Ideas thread

[Stephen Morgan]

We're all very quick to complain here, but all the posts tend to be about things we don't like, not things we'd like to see done. So it's time for a "someone really ought to..." thread.

Someone really ought to...

...make a film of the computer game Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars.

...reintroduce antiseptic bronze tools for surgery, as used in the ancient world.

...start selling ancient cuisine again, along the lines of the onboard foods on Thor Heyerdahl's Ra Expedition.

...start a chain of supermarkets, provisionally entitled Soylent Spring Agricultural Waste Company. Honesty in business sort of thing. Own brand yoghurt called "I can't believe it's abiotic." Milk no more than 5% pus or your money back. With our unique approach to customer service you can take your idiot questions and waste someone elses time. Slogan: "Pay up and get out". A range of products called "Meet the Meat Laws" (unlike Pukka Pies whose adverts claim they "Meet and Surpass the New Meat Laws"), possibly an advertising campaign based on the idea of protein-rich gifts, "Meat Someone Today". "Tunny Smelling Fish". The sweatshirt, sweatshop range, we herd children into servitude so you don't have to. Tap-water brand bottled water.

[Seamus OBlimey]

Recycle disposable nappies.. It's a goldmine ready for the staking.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

...make a film of the computer game Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars.

Ever tried Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned? I wouldn't mind a film of that. It deals with similar themes, and is set around a semi-realistically modelled 3D version of Rennes le Chateau. It's basically the game Henry Lincoln would've made, if he made games.

There's a free demo, but it won't work well in Vista. I think I read someplace you were one of the Linux crew, so it probably won't work at all. It's well worth the effort to get it working though.

Now there's an idea. Somebody should pay for me to go to Rennes le Chateau.

[KudZu LoTek]

Ever tried Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned? I wouldn't mind a film of that. It deals with similar themes, and is set around a semi-realistically modelled 3D version of Rennes le Chateau. It's basically the game Henry Lincoln would've made, if he made games.

Oddly enough I think I have played GK3 - it's been a couple of years ago and it never worked right (the OS I had at the time was buggy), but I'm pretty sure I tried getting through the first couple of scenes. Was that the one that had Tim Curry doing some of the vocals?

As far as games that did a good job of capturing the "cryptic" feeling, I'm still partial to the Chateau and catacombs from Deus Ex. Did they ever get around to making a movie about that one?

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Was that the one that had Tim Curry doing some of the vocals?

Yeah, he was the voice of Gabriel Knight in the first and third games in the series - they're all interesting, but 3 is really something special (despite some ridiculous puzzles). He's doing a New orleans accent in it, which sounds unbearably weird at first, but you soon get used to it somehow.

As far as games that did a good job of capturing the "cryptic" feeling, I'm still partial to the Chateau and catacombs from Deus Ex. Did they ever get around to making a movie about that one?

Ah, when Daedalus contacts you in the Chateau DuClare! A great moment. They haven't made a film of Deus Ex but they made a (pretty poor, inferior) sequel, and are currently working on a prequel which seems to deal more with the transhumanism angle than the overarching conspiracies - which is a shame.

...start a chain of supermarkets, provisionally entitled Soylent Spring Agricultural Waste Company. Honesty in business sort of thing. Own brand yoghurt called "I can't believe it's abiotic." Milk no more than 5% pus or your money back. With our unique approach to customer service you can take your idiot questions and waste someone elses time. Slogan: "Pay up and get out".

Sounds like Lidl, which is actually the best supermarket around... though they're all shit, of course. There's a pub in Bradford on Avon that operates on similar principles.

[crikkett]

Someone ought to:

set up a company to rent out solar panels

convert tankers and tuna fishing boats to mine plastic from the ocean

[annie aronburg]

make a dishwasher or refrigerator that will fit in a corner

[Joe Hillshoist]

convert tankers and tuna fishing boats to mine plastic from the ocean

Fuck thats a good idea.

[Nordic]

Turn all the tossed out coffee grounds from Starbucks and the other coffee chains (McDonalds too, I hear they sell a ton of coffee) into biodiesel.

Because, well, it can be done. So it should be.

http://www.thebioenergysite.com/news/59 ... -biodiesel

[Nordic]

Whatever they did to electrify America, back in the turn of the century, and however they got natural gas into every damn home in the country, they need to do with solar power, especially in the Southwest.

I've been meaning to research this, so I'll have even more knowledge I can beat against my head until I bleed.

[Stephen Morgan]

...make a film of the computer game Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars.

Ever tried Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned? I wouldn't mind a film of that. It deals with similar themes, and is set around a semi-realistically modelled 3D version of Rennes le Chateau. It's basically the game Henry Lincoln would've made, if he made games.

There's a free demo, but it won't work well in Vista. I think I read someplace you were one of the Linux crew, so it probably won't work at all. It's well worth the effort to get it working though.

Now there's an idea. Somebody should pay for me to go to Rennes le Chateau.

Looking at WineHQ apparently it's possible to use Gabriel Knight 3 in Linux using WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator). Broken Sword, Broken Sword II, The Smoking Mirror and the old Discworld game I found on an abandonware site all work natively in linux as they all use the ScummVM environment, which has a linux version. I've never played, or heard of, Gabriel Knight though. Presumably I would have to pay for it, which is against my religion. I do like point and click games, though. Used to play text adventures, later rebranded Interactive Fiction, back in the days of the Commodore 64. Having the BSDGames package installed I've got adventure and battlestar on here. Broken Sword I first played as a kid when there was a demo on one of those free CDs that came with magazines. The cutscenes are extremely well animated, brilliant. And the music, done by Barrington Philloung. Obviously the story was good, the Templars, the villainous clown, the misunderstood Hashimite. Beneath a Steel Sky is also available free from the Ubuntu repositories on the linux, that being released by the same company as Broken Sword.

As for Rennes-le-Chateau, I recommend reading a book called Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail.

Someone ought to:

set up a company to rent out solar panels

convert tankers and tuna fishing boats to mine plastic from the ocean

Converting boats to filter plankton from the water might be a good idea, too. Could be made into cat food or something. I mean, if people eat soy products they will eat pretty much anything. The diminution in higher sea life caused by over fishing should allow greater quantities of food stuff to be harvested from lower levels of the food chain, as the dearth of large quadrupedal ungulents has allowed land to be put aside for the growing of plant crops.

The only problem with the first idea is the covering of installation costs. Should be doable, though, now that the feed-in tariff has been introduced. Prefer micro-hydro and geothermal myself, much more economical, but solar is next best. Unless they get that Thorium stuff going, anyway.

[Stephen Morgan]

[Nordic]

if people eat soy products they will eat pretty much anything

I'm gonna go look up the RI Quotes thread just to add that line!

[Stephen Morgan]

Soy products cause cancer, depression and hormonal imbalances.

[crikkett]

Soy products cause cancer, depression and hormonal imbalances.

even fermented soy products? (soy sauce)