Seth [Truer Words] rates Utopia from a 'groupware perspective':

This game is excellent! There are virtually no graphics, other than some very large icons and the banner ads that support the game. It's a text-based RPG where you're supposed to build a "province" in a "kingdom". You work along side the other provinces in your kingdom (up to 24 others), and eventually go to war with other kingdoms.

Here's the opening blurb on the Utopia site:

Join over 60,000 players and experience the world's most popular interactive webgame! The Utopian Age of Conflict runs from October 27th into January! Join in and get involved in one of most unique and exciting experiences on the internet

Looks interesting. Something for the Christmas break.

Building the Network: Development Programme

SuperJANET4: Development of Network Support for Applications in Learning, Teaching and Research

This is a draft of a document that UKERNA would eventually like to publish as a statement of the programme of network related developments which need to be carried out to exploit SuperJANET4 properly, and in order to achieve the objectives originally set for it.

Before finalisation of any programme of developments we would like to give the JANET community an opportunity to comment - this is that opportunity. Comments on any aspect of the document are welcome and should be sent directly to Jeremy Sharp.

This document concentrates on "network-related" developments. It is clear however that the new generation of applications that are being developed are increasingly becoming "network-aware". Comments are therefore particularly invited as to how a better linkage in this development programme between the network and the application can be achieved.

Fantastic! Conversant gets an Enclosure Macro. Powerful stuff. Thanks Macrobyte!

I've just updated the Weblogger Bookmarklet HowTo with a screenshot of this new message being prepared for Duncan's Jotter once I had highlighted the text in the Weblogger in Action section:

Here is a screen shot of the Weblogger Bookmarklet in action.

Update: David [SiT] Carter-Tod has posted a version of his (Manila) weblogger bookmarklet that works for frames and iframes in IE. When I get time I'll modify this to work for Conversant weblog posts. Thanks David

via Adam Curry's Weblog - The Soul of the Ultimate Machine

To Dr. Smarr, the idea of a thinking machine that might emerge spontaneously from billions of interconnected large and small computers isn't harebrained at all. He said he was simply extrapolating a series of significant trends that, to him, are remarkably obvious. And when it comes to extrapolating trends and forecasting technological revolutions, Dr. Smarr is worth listening to.