Last week the 2nd expansion to the video game, Sid Meier’s Civilization V was released. Against my better judgement I download it on day one. I’ve only managed to finish four games since then, but that still represents substantial time and effort…

I keep trying to improve my various web mashups as APIs change and I pick up a new trick or two. Alas in 2019 I think many of the APIs I was using have become much more restrictive. One idea I had was to decrease the number of albums from every CD I own to say one hundred. I thought this would make the code run better as a lot of effort is spent trying to find information about obscure albums. Even my top 100 albums includes some unusual choices…

I read recently about a woman in Alaska who makes her living blogging about woodworking. Apparently that is another niche I missed out on when I set up Muskblog and Muschamp.ca, I’ve always liked working with wood.

The second expansion Brave New World came out and I downloaded on day one (July 8th 2013)…

Civilization did not spring fully conceived from the mind of Sid Meier back in 1991. It was an extension of his previous work such as Pirates! and more directly Railroad Tycoon. It was also influenced by the board game Civilization, it’s successors such as Advanced Civilization and to a lessor extent History of the World. Other influences came from the literary world…