Archive for July, 2006

Thoughts on URL Scheme

Sunday, July 30th, 2006

A while ago I read an interesting article that claimed that our current URI addressing scheme is counter intuitive. I do not necessarily support this point of view but I thought it was an interesting point. If you think about it, most URL’s look like this:

subdomain.domain.tld/folder/folder/file.ext

What is so counter intuitive about this? Well, the information is scattered all over the place without any logical arragnement. For example, why do we specify sub-domain before domain, even though in most of our other conceptual models, the child node comes after the parent? Why is the topmost container (TLD) smack dab in the middle of the address? Wouldn’t it be more logical to structure url’s this way:

tld.domain.subdomain/folder/folder/file.ext

Here we have a logical progression – first you type in the most general element of the address (tld) and then you drill down to more specific domain, sub-domain and the actual file. Just like the telephone number, when first you specify the area code.

Obviously, com-dot does not roll of the tongue like dot-com. It seems rather awkward, but the proposed structure is sound from a logical point of view. I’m not advocating changing the current scheme. That would be really stupid. But it’s food for thought.

Now if I could just remember who originally came up with this URL reversal idea… Any clue?

Gigi at Comicon 2006

Sunday, July 30th, 2006
Gigi

The Gigi Enthusiast Service has some nice pictures of Gigi Edgley at the ComicCon 2006.

I guess this is a good time to do one of my “Farscape Con Stories”. For the record, I went only once, but it was a blast. It was the 2002 New York Creation Con, and it did cost me a small fortune to guy the tickets, only to end up having shitty seats in like the 10th row. But I’m not complaining – I got to hang out with some of my message board buddies, and I met Gigi. All in all, I think it was money well spent. :) At some point they have set up a picture session with Anth, Gigi and Wayne. They would sit you in between the 3 of them, and someone would snap your picture. My picture is actually quite bizarre:

New York Farscape Con
click to embigen

I came out like a total dork, Wayne looks like he is constipated and Anth is screaming for some reason. Some smart ass has decided that he wants a picture with Gigi lying on their laps. She was totally cool with it and she played along. Of course then everyone started asking for that.

Gigi would have kept doing this but each time she climbed up on top of her cast mates, her skirt was riding way up. I guess this made her feel uncomfortable, and Anth told her not to do this. That is what I’m assuming, because I could not hear the actual conversation. But this is what I gathered by observing their exchange. So Gigi politely refused the next 2-3 offers for the non-standard picture.

5 minutes later, she decided to be a good sport and started doing it again. She also took one-on-one pictures with the few of us who were brave (or bold) enough to approach her after the session.

Another interesting fact is that to take candid pictures of Gigi you need a special equipment – it’s kinda like trying to snap a shot of a hummingbird in mid flight. She just never stops moving. All my convention pictures of her are blurry as hell – except for the ones that we actually managed to anchor her down, and make her look into the camera.

A guy who apparently sat 2 rows ahead of me doing the show, and used a super-duper zoom lens, also had some motion blur problems. My pics came out like shit because I had both a shitty camera, and a shitty seat.

But let’s get back to the new pictures. Take a gander at this picture from the ComicCon. The lady who sits next to her doesn’t look really happy, does she? She is most likely there to chase you off as soon as you get your autograph. And you can see she hates every second of this.

Mark of Chaos Trailer

Sunday, July 30th, 2006
Mark of Chaos

Holly Fucking Shit! I absolutely love the new Mark of Chaos Trailer [youtube mirror]. It is so incredibly bad ass cool that it leaves me speechless. If you are not a fan of Warhammer you will probably not understand. This vid made me feel the same way the first LOTR trailers did. Or like that time when I was watching the earliest trailers for Phantom Menace (back then we still hoped that the movie will live up to the originals).

This is the kind of giddy excitement that you experience when seeing your favorite fictional universe being brought to life on the movie screen. These guys should make a full CGI Warhammer movie!

I’m serious about this. It would be a good time for someone to license the universe from Games Workshop and make a feature film. Enough time has passed to avoid looking like a cheep LOTR ripoff, and the audiences are getting hungry for another good fantasy production. Someone could really cash in on this…

As for the actual game – meh… Doesn’t do much for me. It looks like an upgraded Dark Omen, which by the way did not rock my boat at all :P But the trailer… Holly shit, it is awesome!