Cyberiad

HOME \| HYPERLINKS \| KONG BENG SPORTS AND STATIONERY \| August 2002
Introduction Cyberiad is a shared account used by several persons. Please address your email to the appropriate recipient. cyberiad@pacific.net.sg	A series of whimsical commentaries on the state of the world, culture, music, technology, fiction, travels, games, film, art, and more.
World Books Music Enterprise Food Hyperlinks Fabulist Literature Stanislaw Lem Italo Calvino Jorge Luis Borges Salman Rushdie Culture Edge SlashDot Salon Magazine Enterprise Business Week Fortune Forbes Bloomberg Information Technology MIT Technology Review Red Herring Upside PC Magazine PC World Internet World Byte CNET ZDNet Wired Mondo 2000 2600 Science and Technology Discover Discovery Channel Scientific American New Scientist Nature Richard Dawkins Hardware Tom's Hardware Guide ExtremeTech AnandTech Bill's Workshop The Firing Squad Hardware Zone Military Jane's Naval Institute Press Air Power Online Strategy Page Defence Aerospace Music Elements A Different Drum Isolation Tank Al Crawford's Reviews Music Labels A Different Drum Projekt Hypnotic / Cleopatra Mute October 4AD Metropolis Records Wargames Decision Games 3W The Gamers Roleplaying Games Warhammer GURPS Call of Cthulhu Runequest Heroquest RPG Companies Steve Jackson Games Chaosium White Wolf Hogshead Games Workshop Wizards of the Coast Search Engine Northern Light	games Board Games and Card Games Interaction Here is a list of my board games and card games. Continued... games Wargames Creating Conflicts and Imaginary Conflicts The following is a list of my wargames. Continued... books Science Fiction and Fantasy Essentials Essentials of the realm of the fantastic The following is what I consider to be Science Fiction and Fantasy essentials. Continued... books Warhammer Novels A listing of Warhammer and Warhammer 40 000 novels Warhammer novels are set in the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40 000. The worlds are the creation of Games Workshop and are created as an evergrowing background for their miniatures games, boardgames and roleplaying game. The latter two forms have generally disappeared from Games Workshop inventory over the years. Continued... military affairs Fighters A collection of images and information. Fighters is a web site of things related to fighters. music Elements Elements. A secret garden. A discordant treasury of perspectives, etchings, dreams, conceptions, and writings. Elements is a music site specialising in Electronic, Gothic, industrial, trance, synthpop, ambient and other form of music. The orientation is towards short reviews of electronic music. The likes of St Etienne could be found beside Tangerine Dream. Depeche Mode, Orbital, Future Sound of London, Apoptygma Berzerk, X marks the Pedwalk, Frontline Assembly, Clan of Xymox, and others serve to populate Elements. Elements is a sister site of this site. roleplaying games Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies and Munchkins The classic munchkin manual by Jeff Okamoto, Sandy Petersen, and lots of others The whole thing started around 1983 or so at a party at Pacificon at the Dunfey Hotel in San Mateo in which the idea came up of classifying the different styles of roleplaying. They came up with four different types, which are explained below. Special credit goes to Perry Caro, Chris Guthrie, Rick Heli, Robert Allen, and Ken Kaufman, to name a few. Basic Player Types The Real Man The tough macho type who walks up to the attacking dragon and tells him to leave before he gets hurt. The Real Roleplayer The intelligent cunning guy who tricks the constable into letting you all out of prison. The Loonie The guy who will do anything for a cheap laugh, including casting a fireball at ground zero. The Munchkin Need we say more? Continued... music St Etienne St Etienne conjures the heady feel of 60s amidst the lush programming. Lounge Pop at its best. To be completed. Continued...
Cyberiad. This term has nought to do with the current Cyberspace phenomena, instead, it is the title of a 1974 fabulist tract, 'The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age', a masterpiece written by the iconoclastic Stanislaw Lem. This magical work consisting of short fables, written during the stifling Communist era in Poland, when the Warsaw Pact was close to its nadir under the leadership of Brehne. 'Cyberiad' describes the two constructors who in trying to out-invent each other conjuring the most bizarre and hilarious of situations and creations, including dragons of improbability, electronic bards and so forth. 'The Cyberiad' is a delightful collection of fables. Heavily recommended.	enterprise The Fall of a Giant The rise and fall of SyQuest, once the pre-eminent name in removable storage media comes as no surprise. This company, the precognitors of the removable media, was bought by an upstart which upstaged the stagnant giant in recent years. To be completed. Continued... world Bosnia A short commentary on the expectations of a solution in Bosnia and the aspirations of the Serbian nationalists. The roots of the Bosnian tragedy is the continuation of a play which started almost two millennia ago. The catastrophe of Hadrianopolis in 378 was the herald of a new era, bringing an end to Roman hegemony and the fall of a once great empire. Continued... food Theme Restuarants and Sidewalk Cafes The advent of Starbucks and the demise of theme restuarants The quality of life in Singapore has improved greatly. The late seventies and early eighties were a very dull period with little in the way of entertainment, and culture perhaps, stifled by the single-minded rush toward a better life. Continued... books On the Choice of books Borders makes a presence in Singapore. The arrival of an American giant bookseller, Borders, in Singapore signals a beginning of an intellectual life that was never present before. The implications of the entry of this large corporate entity, was greeted less with less than enthusaism by the local booksellers which had always been complacent, content to bring in bland coffee table books, bestseller fare and other very sale-able books, and at the same time, the local giant bookstores, like Times the Bookshop and MPH doubled as stationery and computer software joints. Continued...