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  • Interactive fiction

    Every once in awhile, I duck into the world of interactive fiction (IF; also known as the world of “text adventures,” for those of you who are appropriately old-school), one of my all-time favorite computer game genres, to get an idea of what’s new in the field and what’s been happening. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read that Wikipedia link; it gives a much better summary than I could and goes into fantastic detail.)

    I love interactive fiction, going way back—we had a bunch of Infocom games when I was a kid and for my money, those were some of the best computer games around, bar none (still are, to a large extent). My two favorite Infocom games are “Planetfall” and “The Lurking Horror,” though of those two I only ever finished “Planetfall”… but I digress.

    Infocom games were the shizzle (who says that anymore?), but I even enjoyed simpler text adventures, and even crafted a few of my own, in Commodore 64 BASIC. I actually designed, on paper, many more text adventures than ever made it to the computer; this is the same love of creating/world building that drives my desire to write fiction for a living, among other things.

    Anyway, back to the here and now. Interactive fiction exists today in a kind of unique space; here’s what the Wikipedia article says about it:

    …interactive fiction no longer appears to be commercially viable, but a constant stream of new works is produced by an online interactive fiction community, using freely available development systems… these systems allowed anyone with sufficient time and dedication to create a game, and caused a growth boom in the online interactive fiction community.

    Today, the games created by enthusiasts of the genre regularly surpass the quality of the original Infocom games, and a number of yearly competitions and awards are given out to the best games in the field….

    Yes, strange to say, there is a small but thriving community surrounding this arcane game form. None of them do it for the money—okay, maybe some who enter the competition for the cash prize ($500) do—which is what makes it truly remarkable (nearly everything about it is free—the games, the programs to play them, the authoring tools, the documentation—everything). They do it for a love of the craft.

    What’s weird is this week, the Wall Street Journal Online published an article on text adventures: Keeping a Genre Alive. Total coincidence; in fact, I was checking out the IF sites before I saw the article. That’s kind of a freaky wavelength. At any rate, it’s a bit of a look-down-the-nose take on the genre and IF community, but it’s not all bad.

    So, having “rediscovered” interactive fiction (and downloading and checking out the latest authoring tools), writing some will be added to my perpetual list of Things I’d Like To Do But Don’t Have The Time For. This like many other interests will fall off the list at some point (probably in the near future) and then be re-added when I rediscover it again. It’s a big list. I’ll post it sometime.

  • Dumbing down literature

    Does this sound like a good idea?

    Woe un2mnkind! The text message is trying to summarise the great poet John Milton and a respected academic thinks this may be a smart new way to teach literature.

    A company offering mobile phones to students has hired Professor John Sutherland, professor emeritus of English Literature at University College London, to offer subscribers text message summaries and quotes from literary classics.

    The hope is that messages in the truncated shorthand of mobile phones will help make great literature more accessible.

    So butchering the classics into text-messaging shorthand that are barely understandable will make them more accessible? Oh, this is so, so wrong.

    First of all, there’s no “teaching” of literature going on here; you might as well be getting summaries of last night’s episode of “Lost”—only reading “MadwyfSetsFyr2Haus” would not entice me to pick up Jane Eyre.

    Second of all, what does a professor emeritus of English Literature even know about text-messaging shorthand? Jeez, I don’t know much, but the examples they give seem contrived even to me.

    Third, what self-respecting teen would subscribe to this service? Here’s a hint—those of us who, as teens, were into literature and could quote from various works really, really weren’t a part of that crowd. If you wanted to be part of that crowd, well, you wouldn’t be getting literature on your phone, as it were.

    Via Slashdot.

    Update 11/17: CNN has a better article which has more on the pushback against the service.

  • Geekiest. Music. Ever.

    Okay, this will permanently brand me as the geekiest dork ever (I fully expect a “geek” comment from Shannon), but perusing WinAmp’s SHOUTcast Radio list today, I found the ultimate station:

    …wait for it…

    Commodore 64 remixes. From SLAY Radio.

    Yes, you read that correctly. Commodore 64 remixes.

    I’ve been letting it play in the background. It totally kicks ass.

    This strikes me as being a real Long Tail kind of thing.

  • Master Builder user interface – poor

    A couple of months ago I blogged a bit about Intuit Master Builder software and some of the problems that come with it. One of the things I wrote was, “It’s got a low barrier-to-entry user interface that makes it easy to learn and use for non techie types.”

    While that statement is (for the most part) true, it’s also true that the UI for Master Builder is completely ridiculous—especially for a Windows application in this day and age. Just how ridiculous it truly is struck me last week when we were at a user group meeting for Master Builder (they don’t happen often), and the consultant/expert was showing off some of the newest features.

    So, here are two examples of the poor UI that plagues this program. Both are from the “Equipment” screen, and are completely typical of every screen in the system. Click them for full-size images.

    Thumbnail image of the Equipment screen in Intuit Master Builder

    Thumbnail image of the Equipment screen in Intuit Master Builder

    Pretty horrible. But my particular favorites are the totally non-standard menu bar at the top (“Exit” is the first item?) and the garish, circa-Windows 3.1 toolbar buttons, also in a totally non-standard layout and position.

  • The Ultimate Star Trek Collection

    This is one of those over-the-top, for-the-person-who-has-everything, I-have-too-much-disposable-income type of things: The Ultimate Star Trek Collection on Amazon. It’s insane:

    • 212 discs
    • All 5 TV series
    • All 10 movies
    • Commentary, interviews, documentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, trailers, and more
    • All for the whopping-low price of $2,499.99!

    What a deal! Especially since you save $1,409.

  • Peanuts philosophy

    This panel from my daily Peanuts calendar struck me as being pretty philosophically deep for Charlie Brown.

    Charlie Brown philosophy: That's life... all the trues are false and all the falses are true.

  • Another Scooby sighting

    Scooby's at the front door, a church sign

  • Dancing Transformer goodness

    I had to link to this video just because it’s so cool. (“Cool” in a geeky way.) Not because of the dancing part, but just the transforming effects are so good that if I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was for real. If ever there’s a live action Transformers movie, I’d hope it’s this good.

    Via Gadgetopia.

  • One big reason to never visit Kansas

    The Kansas Board of Education has approved new school standards that promote and teach so-called “intelligent design.” Wow; I don’t even have the words, so I’ll quote the article…

    “This is a sad day. We’re becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that,” said board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat.

    You got that right, sister.

    Via Slashdot.

  • Local Fox news

    Today Shannon writes:

    i’m surprised that other bend bloggers haven’t commented on this but apparently the fox station is going to start a 10 p.m. local newscast at the first of the year according to our local paper who doesn’t have the story online. yea, two news stations! maybe i can stop watching portland and eugene news.

    We don’t get the paper, and if it’s not online, then I wouldn’t otherwise see it. Anyway, what I’m wondering is, will the local Foxcast be bringing in new talent, or are they going to poach it away from Z21?