Geek Love - New York Times
Rated • 2 reviews • cyberculture, games, gaming, geeks, op ed • nytimes.com
This is a fun little article about Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and the impact it's had on present day culture. The article was written as a nod to the passing of Gary Gygax, one of the game's co-creators. While I never played D&D myself, it did have an integral role in the lives of many people I care about.
"We geeks might not be able to intuit the subtext of a facial expression or a casual phrase, but give us a behavioral algorithm and human interactions become a data stream. We can process what's going on in the heads of the people around us. Through careful observation of body language and awkward silences, we can even learn to detect when we are bringing the party down with our analysis of how loop quantum gravity helps explain the time travel in that new "Terminator" TV show. I mean, so I hear.
Mr. Gygax's game allowed geeks to venture out of our dungeons, blinking against the light, just in time to create the present age of electronic miracles."
