2012-03-30
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Phantoms over the three US-operated geodesic radomes at RAF Fylingdales (via). (More Fylingdales later, perhaps.)
2012-03-29
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An image taken with One Bit Camera, from their group Tumblr (which you can post to every time you take a picture).
(There’s probably something wrong with the fact that recreating something from the past makes me want to finally upgrade to iOS 5.)
2011-07-20
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Three NASA posters from the 1980s, Going To Work In Space, from Danne and Blackburn at the AIGA Design Archives.
2011-06-06
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2010-03-10
Attaining Hampstead
While researching the proper way SCREEN$ load on a Spectrum, I was distracted by somehow running across an old adventure game.
Hampstead was by Melbourne House, who put out a fair few classic text adventures in the 1980s. As the instructions put it:
Hampstead is a quest, but not for gold. The aim of it is to reach the pinnacle of social status, and acquiring wealth is only one part of the problem. If you wish to go up in the world you also have to gain the admiration and respect of your fellow men, and there's more to that than a fat bank balance.
There’s been a flickr of rediscovery in the past: Aleks Krotoski wrote about it in the Guardian Gamesblog in 2007, as did Anna Black earlier this year. Personally, I find it interesting for a few reasons. For one thing, it’s one of those games during the flowering of 8-bit home computers that tried to reflect everyday life, and perhaps even comment on them (as did Manic Miner and Skooldaze/Back to Skool). For another, there’s this comment in the Crash preview of the game:
It is different to most adventures, in that its purpose is to amuse people rather than provide a hard adventure. Indeed, the adventure is extremely simple, which the authors say is so that anyone can complete it, and so reap more enjoyment from it.
That’s a sentiment that’s getting traction again these days, at least amongst certain people I know. Perhaps I’ll even download the game and give it a go. After all, who doesn’t want a bit of Hampstead once in a while?
2009-07-25
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Little Boots new single, Remedy, from a Newsbeat interview.
More 1980s video effects homage (see: La Roux), plus Tenori-on, so it gets my vote. It’s certainly a lot better than the horrific New In Town promo (“hi, I’m new to LA, let me wander around while you look poor and dance around me!”), despite one jarring moment when you realise it’s doing a bit of lyrical literalism.
In other news: since when did the BBC offer embedding? They have a nice terms & conditions page which helpfully points out that viewers not in the UK might not get to see this. Also, maybe it’ll randomly stop working. Ho hum.
