HyperTextHero: Linked List: November 2023

Sinners Sandwich ✶

A scene from the 2010 video game Deadly Premonition by Roc…, I mean, Rising Star Games. Looks like Twin Peaks directed by mad Japanese horror aficionados. Added to to-play list for next October.

Amiga Computer Graphics Archive ✶

A lovely UI touch of this website is the color palette including animated color cycling appearing when hovering the mouse cursor above an image. Favorite image so far: Jim Sachs’ Amiga Lagoon.

From the About page:

This site is dedicated to great pixel graphics made with the Commodore Amiga from 1985 to 1995. An uncountable number of graphics were made during this time period, but there are quite a number of noteworthy images that, I believe, shouldn’t gather dust on some harddrive, hidden in some extra level inside a game that never gets played or on a PD collection disk that is almost unknown. I want to make these graphics accessible again from the comfort of your own internet browser by showcasing them on this site.

Lessons in Game Design ✶

A talk by SimCity creator Will Wright.

Noclip ✶

Crowd-funded video game documentaries. See also: Half-Life 25th anniversary documentary.

No BS Games ✶

I don’t play games on mobile phones, but if I did, I’d look for them on this website.

Zero-K ✶

Free real time strategy game with solo, PvE or PvP game modes. Available on Steam.

♫ Sign of the Cross ✶

Iron Maiden live in Rock in Rio, 2015. The changes of tempo in this…drummer’s a beast.

Development of GTA San Andreas (2003–2004) ✶

Developer Obbe Vermeij started a blog about his time at Rockstar North, with posts like this one about GTA’s moon.

Watch Dogs: Legion Crash - Event ID 0 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found ✶

Watch Dogs: Legion keeps crashing when enemy drones are searching for you, especially when taking control of one.

To reproduce, cause some trouble and then hijack one of the riot control drones that’s after you, and use it to shoot at other enemies.

Eventually the game crashes.

Update 2023-11-29: The FIX: Crashes stopped when I turned off raytracing and DLSS in the graphics quality settings. I managed to continue the game.

Update 2023-11-27: More evidence of a problem with the drones in the game and Nvidia’s drivers causing a crash.

Update 2023-11-20: The game still crashes, so this does not fix it :( I’m updating my ticket with Ubisoft support to let them know.

**The fix**, from user SamS_98 in the above Microsoft Support link:

Open the NVIDIA control panel (usually located next to the clock in your system tray, bottom right)

Click on “Help” in the top row and click “Debug mode”

What this does, it downclocks your card to the founders edition specs. You would have to enable this every time after a reboot.

The reasoning I have found for this is that ever since one of the driver/windows updates, most games are unable to handle the factory OC cards and will crash after a while. Sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 1 hour.

Death by A.I. ✶

Multiplayer text party game where you choose a scenario and, with 60 seconds to respond, type in your strategy to survive, and the A.I. tells you what happens.

Superalignment ✶

Reading the article on Geoffrey Hinton in The New Yorker’s A.I. issue, the A.I. drama of the day, Iain M. Banks’ Use of Weapons, and meeting Juno in Starfield makes me think a singularity may be near.

Half-Life 25th Anniversary ✶

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the crowbar, then scroll up and click on squishy enemy and on the scientist for fun.

Half-Life is free on Steam right now.

Arma Reforger 1.0 ✶

Ongoing thoughts on Arma Reforger which just flew out of Early Access in a Huey air chopper.

On Game Length vs Fun Time ✶

I rarely finish games as I often prefer their beginnings, the early-game gameplay, to middle and late play.

In Elite, for example, I loved flying the small, more maneuverable ships, getting better weapons, larger cargo holds, and so on. And more credits made a big difference!

In the middle and later game the grind got grindy, and I played less, though this was also because of the amount of good video games that I want to try the beginning of.

Games that grab me and carry me to their endings have excellent mechanics that feel rewarding in moment-to-moment gameplay and an interesting story or feeling about their world.

The last ones I remember that I finished were Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and Noita.

David Attenborough Narrates Your Life ✶

😅 Source code is here.

Dejargonizer ✶

Useful to help one learn anything by making jargon, special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand, understandable.

Jfxr ✶

Browser-based tool to generate simple sound effects.

Vangelis Scoring Blade Runner ✶

Yes, I’m on a Blade Runner track lately.

Vangelis created the enormous spatial distance of the score by running his instruments through a Lexicon 224 digital reverberation sound processor. He used it by applying depths and spaces to his synthesisers and percussion, creating lush spaces to complement the film’s vast landscapes.

…

As a new filmed scene was played, and if Vangelis felt a strong connection to the moving images, he would create a composition straight away. Being lead by the moving pictures, he would record his creations without any prior rehearsals. Otherwise, if viewing the film scene induced no immediate reaction, Vangelis would not push himself to force the music out, instead he would work on some other tasks at the studio and come back to it later on.

…

Vangelis always prefers to use his first take whenever he can, even if the recording contains small mistakes, because he sees his first takes as more honest than rerecording the same music again.

…

Vangelis describes his approach to composing for film as spontaneous and instinctive. Preferring to let his spontaneity react to the images and not letting his thoughts interfere with his inspiration, he acts as a participant in the film by letting his instincts react to the scene and letting his music be driven by his first impression of the images. For Vangelis, the music in Blade Runner was an integral and inseparable part of the film, as the film testifies to the power of the music.

♫ Fragile Sensibility ✶

By Davecuy, pronounced Dave-Chooy. Via Futura_Light.

Fluid Audio Visualizer ✶

Dakd Jung:

Ferrofluid is a material first developed by NASA in the 1960s. It has been used for fuel transport in zero-gravity space, spacecraft, and sealing connections in space suits. In modern times, it is used as a damper for high-end speakers, a rotating shaft for motors, and gas sealing. The composition of the magnetic fluid is very fine iron particles and a surfactant coated on it , and base oil. It is a liquid magnetic substance that does not sink because it is so small that it is invisible to the naked eye and is evenly distributed in the base oil due to the surfactant component.

Via CDM.

♫ Catch the Rainbow ✶

Good song to travel to, by Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore.

Apple Vision Pro Update, Blade Runner 2049 ✶

John Gruber on the latest version of Apple’s Vision Pro VR headset:

The Vision Pro experience is highly dependent upon foveated rendering, which Wikipedia succinctly describes as “a rendering technique which uses an eye tracker integrated with a virtual reality headset to reduce the rendering workload by greatly reducing the image quality in the peripheral vision (outside of the zone gazed by the fovea).” Our retinas work like this too — we really only see crisply what falls on the maculas at the center of our retinas. Vision Pro really only renders at high resolution what we are directly staring at. The rest is lower-resolution, but that’s not a problem, because when you shift your gaze, Vision Pro is extraordinarily fast at updating the display.

Eyes, retinas, vision, computers, and so on.

I watched Blade Runner 2049 again last night. I like the film overall, but vastly prefer the final cut of the original. I feel 2049 could have been edited better, more tightly. The film brings to mind augmented and virtual reality, environmental post-apocalypse, life and death and creation.

Mere data makes a man. A and C and T and G. The alphabet of you. All from four symbols. I’m only two: One and zero.

Half as much but twice as elegant, sweetheart.

Open Broadcaster Software 30.0 ✶

Learning to use OBS has been a positive experience in my life which has helped me to keep in touch with old friends and make new ones around the world. Thank you to everyone who works on this free software. 💗

The Color of Sound ✶

Sound and light share the fundamental nature of vibration. And, even though the sounds we can hear have a much lower frequency than light that is visible to us, there is a range of sound frequencies that have corresponding consonant colors. This page delves into consonant relationships between sound and color and and provides a tool to let you explore their relationship.

Ridley Scott Profile in The New Yorker ✶

Interesting profile of the director of Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, and Alien, who draws his own storyboards.

Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address Greetings to the Natural World (pdf) ✶

Found while reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful book, Braiding Sweetgrass, that I can recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in the natural world that gave birth to us all.

In Robin’s translation, the sentence under The Thunderers “We are thankful that they keep those evil things made by Okwiseres underground” is omitted, perhaps as a nod against fear (pp.112–113):

Now we turn to the west where our grandfathers the Thunder Beings live. With lightning and thundering voices they bring with them the water that renews life. We bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to our Grandfathers, the Thunderers.

Suggested video game to play while reading Braiding Sweetgrass: Valheim, preferably with friends.

Here are other complementary books and video game pairings.

Change Permissions of All Folders and Files Recursively ✶

You’re working on a website and images are not showing despite being in the proper place.

It’s probably a permissions problem, so here’s how to change folder and file permissions recursively to 0644 and 0755:

chmod -R u+rwX,go+rX,go-w /path/to/folder/containing/everything/you/want/changed

Tech Info on Alan Wake 2 Game Engine: Northlight ✶

Two things stood out:

Our marketing folks would say the characters are more responsive and lifelike than ever before; our internal dev notes described it as “the characters won’t bump or get stuck into objects in tight spaces”.

…

More realistic wind was on the must-have tech list for Alan Wake 2 - and that’s we have, wind that realistically affects physics, particles, and cloth.

Another game added to the to-play list.

Whole Earth Catalog 1968 ✶

We are gods and might as well get used to it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.

Alan Kay on the Whole Earth Catalogue as an early version of the internet for crosspollination of ideas:

But Kay had also found the Whole Earth Catalog. He first saw a copy in 1969, in Utah. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the right idea,’” he explained in 2004. “The same way it should be easier to do your own composting, you should have the ability to deal with complicated ideas by making models of them on the computer.” For Kay, and for others at Xerox PARC, the Catalog embodied a do-it-yourself attitude, a vision of technology as a source of individual and collective transformation, and a media format—all of which could be applied to the computers on which they were working. As Kay explained, he had already begun to think of the computer as a “language machine where content was the description of things.” When he saw the Catalog, it offered him a vision of how an information system might organize that content. He and others at PARC saw the Catalog as an information tool and, hence, as an analogue to the computer; at the same time, they saw it as a hyperlinked information system. In that sense, remembered Kay, “we thought of the Whole Earth Catalog as a print version of what the Internet was going to be.” Kay and his colleagues in the Systems Science Laboratory paid particular attention to the Catalog’s design. In the Last Whole Earth Catalog of 1971, for example, they came upon Divine Right’s Trip, a novel by Gurney Norman that Stewart Brand had decided to print one page at a time on each page of the Catalog. This was “one of the best user interface ideas we had ever seen,” Kay recalled. Most users of information systems tend to browse in areas they are already interested in, said Kay. Brand had found a way to lead users through the system and expose them to its full range of offerings.

Via HN.

Why do PCs play loud sounds during crashes? ✶

Whether a software or entire machine crash-freeze situation, like in part one of last night’s stream, often a PC will play very loud sounds.

Is this the sound software freezing and playing its last note continuously, or some standard error tone?

♫ Intertwining ✶

From the album The Primacy of Perception by Fictions and Poetics.

The Observer is the Observed ✶

Computer, please explain Jiddu Krishnamurti’s statement: “The observer is the observed.”

Krishnamurti’s statement “The observer is the observed” is a profound insight into the nature of consciousness and identity. It suggests that the observer and the observed are not two separate things, but rather two aspects of the same reality.

In other words, the person who is observing their thoughts, feelings, and experiences is not separate from those thoughts, feelings, and experiences. They are all part of the same conscious field.

This realization can have a profound impact on our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. When we see that the observer is the observed, we can no longer blame our problems on external factors or other people. We must take responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions.

We also begin to see that there is no separation between us and the world around us. We are all interconnected and interdependent. This realization can lead to a greater sense of compassion and empathy for others.

Here is a simple analogy to help illustrate Krishnamurti’s point:

Imagine a lake. The surface of the lake is like the mind. The thoughts, feelings, and sensations that we experience are like the waves on the surface of the lake.

The observer is like the lake itself. It is the still, silent awareness beneath the waves.

When we are caught up in our thoughts and feelings, we are like someone who is only looking at the waves. We do not see the lake itself.

But when we step back and observe our thoughts and feelings with a sense of detachment, we are like someone who is looking at the waves from the shore. We see the waves for what they are: just passing phenomena.

And we also see the lake itself: the still, silent awareness beneath the waves.

This is what Krishnamurti means when he says “The observer is the observed.” When we observe our thoughts and feelings with detachment, we begin to see that we are not our thoughts and feelings. We are the still, silent awareness beneath them.

This realization can lead to a profound transformation of our consciousness. When we are no longer identified with our thoughts and feelings, we are free to experience the world directly, without the filter of our conditioned minds.

Here are some practical tips for practicing Krishnamurti’s teaching:

Take some time each day to sit quietly and observe your thoughts and feelings.

Don’t judge or criticize your thoughts and feelings. Just observe them with detachment.

Notice the space between your thoughts and feelings. This is the space of awareness.

Rest your attention in this space of awareness as much as possible.

Over time, you will begin to see that you are not your thoughts and feelings. You are the still, silent awareness beneath them. This realization can lead to a profound transformation of your consciousness and your life.

Thank you, computer.

Imitations of Ancient and Modern Drawings ✶

…from the restoration of the arts in Italy to the present time, together with a chronological account of the artists, and strictures on their works, in English and French.

By Metz, C. M. (Conrad Martin), 1755–1827.

Which games without modding support you wish had extensive modding support? ✶

I’ll go first:

Digging ✶

Poem by Seamus Heaney.

Here’s a transcript of his talk, Making Sense of a Life:

So I think the difference in a poem or a work of literary art, as I would say, story, now, is that it isn’t for the moment utilitarian communication. It is, in a sense, some kind of housing of a moment, a snapshot of consciousness that can be looked upon by other persons. People.

I always like to make a play on two words which sound the same. There’s h-e-a-r-d, heard, and there’s h-e-r-d, herd, and i think that in writing poetry, especially in times of crisis, political crisis, we’ve got to beware of h-e-r-d feelings as opposed to h-e-a-r-d.

The writer is there to be h-e-a-r-d singularly, not to be part of the tribe. Although at moments of crisis this is a very fine and important distinction, actually. And it’s one that in the States I noticed in the sixties and seventies when I was here.

During the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland we had very strong sense of the afro-american the black civil rights movement here. And I had very strong sympathy with the black American poets here, whose first person singular — I — was under pressure always to become first person plural — we — and so that is always a question that arises: Your relationship to your group. Whether you should be standing off from them, or being their conscience as James Joyce would say, or being their voice.

There are different requirements at different times.

I really began writing poetry in earnest in my early twenties and at that point I suppose what I was trying to do and probably have been trying to do since is to integrate our first life, which was far from books, far from literature. Which was in a far off time, really, because the…anthropologically speaking, I suppose, even though chronologically I grew up in the 20th century. But it was a 20th century that had wrote really in the medieval, I mean, I was in countryside where we still, you know, plowed with horses, lit the fire in the morning, you know, carried water from wells, and so on…So in quick, in a very quick time, all that changed, in a common life in Northern Ireland, and in my own personal life.

So what the poetry is trying to do is to make sense of a life in that time, and in that time, of course, included not only my own autobiographical experience but it included the political history of Northern Ireland which was a kind of a riven, a riven and a large subject, so I had to deal with that, too.

Linked List: November 2023

Thursday, 30 November 2023

Tuesday, 28 November 2023

Sunday, 26 November 2023

Saturday, 25 November 2023

Wednesday, 22 November 2023

Sunday, 19 November 2023

Saturday, 18 November 2023

Friday, 17 November 2023

Wednesday, 15 November 2023

Monday, 13 November 2023

Sunday, 12 November 2023

Saturday, 11 November 2023

Thursday, 9 November 2023

Wednesday, 8 November 2023

Tuesday, 7 November 2023

Monday, 6 November 2023

Sunday, 5 November 2023

Friday, 3 November 2023

Thursday, 2 November 2023