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Subject:Tooth and Claw RPG disk contents
Time:05:34 pm
This is the current contents list for the distribution CD for the Tooth and Claw RPG; it's about 319 MB all in, though a lot of that is the movie of The Lost World and three versions of A Voyage to the Moon. Does this sound OK? What else would people like to see up to say 350-400 MB?

contents )
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Subject:Jonathan Coulton in Eire / UK in October
Time:02:36 pm
For any UK / Irish Jonathan Coulton fans who don't already follow his blog feed [info]j_coulton or the actual blog, he's doing some shows here in late October

10/24/08 - Dublin - Whelan's -7:30pm
10/25/08 - Glasgow - Oran Mor - 7:30pm
10/29/08 - Manchester - Manchester Academy - 7:30pm with Paul and Storm
10/30/08 - London - Shepherd's Bush Empire - 7:00pm with Paul and Storm

Might be able to make the London show, I need to check some dates but can't until I'm back at work.
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Subject:Paging ferret fanciers
Time:10:26 pm
A friend has just adopted a couple of ferrets from an animal rescue, and while he seems to be reasonably well clued up on them (and has his first bitemarks), I was wondering if anyone had any hints and tips to pass on, or sites to recomment. They're both females, not very old, that's about all I know.
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Subject:The State of the Art
Time:04:23 pm
Today I got a few things done

Fiddled around with the design of the cutout boat I mentioned yesterday, and fixed the things I didn't like about the engine

Made a couple of hundred cards (basically saying "This is the Tooth and Claw RPG - UK postal regulations will charge me an arm and a leg if I include a letter here, so read the Readme file on the CD" to go into the disk mailers.

Wrote the readme file; it's behind the cut and I'd be grateful for comments - it basically explains why it's taken me three years to get this out, and I'm worried it might be a bit too whiney.
Read Me )

Designed labels for the distribution disk and the FF CD-ROM. Those I'm not going to print in quantity until I'm ready to use them, those labels are expensive. One of these years I will have to look into the white topped CDs and printing on them directly, but stack loading CD Duplicators / printers cost about a grand and I can't really justify it. I'm going with one of Sue's pictures for both labels, a nice dragoness which I manipped to add a bonnet and "Votes for Dragonesses" sign.

Did some more work on the other contents of both CDs.

Hopefully everything will be ready once I have Jo's corrections. So why am I sweating so much?

Time to go out and get some fresh air, I think...
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Subject:Knew I'd forgotten something...
Time:09:07 pm
Forgot to mention that I went back to the computer market yesterday to get the glossy paper I wanted, and fortunately they still have masses in stock so I've bought a few packs.

On the way back I thought I'd take a look in the new W.H. Smith that's opened nearby and spotted that they had a big display with a special offer that looked like two reams of 80 GSM A4 printer paper (forget the brand) for £1.99 each. Since I need the ordinary stuff as well as the glossy this looked to be a reasonably good deal by current UK paper prices. However, when you looked at it carefully it turned out to be a "buy one, get one half price" deal, with the price in big letters the half price, not the full price, which was £3.99. So a total of six pounds for two reams of fairly ordinary looking paper.

The other offer they had, which they carefully weren't pointing out, was a buy one, get one free offer on HP 80 GSM paper, which came out at £4.50 for two reams. Three guesses which one I ended up buying...
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Subject:WTF RTF????
Time:08:29 pm
I just noticed that the RTF version of the character sheet was 1.2 MB, where the DOC version was 117 K and the PDF version was 88 K

So I thought... is this a problem with RTF, or is it something stupid that happened when I saved the file from Word?

So I opened it in Open Office, the only good RTF editor I have, and saved it again. And suddenly it's only 188K. Still the biggest of the three, but something I can cope with.

Not sure what the moral is, except that Word sometimes does some VERY strange things...
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Subject:Steaming ahead
Time:07:30 pm
While I wait for Jo to get back to me with corrections, I've been finishing off the cutout model paddle steamer I designined a while ago. Basically, I've added assembly instructions and pictures of the ship, fixed a few problems, and added floor plans for the below-deck areas. I'm not going to try to model the machinery in detail, steam engines are too bloody complicated, but I do want to show where all the bits are, e.g. the boiler etc., so I've spent most of the day with Micrografx Draw, and though I say it myself, the results could be a lot worse. This is the engine room - it's ludicrously simplified and maybe looks a bit reminiscent of something that Mamod or Mecanno might sell, but I think it will just about do.



I'm especially proud of the mesh overhead walkways, which is NOT something that's easy to do with this software. The crank shaft was a total pain, and doesn't look as good as I'd like, but I think it's just about OK. This is a paste-up of two screen dumps since the engine takes up about half a page (with the boiler on one page and the rest on the next page, unfortunately - I couldn't find a way to get everything on one page without putting a page boundary somewhere even more awkward). The slightly mottled appearance at a couple of points is down to jpeg compression, it isn't in the PDF.

The rest of it was comparatively easy, apart from some silly problems getting blankets to look vaguely like blankets on the cabin beds - that took a ludicrous number of separate elements per bed to get right.



Anyway, it comes out at 14 pages and a little over a megabyte, and I think that on the whole it's good.

Anyone who wonders why I'm bothering - remember that the next release will be space travel, and if there's one thing people are certain to want in a space travel game it's deck plans for their spaceships. I might as well get up to speed now!

Friday AM: Fixed the crank shaft, not perfect but a lot better.
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Subject:Browser update
Time:09:38 am
I downloaded Safari for Windows this morning, and discovered that the graphics titles are fine there - the problem only occurs in the Mac version. Needless to say they are the same version number...

So I've decided that the best way to handle it is by putting a warning on the page that links to all the different files:

HTML files are best viewed in 800x600 or better resolution. While every effort has been made to test these files with a variety of browsers and graphics settings, extreme combinations of font and screen size may display poorly.

The following browsers were used for compatibility checking:
   Internet Explorer 7 (Windows XP)1
   Firefox 3.0 (Windows XP and Apple OS X 10.4)
   Opera 9.51 (Windows XP and Apple OS X 10.4)
   Safari 3.1.2 (Windows XP and Apple OS X 10.42)
1 Not compatible with Internet Explorer for OS X
2 Safari for OS X does not display copyright information on some illustrations when the single-file version of the game is loaded. There are no problems with the multiple file version.


I think that makes things pretty clear.

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Subject:Prometheus Winners
Time:09:06 am
Congratulations to Jo Walton [info]papersky who has jointly won the Prometheus Award for Libertarian SF with Harry Turtledove; Jo gets it for Ha'Penny, Turtledove for The Gladiator, it's the first time that there's ever been a tie, and the first time a woman has won the actual award. Since the award is an ounce of gold it's well worth having - apparently they get an ounce each in the event of a tie.

Also pleased to say that Anthony Burgess has poshumously received the Hall of Fame award for A Clockwork Orange after several previous nominations.

http://papersky.livejournal.com/402956.html?view=6549772&style=mine#t6549772

has the news - I wanted to refer back to the actual Prometheus Award site, but my virus checker says it's trying to upload a Trojan when I go there. It's the first time I've ever seen that message, so I'd better take it seriously.

And of course this means I have to edit Jo's bio a bit in the Tooth and Claw RPG, which is a pain because there's no space left on that page...
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Subject:Oops...
Time:11:09 pm
Well, I was busy double checking and validating etc. and I was reasonably pleased with myself, pretty sure I've finally got the bugs out apart from anything that Jo doesn't like.

Then I noticed that one of the adventures has different titles on the page and on the table of contents, in all versions of the files including the original Word document. It's only a one word difference but it's REALLY annoying that I (a) made the mistake in the first place and (b) only just spotted it.
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Subject:Today's progress
Time:08:41 pm
1: Built the table of contents for the HTML version of the Tooth and Claw RPG

2: Found that by the time I'd done that a lot more images weren't showing their copyright information in Safari, which confirms that the problem is file size.

3: Split the single file version into a separate four-file version, which is divided along the usual lines:

Table of contents, copyright stuff, art index etc.

Worldbook

Rules

Adventures and some other GM stuff

One of the things I realised while doing this is that the multi-file version will be MUCH faster over the internet; I'm viewing it on my iBook via a network storage box and WiFi 11g connection, and the bits are loading in a fraction of the time it took for the whole thing. I've maintained the full table of contents etc. and all links in all of the files, so I don't think there's any downside, apart from needing another 800k or so on my web site for the second lot of HTML files.

I think I still want to keep the single-file version, it'll be more convenient for people using the game off a hard disk.

Now, it suddenly occurs to me that I haven't tested Internet Explorer compatibility - this might be interesting...

[a few minutes later] OK, looks like it works (apart from IE7 bleeping every time I click on an image to make it bigger - I'd forgotten that little trick since I never use IE7 if I can possibly help it).

So it's OK with Opera and Firefox on PC and Mac, Safari on the Mac apart from the big file problem, IE7 on the PC.

Three guesses which browser REALLY hates it. And if your answer isn't the 2003 Mac version of Internet Explorer...
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Subject:Tooth And Claw RPG - HTML is go!
Time:08:53 pm
I'm VERY pleased to say that with the exception of the table of contents, which shouldn't take long, I've now completed converting the Tooth And Claw RPG to HTML. Found a metric whatever-load of typos, bad grammar etc. while doing it, which is always useful - I would be a lot more worried if I hadn't found any.

I am now going to watch TV for the rest of the evening, my eyes are too tired to do any more tonight.

Once I've got the ToC sorted I'll concentrate on the rest of the distribution CD and FF CD-ROM contents until I hear back from Jo Walton and can do the final corrections, which hopefully will be straightforward, put the final version of the PDF together, etc. So with a bit of luck I hope to get the CD out to registered users this month, and put everything on line about the same time next month. It would be really nice to have it done for the Continuum games con at the start of next month, if it's finished I'll be able to give copies to reviewers etc., so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
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Subject:Midi Experts?
Time:12:21 pm
Anyone here capable of taking a Midi recording apart and removing everything except the drum track? Or simply seamlessly looping the opening bit (which is drums only) so that it will play the same beat for several minutes. If I understand Midi correctly both are possible, but I know nothing about the actual mechanics.

The tune,incidentally, is "We Will Rock You" if anyone feels like giving it a shot

http://www.methos.org/midis/rockyou.mid

Just need a bit of soundtrack for the RPG.
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Subject:Weird HTML problem
Time:08:08 pm
For the HTML version of the Tooth and Claw RPG I've been using the "alt" attribute to describe images and the "title" attribute for pictures to show copyright information etc. when the cursor passes over them, and it's been fine for the first 63 images in the file.

For some reason the titles of #64 onwards don't show up when viewed in Safari on the Mac - they're fine in Opera and Firefox on the PC and Mac. I've checked the HTML for errors using two different validation programs, and while they don't like the style and my use of some deprecated elements much there aren't any actual errors.

So is this an inherent limit of Safari - I suppose there aren't that many documents with that many images and title tags - or something I should be worrying about? I've just wasted more than two hours trying to fix it, and I'm beginning to think that it may be Safari that's broken, not the file.

I suspect that the number of images is the important thing - knowing my luck, someone used a look-up table with six-bit numbering (0-63) to store the information or something...

Anyone got any thoughts? Know anything about this? Know where it might be worth asking? I'm looking through the forums on Apple's site but haven't found anything yet.

much later I wanted to ask about this on Apple's Safari forums, but when I saw what was involved in registering I decided I couldn't face it. If anyone has an account I'd be VERY grateful if someone could ask for me.

File size is 569K, about 5.5 MB when loaded with all images. There are so far 65 images, the problem starts with image #63, but commenting out a couple of earlier ones doesn't help so it may not be the total number of images that's important.

I've just tried pasting the affected part of the document into a separate document file - wish I'd thought of it two hours ago - that's fine when viewed in Safari, so it definitely isn't a coding error, it's something about Safari or the file size etc.

I really don't want to split this into multiple documents, but I'm beginning to think it may be the only fix.
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Subject:Lowest common denominator fonts for Word?
Time:07:48 pm
One of the things I want to provide with Forgotten Futures X is dragon character record sheets as editable Word etc. .DOC files. I've already done this, but it occurs to me that they'll be a mess if anyone else loads them.

The trouble is that the font I've used for the book is Albertus, and I can't give it away with the game because as far as I know it's a commercial font (numerous sites seem to be giving it away, but I suspect that they are not doing so legally). My best move is probably to find a font that is common to Windows, Macs, and if possible Linux distros, use that, and suggest that users pick a font they prefer.

Any suggestions for a font that'll do the trick?


In other news my local computer market has a guy selling 100-page packs of QMS glossy 135g A4 colour laser printer paper. Got one today and gave it a try, the result is VERY impressive, really makes the text stand out - I think it'll be very good for flyers etc. Works out at a fiver a ream, which seems pretty reasonable... unless anyone knows of a cheaper alternative I'll pop back tomorrow and get a few more packs.
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Subject:Periodic Table of Videos
Time:10:31 am
Saw this recced on [info]lolscience - the Periodic Table with a video for every element. Good ones too, it's a University of Nottingham project so not dumbed down.

http://www.periodicvideos.com/index.htm
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Subject:Looking promising
Time:11:33 pm
Pointed out by [info]sbisson - the Watchmen movie trailer



One day I will be able to look back at vast quantities of bad fanfic and say "I wrote dialogue for Rorschach before most of you had even heard of him..."

later: and I probably read the books before most of the authors were born...
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Subject:Ads on basic accounts
Time:06:39 pm
It looks like Livejournal plans to "reintroduce Basic accounts"

http://news.livejournal.com/109461.html

Except that what they're actually talking about is an account that carries adverts, and it looks like this will apply to all basic accounts including the old ones:

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_2008/4376.html

I've got a permanent account, but if this happens the two Basic accounts I use - the [info]sdaleconspiracy community and [info]ffutures_news, the account I use for game-related announcements and show on my web sites - may start to show adverts if anyone who isn't a paid or permanent user looks at them. And apparently some of the advertising livejournal runs is for things I would dislike or consider inappropriate to my interests etc.

I'm not too bothered about [info]sdaleconspiracy since I think most of the people using it have paid accounts, but if this happens [info]ffutures_news will certainly have to go, and I'll need to replace it with some other simple way to put news on my sites, hopefully without horrendous amounts of coding or using FTP etc. Can anyone suggest a good alternative?
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Subject:More Clancy - another Forgotten Futures update - and holidays
Time:09:00 am
Another bit I forgot from The Bear and the Dragon
Spoilers )

In other news, I forgot to say that having tried more solutions to the HTML conversion thing, and not liked any of them much, I decided to start doing it the old way, in a text editor. I've now got about a third done, so it looks like I was worrying about nothing. It turns out that being a bit rusty on HTML isn't a huge handicap, because I've been using the editor's built in HTML coding features more than I used to, and they are making things a lot easier. Also, the most complicated tables are, of course, just variants on similar tables in the main Forgotten Futures rules, which are already HTML, and it's easy to paste in the old version and make the changes, rather than doing it all from scratch.

Geeky HTML stuff )

When I hear back from Jo I will probably have to make a few corrections, but that just means I'll have to correct two documents, not one, and I can live with that.

Another hour or so and the kids will go off to church, and I can go round the labs and shut everything down for the summer and save a small fortune on electricity. I was expecting to have to work tomorrow, but fortunately the building will have no power due to rewiring, and everyone has been told to stay home. So after this afternoon I won't have to be in work until the 18th of August. I can relate to that...
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Subject:Morph your face!
Time:05:32 pm
And another fun one - Morph your face

http://morph.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Transformer/

Doesn't work too well for me, I don't think the software copes with beards very well, but this is the result for the "apeman" setting



and this is the "Manga character" setting.

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Subject:And another triumph for Westminster!
Time:05:02 pm
As regular readers will know, Westminster City Council have been saying for ages that they're going to bring in parking charges for motorbikes, but were rather coy about the details.

I got to my bike this evening to find a card saying that they start on 4th August in some areas, in all areas by the 18th. Charges are £1.50 a day, £5 a week, £150 a year. They also say that if you register for the pay by phone "service" by 3rd August you won't have to pay parking charges in August.

Which would be fine, except that what I want to do is pay a year up front, and do so by cheque. And needless to say they still aren't set up to take money, and I suspect won't be until August. I also got the impression that nobody there is capable of handling the idea of a motorist of any sort who doesn't own a mobile phone and isn't happy to run up loads of credit card payments.

I would rather like to pay enough in advance that my cheque will clear by the time the charges are enforced. The annoying part of this is that I can probably (but not definitely) stay out of the charging areas until the 18th, but doing so will be a pain in the arse.

I'm really hoping that at some point someone will tell me that they are not prepared to take a cheque. I will then offer to pay cash (I'm sure my bank will give me 150 quid in small change if I ask nicely), and if not ask them to confirm in writing that they are not prepared to take my money. Watch the crap hit the fan...
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Subject:Interesting astronomy site
Time:10:56 am
Ever wonder how big the solar system would be if the sun was a foot across, or whatever? This site has the answers:

http://www.astrocentral.co.uk/solarsystem.html

Go down the page a bit to see how far it is to the stars on the same scale. Puts things into perspective!
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Subject:Another duplexing colour printer
Time:03:06 pm
This time it's something called a gelsprinter, which appears to be an inkjet variant which is claimed to be cheaper and more reliable to run than standard inkjet. I should stress I know nothing about the technology. SVP charge 90 quid as a customer return (e.g. within 30 days of purchase, has 12 month warranty), but someone has three new for £74 each inc. postage on eBay, don't know what the warranty is like.

http://svp.co.uk/product/ricoh_aficio_gx3000_gelsprinter_colour_printer_used4553_clearance

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ricoh-Aficio-GX3000-colour-printer-MASSIVE-DISCOUNT_W0QQitemZ270247636616QQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

It's 3600 x 1200 according to SVP, 1200x1200 according to the guy on eBay, duplexing as standard, has USB, and has an option for networking. What I don't know is how long the ink lasts in the starter cartridges, hhow easy it is to get the network kit, etc., and if there are Mac drivers. Ink looks to cost £36 for colour carts, £22 for black, and they're claiming 1000 pages for the colour carts, 1500 for black.

I wouldn't go for it myself, but it's maybe interesting for anyone who wants to do relatively low volume duplex printing.
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Subject:Yes, Tom Clancy really does need a technical advisor...
Time:09:40 am
I was telling someone about the gaping plot holes in most of Tom Clancy's work, and he was a little sceptical. Pausing only briefly to gaze in awe at The Bear and the Dragon whose Chinese government computers connect to the internet via a built in modem, not a network, and have no firewalls, anti-trojan protection or (apparently) compartmentalization to make sure that the person who types up super-secret minutes is not also browsing the web on the same PC, and to wonder why TC thought that the Chinese government couldn't stop its citizens accessing western web sites, we move swiftly on to Rainbow Six.

I shall say relatively little about the plot, spoilers )

OK, that's fairly standard contrived plotting. What isn't is that spoiler )
I'm pretty sure that any good editor could do so much more elegantly. I can only assume that by the time he wrote Rainbow Six he was such an enormous success that nobody was doing this sort of proofreading.
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Subject:WYSIWYG HTML Editors?
Time:09:48 am
I gave FF X to Jo Walton yesterday. While the primary version will be PDF, I also want to publish an HTML verson, so I've now got start thinking about converting it to HTML once she's given final approval. The idea of sorting out the coding on a 170-page document is just a little daunting. I wrote the previous games in a text editor and added the HTML code as I wrote - this time I'm starting with a large Word document that contains dozens of tables, text boxes, images, etc. and lots of text formatting. I've also got a bit rusty with HTML, since it's 2-3 years since I've done anything substantial with it.

Word's "Save as HTML" is pretty useless, it tries to micromanage the layout of the document and the sidebars and tables etc. come out as graphic images for some reason - I have no idea why, but it's VERY annoying. I tried saving to HTML from Acrobat, but while it works for simple documents, with something this complicated it comes out as a horrible mess, with the stuff in sidebars, tables, etc. hopelessly jumbled. The tables in particular will be a real pain if I can't find a good way to convert them automatically.

So what I think I'll have to do is paste each section into an HTML editor separately and sort out layout etc. there. I REALLY don't want to hand code this, it could take me a month, so can anyone recommend a good Windows WYSIWYG HTML editor that is preferably (a) free or cheap, (b) not horribly verbose in its coding, (c) I can paste in text and still have italics etc., and (d) I can paste in e.g. tables from Word and get a properly coded HTML table out.

Many thanks!
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Subject:Spot the Skrull Challenge
Time:11:28 pm
I was talking to [info]rozk a few days ago, and she suggested that the current Marvel story line re. Skrull infiltrators suggests some interesting crossover possibilities. She also suggested I post a challenge, and I've finally remembered to do so.

The idea is simple - someone (or possibly several someones) in the fandom of your choice have been replaced by Skrull infiltrators, or possibly has always been a Skrull infiltrator. The challenge is to show what happens as a result...

For more on the Skrulls and the invasion see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skrull
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Invasion

Any genre you like, any pairing or none, my own preference is for short and funny but that's just me, write what you like. I'm not up to organising this as a ficathon or anything of that sort, but if anyone wants to run with this idea please post a link to your story as a comment below.
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Subject:Bees are back
Time:09:20 pm
In other news, following all the "where have all the bees gone?" stuff in Doctor Who I'm delighted to say that my front garden had loads of them buzzing around today, including some very fat-looking bumble bees. Unfortunately it got dark before I remembered I wanted to take pictures.

I'm reliably informed that London now has thriving bee hives which make extremely tasty honey (because there are so many different plant species around). In the country, where there can be miles of single-crop agriculture, it's apparently not nearly so tasty.
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Subject:FF XI title
Time:09:13 pm
OK, Planets of Peril will be the working title. The relevant bit of FF X will read:

Forgotten Futures XI has the working title Planets of Peril, and will be based on the science fiction of Stanley Weinbaum (1902-1935), focusing on his unique vision of the Solar System and the worlds he described in classic stories such as A Martian Odyssey. It will contain at least a dozen stories, space travel rules, and everything else needed for a classic pulp SF campaign. Like Forgotten Futures X it will be published in PDF and HTML versions. If all goes well it will be available towards the end of 2009.

I've said "towards the end of 2009" because I know that if I give an earlier date it just won't happen, but I'm aiming for July / August if possible, it's best for me because I get a holiday then and can do all the distribution stuff more easily. Always assuming I don't get blocked or run into problems again...
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Subject:Looking Forward to Forgotten Futures XI
Time:09:46 pm
While I've still got a long way to go to get Forgotten Futures X finished, one of the things I need to do is decide on a title for Forgotten Futures XI, so that I can give it a plug at the end of FF X.

So far the plug reads "Forgotten Futures XI will be based on the science fiction of Stanley Weinbaum (1902-1935), exploring his imaginative vision of the Solar System."

That's a bit dull - what I want is something to go after the XI, preferably a title with no more than four or five words.

Weinbaum's most famous story in this setting is A Martian Odyssey, so it's tempting to use the title Space Odysseys. Except that it's a title that's already been used for an online game, several anthologies, a TV science series, etc. etc. and I would prefer to be a little more original.

I'm thinking about "Planets and Perils" or "Planets of Peril," neither of which seems to be the title of anything [later edit - Just found Planets of Peril as a Space 1999 novelization]. Unless, of course, you know better. Other possibilities include "Rockets and Rayguns" and "Blast Off!" (which is, or was, a board game but not an RPG as far as I know). Or I could write around it - I don't have to have a title yet...

Another thing I ought to decide is what sort of art I'll be using. Most of the SF magazine art of the 30s is still in European copyright, but some earlier stuff may be available. Alternatives could include 3D modelling, find someone who does art for fanzines etc. and persuade them to do something for the game, photos of real people in SF type costumes, and so forth. Which would you prefer? Would a mixture work for you? Do you care at all?

So, let's have your opinions...

Poll #1221792 Forgotten Futures XI
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What title would you prefer?

View Answers

Planets of Peril
6 (31.6%)

Planets and Perils
2 (10.5%)

Rockets and Rayguns
2 (10.5%)

Blast Off!
1 (5.3%)

Any of these is fine!
0 (0.0%)

I hate all of them!
1 (5.3%)

Leave it as a surprise!
1 (5.3%)

I have another idea (in comments)
3 (15.8%)

Clicky!
3 (15.8%)

Artwork should be...

View Answers

Copyright expired pulp images
8 (44.4%)

Glossy 3D modelling
0 (0.0%)

Fan art
0 (0.0%)

Live action
1 (5.6%)

A mixture - whatever seems to work
6 (33.3%)

Who cares - the words are what matters!
0 (0.0%)

Clicky!
3 (16.7%)

Clicky?

View Answers

Clicky
4 (26.7%)

Crunchy
1 (6.7%)

Snap
2 (13.3%)

Crackle
5 (33.3%)

Ping
9 (60.0%)

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Subject:A funny thing just happened to me...
Time:12:31 am
...Despite having been a bit under the weather today, I've finished the first draft of Forgotten Futures X: The Tooth and Claw Role Playing Game, and just backed it up to a network drive, USB stick, and CD-ROM, which will be stored at work just to be extra sure...

This doesn't mean it's ready to launch - the game plan now is to reread the whole thing and make final corrections, print it out, and get the printout to Jo Walton (who is fortuitously in the UK) on Sunday. She's seen about 2/3rds of it already but only as text files - Assuming she's OK with the rest and with the look and feel of everything I can start converting it all to HTML (I want as much as possible as HTML as well as PDF), and put together the release disk with some additional game material, samples from the FF CD-ROM, etc. With a LOT of luck I may be able to start sending CDs to registered users before the end of the month.

HUGE sigh of relief, since for some reason the last little bit seemed to take forever to write. I'm off to eat a very late supper and head for bed.
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