Friday, January 12, 2007

Book Meme: Does This Count?

by Tom Bozzo

Drek tagged me with the following blog homework:
There were two candidates, and this is the second, since I didn't consider it a book at first: the Sid Meier's Civilization IV Quick Start Manual. For those of you who were dying to know whether I chose the nap or Civ last week, the game won out. I try not to think about how many years I could have shaved off my graduate school ordeal had I better ability to resist the charms of Civ I and MOO, especially as there was no Internet to speak of at the time.

When you think "Quick Start Manual," you probably think tri-fold card saying "Insert CD and double-click the installer," but this one runs 144 pages. Maybe that should be Quick [sic] Start Manual. We can only imagine what the full manual would look like in hardcopy.

Page 123 describes the "player menu" of the "custom game screen." The fifth sentence is classic computer documentation-ese:
Your name always appears in the top slot (assuming that you created the game).
Uh, so it doesn't always appear in the top slot?

The next three:
You can set the following slots to one of three settings:

Open: Available for other human players. See "Multiplayer Games" for more details.
No posthumans need apply? Transhumans? Xenians? It's funny that you are referred to another section of the manual for details on "other human players."

As for a tag, I need to think of someone who hasn't had the opportunity to be tagged with this chestnut, and who might be game. So I pick Dan and Kim. Is the sociology professorate reading something more interesting than a SAS User's Guide? Stay tuned...
// posted by Tom Bozzo @ 7:58 AM
Comments:
The Civ IV manual would be greatly preferred over my current reading materal...

But Civ IV is not permitted in this house until I have finished my MA and Lee has finished his book manuscript.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : Fri Jan 12, 08:52:00 AM
 
I can't claim this is more interesting than the SAS User's Guide, but I did my homework!
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : Fri Jan 12, 10:16:00 AM
 
Mrs C.: Smart move, esp. if your spouse (unlike mine) would not necessarily be encouraging you to stop playing and to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Dan: Your example was pretty good, short of material (if any) that might describe roles of the institutional religion in faculty life.
# posted by Blogger Tom Bozzo : Fri Jan 12, 11:10:00 AM
 
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