Only doing this to annoy you - posted by Cargo Cult on Sunday March 4 2007

Have a moon:

Handy hint - when travelling home around 400 miles with camera, to encounter spectacularly clear weather and the best lunar eclipse in decades, remember to take your tripod with you.

All these shots were completely hand-held. Gyroscopically stabilised lenses are great, but not great enough to out-do the same lens without stabilisation, but with the aforementioned sodding tripod. Astronomy likes long exposures, 'cause there's bugger-all light. Duh.

Have an animation, running at a thousand times real-time:

Enjoy!

And the forum? I'll let the oft-maligned free will take its course. When the timer reaches zero, please exercise your democratic rights...

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Return of the Forum - posted by Cargo Cult on Monday February 5 2007

The attentive amongst you may have noticed that the forum is back.

Please be aware that it has returned purely on a trial basis - if you behave, it may get an extended stay of execution.

Rules? Be aware that you will be governed by the arbitrary and aloof decisions of the seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse - who are well aware that any misdemeanours are to be instantly punishable with Death.

Or even Deletion, if you were really, really bad.

Some good guidelines to work from? A sensible outline would be the following, as provided by Horseman Locworks:

• Courtesy and respect are required.
• Proper spelling and adequate grammar are welcome.
• No flaming. No trolling. No spamming.
• If you have an issue with a post by another acolyte, send a private message to any of the Horsemen. The dirty laundry will be washed away from the public eye.

Also, discussions about cheese might be encouraged, so long as it's not that vile, processed, factory-produced effluent labelled 'cheese' in the United States of America!

So there you are. The MINERVA Forum.

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Houston, Wii Have A Problem - posted by Cargo Cult on Monday January 29 2007

Got a Nintendo Wii, and want to use the controller for something other than cutesy, low-graphics console games? Well, thanks to Pat Glynn's Half-Life 2 Wiimote Mod, it's possible. And, it will officially support MINERVA!

Sadly I don't have access to the appropriate controller hardware, although my MacBook Pro does have the necessary Bluetooth gubbins - but I'm utterly intrigued.

Anyone interested in finding out more? I believe he's been looking for people for a closed beta test, and it should be released to the public sooner or later. Plus, since the mod has Episode One support, it should work with the ever-elusive third episode of MINERVA.

Speaking of which, the first test version of metastasis_3a went out to testers on Sunday evening, despite the presence of alcohol and a visiting sister. Lots of useful suggestions are coming back from the testers, and I've even had plot suggestions from the aforementioned sister. Wonders shall never cease!

Edit 2007-02-04: Have a bonus, non-MINERVA, non-Wii HL2 video created by someone else - entitled Science Strikes Back. I seriously need to learn video editing...

Edit 2007-02-06: Also, you've got the forum back. Have fun, for its destruction is again imminent...

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ModDB Players' Choice 2006 - Fifth Place! - posted by Cargo Cult on Friday January 26 2007

Once again, huge thanks for everyone who voted for MINERVA - it's a bit unlikely being a one-man single-player map-pack competing against full-strength multiplayer modifications, but it seems to be working. And I'm having fun, which is the important thing.

Work on that elusive third episode has accelerated like you wouldn't believe. metastasis_3a is now roughly playable, and should go out to playtesters tomorrow - but if you're impatient for something to play, I suggest you look through the other mods in the ModDB awards. There's some seriously impressive stuff there - and not all of it multiplayer. Enjoy!

Also, for last year's awards, MINERVA came eleventh. By my calculations, that means next year MINERVA shall be in -1th place. Negative, me? Hardly. Awards are a huge morale boost!

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***EINGEHENDE NACHRICHT*** - posted by Cargo Cult on Thursday January 18 2007

Not a map, but please enjoy the German translation of Metastasis 1 and 2, once again gracefully provided by the Sarmatia Project. Google Analytics reports that an implausible proportion of the MINERVA website's visits are coming from Germany, so I'm certain it'll be appreciated.

To celebrate, behold the colossal flag image which I constructed!

Well, it looked bigger when I was working on it, I'm sure. Sorry.

I am also reliably informed that Italian, Russian and Spanish translations are distinct possibilities. And maybe even Polish. I'm sure they'll be far better written than my amateurish English original... ;-)

***NACHRICHT ENDE***

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