crates and barrels: "This is about crates and barrels in videogames. Compared to the enormous dimensions of this topic, the collection is still rather small, but - thanks to the restless contributors - it constantly grows. If you can, go find some crates or barrels in a game yourself and upload your own screenshots."
Some people can be *really* boring.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Done Deal: Script and Pitch Sales - Updated Daily: "Title: Cat's Cradle
Log Line: A large number of people, scientists and regular citizens included, are caught up in a game that involves them chasing each other around in search of the world's most important and dangerous substance, a new form of ice that freezes at room temperature.
Writer: James V. Hart and Jake Hart
Agent: Jon Levin of CAA and atty. Stuart Rosenthal of Bloom Hergott Deimer Rosenthal La Violette (James V Hart)
Buyer: Appian Way & Elkins Entertainment
Price: n/a
Genre: Science Fiction Drama
Logged: 7/6/05
More: To be adapted from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel. Appian Way's Leonardo DiCaprio and Elkins Entertainment's Hillard Elkins will produce."
For all you Vonne-nuts out there...
Log Line: A large number of people, scientists and regular citizens included, are caught up in a game that involves them chasing each other around in search of the world's most important and dangerous substance, a new form of ice that freezes at room temperature.
Writer: James V. Hart and Jake Hart
Agent: Jon Levin of CAA and atty. Stuart Rosenthal of Bloom Hergott Deimer Rosenthal La Violette (James V Hart)
Buyer: Appian Way & Elkins Entertainment
Price: n/a
Genre: Science Fiction Drama
Logged: 7/6/05
More: To be adapted from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel. Appian Way's Leonardo DiCaprio and Elkins Entertainment's Hillard Elkins will produce."
For all you Vonne-nuts out there...
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
God. I need to play Ultima 7. My brain's gradually frying in my cranium in the oppressive heat of this office, and a bit of sweet Iolo loving is necessary. Perhaps I'm pregnant, hence the craving. I know it's years old, I know it was a bit derivative; but for me it, and its semi-sequel Serpent Isle, are the two best realised most gloriously built RPGs of all time.
Goddamn it! It's SO HOT. That said, the team I'm working with are great and feeling really motivated to get work done. It doesn't feel like a chore any more. I don't get told off for playing games in the office, I don't have to play an interminable MMO. Perhaps it's just the feeling of no pressure while we work on the first issue, but I'm keen, psyched and raving to make this a success. It's curious as hell... when will the cynicism kick back in?
Gotterdammerung! Moreover, there seems a lot to do outside of work. There's more of London to explore than any game, and it's all chock-full of colour and vibrancy, and surprisingly easy to get around. Friends around, stuff to do (more than I can possibly do), films to see... it's just plain nice. My whole life dynamic has changed and at the moment it feels much for the better.
Goddamn it! It's SO HOT. That said, the team I'm working with are great and feeling really motivated to get work done. It doesn't feel like a chore any more. I don't get told off for playing games in the office, I don't have to play an interminable MMO. Perhaps it's just the feeling of no pressure while we work on the first issue, but I'm keen, psyched and raving to make this a success. It's curious as hell... when will the cynicism kick back in?
Gotterdammerung! Moreover, there seems a lot to do outside of work. There's more of London to explore than any game, and it's all chock-full of colour and vibrancy, and surprisingly easy to get around. Friends around, stuff to do (more than I can possibly do), films to see... it's just plain nice. My whole life dynamic has changed and at the moment it feels much for the better.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
DARPA Advanced Technology Office - Unique Signatures Detection
This is bloody fantastic and, also, terrifying. Was browsing the DARPA website (as you do) and found that the U.S. government is researching how to detect people uniquely in large areas or large crowds. This is of course designed for tactical strikes against enemy combatants, whereever they might be using a "unique and exploitable chemosignal" which presumably can be detected over large areas.
Imagine a system of chemotype-detectable satellites that use their cross-referential data to locate individuals globally - Al Quaeda should be scared, but so should everyone once the government changes the laws - imagine such a technology in the hands of a totalitarian regime.
(I also had a look at the "Special Projects Office" which perversely seems the least special part of the centre. Pretty useless, generic information.)
This is bloody fantastic and, also, terrifying. Was browsing the DARPA website (as you do) and found that the U.S. government is researching how to detect people uniquely in large areas or large crowds. This is of course designed for tactical strikes against enemy combatants, whereever they might be using a "unique and exploitable chemosignal" which presumably can be detected over large areas.
Imagine a system of chemotype-detectable satellites that use their cross-referential data to locate individuals globally - Al Quaeda should be scared, but so should everyone once the government changes the laws - imagine such a technology in the hands of a totalitarian regime.
(I also had a look at the "Special Projects Office" which perversely seems the least special part of the centre. Pretty useless, generic information.)
Monday, July 11, 2005
The Angler Fish........................................: "Another unusual adaptation in anglerfish is their sexual dimorphism. The males are very small in comparison with the females, and live as permanent parasites on the female. The male attaches himself, by biting, to the body of the female. His mouth fuses with her skin, and the bloodstreams of the two fishes become connected. The male is now totally dependent on the female for nourishment. In fact, the male begins to degenerate. His eyes grow smaller and he eventually loses them. His internal organs disappear.The male becomes simply a source of sperm. "
(Sigh) We all know people like that.
(Sigh) We all know people like that.
Language of Prairie Dogs Includes Words for Humans
Via Jim. Fascinating that we can decode the Prairie dog language, but we still can't decode Linear A, the Minoan (possibly) language from before the birth of Christ or Rongorongo (the fantastically named Easter Island language.) That's because the Prairie dogs speak in a language that has specific referents; green hooded man, yellow hooded man, black elipse and so on. We have no idea what the referents are for Linear A as there are no present day speakers and no dual-language inscriptions (e.g. the Rosetta stone which helped decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics.) We can work out the counting structure, but little else.
Similarly, Rongorongo, a language which may have been developed in relatively modern times as a reaction to the white man's language is completely lost to us, despite its hieroglyphic-like symbols, because a) there aren't enough texts b) these texts indicate that the language used the icons as components of words, rather than words themselves, further shortening the available vocabulary c) these represent a text we have no conception of, though we might guess it to be a history or poem from the small historical record we have.
Languages where there are no recognisable elements, where the symbols signify something other than the thing itself (whether that be concepts, syllables or whatever) are nigh-on impossible to decipher without either dual language texts, known phrases, or a logical brain like that of Craig Ventris (who deciphered Linear B by guessing that it matched ancient Greek, recognising the syllabary forms of certain ancient Cretan town names, and using those syllables to work out other words.) So if we encountered an alien civilisation, as long as they take a recognisable physical form and have a language which refers to individual referents, we probably have a better chance of understanding them than we do Linear A. If we encountered only their text, we would have no chance.
Via Jim. Fascinating that we can decode the Prairie dog language, but we still can't decode Linear A, the Minoan (possibly) language from before the birth of Christ or Rongorongo (the fantastically named Easter Island language.) That's because the Prairie dogs speak in a language that has specific referents; green hooded man, yellow hooded man, black elipse and so on. We have no idea what the referents are for Linear A as there are no present day speakers and no dual-language inscriptions (e.g. the Rosetta stone which helped decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics.) We can work out the counting structure, but little else.
Similarly, Rongorongo, a language which may have been developed in relatively modern times as a reaction to the white man's language is completely lost to us, despite its hieroglyphic-like symbols, because a) there aren't enough texts b) these texts indicate that the language used the icons as components of words, rather than words themselves, further shortening the available vocabulary c) these represent a text we have no conception of, though we might guess it to be a history or poem from the small historical record we have.
Languages where there are no recognisable elements, where the symbols signify something other than the thing itself (whether that be concepts, syllables or whatever) are nigh-on impossible to decipher without either dual language texts, known phrases, or a logical brain like that of Craig Ventris (who deciphered Linear B by guessing that it matched ancient Greek, recognising the syllabary forms of certain ancient Cretan town names, and using those syllables to work out other words.) So if we encountered an alien civilisation, as long as they take a recognisable physical form and have a language which refers to individual referents, we probably have a better chance of understanding them than we do Linear A. If we encountered only their text, we would have no chance.
Friday, July 08, 2005
So London got hit. A while ago I wrote a little memoir of what happened when Manchester got blown up by the IRA, it’s here. It's not very good, but it was heartfelt at the time.
Our perception of this bomb’s a little different; it’s been a while since we’ve been got. The last major Provisional IRA bomb was Omagh, and the last one on the mainland was, ooh, Birmingham? Liverpool? Canary Wharf? Actually, it was Manchester back in 1996. It’s been so long, we’ve forgotten that Blitz mentality of the 1980s, when there’d be a report every week about a terrorist capture and we were completely inured to the bombing. The IRA have held their ceasefire since early 1997.
Is there any way to stop terrorist bombing? Well, we could change the structure of society. We’re all wired up now, we’ve few manual workers or plants of any scale so we don’t strictly speaking need to be in one location; we could all retreat to well-connected country villages, and never move except for necessity, holidays and the like. Let weeds grow over the motorways, and when we move jobs, stay in our location and just change our tasks.
Problems:
1) It’ll be even harder to police; terrorists could descend on a village, wipe it out and move on before the police get there. Solution: Accept this as acceptable losses; we’ll capture the villains soon, especially if everyone’s so dispersed over the country.
2) Food needs transporting. Large utilities like power and water will still be easy targets (though easy to defend as they are now.)
3) This a form of giving into the terrorist. Perhaps a better system would be a literal sectioning of the cities into separate blocks with large, well-monitored thoroughfares – but then these links become targets.
The only conclusion we can draw is that any area we can protect becomes a target because of the impression of safety. Moreover, suicide bombers don’t have to worry about threats to their security so any security in any area becomes redundant.
The big point is, though, that assaults at this frequency and intensity are entirely sustainable. Al Quaeda have killed, what, 3,500 people tops over the years – despite the yearly horror, that’s copeable with. That’s the sort of casualties the British generals lost in a few hours of the first day of the Battle of the Somme – spread over four years. If our leaders of a hundred years ago were willing to throw that many of their own people against an enemy’s guns (on the basis of economic fears) in an hour, why should we worry about an equivalent impact over four years? Mad Iain seems to agree:
The media coverage is totally disproportionate to the severity of the attacks - it's 9/11 coverage for 0.0009/0.0011 events. There were bombings in Northern Ireland with casualty counts bigger than this. If there's anything the conflict in Northern Ireland tells us, it's that there's no point living in fear. You *could* get wiped out by a terrorist bomb at any time. Then again, you *could* get debrained by a meteorite in your back garden. The odds of either event happening are so extremely remote, they're not worth peering fearfully through the curtains about. That doesn't make either event happening any less tragic, but you can be blotted out of existence by nature at any time, so worrying about everything that *could* happen to you would be so paralysing you'd never get out of bed.
Moreover, as soon as Al Quaeda put themselves on the terrorism map, they started getting watched – After four years of chasing, I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. has a very good idea where a large proportion of the organisation is, but they’re waiting for a way to get at the leaders. The problem won't stop when they're caught, but the casualty rate will be kept acceptable.
Our perception of this bomb’s a little different; it’s been a while since we’ve been got. The last major Provisional IRA bomb was Omagh, and the last one on the mainland was, ooh, Birmingham? Liverpool? Canary Wharf? Actually, it was Manchester back in 1996. It’s been so long, we’ve forgotten that Blitz mentality of the 1980s, when there’d be a report every week about a terrorist capture and we were completely inured to the bombing. The IRA have held their ceasefire since early 1997.
Is there any way to stop terrorist bombing? Well, we could change the structure of society. We’re all wired up now, we’ve few manual workers or plants of any scale so we don’t strictly speaking need to be in one location; we could all retreat to well-connected country villages, and never move except for necessity, holidays and the like. Let weeds grow over the motorways, and when we move jobs, stay in our location and just change our tasks.
Problems:
1) It’ll be even harder to police; terrorists could descend on a village, wipe it out and move on before the police get there. Solution: Accept this as acceptable losses; we’ll capture the villains soon, especially if everyone’s so dispersed over the country.
2) Food needs transporting. Large utilities like power and water will still be easy targets (though easy to defend as they are now.)
3) This a form of giving into the terrorist. Perhaps a better system would be a literal sectioning of the cities into separate blocks with large, well-monitored thoroughfares – but then these links become targets.
The only conclusion we can draw is that any area we can protect becomes a target because of the impression of safety. Moreover, suicide bombers don’t have to worry about threats to their security so any security in any area becomes redundant.
The big point is, though, that assaults at this frequency and intensity are entirely sustainable. Al Quaeda have killed, what, 3,500 people tops over the years – despite the yearly horror, that’s copeable with. That’s the sort of casualties the British generals lost in a few hours of the first day of the Battle of the Somme – spread over four years. If our leaders of a hundred years ago were willing to throw that many of their own people against an enemy’s guns (on the basis of economic fears) in an hour, why should we worry about an equivalent impact over four years? Mad Iain seems to agree:
The media coverage is totally disproportionate to the severity of the attacks - it's 9/11 coverage for 0.0009/0.0011 events. There were bombings in Northern Ireland with casualty counts bigger than this. If there's anything the conflict in Northern Ireland tells us, it's that there's no point living in fear. You *could* get wiped out by a terrorist bomb at any time. Then again, you *could* get debrained by a meteorite in your back garden. The odds of either event happening are so extremely remote, they're not worth peering fearfully through the curtains about. That doesn't make either event happening any less tragic, but you can be blotted out of existence by nature at any time, so worrying about everything that *could* happen to you would be so paralysing you'd never get out of bed.
Moreover, as soon as Al Quaeda put themselves on the terrorism map, they started getting watched – After four years of chasing, I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. has a very good idea where a large proportion of the organisation is, but they’re waiting for a way to get at the leaders. The problem won't stop when they're caught, but the casualty rate will be kept acceptable.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
One of the distinguishing characteristics of a Philip K. Dick novel is his remarkable ability to blur the line between natural human beings and androids - human by artifice. For example, in his book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, he uses devices like the mood organ to make his human characters seem more like biological machines, open to manipulation. At the same time, the artificial human beings are made to seem more life-like.
The eerie robotic Philip K. Dick unveiled today at the NextFest 2005 event in Chicago is almost an objectification of Dick's fascination with what really makes people human. The robot was designed to provide a convincing imitation of life, with subtle head movements and facial expressions. The software that gives life to the device is well-stocked with all of Dick's printed works and memoirs. It also has face recognition software and a library of faces; it was capable of recognizing several of Dick's relatives who came to take a look at the project. It includes voice recognition and natural language processing features.
Philip K Dick Android
The eerie robotic Philip K. Dick unveiled today at the NextFest 2005 event in Chicago is almost an objectification of Dick's fascination with what really makes people human. The robot was designed to provide a convincing imitation of life, with subtle head movements and facial expressions. The software that gives life to the device is well-stocked with all of Dick's printed works and memoirs. It also has face recognition software and a library of faces; it was capable of recognizing several of Dick's relatives who came to take a look at the project. It includes voice recognition and natural language processing features.
Philip K Dick Android
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