Weird Sounds and Wisdom The ElectroComp 101/Don Van Vliet 04.23.07
Here's a quick demo which may give you an idea of why I liked the legendary EML 101 synthesizer so much. Simply put, the machine was very intuitive and easy to operate, and it was capable of producing an infinite variety of sounds very fast and on the fly. It was also the machine that taught me how to synthesize, and as it turned out it seems that I was born to synthesize. I've mentioned the EML 101 before --search the archives if you care to, and here's a picture of it-- but this video is better than words or still-images. You really do have to hear the thing...
And, as an extra added attraction, czech out this short film about Don Van Vliet. I'll say no more and leave the rest up to you.
An observation of the observations of Don Van Vliet by Anton Corbijn (Flash - 13 minutes - 1993) From WFMU's Beware of the Blog
Update: The Flash version is occasionally down, but you can still download the .avi movie file here (84.4 MB).
Empire At War A Semiprecious Gem 04.14.07
Like Star Wars? Looking for a good Star Wars game? Be sure to czech out Empire At War, a sort of casual hybrid RTS game, beautifully produced with all the Star Wars goodies, ships, doodads and places...and characters: Han, Palpatine, Chewie, Boba Fett, R2D2 & CP3O, Commander Ackbar, Vader, Obi Wan, Colonel Veers, Luke (Red Squadron), etc. Most are represented by ground AND space units. Only Yoda is missing. (He's to be found in the sequel.) And yes, the Death Star is included.
Unit special abilities are a hoot. Space combat is drop dead gorgeous and a lot of fun to play. The cinematic view is the ultimate Star Wars screen saver. Ground battles occur in different environments as per planet type. Friendly, neutral or hostile native forces make things even more interesting.
Three game types are included; campaign, skirmish and galactic conquest. The campaign game allows you to a) make possible the great rebel victory as seen in Star Wars: A New Hope, or b) play the story from the pov of the Empire and change the outcome. Heheh. The skirmish game is just what it sounds like. Two or more sides skirmish on either a space or ground map with appropriate units. The galactic conquest game is the full (war)game including system exploration and conquest, space battles and ground battles.
And you can land Boba Fett, Palpatine and Vader on a planet and use them take it over. Ha! When I do that I call them The Three Amigos. And that's another positive thing about Empie At War. It's a big Star Wars sandbox with lots of fun things you can do.
Empire At War is very easy to play. The interface is bit perplexing at first, but you know how that goes. Try a space skirmish. Check out a bit of the tutorial. Play some more, and you'll pick it up. --And speaking of picking it up, that's exactly what you should do because this semiprecious gem is last year's model now, so it can be had for the sweet price of $19.95 (or lower)!
Oh, and Empire At War does get the Star Wars bigness right.
I'm going to try a new thing here I'm calling "Money Shots." I'll post a couple of screen grabs from time to time, pretty randomly I'm sure, from some of my favorite films and maybe make a comment or two about them. In this case, money shots means "postcard views" or unique scenes that are interesting to me, not necessarily the ones you'd see elsewhere. Not the typical shots of the Deathstar or the Enterprise, and so forth. Just the visual imagery that looked/looks amazing to me, for various reasons I may explore here.
First up is Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. This was the kind of Trek film I expected to see when the first one was released (Khan was #2). When I saw it, I breathed a sigh of relief and I knew that the series would continue. To what end, who knew but it was obvious with Khan that Trek was off and running in the theaters.
I liked a lot of things about the movie, but visually, I liked the contrasty long shots and deep blue and red color scheme. You can see it in the space views and you can see it here and there throughout the rest of the film. It works so well despite the fact that 99.99999% of real space does not look this way. Why it works is still a mystery to me. Mysteries are a good thing though. I'm fine with that.
My second choice this time around is an image from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. One of the saucers --and one of the few quick close up views of a saucer in the film. This ain't no clunky 50's Harryhausen/Tim Burton style flying saucer, obviously. I like those too, but Spielberg and effects man Douglas Trumbull had something else in mind, and this is one example.
I think CE3K is not Spielberg's best movie (though it remains for me a personal favorite) but it does represent some of the best visual effects work done in films, and done by Trumbull. Remember a little movie called 2001: A Space Odyssey? Trumbull worked on that, and Silent Running, and Brainstorm, and Blade Runner. An almost unsung hero now in this age of seamless CG, but CG never looked any better than the best of Trumbull's work which was, of course, all done with smoke and mirrors.
Click the thumbnails to view the full images.
Robert X. Cringely's Triumph of the Nerds Still "Insanely Great" 01.22.07
Lately I've been stopping by Robert X. Cringely's site, catching up on PC industry news while trying to grok Vista (and verify claims of its profound drawbacks --the irony being that I almost missed Cringely's comments on this very subject!). As I usually do when I've read Cringely before, I thought "I'll have to grab Triumph of the Nerds sometime." Well, since it's been 10+ years since the documentary first aired, I figured I'd better grab the DVD before it goes out of print.
Triumph of the Nerds is based on Cringely's acclaimed book, Accidental Empires, and was presented on PBS circa 1996. It's a three part documentary that covers the history of the personal computer pretty thoroughly, from MITS and the Altair 8800 (Did you know that Microsoft was crucially involved with the first microcomputer?), through Apple and the rise and fall of the IBM PC, to Microsoft and Win95.
Each one hour episode is crammed with interview footage, most done for the show itself. This alone is an amazing thing since these folks won't be around forever. Some of them are already gone. But here, they are captured so future generations can get it from the horse's mouth, which is always the best way. Also, the half-fictitious Bob Cringely, perhaps best known for his I, Cringely column, is an excellent host and narrator.
Here's the long list of those interviewed: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Douglas Adams, Christine Comaford, Mark A. Van Haren, Doug Muise, Joe Kraus, Gordon Moore, Ed Roberts, David Bunnell, Eddie Currie, Lee Felsenstein, Harry Garland, Roger Mellon, Paul Allen, Jim Warren, Arthur Rock, Chris Espinosa, Dan Bricklin, Bob Frankston, Vern Raburn, Gordon Eubanks, Sam Albert, Rich Seidner, Jack Sams, Bill Lowe, Gary Kildall (clip), Jean Richardson, Tim Patterson, Sparky Sparks, Rod Canion, Claude Stern, Jim Cannavino, Larry Ellison, Esther Dyson, Bob Taylor, John Warnock, Larry Tesler, Adele Goldberg, Bob Metcalfe, Bill Atkinson, John Sculley, Andy Hertzfeld, Jeff Raikes and Dana Muise.
There are luminaries here as well as forgotten soldiers. Hobbyists and techies. Suburban hippies and corporate suits. Stories of brave originality and innovation. Stories of outright theft. Stories about people who saw and seized the opportunities of a lifetime, and of those folks who, for many reasons from altruism to ignorance, let once-in-a-lifetime opportunities slip through their fingers.
Bottom line, the history of the people --their philosophies, passions, failures and accomplishments-- who built the computer industry literally from nothing but the desire to get their hands on their own computers is one of the most interesting (and at this date, inspiring) true stories I have ever heard.
Cringely and Triumph of the Nerds tell this story very well.
Just a quickie here to point out that Deanna Molinaro has been regulary updating her site, Google-Eyed Art & Other Stuff, with more images of her cool sculpture and artwork. There's a new story up there too (An Inconsolable Octopus) and her blog is rolling right along. I encourage you all to stop by and take a gander. You'll be amazed and amused, and no doubt you'll become a Deanna fan too!
New Iraq Civilian Casualty Estimate The News Is Not Good 10.11.06
Today the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath released an estimate that states that over 655,000 Iraqi civilians have died since 2003 as a result of the US-lead invasion. (See the BBC article.) This is considerably higher than previous estimates which have ranged from 40,000 to 100,000 civilian casualties.
I'm sorry to report this on my blog which is supposed to be a light-hearted upbeat thing, but this is beyond ridiculous...beyond sadness. I implore you all to talk to your friends and family about this, write your congressmen and senators if you can, and fer cripe's sake, exercise your right to vote in this next election.
Whatever the numbers turn out to be, this madness has got to stop. Now.
I stand by the figure that a lot of innocent people have lost their life... Six-hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at is just... it's not credible.
- George Bush, October 11, 2006
I don't often recommend games but I am going to do so now. It's a little gem called Fate, by Travis Baldree and Wild Tangent. On the surface, it appears and operates as a Diablo clone (D&D-like fantasy dungeon crawl) but play it for a while and you begin to see and realize that it has neat differences and a charm all its own. Fate has heart and soul. It's in the details.
The image to the left is a screenshot of my first Fate character, Stormbeard, from a long line of Stormbeards, and his pet gryphon, Squink. Stormy's got a cool dragonish helmet, as you can see, and a nifty scepter enchanted up the ying yang. Squink started out in life as a housecat --but that's a long story.
I'm playing Fate for the second time now, this time with a wizard-type named Merlis. He's got a pet too. Fred the "beholder." Merlis is a summoner who can raise skeletons and call dragons. He plays completely differently than Stormbeard so it's a whole new game.
Btw, here's one of the many neat features: When you retire a character after completing the game (note, you don't have to retire - the dungeon is actually virtually endless), you can choose one item to pass down to a descendant, who becomes your new character. The item attains legendary status and "improves" slightly, and the new character starts out at experience level two. Nifty!
Of course, one of the best things about this game is that it costs only $20. No kidding. A fully-3D fantasy crpg, 50+ levels deep with all of the trimmings, for the price of a junk food run. I got nearly fifty hours out of Fate the first time around. Not bad for twenty bucks. And yes, there's a dandy free demo (the full game is locked), so indulge yourself, Sulu...and choose your Fate wisely!
Moore Casualties Warning: This Post Contains Actual Opinions 08.17.06
Michael Moore where are you now? No doubt working on his next film project. Go get 'em, Mike.
I seem to recall a movie he made about the Bush administration's "fictitious war" in Iraq. I seem to recall republicans and hawks, few of whom had ever seen the film I'm sure, lambasting Moore for creating a movie full of outrageous claims, lies and political slander. Unpatriotic, nay, dangerous propaganda from the left. That sort of thing.
It stuck. Moore has become the butt of lame jokes and is often dismissed with a wave of the hand as a crackpot.
Now in this summer of '06 I think about Fahrenheit 911 and I note that most of what Moore had to say in the film has turned out to be spot on. In fact, since that time the Bush administration has been caught at further political and constitutional machinations --and more outright fibbing and spectacular ineptness-- beyond the imagination of even a fictitious Mr. Moore.
Perceptions vs. substance, and it is hard for some folks to admit that they were/are wrong. My advice? Try it. You'll like it.
* * *
During the recent flare up (to put it mildly I guess) between Israel and Lebanon, Lebanese civilians were being killed in great numbers. For every one Israeli soldier killed, approximately ten Lebanese civilians died, up to a number somewhere around one thousand men, women and children.
There was a worldwide outcry about this, and not just from aid agencies and humanitarian groups but also from world governments, the UN and news media. This is a good thing that no doubt put extra pressure on both sides to put an end to the conflict. This was the right and correct response.
My question is: Where was the worldwide outcry about civilian deaths when the US and coalition troops invaded, excuse me, liberated Iraq? And since the war goes on, where is the outrage even now?
During the first year or so of the Iraq war, the ratio of coalition soldier deaths to Iraqi civilian deaths was approximately one to twenty five, up to around twenty five thousand Iraqis, people just like you and me, trying to live a life, killed --much worse than the recent Israeli-Lebanese skirmish. Is there such thing as "worse" when it comes to civilian deaths? Yes because the killing continues apace with the ratio today being perhaps one to fifteen adjusting downward for various faction and insurgent conflict casualties.
I feel bad for Iraqis and lousy for humanity in general over this one. We can be a cold myopic tribal and horridly biased lifeform sometimes, no matter our race, country of origin, political philosophy or spiritual belief. Sometimes we choose not to see certain things because the truth hurts or sometimes we're bigots, ignorant and stubborn or, thanks to an administration with Orwellian tendencies and a largely government-manipulated (and entertainment-obsessed) news media, sometimes we (Americans) are not permitted to see things that are critical or painful or revealing, so we simply don't think about them --out of sight/out of mind-- and there is no cause to care.
At some point we will need to atone for the deaths on all sides of this "war" and mourn them --as a nation united by compassion for our fellow human beings-- instead of remaining in this frozen uncaring and hypocritical state of denial. How soon we do this will indicate how world-friendly our society actually is. How soon we do this will indicate how strong and sincere we actually are.
Update - Sept. 14 - The civilian toll in Iraq is currently estimated by hospitals and morgues to be around 40,000 deaths as of this date. Sorry to add this news but there it is.
Dwarf Nabs Orb Breaking News From the Realm of Zot 07.18.06
After a rip-roaring dungeon hunt, Stormbeard the Dwarf managed to wrest the Orb of Zot from its demon-guarded vault and return to the surface world, presumably to fortune and glory.
And there was great rejoicing. (Yay.)
What am I talking about? Linley's Dungeon Crawl (AKA Crawl). It's a free crpg in the tradition of Dungeons & Dragons and NetHack.
I finished Crawl for the first time since I began playing the game...quite a while ago! Many promising characters met their demise over the years, but somehow this guy, Stormbeard, had the right stuff.
He got a few breaks early on, both with starting stats and dungeon layout, he found, and created, some great weapons and armor, and he survived a few rather large and frenzied battles, eventually becoming a pretty powerful character, and one that was a blast to play all the way through. Winning the game was just the icing on the cake.
If you haven't played Crawl, and if you like turn-based man-to-man (and man-to-monster) fantasy combat games, definitely check it out. Get the tile version, the one with the nifty color graphics, here. Learn how to play Crawl here. It's easy! (Note: Images from the non-graphics version of Crawl are used as examples.) Download the complete Crawl manual here. (Also included in the Crawl game zip.) Visit the official Crawl site here. Peruse the Crawl wiki here. Etc.
If you're interested, here's Stormbeard's final character sheet. (Medium spoilers.) Long live the fighters!
WFMU Good Radio is Not Normal 06.28.06
Very short post here. Just a pointer to a nifty independent radio station that you can listen to online: WFMU from New Jersey. If you like radio that is not normal and great music that is not normal, this is the station for you. Btw, by "not normal" I mean eclectic and all-inclusive. I mean non-commercial, which is why it is good for u and me.
Read the interesting Wikipedia entry about WFMU here.
WFMU offers "streams galore," Windows Media Player, Realaudio, MP3 (32k), Stereo Broadband 128k MP3, 40k Ogg Vorbis (pls), 40k Ogg Vorbis (m3u), 24k AAC+ (pls) and 24k AAC+ (m3u), for your listening pleasure.
Galaxy Quest 12 of 100 Billion 05.22.06
"Space is big - really big - you just won't believe how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen..."
So wrote Douglas Adams in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and the folks who like to count stars agree, estimating that the universe is made up of over 100 billion galaxies, each with masses ranging from about 100,000 solar masses (dwarf galaxies) to several trillion solar masses (massive eliptical galaxies). These numbers are not graspable, though they do suggest that life elsewhere in the universe is not only possible but very probable...
I've always enjoyed pictures of galaxies ever since I saw the Sombrero Galaxy in the Outer Limits credits in the 1960's when I was a kid. Andromeda was the quintessential galaxy though; the one shown in all of the textbooks and articles back then.
Now, we have much better ways of scanning the stars, and we have the legacy of Hubble Space Telescope images as well which include many of the most astonishing and beautiful views of these vast structures. So, you can go to NASA websites and APOD and pick your favorites of the favorites, and that's what I've done here.
If you click a thumbnail below, you will go to the respective APOD page about that galaxy where you'll find more information and interesting links. While you're there, be sure to click the image that is displayed so you can see the higher resolution image it is linked to. Enjoy!
When I was at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art a little over a year ago, I saw an unusual sculpture called The Nest. (Nest, as in a spider-thing guarding its brood.) It's large (I thought, until seeing other examples on the www -but I'm getting ahead of myself), made of metal yet organic looking, creepy, menacing... Kind of like Half-Life 2 art, but beyond.
Recently I mentioned The Nest on a messageboard and I thought, wow I'd better look this thing up, find out about the artist and do so before I forget about it. Turns out The Nest was created by a 95 year old artist named Louise Bourgeois, who is apparently very well known (though she's news to me).
So, I'm checking out Louise. She's had a fascinating life and career in the realm of surrealism. That's fine. I tend to gravitate there anyway. And yes, she's into spiders these days. They're all over the place. The spiders are called "maman." They are among her most recent works.
You can learn more about The Nest here. You can read the Wikipedia entry about Louise Bourgeois here.
Smoke and Mirrors Now you don't see it. Now you do. 03.05.06
Stage magic; it's all done with smoke and mirrors. Computer games are like that too, especially the "lost game" created by Penn & Teller called, guess what, Smoke and Mirrors. Now at long last, information has come to light on the www about this game that never was. Well, actually, it was but it was never released.
The game is, not surprisingly I guess, pretty twisted, but it's also cool and very funny. I don't want to spoil the fun so if you're interested in Smoke and Mirrors, check out these links:
A View From Bandur Free Art by Phosphorous 02.06.06
Phosphorous explains: "The Grand Procession of the Faithful on their annual pilgrimage to the Great Slime Temple... The high priest of the Golden Ooze passes among the devout, leaving behind a trail of viscous sacred pulp (from which larval Muktians will soon emerge, fresh from their breeding vats) even as interstellar tourist creatures snatch globs for themselves to market offworld..."
Three Tadpoles and a Tarantula Did you know? 01.12.06
We've all heard about the exploding toads but did you know that tadpoles exist in deep space? (1, 2) Are you aware that as we speak scientists are studying a giant tarantula...through their telescopes? (3) How can this be? What in tarnation is going on? Has the whole astronomical community gone to the Bahamas?
John Lennon, 1940-1980 We all shine on like the moon and the stars and the sun. 12.07.05 (Edited)
Update 04.06.07 - Listen to the full five hour "Wenner Tapes" interview here:
BBC Radio 4 is currently running a number of specials and features throughout this week to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Lennon's death. Good stuff too, like the Wenner tapes, somewhat controversial and heard now for the first time, and other ongoing features like Songs in the Key of Lennon (listen here), that help remove the hype, focus on the songs and help to reveal the man. These aren't text articles; you can listen to them online as long as you have Real Audio installed.
TV Sci Fi Pick of the Week
CH
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Note your time-space zone!
GMT - Galactic Mean Time
RST - Rimward Standard Time
CST - Coreward Standard Time
Archive the 8th
Dragon Wars
The Weird Worlds Demo is Online
The Weird is Out
Weird Worlds is Golden
Missing Links
Manifesto Games
Quotable Quotes and More Weirdness
Just a Quickie
Weird Worlds Soon To Be Unleashed
TV, Toys, Books & Games
The Privateer Remake
Missing Links
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Updating the Update
Just an Update
The Way Has Been Revealed
Archive the 7th
To GDC and Beyond Beyond
It's DND Not D&D
New Consumer Laws
Missing Links
Welcome Intrepid Adventurers!
Crawl in Technicolor
Iikka's Stuff
Missing Links
To a New World of Mods and Adventures
Yuletide in Cyberspace
Earthsea in Clorox
H2G2 Game and Fallujah Links
Brian's Pirates! Review
The Roman Toothpick
The Iris Nebula
A Brief History Of Computer Games
Zarnoth Declared Victor In Galactic Prez Bid
Decision 2664
Fear Me
2004 Vice Presendential Debate
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Swifty Boats Are Coming To Win Us
Damp Kawangi
Weird Worlds of Baffling Mystery
The Great Nebula in Orion
A Perfect Short Game
Weird Worlds
The Sorcerer's Cave Nabbed
Archive the 6th
Things To Do
Mixed Bag
Masters of Fantasy
Missing Links
Of Mystic Woods And Sorcerer's Caves
Your only REAL choice in 2004
More Digital Eel News
Real Magic
Buckminster & Jinx
Infrastructure
Digital Eel News
Closer to the Edge
Links of the Week
The ElectroComp 101
Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite
Now Serving...
The Best of My Life as a Blog
JinxCam Live 24/7
The Art of Game Design
Google-Eyes Art
Three Flat Games
Patching the Blob
SAIS Patch Released/Enchanter Revisited
Archive the 5th
Road Beat
DBO Nabs Two
Dungeons of the Doomed
Doom Is Not Dead
Links of the Week
Edge of Oblivion
Oblivion Released
Cheapass Games Circles the Square
Ion Storm
Zork
Name Matters
JinxCam™
Links of the Week
Steel Dawn: Forgotten Rebirth II Gold Edition
All Things Must Pass
Intellivision Lives
Links of the Week
Laurel & Hardy
Have A Jolly Holiday!
Quake Level Name Generator
IGF Finalists Announced
Oblivion
Archive the 4th
Chicken Heart
IFComp 2003
Links of the Week
3 For 1
To Mars And Beyond...
A Dark and Stormy Night
Space Empires: Starfury
Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Halloween Masks
From Space to Spacy
Links of the Week
Digital Eel's Big Box of Blox
Inside the Eagle Nebula/X Minus One
Wow
What's in the box?
Ossman's Audiola
Dice History 101
Rod Lord's H2G2 Guidebook Graphics
Links of the Week
Flash At Its Best
Elements of the Swan Nebula/Eigenradio
I Wannabe (A Rockstar)
Blog Wars: A New Scroll
Archive the 3rd
Still Playing
Boris the Dodger
Some Get It and Some Don't
Crawl
Links of the Week
It's Alive
The Sun's Surface in 3D
Something To Hold On To
Links of the Week
Mr. Kosmik Sneez
Digital Eel Summer
Late News
A Sonic Boom
Report from the Skink Works
M17: The Omega Nebula
Attention Gwog!
London at Night
Light Echoes from V838 Mon
Monsters, Surrealism and the Kustom Kulture
BushWorld and the Trees of Mystery
Links of the Week
Archive the 2nd
Wizardry vs. Telengard
Links of the Week
M42: Wisps of the Orion Nebula
News (Really) Bites
Dumbbell Nebula Close-Up from Hubble
Links of the Week
A Beautiful Game
The Columbia Tragedy
The #secretlevel Awards
BHR 71: Stars, Clouds, and Jets
Links of the Week
The Reflecting Dust Clouds of Orion
Three Shades of Darkness
The Creeping Crud
Story Time
Links of the Week
Post Holiday Update Thingy
Ketchup Date
Story Time
Archive the 1st
Independent Games Festival finalists announced
IGF, SAIS and Links of the Week
FST Thanksgiving show axed by NPR
Links of the Week
Links of the Week
Dimension13
Two New Board Game to PC Ports
How to Write Science Fiction Without Really Trying
Hellride
The Sum Total of All Human Knowledge
What is the next entry?
Story Time
Little Ghost
The Plasmaworm Collection
Liquid War
Two From Space
Firesign Theatre
Lord of the Rings
The Doctor Fun Page
certain maxims of archy
Glorioski!
Flog the Blog
live JinxCam™ updates every 3-5 seconds
A four star "casual" RTS. All the Star Wars goodies. Gorgeous space combats. Cheap these days at $19.95. No, I don't work for them.
