ARG: Find the Lost Ring-Responses

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:29:49 -0500

[technical stuff, skip if you're not a computer geek]

never! never skip! learning experiences! ;)

Re: PDFs

I tested with a couple of the other larger non-chat documents, and generally the JPGs faired better. PNG is better for the smaller chat images though. Mainly just because it's a lossless compression, so images with lots of solid colour areas will compress better.

What I did was to extract the images from the PDFs directly...which should always be better than screenshots

For larger images, sure, to keep the original quality, but if we're keeping them generally in that 'one-page-per-screen' area of dimension, then screenshots won't make much of a difference, since whether it's captured after resizing or resized after capturing it'll always end up the same :)
(and quality isn't all that important with these thumbnails anyway)
the 2-3 page docs I capture and join together into one image; any more than that and I cut it off and add the text that it's a long document of x pages.

I might soon re-organize the page layout again to be a little more nice to look at, and more compact.

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:15:27 -0500

Another chat log:
http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/TW52/5Y8D/B9WB/ZJYB/UEF2.PDF

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:10:50 -0500

[technical stuff, skip if you're not a computer geek]

I think the chat thumbnails being PNG is a good idea, rather than jpg, as it looks cleaner and it makes smaller file sizes.

I'm the one who's been replacing the chats with PNGs, and updating some picture files as well. What I did was to extract the images from the PDFs directly using pdfimages (a linux tool, but there are probably similar programs for Windows/Mac), which should always be better than screenshots (we'll still need to downconvert some of them; I haven't done that yet). Even the chat ones are originally JPGs, but for most (not all) of them, they're clean enough that converting them to PNG actually results in smaller files.

People can download the original PDF if they want the full size, full quality content.
Once we've got'em all, I may perhaps upload the PDFs to the wiki to download (since there don't seem to be any over 1MB anyway), but really there's no need as long as they're readily available from the omphaputer.

We could try using the Coral cache for posting links to the PDFs without bringing down the server.

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:48:32 -0500

Someone's To Do List:
http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/40W3/Q1QD/TDNA/GSZT/CXLC.PDF

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:51:02 -0500

yeah that PDF is enormous... best to open it in acrobat itself.

tips for uploading the wiki thumbnails: the idea is that they're thumbnails of the PDF content for a quick, low-quality view; since you know, there are just so freaking many files... so to save on space/bandwidth/wikipower, see if we can keep the images no more than that 150KB 'safety' size. Photos - maybe no more than 1024x768 in dimensions... I think the chat thumbnails being PNG is a good idea, rather than jpg, as it looks cleaner and it makes smaller file sizes. But for the rest, just compressed jpgs should be fine; again, around that 150KB mark.

People can download the original PDF if they want the full size, full quality content.
Once we've got'em all, I may perhaps upload the PDFs to the wiki to download (since there don't seem to be any over 1MB anyway), but really there's no need as long as they're readily available from the omphaputer.

So yeah: thumbnail images - 1024x768ish, 150KBish. It's going to be one enormous archive of BTS pictures 8)

Also, please name the images with the first four characters of the code, not the last four. It makes sorting and searching for duplicates much easier (imo) by following this naming convention. thanks!

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:40:04 -0500

http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/RPFI/0NGH/YZ43/FP4Y/OIKS.PDF

"User experience conceptual map". Great look behind the scenes!

Just a note for others trying this one: This appears to work in IE only. Other browsers I've tried give simply the raw code.

"Save as" was the only way I could get it through FF, and then opened it directly in Acrobat.

About the document itself: "9.8.0: Rate Player Participation"???

*expects a B+*

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:30:38 -0500

http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/RPFI/0NGH/YZ43/FP4Y/OIKS.PDF

"User experience conceptual map". Great look behind the scenes!

Just a note for others trying this one: This appears to work in IE only. Other browsers I've tried give simply the raw code.

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:03:09 -0500

Ooohh ... I couldn't resist. I cheated and took the survey a second time. Anyway, I'm half-Austrian, so I had to comment on the game even from an Austrian's point of view ... :oops:
Hope that won't mess up their data to much. But this is the code I received:

http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/RPFI/0NGH/YZ43/FP4Y/OIKS.PDF

"User experience conceptual map". Great look behind the scenes!

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:47:01 -0500

Lunch (Tokyo artifact pickupper) got the following chat log about Kentaro
http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/JI10/B1C2/2I9V/7VNP/3FZH.PDF
I totally agree with Jane and James :lol: :lol:

hahaha, he is Kira!

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:13:56 -0500

Lunch (Tokyo artifact pickupper) got the following chat log about Kentaro
http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/JI10/B1C2/2I9V/7VNP/3FZH.PDF
I totally agree with Jane and James :lol: :lol:

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:56:06 -0500

Cool, thanks :)

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:30:41 -0500

Huma (Team Tokyo) got a nice PRUVO code!
http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/l2IT/18EK/8KJH/DZIJ/ANQG.PDF

This link doesn't work for me :(

Very sorry, in this thread I forgot to capitalize an "l" (wiki was OK).
http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/L2IT/18EK/8KJH/DZIJ/ANQG.PDF

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:24:52 -0500

Huma (Team Tokyo) got a nice PRUVO code!
http://164.109.150.213/PRUVO/l2IT/18EK/8KJH/DZIJ/ANQG.PDF

This link doesn't work for me :(

[META]The secret ending

thebruce@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:32:26 -0500

If you haven't taken the survey yet, please take it and post your pruvo code.
You can take the test at either
TheLostRing (faster connection?) or at your preferred Amnesiac's blog such as
Ariadne's blog .
You can post your code here, or at the wiki http://olympics.wikibruce.com/Bonus

[META] Goodbye Lost Ring !

Thomas Bookmore@forums.unfiction.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:30:35 -0500

Just went through the changes you made on the Google Docs, Dav. Impressive ! But I think it looks more like a content organisation than a "real" layout. Besides, the way it's organised would definitely clash with the drafts Sparta put together for us. Could you get in touch with me ? I'm sending you my contact info through PM.

Sparta : Very good looking job ! Your second suggestion is not very efficient in term of space though, especially given the amount of content we have to provide access to. I'm sending you an invitation to the collaborative documents so you can see how much we have to put in there.