Trivial Coincidence... or is it?
In 1992, Terry Pratchett's novel "Only You Can Save Mankind" was published. I'm sure we all remember the video game mentioned within, Journey to Alpha Centauri, a real-time space travel game in which you pilot a ship the three-thousand years and a bit trip to Alpha Centauri to be met with the message "Welcome to Alpha Centauri. Now go home"
In 1995, Penn and Teller's game Smoke and Mirrors is not released due to money and some games publisher going bust, but preview copies are reviewed by several magazines. A contained minigame is called "Desert Bus" and involves a real-time bus trip from Tuscon to Vegas. The bus lilts sideways, so you must always remain at the controls. When you arrive at Vegas you receive one point and then have the option to return to Tuscon for another point. You can repeat this in real-time up to 99 points. They credit the idea to the man who produced The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and other comedy shows. They say this minigame is a reaction to journalism claiming video game violence contributes to antisocial behaviour.
In 1998, a man named Julian Fleetwood releases the first game to have over three thousand gameplay hours; Journey to Alpha Centauri, subtitled "An interactive waste of time". According to this review the game may be even longer, counting 61 seconds to a minute, 61 minutes to an hour, 25 hours to a day, and 366 days to a year. (Though I suspect this is simply to standardise the clock and simplify the effort needed to construct and test the game, because not everyone in the world is as perverse and cruel as I am.)
3x3 years after that, in 2007, a group of comedians began marathon running Desert Bus as a fundraising activity. They play Desert Bus for a number of hours equal to a set amount of donated money.
In other news, there are only 10 digits in our numerical system and humans have evolved an uncanny habit of assuming that the random similar or same numbers signify some sort of correlation or causation. This is sometimes referred to scathingly as the "23 Enigma", an actual popular theory that the letters 2 & 3 (and 5, and 6 and other things that you can add or divide or manipulate to reveal 2 or 3) have mystical and real significance. Which they do, of course, but not in a way that supports any supernatural theories. Numbers are common and math is everywhere, and to gullible idiots logic and probability must seem like utter magic.
Knowing this did not make me any less delighted to discover these probably mostly unrelated giblets of information.
In 1995, Penn and Teller's game Smoke and Mirrors is not released due to money and some games publisher going bust, but preview copies are reviewed by several magazines. A contained minigame is called "Desert Bus" and involves a real-time bus trip from Tuscon to Vegas. The bus lilts sideways, so you must always remain at the controls. When you arrive at Vegas you receive one point and then have the option to return to Tuscon for another point. You can repeat this in real-time up to 99 points. They credit the idea to the man who produced The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and other comedy shows. They say this minigame is a reaction to journalism claiming video game violence contributes to antisocial behaviour.
In 1998, a man named Julian Fleetwood releases the first game to have over three thousand gameplay hours; Journey to Alpha Centauri, subtitled "An interactive waste of time". According to this review the game may be even longer, counting 61 seconds to a minute, 61 minutes to an hour, 25 hours to a day, and 366 days to a year. (Though I suspect this is simply to standardise the clock and simplify the effort needed to construct and test the game, because not everyone in the world is as perverse and cruel as I am.)
3x3 years after that, in 2007, a group of comedians began marathon running Desert Bus as a fundraising activity. They play Desert Bus for a number of hours equal to a set amount of donated money.
In other news, there are only 10 digits in our numerical system and humans have evolved an uncanny habit of assuming that the random similar or same numbers signify some sort of correlation or causation. This is sometimes referred to scathingly as the "23 Enigma", an actual popular theory that the letters 2 & 3 (and 5, and 6 and other things that you can add or divide or manipulate to reveal 2 or 3) have mystical and real significance. Which they do, of course, but not in a way that supports any supernatural theories. Numbers are common and math is everywhere, and to gullible idiots logic and probability must seem like utter magic.
Knowing this did not make me any less delighted to discover these probably mostly unrelated giblets of information.