Make a fist. That’s the size of a regular kidney. Now hold your breath and take a look at this. (Warning: Icky medical photo.)
That’s a photo of Dedair’s father’s polycystic kidneys, which were successfully removed a year ago. Weighing between 16 to 18 pounds combined, they were the second-largest set of kidneys the University of Pennsylvania has ever seen. The staff retained them for teaching purposes. Blecch!
This weekend, I found that there’s an obscure sequel to one of my favorite games from the early 1990s, Out of This World (released as Another World in Europe). Only released for the short-lived SegaCD system, Heart of the Alien (front/back cover) lets you play the original game as a second character, much like Opposing Force and Blue Shift allow you to see Half-Life from new perspectives.
The game is playable on the PC, but it’s a small pain in the ass. You’ll need the outstanding GENS SegaCD/Genesis emulator and the American Mega CD BIOS v2.00. Then download the 224MB ROM from The Underdogs. (Update: Here’s a guide to burning the ISO/MP3 archive to a CD for playing on your official Sega CD system.)
Unzip the ROM archive, then use WinRAR to unpack the RAR files inside. If you want sound and music, you’ll need to burn the BIN file to a blank CD-ROM, using a burning application like Nero. If you don’t care about sound, just point GENS to the BIOS file in the Options->Directories menu and then load the BIN. It’s just that easy!
Now, does anyone have a copy of Night Trap hanging around?
Last night, at Dana’s party in West L.A., I met Eric Zimmerman and Frank Lantz from the New York-based Gamelab, quite possibly the most talented Shockwave game developers around (artist’s rendering). Their work is consistently brilliant: Sissyfight, Blix, Loop, and my personal favorite, Junkbot. (Try them all, if you have a day or three to kill.)
Also, I had a brief conversation with Justin Hall, the original personal weblogger. We almost met once before while I was working at Gettingit.com when he dropped by the office to talk with our illustrious editor-in-chief, R. U. Sirius. I didn’t know it at the time, but Justin told me that R. U. had asked him to submit cool links for publishing daily on the site. (He was trying to avoid heavy computer use at the time, so he turned it down.)
Anyway, Justin and the Gamelab guys were in town for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the computer/videogame trade show held at the mammoth L.A. Convention Center. Andre had snagged me a guest pass, but Frank kindly gave me his E3 badge last night so I could skip the hassle of pre-registration this morning. The show was overwhelming. I feel like a little kid who’s been overstimulated to the point of exhaustion.
My highlights included: Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime and Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube; Kung Fu Chaos and Outlaw Golf for the X-Box; Sly Cooper, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Contra Shattered Soldier and Tony Hawk 4 for the PS2; Deus Ex 2 for the PC; and XIII for all four platforms. Gamespy seems to be the definitive source for information about the show, with previews and screenshots for all the games I mentioned. Time for bed.
Usenet has the tendency to provide a public forum for those who would normally be scribbling in a closet. For example, take Daryl “Shawn” Kabatoff. For the last few years, he’s methodically gathered “statistics” from various sources, ranging from local newspaper obituary pages to the food court of the Saskatoon Midtown Plaza mall. With all the raw data he’s collected, he’s attempting to prove daily that our full names are in “mathematical harmony” with our birthdays.
His rants normally focus on a single individual he’s met or read about, starting with calculations related to their birthdate and full names, blending in whatever other personal information about their family members, spouses, birthplace, and career he’s been able to glean. From there, it descends into a mix of numerology, religious zealotry, and personal torment. I’ve never seen anything like it.
With all the prime numbers, Fibonacci sequences and biblical references, it’s like reading the notebooks of Maximillian Cohen and John Nash combined. Unsurprisingly, several posts unfold to reveal a history of painful mental illness. If you have some time, take a look. I’ve detailed his posting history and a several sample posts below.
August 9, 2004: The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix published an article about Daryl and his encounter with one woman.
September 22, 2004: Does anyone have a photo of Kabatoff? If so, please e-mail me.
It looks like the days of the well-funded secretive tech-related startup aren’t completely over. There.com has $30 million in funding, a swooshy logo, a newly-installed climbing wall, and a mysterious homepage (a la Transmeta and Red Swoosh).
I’d dismiss it as hype, if it wasn’t for three things:
1. Interesting founder. The company was founded by Will Harvey, the creator of several old Electronic Arts games, like The Immortal, Music Construction Kit, and Zany Golf. (He also ported Marble Madness to the Apple II and IIgs.)
2. Good team. David E. Weekly, the talented programmer who deconstructed the Napster protocol and helped people bypass Napster evictions and port blocking, started there at the end of March. He says that the work involves “remarkably exciting technology” and the team is “very bright.” Other notable team members are AI-expert Jeffrey Ventrella (try Brain Maze and Gene Pool), Amy Jo Kim (author of Community Building on the Web) and Organic’s old creative director, Janis Spivack.
3. They have a Vice President of Fun. (Unfortunately, it’s the same guy who helmed A Fork In The Tale, the full-motion video adventure game featuring Rob Schneider and bundled on five (!) CD-ROMs. The game was an expensive mistake, Any River Entertainment’s first and only release.)
I’m going to guess that they’re planning some sort of multi-user game community, like Habbo Hotel meets Everquest. Any guesses?
