"You have chosen... wisely."

The year was 1991. Maybe 1990. We had a sweet new computer with one of those speedy 386 processors inside them. It had a whopping 2MB of RAM, twice as much that was considered necessary for people not calculating trajectories of Scud Missiles. A color monitor. 256 colors, about 240 than previous generations of machines. Seething with power.

My father brought home a game that one of his coworkers had given him, copied from the original, as game publishers hadn't yet taken draconian steps to make their games difficult to pirate. It was so graphically intense that it had to be carried on FOUR floppy disks! One whole disk with its vast 1.44MB storage could only contain a fourth of the visual and audio adventure! It was one of those games that was made to capitalize on a recent blockbuster film, before such games were immediately assumed to suck. Indiana Jones, and the Last Crusade!

My sister and I sat and stared into the screen for hours trying to puzzle things out. This was made more difficult by the fact that on our first time through the game, we didn't find the Grail Diary left behind. Eventually we figured things out, puzzing through the catacombs, talking our way past the Nazi gaurds that infested castle Brunwald, flying and inevitably crashing the biplane.

The problem was that after we crashed the biplane, we attempted to steal the car (see the movie, its in there), the game itself would crash. The last disk that was copied was corrupted. Disheartened, we moved on with our lives, playing other games, taking up other hobbies. We found the strength to laugh again, even knowing that our quest for the grail was lost.

Over dramatic? Certainly, but if you ever read a book 90% of the way through and found the last 30 pages ripped out, you can imagine what this was like.

Years later, I move to Wyoming, buy a big powerful computer (like, a lot more than 2MB RAM), and when I realize I have to go at least as far as Evanston, maybe Rock Springs to pick up proper games, I discover Steam. Not content with their first game Half Life being the Game of the Year and all, Valve Studios set out to dominate the digital download and distribution of PC games. (yay, alliteration!)

I looked through the offerings of the steam store, and it looks like they acquired quite the back catalog. Even old games, like ones from Interplay and LucasArts... and then I saw it. an almost 20 year old game now only cost $4.99. The price of closure.

I download and install it. A few days later, The Grail is mine. At last, my own digital crusade comes to an end.

By the way, I mentioned before that when this game was first published, game developers didn't put layers of copy protection and CD-Keys on their games to prevent piracy. But they DID have measures meant to stop people from passing around copies of their games. Inside those huge textbook sized boxes that were industry standard until about 2000 or so, the publishers dumped all kinds of manuals and supplemental paperwork into those big boxes. Things like maps, histories of the game world, and often, as in the case of The Last Crusade, handwritten "Journals" written in persona of the game's characters.

In this instance, it was half of Henry Jones Sr's Grail Diary. Most of it was fluff, but interesting fluff. But in order to keep pirates at bay (pun unintended, but welcome) the games themselves referenced this documentation in important ways. To find out which grail was the wise choice at the end, I had to read a few pages from the handwritten "Grail Diary" to find out which one it was. I remember playing Battle Chess and Carmen Sandiego and having to type in entries from their paperwork and manuals. the xth Entry on page y. Things like that.

And now, John Williams will play me out:

Anticipation

Only three weeks, and I'm going to the happiest place on earth in Ohio.

Yeah, I've plugged this alot recently, but I'm jonesing pretty bad after missing last year. Also, I'll be joined by a few friends that I don't get to see often, so that'll be good to. This event is probably going to dominate this blog for this month, so you have been warned.

Running the Show

When my mother was visiting for a night up here, I took her to the only fun place in town on Friday night: Bridger Valley Lanes for a night of Karaoke. Yeah, it would have been better to see some of the more nature oriented things, but she had to catch a plane in Salt Lake the next day.

The man who runs the show is getting ready to move out to one or two places, but wanted to sell off his old Karaoke system. The original deal with the proprietors of the Lanes was beginning to fall apart so I did the only logical thing.

I bought it.

So, um... I guess now I'm a Karaoke Master, or something.

Oy.

There Goes My [Literary] Hero

After my sister and brother-in-law (Tom) married, rather than faced with the task of building a household, they were faced with the task of combining them. They've both lived on their own for several years and have accumulated a lot of stuff that would be redundant were they to merge. dishes, small appliances, media, etc. How many toasters, coffee pots, place settings, and copies of The Matrix do you need?

So they put their things in a pile, and divested the surplus. Some of it went into storage, some of it was donated (I think) and some of it was given to friends and family. "Family" in this context is mostly represented by me. In addition to some glassware, dishes, and kitchen tools, I also inherited a box of Books and DVDs that they both had copies of. One of these books was Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

You can click the links if you want (spoilers in the link to the book), but for the purposes of this post, all you really need to know is that Mr. Stephenson writes [science] fiction that appeals to tech geeks, mathematicians, and the like.

Cryptonomicon is two stories. The first story is of World War II cryptography and counter intelligence efforts, as told by a Navel Lt. stationed in the Philippines, and a Mathematician Savant who can perform epic numerical stunts on the chalkboard, but is fairly inept in most other ways.

The second story is the tale of the descendants of the WWII plot line, two generations removed, who are attempting to build a data haven (think "electronic library in a physical location untouched by local and international law"). Hijinks ensue.

About a hundred or so pages in, one of the characters in the modern plot line is having dinner with Charlene, his girlfriend, Charlene's liberal arts friends, and some puffed-up white-tower academic. The academic, who has a very high opinion of himself, begins to argue that the Information Super Highway* is a socially destructive concept aimed at keeping down poor people, make the rich richer, yadda yadda yadda.

Our Grad Student of Science protagonist steps in to defend the I.S.H. and is promptly met with the standard relativity cop out so cherished by Academia to shut down all argument. "And who is to say what is bad/wrong/unwise?" And so our hero, Randy, tells them:

"Who decides what's bad? I do."

"Excuse me?"

"It's like this," he said. "I've read your book. I've seen you on TV. I've heard you tonight. I personally typed up a list of your credentials when I was preparing press materials for this conference. So I know that you're not qualified to have an opinion about technical issues."

[sarcastically] "Oh, I didn't realized one had to have qualifications."

"I think it's clear," Randy said. "that if you are ignorant of a particular subject that your opinion is completely worthless. [...] the Information Super Highway is a bad metaphor for the Internet, because I say it is. There might be a thousand people on the planet who are as conversant with the Internet as I am. I know most of these people. None of them takes that metaphor seriously. Q.E.D."

He then goes on to take offense at being labeled a 'technocrat,' turning these peoples own weapons on them ("I'm offended/oppressed, and therefore worthy of sympathy") and makes the formal call of "Bullshit!" on their arguments.

Prior to this, he compared mixing with his Charlene's Liberal Art friends to being a Dwarf in the Lord of the Rings. Stout and taciturn, he's hung up his war axe for a while for a sojourn into the Shire, where he finds himself surrounded by squabbling hobbits (Charlene's crowd).

For all these things mentioned above, I welcome Neal Stephenson into my top 5 favorite authors of all time. Someone should tell him that, as I'm sure he'd be overwhelmed by such an honor ;-)

*This book was published in 1999, and the excerpt above took place a few years prior to the modern time line, so the expression "Information Super Highway" is not an indication of an author out of touch with modern Internet nomenclature, but rather, is aged appropriately.