Like former ESA head Doug Lowenstein, I think that even referring to Jack Thompson empowers him, potentially even summoning him, not unlike Candyman. But he's appended us to his latest hijinx for some reason - that is to say he started it. This is (as our foes will tell you!) "fabulously unwise."
Having obliterated him and donated to charity in a single profound act, we are usually content to endure his most recent eruption - confident that the "nice lady" will arrive soon, in possession of the "happy needle." But seriously: racketeering? That's giving me some credit.
We detest and confound you because you're an asshole. There is no greater conspiracy - or, if there is, we are not party to it. I love the idea that we act as media hitmen for hire, I love the drama and the romance of it. But it's not mystical or sinister: it's what you might call "media physics." You put out something we disagree with, and then (as by some natural inclination of the universe) we respond to it. It's still legal to disagree with you, right? I sometimes forget which country I live in.
Today's strip is the latest in a long line of "word strips," which we have repeatedly been told are not welcome, the most egregious of which is probably our homily on hominy. My favorite product of this genre is probably the one re: The Witcher. I was able to track those down with supreme ease using Pennypacker, an extension for Firefox that lets you collaboratively index strips. It is perhaps a billion times more robust than our own solution, which might not actually be a solution, and is perhaps an insult to the reader.
Like many of you, I lost some portion of this week (and potentially my mind) to that Puzzle Quest demo. I've made it a focus since seeing it featured in an interview at 4cr, and the gameplay works well: fundamentally it's Bejeweled, but the "match 3" interactions accrue mana, attack power, experience, and so forth. You play as a character that advances according to RPG traditions, with a handful of classes that interact with the board differently. Crafting and other activities in-game utilize the same puzzle metaphor, calling to mind the celebrated Puzzle Pirates. The full name of the game is Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, and not for nothing: developed by Infinite Interactive, it can trace its lineage back to the legendary Warlords series.
Strangely, the demo that has everyone so hooked can't be converted into a sale - the game isn't even announced for the PC, the platform is simply being used to promote the two official releases - one for the PSP, and one for the DS. Unfortunately, I think the PC version has probably spoiled players with its comparatively lavish screen real estate: screens from both portable platforms look cramped by comparison, trying to tuck in all the metadata that makes the game unique.
(CW)TB out.
So the latest update for the PS3 came out yesterday and it allows you to run the Folding@Home application. I actually was not familiar with this program before I read about it yesterday. I was aware of the concept of distributed computing but I wasn’t specifically familiar with this one. Basically you can use the processing power of your PS3 to help in the study of “protein folding”. You can hit their site for more information about what exactly that means but apparently it could lead to cures for diseases like cancer and Parkinson’s.
You can select the Folding@Home application from your network button in the cross bar of your PS3. After you’ve downloaded the client running the program will take you to a cool looking globe. You can spin around the world and see Folding@Home hot spots but that’s about it. The idea is that you just leave your machine on and let it chew on the data it’s receiving. If you press the triangle button you’ll get a list of options including “identity”. This will allow you to join a Folding@Home team. Teams are actually ranked on their progress and after a quick search yesterday there appears to already be a Penny Arcade team. You’ll need to put in the team number on your PS3 which as far as I can tell is 34479. It's worth mentioning that you can also download a PC version of the program and join the Penny Arcade team that way as well.
A PS3 Foldathon has been scheduled for Sunday (March 25) night. Essentially all you need to do is turn on your PS3 some time Sunday night and let it run until Morning. I think a solid eight hours is what’s requested but you can do more or less if you want. I think anything helps.
We mentioned a while ago that we were leaving ThinkGeek. Well the switch was made last night and our store is now our own. Moving our store in house means that shipping to other countries should be much more reasonable now. If you had given up on ordering things from us because you didn’t want to take out a loan in order to ship to Canada, I urge you to take another look.
We launched the new store yesterday and it seems to be holding up alright. I suggest all of you purchase as much stuff as you can today in order to really test the new system. Think of it like beta testing with your credit card!
Lastly there’s a pretty good article about webcomics over at Time today. It’s got some quotes from Tycho and I as well as Scott over at PvP. The author is obviously a comics fan and the article is full of praise for the world of webcomics.
-Gabe out
