Instant wisdom:

Missing Links
& News from the Fringe
11.07.09

The Scarifyers: Behind The Scenes | Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell | What US Game Developers Need to Know about Free-to-Play in China (scary stuff if you actually like games) | NASA Ares 1-X rocket blasts off in Florida | 50 years of space exploration | Let's Play Games updated | Java Nine Men's Morris (rules & history) | The Purpose of Copyright by Lydia Pallas Loren | Bullet impacts | Cool cover of "Toxicity" | The Paris of the Three Musketeers (Scribner's Magazine - vol. 8, issue 2 - August, 1890) | Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String | The Games Journal | The Beatles vs. Communism! | We are all mutants say scientists | LucasArts Reunion | The Video Game Atlas (nifty retro example) | L.A. wildfire time-lapse | Cooperation and Engagement, with Pandemic creator Matt Leacock

Think for Yourself
The Healthscare Debate
11.05.09

Three cheers for the republican leadership! Bronx cheers, that is.

FACT: The mixed public-private health care system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, with health care costing more per person than in any other nation.

FACT: The U.S. ranks last in the quality of health care among developed countries.

FACT: The U.S. is the only wealthy industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.

DATA: World Health Statistics 2009, World Health Organization (WHO) | It's The Prices, Stupid: Why the United States is So Different from Other Countries, Health Affairs, May/June 2003 | Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations, Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science, January 14, 2004 | The Case for Single Payer, Universal Health Care for the United States

More babies die in the U. S. each year, and more adults die sooner, than in any other wealthy industrialized country. 47,000,000 people in the U. S. are uninsured, and of those who are, most are underinsured... It goes on and on, and so could I, and in far more detail, but you get the idea. Our healthcare system SUCKS, 100%, from top to bottom.

Meanwhile repubs in congress staunchly defend the status quo, pronouncing doom and gloom upon the demos while rolling in the tens of millions of dollars they recieve each quarter from drug and insurance corporation lobbyists.

All of these guys are assholes, frankly. Manipulative, soulless, greedy and sick people. Sick in the ways they use others. They even get ordinary citizens to make fools of themselves and chime in. It's like mind control lasers or something funny in the water. Actually, it's not funny at all. It's just good ol' dependable lies. Say the right scary-sounding stuff and many people --even though they're intelligent folks and probably know better-- get absolutely terrified.

Whatever passes, healthcare reform is already a badly crippled product. It's an American shame. Both political parties to blame, and the corporate deities they serve. Journalists and the news media are culpable for jumping guns and fanning fires. So are we all since we elected these jerks, read these webpages, watch these lousy cable channels, and repeat everything we hear instead of looking things up, actually studying and thinking for ourselves.

A Game A Week
Feeding the Future!
09.14.09

I started doing a really interesting personal project recently: "self publish a boardgame a week". How? Only in 2009. The Game Crafter service makes this possible, so I'm doing just that --but it isn't about making money (except for the Game Crafter folks, heh). It's about exploring games, classic games, abstract games, my favorite games, the first games I played before videogames existed. It's about learning things, practicing making art, doing layout, writing, putting a package together --finishing things! I've done five so far, Hex, Space Ludo, Surakarta, Knights & Champions and Cam. You can check them out, and my future progress, here.

The Out of This Weird World Mini-Boardgame for All Ages!

Think for Yourself
Nurture Your Inner Skeptic
08.21.09

Think for Yourself is going to be a new "feature" on this blog. I'd previously chosen to stay out of the fray and not contribute to the Great White Noise. But what the heck, it's fun to vent sometimes, and necessary too. Besides, my opinions are as valid and important as anyone else's. In other words, not very in the greater scheme of things. So here goes, for what it's worth. Cue the Buffalo Springfield.

Thanks to our vaunted viral vulture media, this fellow, who is a human being despite his conviction for a heinous crime, is referred to only as "the Lockerbie man", "the Lokerbie Bomber", "the bomber" --an unconscionable depersonalization. Few acknowledge his humanity (and the existence of a precious human soul) by referring to him by name, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

You see, to acknowledge him in that way would be to acknowledge that all of us, even "the baddies", are linked, and therefor flawed. That notion is something that makes some people extremely uncomfortable --because of their own hang ups or because it doesn't draw as many listeners, readers and viewers as screaming "they let an evil terrorist go free!!!" at the top of their lungs does.

Well, the fourth estate lets us down a lot these days. That's another story. Instead, let's look at the "C" word and what our fearless leaders are saying.

Anyone who questions "compassion" as being a valid reason to release this man obviously does not truly know the meaning of the word. It's like "love" --fathomless, bottomless, with no conditions. If there's some sort of "catch" to compassion, then we have indeed cheapened the word nearly to meaninglessness.

Based on circumstances and compassion, this man had every good reason to be allowed to go back home. Politicians who have spoken against this display no depth of compassion, instead being morally weak and interested only in maintaining a political facade.

In other words, let the guy suffer, incarcerated with terminal cancer, for what is essentially a ruse; a propaganda. It's pretty disgusting.

Family and friends of victims should be outraged, but not at the man's release, though a measure of anger is certainly understandable, but at their being used politically.

Meanwhile, review the events and read up on the man here.

Missing Links
& News from the Fringe
08.02.09

Mozart --Still decomposing! | The Game Crafter | "Atomic Rockets" | The Curse of the Black Comet | How Not to Advertise on the Internet | Paper Craft Castle | Rise of the Video Game: Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 | Retrospective - Thief: The Dark Project | Phosphorous Talks Brainpipe | The Outpost by Julie Hoverson - 2008 MARK TIME Gold Award Winner | Speed of light from Earth to Moon | Galcon

I was Born to Synthesize
Moog Lives in the Mystery Kitchen Again
07.28.09

Picked up one of these. A Moog Little Phatty. I was going to purchase a Voyager but based on what you get for $3K+ they cost too darn much. Besides, the Phatty has most of the same sound capabilities found in the Voyager at less than half of the price. It's great to hear that warm thick Robert Moog sound again, and its very easy to control many parameters of the synthesizer in real time. The machine is wholly analog. Oscillators take about 15 minutes to stabilize, just like in the old days. My score: a solid 4 out of 5, losing a notch for one particular knob that gets used too much (it WILL wear out) and the fact that identifying the output jack is very difficult. Looking forward to using this board for the games and other delights to come!

Chaos & Change
There Are Times When Things Happen
05.28.09

Yikes, lots to cover. It's been a while! First, my computer got infected by one of those scareware rogue anti-virus programs, in particular the "MS Antivirus" type of trojan horse. I've never seen anything like it, the way it hijacked programs and features on my computer. Then, after trying to clean it out (unsuccessfully) for two weeks, something it downloaded (don't get me started) finally ate the machine. Seriously, you should read up on these wicked, wicked things if you haven't heard about them but moreover, be careful how you browse! And be careful where you click!

At the same time I myself acquired a potent flu virus that ended up being a three+ week ordeal. This was just before the current "swine flu" scare, and I had to laugh at news reporting (but not at the unfortunates who had the flu of course). My symptoms were far worse and varied than those attributed to the swine flu cases. --Never mind the swine flu, folks. There's plenty of nasty stuff floating around that just doesn't get the air time. Maybe because the stuff's just not sexy like "swine flu". Ahem.-- Anyway, many of my friends caught and/or passed around this delightful pseudo-organism. We all got to share the Eastside Plague.

A good thing came of it though. Being really sick with the gamut of flu and cold related problems, I couldn't smoke at all for three weeks. (I was used to smoking a pack and a half a day.) So, when I started feeling better, for shits and giggles I just didn't start smoking again. And because I couldn't smoke while being sick, I'd already been through the worst part of quitting and didn't notice the typical "first week" withdrawal symptoms. Awesome, but I sure can't recommend the method. Anyway, I'm still not smoking so...I think it worked.

Lastly, I moved. After eight years of being on one side of this hillside apartment complex, I, Jinx, Buckminster and Steve moved to the other side. Mainly to live in a smaller place to save money, but it's also nicer on this side, with lots more trees and foliage, and NO security floodlights, parking lots or office parks in view.

Well, that's the report. Various things have been happening with Digital Eel, and there's more to come but you can read about that stuff here. Meanwhile, back to normal. Sort of.

An Award for Noise
Brainpipe Nabs One from the IGF
03.29.09

Clipped frpm the Digital Eel news page:

Amazingly, considering the sheer number of entries, some terrific co-contenders and the rather daunting presence of game industry insider judges, our trippy little game, Brainpipe, scored the Independent Games Festival Excellence in Audio award, a catch-all accolade that includes both music and sound effects. Neat! (And there was great rejoicing in the Mystery Kitchen.)

Getting this award was pretty special and meaningful for us for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we all worked on the sound and music together, which was more fun than humans should be allowed to have and very productive of fresh and unusual sonic ideas. Three heads can be better than one in this regard, and "With a little help from your friends" is no cheap cliche.

Go read the semi-official Gamasutra announcement here.

Missing Links
& News from the Fringe
01.25.09

Northern Images Photography | Ben Burtt on Wall-E | Playmobil Security Check Point (Read the customer reviews!) | The Offworld Guide to the 2009 Independent Games Festival | The Sky in Motion | The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd | Zero Punctuation: Awards for 2008 | "More honest" fantasy book covers | Black holes 'preceded galaxies' | Delia Derbyshire | Moyers interviews John Lithgow | A Fistful of Yen | How to knit a brain | The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art | Invaders from the Ice World! (Cover & Inside) | The Cube

That Was The Year That Was
Digital Eel 2008
01.03.09

As I write, we're just a few days into 2009. The new year has arrived with its promise of newer and stranger adventures to come...

Looking back, Digital Eel has had a pretty productive year for a group of part-timers: two new game releases, a port of a previously released game, more slurpable Phosphorous art and three free music tracks. See, we try to get at least one game together each year and we also try to provide as much free content as we can. We want everyone to be able to experience some Digital Eel-type fun even if they can't, or don't care to, purchase anything.

Last fall we began to emphasize the position we take against DRM. You'll notice a "button" at the top of each Digital Eel page simply stating this, which links to the Wikipedia explanation of digital rights management. We hope gamers will take a few moments to learn what DRM is and how it affects software users. Ultimately we'd like to see as many gamers as possible give their support to indie game developers and distributors who have taken a similar stance. DRM is a crummy deal and no gamer should feel that they have no choice but to be subject to it.

Anyhow, here's a rundown of what Digital Eel was up to in 2008:

Games

Brainpipe
A very trippy arcade-style game recently described by Play This Thing as being like having sex with Yog Sothoth.

Goblin Slayer
A free two player boardgame of underground fantasy combat in which you get to roll dice and kill things.

Big Box of Blox for Symbian® S60® smartphones
A nifty port by Astraware of our bizarre stack & match game from 2003. (These things come back to haunt you!)

Art by Phosphorous

Void Probe Manta
Hut
Brainpipe Teasers: 1 2 3 4
Holiday Greetings (traditional)

Music

Weird Worlds: The Single
A short medley of music and strangeness not included in the "Soundtrack" below.

Void Probe
Created by The Nightmare Band, a section of this ambient track was used in Brainpipe.

Weird Worlds: The Soundtrack
A medley of a whole bunch of music from the Weird Worlds game --and a few tracks that didn't make it into the final release.

Lots of folks to thank for their support and helping out to make 2008 a bang up year for Eel: Bill, Iikka and Ed, my partners in crime; Kevin, James, John and all of the Fearless Testers; Annette, Mindi, Tim, Scott, Richard and Forum friends at Shrapnel Games; Howard, Kieren, Alison and Ruth at Astraware; Greg and Bill at Manifesto Games; various kind and helpful folks involved in the wide world of games, scattered hither and yon; not to mention all of the friends and family members who rolled with us through the year. Truly, Digital Eel wouldn't last a day without such a considerate and supportive tribe behind it.

As for 2009, who can say? Digital Eel has plans, games in the works, etc., but our plans have altered before. Best to say at this point that we hope we can unleash a few new things this year. We're never really sure what is going to happen until it happens, but when it happens I'll be sure to let you know.

Missing Links
& News from the Fringe
12.18.08

Brian And John | Archaeology's top 10 finds | Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law | Pen-spinning demo | Probably a Planet for Beta Pic | Squid with elbows | IFComp 2008 winners announced | Left4Dead: Brad's Plan | Garrett's scouting orb to aid UK troops | 19th Century Vampire Killing Kit | Peering into the micro world | A Bubble in Cygnus | Giant octopus up close and personal | Apollo 11 breaking the sound barrier | Frontline: The War Briefing

If it Sounds Good it IS Good
The Duke, and I Don't Mean John Wayne
12.08.08

If I said Jump For Joy, Black and Tan Fantasy, Creole Love Call, Concerto for Cootie, Ko-Ko, Take the "A" Train, Rockin' in Rhythm, Solitude, Rumpus in Richmond and East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, what name would come to mind?

Ellington, of course. Sir Duke. And after listening to this stuff for a couple of days --kind of one of those rediscovery moments you have in your life-- I'm reminded, but startlingly, that the compositions, the arrangements and the musicianship apparent in these now vintage recordings are of an incomparably high technical and artistic order.

The beauty part, however, is that the music is so accessible and appealing. Hearing it simply makes you feel good.

I truly believe that if a modern composer, arranger or instrumentalist could "cop" half of what is going on in Ellington's music, he or she would still be way ahead of the pack. Not that I am any kind of scholarly critic making a profound proclamation. I think that anyone seriously involved with stage band and jazz
well knows this and would agree, saying "Obviously, RC."

Under the crushing weight of history it is inevitable that the majority of cultural treasures mankind has created will be lost in the mists of time. That's the way it is, as they say. We simply cannot archive everything. In fact, we can only hope to preserve a small fraction of it.

On the bright side, however, better technology (like high end digital restoration techniques and digital archiving) gives us more and better means all the time to do so, as much as is possible. And awareness of and concern for this issue has not waned. If anything, the technology, like the internet (and organizations like the Internet Archive) and the means to carry, literally in your pocket, large amounts of music with you wherever you go, only improves the chances that more of the musical past will exist in the future, and perhaps indefinitely, even timelessly, so.

One way or another, Ellington's wonderful music (still innovative, to my ears) will survive. "Ellington" is a National Treasure. Our kids' kids' kids should hear it, and I believe that they will.

Someone living in a futuristic bio-dome on the sixth moon of Neptune will be enjoying Ellington just as we do in the present. Indeed, via unforseen science fiction technology, he or she may even be able to virtually "sit in" with one of Ellington's bands.

Actually, that one's probably not that far away if Guitar Hero, Rock Band and karaoke are any indication.

I want Baritone Sax Hero for my X-mas X-box next year.

Brainpipe
A Plunge to Unhumanity
11.21.08

Yep. The rumors (ahem) are true. There's a new Digital Eel PC game coming out soon. This one's called Brainpipe (and I like it a lot).

Brainpipe is in the arcade game zone, and kind of retro. You fly through a psychedelic wormhole-like twisty tube avoiding abstract obstacles and collecting "glyphs" as colors, patterns, music and speed shift in intensity. There's no shooting or powerups, things we deliberately wanted to avoid as a kind of challenge.

I had a lot of fun contributing to Brainpipe's design with Bill and Iikka, and I'm proud to call it a true and equal collaboration. Everyone got neat ideas in that really helped to improve the basic game.

I had even more fun making music and sfx for the game. Artist Bill (Phosphorous) contributed tracks too. Did you know he creates amazing soundscapes? True, and the stuff's great! Now, this "music"...A lot of it in the game is nontraditional, more ambient and uses techniques of musique concrete, a realm of music involving found sounds and manipulated sounds that Bill and I have been into for a long time. Myself, since getting into composers like Stockhausen and Varese when I was a kid. Bill, falling into it naturally and doing it for fun, like jamming with multiple self-made ambient tracks playing in his art studio. Outer space, man!

You know, making this kind of music is fairly easy. The trick is putting it together in such a way that it doesn't make too many people want to throw up. Aha! It's dangerous. You're going on intuition and, to a great degree, giving it over to chance. You could end up with crap. But I don't think we did. The results in Brainpipe turned out really interesting. In fact, I think there are sonic surprises in store for folks who play the game all the way through to its conclusion.

Watch for Brainpipe. Seriously, it's really cool. We'll announce its release as soon as it hits version 1.0 to our satisfaction --we're very close-- and as soon as we figure out how we are going to distribute it. We're just about to get into that phase.

Missing Links
& News from the Fringe
10.28.08

Wing Commander III: The Movie | Music of the Spheres | Enceladus up close | Doctor Who: Max Warp (Real audio - only available through Nov. 1) | RabbitHoles: 3D Motion Holograms | More Music from the Purple Void: .mp3 or online | The Further Adventures of Nick Danger (YouTube audio) | Relativity drive: The end of wings and wheels? | CBC Radio One podcast: Who Owns Ideas? (.mp3) | David Lynch Foundation | Kevin Kelly:Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web | Ray Bradbury Prunes Commercial

Blessed Event
Lionheart & Dunning Meet Sir Basil
10.17.08

Cool news. The Scarifyers gang returned to the studio last week to record the fourth Scarifyers adventure, The Curse of the Black Comet, featuring "shouty bearded thesp" Brian Blessed. Here's the word from the Scarifyers website:

Brian joins the cast to play the world’s worst explorer..."The extraordinary thing is that I always wanted to play (Arthur Conan Doyle's) Professor Challenger, and this is the opposite side of the coin, Basil Champion. Professor Challenger is a great explorer, but Basil Champion is completely useless," says Brian.

More Cool Stuff to Stick in Your Ears
Posting Audio Goodness at SFFaudio.com
09.11.08

Busy lately with lots of little projects. One is a new Digital Eel computer game to be announced soon. Another involves a different interest of mine.

Recently I was invited by audiomeister Jesse Willis to post announcements of upcoming online audio plays on SFFaudio.com. So I'll be combing through the BBC Radio 7 and Radio 4 schedules looking for extra special plays and readings to feature, and highlighting, from time to time, classic genre dramas from the radio days of yore. My goal is to help y'all find the best audio entertainment on the web and great stories that you may not have heard or read before.

Anyhow, if you like "speculative fiction" and you enjoy podcasts, full-cast audio plays and audiobooks you should definitely stop by and check out the site (which is updated several times each day). You'll discover new things there you'll like, I promise, and 99% of what's linked to there is free. Aha!

Missing Links
& News from the Fringe
08.08.08

A Hippocratic Oath for Journalists? | Solar system travel posters | Wormwood | Space Casey | Byrne & Eno freebie | Large Hadron Collider | Large Hadron Collider Rap | I Met the Walrus | ZA interviews Jonathan Coulton | On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study | Happy Birthday April | Acid rock nerds (Microsoft circa 1975) | Bill Gates: The last day at Microsoft | Nobody Loves Me | Puzzle Farter

For King and Country
The Scarifyers Returns
07.01.08

Lionheart and Dunning are back in For King and Country, The Scarifyers third adventure! (If you don't know about The Scarifyers audio plays, scroll down to my 12.28.07 entry or better yet, go here.)

'Sir' Harry Price, self-proclaimed ghost detective, has built a machine... Londoners are being killed, in especially gruesome fashion... Age-old forces are stirring... The dead will rise... The Crown will fall. Can Lionheart and Dunning save King and Country?

The Scarifyers stars Doctor Who veterans Nicholas Courtney as Inspector Lionheart and Terry Molloy as Professor Dunning. The series is lovingly, and hilariously, produced by Cosmic Hobo Productions. This is top drawer British horror-comedy folks (though "horror-comedy" isn't exactly right; they've managed to create a subgenre, "period horror-adventure-comedy", that has no name, and that's always a good sign) and word is, a fourth adventure is in the works, so holler hooray and cue the theme music!

Missing Links
& News from the Fringe
06.24.08

JG Ballard radio dramas | Weird Worlds: The Soundtrack 128Kbps 486Kbps | The Power of Nightmares | Slug photos | Storm Over Everest | Wargames with Odd or Special Units | Dark Tower | Goblin Slayer | Songs by Tom Lehrer | Star Wars: Betrayal | Modular robot reassembles itself | Milliways, Douglas Adams, Infocom and beyond... | Powder | Fireman's hovercar | Vampires, Spies and Alien Beings | 20 from the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series | Flash Bazbo: Space Explorer 1 2 3 4 | Audio Realms | Retropolis T-shirts | Can we imagine photographing a black hole? | A record from the future | The Further Adventures of Nick Danger 1 2 3 | Whiteboard War | The Planet Man

Some heroines will steal your heart...
Space Casey
06.19.08

Some heroines will steal your heart. This one will steal your wallet.

In the future, mankind has expanded to fill the solar system, but when a snarky con-woman steals the wrong spaceship, she finds herself stranded in a distant galaxy. She is humanity's first emissary to a galactic civilization, and all she wants to do is go home. Preferably, without being arrested.

Congrats to Space Casey, the episodic science fiction radio play podcast created by Christiana Ellis! Space Casey just won the ASFSFA/MISFITS Mark Time gold award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Audio Production of 2007 --no mean feat to be sure but not surprising since the show is notably well written and very funny. So, just a quick note here to say: way to go, Christiana, and thanks for a great series!