Date:	1997-03-28
		From:	John
		Subject:	RE: Tape & Alexander

Just returned from Atlanta. I could easily fill ten tapes with tales of my adventures, so will look forward to receiving tape tomorrow.

Glad your presentation went well. As you said, it would seem to be an ingenious project given your topic. As for all that excess Alexander energy I would propose nailing down the continent IDs while the code is still fresh in your mind and then adding cities.

Mountains and Rivers are next on my list, but I'm not sure how best to generate them. Seems to me we took a stab once at mountains by correlating the elevation of a pixel to its order of creation (the first pixels are the highest, first 10% or so marked as mountains). I have no idea about rivers, but there are many possibilities. Are you seeing many inland seas/lakes/ponds? If so you could use elevation to calculate shortest path drainages. Or you could just pick a random spot on the coast and drill inward for a random length.

Minor idea: show river cells as either narrow or wide; some ships could travel up narrow rivers, others (battleships, carriers) could only navigate wide rivers.

I say: DAMN THE TORPEDOES! FULL SPEED AHEAD!

Yours in haste,

Epicurious J.