcline wrote, "We hit a great milestone on the RPG.net Gaming Index last week: 10,000 unique books and magazines. When I consider that my old standby reference, Heroic Worlds, had about 3,600 entries, I'm amazed by both how much the industry has grown since then and how much data we've managed to collect in just a couple of years. At this point I'm pretty sure we have 90+% of printed RPGs, though a lesser percentage of magazines and PDFs."...http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2008/05/rpgnet-gaming-index-reaches-10000.html The Battlespork- May 4, 2008 Gareth Hanrahan's PARANOIA mission "Spin Control," collected in Alpha Complex Nights, begins with a highly important Troubleshooter assignment to maintain andor destroy spork supplies in an INFRARED cafeteria. The mission naturally progresses from there to -- yes, you're way ahead of me -- to a public-relations campaign for brain-eating zombies. But the idea that pertains here is the spork.Now, spork fans, witness the revolutionary Battlespork -- spoon, fork, toothbrush, and self-cleaning razor.http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2008/05/battlespork.html Alphaslang article in Signs & Portents- May 1, 2008 Signs & Portents issue 56 (.PDF link), the latest issue of the Mongoose Publishing in-house magazine, is available for free download. This issue includes "Keep Your Dictionary Handy," a long, fun article by Zild (of Paranoia-Live.net) about slang terms used in Alpha Complex. Zild compiled the common slang seen in published PARANOIA books (vatslime, goosack), drew more from the active "Alphaslang" topic on the P-L.net forums (bootsmoke -- a dead citizen, plus seven other usages; still dripping..http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2008/05/alphaslang-article-in-signs-portents.html |