Gism Butter

V and I went to the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge over our holiday vacation. We almost got lost in the woods after dark, a very harrowing experience that can’t truly be related well unless you were there. besides that, V took pictures of the birds we saw, but most everything else was hiding for the winter.

We did find out that the Refuge has a couple of raptor cameras: one on a Bald Eagle nest, and one on an Osprey nest. We saw the Eagle sitting on the side of what I figured was his nest as we went through the refuge. But it turns out, the Eagle seems to have taken over the Osprey’s nest! See for yourself: He’s just sitting there like a treaty breaker.

Think about scenes. Not scenes, actually, but Scenes. The Hacker Scene. The ANSI Art Scene. The ASCII Art Scene. The Demo Scene. Such an appropriate word for these phenomenon: Algonquin Roundtables with no Algonquins.

Each of these “Scenes” has repeatedly been bashed as non-existent by the truly hip amongst their ranks. How can there be a Hacker Scene when the really bad ass Hackers aren’t known to anyone? How can there be a Demo Scene when all these uber geeks only congregate a few times a year to show their stuff on the walls of European buildings? Does such a congregation become the Scene? Are they the physical embodiment of these Scenes; these get-togethers?

Bullocks to all of them. Scenes exist. They have no form, only culture. And like culture, Scenes can be broadly defined, but not so easily grasped. When was the last time you actually put your hands on culture?

Anyway, this is my long-winded way of linking to DemoScene.tv, the 24/7 Demo video network. For the confused: Demos are small graphic and audio applications run on computers. The smaller the file size, the cooler the demo, provided said demo offers mind-blowing visuals and sound. It’s mathematics pushed into art. Go watch some. Just remember: some demos are over 20 years old now.

While I wouldn’t go as far as calling him a recluse, Jack Tramiel is probably the toughest 80’s computer mogul to find. jack and his sons built Commodore into a household name, thanks to the PET, the VIC-20 and finally the Commodore 64, the best selling personal computer of all time.

Quibble quibble: every type of Apple iBook is essentially different thanks to shifting specs and individually configured RAM and drives. Thus, the C64 remains the champ of single unit sales for PCs.

Anyway, Tramiel and his family came out for the 25th anniversary of the C64, held three months after the fact at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. For Jack, the patriarch of the family and an Auschwitz survivor, it was the first time he’d appeared in public to speak about Commodore in 15 years. many in attendance, I heard, thought he was dead, or had alzhiemers. Fortunately, these were rumors, and Jack was a joy to listen to all night.

He and Wozniak were exchanging jabs over computer price points all night long.

I was not thinking about demos when I walked into this event, but as the evening progressed, I found myself thinking about the whole Demo Scene more and more. This world began with the C64, really. But later in the night, I got a midnight demonstration of the PDP-1, which can play 4-channel square-wave music, and display mandalas on its oscilloscope screen. Wouldn’t that count as the first demo? I suppose the music and display would have to be going at once, a feat the PDP-1 was not powerful enough to do at the time. Sallem thinks it could be done with 2-channel sound…

Tramiel answered my question, at one point, by stating that he knew of the significance of the C64 for the demo scene and for the game world. After I asked my question, demo nerds swarmed me. It’s good to see people are still interested in these moving art works realized in code.

Also, special events at the CHS mean occasional trips into the back rooms! Note the cool Newton prototypes and the hardcore upskirt shot I got of a Xerox Alto. These are all in my Flickr stream.

Oodles of pictures, and my GameTap story linked here. Anyone want to stick one of my pictures in the Wikipedia entry on Jack?

After a lengthy development cycle and one major IGF award, Aquaria is done. Congratulations to Alec Holowka and Derek Yu on finishing their first project together. Aquaria is a fabulous adventure game that’s been described as Metroid meets Ecco the Dolphin. I heartily endorse this game, so go buy a copy now!

I’ve been tapped to be a judge in this year’s Independent Games Festival again. Looks like I’ll be judging the student mods, along with Jason McMaster. Last year, the mod category was one big block, and the student mods seemed to dominate the winners circle. Thus, it makes good sense to separate them out into their own category. Should be a hoot. After all, last year’s Mod winner was a student mod of Half-Life 2 that was, essentially, Office Space the game. Pictured above is a regular old student game, not a mod: Toblo, a fun game of capture the flag in which players throw the various blocks from which their forts are made.

I’m so happy to see that the Mod Archive is back alive, and kicking. For those non-technical people out there, Mods are an old type of music file. back in the days of the Axel Folley theme and the theme from Fletch, Mods were the easiest and smallest way to transport music. Of course, these were not recordings, they’re digital music files, juts like MIDI, except the insturments are song-specific, and included in the file.

To play Mods, you need a special player, like MacMikMod (Hah! Only for Mac OS 9!) or CocoModX.

This leaves Ubisoft out in the cold. So, here are 10 things to know about this particular merger.

1: Starcraft Ghost will finally be finished.

2: Blizzard certainly understands how to keep the parents quiet. Remember, Blizzard was passed around like a cheap whore in the 90’s, and still managed to produce some of the best games ever made.

3: Blizzard is in Irvine, Activision is in Santa Monica.

4: Bioware is Canada, Vancouver I think. EA has been expanding its Vancourver and Montreal operations over the last few years.

5: Ubisoft was #1 in EA’s sites. EA was #1 in Ubisoft’s sites. Both of these targets have now changed drastically.

6: EA bought Mythic already, which was basically an initial play into the MMO space for the company. Having tasted the possibilities, EA was probably looking at Vivendi with doe eyes. Vivendi has been for sale since the day it was created. But thanks to Blizzard, the company actually had something other than a back catalog to offer. Remember, WoW alone generates ($10 x 12)8,000,000= a hair under $1 billion per year. general estimates for the price of a business are eight year’s revenues. $8 billion is all fine and dandy, but when Universe of Starcraft launches, it’ll be double that in 5 months. Nevermind Starcraft 2, which will likely be powerful enough to calm the plunge of the dollar in Asia….

Anyway: Can you allow EA to buy this magnificent gold mine that essentially runs itself and shits money?

7: Activision wasn’t in the MMO world at all.

8: Activision runs call centers already. It has done customer service for almost 30 years. Blizzard is sick of being a front-line customer service company.

9: Ubisoft is now dead in the water. Watch for it to buy Atari.

10: Now, at long last, Tony Hawk can go skateboarding with a shotgun through Azeroth!