Author Archives: Multimedia Mike

Working Through The Backlog

It’s time to try clearing out my ridiculous backlog of games to review for multimedia. Some of this stash goes back to some spent game shop visits in November, 2004. Here is the Multimedia Exploration Journal entry for August 13, 2006. 10 games, nothing too new in the multimedia department, save for Burn: Cycle and possibly Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. And I’m still trying to figure out how a compact disc can possibly hold 2.7 GB of data, as the CD for Deathtrap Dungeon claims to do.

Wiki Never Forgets

Anyone can post anything on any Wiki, subject to a few access control restrictions (such as requiring registration). Stuff can just as easily be deleted but it will show up in an article’s history. I have always wondered what happens when someone enters something controversial that must subsequently be removed. Wiki never forgets.

I visited the XentaxWiki recently and noticed there was a problem with a resource format called BXP from a game called 3D Sex Villa. The article’s content currently states:

Off display pending decision on legal status of information.

The article’s talk page contains some legal wrangling brought on my the creators of the format. Regardless, the original technical format information can be unearthed through the article’s history, viewable by anyone who understands basic Wiki.

Less Brainpower

Has anyone else noticed how the GNU ‘less’ command has been getting really smart, perhaps too smart for its own good? When you aim the command at a non-text file, it does its best to interpret the type and display it in a readable manner.

  • source code: ‘less’ originally displayed the text unadorned. Now it calls some program to colorize the syntax, which is nice, except when it’s an inordinately large source file on a rather slow computer and the external colorizer program takes forever. Ctrl-C asks the colorizer to quit and allows ‘less’ to process with the regular text.
  • HTML: ‘less’ used to show you the raw HTML text. The programs now formats the HTML the best it can.
  • directories: ‘less’ used to advise you that the requested target was actually a directory. Now it offers a directory listing.
  • ELF: ‘less’ used to inform you that the file appeared binary in nature and asked if you still wanted ‘less’ to try to display it anyway. Now it parses header information, apparently using ‘readelf -a’.
  • binary: Like ELF, ‘less’ used to notify you that the data appears binary. Now it shows you a rudimentary hex view. This confused me the most. “Wait, does this file actually contain a text listing of a hex dump?” I then have to open a proper hex editor to verify that this is not the case.