The Story of Janus...

A few things that made me happy today:
1. I found out that I got an A- and two A's in my letter-graded classes (and a Pass in the Blog DeCal), so that can only make my cumulative GPA go up from its current 3.675 standing.
2. I accidentally forgot my ATM card in an ATM, but when I found out and went back to the bank, I learned that the machine will suck it back in if its not taken, and as it turned out, they were just then checking the machines. I was able to get the card back then and there.
3. After stepping out of a card game with some residents (both my own and someone else's), I overheard one of the girls (not mine) saying to one of the guys (mine), "You're RA is so much cooler than mine." Although I'm not in competition with my co-workers, I couldn't help but smile.

Yeah, these residents are so much better than my old ones. I can say, without hyperbole, that in the last few days, I've had more residents attend things (programs, group dinners, etc.) than in the entire academic year (and that includes my suite mates, who never even went to dinner). I feel spoiled (and, truth be told, am; everyone knows this is nothing like being an academic year RA).

While at one of the group dinners, I found myself talking about one of the more...interesting chapters in my online history. I'm planning on writing one day about my various online personas, but I feel that this merits it's own post, seeing as its so...interesting.

Years ago (in 2000 or 2001, to be more specific), there was a subset of the WB network called Kids WB! I've been told that this still exists, but with its currently uninspired helping of television dribble, it may as well be dead to me. The point is, back in 2000 or 2001, the website for Kids WB! had its own forum. Now, forums back in the "ol' days" weren't as sophisticated as they are nowadays. There were no divisions and subdivisions; it was just a single page listing the hundreds of topics. And these forums had a pretty lousy moderation system. There was one character named Joe Pants or something like that. His topics looked like this:

"I WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH ALL THE PRETTY LADIES OUT THERE!!!!!!" -Joe Pants
"Oooooo, Joe Pants is sooooo sexy." -Anonymous
"I want to do Joe Pants." -Anonymous

Keep in mind, the primary demographic of this site was pre-teens. There were lots of these topics though, and it didn't seem like anyone was doing anything about them. I think stuff like this was one of the two primary reasons for the downfall of the Kids WB! forums, less than two months after its inception.

The other reason, I'm almost sure, was me.

I'll let that sink in for a second. You see, I'm pretty sure my actions on these forums helped deteriorate its quality. Ironically, my intention was exactly the opposite. Huh? Gather round, my children, and I shall tell you a tale!

Now, in addition to the semi-profane topics, and amongst the hundreds of others, I found plenty that went like this:

"[Insert TV Show Name] SUCKS!! IF YOU LIKE IT YOU ARE GAY! ONLY BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH AND SO ON AND SO FORTH!!!" -Anonymous

Yep, classic examples of flaming. If I'm not mistaken, the "Pokemon" TV show was the most popular target, but every show had at least a few topics targeting it. It was a waste of space, plus it was genuinely mean. There were kids on the site, and some seemed to actually be hurt by what was said.

Something had to be done. Someone had to act. I had to act.

I immediately formed one of my earliest online pseudonyms: Janus, after the two-headed Roman god. (Get it? Two-headed...pseudonyms...aw, forget it!) I then went on and typed up an extremely eloquent post (at least, eloquent for a 12-or-13-year-old) saying, in a nutshell who I was, condemning the actions of hateful flaming based on show preferences, and encouraging those who agreed with me to join the (narcissistically named) "Janus Club."

And what can I say? It was a hit. Within a few days, I got dozens of emails requesting to join the Janus club, and asking what membership entailed. I gave them two objectives:
1. Stop topics that flamed people based on their TV Show preferences.
2. Encoruage others to join the club.

And people latched on. I guess they needed something to believe in during those early days of mass internet usage. I distinctly remember seeing a topic on the forums which asked "How can I join the Janus Club?" having over a dozen responses. At that point, I knew I had made it. There were a few complications, of course. Children, being utterly stupid, thought that the name "Janus" was equivalent to "Janice" and so many people thought I was a girl until I straightened them out. Overall, though, things began well.

But, in the classic totalitarian style, things changed, except the groups idealism. But, as they say, "The path to Hell is paved with good intentions."

To put it bluntly, the Janus club became incredibly corrupt. We were built to stop flaming, but it turned out that flaming became the group's primary tool. Whenever there was a topic that even remotely said anything negative (even if it was "I didn't like this week's episode of [Insert Show Here]"), it would be replied to with at least 20 all-caps messages that basically boiled down to saying "SHUT UP! YOUR STOOPID!" And ended with the ubiquitous phrase:

"All hail Janus! Join the Janus Club!"

Yes, what they were doing was wrong, but my ego was so bloated that I didn't care. I loved seeing that a good chunk of the topics on the forum were either directly or indirectly related to me. Joe Pants be damned, I owned that forum!

And then, one day, it just...disappeared.

The whole forum, gone. The link to it, gone. Any mention of it, gone. My fame, my power...gone.

At the time, I could fathom why they would take it down. The Kids WB! community was so active; it was a great part of the website. And I was such a juggernaut on there. It took me a few years to really think things through, but I soon realized that, maybe, I was the reason it was shut down (one of them, at least). As I said, a good chunk of the topics were either about me directly (on both sides of the opinion) or had my club members flaming away. It was a war zone. In trying to stop a firefight, I had begun a nuclear war. Funny when you think about it.

Kids WB! hasn't brought back a forum on their site...ever. That short experiment was over and done with, and I think they learned their lesson. I have also never used the name "Janus" for any other purpose. Originally, it was because too many people thought I was a girl, but since then, I think its more out of respect...respect for the name I had in which I essentially became a corrupt cult leader.

So, that's the story behind that. Will something like that ever happen again? Only time will tell, children. Only time will tell...

Are You Ready for Some Serious Senet Action?!?

I have a predisposition - a thing, if you will - for antiquity. Perhaps that's part of the reason I took an Art and Architecture of Ancient Greece class last semester, and why this semester I'm taking a seminar on Alexander the Great (with a little discussion on his lesser-known step-brother, Steven the Mediocre). I won't go into a discussion of why I think this is; truth be told, I don't know exactly why. However, I will include a small snippet from the author's note one of my yet-unfinished Chronicles of Fate novels which touches on the subject. Keep in mind, this was written years ago, so that accounts for the less-than-stellar wording and using the term "online diaries."

I have always been interested in history. What particularly fascinated me was ancient history. Egypt, Greece, Rome; all of these cultures have captured my imagination for one simple reason – we don’t know too much about them. Nowadays, we have thousands of copies of important and even unimportant documents. Our modern belief is that everyone that can know information should know it. Computers make this even more the standard. A person in Indonesia can learn about the daily life of a Swiss girl through an online diary. As useful as all this information can be, it is depriving us of what I believe is one of our most valuable resources – speculation. For it was speculation, a wondering of what could be, that has led people to search for the answers to the puzzles our world.

Yeah, I'm going to have to edit that a bit in the future. But the sentiment is still (roughly) the same. I think part of what attracts me is the mystery of the past, and the ability to speculate as to what it actually was.

Example?

Umm...oh, the shafts in the Great Pyramids! There were, like, these shafts that were found, almost too small for a human to fit through, but it was seen that they led to a cavity in the pyramids. Some thought that these cavities were filled with treasures, or bodies, or something, and so they explored it. And then...they found out there was nothing. All interest in the shafts suddenly ceased, since the reality was so much more mundane than the mystery.

Anyhoo, I was on a Wikipedia binge the other day (if you're unfamiliar with the term, it's when you look up one article on Wikipedia, then click on a link to another article, then another link to another article, and so on and so forth). Here's the particular path my binge went on (at least, as clearly as I remember it):

The Riddler => Batman => Robin => Teen Titans => Raven => List of fictional characters who can manipulate darkness or shadow => Ganon => The Legend of Zelda => Nintendo => Video Games => Games => Board Games => Senet

Now, Senet is an ancient board game (perhaps the first board game) and has absolutely nothing to do with the Riddler. That's the beauty of a Wikipedia binge.

But back on topic: this "Senet" thing caught my interest. A board game? From antiquity? That sounds exciting. If I learned to play it, I could play a game that pharaohs have played 5500 years ago. And what if I were to practice it, so as to be the world's greatest player of the world's oldest game (lofty ambitions, perhaps)?

Unfortunately, we'll never know for sure how the game was played (that's part of the mystery). However, there have been a few ideas by scholars as to what the rules were, and so there have been some recreations of the game. It's probably easy to recreate yourself, and maybe I will one day (or I'll just cave in and actually buy one from one of the many fine American board game manufacturers). In the meantime, though, there are plenty of online versions that you can play.

In fact, here's one!

It's a simplified version, but it's still fun (especially if you have an opponent whose not just a figment of your imagination). The rules are explained on the site itself, so I won't go too much into them. However, I will say that if you decide to make your own version of the game, you cannot use a die for movements. The odds are different than with sticks. For example, here are the odds of getting a certain number on a die:
1: 1/6
2: 1/6
3: 1/6
4: 1/6
5: 1/6
6: 1/6

While here are the odds of getting the numbers with the Senet sticks:
1: 4/16
2: 6/16
3: 4/6
4: 1/16
5: Impossible
6: 1/16

But enough of my statistical rambling. If you haven't played the game yet, click that link back up there. Enjoy!