Review of Mazes by Noah

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(1st complete pass through Mazes chapter)
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Material Mazes
Material Mazes
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"ponders the ghostly outlines of abandoned turf mazes" I read up on this shakespeare a little bit because i was so intrigued. http://www.william-shakespeare.info/act2-script-text-midsummer-nights-dream.htm
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TITANIA
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These are the forgeries of jealousy:
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And never, since the middle summer's spring,
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Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
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By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
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Or in the beached margent of the sea,
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To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
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But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
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Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
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As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
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Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
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Have every pelting river made so proud
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That they have overborne their continents:
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The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
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The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
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Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
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The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
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And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
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The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
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And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
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For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
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The human mortals want their winter here;
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No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
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In my own interpretation, I think she's pleading out loud to Oberon for the lack of sex - met we on hill .. to dance our ringlets- and bringing in a number of examples of signs of time gone past, including the maze that hasn't been used. I think we should include a litle more of this because it possibly explains some of the "pagan rites" of spring which you hint at. Perhaps, the rites of fertility (spring, duh) took place, and the maze had some kind of role in it? Remember, it's not Midsummer when she's talking about this. Somehow, is the spring the only time the maze was tended to? of course, being a "living thing," and not a "concrete thing" it does have cycles, and probably spring is when the vegetation thrived!
"orchestrates a maze" really, it hires a horn section, librarian, rents halls, makes sure the drummer's not too drunk, and gets funded by plutocrats? How about "draws a maze." Or if we go down the "Material" route, "constructs a maze"
"orchestrates a maze" really, it hires a horn section, librarian, rents halls, makes sure the drummer's not too drunk, and gets funded by plutocrats? How about "draws a maze." Or if we go down the "Material" route, "constructs a maze"
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As this section winds down, I'm impressed with the green mental imagery you'ved conjured in my mind.
As this section winds down, I'm impressed with the green mental imagery you'ved conjured in my mind.
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[ part (2/3) - Mazes in Dance]
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Mazes in Dance
'Crane Dane,' in which they went through the motions of threading the Labyrinth = this is intriguing.
'Crane Dane,' in which they went through the motions of threading the Labyrinth = this is intriguing.
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However, as I'm winding down this section, I'm not sure what the conclusion was, but the material is great. I'm especially glad at how the question of "ritual" in an earlier section was illustrated here. I think there's a sense in the world that ritual and dance are inscrutable/ineffable, but I don't think it's true. I think one of the conclusion I can draw so far is that the maze is a metaphor for a recurring challenge and that it invites movements through a kind of seduction. The tantalization of memory and invention as challenge to the contest of flesh-for-fresh. use a string, kill a beast, save a girl. Perhaps if Joseph Campbell's mythological model is true, the maze has a distinct function within it. Furthermore, the arc of the chapter seems to have a feeling of such momentum, that I feel generalities are beginning to resolve, and it's beginning to reveal how people reveal themselves individually through their various approaches to the maze, and to 10Print.
However, as I'm winding down this section, I'm not sure what the conclusion was, but the material is great. I'm especially glad at how the question of "ritual" in an earlier section was illustrated here. I think there's a sense in the world that ritual and dance are inscrutable/ineffable, but I don't think it's true. I think one of the conclusion I can draw so far is that the maze is a metaphor for a recurring challenge and that it invites movements through a kind of seduction. The tantalization of memory and invention as challenge to the contest of flesh-for-fresh. use a string, kill a beast, save a girl. Perhaps if Joseph Campbell's mythological model is true, the maze has a distinct function within it. Furthermore, the arc of the chapter seems to have a feeling of such momentum, that I feel generalities are beginning to resolve, and it's beginning to reveal how people reveal themselves individually through their various approaches to the maze, and to 10Print.
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[ Mazes in Mathematics ]
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Mazes in Mathematics
"Behaving like a modern day Theseus, Dantzig himself has acquired legendary status as the student who, upon arriving late to a class, mistook the historically unsolved problems on the board as his homework."
"Behaving like a modern day Theseus, Dantzig himself has acquired legendary status as the student who, upon arriving late to a class, mistook the historically unsolved problems on the board as his homework."
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"those who retreat into their imaginations" "minotaur as a gendered cautionary tale. " this going off the deep end a little bit, unless we are the geniuses who can explain gender gaps in everything. the 80s werent unique for having derpy dreamer geeks, see also Jason and the Sirens.
"those who retreat into their imaginations" "minotaur as a gendered cautionary tale. " this going off the deep end a little bit, unless we are the geniuses who can explain gender gaps in everything. the 80s werent unique for having derpy dreamer geeks, see also Jason and the Sirens.
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[ Mazes in Psychology ]
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Mazes in Psychology
I believe in this section, you are not referring to mazes in psychology, but Mazes in Intelligence testing, and for many paragraphs, narrowly limited to rodent testing. It's all a bit perverse and I like it, except I can't connect it back to 10Print very well. There was once a program to type in that simulated a mouse solving a maze... Plus, Douglas Adams' suggestion that the mice were actually experimenting on us all the time suggests a kind of hierarchy based on who could enter the program into a computer and who couldn't. I'm not sure how to proceed with that.
I believe in this section, you are not referring to mazes in psychology, but Mazes in Intelligence testing, and for many paragraphs, narrowly limited to rodent testing. It's all a bit perverse and I like it, except I can't connect it back to 10Print very well. There was once a program to type in that simulated a mouse solving a maze... Plus, Douglas Adams' suggestion that the mice were actually experimenting on us all the time suggests a kind of hierarchy based on who could enter the program into a computer and who couldn't. I'm not sure how to proceed with that.
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"any computer program that evokes the researcher's maze at least hints that the computer is a scientific instrument and that the recent history of science has some darker corners. " the ''recent'' history of science? I'm sure most of history has had some truly evil corners... but skimming ahead, the text never addresses that again, so I'm not sure where this is leading.
"any computer program that evokes the researcher's maze at least hints that the computer is a scientific instrument and that the recent history of science has some darker corners. " the ''recent'' history of science? I'm sure most of history has had some truly evil corners... but skimming ahead, the text never addresses that again, so I'm not sure where this is leading.
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[ Mazes and Computer Culture ]
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Mazes and Computer Culture
"that mazes once again become part of daily life." I'm not sure we can make this claim. Are computer file systems mazes? are card catalogs?
"that mazes once again become part of daily life." I'm not sure we can make this claim. Are computer file systems mazes? are card catalogs?
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second person maze maps are so beautiful!
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user generated maze maps are so beautiful!
"shared across platforms via BBSes than graphical " -> shared across BBS platforms.
"shared across platforms via BBSes than graphical " -> shared across BBS platforms.
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"pretense of mastery undercut by the promise of difficulty" = awesome
"pretense of mastery undercut by the promise of difficulty" = awesome
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"maze craze" ? I think the mazes were an important part of home computer culture, but not on the same level as the culture itself - many other parts of the culture are as pertinent. Perhaps we could mention the influence on popular culture of Pac-Man? E.g. the "Pac-man fever" album? But I think the defining features were the video screen as active entertainment which attracted such a large amount of attention. I'm not sure we've proven the maze to be as iconic, as say, the pentagram. Maybe, the hoop earring?
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"maze craze" ? I think the mazes were an important part of home computer culture, but not on the same level as the culture itself - many other parts of the culture are as pertinent, and I think the central craze was around video games including several non maze archtypes such as "platform," "shoot 'em up," and . Perhaps we could mention the influence on popular culture of Pac-Man? E.g. the "Pac-man fever" album? But I think the defining features were the video screen as active entertainment which attracted such a large amount of attention. I'm not sure we've proven the maze to be as iconic, as say, the pentagram.
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"the largest computer-generated maze will always be chasing" how will the maze be chasing 10Print? It seems as if they confidently ahead of 10Print. Is it unclear that these larger, single-solution mazes are more challenging to produce? That the gulf between the complexity of the two does reflect that concentration that went into them. In what regard is it chasing 10Print?
"the largest computer-generated maze will always be chasing" how will the maze be chasing 10Print? It seems as if they confidently ahead of 10Print. Is it unclear that these larger, single-solution mazes are more challenging to produce? That the gulf between the complexity of the two does reflect that concentration that went into them. In what regard is it chasing 10Print?
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[ Context of Expectations: Computer Graphics and Games ]
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Context of Expectations: Computer Graphics and Games
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"the use of computers to represent mazes conceptually" I think you mean "the use of computers to draw mazes" because computers weren't stand-ins for mazes. Or do you mean something else?
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"many different 2D maze video games" -> many third-person maze video games. We might also explain that platform games may be distended versions of a maze games
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"Pac-Man (1980) is perhaps the most famous classic maze-like arcade game," perhaps we could introduce it just a little earlier then? Perhaps before Gotcha?
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"vertical field was redesigned in horizontal format and for lower resolution display" fascinating!
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Let's also try to describe Pac-Man in terms of some of the other terminology we've introduced in this chapter, e.g. multi-cursal, etc. can we also draw a parallel to the minotaur?
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perhaps even a diagram here, illustrating the different maze features as you name them in Pac-Man? the looped corners, etc., and showing the similarlities in hedge mazes, and possibly in 10 Print?
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"less a maze than a free-form obstacle course, using the free-floating wall partitions to" I would argue it's an obstacle course, but not free-form, because there are goals. The wall partitions are not free-floating. They are redrawable, but not free to float. They are under the control of the CPU, its program, and its programmer, etc. Many parts of the maze, including its outer perimeter and the ghost monster regeneration station do not ever move. None of the characters has any influence at all on the movement of the walls. They are virtually solid, and not free-floating. we could possibly introduce the ontological laceration which occurs here when PacMan/Pac-Man's player reaches the "kill screen" and the maze becomes less about walls than about micro-conceptual negotiation.
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"claustrophobic" ? explain..?
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"discontinuous" well it's not necessarily discontinuous. After all, the images are intended to sum up to one particular superimage. There are "splices" in the maze in Adventure, but they are virtually connected, just as they are connected in the second-person mazes of Zork, hitchhiker's guide, and many others.
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with respect to isometric games, the game controller was a major influence on that. They simply worked better at NorthEastSouthWest orientation, rather than diagonally. Although zaxxon was diagonally-oriented, its movement used NEWS orientation. Q-Bert was an extreme fluke. And iirc, in the home version, you were supposed to rotate the joystick 45 degrees and pretend to use it diagonally...
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That is supporting evidence to your conclusion.
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At this point, I'd like to see a conclusion to the last few sections, as they may constitute a chapter on their own...

Revision as of 18:37, 15 November 2010

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