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Recent infocom obsession

November 11, 2009

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I’ve recently been finding and buying up old Infocom interactive fiction games or text adventures. Amazingly, there are still brand-new, unopened copies of these games out there, despite at least 20 years having whizzed past since they were released.

Two delights in opening these boxes: the first being the feelies – little trinkets and props that warm you up for the game.

Sherlock – The Riddle of the Crown Jewels arrived today and comes with a fold-out tourist map of 1889 london and a copy of ‘The Thames’, a fake antique newspaper. Lovely.

The infocom gallery has scanned versions of the original box contents for most of the infocom games.

These physical things acted as a form of copy protection: the game would ask you for the co-ordinates of a place, for example, that was printed on the map. But they’re also delightfully made and funny with it.

I wish I saw such love in current games packaging. I no longer eagerly open up console games on the train home from the shops – the contents are invariably charmless, miserable and full of legal warnings and nonsense, even though the budgets for today’s games are so much greater than those of twenty years ago.

The second delight in these decades-old games is brushing up against twenty-year old technology, instructions and marketing. Such gems as:

It is always advisable to make a copy of the diskette that came in your game package… Insert your IBM (or compatible) DOS disk in Drive A and turn on your computer… The SCRIPT command is used to print a transcript of your moves as you play the game on selected printing hardware… /f disables the UNDO feature. This switch is useful on machines with 256 kbytes or less of memory… A clicking sound has been added to the keyboard to make typing easier. Use the volume control on your TV set to control the level of the clicks…

In one of the boxes, there’s an 1980s-colourful leaflet for the Commodore 64, telling me ‘it’s not what you pay… it’s what you get’; in another is an advert for a new digital comic: ‘Lane Mastodon, accountant turned interplanetary hero’.

After all that, the best bit is still playing these excellent games – although I can’t say I play the original versions. Their quaint 5¼″ diskettes are made for long gone systems.

The cheapest legal way to play is probably to get hold of a copy of Lost Treasures of Infocom or one of the other compilations released by Activision after they bought Infocom. You can still find CD versions on auction sites and the like. Then you can play the games using a modern Zcode interpreter. I use Zoom on the Mac, and there are interpreters available for almost any platform you could want.

And, of course, there’s a thriving community making contemporary interactive fiction, most of it for free and much of it as good if not better than the original Infocom titles.

I’m off now to do battle with that bounder Moriarty. The game is afoot!

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The marvellous Olympic compound-eye camera.

November 5, 2009

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Particularly interested to read that Football Data Co want to stop live twitter updates at football matches:

They’ve forced developer Ollie Parsley to to remove club logos from his site and shut down part of his FootyTweets service, which used Twitter to provide live match updates for a variety of clubs. You can’t just start publishing live match reports – it’s a service that can cost more than £15,000 per year, depending on how you distribute the reports and how often.

I care not a jot for sport – except the odd TV snooker match. But this interests me because it hints at a thought experiment of mine.

I’m convinced that either the next World Cup or the 2012 Olympics will be a citizen journalism watershed. Specifically with regard to video – the most valuable of the revenue-generating sports media outputs.

Here’s a question: how many spectators with video phones would you need in order to, with some clever software, reconstruct event coverage such that the quality rivalled that produced by professional broadcasters with their amazingly high-end optic cameras?

If it helps imagine all the camera phones as individual cells in a huge compound eye. Like a fly’s.

And, if you’re sceptical about the software side of things, see Microsoft’s photosynth..

I’m convinced there’s a straight numerical answer to that question – and I hope we’ll find out. Maybe the World Cup is a bit soon, but 2012 feels far enough away to give this a shot.

Would you hand in your video phone at the turnstile? Because I don’t see otherwise how this can be stopped.

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List of UK MPs on twitter

November 4, 2009

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I just spent several hours building a list of MPs on twitter by harvesting, cross-tabulating and advanced munging of various lists on twitter.

Yes, I know it’s already been done by tweetminster and there are lists on listorious, probably elsewhere too.

But there are none that I know of that are freely available, which are amenable to inserting into a database for twitter-bot magic, nor which connect to any other online profiles of MPs – I use the public whip ids from MySociety’s parlparse project.

Linked data, innit?

There are bound to be errors and omissions, so let me know if you have any corrections and I’ll update. And if there’s someone else doing this better, I’ll gladly defer to them.

Do what you want with this data – hell, you could even republish it in RDF if you want.

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Spod, Spod, Spod, Marbles and Open University.

November 3, 2009

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I wish I’d stayed at Playful on Friday for James Bridle’s talk, A new theory of awesomeness and miracles. Unfortunately a splitting headache sent me home.

That might have been for the best. If I had stayed, I would have probably melted into an unseemly puddle of nostalgia and pity for my younger geek self.

I have a non-24 hour sleep cycle – which means, in those days before the internet, I used to watch an awful lot of overnight TV.

There wasn’t the ‘play roulette, on the telly, for £4/min, especially if you’re drunk’ crap that’s on now. Nor the slop bucket of simulcast 24 news. But there was the Open University. And, with only four channels, most of them off-air, you had no choice what to watch. It was surpassing brilliant.

It was the only way I could indulge my true geek – we used to call them ‘spods’ and they were hated, picked on, teased. By me too. How shameful.

Anyway, I remember clearly an OU programme about the Matchbox Educable Noughts And Crosses Engine: MENACE. An ingenious learning device made out of matchboxes and marbles. And I spent weeks, at night, making one and teaching it to play. I’d forgotten all about it until reading James’ talk – he has some great pictures of his version.

The thing is, I did all this in secret. I knew my non-geek friends wouldn’t understand. While by day I pretended that I really enjoyed reading dreadful angsty poetry.

Keeping these two identities separate was, I think, a major contributor to the teenage breakdown I had a bit later. I’m sure I had friends who were also secret geeks, but we never let on to each other.

Anyway, isn’t the internet brilliant? I think the mainstream sometimes misses that there are teens now much less tortured – by themselves and others – because they can find these circles of interest online. This is an enormously good thing, and I wish lawmakers and commentators would cherish it more.

Go enjoy James’ talk. It’s indeed awesome. I’m off to read some dreadful angsty poetry, in secret.

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Squeaky hinges

November 2, 2009

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Tweetie is my favourite twitter client. It’s reliable, unobtrusive, Mac OS native, and it isn’t one of those power-clients that make twitter feel like a job. It’s well worth the money.

I feel a little bad singling it out for criticism so I hope you’ll take my comments as a broadside aimed at all non-malleable software, rather than as a snipe at this excellent application.

You see, Tweetie, like most commercial software is closed source. That means I can’t myself change the way it works. I can’t help to fix it.

It has one annoying and I’d think, simple to fix, bug that daily gets on my nerves.

My twitter name is @beng which is a subset of the far more popular @bengoldacre.

Tweetie should highlight posts that mention me like so:

Tweetie-1

And so it does! But it also highlights posts mentioning @bengoldacre too, like so:

Tweetie-2

This is such a minor annoyance. I can’t bring myself to care about it too much. But it’s a demonstration of how non-malleable software can be disempowering. Not in big, dramatic “Microsoft is evil but OpenOffice makes you FREE” way, but more in a niggly, annoying way.

It’s like a squeaky hinge that I’m not allowed to oil.

I’m pretty sure that lurking within Tweetie’s code is a regular expression that matches tweets to see whether to highlight them. There’s probably one character that needs changing in this expression to make it less greedy.

I have the know-how to make this change; I’m sure the bug affects hardly anyone else. And yet, I can’t make the change myself because the software is closed.

I don’t want to bug Atebits about this, it’s such a little thing. Although I’m sure it will get fixed because they do seem to really care about these small details. Like I said, this isn’t really about Tweetie itself at all.

These squeaky hinges are typical of closed software experiences – and it’s time we started noticing them and calling them out. I think we accept the consequences of non-malleable software too readily.

Postscript: “So, you’re saying that Atebits should make their source code freely available, just because of a little bug that affects practically no-one? Do you think people shouldn’t get paid for writing software? What are you? Some kind of freetard?”

Well, you miss my point, Strawman, and haven’t read what I’ve said. It would be better – for my definition of better – if all software was open to being fixed, fiddled with, and improved by its users. And no, I don’t care if I’m asking for the moon on a stick.

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Why are you here?

November 1, 2009

So, according to google analytics, those visiting my site have mostly searched using these words:

Wordle: MyBlog

I’m your man for washing machines and version control systems, apparently.

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‘Technical measures’ and the government-sanctioned interweb.

November 1, 2009

If the three-strikes internet law gets passed, I fear we’ll end up with a whitelisted, government-approved, corporation-controlled internet. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Just to restate my position on illicit filesharing. I think it’s wrong for those who can afford to pay, or to wait, to download content for free. I just don’t do it. And, if you can afford it, I’d encourage you not to either.

But, as I’ve said before, we need some perspective here. The industry figures, relied on by the lawmakers, are nonsense. It’s not such a big deal, and our economy isn’t on the verge collapse – well, not because of this kind of piracy, at least.

Further, I’m in agreement with Tim O’Reilly that the facts of piracy make it a welcome progressive force in culture.

I strongly support the reduction of copyright terms to, say, 12 years. Whereupon I’m convinced we’d see the greatest cultural flowering in this country that any amount of arts funding could buy.

We have poor access to our recent British canon of culture today because of the tangle of rights and rightsholders we’ve allowed to grow up in the so-called ‘creative’ industries.

And who can support the way devices are being tied into closed monopolistic schemes of DRM and content control? It’s fundamentally anti-consumer and anti-public.

But others make these pragmatic cases for tacitly supporting illicit filesharing much better than I can.

None of these reasons, though, are at the root of my opposition to the internet cut-off law.

Here’s how I fear the debate in parliament will go…

Very sensibly, someone will raise the fact that the internet is essential now to public life. There’s no way we could ban someone from, say, filing their tax return online, from accessing information published on DirectGov, from getting BusinessLink advice. It would, of course, be wrong to cut these sites off, on principle.

The response, I fear, an Orwellian compromise: the government’s ‘technical measures’ will not be a complete disconnect, but a firewalling allowing access to pre-approved government sites. Yes, that’ll fix it.

Technology, mandated by law, can do this, right? Unfortunately so. And what happens next?

Now we have a fledgling Great Firewall of China in every ISP. A government-controlled fifth estate. But rather than the blacklisting that repressive regimes rely on, this one works by whitelisting – everything is banned by default, unless it’s a sanctioned site. Altogether more reliable and robust, more repressive and controlled.

Repressive technology has a tendency to grow in scope.

First, given this technical capability, it would be nonsensical to cut pirates off from government-sanctioned ‘legitimate’ content providers – say the big four major labels’ websites.

There can’t be any piracy going on from their sites. (oh really?)

Banks might be white-listed too. No sense in stopping people managing their finances online. Yes, that all makes sense.

In fact, this is such a fantastic bit of technology, we can now make our own, government-approved safe internet. We’ll let facebook on there, maybe, and no-one will mind too much about everything that’s gone. It’ll be safe, controlled. Who could possibly object?

And what about a few newspaper sites – just the ones we like. And of course, they could be removed in the face of injunctions or libel bullying.

And you know, we won’t make it impossible for you to publish webpages – you’ll just have to register with us. The fee will be reasonable, we promise.

This would have been an unthinkable development, but we’re already running registers for anyone who works with children. So, not so farfetched, eh? This is something we know how to do, and are big fans of. And, you know, all the ISPs now have this technology installed already so that’s easy.

When David Lammy says “now we must decide what we want balance between anarchy and authoritarianism to be in the digital world of the future,” I get chills.

Do you see why?

We must oppose ‘technical measures’ because building an infrastructure of repression is not what I will allow my government to do.

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I expect more of the BBC

October 4, 2009

I expect more from the BBC than from commercial organisations, and not in that narrow “I’m a license-fee payer” kind of way. I expect the BBC to be an honest-speaking alternative to the excesses and drivers of the commercial world.

That’s why I’ve become so annoyed about the way the BBC engages in the Freeview HD debate. It’s being spin-ful in its use of language. I’d like to see it make a fairer and straighter assessment of what it’s chosen to do.

Such an assessment, I think, could have gone something like this:

“We’re sorry. We’ve had to make an imperfect deal with programme-producing companies which will require us to encrypt some of our HD transmissions.

“We think the impact will be minimal for most consumers that buy boxes from retail channels. For those of you who prefer to use open hardware and software, we’re afraid you won’t be able to enjoy these transmissions.

“However, we made a judgement that this was the best tactic currently available to allow us to broadcast any HD content from third parties.

“We will of course, be broadcasting in the clear those properties for which we own the rights or have made ourselves. We are currently lobbying parliament to strengthen the laws regarding our standard definition content so that this deal doesn’t become the thin end of a DRM-encumbered wedge.”

Of course, I made up the proposals in that last paragraph.

But, I’d be happy to accept that reasoning. I disagree with it, but only mildly so. The regret expressed is appropriate and would be welcome. It encourages me that they believe DRM to be the least-worst rather than the best option.

Instead we get triumphant, salesy and slightly aggressive posts here and here.

I just want the BBC to be more honest about the restrictions imposed by this technology. And I would be pleased if the starting point of their negotiation wasn’t at the DRM end. I hope they stood up for public broadcasting on open platforms more strongly than these posts imply.

Unfortunately, the BBC doesn’t seem to have the courage it used to have.

Maybe too many people with eyes on jobs in media companies. Maybe. I don’t know enough to be sure. I do know though that yet another BBC executive moved recently to Microsoft. I have to say, I’m surprised that the organisations have anything like compatible cultures. Perhaps I shouldn’t be. Updated: in hindsight, I think that paragraph, while true, was a distraction from my main point.

If the BBC is just another media company in a sea of media companies; if working for the BBC is just like working in another corporate; and, if PR from the BBC feels like spin-ful PR from everywhere else, well, what’s the point?

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Terrible service from Vodafone.

October 3, 2009

I hate dealing with High Street retailers, especially when things have gone wrong.

The USB cable for my Vodafone 3G modem has broken. Not a big deal, easy to replace – why don’t I just pop into the Vodafone store and, you know, they’ll change it for me. I’ll be able to use it on the train back that evening and all will be good. Can’t take more than a few minutes. Right?

No. Instead, bloke in Vodafone shop, you tell me that my warranty has expired. Then, when I protest, you grudgingly tell me that you could send it off. But, of course, the whole modem would have to be sent off not just the cable. It would be gone for, oh, 6 or 7 working days at a minimum. Oh, and I’m not from here am I? Well, I can only get it sent back to this shop.

“It’s a goddamn USB cable”, I’m thinking. Over and over again.

He carries on: but it’s not covered by the warranty anyway, so… you know. (I really don’t) Of course, you could upgrade.

Upgrade for the sake of a bloody cable? I should have just gone to Maplin and bought one. Silly me to think I’d get some service from Vodafone. But I don’t say any of this, I’m very polite.

Do the new modems come with these cables? Yes? Can’t you just take a cable out of one of those boxes then? No, your warranty has expired, see?

So I end up moaning about how the Sale of Goods Act and its EU equivalents mean that I don’t need a warranty to get a fault replaced – the 3G modem is only a little over a year old – and storm out of the store.

Anger and annoyance for the sake of a £1 cable replacement, I’ll be changing away from Vodafone as early as I can.

What should have been a simple “Of course, sir. Here you go!” becomes an anger-inducing farce. A fucking £1 USB cable. That’s all. How hard could it be?

What I understand the least about these situations is the lack of any empathy from the sales-folk. I guess they don’t get commission from replacements, or something.

But, surely, they themselves wouldn’t want to be treated like this? Surely, they’ve been in these kind of situations, where they’re trying to get something that shouldn’t have broken replaced?

So, clearly, the Sale of Goods legislation isn’t worth a damn in the real world. Am I really going to go to the small claims court for a cable that costs a few quid?

A friend of mine tells of taking something back to Currys and having to quote the Sales of Goods legislation only to be told “I don’t care about the law, this is Currys’ law”. Indeed.

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Malleable machines. Where are they?

September 19, 2009

First, a bit of a warning. I am going to witter on about Smalltalk, and about HotJava, and about the VIC 20. I’m having a nostalgic week. Indulge me.

None of those things – nor what they represent – are at the gravitational centre of the computing world. This is a terrible shame. For twenty years computing has been making itself in the image of the business machine. This leaves us all worse off.

I’m pretty sure that if I’d grown up with the machines we have now, well, I wouldn’t be into this stuff at all.

My first machine was a Commodore VIC 20. And here’s an article from 1983 about its video chipsets. You don’t have to read the article, but at one point it says:

“Suppose we want to lay out our own screen and characters. It seems simple enough: choose the locations for screen memory and character set, and POKE the block numbers (screen block times 16 plus character block) into address 36869.”

POKE and PEEK – that’s messing directly with the computer’s memory. We did a lot of this sort of stuff. The computer’s memory was there for us to mess around with. As it should be.

Play was encouraged and to do some things it was necessary to fiddle directly with memory locations. You know, this sometimes killed the machine but it had a big on/off switch within easy reach (and it started up again in just a few seconds).

Now, on to smalltalk. Well, what’s to say that hasn’t already been said? It’s another environment that encourages you to take it apart and put it back together again. Until you start changing the way it works, it’s near useless. I liked that a lot.

Here’s a bit from the Squeak source code:

initNormal

	NormalCursor :=
		(Cursor
			extent: 16@16
			fromArray: #(
		2r1000000000000000
		2r1100000000000000
		2r1110000000000000
		2r1111000000000000
		2r1111100000000000
		2r1111110000000000
		2r1111111000000000
		2r1111100000000000
		2r1111100000000000
		2r1001100000000000
		2r0000110000000000
		2r0000110000000000
		2r0000011000000000
		2r0000011000000000
		2r0000001100000000
		2r0000001100000000)
	offset: 0@0).

If you squint, you can see that it’s defining the bitmap for drawing the the normal cursor. You can get at this code with three clicks from launching a smalltalk image – I just did.

You can get hold of the cursor object it initialises, right then and there. Change that object and your system will work differently, right then, right there. Turn it into a space alien, or a pacman icon. Easy. Beautiful.

And everything is like this, change the code editor, change the compiler, change the thread scheduler. Smalltalk all the way down, and modifiable in place.

Um, HotJava. Some of you might remember this project – um, it wasn’t very good. But it hid an amazing idea. That the web could be Java™ all the way down. That the JVM could be that malleable machine, but networked.

Yeah, it didn’t work that one, but I remember being pretty excited about it at the time. And, I think it was the last time that I heard anyone properly talk about my vision – a malleable consistent environment from the top to the bottom, that would encourage play, require tinkering, be empowering.

Now, when I hear Google and its many commentators talk about the browser being the OS, they’re talking about spreadsheets and word processing. What a pale promise. Not interesting in the slightest to me.

An OS that is written entirely in javascript – well, that’s getting warmer. Watch a couple of minutes of this demo video to see why this gets me…

Well, I ramble on. I recently read Alan Kay’s 1972 Dynabook paper. Wow. It’s the one that a lot of folks credit with creating the idea of a personal computer. Alan Kay was also one of the drivers behind the Squeak smalltalk project and one of the original Smalltalk creators.

It’s a marvellous idea of a malleable, tinkering machine – malleable in the same way as Squeak is, as the original home computers are, as the Hotjava browser was supposed to be. How I wish it existed, not for me, but for my son.

Unfortunately the way things are going, by the time he’s ready to do bitwise battle with the world, everything will be locked down by the business f***wits.

I don’t want to end on a miserable note, but really, it’s is getting worse and we’re allowing ourselves to be dragged further away from this ideal, day by day, by corporations who have forgotten how cool computing used to be and forgotten how to build things their kids would be proud of.

About time we did something to get it back.

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