National Characters is a long, multi-part essay about how computer games deal with the concept of nations and turns it into a game mechanic. The author, Troy Goodfellow of strategy gaming blog Flash of Steel, focuses on how the fourteen indistinguishable national factions of the original Sid Meier's Civilization have been treated by different games through the years.
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posted by Kattullus
on Aug 15, 2011 -
50 comments
Rocaterrania is a country located in part of what's often known as the
North Country of New York State, bordering on Canada. At least, it's there in the mind of Renaldo Kuhler, its creator, who has been imagining -- and sometimes physically creating -- the nation's
politics,
fashion, and artifacts since he was a teenager on his family's ranch in Colorado just after World War II. The son of
Otto Kuhler, who designed the
Hiawatha passenger trains of the Milwaukee Road railway, Renaldo needed an escape from ranch life. He invented a nation of forward-looking Eastern European immigrants with a vibrant, distinctly un-American culture. He warns, though, "it is not a Utopia." He has drawn, painted, and been the nation's history. He created its
language, Rocaterranski, and alphabet from Yiddish and Spanish and German. Rocaterrania is a large-scale work of fiction but sometimes the way Kuhler speaks, it sounds like he believes it's really there. Kuhler now
lives in Raleigh, North Carolina and is known about town for his Rocaterranian garb.
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posted by knile
on Jan 7, 2011 -
12 comments
Prelude to Federation - Like a neocolonial
SEZ (or
TAZ)
Paul Romer,
not to be confused with
David,
posits "less developed countries contract with capitalist nations to set up Hong Kong's for them... that we rethink sovereignty (respect borders, but maybe import administrative control); rethink citizenship (support residency, but maybe import voice in political affairs); and rethink scale (instead of focusing on nations, focus on cities—on city states like Hong Kong and Singapore)." cf.
neocameralism [
1,
2,
3]
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posted by kliuless
on May 21, 2009 -
16 comments
Isuma.tv is an amazing video sharing site for indigenous filmmakers.
Isuma is perhaps best known for their incredible work on films set in arctic Canada (
Atarnarjuat,
Journals of Knud Rasmussen and the upcoming
Before Tomorrow). Isuma.tv is a fantastic place to work by all sorts of First Nations film makers and is a much needed voice for the generally ignored indigenous artists.
Isuma was last discussed on Metafilter in
2002.
posted by dogbusonline
on Apr 30, 2008 -
3 comments
Country Studies: a comprehensive description and analysis of the country or region's historical setting, geography, society, economy, political system, and foreign policy.
posted by hama7
on Feb 8, 2004 -
11 comments
Were from the UN and we're here to help! Question: If you're a UN Weapons Inspector and a man jumps into your vehicle screaming "Save me! Save me!" clutching notebooks to his chest what do you do? The answer is simple, you turn him over to the Iraqi authorities who now claim to have "no information on the incident." This ought to foster more cooperation from Iraqi scientists...good work Blix and Co.
posted by RevGreg
on Jan 25, 2003 -
54 comments
NationStates.net allows you to create your own country, decide how it starts out by answering a short questionary, and then it gives you issues to solve (one per day, though you can set it to two per day). How you answer those issues determines how your country fares, the type of country it is, and many other things.
You can join the UN and elect a regional representative, create your own region that you and your friends can migrate to (all new nations start out in The Pacific, which is consequentially the largest region in NationStates, but you can move wherever you want).
posted by sailoreagle
on Jan 3, 2003 -
51 comments
Anti-immigrant parties gain support in Europe as they tap long-standing fears about security and the dilution of national identity. The deep running concern, as in Israel, is that their countries are involuntarily becoming multicultural as guest workers and refugees, mostly Muslim, establish themselves in residence. There are about 15 million Muslims in Europe, making Islam the the continent's largest non-Christian religion.
How important is national identity? What would become of democratic values in a Europeann country with Muslim population explosion? How would it affect their economy, as the immigrants are largely unskilled, heavily relying on the welfare system?
posted by semmi
on Mar 29, 2002 -
9 comments
Popluation Reference Bureau What an amazing site! You can find the populations of almost any country in the world here. It does not stop there, there is a mountain of information on the country's politics and policies. Take two seconds and I am sure you will be amazed at this site. It is nice to see that some groups are using the net to help inform people!
posted by aj100
on Jun 20, 2001 -
17 comments
