so once upon a time, before MP3's, and CD's and all that stuff there was a style of music mostly associated with PC's, that style was the use of what's now known as general midi.
general midi was a way for games to have music and sound effects without needing the space that sampled sounds and recorded music takes up, you'll find it commonly with older games, especially does games.

these days though midi support has been all but removed from windows, and didn't even really exist in linux or mac osx.  it's a shame really, midi's are a rather unique product of an age back when space was still at a premium, before we had thousands of gigabytes of space in our laptops and desktop PC's.

however there are ways to still enjoy midi even now, there's this nifty piece of software by a company called coolsoft called virtual midi synth.
with it you can load something called a soundfont and play midi's without all the hardware or digging up old sound cards from bygone eras.

there's all sorts of soundfonts out there as well, back towards the end of the midi age soundfonts were a way to get the most from your midi music without having to shell out tons of cash for midi synthesizer hardware add-ons.

if you feel like checking out this dated but still fairly powerful type of sound I highly recommend it, as far as soundfonts go, a good one to check out is called chorium, it's got a good balance of great sounds and leveled audio, plus it's free.

so is anyone familiar with midi's?
for that matter does anyone still listen to them?

Techno-pagansim
has anyone heard of it?
maybe one of you has experimented with it or you know someone who has.

the long and short of it is, applying paganism, typically wicca or some other variant, modified to include technology as a component.

think of it like cyberspace is a separate dimension, your coven need not convene in one place, rather they can do their rituals online where everyone is taking part in their own homes across large distances.

You can also create runes, enact spells, etc, by using technology as a basis/alternative way to do things and still remain firmly grounded in the natural way of doing things.

then of course there's the idea that cyberspace has it's own forces and deities which you can call upon in place of/instead of/along with that which affects the physical world.

there's a lot of ideas out there but nothing truly concrete.

most famously it was claimed by a character in season 1 of the somewhat not forgotten buffy the vampire slayer TV show however there have been discussions and articles in magazines such as wired, and through online user groups such as usenet including a subgroup on alt.pagan.

so what are your thoughts on this?

greetings, Zalost here and today I'm going to talk a bit about a nifty new device for the sega saturn, there's actually 2 versions of it, the first is called the rhea, the second is called the phoebe.  the device is what's called an optical disc emulator or ODE and what it does is allow you to load disc images on actual hardware, as you can imagine this is actually something really amazing as for the longest time the Sega saturn CD rom drive had not been reverse engineered until about last year, given the saturn came out 22 years ago this is actually important as replacement CD rom drives and lasers are getting harder and harder to find.



this is the unit, you install it in place of the CD rom drive in your sega saturn, the rhea uses a 20 pin connector while the phoebe uses a 21 pin connector.

with the rhea if you have a 20 pin cable saturn you simply install it, for the phoebe however you do need to do some minor soldering work, this is because of the differences between the various later model 1 and model 2 sega saturns and it's to ensure compatibility.

now i could write a complete installation guide but I think I'll let the website for the product explain as they have much better instructions... I plan to pick one up soon for my own saturn by the way.

installation instructions.
Phoebe
Rhea

this is honestly really amazing and I'm glad such technologies exist
if you have any questions feel free to view the main website for the device or post here on the thread, and remember, it's still in development so feel free to check back here where I will relay any news on the device, especially as currently sales are closed but watch here for when they start up again.

GDEMU - Manufacturer of ODE for dreamcast and saturn consoles

So I decided to go ahead and get it. They kept calling me trying to get me to sign up. $16 a month is a little outrageous in my opinion but it was pretty easy to talk them down on the price. Apparently if you tell them no enough they eventually offer you $5/month, and to be honest, that actually wasn't a terrible deal.

I love it personally, save for one thing. The audio quality is absolutely horrible. Not sure why. Some people say it's more bearable than others, but apparently that has to do with the receiver. If you have a legacy XM receiver, apparently it pulls from the old XM frequencies where the codecs are a little better and therefore the audio quality is a little better. I wish my car had one because the compression is heavily noticeable. I've heard the bitrates go anywhere from 32-64 kbps or so and that's at the best. 

Other than that it's great. They have plenty of stations and the ones I listen to are pretty good. I just add the music to my library once I find songs I like and listen to them from there.  

Anyone else used it before? What did you think? And the sound quality, was it even remotely bearable?

so there's this open source remake of Rollercoaster tycoon 1 and 2, one of the nifty features they've got going for it is multiplayer support.

so my question for everybody is this, if there was a multiplayer game/server hosted map for people to work on, would you play it?

Open RCT2

Arr this be my ship, I be claimin her by right of first post.

what scurvy dog be staking a claim to her?

****************

the goal is to one up the previous poster and claim the target as yours.

so who here can claim the ship?

the catch is, you have to talk all pirate like in your response.

good luck!

discuss all space related topics here.

let's start with this new one that popped up on the NASA website.

so apparently when the hubble takes deep field images something interesting shows up sometimes.




those curvy lines are asteroid trails, they show up due to the long exposures needed for photographing distant galaxies.

the shape is because of Hubble's orbit around earth, many of these distant space rocks were too faint to be discovered otherwise.

"Astronomers found a unique asteroid for every 10 to 20 hours of exposure time." - NASA


this is part of the mission of the frontier fields program.

a few days ago nasa discovered asteroid A/2017 U1, according to the data collected so far it's trajectory, velocity, and other factors put it's origin firmly outside our own star system, it is currently on it's way out.

Below is an animated gif depicting the flyby.





at first nasa thought it was a comet given the extreme apoapsis of the object but closer inspection revealed no coma or any outgasing proving this to be a cold dry rock which was likely thrown out of another star system at some point and our sun just happened to come along it's millennia long path through the galaxy.

this is the first time in recorded history that an extrasolar object has been observed traversing our star system making this a major event.


so what do you guys think?

what it says on the tin, is it easier to get together over skype or whatever and play them online, or do you have a group of friends you get together with every so often to play the latest campaign?

what are some of your experiences like?

This was a short creative nonfiction piece for a writing assignment I had for one of my college courses a couple weeks back. Spent all night writing it, figured I'd share it here. This is my first legitimate attempt at any sort of creative nonfiction. It's different from creative fiction because you have to draw from facts, so it's a little harder to draw inspiration that makes a good story from actual experiences. Nevertheless, it was a pretty good exercise as far as getting me thinking. 

--------------------------------------------------

280 miles behind


“I wish I were in your shoes,” a very close friend of mine told me a few short years ago. “You have no idea. You’re smart, you’re driven, and you’re passionate.” I laughed and turned the other way. “I can’t” were the only words I had ever lived by. I suppose good friends make all the difference, but I was more distracted and insecure than most at the time. For everyone in my generation, life is arguably as busy and crowded as it’s ever been. Cell phones and social media are always present and ever distracting. The world is so accessible from our fingertips. And TVs and movies put us in another realm as a cheap substitute for what nature and the imagination can already do. It’s hard to experience a moment of silence anymore.

It’s July in the middle of summer. Myself and a few friends are packing to take off for a short (albeit impromptu) camping trip for the weekend before returning home to our normal routines. The destination is a 280 mile drive from home to Ocracoke Island, a mild tourist attraction off the coasts of Cape Hatteras. It’s a barrier island native to NC, spanning miles on end. It’s mostly uninhabited, with, of course, the exception of one small development at the edge of the island for tourism. Only accessible by ferry, and lacking any cell service with little connection to the outside world, we packed our bags and planned on leaving within about an hour.  

“Is that your corolla?” Josh inquires.  

“Yeah, what about it?” I responded.

“What about that radiator? Didn’t it blow yesterday?”

“I’ll take my chances,” I quietly respond.

I wasn’t particularly confident, but car problems were not going to stop me. Cramping five people into a Dodge sedan and adding luggage on top didn’t sound like a particularly pleasant idea, and the acute high from averting risks was somewhat satisfying to me. So my brother and I topped off our fluids, and took off separately from the rest and followed them behind. We drove off into the sun, leaving a trail of steam and a trail from the profusely leaking radiator in our path.

It was as if we had a death wish on our backs. Our vehicles unwittingly roared at 110 MPH for the thrill of it, pushing our machines to the very edge of their mechanical limits. As long as our mothers didn’t know, we were not going to consider ourselves reckless. Not the wisest words we’ve ever spoken.  

The majority of the drive, traveling mundane freeways and familiar towns, was uninspiring. But as you near the coastline, the culture and the architecture steadily become more vibrant and more lively. The houses were hurricane proof, the towns were more colorful, and the scenery was all the more satisfying. You drive across narrow bridges that were miles long, you see the exceptionally wide Pungo river to the right, you feel the breeze grow a few degrees colder. The sunset shined right in our rear-view mirror.  

10PM eastern.

We were nearing the coast line, and the roads were becoming more windy with fewer establishments left in sight. Approaching the end of our route, we pull into the ferry terminal, our only access to an island otherwise inaccessible by road. An attendant pulls us in and walks us through the usual routine for both vehicles.  

“How many passengers?”

“Five”

“May I see your ID?” 

“Of course” we answered.

“Thank you, allow me a moment please.”

[Attendant fills out his paperwork]

“Alright, you’re good to go. The next one boards in 20 minutes. The last one boards at midnight, and no ferries will be run overnight. Please make sure you have everything you need when you arrive.”

We boarded, saying goodbye to the 280 mile road behind, and embracing the coasts of Ocracoke ahead. We cut the engines and killed the lights. A cool ocean breeze ahead, and no coasts in sight behind. Nothing but a mild darkness over the ocean surrounded us, slightly illuminated by the sky. It was a first for all of us. None of us had ridden a ferry before, and certainly not one spanning 20 miles and 45 minutes. There was no cell service to track where we were. It was eerily solitary and silent.

11:30 PM

We boarded off and drove both ends of the island in full. In our lack of preparation, we realized that we had failed to prepare for one important detail. The island’s campsite was for reserved campers only. The ferry’s final departure was leaving shortly at midnight, and we had soon realized that we were going to be stranded on the island with no formal place to camp. We decided to make the most of it and to camp on the beach anyway. We would improvise and make do with what we had.

And it was in that moment that I truly realized what it meant to feel connected with nature. I can’t quite remember when I first realized my affinity for it, but I can recall many afternoons and many evenings spent at the lake or at the river. Spent trying to escape or to disconnect. But this was different. I’m not sure if it was the depth of the silence, or if it was simply the absence of street lights or traffic, but somehow being stranded to camp on the beach, something we didn’t choose, felt more enjoyable and more free.

The campsite that we prepared was on the corner of the island, with both the east and the west sides visible to the eye. By early morning, we had five sleeping bags and a small tarp of camping supplies set up only yards away from the shore. I was restless. The others fell asleep. I stayed awake with one eye open, lost in my thoughts.

I was reminded of those words that I had been told before. That sometimes others would kill to be in the very shoes that we walk in. That life sometimes hands us what we don’t expect, and that we did not always get the privilege of writing every aspect of our script. But if some were not privileged enough to know where their next meal was to come from or to have a car that would run and drive, that I would be grateful for what I did have. That I would see the cup as half full instead of half empty. And in giving up our plans, we subsequently had one of the most enjoyable weekends that I can remember. Fishing, camping, cooking, and enjoying the beach unobstructed from other visitors were some of the many memories for which I can’t take back.

The following Sunday, we began the four hour drive back home. Starting with the bridges that were miles long, and the homes and towns that were built in style, and ending with the freeways that were uninspiring and unremarkable. Arriving home, I bought my new radiator, and subsequently fixed the corolla. We went back into the next week a little brighter than the week before.

The following weekend, I took off again. This time alone, and this time with no expectations. Driving off into the sun, I said goodbye to the 280 mile road behind.