Nick Montfort's "Narrative Variation"

Just a quick link right now, if you're interested in Interactive Fiction at all you should check out Nick Montfort's dissertation on generating variant narratives:

http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2007/06/20/playing-defender/

A very cool spec for a system called nn that splits up a story between what is being told, and how it is told, something that until now has been controlled by only one entity. Montfort's approach consists of many smaller modules, and is making me pine for a version of nn to try out on my own.

BT on the iPhone

I was looking at the iPhone demos on Apple.com and noticed BT's album This Binary Universe in the music library. Click for a larger view:



I'm not really that much of an iPhone fanatic, but the end-of-semester crunch is reducing any meaningful posts, and BT is always worth a mention. :)

Apple Prank Calls

Just a bit of humor. The first real iPhone adverts have hit the airwaves, one referencing a supposed Californian seafood restaurant named "Pacific Catch."

Engadget looked them up for reals:

"Pacific Catch, may I help you?" "Hi, I just wanted to know if you were getting a lot of calls tonight?" The hostess answered, "Yes." "Do you know why?" "Yes."

I love it.