4 ms·

I was heavily involved in various Nomic games (of that posted list, Agora and the Fantasy Rules Committee, and to some extent Internomic and I think Ackanomic a

I was heavily involved in various Nomic games (of that posted list, Agora and the Fantasy Rules Committee, and to some extent Internomic and I think Ackanomic as well; my site from grad school is one of the dead links under Agora) for a bunch of years during college and grad school, and it was deeply formative for me in terms of understanding how rules and systems work. And precise language. Agora was also the reason I learned Perl, when I got elected as the one who kept track of proposals and votes and inherited the perl scripts of my predecessor and had to read the man page (just one, it was Perl 4, excellently written but verrrry long) to learn the language to edit them. Which was also highly formative, come to think of it. Agora still seems to be alive and well, though, and coming up on 30 years old, at agoranomic.org .

jcreed 3y ago
oh hey Vanyel! I may not have been as heavily involved in Agora per se, but I was a member for a time (as "Pascal") and absolutely feel the same way about internet Nomic in the 90s being a cherished formative experience for me, both in terms of igniting a love for playing with formal systems --- and also I think it was the reason I learned Perl. And about Spivak pronouns, and strange daylight-saving timezone exceptions in the united states. (Kelly being in Indiana --- come to think of it, was it em who you inherited the perl scripts from?) I think I ended up experimenting with other more minimal-initial-ruleset systems later on, Micronomic/Macronomic? Good times in any case. Thanks a ton for your archival work, and thanks to everyone involved for making a kid's life more interesting in those heady early-internet days.
- blahedo 3y ago
  Hey Pascal! > Spivak pronouns Yes, also formative (I was extremely comfortable with gender-neutral pronouns by the time they went a bit more mainstream). > Kelly ... inherited the perl scripts from It was indeed! And we're still in touch—she got married to Lee (also from Agora) and both of them are still working doing tech stuff. Probably not many perl scripts though. :D

jcreed 3y ago

oh hey Vanyel! I may not have been as heavily involved in Agora per se, but I was a member for a time (as "Pascal") and absolutely feel the same way about internet Nomic in the 90s being a cherished formative experience for me, both in terms of igniting a love for playing with formal systems --- and also I think it was the reason I learned Perl. And about Spivak pronouns, and strange daylight-saving timezone exceptions in the united states. (Kelly being in Indiana --- come to think of it, was it em who you inherited the perl scripts from?) I think I ended up experimenting with other more minimal-initial-ruleset systems later on, Micronomic/Macronomic? Good times in any case. Thanks a ton for your archival work, and thanks to everyone involved for making a kid's life more interesting in those heady early-internet days.

blahedo 3y ago
Hey Pascal! > Spivak pronouns Yes, also formative (I was extremely comfortable with gender-neutral pronouns by the time they went a bit more mainstream). > Kelly ... inherited the perl scripts from It was indeed! And we're still in touch—she got married to Lee (also from Agora) and both of them are still working doing tech stuff. Probably not many perl scripts though. :D