Archive for December, 2005
Spotlight: Firefly and Serenity (Review)
Whatever happened to Zorro? I think I may have seen him on a spaceship, a Firefly-class cargo vessel called Serenity. And there was even an episode with a swordfight!
Three Things to Make Your Audience Adore You
This is a list of opinions. My top three will be different from yours. But these three are important to me, and they are all things I sometimes see writers neglecting. Some of the points I’ll make are obvious. But obvious means overlooked, so I’ll mention them anyhow.
Pigeonholing the Reader with Genre
I’m only an aspiring writer, so that makes me prima facie ignorant of the writing biz. And that’s why one might think me unqualified to disagree with Kiki.
How Not to Run an Online Bookstore
Not directly related to stories, except that it is an engaging one. I’ve been enjoying Paula Berinstein’s story, over at The Writing Show of how she and her husband opened an on-line bookstore, invested time and money, went out of business. I love small-business stories, and this one offers a different view of the book [...]
Spotlight: Psychonauts (Review)
I think I finally know what I want to do with my life. Not my career, but what I do for a mid-life crisis. I want to be Tim Schafer. On the Psychonauts credit sheet, Tim Schafer is listed as “Creative Director.” The creative genius behind such classic story-games as Day of the Tentacle, Full [...]
IFComp 2005
This week, we enter the world of interactive fiction, and the possibilities it presents, by way of IFComp 2005. In this episode, we look at two of the top 4 winning entries.
Site News
Hi, all.
The new mixer I mentioned previously is here, set up, and working great. Wow. What a difference.
There’s a new help page, with answers to “What is a podcast?” and “How do I listen?”
Keep reading.
-TimK
Sony BMG and That Darn DRM
No, not the XCP rootkit debacle. This time it’s MediaMax. But something comes to mind about those who fail to learn from history. Ars Technica reports, as Yogi Berra once said, It’s déjà vu all over again.
The Alchera Project
This week, we’ll look at a few entries from Alchera Project #39, from November 2005.
Free Culture
He was speaking of software, not stories. But with DRM and storyline patents now upon us, Lawrence Lessig might as well have been thinking about literature, film, and interactive media when he spoke at the O’Reilly Open Source Conference in July 2002. Actually, maybe he was. In this poignant, inspirational speech, he contends that copyright [...]