No Podcast This Week

by Ron Gilbert
Jan 16, 2016

There will be no podcast this week. We were all very busy yesterday and never found a time we could all meet. I suppose I could have done it alone and rambled on incoherently for a while, but as much as you think you'd like to listen to that, trust me, you wouldn't.

Today I am in the process of rebuilding the websites, moving everything from the old and decrepit http:// to trendy and hip https://. If you encounter any issues, please let me know.

In the meantime, please enjoy a quick concept sketch from Octavi

Mario - Jan 16, 2016 at 14:50

Nah, only rss feed reader is gone a bit crazy.

Ron Gilbert ✓ - Jan 16, 2016 at 14:52

Yah, when it changed from http to https all the RSS readers see them as new articles. Not much I can do about that.

Mario - Jan 16, 2016 at 14:57

Yeah Ron, I know. That was the only "problem" i've encountered. Thanks for the awsome job you guys are doing!

Jesper - Jan 16, 2016 at 15:08

Love how everything look trendy and hip after the move!

Have a great weekend, Team TP.

Lionel - Jan 16, 2016 at 15:20

Good job ;)
Rated "A" by Qualys
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=blog.thimbleweedpark.com

Big Red Button - Jan 16, 2016 at 15:26

I love https, even though I don't have any idea of what the profit for this website is, as the communication on this blog has been completely public anyway. However, it looks contemporary.

Big Red Button - Jan 16, 2016 at 15:36

Oh, I mean to say that it looks amazingly trendy and hip now. ;-)

Uli Kusterer - Jan 16, 2016 at 22:55

The advantage is not for this site, but for all other sites: If all communication is encrypted, it's harder for an attacker to find when you're just viewing public content and when you're actually doing home banking or something else worth hacking. W/o TP being HTTPS, they can just go for the encrypted connections and ignore all the traffic going here. Critical communications stand out like a sore thumb then.

Asterisk - Jan 19, 2016 at 04:36

If someone is intercepting your packets, they know what the source and destination of those packets are irrespective of whether the content itself is are encrypted -- there's no way to hide the IP address of the website you're connecting to from a man in the middle. In other words, it'll be pretty obvious to an attacker that the encrypted packets you're receiving back from thimbleweedpark.com do not contain your bank account information.

There's little value in forcing HTTPS on a blog or other site that contains only public information.

Ron Gilbert ✓ - Jan 19, 2016 at 09:15

You're making the assumption that your banking information is not being sent to thimbleweedpark.com. You know what they say about assuming.

Arto - Jan 16, 2016 at 15:41

You should have done podcast alone and rambled on incoherently for a while, and as much as you think we'd not like to listen to that, trust me, we would have.

SSL: yay, we're secured. This is the way internet should've always been. I guess you've done it for the phonebook admissions. Gravatars don't seem to work.

Arto - Jan 16, 2016 at 15:43

... Ron's and mine work though. So I guess no Gravatar just shows an empty box now.

Uli Kusterer - Jan 16, 2016 at 22:58

I presume the Gravatars are still HTTP? HTTPS doesn't like people mixing HTTP and HTTPS, because that could be used to have a site that looks like it's secure, but have e.g. a credit card number field still send its contents as clear text. Either that, or you're generating HTTPS URLs but Gravatar doesn't support that yet.

Ron Gilbert ✓ - Jan 16, 2016 at 23:17

Gravatars work fine for me (and they are delivered as https), are people not seeing them? If the commentor does not have a Gravatar, they will show up as white, that is expected. Unfortunately, Gravatar is broken under https when returning a custom default image (the ?-mark in the old site).

Arto - Jan 17, 2016 at 04:48

Ok. They seem to work as I can see other people's Gravatars and there's the white box if Gravatar has not been set.

Marc - Jan 16, 2016 at 15:48

Thimbleweed Park is down for maintenance. We'll be back soon! Honest! It's not a trick!
... or is it?

It's a trap!
[ackbar-mode off]

Sushi - Jan 16, 2016 at 15:56

That concept sketch reminds me of the Simpsons, somehow...

Derrick Reisdorf - Jan 17, 2016 at 01:58

Same here.

Carlo Valenti - Jan 16, 2016 at 17:29

Can't remember : which was the sprint?

Carlo Valenti - Jan 16, 2016 at 17:44

Question for the devs:
what do you do in your (few few few) spare time/week end? Do you want/manage to give a cut from your work, or what else?
What is your reaction when your job comes looking for you in your spare time?

Alessander - Jan 16, 2016 at 22:32

Thanks for saving me precious minutes of my life!

P.S.: No problem with The Old Reader. Maybe it didn't sync the old stuff yet.

Bogdan Barbu - Jan 17, 2016 at 00:17

The front page sucks. If I were you I would... Just kidding :) Congrats on the new Web site. Looks amazing.

Grafekovic - Jan 17, 2016 at 00:48

Someone borrowed the speakers from green tentacle.

LogicDeLuxe - Jan 17, 2016 at 10:00

The mixer doesn't belong in a corner, unless the scene is supposed to have someone doing a poor mixing job.

Ron Gilbert ✓ - Jan 17, 2016 at 10:20

It's ThimbleCon... and you expect a good job?

Octavi Navarro - Jan 17, 2016 at 12:27

That's what happens when the power cord is too short and you don't have enough budget for cable extensions ;)

Big Red Button - Jan 17, 2016 at 14:42

Speaking of the power cord: I don't see the wirings to the mixer. Are there wires in the wall for the speakers and the mic?

Octavi Navarro - Jan 17, 2016 at 16:52

In fact it's a light mixer connected to the spotlight. Not enough budget for a sound board.

AndreasAT - Jan 18, 2016 at 02:49

Wait! Are you guys copy&pasting the Curse of Monkey Island theatre riddle? ;-)

Mattias Cedervall - Jan 17, 2016 at 11:18

So there will be a ThimbleCon in real life after the game's release? :P

Ricardo Marichal - Jan 17, 2016 at 12:34

¿ Es medio bocadillo eso que está en medio de la pista ?. Es tan intrigante...

Mario F. - Jan 17, 2016 at 12:50

just noticed the new GAME Button in the menu. wow. thats a nice gem.

Jesper - Jan 18, 2016 at 09:06

Wow, didn't notice that until you wrote that message - Thanks man!

Extremely cool page and what a great layered scroll at the top. Good job, Team TP.

Sheldon - Jan 17, 2016 at 18:16

This new page is a 'wow' one. Gratulations! All that Kickstarter money finally pays off.

Ron Gilbert ✓ - Jan 18, 2016 at 00:25

Ha! I wish that was your Kickstarter money at work, but sadly it was me for the past few days re-building the site. I would have loved to just hire someone to build it.

Zak Phoenix McKracken - Jan 18, 2016 at 09:08

WOW, great! I like it!
In a few month, I imagine a countdown in a corner, too... :-D

Big Red Button - Jan 18, 2016 at 10:18

I think, if the game was going to be released belatedly, it wouldn't be a problem either. The most important things are both the quality of the contents and the freedom from bugs (... besides the budget, of course). However, to tell the truth, I've been waiting for more than 20 years for such a game. So, a few months more or less wouldn't matter.

Grafekovic - Jan 18, 2016 at 10:57

Is this some kind of running gag? I don't see any difference on this website...

AndreasAT - Jan 18, 2016 at 11:01

not blog.thimble..., but www.thimble...

Grafekovic - Jan 18, 2016 at 16:12

Oh! Never been on that site. Looks nice!

Big Red Button - Jan 18, 2016 at 11:29

It's the first time we see the final look of Delores, isn't it? I think you took a very good decision!

Big Red Button - Jan 19, 2016 at 05:30

Ransome is a pretty tall guy due to his hair and his balloon. He might need to duck down, whenever he runs through a door frame, doesn't he? How do you manage this? Will he never be seen in a door frame, but exclusively in front of any door frames, even when he passes through one?

PS: I've just noticed the file names of the characters' png files. You actually call the staff from the Diner Sandy and Dave. That's interesting! :-)

Zombocast - Jan 18, 2016 at 14:09

No podcast? My day is as cold and grey as Octavi"s concept art.

Zombocast - Jan 18, 2016 at 14:28

I was looking at the website, wow..it looks fantastic, especially the Cast of Characters part.

It almost looks like you put your younger selves in the game!

David Fox: The sheriff.
Ron Gilbert: The cook.
Gery Winnick: The bum.

Just kidding on that lastpart.. the website looks amazing

Ivan Braidi - Jan 18, 2016 at 16:09

Hi Ron,

I don't know if the issue could be related to the protocol switch on ssl, but I didn't receive the mail notification about your last post on the blog.

Just for complete info: I correctly received the previous notification without any problem, and the current notification is NOT in the Spam Folder ;)

Hope this could be of any help.

Thank you so much, as always :)

CIAO!!

Zombocast - Jan 18, 2016 at 19:26

The update seems to have fixed the seckrit question always being wrong too!

Zak Phoenix McKracken - Jan 19, 2016 at 14:23

I had that problem only when accessing the blog from Chrome mobile, 9 out of 10 the answer is wrong.
I didn't try yet on the new website, but glad to read that I was not the only one with that problem.

Roman - Jan 19, 2016 at 02:53

oh no....https stole all the colors from the concept art....

mr. T - Jan 19, 2016 at 13:52

The website is looking really snazzy!

Carlo Valenti - Jan 19, 2016 at 14:18

POD-CAST!
POD-CAST!
POD-CAST!

Zak Phoenix McKracken - Jan 19, 2016 at 14:25

[INSULT MODE ON]
Non accetterò la tua impertinenza restando seduto!
[INSULT MODE OFF]

Giulio - Jan 19, 2016 at 15:54

[INSULT MODE ON]
Le tue emorroidi ti danno di nuovo fastidio, eh? ;)
[INSULT MODE OFF]

Arto - Jan 19, 2016 at 17:08

Si combatte come una mucca!

Come on guys. It's tiring to use Google Translate to know your insults. Parlate in inglese per favore.

Zak Phoenix McKracken - Jan 20, 2016 at 04:56

Aha, I appreciate your effort in translating, very good!
I wrote the sentences in italian because both people were italian, just to joke a bit with insults in my native language.

En garde! Touché! :-D

Arashi - Jan 19, 2016 at 17:42

Hey guys!
Did you send e-mail for 'Phone Book level' backers? I don't visit much the blog but I want to participate in phonebook.
Thanks!

Zombocast - Jan 19, 2016 at 17:57

Ron's most recent quote about the phone book:

"We're just testing the system now. In a few weeks an email will go out to all the Kickstarter backers who get their name in the phonebook with instructions." - Ron Gilbert ✓ - Dec 30 at 18:38

iaco - Jan 19, 2016 at 18:41

Hi, all!

I've been following the blog since forever and there has always been someone who asks the right questions so I've never needed to comment... UNTIL NOW.

My question is in particular for the dev team and I hope it wasn't answered before (need to avoid a fantastical questioning failure):
How do you handle the inventory combination of objects scriptwise?

I'm asking specifically because if you combine object A with object B it should be the same as object B with object A, so who's responsible for knowing the combination? Do both objects have repeated code for handling it or there's another third element which knows the combination? Or is it done some other way which my mortal imagination cannot grasp and is only reserved for the gods?

Cheers and congrats! The game is looking awesome!

DZ-Jay - Jan 27, 2016 at 08:02

Dear Mr. Gilbert,

I haven't checked the blog site in a couple of weeks and now that I returned to it, I notice that I cannot see any images at all.  The headline banner, the Gravatar icons, the posted screenshots -- they are all gone!

I saw this post about moving to trendy and cool HTTPS, so I wonder if that has something to do with it.  This is happening in Desktop Safari v6.0.5 on a Mac OS X 10.8.5.  Strangely, if I open the page in Firefox, it works well.  I wonder if it is something to do specifically with Safari.

   Thanks!
    -dZ.

DZ-Jay - Jan 27, 2016 at 08:04

Oh, dear! I just noticed what it is: You moved all your images to "https://storage.googleapis.com,"; which I have blocked in my AdBlock.

It's strange that you do this, now I am forced to get tracked by Google just to see the progress of the game. :(

Please, reconsider this "feature".

-dZ.

Ron Gilbert ✓ - Jan 27, 2016 at 09:35

The images were always on Google, it was just being redirected there via CNAME. With https, you can't use CNAME so I had to switch to the raw URL. You were always being tracked, you just didn't know it. I guess this is better in a way. :-)

DZ-Jay - Jan 28, 2016 at 15:24

LOL!  Thanks for the response.  Is there any way around it?  Stupid Safari offers me only an all-or-nothing affair.  I wouldn't mind unblocking for your blog, but then it opens up the floodgates for all other sorts of creepy sites out there! :(

I guess I can use Firefox.  Ugh.

Nonetheless, thanks for taking the time to respond.

    -dZ.

Ron Gilbert ✓ - Jan 28, 2016 at 15:28

I use Chrome and Ghostry to block trackers. Despite being a Mac user, I never use Safari, so I'm sorry I can't be of help. HTTPS makes you be be a little more blunt about resources (as it should).