firehose

moreleftthannot:

I have yet to hear it explained more succinctly.

Hi All,

Spinning off this thread about gaming without hex maps, I'm working on recreating the feel of an Elder Scrolls-style game for my own solo enjoyment. I'm doing this mostly because, as I mention therein, I'm totally blind, and the ES games are unplayable for obvious reasons.

First off, I know something with the scope of Tamriel is pretty much out of the question. It's a ton of work for multiple people, let alone someone who should really be job hunting this summer. ;) I imagine a smaller sandbox is a better fit for starting.

I love a lot of the stuff put out by Sine Nomin Publishing, which I've been referred to previously, but D&D in general leaves me kind of unenthused. I also have a soft spot for Glorantha, and multiple editions of the RuneQuest and HeroQuest systems, along with Mythic GME and more stuff which might be useful, such as Fate.

I think the biggest thing I stumble over is realizing just how much pre-game prep work I may have to put in before I start actually playing, per se. Has anybody else done something vaguely similar, and if so how much world building did you do beforehand? I think one problem with my notion is that something like TES does all the creating for you, so it's just an experience, rather than something you have to generate yourself along with your character's adventures, or what have you.

TES has lots of organizations and quests to get involved in, but it also has a ton of terrain which I gather you can just wander at any time, independent of a scripted plot. I'm not quite sure which element of the feel I'd like to duplicate.

Anyway, this is just some rambling before I get on a flight home from vacation. :) Thanks for listening, and I hope I've not bored anybody.

At NPR:

Children who read the story may not think much about whether the little blue engine is male or female. But adults do. If you remember the story, three trains — all male — refuse to help the broken-down engine over the mountain. They are too important, too busy, or too tired to pull an engine full of toys. ("I won't carry the likes of you!" they said to the disappointed dolls and stuffed animals).

The little blue engine who (after significant cajoling) agrees to help is female — and also self-deprecating. "They only use me for switching trains in the yard. I have never been on the other side of the mountain," she protests.

And then the little engine just leans right in and does it: she disrupts the sluggish train economy and flawlessly executes a deliverables hack to the benefit of a group of young consumers a full century before Y Combinator. Francesco Sedita, president of the Penguin division that publishes this beloved children's book, calls the engine "literally the first to lean in! She really is the poster engine of the can-do attitude." I think I can, I think I can, I think I can lean back and fall down the mountain instead with the lazy boys, because I haven't gotten lunch yet and I'm hangry. [NPR]

This is a friendly reminder that the world famous Portland Zine Symposium will be happening this weekend at the Ambridge Event Center, Saturday and Sunday 11-5. The symposium is 100% free to attend, there are 18 workshops across the two days, and we'll have over 150 tablers with zines for sale and trade. And most importantly: it's air conditioned. Explore the world of self-publishing! Or else!

portlandzinesymposium.org

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« Impressions – Habitat: A Thousand Generations In Orbit |

Double Fine Productions, grim fandango, Lucasarts.

In February 2013, a company called Arkami launched a Kickstarter campaign for a gadget called myIDkey, a USB drive with a built-in display and fingerprint reader that would auto-fill passwords and login information when attached to a computer. The project was funded by March 22 with nearly half a million dollars from its backers—almost triple the original goal. MyIDkey's prototype had won awards at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, it received coverage from almost every major tech news outlet, and it pulled in another $3 million in startup capital during later investment rounds.

Like all Kickstarter projects posted after Kickstarter changed its rules to make creators more accountable, Arkami had a functional myIDkey prototype before launching its campaign. The only real risk appeared to involve acquiring the right parts in enough time to ship the myIDkeys on deadline. According to Arkami's Kickstarter pitch:

The "Designs" are complete, patents filed, component suppliers selected, the manufacturing process is defined, the CM [contract manufacturer] chosen so all we need is your support in this project as we size the first myIDkey production run and ship product in September 2013. Please make a pledge and receive your myIDkey!

Delivery of the final gadget was promised by September 2013. Yet over the next 18 months, Arkami and its product became a case study for mismanagement. Only a small number of myIDkeys have actually shipped, and numerous backers who received one complained about failing buttons and freezing displays. In the end, all $3.5 million was spent without much to show for it.

Microsoft has formally settled legal differences with No-IP, the dynamic domain name host that was kneecapped by a botnet takedown that recently knocked out service to millions of legitimate hostnames.

As we reported, Microsoft surrendered the 23 No-IP domains last week. A bare-bones statement e-mailed to journalists Wednesday morning said the agreement settled a controversial lawsuit Microsoft filed in late June that allowed the software maker to confiscate 23 No-IP domain names before the service provider had an opportunity to oppose the maneuver in court. The malware families targeted in the latest takedown infected more than 7.4 million machines in the past year alone, Microsoft said.

A federal judge approved Microsoft's confidential ex parte motion arguing that the software maker was entitled to seize control of the addresses because No-IP owner Vitalwerks Internet Solutions failed to follow industry practices designed to prevent malware operators from abusing the service. In the course of a few hours, millions of connections from law-abiding users were severed. The statement read in part:

The premise of Yo — the app that just lets you say "yo" to other people — may be ridiculous, but it's being put to some pretty complicated uses. According to The Times of Israel, a pair of developers are using Yo as a way to alert people of terrorist attacks throughout the country. The simple notification will come through for any Yo user who subscribes to updates from Red Alert: Israel. Traditionally, Red Alert works as a standalone app that sends off more detailed push notifications about the same types of rocket, mortar, and missile attacks that Yo users will be notified about.

That may sound like a step backward, but it was actually a logical partnership, according to The Times of Israel. By tapping into Yo, it'll be simple for Yo users to start getting updates. And more importantly, it'll expand Red Alert's audience by making the alerts available wherever Yo is supported. Red Alert itself reportedly only supports its Android app within Israel, so that would make for a huge expansion.

You'll soon be able to start mirroring everything on an Android phone over to your TV using a Chromecast. After announcing the feature at an event last month, Google said today that mirroring is beginning to roll out as part of an update to the Chromecast app for Android. The app will allow Android users to begin casting the entire screen of their tablets and phones, rather than just individual Chrome tabs and supported apps as they could up until now. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of devices that support mirroring at the moment, though the list does include the recent Nexus line as well as phones from Samsung, HTC, and LG.

Auto-tune has been embraced by the music industry for its ability to create polished, listenable recordings when an artist lacks the natural talent to hit every note. That's the nice way of saying it. Engineers also turn to auto-tune when dealing with truly wretched "singers." And they're using it everywhere. All the time. Pop star Britney Spears became the latest showcase of all that auto-tune makes possible this month after an unaltered studio session voice track leaked online. It's for a song called "Alien" from Spears' 2013 album Britney Jean. The finished song (with copious amounts of pitch correction) can be heard here. This version sounds nothing like that. Spears, who by now should be a recording studio veteran in every sense, is off the mark from start to finish. It's bad enough to be almost unlistenable at first, and doesn't get much better as the song progresses.

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"She is magnificent! And that’s that."

Soon after the track leaked, producer William Orbit rushed to Spears' defense and suggested that what we're hearing is a first-take warm up. He urged listeners not to judge Britney's vocal prowess too harshly on this one recording alone. "I'd like to affirm that any singer when first at the mic at the start of a long session can make a multitude of vocalisations in order to get warmed up," he wrote on Facebook. "Warming up is essential if you’re a pro, as it is with a runner doing stretches, and it takes a while to do properly. I’ve heard all manner of sounds emitted during warmups," Orbit wrote. "The point is that it is not supposed to be shared with millions of listeners." This one was, though, and Orbit claims it was leaked with "unkind" intentions. "Britney is and always will be beyond stellar! She is magnificent! And that’s that."

But Orbit's explanation is a weak one. Even when singing on a scratch track that no one will ever hear, most vocalists at least try to keep in tune. It's also rare for professional musicians to "warm up" by singing through an entire track in the studio. Often they're rehearsed and ready to go before an engineer hits the record button. And again, even if they're off, it's usually not this bad. Spears, who has sold over 100 million records, is currently in the midst of a Las Vegas residency with her Piece of Me stage show. Thankfully she doesn't need to worry about being separated from auto-tune on the strip; Spears lip syncs during her performances.

George R. R. Martin has a message for those who are concerned that he'll die before completing his work on the Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels: "Fuck you."

"I find that question pretty offensive, people speculating about my death and health," Martin, 65, said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger. "So fuck you to those people." He flipped the bird for emphasis.

Martin is currently working on The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire. A release date for the book has not yet been announced. The seventh and final book in the series, A Dream of Spring, is expected to follow. The first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, was first released in the U.S. in 1996.

"I need to write faster," Martin said in a separate interview with Mashable. "[But] I make no promises. I found out long ago that when you look at the overall task, the cathedral you have to build, it looks so daunting that you just give up and sit down and play a video game."