GR mod of Half-Life 2

[Joe Allonby]

Weird digression: The fall of the Soviet Union was an unexpected boon
to electric guitar players. Why? Cheap, reliable vacuum tubes. The
Soviets built a lot of their electronics around tubes instead of solid
state because they were less likely to fail when hit with an
electromagnetic pulse. Sure, they're bulky; but your helicopter is
less likely to suddenly plummet from the sky at the start of conflict.
And they sound creamy and delicious when overdriven in an Ampeg V-4.



On 7/5/05, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bandwraith at aol.com
> Sent: Jul 4, 2005 12:09 AM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org, pynchon-l at waste.org, pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: GR mod of Half-Life 2
> 
> 
> Well, fonz, you might try emailing Negroponte:
> 
>   http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/
> 
> He started and continues to run MIT's Media Lab.
> Of course, If you just google "Negroponte" you're
> as likely to come across "John" Negroponte, Nick's
> brother- a horse of an entirely different color:
> 
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte
> 
> Now John is more of an analog type guy than Nick-
> more pragmatic and down to earth- less prone
> to idealistic digital visions of the future- less playful.
> So, he might not be able to provide you with much
> inside info into any video games based on GR. On
> the other hand, he could certainly provide you, if he
> chose to, with all kinds of information about those
> "bumps in the road" on the way to peace in Bagdad,
> not to mention the hundreds of thousands of "bumps"
> in the roads, fields, countryside, etc., that he left behind
> in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua...
> 
> All right, I'm being a little nit-picking here, and I'll admit I should get a fucking life.  However:
> 
> Why do you equate digital electronics with idealism and anlog with militarism, imperialism, etc.?   We'll never know what could have been accomplished with analog electronics -- Bill Gates et al. saw to that -- not to mention all the other technologies which fell victim to rampant profit-making, such as non-obsolescent cars, enviro-friendly energy technologies, etc.  It doesn't make one a Luddite to bemoan the capitalist strangle-hold on technological development.  For all we know, analog technology could have created a way to model the effects of global warming so effective that even  Bush and Co. would have had to take notice.  And the US military seems pretty smitten with digital and its "smart-bomb" excesses.  So lighten up on poor old analog.
> 
> 
> 
>