07.10.99Seek and you shall find, ask and you shall receive . . . . Today I received via email from Cortana's Mom a file entitled "BlamJune04.sit." Unfortunately, my computer crashes every time I try to extract it. Maybe tomorrow I'll have better news.
07.11.99. . . rename and you shall solve. Apparently, Stuffit 5 can't handle the concept of a BinHexed file ending in ".sit." Anyway, I now have the June 4 edition of b.b.org available for your perusal. Knock yourselves out. Also available is a copy of the icon that was used for the "index.html" file included. (In case you're wondering, I added the gray border around the icon so the white area would be visible--the original icon is, of course, the inside section of 32x32 pixels.)
07.12.99Frames! I've now made the page considerably more navigable. (I hope.) Tell me if you hate it; I know there're a lot of people out there who can't stand frames. Also, blam.bungie.org appears to have slightly modified today--the forum, Story Page blam page, and email links are now separate paragraphs instead of one broken by linebreaks. Hardly a major change, but nothing's happened this week so I thought I'd point it out.
07.13.99As some of you noticed yesterday, my server crapped out on my relative links. I solved this problem by making all links absolute. Also, my counter provider was being weird. This should now be solved, as I'm using another counter, so all the problems should be out of the way for now. (Knock wood.) No changes to the page today. Also, Gawyn was visitor 77 today! Keep those hits coming, maybe I'll be able to afford a real prize for visitor 777.
07.14.99Major changes to the page! The "Blam," "Cortana," "Forum," and "Us" links are now simply text links, not cryptic pictures. Also, the lawyers appear to have finally gotten around to b.b.org, as it now sports the same copyright notice as all of bungie.org's other pages. Why would they change the links? Did they get tired of explaining the hex code? Run out of room for the pictures? Any speculation is welcome!
07.15.99Not much to say today, but in my never-ending quest to be like Hamish, I shall give daily updates no matter how little there is to report. Um . . . I've passed 100 hits. While not quite as significant as passing 77, it's still a bit of a milestone. Nothing much seems to have happened to the page today. If anyone has any explanation for what happened yesterday, on the other hand, I'd love to hear it. Do you people realize I've received a grand total of one email about this page? You know, now that I think about it, I don't have my email address on here anywhere. Doh! OK, now that that's fixed, you have no excuse. Write!
07.16.99The page appears to be slowly evolving. According to a current thread at the Blam! forums, the small circle on the left is growing a hole, while the large circle on the right is moving closer to it. I would like to personally commend Lacsap, the first person to notice the hole in the small circle, on having excellent eyesight. It hurts my eyes just to look for the hole. Anyway, here's the thread:
Lascap, 16 July 1999, 10:14 p.m.:
There is a evolution on the front page of blam.bungie.org.... if you look close you can see that there is a hole going larger in the little circle, while the other circle on the right is going down and down.... There should be a way to take information about those draw... but what?
Callabad, 16 July 1999, 10:31 p.m.:
They are reaching a mysterious alignment watch in slow motion . . . the spheres are reaching a conjunction . . .
Lacsap, 16 July 1999, 10:47 p.m.:
Well... that conjunction of three spheres, couldn't be the conjunction of three sun, to make a super star.... like for the phenomean seen by the three Wise Men in the bible..... Could BLAM be the Big Bang noise.... with the Cortana letters there is always link to the end of the world, but could it be the born of universe.....
For the original, go here.
07.17.99The two circles are definitely getting closer--in fact, they're almost touching now. Not much else going on.
07.18.99Conjunction approaches . . . .
07.19.99. . . and passes! Looks like they missed. Of course, that assumes they were meant to collide. I'm beginning to wonder if this is supposed to be a picture of two planets orbiting a star or something, but that wouldn't explain the moving lines from early this month, would it? Please, if anybody has any ideas, write already!
07.20.99Major changes today! As far as I can tell, the circles have rotated, so we're now seeing close to an edge-on view. Of course, our viewpoint could have shifted. If you have any idea what's going on, drop me a line already!
Also, I thought I'd tell you guys I'll be getting up bright and early tomorrow to head up to my dad's office and watch the MWNY keynote address over his LAN. I'll be posting to one of the forums from up there if anything Blam or Bungie related happens.
07.21.99Well, you've all heard the news from MWNY by now. Blam is really HALO, and b.b.org has changed its page appropriately. In fact, they are now h.b.org! Don't worry, I won't be changing the address of this page anytime soon, even if "bborgarch" is no longer completely accurate. Anyway, more news later.
Later: well, anything I said by now would pretty much be superfluous. Halo.bungie.org is up, halo.bungie.com is up, and I'm on the latter's list of Halo fan sites. This would explain how I've jumped from approximately 130 hits to over 500 in under twelve hours. Additionally, I've finally received my Mac Action Sack from Bungie and have completed an analysis of its invisible files. Here it is:
My Sack runneth over! It has indeed arrived, and I have for you the invisible file report we've all been waiting for. There are only four hidden files, but they're good ones! Here they are:
Mac Action Sack:Oni Preview: Movie, Images & Music:big brains=huge game.jpeg
Mac Action Sack:Minotaur:Minotaur 7:grndsprtcrft.jpeg
Mac Action Sack:Minotaur:Minotaur 7:transport.jpeg
Mac Action Sack:Minotaur:Minotaur 7:trooper.jpegThe first is the Bungie West employee pic from BungieVision Summer 1999 (included w/the Sack) with everyone's heads stretched to give them the *appearance* of bigger brains. Very cute.
The other three, however, are much more interesting: they appear to be Halo concept art. trooper.jpeg is a sketch of the Halo Marine (possible Marathon symbols hidden, at least to my eyes), while transport.jpeg and grndsprtcrft.jpeg both appear to be early versions of the vehicles seen in the MWNY presentation. (transport.jpeg comes complete with a somewhat reptilian alien in the driver's seat.) Finally, all three pics have the caption "HALO-ARTIST: SHIKAI WANG (C) 1999 BUNGIE SOFTWARE PRODUCTS CORP." Looks like Halo's gonna be anime-styled too. ;-)
(In case you missed the link on the way in, you can get the four pics from my front page.)
Unfortunately, that's about all I've got time for tonight. h.b.org has changed their front page yet again, and if it stays that way tomorrow, I'll be uploading it. Otherwise, I guess today will be the only day with two separate page backups. Bye!
07.22.99Looks like the version of h.b.org from late last night was in fact today's copy, so it's up now. They seem to have created a new logo for a background pic and added some Halo links; other than that, the page is pretty much the same.
I received the following email today from Callabad:
Subject: They knew . . . Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 13:49:30 -0400 From: "Callabad" <callabad> To: agd12@columbia.edu They knew . . . they knew the whole time. They never were spheres, they never were, those shapes on b.b.org - it was a ring, slowly rotating towards us until you can see, there at its center, a sun. -Sigh- We can never trust b.org for the whole tru7h ever again.
Is this true? Was bungie.org in on it the whole time? If so, shame on them. At least Ferrex of the Core had the decency to admit he had inside knowledge of Blam/Halo as an ex-intern of Bungie's. On the other hand, Steve has protested dozens of times that he is not affiliated with Bungie in any way whatsoever. Any opinions?
07.23.99Well, the mysterious page of cryptic pics we'd all come to know and love is gone, replaced by a fairly prosaic page of news and links. I suppose it's fitting, as Halo is now out of the bag, and there aren't really any more mysteries to ponder. I see they've got their own archive of the final version of the old page. I'll think I'll keep archiving them regularly for a bit longer, but it's fairly clear I'm going to have to come up with some new content, since there doesn't seem to be much point in "analyzing" the page as it currently stands. Any suggestions?
Also, the links/permissions for the Sack HALO pics are fixed now. Sorry, but I warned you on the front I don't have 24/7 email access.
07.24.99Nothing much today, just more news added. My site is really beginning to look kinda pointless now; if I don't get some email fairly soon, I may just shut down until I can think up some new content.
Later: as pointed out on Hamish Sinclair's page Marathon's Story, most of the news posted thus far at h.b.org is attributed to Louis Wu, who also happens to be the main character of Larry Niven's Ringworld novels. Cute, b.org, cute. The other names look rather significant as well. I remember "Wirehead" as a Niven term for an addict of a machine that sends electricity directly to the brain's pleasure centers. On the other hand, it's also Leela's domain name in Marathon. Crux Fidelis sounds like Latin for "faithful cross" or "faith of the cross" or some such thing. (I never took Latin, so I have no idea how to read the word endings.) Anyway, it sounds like it has something to do with the "Covenant" civilization that Cortana referred to as the "zealots" in one of her letters to Hamish. The post saying "umm... hi" seems to be our introduction to this particular source of enlightenment. Hmm, maybe there's a reason to keep this page alive after all.
07.25.99not much going on today either. However, I did receive an interesting email which I think I'll share with you:
Subject: Halo first look at Computer Games Online
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 10:04:13 -0600
From: Noctavis <noctavis@myther.com>
To: ferrex@gamestats.com, mmorrissey@rpa.net, halo@bungie.org, timbritton@hfx.andara.com, jerbritton@hfx.andara.com, clacroix2@sprint.ca
CC: mojo@fortunecity.com, agd12@columbia.edu, squeaky@marathon.org, shipoffools@townhall.clanplaid.netIf you go to www.cdmag.com you can catch a cool "first look" article (http://www.cdmag.com/articles/021/126/halo_preview.html) about Halo. It makes some interesting comparisons to certain, genre-stretching pieces of PC software, and anticipates that it may well go beyond them. (DUH!)
-Noctavis of Myther.Com
p.s. - Be on the lookout for Halonews.Com (Not necessarily launching with that as the name) within the next few weeks or so.
[HTML markup added]
While the review of HALO is nice, it's nothing particularly new. What I find impressive is that Noctavis considers me to be in the same league as Ferrex, Steve, Mojo, and Squeaky!
07.26.99Big news: today I got some more email about this page. Finally! ;-p Since the only other thing that happened was that h.b.org added a nav bar, I think I'll just quote the whole thing.
Subject: ok, here's an email :-)
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:36:49 -0400
From: "Miguel Chavez" <jmchavez@aol.com>
To: agd12@columbia.edu
Head on over to Hamish Sinclair's excellent Marathon Story page and check out a video interview with Jason Jones. Done by yours truly!
- Freewill / Miguel Chavez
[HTML markup added]
While I haven't had a chance to see the interview (a 20 MB .mov), I understand it's well worth watching. I should be able to take a look tomorrow. See you then!
07.27.99Very little going on today--it seems there are now even bigger versions of the above interview which I must find time to download and watch. What fun. Other than that, I note that unless h.b.org starts cutting their news off after a day or two, the background logo is going to keep repeating every couple pages. CSS, anybody?
07.28.99Very little today, just more review news and speculation about the dimensions of the ringworld.
07.29.99I score again with a minor news coup, and yet another movie I need to watch crops up. Fun.
07.30.99More analysis of movies I haven't seen and the addition of a news archive, complete with another picture which I have to archive.
07.31.99No news today, as h.b.org is down due to problems with the b.org move. Looks like they're going to be down for the rest of the weekend. Check bungie.org for details. However, I did get this notice from Halo Central:
Halo Central has just posted their first feature length article. Over 3000 words long, it describes possibly connections between Bungie's classic game Marathon and their upcoming title Halo.
Along with this feature story they've just completed a page redesign. Go and check it out.
Looks like a good article. Like the man said, go check it out.
08.01.99h.b.org still down, so no news today either.
08.02.99h.b.org back up at last. There's some more news, and the Halo logo has migrated back to the foreground.
08.03.99"Back up" seems to be a bit optimistic. The forums are down again, and they say they've lost the last day's worth of work. Nothing else going on.
08.04.99Optimistic indeed. Now the entire bungie.org site has collapsed--main page, Marathon, PID, Halo, and everything else. "No interuption of services" during the move indeed!
08.05.99*.b.org is still down, so no news.
08.06.99So, h.b.org is finally back up. Nothing else interesting has happened though, and it's 2:00 in the morning, so I think I'll leave it at that.
08.07.99It looks like b.org is finally back on its feet, as all seven (!) boxes appear to be up and running. In more interesting news, I am the first person (aside from the founder) to join the new Halo WebRing, Halo Infinitum. For more information, go back to my front page and check the box on the bottom. Finally, bungie.com has posted a brand new Halo banner, which I have also put on my front page. It appears to feature the machine gun mounted on the jeep in the MacWorld preview movie, and it looks pretty good.
08.08.99Or maybe it's not. halo.bungie.org seems to have gone down again, as not even a ping to its IP gets any response. I guess that means no news today either.
08.09.99Hmm, h.b.org is back up, but the rest of b.org refuses to resolve. Well, at least I can tell you that, um, well, the Halo/Matrix desktop pic is cool! Seriously though, there's still not much going on.
08.10.99Hmm, the name of the main page seems to have changed again. Other than that, things progress as usual.
08.11.99Now everything but h.b.org is up! Up, down, up, down, what is this, a revolving door? Who said that, anyway? I think it was Cher. Anyway, no news.
08.12.99Finally! h.b.org is back up, and it now has a completely different design. It looks like they'll be creating a different front page every day to handle the news of the day. Nothing particularly significant in today's news, though.
08.13.99The big news of the day is that Take Two Games has purchased a 19.9% share of Bungie and will be doing all their distributing from now on. The small news is that I've joined SETI@home on the Halo team.
08.14.99Finally, some interesting news! It appears that a prototype for Duandal has been discovered carved into the PowerPC 750, or G3, chip on a molecular level. Click here for a look. By the way, h.b.org has been having DNS problems today, so if you want to reach them, try the direct line: http://129.95.74.79/halo.
Also, I got an email today from Noctavis informing me that part two of MacGameNews.Com's "Halo Special Report" is out at http://www.macgamenews.com/news/august/haloshown2/. Check it out!
One last note: in order to keep up with current trends, I've taken out the underline on my links. Whaddaya think?
08.15.99h.b.org is still available only at their IP address, http://129.95.74.79/halo. Judging by their news, even they realize there's nothing going on. Even the forums are down!
08.16.99h.b.org has moved again; they're currently available at http://129.95.74.55/; also, the forums are working again.
The only other news of even minor significance is that I've passed 3000 in hits.
08.17.99Nothing much going on today. h.b.org is where they were yesterday, which is a refreshing change. Another version of "the movie" is out. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm actually providing any useful services here. I appear to be getting about a hundred hits per day, but is anybody actually reading this page?
08.18.99Halam, the only person actually providing less worthwhile content than I, has finally updated his page. Now look at me, plugging the competition for free. Also, Cortana has surfaced at bungie.net, claiming to be the greatest Myth player in the land. Damn Mythers. Take Two's stock is up, hopefully because of Bungie.
08.19.99Nothing much going on today. I think I'm going to add a counter here to see if anyone actually gets past the front page. I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason I'm still getting hits is Bungie's link page.
08.20.99New background pictures are up, Take Two is down but their credit rating is up, and b.org's mail server is down. Enjoying the rollercoaster?
08.21.99New background pics are up at various sites and Halam has forums. What's new with you?
08.22.99Whoa! Lotsa news today. Bungie people like the h.b.org forum, the Halo music guy is getting famous, a new movie preview may be forthcoming, and the forum has a huge thread on the alien races of the Halo. Also, it now looks like every Halo site but mine has forums. Don't worry, I'm going to add some just as soon as I learn cgi and perl. Seriously, I'm trying to figure out how to install WebBBS. The main problem is that I have no idea how the server I'm hosted on is set up. Anybody reading this who knows something about cgi, drop me a line!
08.23.99Nothing much going on today, just more events on Halo websites I don't have time to visit.
08.24.99The biggest news of the day is that Hamish is taking a vacation and Marathon's Story is going down for the next two weeks. Maybe I'll be getting more traffic. Naw. In other news, there's a hot race on between the Halo, Bungie, and IMG SETI teams; bungie.net has been redesigned; and Take-Two is doen again.
08.25.99Take Two is down again, Bungie.net got overhauled, Hamish is gone, the Bungie SETI team is a 7, Bungie's email reply department is alive, and Halo is catching up in PC Paradox's poll.
08.26.99Halo is catching up fast in PC Paradox's Best Action Game poll, Take Two is back up, Loren says Halo will have great texture effects, HALO's SETI team is ahead of IMG's, and Nathan promises night action and bump- and texture-mapped water. Cool.
08.27.99Take Two is down again, a kick-ass picture by Edward Howard is up, h.b.org actually has email again, The Darkside is growing, Halo's in third in the poll, and the Bungie SETI team is still way ahead.
08.28.99h.b.org doesn't know their calendar, Halo is winning the poll, and the Halo SETI team is way ahead of IMG (though still way behind Bungie).
08.29.99Bungie.org's DNS names are functional again . . . or so they claim. I can't use them yet, but I guess they just haven't made it down this way yet. Halo Central is alive, contrary to popular opinion, and the Halo SETI team is going strong.
08.30.99Nij is leaving the Halo SETI team and some guy I've never heard of is joining, The Darkside has a new poll, and the DNS still doesn't work for me.
08.31.99Apple announced the G4's today. Anybody wanna buy a beige G3? I'm gonna need some serious cash pretty soon. Take Two is down, but then so is the rest of the market, Halo Central is offering a new Halo newsletter, and I've discovered that the people at h.b.org keep really insane hours. It's 1:20am CDT, and they've already got today's (Wednesday's) page up.
09.01.99First Hamish, now me. That's right, I've decided to put this site on hold. For one thing, I'm moving back to college today, and my computer will be unvailable to me for about a week. Mostly, though, I've decided that the site in its present form is now pointless. Halo.bungie.org is no longer interesting to analyze as there's nothing there to analyze. It's just a straightforward news site now. I'll be thinking about what sort of content I could put up to replace this site; if I come up with anything interesting, I'll be coming back up soon. Meanwhile, I'll be leaving the site active; it just won't be updated anymore. If anyone has any suggestions for content, you can still reach me here. Bye!
09.25.99Hi guys, long time no news! Well, I'm now fully installed at illustrious, illuminating, incomprehensible, but still iconoclastic Columbia University. Anyway, I just thought I'd drop by to say that due to utter pointlessness, the post-July 20 archives are being taken offline. For one thing, they have nothing interesting to analyze. For another, they're all already available here. Most importantly, I'm almost out of space. Anyway, I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone! See you later!
10.06.99Hello again; this time I'm just dropping by to say I've given my front page a bit of a make-over. It should now be a bit clearer as to the current purpose of this site. Nothing else has changed, though!
06.20.00Phhht! Just like that. In protest of the Microsoft buyout of Bungie, I've inverted my pages. I have no plans to take this site down, however; I plan to keep it up as long as I'm still getting hits. That is all.