In my last posting, I told my readers that my first computer game was a text adventure, probably Zork. I have just looked deeper into the matter and my memory, and I’m pretty sure now that it wasn’t Zork, but the Colossal Cave Adventure, running on a Prime Computer under PRIMOS. It was then simply called “Adventure” and was highly addictive, possibly the only computer game I got somewhat addicted to. Fortunately, the addiction didn’t last too long and I managed to finish my Master thesis in the end. 
And now comes the good news: You can still play it! There is a Flash version (which seems to me very close to what I remember of the game) and a Java version (with annoying ads). Have fun!
Archive for the ‘English’ Category
Interactive Fiction
Saturday, November 3rd, 2007The Chaos
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007One of the reasons why English is a very candidate for an international second language. Interestingly, most of its speakers are second-language speakers. If we count only first-language speakers, the Romance languages (taken together) are in the second place after Chinese (which is not at all as monolithic as people think); the list of language families by percentage of speakers in mankind is also very outspoken in this respect.
The main flaw of English as an international second language is that if you hear a word, you never know how to write it, and if you read an unknown word, you don’t know how it is pronounced. If you want to test your knowledge of English pronunciation, try to read the poem The Chaos aloud. It is long but worthwhile, because it gets more and more absurd. Even for English native speakers Gerald Nolst Trenité’s poem is quite a task, and possibly an eye-opener. You can even test automatic reading of this text. Have fun and better use Esperanto as a second language for communicating with your friends abroad.
Harry Potter 7
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007I have just finished the seventh and presumably last volume of the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and as with the other books of the heptalogy, I liked it! The story was extremely thrilling and very convincing. Contrary to former parts, it presupposes knowledge about what happened in the sixth book: One has to know what horcruxes are and who the Half-Blood Prince is. I had forgotten about the Half-Blood Prince and wondered who the prince was in the chapter: The Prince’s Tale (which is a funny title, because it’s only function is the reference to the preceding book).
Some people told me they didn’t like the ending of the book. I do not share their opinion. I quite liked the final turn. It is impressive how well the loose ends finally fit together. I would like to criticize only one aspect: The last book extols the traditional family model. In the 21st century, we ought to surpass the straight mind or narrow-mindedness of the traditional family that eludes the characters (and possibly the readers) at the end of the story. J. K. Rowling started out better!
Nevertheless, the last book is by far the most suspenseful of the series and doesn’t lack humor. It is highly readable, especially if you feel at home in the Harry Potter universe.
Camp Talks
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007Here are some comments on the talks & workshops I attended at the Chaos Communication Camp. If you have missed some or all of them, you’ll be able to watch the camp video recordings that will be ready by the end of the year (and announced on the CCC events blog).
- The first lecture was Constance & starbug’s talk on the avoidance of surveillance & biometrics which I liked, although it didn’t contain anything new to me, but of course, it was meant for a general public.
- This talk was followed by Frank & Ron’s contribution on Stasi 2.0. Again, I didn’t learn so much and began to get a bit disappointed, because I had higher expectations. Nevertheless, their talk gave a good overview and will have some follow up at an upcoming CCC event.
- I went to another talk by Frank (this time with erdgeist) with the somewhat misleading title How to (really) forget your secret crypto key. It dealt with security flaws of flash memory. I finally got some new information, but I recommend the lecturers to do their talks in German.
- Levien’s lecture on Life & Complexity promised to be interesting. Unfortunately, the lecturer spent to much time on his introduction (more than 40 out of 50 minutes, including discussion time!). Somebody has to tell him that human beings (unlike Shiva) have but two hands, which wasn’t enough for holding a microphone and a manuscript while handling a computer and pointing to slides.
- Hacking on the Nanoscale was a real highlight of the camp lectures. It has probably stimulated some new approaches to hardware hacking.
- Dan Kaminsky’s Black Ops was an entertaining contribution to the Camp’s program, but unfortunately Dan hopped from one topic to the next which got me rather confused at about one o’clock in the morning, all the more that switched between his talk and the Taugshow, which wasn’t less confusing.
- Aleχ’s workshop on Lojban was another highlight of my personal Camp program. I hope he’ll be offering a follow-up too.
As you can see from the program schedule, I missed quite a lot of interesting stuff. That’s why I’m desperately waiting for the video documentation.
Kin-dza-dza!
Friday, August 3rd, 2007Thanks to Pavel’s initiative, I watched Кин-Дза-Дза (imdb) again. It is an outstanding movie! In order to really appreciate it, I had to see it twice. One of the themes is the Soviet Perestroika, but a lot of other themes are treated: friendship, social & cultural rituals, racism, bureaucracy, communication and many others. Moreover, the film is very sound from a Sci-Fi perspective: The machines look a bit old-fashioned, but there is nothing that isn’t convincing. The behavior of the aliens seems to be odd at first sight, but after some time (and esp. if you watch the film more than once) it has a certain logic. The dialogues are very funny. The Moscovites’ strategies how to tackle with the aliens and their culture are quite interesting.
The Wagner Ring in Nürnberg
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007In the last two weeks I went to Nürnberg four times in order to see Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner. The Nürnberg production of Das Rheingold didn’t convince me. Very often the choreography wasn’t right and the orchestra played correctly, but without inspiration and was often too loud. In the ensuing Valkyrie the situation didn’t get much better: The valkyries reminded me of the Nürnberg Christkindl, just like the forest bird (Waldvogel) in Siegfried. Fortunately, the singing was very good from the beginning.
My impression became much more positive with the third opera of the cycle: Siegfried – the staging became better, Brünnhilde looked more like a ‘real’ valkyrie, and the singers’ performance was really extraordinary. They even managed to make the orchestra sound less blasting. Thus, the last opera Götterdämmerung really became the culmination of the whole cycle. I liked the idea to underline the transformation of the characters by their costumes (and hair). Considering all four operas together, I think the Ring cycle in Nürnberg was really worthwhile.
The Last King of Scotland & 11:14
Monday, July 16th, 2007After last week’s numerous activities I spent a more or less quiet weekend: among other relaxing activities, I watched two very good movies: The Last King of Scotland and 11:14. Despite the somewhat misleading title The Last King of Scotland is set in Uganda, and is a fictional story about the friendship between a Scottish doctor and the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. I liked the film mainly because of Forest Whitaker’s acting (79th Academy Awards#Acting), the African music and the plot on how political power can corrupt and make people lose their self-control.
11:14 reminds of Memento or Pulp Fiction, since it is not based on linear chronological continuity. As in a police investigation the spectator has to find the links between seemingly unrelated events that take place in a small Californian town at around 11:14 p.m. That is the reason why the film demands some attention, in order not to miss a crucial detail. The soundtrack is great too!
A Scanner Darkly
Friday, July 13th, 2007Last night I was unusually tired, so I went home rather early and watched a movie. Unfortunately, I chose a film that was quite demanding: A Scanner Darkly (imdb) by Richard Linklater based on a novel by Philip K. Dick. It is an extraordinary movie, first and foremost due to the rotoscope technique. The film contains very many dialogues, so I had to concentrate very much and almost gave up. I liked the scrambling suit which creates a constantly changing simulacron of the person who is wearing it. The film is a little less experimental than Waking Life, but slightly funnier. I think I have to see more Linklater films in the near future. Before Sunrise and Before Sunset sound interesting. Suggestions?
Thank You for Smoking
Friday, June 29th, 2007I’ve just watched the film Thank You for Smoking. It’s a light entertaining movie that almost ever reader of mine must have seen already, since it came out last year. I simply missed it at that time—unfortunately, because it is a very funny film. The uncomplicated moral of the film is that taking responsibilities is more important than paying the mortgage and it contains some very good observations about rhetorics. It’s perhaps a good idea to combine this film with The Insider to a double-feature movie night.
Best novel I’ve ever read
Monday, June 25th, 2007Yesterday I finished Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire and I have to admit: I’m flabbergasted! This novel is without doubt one of the best novels I’ve ever read! First of all, it is the final reckoning with literary critique and scholarship and it is a really well constructed novel which is written in a way that it can never become a movie. The novel consists of a foreword, an “heroic” poem of 999 lines (by the imaginary writer John Shade) and a scholarly commentary to the poem (by the unreliable narrator and scholar Charles Kinbote. Perhaps, this sounds boring to you, but in the commentary a totally different story is told which turns out to have something of a thriller. Why there is such a story (only) within the notes will become evident in the last commentary to the poem. I shall refrain from writing a spoiler, because you really have to read it yourselves!
The construction of the novel is really very special, although it remains highly readable throughout. I have said that it is the final reckoning with literary critique and scholarship, but it gives even literature itself a hard time. And it is very critical with the US and Old Europe (as usual in Nabokov’s novels). After reading Lolita and Pnin, I didn’t really become a fan of Nabokov’s writing (although at least Pnin isn’t bad either), but Pale Fire was a revelation for me. It is no surprise that the novel figures in the Random House lists of the 100 best novels.