Monthly Archives: June 2022

Tap Dance & the Snow Job

In search of a little light reading, I grabbed Rupert Sheldrake’s book Science Set Free from my shelf. Evidently I bought it ten years ago, and also evidently I never read it, as it’s not marked up. I think I … Continue reading

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The Mind Parasites

Religion is a mind parasite. Yes, your religion too. Like other parasites, this one is subject to the normal processes of evolution. We tend to think of evolution strictly in terms of DNA, but DNA is not required. All that’s … Continue reading

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The God Problem

Why does religion even exist? Lots of people are happy to offer answers to this question, but as Scott Atran points out in his book In Gods We Trust, those answers are really no better than just-so stories. They have … Continue reading

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From Inform 7 to TADS 3

From time to time, an author who has been writing interactive fiction in Inform 7 gets curious about how easy or difficult it would be to switch to TADS. Eric Eve (who has used both systems) wrote a good comparison … Continue reading

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No, It’s Not Easy

Writing text adventure games is not easy. It’s a craft that combines conventional writing with both computer programming and game design. It’s kind of a niche art form, but people are still actively engaged in it. I’m one of them. … Continue reading

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Any Port Is a Storm

The long-awaited open-source version of Inform 7 has now been released. (Yay, I guess.) For those who don’t know what this means, Inform is a specialized programming language designed for writing text adventure games, a medium that is often dignified … Continue reading

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