| About the internet |
[Sep. 5th, 2008|09:52 pm] |
The internet seems a much less personal experience than it was when I first started using it around 8 years ago. This is exemplified by massive databases of song lyrics (a personal bête noire), they have all but replaced the lovingly crafted fan-sites which used to provide this service.
However now and again I will enter a phrase into a search engine and be surprised by just how appropriate the suggested links are and start to consider that perhaps the internet is inhabited by humans after all, here are two examples.
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A while ago while watching Ghostbusters 2 (the onewith the scary painting), I noticed a scene which had gone over my head when watching this film multiple times at a younger age. It involved the Ghostbusters going deep underground (the film is set in New York), on reaching a cavernous underground area Dan Akroyd says something like "Wow the Pneumatic Transit System". Having never heard of such a thing and not knowing whether this had been an invention of the film makers, I immediately entered "Pneumatic Transit System" into google, then and now the first result was this link...
http://walshm.site.net.au/matt/pn_transit.htm
The introduction to the article describes how the author after seeing the aforementioned scene in Ghostbusters 2, also in disbelief had gone on to do some research and had written a short piece describing what this Pneumatic Transit System was (just enough for the moderately interested). I thought that was pretty great and wondered how many people had this exact same thought and followed these exact same actions.
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Here is something more trivial.
Like most British people, I do not speak or write English very well at all, so i'm forever checking on the internet that I am spelling a word or using a phrase correctly. Just yesterday I wanted to know whether one should "bear something in mind" or "bare it in mind" (yes it seems pretty obvious now), anyway I entered the phrase into google expecting a list of pages employing the phrase somewhere in a body of text. If I had used to correct spelling many results or fewer if I had once again made a fool of myself.
This comparison was not necessary because of course on entering the phrase I received back a list of web-pages (mostly forum entries) entitled roughly ' "BEAR in mind" or "BARE in mind"? ' so it seems that most people who enter this into google are facing the same very minor dilemma as I was.
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| Flags of the world |
[Aug. 19th, 2008|09:40 pm] |
The national flag of Nepal is the only none quadrilateral.
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| THE Dig |
[Aug. 6th, 2008|12:55 am] |
 "put your part in my machine"
So a few days ago while I was altering the course of an asteroid because it was about to strike earth, I was transported to an alien world full of strange technology which was all very beautiful and of course featured many crystals. So I've been struggled to find a way back home, the process involved many geometric shapes and beige coloured aliens.
As usual i'm at the forefront of gaming, playing my way through thirteen year old adventures. The Dig must have been pretty impressive back then, the artwork is still charming and works for people of my mindset, the scenery heavily influenced by Mesoamerican art which is the perennial favourite of most alien races. Also rather wonderful was the soundtrack... like that of Bladerunner but even more ethereal and apparently featuring a few motifs from Wagner. These were the game's greatest assets, the sound in general was good combined with the landscapes made for an atmosphere of wonderment and tension.
The puzzles however were not my thing... I prefer dialogue based tasks and following clues... this was more a matter of entering sequences and working out alien technology. The characters, not bad, there was some good interaction going on but they often wandered a bit too far down cliche lane often taking a detour along I-think-I-saw-this-in-a-film-somewhere boulevard
This was one of the worst Lucasarts games ever! but still one of the best games ever. |
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| Time for some biting satire |
[Jul. 20th, 2008|08:11 pm] |
 You know inflation is out of control when a Laptop costs 1 opinion!Take that society!
Actually I think these adverts are quite clever... some people will see the possibility of a Laptop and click, others will see another chance to tell the world how much they despise Gordon Brown or George Bush and will rage against the 'No' button. |
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| Roman wise men discover the secret of The Blog! |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|09:36 pm] |
CIVILIZATION
Here is my strategy for building one.
- Give in to the demands of your rivals' and let them abuse you, this way you don't need to spend resources on building a large army
- Concentrate on gaining new technology
- When you have tanks and everyone else is using archers, destroy the world
This game had fun music huh? for example this faux-Egyptian ditty called Harvest of the Nile I suspect this song was performed by men wearing business suits and Egyptian headdresses while playing the saxophone, as I have illustrated below.
Yes i'm quite sure this is exactly what the artist had in mind.
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| Explosion detected |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|09:46 pm] |
 I like those obscure musical genres which you can find over at All Music Guide, things like: Sadcore, Obscuro, Christian Punk, Neo-Classical Metal or the all too specific Third Wave Ska Revival. These wonderful categories have inspired me to come up with a genre name of my own. Sim City Jazz a minimalist sound consisting of drone or simple motifs repeated to create a background while various instruments and melodies come in and out of prominence. The music should evoke in the imagination images and ideas such as
- buildings built and replaced
- infrastructure constructed and operating concealed from most peoples' everyday experience
- the passing of time
- the forward march of technology
- the complexity of life/society created by numerous simpler processes
- patterns of human existence
These songs would teach us not to build all our heavy industry in one space and would remind us that no matter how much time and effort we put into creating a feasible train network your citizens will ignore it and instead drive to work on overcrowded roads.
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| Kiss off!!! |
[Jun. 24th, 2008|08:36 pm] |
It was very satisfying to beat up these Japanese school girls and i'd do it all over again, they were consistently very rude to me (although they always stopped short of very naughty words).
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| Drowsy late night tv of the 90s |
[Jun. 22nd, 2008|12:53 am] |
Star Wars In Their Eyes from The Adam and Joe Show, a good example of late night low budget television, the kind of thing you watch when half asleep or if you're a teenager at the time you watch it until the soft porn starts on channel 5.
Things to look out for --
- Luke is embarrassed by his old dad
- R2D2 is sexist
- C3PO and R2D2 as the pet shop boys "R-two-dee-two I love you"
- Grace Jones was possibly influenced by Darth Vader
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| Mummy Portraits |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|08:14 pm] |
 During Egypt's Roman period mummification was still going on, it was a simpler process by that time, bodies were bound but internal organs remained intact. Portraits of the dead would either be painted directly onto the wrappings or more commonly a wooden board which would be attached to the bound remains. These paintings were far more influenced by Hellenistic and Roman art than the older stylized depictions of people which ancient Egypt is best known for. Although realistic in style they are very unlikely to represent the subject with any accuracy, the portraits are painted to convention and as such tend to look very similar only differing in hairstyle and ornamentation. Still I find these very interesting and enjoyed seeing them up close, they are one of those artifacts that can bring humanity to historical facts and statistics. Source |
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| Happy Friday 13th |
[Jun. 13th, 2008|07:11 pm] |
13-June - 1986 (Friday)13-June - 1997 (Friday)13-June - 2008 (Friday)
Today is my 24th birthday the third time it has fallen on friday, the most significant was my thirteenth birthday, that's two thirteens and one friday all in one day.
Thankfully I am not at all superstitious and so felt no need to cower away in bed all day, in fact I even went to a museum and came in close proximity to various artifacts of egyptian burial which of course are always cursed!
In 'Broken Sword' the 1996 adventure game which I dearly love, the foreboding reputation of the date is attribute to an event taking place on friday the 13th October, 1307, King Philip IV of France conducted the mass arrest of Knights Templar operating in France. While this did indeed happen, it didn't appear to garner much attention as a portent of misfortune until recently, the connection was most likely the invention of a hack historian to give the date yet more mystique, in reality the idea of this as an unlucky day seems to originate in the 19th century.
PS. 1996 predates 'The Da-Vinci Code' by nine years and the makers of Broken Sword didn't once claim to be working in the realm of historical accuracy, so if you want a good bit of fantasy involving the Knights Templar, at the moment you're much better off pointing and clicking than reading. I continue to hope that Dan Brown will figure out he is an idiot and make a swift public apology. |
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