tingilinde

zork and beyond

West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded from door. 

There is a small mailbox here.

Some of you will love this - a project covering text based computer games.  A free subscription with payment support options.

a tip of the hat to Steve

 

 

a serious robotic pool stick

A remarkable project - a tip of hat to Greg

how fast are you?

courtesy xkcd

the great hunt

That treasure chest hidden in the West.  Here's the story.

The amount of time and money spent by treasure hunters completely dwarfs the treasure. Of course that's not the point.

snip

...

Improbably, Fenn recovered from the cancer, but he decided to hide the treasure anyway, unaccompanied by his bones. Often, when Preston visited, Fenn would take him into his walk-in vault and show him the latest configuration of booty. “He took stuff out and put stuff in,” Preston remembers. “He was having a lot of fun thinking about what was going to be in that chest.” Early versions contained antique silver and gold watches and gemstones, including an amethyst, a topaz, and a star ruby. Fenn added a bunch of $1,000 bills. Then he removed them, realizing they would rot over time.

One of Fenn’s concerns was how he would know whether the treasure had been found, should that occur in his lifetime. He pondered various strategies, at one point including a document (a bearer bond or bank letter in an amount Preston recalls as $100,000) that a finder would need to present at a bank, triggering Fenn’s notification. Then Fenn removed that, too, figuring that banks might no longer be around to honor the obligation. He ended up putting something else in the chest, an unknown item he never revealed to anyone, which would somehow let him know when the treasure was discovered.

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poetry for neanderthals

A game where you have to act dumb

(without going to politics)

 

 

things to do under quarantine

Melissa offers a coordination exercise

She's the defender half of the best women's volleyball team in the world.  My candidate for the best women's match of the year is the final of the Manhattan Beach tournament last Summer.  Canada vs the US. It's a great example of the game at a high level..  available on Prime Video - women's final, day 3

 

 

 

jigsaw puzzles

How they're made

As a kid I emptied all of my old ones into a box and sold jigsaw puzzle by weight.  There weren't any takers.

 

puzzling it through

If you're looking for a challenging jigsaw puzzle, a friend recommends Stave puzzles.  Spendy and probably worth it if you count the hours needed to solve the more difficult ones. The more complex models have a long lead time.

 

 

 

people like games

I'll venture a guess playing these old games was as rewarding as any board game today.  

It makes you curious about Mehen.

a tip of the hat to Xeni'

 

 

game for the birds

A serious gamer who happens to be a bird watcher gave a strong recommendation to this one.

snip

...

You’re not, however, just attracting birds to get points. You are also effectively building a biodiversity engine. It’s a challenge, a biology lesson and nail-biting fun. There are numerous routes to victory, from specializing in certain types of bird to amassing eggs. This is a thoughtful and strategic game with many interlocking parts.

It’s also visually gorgeous — an obvious labour of love. Food is represented on the sides of chunky wooden dice that roll out of a bird box. There are dainty, pastel-hued egg tokens, and the game boards fold up like field notebooks. Each of the 170 unique cards shows a different North American species, so superbly drawn that it wouldn’t look out of place in a field guide. And the cards feature key details, from what the species eats to how many eggs it lays, and a distinguishing fact — say, that the common nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) is crepuscular, hunting insects at dawn and dusk.

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