Categories
Tech

Font fun with Fondu

I had actually thought that with the advent of MacOS X, Apple had done away with font incompatibilities. It installs Windows and Linux fonts with no problem, so there’s no need to have your own font file format, right?

My wife discovered the .dfont file this morning at work. As of this writing, the Wikipedia entry on the format is just a stub.

Datafork TrueType is a font wrapper used on Apple Macintosh computers running Mac OS X. It is a TrueType suitcase with the resource map in the data fork, rather than the resource fork as had been the case in Mac OS 9. It uses the file extension .dfont.

In plain English, it’s got all your regular TTF information in a different part of the file. Kind of like a .ZIP file for fonts. Useful, except only Macs read it. Fortunately, we have fondu. It’s available for all Unix systems (including Mac OS X) and provides a suite of utilities to convert different formats of TrueType fonts.

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Categories
Movies and TV

Terminator Salvation Trailer

Well, the next Terminator film looks awesome. I found T3 a bit underwhelming. It had some good points, but felt a bit flat in comparison to the relentless pursuit in T1 and the awesome action of T2.

I’m not sure whether Terminator Salvation will have any direct links to the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I figure I should probably get the series at some point.

Terminator Salvation Trailer Proves That Humanity is Doomed | Film School Rejects.

Categories
Movies and TV Reviews

BSG: No Exit (or Meet your maker)

Gaeta’s mutiny is over, and the fleet has disposed of the two major mischief makers. They are now bereft their Quorum, and Galen has discovered that Galactica is falling apart. But neither of those are important compared to the two other parallel storylines. Read on if you’re prepared for spoilers.

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Categories
Tabletop Games

Hitler’s battletech army

Stress is a large part of organising any gaming convention…
I was particularly amused by the person who said, “There, there. Hitler wouldn’t dare run Spelljammer”.
Courtesy of Fear the Boot.
Categories
Music Video Games

Music Industry vs Music Games

Wired.com is running an essay on the music industry’s beef with music simulation games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. In some ways, it’s like listening to a broken record: old business hasn’t anticipated how the times are a-changin’ and starts whining about not having a big enough cut of the proceeds.

They’ve done it with Apple and the ITMS, they’re doing illegal things  to hinder file swapping, and they’re doing very little to be innovative and stay ahead of the game. What they don’t seem to realise is that if they weren’t stuck in this orthodoxy of the plastic disc, they could be inventing new distribution channels like games and ringtones and online file distribution.

One fact jumped straight off my monitor and burned into my brain when I read the article:

Music games are proven earners—Aerosmith has reportedly earned more from Guitar Hero : Aerosmith than from any single album in the band’s history.

Wow! Aerosmith is one of the biggest rock bands in history, and they make more money off a game? It’s obvious this could be used as a fantastic promotional tool, but it can also help revitalise bands.

Due to the last couple years of music games, I’ve (re)discovered music and bands I haven’t given a thought to in over a decade. I’ve spent money on them. Even if the label gets a relatively small cut from the game, it gets much more from my track purchase.

I would hate to be working for such an introverted, conservative company. It would frustrate me to think that my employer behaved like a spoiled brat who wanted credit every time somebody came up with a better idea.