Interview. Turns out Gary Clail's a bit of a cunt, Al Jourgenson nicked Sherwoods techniques, and Strange Things was crap because they had a quarter of a million dollar budget, as opposed to a couple of grand. Stuff you sort of knew (if you cared) but still interesting.
I'm not buying his hacker bit though.
Cursor Miner re-emerges with a top little flash video.
The wife and I absolutely adored "When I am King", and it's been a quiet couple of years since that finished. Turns out the man's been writing newspaper strips, and other things. Well he's back, with a PayPal driven 3-buck a year subscription. That's low enough that I wouldn't have to think twice, even if it wasn't someone I was already smitten with.
Well this is interesting, albeit no longer surprising. Anecdotal evidence has it that the proportion of women in the creative side in the industry is going up too. I wonder if the two are connected, or just both signs of a maturing industry.
He's my hero.
Well, no not really, but respect is due. The simplification argument is not lost on me. Video game user interfaces / controls used to be a thing of beauty. Unfortunately many studios seem to be of the opinion that battling the UI is the game (I'm looking at you Konami, and don't sit there looking smug Nintendo, your current controller has caused me more physical pain than is strictly necessary).
One last link before I go.
This is absolutely fascinating. Alternative, and complementary money systems to solve the exclusion issues of the existing one. Time based and community currencies are already in use, and effective, in various places around the world.
via oblomovka
There's probably enough information in this article to get a bomb onto a plane. Although the wire running from the large jar of peanut butter to the golf club, might give even the most jaded screener pause for thought.
Now awaiting my phone call from the FBI, not that it could be much worse than spending 10 hours at the INS...
Mad japanese homebrew shooters!
via mefi again
This looks interesting. Shot in Poland, by the director of Ghost in the Shell (exposition ahoy), and set inside a video game.
This is one of those, you know it happens, but it's still impressive, in a manipulated reality way. Mind you, I wish I could show you the Henry portfolio someone showed me. Christina's hips, Britney's boobs, Cameron's zits...
via mefi
One thing I've noticed, is that the majority of blogs that I read regularly, are written by journalists, or writers who have already been published in one form or another. The only non-journo blogs I read are those of my friends and acquaintances.
I don't agree with this though. Especially not the usenet comparison. Apart from the fact that a lot of people still use usenet, the main reason people (and here I mean myself) left was the spam, and the trolling. Neither of which are problems for blogs, primarily because they have people directly responsible for them. I'm not going to start adding gratuitous adverts to this thing. Nor am l likely to suffer from trolls, primarily because I don't turn comments on, although even if I did (and possibly more on that later), I'd still retain the power to zap them with my digital laser. This is my domain, and I can squash you like a bug! Muahahaahahaaaa!
Of course NTK gets him in their opening salvo.
This is fun, simple, and numbingly obvious in a "why didn't I think of that?" manner.
I am continually surprised at just how powerfull the Microsoft Kool-Aid must be.
Now this I like, as it removes the "oh I'll just dump my loose change, and my ones, and any folding money left in my wallet" temptation from the odd occasion I end up in Vegas. I hate the slots, I know exactly how they're rigged, and how the money extraction process works, and yet every bloody time I still end up playing them. There's something deep and primal about the possibilty of a big reward in exchange for little effort.
some argue that casinos are using the coinless slots' efficiency to take advantage of players
No shit sherlock! The entire place is about fleecing the mark in the most efficient manner possible, and leaving them wanting to flush more of their money away.
Bah, I guess it's the ex-smoker thing. At least smoking left you with something permanent, like lung cancer. Something you could take away from the experience.
Outdoor urinals in central london. Hmm, isn't that right in front of Oscar Wilde? Still, many's the time I would have appreciated one of those.
Y'know, if they actually took europe vaguely seriously, they wouldn't have this problem.
Hmm, I feel I must apologise for my industries behaviour with regard to region protection. I'd much rather it never existed. Let european gamers play us english titles. Let the americans play japanese imports if they want to. Especially on hand-helds where you don't even have the 50/60Hz issue (that's largely redundant anyway, since pretty much every modern european telly will handle 60Hz).
I'm getting fed up with people banging on about 7.1 channel sound on the PSP. What they neglect to mention is that it's merely going to contain a chip capable of generating 7.1, because it's a fucking programmable DSP. You pretty much get whatever configuration you want for free (apart from the cost of rendering the extra sound channels). An optical output for 7.1 is exactly the same as an optical output for mono. It's not like the things going to have 8 pairs of speaker posts hanging off the back.
The WiFi angle is interesting though. Home WiFi means the thing can talk to your 'media server', and then off to the internet, effectively giving you massively multiplayer (or any simplifiaction thereof). The specific flavour of WiFi has been left undefined, so it may or may not be fat enough for DVD quality video, but the potential (of streaming porn to the toilet ;) is interesting.
I'm not a WiFi expert, but I assume you could do something similar from the numerous WiFi hotspots that are springing up in all the technologically fashionable places. Although there seems to be some doubt as to their long term viability. Still, future payement issues can be fixed in software, and that's exactly the sort of code I'd expect to live on the 'media engine'. The more I think about it, the more I like the second core not being user programmable, as it means you don't get reliant on it, and future upgrades / tweaks to the OS can happen without having any impact on the game code. You can write to the metal, without having to worry about scheduling any time for the OS.
Hmm, I hope the WiFi angle doesn't mean you're not going to be able to use the thing on the plane though.
...
Oh, and of course, the reg article being one of Andrew Orlowski's screeds, naturally he has a pop at bloggers. Jeez, does he feel threatened? Did a blogger piss on his shoes?
