Linked List: April 17, 2008

Thursday, 17 April 2008

Milliways: Infocom’s Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ★

Andy Baio hit the jackpot:

From an anonymous source close to the company, I’ve found myself in possession of the “Infocom Drive” — a complete backup of Infocom’s shared network drive from 1989. This is one of the most amazing archives I’ve ever seen, a treasure chest documenting the rise and fall of the legendary interactive fiction game company. Among the assets included: design documents, private emails, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made.

Andy’s hosting two playable prototypes — playable I say — of Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the unreleased sequel to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. If you’re in your 30s (or older), you’ll be amazed at the game. If you’re in your 20s (or younger), you’ll be amazed that this is what computer games used to look like.

‘THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO DO IT REPEAT NO OTHER WAY’ ★

Storyboard of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, with detailed notes from The Man himself.

Update: Here’s how the shot turned out in the actual film.

Nick Poteri has photos of a few other nifty items from the Kubrick Archives, too, including typewritten sheets from Jack’s “novel”. (Via Jim Coudal, of course, who’s doing a Kubrick day over at Coudal.com.)

Camino 1.6 ★

Lots of UI improvements, but still no draggable tabs, which knocks it out of the running for me.

PayPal Plans to Ban Browsers Which Lack Anti-Phishing Features ★

Ryan Naraine, reporting for eWeek:

PayPal, one of the brands most spoofed in phishing attacks, is working on a plan to block its users from making transactions from Web browsers that don’t provide anti-phishing protection. [...] “In our view, letting users view the PayPal site on one of these browsers is equal to a car manufacturer allowing drivers to buy one of their vehicles without seat belts,” said PayPal Chief Information Security Officer Michael Barrett.

Current versions of Safari lack the anti-phishing features PayPal plans to require.

Two Secrets of Mac App Design ★

Brent Simmons, sweating the details.

Vistarolling ★

Faruk Ates has a sick mind.

Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World ★

Great idea for a book. Currently at #64 in Amazon’s bestsellers list.