Cults, knives, women in chains, violent vegetation, Shub Niggurath, evil hillbillies and fnord! The game in this review has all of these.
Lonely Places is an amateur text adventure game by author, Call of Cthulhu player and vet Nick Marsh. It’s a call back to the days of old when computer games came in boxes with extras which played a part in several very “unique” copy protection systems and you had to be able to spell to play the game.
This game is short. It took me about an hour to feel I’d gotten most of the game solved and seen the multiple endings. It’s also genuinely an intriguing game. It’s based almost entirely on the Lovecraft Mythos and the game follows the form of a creepy horror story.
The game is fun in part due to the excellent prose by Nick Marsh as well as a fantastic selection of nouns provided in the game. This may not sound all that important but for a text adventure game it is. For instance if I want to open the boot of the car I can type in “open boot”. Which is the British way of saying things. In this game I can also say “open trunk”, which I am lead to understand is the Yankee way of saying boot. A small detail but this is text adventure game. Everything is in the small details.
Other cool things about this game: well, it’s short which is great because I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to computer games. There’s also lots of different endings. Some not so happy and some even less happy.
But there’s not enough endings. Also, the games probably too short. It managed to get my attention and then ended quickly.
This game is free and can be found here. You will need a Z-code interpreter for your computer and they can be found easily using Google. The website the game is hosted on Yog-Sothoth is the premier place to find information about Lovecraftian gaming.
Ordinarily, when I do a mixwit tape, I don’t just run with one artist, but I was listening to some Jonathan Richman and I discovered that I just couldn’t help but share my love for this inventive storyteller, musician, and big-hearted guy.
He is probably best known for his work with his first band, The Modern Lovers. He formed this band in late 60s, early 70s near Boston, Massachusetts.
His style is heavily influenced by his love for the Velvet Underground (another favorite of mine), and their stripped down, all-out, intense music.
But enough preamble! The music is what matters.
New Kind of Neighborhood
An entertaining story about encountering a, well, new kind of neighborhood. The kind where people are free and happy. Not in that “we’ve thrown off the government” protest way, but in the way that suggests really encountering a different, close-knit community. Richman’s approach to lyrics is insightful and touching on a level that should really appeal to all but the most hardened cynics.
I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar
Caution: potential ear worm! I have had the hook from this song stuck in my head more than once. Another entertaining tale about a night out on the town, and how much more fun it is to be able to just get up and dance.
New England
As a New England native, and being the kind of guy he is, my guess is he just couldn’t resist talking up the area he calls home. Particularly relevant to me, as I’ve lived in New England myself for over ten years now!
You’re Crazy for Taking the Bus
Might be crazy, but again his poetic observation doesn’t fail to really capture the essence of the journey, and strike a chord with anyone who has had a similar experience.
I’m Straight
Not a reference to sexual orientation, but an inference that he can provide more engaging company than the competition for the object of his affections.
Satisfied Mind
The first of 3 covers tacked onto this unique sampler. It also happens to be a favorite song of mine.
Back in the USA
According to the intro to this track, this is originally a Chuck Berry song. So classic, and I love the background vocal harmonies. Also, check out that guitar sound. WHEEEEEW. I simply haven’t the words for it.
96 Tears
Originally by ? and the Mysterians. I love the gritty, haughty nature of the song, and the Modern Lovers (and Richman) really give it the treatment it deserves. You can also feel some serious Velvet Underground live recording sensibilities oozing through this track.
First off, it was great to see everybody again! I had missed the last two Media Makers events and kicked myself pretty hard both times. Thanks to my cat and the fact that I have a memory like a (rusted) steel trap, I was able to make it out to Newmarket in time to schmooze a little before everything got started.
Everybody is really busy! I took some general notes on each person and everybody had something fun or interesting to share.
Talked about film projects he’s working on, stuff in conjunction with NewtonStudios.com and BostonFilms.com (bostonfilms.com links to a weird page about internet connection sharing??) - Zerk.tv
Mentioned that he is scoring a film (horror film I think it was).
Bryan White of Cinema Suicide -
Launched Soundtrack Apocalisse, featuring soundtrack reviews. Apocalisse is Italian for apocalypse! Neat!
He’s got tshirts for Cinema Suicide now! They’re really cool looking, done in fake movie poster style, with Cinema Suicide’s URL on them. Go get one now so you can say you were in at the ground floor.
Quoted by Ghost Adventures, who will soon be putting out a DVD (which may or may not contain some of those CS group quotes). (Correct me if I’m citing the wrong Ghost Adventures group.)
He mentioned gearing up to do a documentary about the less-than-savory history of Portsmouth, NH and doing some paranormal investigation to coincide with the area. Talked about a lot of really interesting history surrounding Portsmouth. Things I’d never heard before like all the old aqueduct work that has survived, and the old tunnels under the city surviving from old military installations. It sounds like there are a lot of really fascinating subjects he could cover in a Portsmouth documentary and I look forward to hearing way more about it.
Cinema Suicide got covered by local entertainment paper: The Wire. The story is mentioned on the front page, so if you see a copy, go grab it!
Rob is a writer, a musician and photographer. He’s got a pretty awesome flickr profile at santaplausible (which is a name I just absolutely love, by the way). He’s looking to collaborate and learn more about cool stuff to do on the internet.
Shawn is a writer and I believe he said he’s also done some teaching. He’s interested in getting involved in more media and web-based projects.
Over at GeekForceFive, he experimented with adding a Question of the Day to a video post he did regarding his recent NIN concert experience. This got some of the best feedback he’s seen yet, and he is considering making Question of the Day a regular feature on GFF. Sounds like a terrific idea and I hope he keeps us posted!
He’s also forging a community area for GFF at geekforcefive.ning.com - ning.com being a resource for people who want to take a sort of plug-and-play approach to social networking/community sites.
Got BIG plans for the upcoming SXSW, trying to get a panel together on “Can social media save the world?” and is looking for support to get this exciting concept off the launchpad and into the conference. The idea behind this panel was inspired by her recent experiences at PodCamp Boston.
Got a site going called UptownUncorked.com, which has a neat wine glass shape going on with the first U that I think is really neat and would totally like to see develop more as a concept.
Recently attended a Mashable event in Boston. Also mentioned that she’s a frequent attendee of Boston. Any Media Maker folks who are interested in Boston events should probably contact her for info on carpooling and so forth.
I finally got to meet @debdebtig! I’ve been following her for a while on Twitter because she’s a locally active person. It’s nice to be able to put a face to a name like that.
Deb is a tech communicator (all types of media, not just writing), as well as a local farmer!
She’s got nheggs.blogspot.com and will be branching that out to include an official site (NHeggs.com) as well as adding some web service profiles for her chickens, giving people a day-in-the-life look into what it’s like to be a hen on the farm.
Anecdotally - Back-in-the-day, her husband ran the largest BBS in southern New Hampshire! How cool is that? I myself didn’t spend much time on the internet during the BBS days, I spent more time trying to stay up late playing Shining Force on the Sega channel without getting caught. :3
He’s also written a book! It’s called Practical Rails Plugins and it’s currently available for pre-order on Amazon. It’s pretty exciting to have published authors in our midst.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Nick is a freelance developer, working primarily with Ruby on Rails, but is awesome enough to provide services above and beyond that as duty calls.
He’s also been involved with a zine called ink19, which as I understand it started life as a paper zine and has since evolved some digital tentacles to better propel itself through the cultural miasma that is the internet. The primary focus of ink19 is music, but they cover other fun stuff like movies, television and various other exciting whatnots.
Nick has a dream! A dream in which it is much easier for people to read and distribute webcomics. That’s a really awesome dream. One which we can probably all get behind.
Sub-question: Should we do a group event to brainstorm all the possible features and needs of a webcomic reader/distro system? Could be a really entertaining and worthwhile project, and could ultimately unseat things like WordPress when it comes to web comic creation and distribution! (and how boss monster would that be? pfft. very.)
Brian Turnbull -
Another newcomer, and recent transplant from Chi-town (Chicago). He’s a professional photographer and has recently collaborated with ZapNap.
Brian and Nick worked with a client to very recently launch Razume.com, a site in which people can have their resumes reviewed by their peers (and probably also by hiring professionals!).
He’s also working away on a pilot for an HD webisodic show called Thomas in Wonkyland. The premise came about at an improv event a while back, and some of those same players are coming back to work on this concept. It sounds absolutely hilarious and I can’t wait to see it!
John recently helped his wife make a 1 minute movie for a film festival called le 60, a bunch of 1 minute movies to be shown in Boston in mid-September. He shared with us a really inspiring story about how he contacted a musician in Germany that he really admired, and was able to get some unique music for the project from that communication. Very cool. Incidentally: le 60 is accepting submissions through August 15th, so there is still time to participate in this project/contest.
Jill Silos -
Jill is an author and cultural historian who works with grad students at UNH, as well as other local college-level students in the area.
She is working on a book called Everybody Get Together: The Politics of the Counterculture. The book in project form won an award back in 2005, and I think it’s safe to say everyone in the group was very interested in the finished product when it’s ready for release.
She’s learning to play guitar and apparently does a pretty mean D minor, but is still looking for tips on how to transition between chords.
As for myself, I talked a little bit about exciting new developments at work, and a few of my ideas for RKNet.
RKNet will be featuring content from paid bloggers. I am still taking inquiries about this, although I have had several interested parties contact me already. Email giania [at] gmail.com if you wish to get more info about the program.
The purpose of the paid blogging program is to free me up to do the following: redo the RKNet template, develop really cool merch ideas, strengthen affiliate relations. Eventually I want RKNet to be something like boingboing without the awkward lesbian “unpublishing” drama. Baby steps.
Chris had a really terrific merchandise idea for RKNet, develop “random kitty” plush toys, literal random kitties, probably small batch or one-off items to keep things interesting, and cement their status as collectors items.
I talked briefly about an idea I had to create a site to specialize in supporting local farmers and local farmers’ markets by providing a centralized site catering to their needs. Deb let me know that in her experience it’s actually pretty difficult to keep up with the normal demand, much less deal with greater exposure. I’d love to work with some people on this concept, to come up with a variety of ideas on how a site like this could help the most people, and maybe make some money.
Some things I neglected to mention:
I’ve got a soup! giania.soup.io it’s a kind of micro-blogging, tumblr sort of service. It’s lots of fun and allows for quick sharing of some of your favorite (or least favorite) items on the internet.
I attended the Boston-based An Event Apart conference. I have transcribed some of my notes, but there’s still a lot left to put up. Stay tuned.
I mentioned a friend’s ninja doll project but forgot the URL ( ninja-dolls.com DUH), also posted the URL in the comments at the NH Media Makers blog.
As mentioned gingerly so as not to offend the nice people at Crackskulls, I am a HUGE fan of Dover’s newest coffee shop, Adelle’s. As we get more people at NH MM, we may run out of room at Crackskulls. I spoke briefly with one of the people who works at Adelle’s and it sounds like they might be interested in hosting an event like ours. I believe they have wifi there, and I’m working on getting them their own website so news/events can be posted there also. I’m really dying to try one of their bacon cheddar scones.
A portion of that song references a classic Three Stooges bit of which I knew nothing! I didn’t grow up in a household that really appreciated The Three Stooges, and so was never really exposed to some of the comedic gems they were responsible for creating.
Here, for your enjoyment, is a short bit of theirs which is titled (on the YouTube page where I found it) “Slowly I Turned”. Or perhaps more appropriately… Niagra Falls!
Day one was fraught with challenges, up to and including having trouble finding the venue. It took a lot of wandering around, a phone call, and I think two concierge desk stops to finally figure out that the Copley Plaza Marriott was in fact through the Copley Plaza Westin and the attached mall. That said, on with the notes.
Missed over half of this session. :( I blame Mass traffic.
Hits on server vs. File size. The more hits to the server, the slower the load times. File size isn’t nearly as much of an issue.
IE(6) does not cache 2nd tier stylesheets. (stylesheets linked from within other stylesheets)
IE6 wants nothing to do with your fancy link styling. Don’t rely on it to convey critical information if you think you’ll have a significant amount of IE6 visitors. (Know your audience!)
Mobile phones probably can’t handle your stylesheet (iPhone notably excepted from this guideline).
create a grid or layout background to use for debugging.
Create a debugging stylesheet that replaces more subtle elements with large, bold colors to see exactly how your major elements line up.
Set default colors in the body of the document to override any CSS weirdness or absence.
Try to avoid measurements in pixels. Percentage or EM will provide better usability and cross-browser support.
Create a framework file. This is a totally empty stylesheet, containing only elements, classes and ids, as well as comments explaining the general purpose of each. This provides the framework for others to understand your work, and gives you a blank to start from in future work.
Maintain clean, logical naming conventions. Don’t use .RedBigText use .Header or .CallToAction. This way if you have to make this class perform a function other than red, big text you can make those changes while maintaining your markup.
Session 3: Good Design Ain’t Easy - Jason Santa Maria (turned 30! Happy Birthday!)
Look to be different. Be familiar with popular box models & learn what you can do to separate yourself from them.
Print != the web. (!= is does not equal for those who aren’t familiar) Therefore, instead of innovating based on standards of print, we must look to usability standards and concepts to build a better (mousetrap) website.
Design reinforces your message.
Design fills in where content leaves off to create impressions.
Referenced the storytelling power of a mostly visual chart of Napoleon’s progress.
Pacing must be capable of including all pertinent info. Editor’s Note: I don’t remember what I meant by this note.
Design must account for flexibility, changes, functions
Design must be able to demonstrate depth, or give the visitor confidence that they can navigate comfortably.
Design for your audience, not just to fit your box model.
Take advantage of the medium, learn to apply the tech to its fullest.
Plan before you do, and make stylesheets accordingly flexible
Level of design intricacy hinges largely on the type of content it is meant to showcase and support.
“Design can’t not communicate.” - David Carson, Helvetica
The Golden Rule or other ratio is a handy reference for balancing a box model.
You have approximately 1.6 seconds to make an impression on a first time visitor.
References Steve Krug’s excellent book Don’t Make Me Think in regards to illustrating how we use the web. We don’t read. We track around the web looking for the next thing to get us to our intended informational goal.
Great presentation on the web is comprised of a balance between information and emotion, or Visual Organization and Personality.
Organize things in ways people can relate to. For example, organizing information in a customer lookup system like a rolodex.
What’s front and center is critical
Presentation should follow desired function
Downplay non-critical information
Create context by applying contrast, placement and seperation
Consider the color scheme. Contrasting colors attract attention.
Make uniquely important items distinct from the remainder of the page.
Focus on your use of labels, whitespace, and the scanability of your page.
Proximity of items, similarity of items, and pattern of items dictate how noticable they are.
The more differences between neighboring items, the higher the contrast and the more likely a visitor is to focus on it.
Orchestrate the distribution of visual weight (what’s most noticable to what’s least noticable) to influence user experience.
Avoid too many “look at me!” items as it creates confusion.
Avoid too few “look at me!” items as it leads to disinterest
Information should not be distributed via firehose
Be aware of how people access and use your site. Or how it is intended to be used at least. These factors inform how the hierarchy of information should be structured.
Consider how people find you and what you want them to do when they get there.
People come to your site for some kind of content. Don’t let the overhead (structural elements of your website, other navigation, etc) overwhelm that content. Give the people what they want.
Visually prioritize the actions you want or need people to take
Strive for a clear, logical flow of information using visual cues and standardization of content. (Hint: Centering text is very unhelpful when trying to achieve this logical flow.
Consider your overall signal to noise ratio when displaying lots of information. Too much contrast and the data gets overwhelmed. Too little and the data itself is overwhelming.
And then it was lunchtime! Will talk more about that when I get around to my travel log post. I’ll have the rest of day one in a seperate post, so keep your eyes open, and if you aren’t already subscribed to the RSS feed, by all means hit the GIANT PURPLE BOX at the top of the site to do so. :)
Lately I’ve gotten a really strong urge to learn how to screenprint, or silk screen as it’s also called. I’ve done some reading online, with MAKE/CRAFT magazine being particularly helpful. Still, as excited as I was I didn’t feel like I had quite enough information to really jump in and start buying screens and emulsion and inks.
Print Liberation has some really pretty designs up on the site, featuring a lot of really elegant uses of typography. The book contains a few transparencies put together by them for people inspired by the book to get out there and do some experimenting right away, without worrying about the first big hurdle: what design could I come up with to print?
I’m really excited about this book. While it does take a little time, investment, and space to get started, I think that learning about the principles and the history could be a lot of fun and provide alternative ways to apply screenprinting that can be achieved without needing a whole big setup. But then again with some creative shopping and recycling, I’m sure there are ways to get around those issues, too.
The network administrator is one of the funniest, most dedicated, generally awesome guys I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. This morning I got copied on an email he sent to one of my co-workers regarding a rather unfortunate circumstance: a client of his was one of those people who gets a chain letter and forwards it to EVERYONE in their address book. This naturally included my co-worker, and the presence of giant attachments, unwanted witticisms and lots and lots of animated gifs was really starting to cramp the guy’s style.
Network Admin to the rescue! Below, with some redacted names to protect identities (because I try to be polite like that) is the solution.
Hey Todd,
I can block his e-mail address from hitting our server, but unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to send any e-mail to us at all if that happened-/probably/ not a good idea if he’s a client.
You can delete them, but the best thing to do is to ask him to stop sending them in the first place. The easiest way to do that is to make **ME** the bad guy, so the fucking idiot doesn’t get all offended and shit. Try something like this:
/”Good morning Mr. Latent Pedophile,
I can’t put into words how much sheer, unadulterated joy your wonderful e-mails have brought me. You see, before I starting receiving your witty and carefully crafted mass-produced chain e-mails my life was but a meaningless shell. Being on your “send” list has truly been a divine gift from above. Not only has it made me a better man, but flowers smell better, the sky is brighter, and food tastes better.
Best of all, it no longer hurts when I pee.
Alas, there is a problem: You see, the network administrator here is a real “type-A” knuckle-dragger. He’s an angry, angry man-the type of guy who has driven away anyone who has ever tried to love him. He is verbally abusive to his co-workers, and his breath is so bad that the paint around his desk *is actually peeling. *He monitors all of the network traffic to and from our e-mail server. Yesterday he waddled over to my desk, belched, farted in my general direction, and //then started screaming at me about bandwidth issues and security concerns. For this reason I must beseech you to stop sending me these types of messages. He assured me that if I receive any more he was going to dock my pay $10.00 per megabyte-so you’re most recent message for example could cost me $13.20.
I’m not sure how I’m going to cope with not receiving future chain letter messages from you. Alas, I may have to take up clown punching, chicken choking-or some other constructive way to vent my inhuman rage against the man. Thank you for your understanding.
I weep alone,
Todd T.
Resident Badass
“/
Give that a shot dude. Let me know how it works out.
*
**
Chris
*
It’s a two for one special! Come for the paraphrasing of a pretty funny BBC article, and stay for the hook up on ancient cannabis usage!
I happened to pop my head into the ectochat and what to my wondering eyes did appear but a BBC article link!
Upon following it I discovered that this story was indeed lol-worthy as had been indicated.
A rather dedicated but less-than-thorough customs official at Japan’s Narita airport hid a 142 gram baggie of weed into the side pocket of a traveller’s suitcase. The goal was to test the sniffer dogs in a real-life training exercise.
The dogs, however, failed their exercise by not detecting the baggie at all. To make matters worse, the official who hid the 142 gram (that’s 5 ounces for those not familiar with metric) bag couldn’t remember in which suitcase he’d hidden the weed!
That’s right, some lucky schmuck walked out of Narita airport with 5 ounces of free marijuana! Awesome right? Not really, when you consider Japan has rather strict laws against possession which could net this traveller a prison sentence. Officials admitted their mistake and are encouraging the person who got the baggie to come forward in order to avoid unnecessary legal troubles.
In my search for more specifics about the laws, I came across a really interesting history of cannabis, beginning with its place in the ancient world. Which is admittedly far more entertaining than the original BBC story I mentioned. After discussing the knowledge - or lack thereof - by the Greeks, and the ancient Japanese and Indians, it moves on to an entire passage on the history of cannabis in the Arab world.
One of the most fascinating ways to explore the ancient world, I think, is to track a substance or supply through the ages. It brings to light ancient trade routes, how information was shared, which cultures were accepting of new things and which closed themselves off. Following marijuana in such a way is a two fold path. On the one hand you get to see which cultures adapted the plant for use as hemp fibers, and how as a valuable supply the plant travelled the world. You also get to track its history when grown and used as a psychoactive substance, and the attitudes of the cultures which were aware of those properties.
All of that and much, much more at druglibrary.org. If you’re someone who visits Erowid frequently for reference on drug-related matters, I might suggest adding this to your repertoire also.
It’s really fun to see someone take a silly experiment and launch it to the next level, a silly experiment with wide recognition. Of course, with Stephen Colbert’s huge popularity these days, is it really any wonder that a Twitter account that was updated with some regularity would get noticed?
As noted in the Fake Stephen’s article, there was already an @stephencolbert when Fake Stephen went to register. However, that person had updated very infrequently, and had stopped updating a very long time ago overall. Even though @stephencolbert had 10,000, without updates it was just another idle account. When I checked earlier tonight, Fake Stephen’s account, @stephentcolbert only had 5,000 followers. Yet it was this account that hit the front page of Digg and got called out by Comedy Central themselves. Proof that one of the keys to recognition within a social environment is to be social! (Duh.)
I kind of hope that Fake Stephen carries on in some way, shape or form. It might be a nice addition to the pantheon of other Fakes out there. Like Fake Steve Jobs.
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a 1 author project, with periodic guest posts. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail.com if you'd like to play here to.
. He formed this band in late 60s, early 70s near Boston, Massachusetts. 
