iPad gaming fingerprints

Lately, I've been doing a lot of gaming on my iPad. The iPad has a very nice surface, that can be easily cleaned. And after enough fingerprint smudges build up, you really ought to clean it.

What I am amused by is that most games have a very distinctive smudge pattern. When my iPad is off, and light is reflecting in such a way as to highlight the smudges, I can tell what I've been playing lately. The regular grid of dots that make a game of Oasis. The up-from-the-bottom strokes to play cards in Lost Cities. The over-from-the-side strokes of a game of Ascension. Plants Versus Zombies has a straight column of smudges on the left, and then scattered smudges all over the main playfield (though more dense at the left of it). The row of smudges for the Glyphs at the side of a game of Elder Sign: Omens. Not all the games I play have such distinctive patterns, but many do :-)

[All games mentioned in this post are highly recommended, by the way.]

Bloody Deeds and Bad Quartos

I'm sure I have earlier here plugged my favorite bit of Shakespeare-related silliness, A Bloody Deed. If you haven't seen it, go watch it now. Or hell, even if you have seen it, it's worth a rewatch. And, y'know, these days you *can* easily rewatch it.

But back in late 2003, I didn't even know that the performance was being recorded, much less that that recording would be widely available. So, in order to share what I could of it with my friends, I wrote down what I could from memory. I just came across the file again. It gives interesting insight into the production of the Bad Quartos of Shakespeare, some of which are allegedly sourced from audience accounts in a similar manner.

What I wrote down is recognizably the same story. It's a lot shorter, and only has about half the laugh-lines. There are lots of paraphrases. Bits of it aren't quite in the right order. It's good, but it's only a shadow of the Real Thing.

For historical interest, I'm going to put that 'bad quarto' here. (In the comments, though, so that I won't get the full text in every reply...)