Posts
for the first time in a long time...to see
One for the Money
Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, first novel, as a movie. I was excited to see that this was being filmed, I love those books (funniest things in the english language after Wodehouse), but I wasn't too sure about the casting.
Katherine Heigl looks just right as Plum. Debbie Reynolds was good as the kooky grandmother (although I think Ruth Gordon of the 70s was more the right thing). The actors playing Ranger and Morelli I'm not so sure about. Ranger needed to look/be a little more mysterious, and Morelli needed to look less scruffy. (It could be that I misremember how they started out in the first book, been a few years since I read that) Vinnie Plum seemed less weasel-y than I think he should have...we didn't meet or hear about some standard things (grandma's interest in going to the funeral parlor for viewings and cookies), but Stephanie's car did properly explode at one point (this especially is a theme in the books), she had to go to Stark Street several times (a recurring location for trouble of one sort or another). They did do voice-over for what Stephanie is thinking, which is great for filling-in things that need a little explanation but not necessarily screen time.
Apparently this story had been made for TV ten years ago--I wasn't aware at the time, hadn't read the books yet; no idea whether that was any good or not.
I hope this did well enough that more are made...the characters take time to develop properly.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
YAGB 2
So I was wondering if I could ever play Alpha Centauri again...highest rated game ever by PC Gamer, and it didn't even make the top 100 in this year's list.
My installer doesn't get it done on Win7, but apparently GOG.COM has adapted it somehow, and the result works just fine. I was going to try to make myself a Win2k VM and run it there, or maybe even a Win98 VM, but it was $5 on GOG, and my time is worth more than that to try to figure out how to get a VM created and running properly. Won't be able to do this at all on my Mac, because SMAC was an OS9 game, and there's no longer any software path from there onto the Intel processor; I'd have to keep an older Mac around, not interested in doing that. (OK, and older Mini would maybe do it, and at least be small, but still...that'd be the only purpose)
So now I can play SMAC again--which is good, because that is a game with a lot of replayability, very challenging, especially at the higher skill levels, or smaller maps (wherein conflict stars a lot sooner).
Apparently you can also get Total Annihilation, so I did. Haven't tried that yet, and I didn't finish it way back when, but now I can try again. Also for $5. Hard to beat, esp given that for $5 NWN2 still sucked big time.
GOG is great.
My installer doesn't get it done on Win7, but apparently GOG.COM has adapted it somehow, and the result works just fine. I was going to try to make myself a Win2k VM and run it there, or maybe even a Win98 VM, but it was $5 on GOG, and my time is worth more than that to try to figure out how to get a VM created and running properly. Won't be able to do this at all on my Mac, because SMAC was an OS9 game, and there's no longer any software path from there onto the Intel processor; I'd have to keep an older Mac around, not interested in doing that. (OK, and older Mini would maybe do it, and at least be small, but still...that'd be the only purpose)
So now I can play SMAC again--which is good, because that is a game with a lot of replayability, very challenging, especially at the higher skill levels, or smaller maps (wherein conflict stars a lot sooner).
Apparently you can also get Total Annihilation, so I did. Haven't tried that yet, and I didn't finish it way back when, but now I can try again. Also for $5. Hard to beat, esp given that for $5 NWN2 still sucked big time.
GOG is great.
Follow-up on the Jaguar
It turns out that when the oil-pressure gauge shows low, it means low oil. Seems obvious enough, in retrospect, but given that newer cars don't vary even slightly about what the gauge shows, I didn't know that...and with an older car, you could wonder if it means low oil, oil sender has probs, gauge has probs...no way to be sure.
So I eventually looked at the oil dipstick, and it looked way down. Added 3 qts (car takes 8, which is more than US cars). Things looked good after that, pressure varied from 20-40, and it sounded smoother. A few weeks later I added another qt--I don't know what my consumption rate is, although I certainly know I have several leaks. Two are the valve-covers, you can *see* the crack in one where it was over-torqued bolting it down; I have a replacement for that one.
Still...car is running just fine, have been enjoying the driving, even though it is winter and the heater doesn't work.
So I eventually looked at the oil dipstick, and it looked way down. Added 3 qts (car takes 8, which is more than US cars). Things looked good after that, pressure varied from 20-40, and it sounded smoother. A few weeks later I added another qt--I don't know what my consumption rate is, although I certainly know I have several leaks. Two are the valve-covers, you can *see* the crack in one where it was over-torqued bolting it down; I have a replacement for that one.
Still...car is running just fine, have been enjoying the driving, even though it is winter and the heater doesn't work.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Another round on the Jaguar
So it turns out that the oil pressure gauge tells you exactly what it should be telling you: when the pressure is low it means you need to add oil. I finally checked it, needed to add quite a bit, and it was just fine after that. Problem is that unlike a modern car, which keeps/shows a constant reading until you are dry, this one varies based on speed, and given that it's an old car, I wasn't sure that it wasn't something else wrong...now I know.
It still leaks oil, but that's normal for this car...it's not very fast, but it does happen. And there's more than one leak, two of them are the valve covers; both are tiny, but not necessarily hard to solve. I have one replacement cover now, got for $25. As they are aluminum, that may be not too hard to weld back closed. The current cracks are from having been torqued down too tight.
Got the voltage regulator replaced, which was critical. Old one was misbehaving badly. No surprise, it's a crappy two-transistor design that doesn't really regulate voltage so much as reduce fluctuations. Still, better than a mechanical one, which is just turning one flavor of AC into a pulse train which is just a different flavor of AC.
Car drives pretty well, although more work is needed. As it's drivable, I do that unless it's bitter cold out, because I haven't gotten the heater repaired. That is a job for the spring--I think I can do some/most/all of it myself. I'm sure it's rusted sealed, and the motor doesn't turn. Can't work on it in the winter, tho. Too cold out.
But it's now at the point I wanted it to be at--I can drive it. That is good fun.
It still leaks oil, but that's normal for this car...it's not very fast, but it does happen. And there's more than one leak, two of them are the valve covers; both are tiny, but not necessarily hard to solve. I have one replacement cover now, got for $25. As they are aluminum, that may be not too hard to weld back closed. The current cracks are from having been torqued down too tight.
Got the voltage regulator replaced, which was critical. Old one was misbehaving badly. No surprise, it's a crappy two-transistor design that doesn't really regulate voltage so much as reduce fluctuations. Still, better than a mechanical one, which is just turning one flavor of AC into a pulse train which is just a different flavor of AC.
Car drives pretty well, although more work is needed. As it's drivable, I do that unless it's bitter cold out, because I haven't gotten the heater repaired. That is a job for the spring--I think I can do some/most/all of it myself. I'm sure it's rusted sealed, and the motor doesn't turn. Can't work on it in the winter, tho. Too cold out.
But it's now at the point I wanted it to be at--I can drive it. That is good fun.
YAGB
"Yet Another Game Blog" entry. been several months...
During which time Skyrim has come out. I have played it a lot, and I haven't even started the main sequence about the dragons. Just about everything else, tho.
Thoughts: this is not as good as Oblivion, in a variety of aspects.
#1) it's buggy. I don't mean crash buggy, but rather that various tasks break irrecoverably. Example: "buy a house in Markarth" -- if you don't do this the very first time it is offered, it will never be available again, but the quest won't go away.
#2) the color pallette is bland. territory is bland.
#3) it lacks the overall variety of opponents, and map areas.
#4) too much emphasis on "crafting". no offense intended, but BFD. *pointless*
#5) magic is harder. in fact, it's really different. How is it that Morrowind has different magic from Cyrodiil from Skyrim? We're not talking about entire other planets or something.
#6) the "skills tree". BFD. also pointless.
#7) "shouts". pointless. you don't need them for anything. as I have yet to kill a dragon, I can't use them anyway, and that's not any hardship.
#8) no auto-attempt on lockpicking. sorry, just not interested in this little micro-game over and over. this is an FNV-derived thing, and I was tired of it there, too.
things that are good:
#1) total map is huge. this is always good.
#2) plenty to do. except for the bugginess, which means some things can't be done, or can't be completed.
#3) your helper doesn't actually get killed (unless you do it, which I did a few times)
#4) chameleon is gone. just a flying disappeared after morrowind, chameleon is gone now. which means you have to be more careful, even at sneak 100.
#5) it's still possible, for some skills, to find a way to level them really really fast. sneak is one. armor is another (just the same way as in oblivion, too, which was good), summoning a Dremora runs that one up damn fast, even at the top end, although it only seems to count when it attacks something.
but overall, well worth the $50.
unlike NeverWinter Nights 2, which I just got (again). This time it was $5, on my Mac. Still has the same extremely annoying set of UI misfeatures and other failures. This game really is all about whether you like the D&D R3 details. Screw that, I have no interest. Bring me the story and the action. It's buggy, too. I've had it crash to desktop more than once. It doesn't autosave often enough--Skyrim autosaves every time you enter a new map area, or fast-travel; this is the
right approach. NWN2 doesn't really do first person properly, which means that other aspects of camera-handling suck big time. Sales is too hard (i.e., too many mouse-clicks), and the merchants NEVER have new stuff--always the same stuff. That is totally stupid--it means you are the one and only customer in the game. stupid.
even for $5, it's only worth your time for the purpose of figuring out how seriously flawed it is, and then taking those lessons to heart in making a better game. gah.
During which time Skyrim has come out. I have played it a lot, and I haven't even started the main sequence about the dragons. Just about everything else, tho.
Thoughts: this is not as good as Oblivion, in a variety of aspects.
#1) it's buggy. I don't mean crash buggy, but rather that various tasks break irrecoverably. Example: "buy a house in Markarth" -- if you don't do this the very first time it is offered, it will never be available again, but the quest won't go away.
#2) the color pallette is bland. territory is bland.
#3) it lacks the overall variety of opponents, and map areas.
#4) too much emphasis on "crafting". no offense intended, but BFD. *pointless*
#5) magic is harder. in fact, it's really different. How is it that Morrowind has different magic from Cyrodiil from Skyrim? We're not talking about entire other planets or something.
#6) the "skills tree". BFD. also pointless.
#7) "shouts". pointless. you don't need them for anything. as I have yet to kill a dragon, I can't use them anyway, and that's not any hardship.
#8) no auto-attempt on lockpicking. sorry, just not interested in this little micro-game over and over. this is an FNV-derived thing, and I was tired of it there, too.
things that are good:
#1) total map is huge. this is always good.
#2) plenty to do. except for the bugginess, which means some things can't be done, or can't be completed.
#3) your helper doesn't actually get killed (unless you do it, which I did a few times)
#4) chameleon is gone. just a flying disappeared after morrowind, chameleon is gone now. which means you have to be more careful, even at sneak 100.
#5) it's still possible, for some skills, to find a way to level them really really fast. sneak is one. armor is another (just the same way as in oblivion, too, which was good), summoning a Dremora runs that one up damn fast, even at the top end, although it only seems to count when it attacks something.
but overall, well worth the $50.
unlike NeverWinter Nights 2, which I just got (again). This time it was $5, on my Mac. Still has the same extremely annoying set of UI misfeatures and other failures. This game really is all about whether you like the D&D R3 details. Screw that, I have no interest. Bring me the story and the action. It's buggy, too. I've had it crash to desktop more than once. It doesn't autosave often enough--Skyrim autosaves every time you enter a new map area, or fast-travel; this is the
right approach. NWN2 doesn't really do first person properly, which means that other aspects of camera-handling suck big time. Sales is too hard (i.e., too many mouse-clicks), and the merchants NEVER have new stuff--always the same stuff. That is totally stupid--it means you are the one and only customer in the game. stupid.
even for $5, it's only worth your time for the purpose of figuring out how seriously flawed it is, and then taking those lessons to heart in making a better game. gah.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Back to the Jaguar
My car has been at the shop the past month, slowly getting some things fixed:
1) The alternator/charging system. Got a rebuilt alternator, and some wiring fixes. This is now working properly (exc see below). Have a new regulator coming, from ebay.
2) Cooling system. Got the hoses, thermostat replace, radiator core rebuild. This is working nicely. Engine block freeze plugs replaced.
on Oct 21, I got to have the car back for the weekend. The following notes are from the return email I send sunday night.
I was able to drive home ok (Chantilly), albeit slowly because of traffic...Then I drove north up Rt 28 to Sterling, south back to I-66, then to the Fair Oaks Whole Foods grocery, by which point I had a flat tire on the left rear. Because it was dark, we left it there overnight, and I put the spare on Saturday morning after bringing the proper tools. That all went fine, but it was a regrettable surprise. Therefore, I need the wheel that is in the boot repaired--not sure what is wrong with it, but that is the better rim (at least in terms of minimal rust and better appearance). I also put my last inner tube in the back, if it is needed. While going north on Rt 28, there was a thump underneath my feet while driving, like something hit the underside; my guess is that whatever that was caused the flat--it was dark, and I didn't see anything. I hope it was not something falling off the car and bouncing up off the road. I do not have an additional spare. When I got these tires put on the rims, it was at Radial Tire in Silver Spring MD, that could handle the wire rims. I'm ok with you all doing this if you can, else I need to see about it myself, don't really want to drive without a spare (although that is how I got it home in the first place). If it's just needing a new tire, I will get a matching tire (came from a Firestone place in Sterling).
They were very right about the throttle linkage being sticky--it cold-starts very high rpms. Saturday it was near 2500 rpm when I started it after changing the tire. Sunday it was nearly 4000 rpm at lunch time start-up. I had seen Dave poke on the linkage to fix that, so I did the same thing, and it was better, but this is something that needs attention before something goes worse wrong.
The voltage meter often shows something near 16 volts from the alternator, which is definitely too high. Saturday afternoon it was down at 13 for a while, which was fine. the 16 is alarming, not good for the battery. I will have the new voltage regulator in my hands in a few more days, probably time to replace that.
The speedometer is only partially functional--it doesn't rise above 40 mph, and doesn't always drop below 20 when stopped. I have bought a sender off ebay, perhaps we can try that out as a replacement. Or perhaps something is sticking there...
Oil pressure was somewhat variable, but was never down to zero--it ranged from 20-50 (what that really means) over the weekend. This seems ok for now, unless it's supposed to be a very steady pressure.
Headlights worked ok in the dark. I didn't look at the brake/turn-signal lights. They were ok 2 yrs ago.
Coolant/water temperature gauge looked great the whole time, on the low side of normal range, so great job on that. Keeps my feets toasty warm while driving.
There seems to be a low speed at which there is a motion resonance bounce...not sure if this means a tire is out of balance, or what. Noticeable on a really smooth road, elsewhere not so much.
-------
Comments on the above: the oil system had been a little off, in particular the oil pressure gauge usually read zero or nearly so. I got a new sensor off ebay, it got installed. The speedometer used to work ok, I thought. I think the replacement sensor I am getting is used, so it may not matter. The throttle linkage fix is probably part of a larger system fix that includes better carb tuning.
I could not tell whether the front suspension was showing any effect from the ball joints needing work...related: probably ALL the rubber anywhere needs replacing.
Anyway...it was great fun getting to drive the car...once more things are fixed, it will be even better.
Best part at this point is that we have not yet even hit the halfway point on my budget, although we are close. Still...remaining budget should cover good territory.
I had replaced the stereo soon after getting the car. New unit takes a USB drive to play from, which works pretty well. I made an 8GB drive, which results in a really good lot of stuff. Only flaw: it plays in alphabetic order, A-Z. Would prefer random.
1) The alternator/charging system. Got a rebuilt alternator, and some wiring fixes. This is now working properly (exc see below). Have a new regulator coming, from ebay.
2) Cooling system. Got the hoses, thermostat replace, radiator core rebuild. This is working nicely. Engine block freeze plugs replaced.
on Oct 21, I got to have the car back for the weekend. The following notes are from the return email I send sunday night.
I was able to drive home ok (Chantilly), albeit slowly because of traffic...Then I drove north up Rt 28 to Sterling, south back to I-66, then to the Fair Oaks Whole Foods grocery, by which point I had a flat tire on the left rear. Because it was dark, we left it there overnight, and I put the spare on Saturday morning after bringing the proper tools. That all went fine, but it was a regrettable surprise. Therefore, I need the wheel that is in the boot repaired--not sure what is wrong with it, but that is the better rim (at least in terms of minimal rust and better appearance). I also put my last inner tube in the back, if it is needed. While going north on Rt 28, there was a thump underneath my feet while driving, like something hit the underside; my guess is that whatever that was caused the flat--it was dark, and I didn't see anything. I hope it was not something falling off the car and bouncing up off the road. I do not have an additional spare. When I got these tires put on the rims, it was at Radial Tire in Silver Spring MD, that could handle the wire rims. I'm ok with you all doing this if you can, else I need to see about it myself, don't really want to drive without a spare (although that is how I got it home in the first place). If it's just needing a new tire, I will get a matching tire (came from a Firestone place in Sterling).
They were very right about the throttle linkage being sticky--it cold-starts very high rpms. Saturday it was near 2500 rpm when I started it after changing the tire. Sunday it was nearly 4000 rpm at lunch time start-up. I had seen Dave poke on the linkage to fix that, so I did the same thing, and it was better, but this is something that needs attention before something goes worse wrong.
The voltage meter often shows something near 16 volts from the alternator, which is definitely too high. Saturday afternoon it was down at 13 for a while, which was fine. the 16 is alarming, not good for the battery. I will have the new voltage regulator in my hands in a few more days, probably time to replace that.
The speedometer is only partially functional--it doesn't rise above 40 mph, and doesn't always drop below 20 when stopped. I have bought a sender off ebay, perhaps we can try that out as a replacement. Or perhaps something is sticking there...
Oil pressure was somewhat variable, but was never down to zero--it ranged from 20-50 (what that really means) over the weekend. This seems ok for now, unless it's supposed to be a very steady pressure.
Headlights worked ok in the dark. I didn't look at the brake/turn-signal lights. They were ok 2 yrs ago.
Coolant/water temperature gauge looked great the whole time, on the low side of normal range, so great job on that. Keeps my feets toasty warm while driving.
There seems to be a low speed at which there is a motion resonance bounce...not sure if this means a tire is out of balance, or what. Noticeable on a really smooth road, elsewhere not so much.
-------
Comments on the above: the oil system had been a little off, in particular the oil pressure gauge usually read zero or nearly so. I got a new sensor off ebay, it got installed. The speedometer used to work ok, I thought. I think the replacement sensor I am getting is used, so it may not matter. The throttle linkage fix is probably part of a larger system fix that includes better carb tuning.
I could not tell whether the front suspension was showing any effect from the ball joints needing work...related: probably ALL the rubber anywhere needs replacing.
Anyway...it was great fun getting to drive the car...once more things are fixed, it will be even better.
Best part at this point is that we have not yet even hit the halfway point on my budget, although we are close. Still...remaining budget should cover good territory.
I had replaced the stereo soon after getting the car. New unit takes a USB drive to play from, which works pretty well. I made an 8GB drive, which results in a really good lot of stuff. Only flaw: it plays in alphabetic order, A-Z. Would prefer random.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Another new compy...
Gad. My Shuttle died today. Sort of--it's not completely dead, but it ain't working worth a damn.
First thing I tried to do was wake it up, the wake-up screen was a BSOD, and reboot said there was no disk. I thought I had another disk that had Win7 on it, but apparently that disk, although labeled Win 7, just has files.
Now I'm already feeling panicky. I *think* I have a full backup, on my backup server, but I've never had to go look, or try to recover from it.
Tried re-installing Win 7 on another disk (1.5TB; this *was* in my Win Home Server box, but may have been flaking out, I replaced it already, so I had this just sitting around). This isn't working...got a fair amount through, it did some CHKDSK repairs, etc, was beginning to do updates, and that failed to reboot the first time it needed to, and worse still, trying again I can't even see the disk any more. Went by MicroCenter after visiting a friend, got a new 1TB disk, and that too fails to go through the install process, ALSO not showing the disk the 2nd try.
I tried formatting the 1.5TB on my Mac Pro. That went fine, it seemed to be ok; not sure what the deal is, but I didn't try it back in the PC.
This is all very alarming, and after what is now at least 4 tries to install O/S on more than one disk, and trying to view disks on my Mac (mostly failing), I'm feeling a bit alarmed. Looks like tomorrow is another visit to Micro Center for a whole new set of parts...
At least this time I think I won't get the Shuttle-size box, that, although cutely small, hasn't really worked as well as I wanted. I tried to get a new video card for the Shuttle as week ago, saw a good price, only to discover after I got home that the box said it needed two slots, which the Shuttle cannot provide for a video card.
But I will be able to get something faster: 6 core, more/faster RAM (8GB, DDR3-1333). And a better video card before Skyrim shows up.
I don't mind the upgrade aspect, it's the panic over maybe losing my files. That is really worrying me--I'm thinking about how to be even more certain I have backups.
First thing I tried to do was wake it up, the wake-up screen was a BSOD, and reboot said there was no disk. I thought I had another disk that had Win7 on it, but apparently that disk, although labeled Win 7, just has files.
Now I'm already feeling panicky. I *think* I have a full backup, on my backup server, but I've never had to go look, or try to recover from it.
Tried re-installing Win 7 on another disk (1.5TB; this *was* in my Win Home Server box, but may have been flaking out, I replaced it already, so I had this just sitting around). This isn't working...got a fair amount through, it did some CHKDSK repairs, etc, was beginning to do updates, and that failed to reboot the first time it needed to, and worse still, trying again I can't even see the disk any more. Went by MicroCenter after visiting a friend, got a new 1TB disk, and that too fails to go through the install process, ALSO not showing the disk the 2nd try.
I tried formatting the 1.5TB on my Mac Pro. That went fine, it seemed to be ok; not sure what the deal is, but I didn't try it back in the PC.
This is all very alarming, and after what is now at least 4 tries to install O/S on more than one disk, and trying to view disks on my Mac (mostly failing), I'm feeling a bit alarmed. Looks like tomorrow is another visit to Micro Center for a whole new set of parts...
At least this time I think I won't get the Shuttle-size box, that, although cutely small, hasn't really worked as well as I wanted. I tried to get a new video card for the Shuttle as week ago, saw a good price, only to discover after I got home that the box said it needed two slots, which the Shuttle cannot provide for a video card.
But I will be able to get something faster: 6 core, more/faster RAM (8GB, DDR3-1333). And a better video card before Skyrim shows up.
I don't mind the upgrade aspect, it's the panic over maybe losing my files. That is really worrying me--I'm thinking about how to be even more certain I have backups.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
new compy
Well, it looked like time to replace the old G5 Mac...because it was shortly going to no longer be possible to get an Intel Mac Pro with Snow Leopard on it out of the box.
And Snow Lep is important for me, as I need Rosetta in order to be able to continue to run old stuff I can't afford to replace. Lion is not going to come with Rosetta; it doesn't come with Samba either, and I still need access to the Win systems here.
So I got a quad-core Mac Pro with Snow Lep. Upgraded RAM to 16gb, for $160, great price. Upgraded disks to total of 5TB (2TB is Time Machine).
The G5 had Leopard on it, and that was as far as it could go. Q now is whether or not it can be sold for anything reasonable...or should I see about a school donation?
The Rosetta stuff works reasonably well so far...I have not tried a serious 3D game yet. Turns out that EV Nova runs ok, but that's low-res graphics behavior. Most other things have been fine. Only untested thing I think remains is the M-Audio PCI card in the G5. I'd like that to continue to work, too, but I'll have to go hunt for a driver, or give up.
Having a new compy is kinda fun, like a new girlfriend, all the discovery phase.
----
And just yesterday the new iPhone was announced. Sprint will finally have one, so we'll be switching phones finally, to a phone I actually will like (have not been impressed with the Android phone).
Steve Jobs died today. Man, that is sad. Quite possibly no one other single person had as broad a positive impact on the world in the past several decades (bin Laden clearly had a huge negative impact, but no one will miss him except psychos).
And Snow Lep is important for me, as I need Rosetta in order to be able to continue to run old stuff I can't afford to replace. Lion is not going to come with Rosetta; it doesn't come with Samba either, and I still need access to the Win systems here.
So I got a quad-core Mac Pro with Snow Lep. Upgraded RAM to 16gb, for $160, great price. Upgraded disks to total of 5TB (2TB is Time Machine).
The G5 had Leopard on it, and that was as far as it could go. Q now is whether or not it can be sold for anything reasonable...or should I see about a school donation?
The Rosetta stuff works reasonably well so far...I have not tried a serious 3D game yet. Turns out that EV Nova runs ok, but that's low-res graphics behavior. Most other things have been fine. Only untested thing I think remains is the M-Audio PCI card in the G5. I'd like that to continue to work, too, but I'll have to go hunt for a driver, or give up.
Having a new compy is kinda fun, like a new girlfriend, all the discovery phase.
----
And just yesterday the new iPhone was announced. Sprint will finally have one, so we'll be switching phones finally, to a phone I actually will like (have not been impressed with the Android phone).
Steve Jobs died today. Man, that is sad. Quite possibly no one other single person had as broad a positive impact on the world in the past several decades (bin Laden clearly had a huge negative impact, but no one will miss him except psychos).
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Fallout New Vegas
Been playing this for a couple weeks...it does of course have the same flaw I didn't like about F3, the bland color scheme. Given the length of time that has past since the "war", you'd think people would again have paint to color things with, and that there would have been some foliage recovery, at the least along the CO river valley.
One very good feature in this is that you can have a companion, who can't be killed. So you can let the companion do the dirty work a bunch of the time, or at least be a distraction...which is good, because the companion is probably going to stand between you and the target, so that you can't shoot it.
You have to spend overmuch time on repairing your weapons and armor. Granted, in Oblivion, you did need to do that a good bit, but it wasn't so hard--this is of course the same as F3, which means that while you can repair everything yourself, you have to do it by collecting additional items to do it with--either the same item (repair a 44-cal pistol with another 44-cal pistol), or pay someone else rather a lot to do it for you.
I made a tactical error early on, in a little town called Tipton, in which I was grossed out by the Legion jerks slaughtering everyone, and then acting proud of it and daring me to attack. So I did--and killed them all. Of course, that meant that Legion assassin squads were after me regularly after that, which made for some awkward episodes later, and needing to watch out for them quite a bit, and make sure I didn't let them get into a town or NCR area--because those squads seem to be quite a bit stronger than most NPCs. Mostly the squads came after me, but they appear randomly, sometimes right when you land someplace via fast travel or entering a door, in which case there's going to be some serious carnage you maybe didn't want...if I could do that over, I'd follow the original group and lay waste to their entire location. I want to go to the Hoover Dam and wipe them out now, instead of waiting for whatever it is I'm waiting for.
The map is plenty big, so you get your $ worth, esp if you only spend $15 for it on Steam.
One very good feature in this is that you can have a companion, who can't be killed. So you can let the companion do the dirty work a bunch of the time, or at least be a distraction...which is good, because the companion is probably going to stand between you and the target, so that you can't shoot it.
You have to spend overmuch time on repairing your weapons and armor. Granted, in Oblivion, you did need to do that a good bit, but it wasn't so hard--this is of course the same as F3, which means that while you can repair everything yourself, you have to do it by collecting additional items to do it with--either the same item (repair a 44-cal pistol with another 44-cal pistol), or pay someone else rather a lot to do it for you.
I made a tactical error early on, in a little town called Tipton, in which I was grossed out by the Legion jerks slaughtering everyone, and then acting proud of it and daring me to attack. So I did--and killed them all. Of course, that meant that Legion assassin squads were after me regularly after that, which made for some awkward episodes later, and needing to watch out for them quite a bit, and make sure I didn't let them get into a town or NCR area--because those squads seem to be quite a bit stronger than most NPCs. Mostly the squads came after me, but they appear randomly, sometimes right when you land someplace via fast travel or entering a door, in which case there's going to be some serious carnage you maybe didn't want...if I could do that over, I'd follow the original group and lay waste to their entire location. I want to go to the Hoover Dam and wipe them out now, instead of waiting for whatever it is I'm waiting for.
The map is plenty big, so you get your $ worth, esp if you only spend $15 for it on Steam.
Monday, August 01, 2011
The Congressional Budget Battle
and the debt ceiling...man what a psycho episode.
Made worse by the spineless president. That was not what I voted for. I would agree with a post I saw online today, where someone wrote that Obama should have acted more like LBJ would have, by saying something more like: "You want cost of gov reduced? I'll halt all the projects in your district tomorrow--that'll reduce the cost of government." Which can be done...USG can issue a stop-work order at any time, on any contract, and you as contractor cannot bill any further. The executive branch makes those kind of decisions regularly.
Which means that of course the executive branch can always turn off expenditures anywhere, at any time--so even if the President can't make the budget law, he can simply not spend all of what's allocated.
What continues to amaze me is that so many folks are complaining about how we can't raise the retirement age on Social Security--it has been clear for years that the eligible retirement age needed to go up. It really ought to be 70 *now*, rather than sometime next decade. *I* expect to have to work until I'm 70 (or die at my desk, whichever comes first). The economic downturn over the past several years I think pushed back my retirement opportunity a few years.
Recall when SS started? 1935? The retirement age was set at 65 because that was the actuarial expected lifetime for someone in America at the time. So you could retire at that point, and start getting $, until you died, which probably wasn't all that far off (not to suggest that folks couldn't live longer, IIRC both John Adams and Ben Franklin lived to be 90, more than 100 years earlier). Now, thanks to all the medical improvements, we can now expect to live well past that, the actuarial average death age is about 80 (from USG website). Which means that you are likely to be able to collect 15 years worth of payments. Or more. That really isn't sustainable.
While it sounds good to say "well, let's index the retirement age to follow the actuarial numbers", it's a near certainty that your work years past 70 aren't going to be as productive as those just before. We all are starting to slow down at that point, so 80 isn't really a feasible date. I think 70 is good, now, however, because we can all do better at living healthy lives to that point. That said, I know folks age 80 who are pretty active, but not like they were at 60.
If retirement age rises, that should let SS be stable for any foreseeable future.
Means testing is critical on this, too. If you believe what you hear, most folks will face retirement with only around $50K in savings--which means that SS is critical for them, the only thing separating them from poverty.
Of course the Republicans, for all their scare talk of Death Panels, would prefer that anyone who can't take care of themselves just die, that no "social safety net" even exist in such a way that they are taxed for any of it.
Made worse by the spineless president. That was not what I voted for. I would agree with a post I saw online today, where someone wrote that Obama should have acted more like LBJ would have, by saying something more like: "You want cost of gov reduced? I'll halt all the projects in your district tomorrow--that'll reduce the cost of government." Which can be done...USG can issue a stop-work order at any time, on any contract, and you as contractor cannot bill any further. The executive branch makes those kind of decisions regularly.
Which means that of course the executive branch can always turn off expenditures anywhere, at any time--so even if the President can't make the budget law, he can simply not spend all of what's allocated.
What continues to amaze me is that so many folks are complaining about how we can't raise the retirement age on Social Security--it has been clear for years that the eligible retirement age needed to go up. It really ought to be 70 *now*, rather than sometime next decade. *I* expect to have to work until I'm 70 (or die at my desk, whichever comes first). The economic downturn over the past several years I think pushed back my retirement opportunity a few years.
Recall when SS started? 1935? The retirement age was set at 65 because that was the actuarial expected lifetime for someone in America at the time. So you could retire at that point, and start getting $, until you died, which probably wasn't all that far off (not to suggest that folks couldn't live longer, IIRC both John Adams and Ben Franklin lived to be 90, more than 100 years earlier). Now, thanks to all the medical improvements, we can now expect to live well past that, the actuarial average death age is about 80 (from USG website). Which means that you are likely to be able to collect 15 years worth of payments. Or more. That really isn't sustainable.
While it sounds good to say "well, let's index the retirement age to follow the actuarial numbers", it's a near certainty that your work years past 70 aren't going to be as productive as those just before. We all are starting to slow down at that point, so 80 isn't really a feasible date. I think 70 is good, now, however, because we can all do better at living healthy lives to that point. That said, I know folks age 80 who are pretty active, but not like they were at 60.
If retirement age rises, that should let SS be stable for any foreseeable future.
Means testing is critical on this, too. If you believe what you hear, most folks will face retirement with only around $50K in savings--which means that SS is critical for them, the only thing separating them from poverty.
Of course the Republicans, for all their scare talk of Death Panels, would prefer that anyone who can't take care of themselves just die, that no "social safety net" even exist in such a way that they are taxed for any of it.
Two Worlds 2
Yeah, another game entry. Steam had a two-fer deal recently, where you could get Two Worlds 2, and Fallout New Vegas both under $20. Hard to skip that one.
I've played Two Worlds 1 already, and while the 3D there wasn't as good, I think it worked better overall. TW2 I got tired of it about halfway through; I found the UI awkward, parts were essentially pointless (crafting: unless you specifically like that, it isn't really going to do much for you--you'll be able to find/buy better loot plenty soon enough.
TW1 was originally billed as an "Oblivion-killer" but of course it was no such thing.
TW2 was ok as filler until Skyrim comes out later this year, but not really interesting enough to finish. Nowhere near enough caves/ruins/dungeons to investigate. It's a real button-masher, and my hands aren't really up to that any more...
The one thing I did like was the personal teleport stones. They were much like the teleport rings in Morrowind, something I wish had been in Oblivion (at least for loot-selling, especially if you included the patch that put new merchants/buyers within touch distance at the various teleport targets).
I've played Two Worlds 1 already, and while the 3D there wasn't as good, I think it worked better overall. TW2 I got tired of it about halfway through; I found the UI awkward, parts were essentially pointless (crafting: unless you specifically like that, it isn't really going to do much for you--you'll be able to find/buy better loot plenty soon enough.
TW1 was originally billed as an "Oblivion-killer" but of course it was no such thing.
TW2 was ok as filler until Skyrim comes out later this year, but not really interesting enough to finish. Nowhere near enough caves/ruins/dungeons to investigate. It's a real button-masher, and my hands aren't really up to that any more...
The one thing I did like was the personal teleport stones. They were much like the teleport rings in Morrowind, something I wish had been in Oblivion (at least for loot-selling, especially if you included the patch that put new merchants/buyers within touch distance at the various teleport targets).
Dungeon Siege 3
So Dungeon Siege 3 came out a couple of months ago. I was excited about this in advance, and when Steam offered the early-bird deal that would get you Both DS 1 and DS 2 AND DS 3 when released, that was too good to pass up.
So during the spring I re-played DS 1 and DS 2. Still worth the original cost, for sure. It took me nearly 100 hours to replay DS 1. Probably my 2nd fave game (after Oblivion, of course). DS 2 took a comparable amount of time.
Dungeon Siege 3, however, commits the cardinal sin of being short. WAY short for the price. It was pretty, no doubt, but short. Opponents respawn pretty quick, so you can run over various areas a bunch of times for XP/leveling/loot/cash, but that's artificial. The game itself is just short.
I recall DS1 being originally billed as a 40-hour game. I don't think I've ever played it less than 80. DS3 seemed more like a 20-hour game, even for me. So it really needed to have cost 20 dollars.
If you look at the Wikipedia story on DS3, I'd say that's right on the money. In comparison with DS1/2, DS 3 hasn't much territory.
So during the spring I re-played DS 1 and DS 2. Still worth the original cost, for sure. It took me nearly 100 hours to replay DS 1. Probably my 2nd fave game (after Oblivion, of course). DS 2 took a comparable amount of time.
Dungeon Siege 3, however, commits the cardinal sin of being short. WAY short for the price. It was pretty, no doubt, but short. Opponents respawn pretty quick, so you can run over various areas a bunch of times for XP/leveling/loot/cash, but that's artificial. The game itself is just short.
I recall DS1 being originally billed as a 40-hour game. I don't think I've ever played it less than 80. DS3 seemed more like a 20-hour game, even for me. So it really needed to have cost 20 dollars.
If you look at the Wikipedia story on DS3, I'd say that's right on the money. In comparison with DS1/2, DS 3 hasn't much territory.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Another game discussion...
so PC Gamer's latest DVD had "Alganon" on it...Alganon is an MMO kinda game, rather like the others...My experience with these things is limited, played Guild Wars for a while a couple of years ago.
Guild Wars you buy the game (which I did for next to zip), and it's free to play after that. You can cover a decent amount of territory solo (well, by hiring NPCs for your team), but ultimately it's not very interesting. There were a fair number of folks playing at any time, each "town" had some dozens of players standing around looking for a group, or various Guild players. Random self-selected groups don't work too well. A couple of folks seemed a bit too Leroy Jenkins to me.
Alganon is of course similar...but without all the players. I think I maybe saw 3 or 4 total. It seems heavily oriented around the "crafting" crap, which does not interest me. Opponents only occasionally drop anything interesting. I happened by a beach in one area where the opponents, which looked a lot like green gorgons without the snake hair, were the same level as me--level 8. A little further south, they were blue, and level 30. ???!!! How can you have a level 8 area next to a level 30 area?
I got killed a bunch of times...actually that aspect is kinda cool: you turn into a spirit, respawn back in town, the world is now black&white/gray-scale, and you can run back to your body--or go exploring around a bit, because as a spirit, you can't be re-killed, in fact for the most part you can't even see the opponents. Once you are back to your body, you can reclaim it exactly as it was.
It is entirely too easy to sign up for quests that are WAY above your level, which does argue for a team. So let's have some NPCs to hire to form that team--I realize the MM part of MMORPG means other players on your team, but I prefer solo gaming, so I don't embarrass myself or anyone else. (GWs hire-able NPCs weren't all that great, they didn't level up as fast as you, so after a while they tend to be more cannon fodder to distract an opponent.
Alganon's crafting stuff seems really complex, time-consuming...forum posts do indicate that's where the best loot comes from, but seriously...the game is about crafting???
So at Level 10 I ran into a disastrous bug...I had just bought a chunk of training from the Ranger Trainer in Adrok, and decided I would re-arrange my skills bar (bottom center), and I managed to simultaneously delete every single one of them with some tray mouse-click...that is a serious bug. Basically killed the game for me. I have reported it, but I don't expect to get much resolution. In fact, if there isn't one that simply restores me either to right before the training "purchases" or simply puts my lost skill items back on the bar, uninstall occurs later this week. At least I didn't pay for it or anything.
In any case, it appears to be a game that very few people are playing. The map stuff shows a pretty darn large territory to wander through, which would be great if there was a good way to avoid quests that are way to far above your skill level, and if others were playing such that you could get onto a team, and if there were better loot drops.
The game also seems very oriented around getting you to pay for things on the outside, things which would make you considerably stronger. Lots of things in the in-game economy are obscure at best, and you have to buy a lot of training.
Oblivion is so much better than this...
Guild Wars you buy the game (which I did for next to zip), and it's free to play after that. You can cover a decent amount of territory solo (well, by hiring NPCs for your team), but ultimately it's not very interesting. There were a fair number of folks playing at any time, each "town" had some dozens of players standing around looking for a group, or various Guild players. Random self-selected groups don't work too well. A couple of folks seemed a bit too Leroy Jenkins to me.
Alganon is of course similar...but without all the players. I think I maybe saw 3 or 4 total. It seems heavily oriented around the "crafting" crap, which does not interest me. Opponents only occasionally drop anything interesting. I happened by a beach in one area where the opponents, which looked a lot like green gorgons without the snake hair, were the same level as me--level 8. A little further south, they were blue, and level 30. ???!!! How can you have a level 8 area next to a level 30 area?
I got killed a bunch of times...actually that aspect is kinda cool: you turn into a spirit, respawn back in town, the world is now black&white/gray-scale, and you can run back to your body--or go exploring around a bit, because as a spirit, you can't be re-killed, in fact for the most part you can't even see the opponents. Once you are back to your body, you can reclaim it exactly as it was.
It is entirely too easy to sign up for quests that are WAY above your level, which does argue for a team. So let's have some NPCs to hire to form that team--I realize the MM part of MMORPG means other players on your team, but I prefer solo gaming, so I don't embarrass myself or anyone else. (GWs hire-able NPCs weren't all that great, they didn't level up as fast as you, so after a while they tend to be more cannon fodder to distract an opponent.
Alganon's crafting stuff seems really complex, time-consuming...forum posts do indicate that's where the best loot comes from, but seriously...the game is about crafting???
So at Level 10 I ran into a disastrous bug...I had just bought a chunk of training from the Ranger Trainer in Adrok, and decided I would re-arrange my skills bar (bottom center), and I managed to simultaneously delete every single one of them with some tray mouse-click...that is a serious bug. Basically killed the game for me. I have reported it, but I don't expect to get much resolution. In fact, if there isn't one that simply restores me either to right before the training "purchases" or simply puts my lost skill items back on the bar, uninstall occurs later this week. At least I didn't pay for it or anything.
In any case, it appears to be a game that very few people are playing. The map stuff shows a pretty darn large territory to wander through, which would be great if there was a good way to avoid quests that are way to far above your skill level, and if others were playing such that you could get onto a team, and if there were better loot drops.
The game also seems very oriented around getting you to pay for things on the outside, things which would make you considerably stronger. Lots of things in the in-game economy are obscure at best, and you have to buy a lot of training.
Oblivion is so much better than this...
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Can the iPad do a blog now?
Yes, it can, but you have to go to the "edit" tab to do it, and then you're editing the raw HTML. But still, it's better than nothing, which is what you have otherwise.
And I'm finding that I type better with just a couple of fingers rather than the whole hand, on this virtual kbd.
Using preview works fine, result look ok. You can always go edit later on a real compy.
And I'm finding that I type better with just a couple of fingers rather than the whole hand, on this virtual kbd.
Using preview works fine, result look ok. You can always go edit later on a real compy.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Changing employers
So I've changed employers this month. I had not done that since 1993...which was essentially before the World Wide Web even existed (except on a very limited basis).
I had essentially run out of billable work for the foreseeable future where I was the last 17 years. Sad, but true. I'd been doing solo stuff most of the last several years, was disconnected from other things.
Now was a good time to do the change. I recall when my dad retired from the USAF he said to me at the time: Want to be able to say I can do at least ten years with a commercial employer, and staying in the USAF for the remaining possible 5 years would violate that idea.
So for me, retirement is approaching at about that same pace. Dad was a year older, was planning to officially retire at 65 no matter what. I expect to have to go closer to 70; while that's still a ways off, it's a lot closer than the beginning of my professional career (1978).
Key thing with new employer is whether the work will be enjoyable. At the moment, it looks so for the next several years.
I had essentially run out of billable work for the foreseeable future where I was the last 17 years. Sad, but true. I'd been doing solo stuff most of the last several years, was disconnected from other things.
Now was a good time to do the change. I recall when my dad retired from the USAF he said to me at the time: Want to be able to say I can do at least ten years with a commercial employer, and staying in the USAF for the remaining possible 5 years would violate that idea.
So for me, retirement is approaching at about that same pace. Dad was a year older, was planning to officially retire at 65 no matter what. I expect to have to go closer to 70; while that's still a ways off, it's a lot closer than the beginning of my professional career (1978).
Key thing with new employer is whether the work will be enjoyable. At the moment, it looks so for the next several years.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Java and EXIF data
I have recently needed to try to read EXIF data from Java. Easier said than done, unfortunately, and finding out how was not easy.
A few months ago I dug up what looked like a good approach, but it's old code (~2002), and calls classes/methods that are no longer accessible. I think they're still present in the runtime, but you can't use them yourself.
So I went hunting again, today. Found something called Imagero, which claimed to read the EXIF, but it didn't really look like it did, and the license statement was too burdensome.
Something called JExifViewer also looks good. It's a little bit too much GUI as opposed to callable functions, but it does seem to work ok.
I also found this:
Java Forum Link
which explains how to do it relatively easily.
The key thing is that you have to install a separate tool (the TIFF tool), and that turns out to have a quirk in that there are multiple variations, and you really need to install the JDK variation *and* the JRE version, because you probably aren't running your code in Eclipse from the runtime in the JDK.
Anyway, the code in the forum works great, does exactly what you are hoping for, and this code is way smaller once you install the other library (which comes from Sun anyway, so it's a good thing to go ahead and do).
The only flaw with all this is that EXIF data is most non-standardized, there are implementation inconsistencies...you know the drill, and it only applies to a few file formats, primarily JPG.
-----------
Later: well, this bit of java code is less than perfect. I was able to break it pretty quickly.
Looks like "exiftool" is the better approach, as a callable program.
A few months ago I dug up what looked like a good approach, but it's old code (~2002), and calls classes/methods that are no longer accessible. I think they're still present in the runtime, but you can't use them yourself.
So I went hunting again, today. Found something called Imagero, which claimed to read the EXIF, but it didn't really look like it did, and the license statement was too burdensome.
Something called JExifViewer also looks good. It's a little bit too much GUI as opposed to callable functions, but it does seem to work ok.
I also found this:
Java Forum Link
which explains how to do it relatively easily.
The key thing is that you have to install a separate tool (the TIFF tool), and that turns out to have a quirk in that there are multiple variations, and you really need to install the JDK variation *and* the JRE version, because you probably aren't running your code in Eclipse from the runtime in the JDK.
Anyway, the code in the forum works great, does exactly what you are hoping for, and this code is way smaller once you install the other library (which comes from Sun anyway, so it's a good thing to go ahead and do).
The only flaw with all this is that EXIF data is most non-standardized, there are implementation inconsistencies...you know the drill, and it only applies to a few file formats, primarily JPG.
-----------
Later: well, this bit of java code is less than perfect. I was able to break it pretty quickly.
Looks like "exiftool" is the better approach, as a callable program.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Ain't Windows wonderful?
So in general it's a good idea to do the O/S updates from Microstink when they are issued.
but not always...
and I got burned by that two days ago. I have two PCs, both are the neat little micro-boxes...I like the size, the lack of noise, etc. Anyway, one runs XP and one runs 7. I don't have space for multiple kbds and monitors, so I normally have XP open via Remote Desktop.
So these latest updates from M$ broke Remote Desktop. I cannot connect to XP from 7. This is awful!
Surely it doesn't take an Advanced Degree (tm) to figure out these kinds of things before releasing software !?!?!?
I realize you can't test against all possible combinations of softwares someone else might have...but surely you can test against all your own stuff ?!?!
So Win 7 is now showing what are probably the same updates...maybe I'll get really really lucky and that will fix the problem...nah. not gonna happen.
but not always...
and I got burned by that two days ago. I have two PCs, both are the neat little micro-boxes...I like the size, the lack of noise, etc. Anyway, one runs XP and one runs 7. I don't have space for multiple kbds and monitors, so I normally have XP open via Remote Desktop.
So these latest updates from M$ broke Remote Desktop. I cannot connect to XP from 7. This is awful!
Surely it doesn't take an Advanced Degree (tm) to figure out these kinds of things before releasing software !?!?!?
I realize you can't test against all possible combinations of softwares someone else might have...but surely you can test against all your own stuff ?!?!
So Win 7 is now showing what are probably the same updates...maybe I'll get really really lucky and that will fix the problem...nah. not gonna happen.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Favorite restaurants
My favorite chinese restaurant in this area has closed: Hunan Lion. The facility has been stripped to the walls, even the lions are gone. That almost suggests they are moving...went by last night hoping for dinner, but no.
This is a sad day...there really isn't one as good that we know of around here.
-------
[Later: Sept 15] In a weird turn of events, I've changed employers, and I'm now going to be working in the building where Hunan Lion used to be. Same bldg used to have a TGI Friday's, but that's been gone for years. It is just now getting replaced by an Indian restaurant. If it's a good one, that will be like heaven.
This is a sad day...there really isn't one as good that we know of around here.
-------
[Later: Sept 15] In a weird turn of events, I've changed employers, and I'm now going to be working in the building where Hunan Lion used to be. Same bldg used to have a TGI Friday's, but that's been gone for years. It is just now getting replaced by an Indian restaurant. If it's a good one, that will be like heaven.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Starcraft 2
Yeah, so I did the crazy thing and went to Best Buy at midnight to get a copy on opening day. Actually I went at 12.45, and there was no one there except the employees...so no waiting.
Fired it up at home...and did the tutorial. The gameplay mechanics appear to have not changed at all. It IS visually prettier--but it still needs the zoom way way out that Supreme Commander has. All the keystrokes are the same.
The EULA is a bit annoying...if I were to use the editor kit to make something, Blizzard owns it. Guess I won't be doing any.
It's good that this is finally out...been a long time coming. We'll see how it goes.
[later...]
It's a lot prettier than the first game. the cinematics are excellent...the way this works is that you do a mission, you end up back on Raynor's starship. If you did the side missions, you maybe have some money and research points to spend on things, which you do while on the ship.
The in-game animations are really good, too.
But what of the "story" ? So far it seems like the SC 1, the story takes place as narrative and cinematics while you blast aliens. One thing I don't like is that it doesn't let me finish blasting the aliens everywhere...Redstone was the first map where I did.
[days later]
I'll post a walk-through of sorts before too long, for the campaign.
There are four difficulty modes: Casual=you're new to RTS games, Normal=you've played RTS games, Hard=you've played through StarCraft 1 not too long ago, Brutal=you're a master at SC 1.
Even with that, the maps vary in difficulty: some on Normal are more difficult than others on Hard.
One story sequence has Zeratul appear, and then you actually play as Zeratul for a few missions--the last one of which is harder than anything else I've done in SC2 so far--this is primarily because I don't really know how to play as a Protoss, and doing the other missions isn't really going to teach you.
As you proceed through missions, new mission possibilities pop up, featuring different characters: Zeratul, Tosh, Tychus, Mengsk Jr. You are working towards a point where you are maybe going to be able to rescue Kerrigan !?
I'm not finished yet...
Fired it up at home...and did the tutorial. The gameplay mechanics appear to have not changed at all. It IS visually prettier--but it still needs the zoom way way out that Supreme Commander has. All the keystrokes are the same.
The EULA is a bit annoying...if I were to use the editor kit to make something, Blizzard owns it. Guess I won't be doing any.
It's good that this is finally out...been a long time coming. We'll see how it goes.
[later...]
It's a lot prettier than the first game. the cinematics are excellent...the way this works is that you do a mission, you end up back on Raynor's starship. If you did the side missions, you maybe have some money and research points to spend on things, which you do while on the ship.
The in-game animations are really good, too.
But what of the "story" ? So far it seems like the SC 1, the story takes place as narrative and cinematics while you blast aliens. One thing I don't like is that it doesn't let me finish blasting the aliens everywhere...Redstone was the first map where I did.
[days later]
I'll post a walk-through of sorts before too long, for the campaign.
There are four difficulty modes: Casual=you're new to RTS games, Normal=you've played RTS games, Hard=you've played through StarCraft 1 not too long ago, Brutal=you're a master at SC 1.
Even with that, the maps vary in difficulty: some on Normal are more difficult than others on Hard.
One story sequence has Zeratul appear, and then you actually play as Zeratul for a few missions--the last one of which is harder than anything else I've done in SC2 so far--this is primarily because I don't really know how to play as a Protoss, and doing the other missions isn't really going to teach you.
As you proceed through missions, new mission possibilities pop up, featuring different characters: Zeratul, Tosh, Tychus, Mengsk Jr. You are working towards a point where you are maybe going to be able to rescue Kerrigan !?
I'm not finished yet...
Monday, July 05, 2010
Latest on compy games
Played the Supreme Commander 2 demo earlier this year (figuring I'd get SupCom 2 when Steam has it cheap enough), and so I finally got motivated to buy the original...
With which I have issues...
1) It won't even install on Win 7 Pro. Grrr...It's not like this is from some little micro developer. Back to XP.
2) My XP box just barely has enough horsepower, despite being an AMD 2800+ dual-core, with ATI X1600 graphics.
3) It aborted really badly on me yesterday, and I cannot recover. I was in the middle of the final episode (#6) for the UEF faction, did something that caused it to crash hard, and I cannot get it going again...not for lack of trying, but none of the saved games will get going, not even the tutorial behaves properly.
SupCom1 is an update to Total Annihilation, from years ago. One extra feature is that your army can be A LOT larger, I think 400 buildings and fighting units, which is great (considering that Starcraft limits you to 200, which gets to pinch a little sometimes), but this does mean that extra compute power is needed. So with this crash, something is now wrong in that it seems unable to handle more than six or eight units/bldgs. So game saves just barely even load, and won't run.
This crash was so bad that I went and looked at services to turn off, startup apps to remove, and ultimately had to uninstall the game.
Fortunately, I only paid $3 for the game, on Ebay...but still. That is absolutely the worst software crash I've experienced. Ouch.
With which I have issues...
1) It won't even install on Win 7 Pro. Grrr...It's not like this is from some little micro developer. Back to XP.
2) My XP box just barely has enough horsepower, despite being an AMD 2800+ dual-core, with ATI X1600 graphics.
3) It aborted really badly on me yesterday, and I cannot recover. I was in the middle of the final episode (#6) for the UEF faction, did something that caused it to crash hard, and I cannot get it going again...not for lack of trying, but none of the saved games will get going, not even the tutorial behaves properly.
SupCom1 is an update to Total Annihilation, from years ago. One extra feature is that your army can be A LOT larger, I think 400 buildings and fighting units, which is great (considering that Starcraft limits you to 200, which gets to pinch a little sometimes), but this does mean that extra compute power is needed. So with this crash, something is now wrong in that it seems unable to handle more than six or eight units/bldgs. So game saves just barely even load, and won't run.
This crash was so bad that I went and looked at services to turn off, startup apps to remove, and ultimately had to uninstall the game.
Fortunately, I only paid $3 for the game, on Ebay...but still. That is absolutely the worst software crash I've experienced. Ouch.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Steam games on mac
Hallelujah! Steam has come to the intel mac!
I now have Torchlight, Portal, and --TADA! Half-life 2 on my powerbook laptop!
Booyah! Vacation is going to be even better, whether the beach has oil residue on it or not!
I now have Torchlight, Portal, and --TADA! Half-life 2 on my powerbook laptop!
Booyah! Vacation is going to be even better, whether the beach has oil residue on it or not!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Cars n such
Recall from earlier entries that I got a Jaguar XKE 18 months ago...joined the local Jag owner's club about that same time...last summer's picnic was good, and there was a couple there with an '03 XK8, sea-foam green (my mom's fave color). This car is a nice looker...probably the best-looking Jag after the E. And if you don't need a new one, a used one is a good bit cheaper than an E.
[here's where a secret is revealed] So my wife decides she really likes this one, and wants one of her own, except she wants a convertible. This took a while to manage, basically not until I had a chunk of $ come in as bonus money this year...so here's what we got:
I apologize that the size is wrong. Just click right on it and click "view image" in the popup menu.
it's midnight blue, with a nice light tan interior (ideal for when it's hot out, unlike my E, which has a *black* interior :(:( which I gotta fix one of these days)
So now we are a two-Jag operation...plus two other cars...altho the pickup is going to evolve into being my son's car, since he's 18 now.
[here's where a secret is revealed] So my wife decides she really likes this one, and wants one of her own, except she wants a convertible. This took a while to manage, basically not until I had a chunk of $ come in as bonus money this year...so here's what we got:
I apologize that the size is wrong. Just click right on it and click "view image" in the popup menu.
it's midnight blue, with a nice light tan interior (ideal for when it's hot out, unlike my E, which has a *black* interior :(:( which I gotta fix one of these days)
So now we are a two-Jag operation...plus two other cars...altho the pickup is going to evolve into being my son's car, since he's 18 now.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
It's the iPad
So I got an ipad ten days ago...this is a REALLY nifty device...going to change personal computing as we know.
What makes it different: you DO NOT interact with the operating system. Ever. This means you can't actually look at files qua files. Only as things you manipulate via applications...so when you "save an image" from Safari, it is actually copied directly into the "iphoto" application's storage and knowledge...no "find a folder, supply a name, click save, go to iphoto, open/import, find the folder, click the file". Anytime you need to enter text, you tap the field to do that in, the virtual kbd pops up, you type away...
What it does NOT do: well, it does not let me make these blog entries--the blog body text is entered in a javascript widget, not a regular text field, so ipad cannot see the thing, thus no kbd, no typing, no nothing...well, you can enter the title, and the label tags below...but that's it.
This is really bad--this device is ideal for a blog-on-the-go, and it can't be done.
What is really cool: last friday I saw a Tesla car just outside my office bldg, at lunchtime. Decided I needed to send my wife a text msg about it, I don't have my phone (just the ipad), how am I going to do it? when I got to the cafe with wifi, got logged in, looked online for help on this, it says "grab this free ipad app" by clicking on a link which takes me right to the app store, I click again to install it, that takes a few seconds, then tiny bit of setup and I can send a msg. Fabulous!
I actually bought the ipad app for Bento, as well as the G5 version, so I could see about converting my filemaker databases over to something I could sync with the ipad (had been thinking about having them on my android phone, but this is going to be better...once I can get the pictures incorporated (non-trivial: I have about 2000 images in those databases I want on the ipad).
Still...I love this gadget.
What makes it different: you DO NOT interact with the operating system. Ever. This means you can't actually look at files qua files. Only as things you manipulate via applications...so when you "save an image" from Safari, it is actually copied directly into the "iphoto" application's storage and knowledge...no "find a folder, supply a name, click save, go to iphoto, open/import, find the folder, click the file". Anytime you need to enter text, you tap the field to do that in, the virtual kbd pops up, you type away...
What it does NOT do: well, it does not let me make these blog entries--the blog body text is entered in a javascript widget, not a regular text field, so ipad cannot see the thing, thus no kbd, no typing, no nothing...well, you can enter the title, and the label tags below...but that's it.
This is really bad--this device is ideal for a blog-on-the-go, and it can't be done.
What is really cool: last friday I saw a Tesla car just outside my office bldg, at lunchtime. Decided I needed to send my wife a text msg about it, I don't have my phone (just the ipad), how am I going to do it? when I got to the cafe with wifi, got logged in, looked online for help on this, it says "grab this free ipad app" by clicking on a link which takes me right to the app store, I click again to install it, that takes a few seconds, then tiny bit of setup and I can send a msg. Fabulous!
I actually bought the ipad app for Bento, as well as the G5 version, so I could see about converting my filemaker databases over to something I could sync with the ipad (had been thinking about having them on my android phone, but this is going to be better...once I can get the pictures incorporated (non-trivial: I have about 2000 images in those databases I want on the ipad).
Still...I love this gadget.
Friday, April 02, 2010
Computer games on Steam
Steam is a really nifty delivery mechanism, and a lot of older games are moving over there...just this past week, the entire Quake collection was available for $15. Hard to beat that...
Except that all too often, you can buy a game that literally WILL NOT PLAY. Is Valve actually testing any of this stuff?
I'm running Win7 x64, and I have some serious trouble with things. I have had several demos fail to run, and a couple of things I've bought also would not run. I think a couple of demos have even failed to install.
Surely it doesn't take an Advanced Degree(tm) to figure this out? At the least, the Steam client should be able to detect your machine properties and tell you that it won't run certain things.
Except that all too often, you can buy a game that literally WILL NOT PLAY. Is Valve actually testing any of this stuff?
I'm running Win7 x64, and I have some serious trouble with things. I have had several demos fail to run, and a couple of things I've bought also would not run. I think a couple of demos have even failed to install.
Surely it doesn't take an Advanced Degree(tm) to figure this out? At the least, the Steam client should be able to detect your machine properties and tell you that it won't run certain things.
computer parts
got some some bonus money from work a couple of months ago, so I bought myself this:
HP 21" Touch-screen monitor
which is just as cool as the name implies. works right out of the box on Win 7.
so imagine my surprise when i attach the other monitor and make this one the 2nd mon...yeah, the touch point x/y is assumed to be the primary monitor, so it does things on that monitor!
that's right, either the monitor or (more likely) Win7 does NOT know that the touch-screen might not be the primary monitor.
Looks like I'll have to switch them. Gad.
HP 21" Touch-screen monitor
which is just as cool as the name implies. works right out of the box on Win 7.
so imagine my surprise when i attach the other monitor and make this one the 2nd mon...yeah, the touch point x/y is assumed to be the primary monitor, so it does things on that monitor!
that's right, either the monitor or (more likely) Win7 does NOT know that the touch-screen might not be the primary monitor.
Looks like I'll have to switch them. Gad.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
more gadgets
I'll probably get an IPAD next month...I've already ordered a fairly nifty looking touch-screen, it should be here in a few days.
Something else I've been thinking about recently is wearable computer. There's a reason why, but I had not thought about it for several years...I was expecting to be able to have one this year, and they don't look any more available than ever, maybe less.
The key reason I'd want one is that I want it to have what's called a Remembrance Agent, although I want it to be a lot more powerful than the discussion here. At another place, read the "Future" section, and that is more what I want (although this paper is ancient). I want it to be a regular computer, too, and do other stuff like watch RSS feeds for me and notify me when there's something I might be interested in. I've done some of the software work on that already.
Looking here, you can see this guy's interests are related, but he doesn't do any maintenance on his website.
and here's an enabling device I have to get
Something else I've been thinking about recently is wearable computer. There's a reason why, but I had not thought about it for several years...I was expecting to be able to have one this year, and they don't look any more available than ever, maybe less.
The key reason I'd want one is that I want it to have what's called a Remembrance Agent, although I want it to be a lot more powerful than the discussion here. At another place, read the "Future" section, and that is more what I want (although this paper is ancient). I want it to be a regular computer, too, and do other stuff like watch RSS feeds for me and notify me when there's something I might be interested in. I've done some of the software work on that already.
Looking here, you can see this guy's interests are related, but he doesn't do any maintenance on his website.
and here's an enabling device I have to get
new phone coming...
into my life...probably in a week or two at the most...
the Android phone. specifically, the HTC Hero, from Sprint.
why? because you can program it in Java, and it's not restricted the way the iphone is. and that means I can write my own apps and use them without getting Apple's approval for it...yay! that means I can figure out how to move my databases onto the phone, and finally ditch the PDA.
this is looking pretty nifty at this point.
the Android phone. specifically, the HTC Hero, from Sprint.
why? because you can program it in Java, and it's not restricted the way the iphone is. and that means I can write my own apps and use them without getting Apple's approval for it...yay! that means I can figure out how to move my databases onto the phone, and finally ditch the PDA.
this is looking pretty nifty at this point.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Vancouver Olympics
I'm watching the gold-medal ice hockey game between Canada and the US men's teams...I watched the women's final as well...I had forgotten that USA had a good women's ice hockey team, but we weren't quite good enough this time. It's interesting watching hockey where checking isn't allowed. The hockey games have not been as challenging as one might hae wished, given that the US and Canadian teams are really dominant.
The Olympics have certainly been good this year. I watch nearly every minute that is actually broadcast that I'm home for, which is about 10 times as much tv as I can really stand. It is pretty high-res stuff, tho...watching the instant-replay for hockey the puck is really sharp on the screen, which is impressive considering that thing can be moving 100 mph.
I have something else going on this year, in that I wanted to track news stories about various events, because I need some additional input content for training a piece of software I wrote a year ago: it filters text content (stories, like news) based on training which is pre-categorized...i.e., I take various stories, assign topics, create a training model from them, and then use that training model to categorize new stories. The technique uses what's called "support vector machine", it's mostly about positive examples (where other trained systems used both pos and neg training). Anyway, I generally grab content from various RSS feeds, because they are slightly pre-categorized (like the Washington Post sports feed); this is not great because it tends to be limited content: NFL, NBA, MLB, and college equivalents. I need some other sources, but haven't looked very hard yet. Olympics is a fairly concentrated bunch of stories about skiing, skating, hockey, and curling. And it turned out that Vancouver has its own RSS feed, which is ideal for me: I have a separate tool written several years ago whose sole purpose is to grab stories from RSS feeds. This means I can continuously grab stories, not worry about them getting superseded or expiring, and then zip through a folder of them marking them for their training topics.
I should fire up a few more feeds for this, but I especially wanted to get the olympics because of the fairly unique set of stories I could get.
The only flaw in this is that I don't have a really good set of story topics that covers a lot of territory in a lot of detail. If I made more topics, I could probably get into more detail, but I don't know how much is really appropriate.
This whole idea, for me, dates back to some work in about the 1996 time-frame. You'd have a text-processing system where content would be brought in (like a large number of RSS feeds), you'd run them through a topic recognizer, and run that output through several differently-trained name-finders. From there you'd feed the names into a database, use some other correlation techniques.
I was trying to go this direction again in '08 with the pirates demo: could you find out what those guys are up to by any online content (in retrospect, I think not, that seems to be entirely target of opportunity, rather than any organized piracy with malice aforethought). Like drug-related stuff in Mexico, and Columbia, it's mostly about kidnapping, rather than loot.
----
The Canadian hockey team is outplaying us, same as the women's game. Sigh. We are not doing the passing we need to, and shooting too early.
The Olympics have certainly been good this year. I watch nearly every minute that is actually broadcast that I'm home for, which is about 10 times as much tv as I can really stand. It is pretty high-res stuff, tho...watching the instant-replay for hockey the puck is really sharp on the screen, which is impressive considering that thing can be moving 100 mph.
I have something else going on this year, in that I wanted to track news stories about various events, because I need some additional input content for training a piece of software I wrote a year ago: it filters text content (stories, like news) based on training which is pre-categorized...i.e., I take various stories, assign topics, create a training model from them, and then use that training model to categorize new stories. The technique uses what's called "support vector machine", it's mostly about positive examples (where other trained systems used both pos and neg training). Anyway, I generally grab content from various RSS feeds, because they are slightly pre-categorized (like the Washington Post sports feed); this is not great because it tends to be limited content: NFL, NBA, MLB, and college equivalents. I need some other sources, but haven't looked very hard yet. Olympics is a fairly concentrated bunch of stories about skiing, skating, hockey, and curling. And it turned out that Vancouver has its own RSS feed, which is ideal for me: I have a separate tool written several years ago whose sole purpose is to grab stories from RSS feeds. This means I can continuously grab stories, not worry about them getting superseded or expiring, and then zip through a folder of them marking them for their training topics.
I should fire up a few more feeds for this, but I especially wanted to get the olympics because of the fairly unique set of stories I could get.
The only flaw in this is that I don't have a really good set of story topics that covers a lot of territory in a lot of detail. If I made more topics, I could probably get into more detail, but I don't know how much is really appropriate.
This whole idea, for me, dates back to some work in about the 1996 time-frame. You'd have a text-processing system where content would be brought in (like a large number of RSS feeds), you'd run them through a topic recognizer, and run that output through several differently-trained name-finders. From there you'd feed the names into a database, use some other correlation techniques.
I was trying to go this direction again in '08 with the pirates demo: could you find out what those guys are up to by any online content (in retrospect, I think not, that seems to be entirely target of opportunity, rather than any organized piracy with malice aforethought). Like drug-related stuff in Mexico, and Columbia, it's mostly about kidnapping, rather than loot.
----
The Canadian hockey team is outplaying us, same as the women's game. Sigh. We are not doing the passing we need to, and shooting too early.
Friday, December 25, 2009
interesting artwork
actually, amazing is more like it. You have probably never seen anything this before in your life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOhf3OvRXKg
(and note that there are other vids of her work--I gotta get these onto my ipod)
here's the background (as I rec'd it from a friend):
Dont dare to miss this amazing Video Clip . . first read it properly..
This video shows the winner of "Ukraine’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.
The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about £75,000.
She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.
It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.
This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.
In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.
The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.
Kseniya Simonova says:
"I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there’s surely no bigger compliment."
Please take time out to see this amazing piece of art.
click on the link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vOhf3OvRXKg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOhf3OvRXKg
(and note that there are other vids of her work--I gotta get these onto my ipod)
here's the background (as I rec'd it from a friend):
Dont dare to miss this amazing Video Clip . . first read it properly..
This video shows the winner of "Ukraine’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.
The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about £75,000.
She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.
It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.
This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.
In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.
The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.
Kseniya Simonova says:
"I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there’s surely no bigger compliment."
Please take time out to see this amazing piece of art.
click on the link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vOhf3OvRXKg
on being a geek
This little top-ten list describes me a little too well...
http://www.gk2gk.com/topten/waystotell.asp
-----
words copied here in case that link goes bad. apologies for the cut-n-paste, but I'm not claiming I created this:
© 2004-2007 by Geek 2 Geek. www.gk2gk.com Not to be used without permission and attribution
http://www.gk2gk.com/topten/waystotell.asp
-----
words copied here in case that link goes bad. apologies for the cut-n-paste, but I'm not claiming I created this:
Top 10 Reasons Why Geeks Make the Best Catch
It’s not generally realized that geeks (male and female) are the best catches. Americans focus on the glamour of the good-looking, the male jock and the statuesque female, and tend to make fun of second banana characters like Urkel. Yet, geeks (a.k.a. nerds, etc.) provide the opportunity to have much longer, more stable, and happy relationships. Here are the top ten reasons:
1. Geeks don't cheat. Geeks know that the grass only seems greener on the other side. They instinctively stay devotedly loyal to their lovers through thick and thin. Their social skills are also not well developed enough to support an affair.
2. Geeks appreciate their mates. Since you are likely to be one of the first persons a geek has ever had a significant relationship with, you will be treated well. A geek knows that there aren’t a whole lot of other possibilities. Frankly, geeks aren't quite sure how they ended up with the person they have attracted. When you date a geek, you know that geek will be yours for as long as you wish.
3. Geeks haven't formed bad relationship habits. After years of dating other people, the socially successful have become too confident to be intimate, think of partners as being only for their self-gratification, and focus on making themselves happy. None of this is true of a geek. The lack of past romantic partners allows the geek to approach lovers with the zest of a neophyte. Geeks are not full of romantic confidence. However, once encouraged, they are eager to please and enjoy their relationship.
4. Geeks are good at the things they try. Every geek has skills passionately developed over a long period of time. It could be role playing, chess, hacking, playing video games, or the ability to properly assemble a computer. So you know that geeks won't quit until they have learned how to make their relationship the best.
5. Geeks are not interested in status. Geeks became geeks because they chose to spend their time doing things that would not necessarily make them popular with everyone else in school, like sports and fashion. The ability to resist peer pressure is important to geeks. This means that a geek is more interested in your happiness than in looking good to others.
6. Geeks have imagination. Boredom is important to avoid to the game playing geek. A geek will seek new and creative ways to play, and this translates to relationships as well.
7. Geeks are happy and successful in their chosen field. No matter what their education level, geeks are able to make good incomes doing work that they enjoy. That eliminates one of the most frequent causes of relationship problems, since people who don’t like their jobs may take it out on their significant other.
8. Geeks are analytical. If they don’t get it right the first time, they look at what they did and figure out what to change. And when they DO get it right, they still keep finding ways to improve on it.
9. Geeks can concentrate. Geeks can focus their energy on one task with total intensity. Granted, the task they are focusing on may have more to do with writing new software for their Blackberry, but the fact remains that a geek, once set upon a task, tirelessly sets about to achieving a goal.
All of which means that…
10. Geeks want to be the best at what they do. So they try harder. And they never stop trying.
© 2004-2007 by Geek 2 Geek. www.gk2gk.com Not to be used without permission and attribution
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
building a new compy again
So about the time I got Torchlight, there was also the announcement about the new 3D zero-gravity space shooter game (Shattered Horizon [shadoobie]) that is Win7/Vista/DX10-only. Arrgg!
The PC I built in early 2006 is not going to get the job done, without a lot of upgrade, in which case I might as well build a new one. Is that even going to be possible? I have some requirements: AMD Phenom II quad-core cpu, 3+GHz, min 4GB DDR2 RAM possible, PCI Ex 2.0, DX10 possible, micro ATX-size case.
Turns out that is just now doable, with caveats. Shuttle is now making a case/mobo combo that will take a Phenom II, but only certain ones: those needing < 100 watts of power. There's a sticker on the cpu socket that warns you about this...so the highest-end cpus can't go in there (940, 955, 965) because they are either 125 or 140 watts. I only found this out by reading some of the user comments at Newegg. I'd have found out when I opened the case, of course, but if I'd already bought the 965 I'd have been unhappy. Newegg offers those two as a bundle, but that's kinda stupid given that that cpu can't go on the mobo. I went with the 945, 3 GHz quad-core, 95 watts.
In addition, Windows 7 is available as a free beta for the next 5 months. I don't know what happens after that, probably they want money or it shuts down. Well, it's Win7 Ultimate, which is actually more than I really want; Pro is what I want...but for test-drive purposes, this is ok.
Bought some of the new pieces in person at MicroCenter, and mail-ordered the case/cpu pair from Newegg.
Things went together like a breeze, which was great. Win7 installed with ZERO hassles, and nearly zero personal involvement. Other drivers went in super-quick/simple, also good, and it ran the first game I tried out...which was, interestingly, Bioshock, which does not run properly on my XP box. Works great, so I need to try some other things out, too, like UT04 which has quit working on my XP box. Need to try out Oblivion (and when the hell is Elder Scrolls 5 coming out?).
Case/mobo comes with two monitor sockets on-board, and the video card (ATI 4670) has two more, so i could put four monitors on this. Think I'll see about getting another 24" one...four monitors. That's what I'm talkin' about!
Gotta put a carrying handle on top of this one, too.
Win 7 boots pretty damn fast, and the wake from sleep is damn fast, too. Hooray!
The trick will be to not install so much stuff that if I have to do a complete wipe/reinstall it won't be too hard...
A month or so ago I got a dual 1TB raid unit set to mirroring. I have pushed all the mp3 stuff from the old pc onto the raid unit. It's not real fast, but does ok to play music. And all the machines can see it. (actually this "not too fast" issue is alarming/weird--should be at least 100T ethernet going in the back, but it seems like no more than 10T at best)
See you again in 3 years or so on this same topic.
----
Bioshock has behaved weirdly for me...Oblivion has been great, except when i was trying to run bioshock, which was having/causing some really weird audio problems. So long as I steer clear of BioS, everything else seems ok...which won't be hard to do, because I've reached a point in BioS where I literally cannot continue, there's some bug I'm hitting.
Oblivion plays quite fine on this system, even with a bunch of the graphics aspects near maximum (which, btw, are pretty but unhelpful: if you turn on nearby grass, there will be plenty of cases where an outdoor opponent drops a weapon and you can't find it).
I've been playing with some different techniques this time: You can run sneak to 100 on the very first guy in the tutorial, there's a sweet spot where, as reported before, you can set a weight on an arrow key and just walk away. You can do something similar with most of the magic schools, too, which is also interesting. I'm level 35 now, have done very little fighting overall, and I am absurdly easy to kill. I went with being a Khajiit, which is a weak character to begin with, so I'm mostly having to play by letting summoned things do the work. The reason I went ahead an leveled up is that I being so weak I needed to get to the point where I could kill/soul-trap grand-level souls (aiming at chameleon 100), and you can't even encounter them at level 2 (well, excepting that you kill some necromancers and get black soul gems). But I'm level 35, and I haven't even started the main story line, or gone very far with Mages Guild, or even the first task for fighters guild.
In addition to being a weak character, my armor and blade skill levels are low, which contributes to my being easily killed. Turns out that "fortify blade on self 100 pts for 30 sec" spell is far better than "fortify strength 100 pts".
Oh...the other reason I'm easily killed is that I set the difficulty to max, which makes for a really different game experience. At least until I got to chameleon 100, I got killed entirely too often. At normal difficulty, with sneak 100, you can sneak in the day without being seen...not even remotely possible at max difficulty.
So it's been interesting again...
The PC I built in early 2006 is not going to get the job done, without a lot of upgrade, in which case I might as well build a new one. Is that even going to be possible? I have some requirements: AMD Phenom II quad-core cpu, 3+GHz, min 4GB DDR2 RAM possible, PCI Ex 2.0, DX10 possible, micro ATX-size case.
Turns out that is just now doable, with caveats. Shuttle is now making a case/mobo combo that will take a Phenom II, but only certain ones: those needing < 100 watts of power. There's a sticker on the cpu socket that warns you about this...so the highest-end cpus can't go in there (940, 955, 965) because they are either 125 or 140 watts. I only found this out by reading some of the user comments at Newegg. I'd have found out when I opened the case, of course, but if I'd already bought the 965 I'd have been unhappy. Newegg offers those two as a bundle, but that's kinda stupid given that that cpu can't go on the mobo. I went with the 945, 3 GHz quad-core, 95 watts.
In addition, Windows 7 is available as a free beta for the next 5 months. I don't know what happens after that, probably they want money or it shuts down. Well, it's Win7 Ultimate, which is actually more than I really want; Pro is what I want...but for test-drive purposes, this is ok.
Bought some of the new pieces in person at MicroCenter, and mail-ordered the case/cpu pair from Newegg.
Things went together like a breeze, which was great. Win7 installed with ZERO hassles, and nearly zero personal involvement. Other drivers went in super-quick/simple, also good, and it ran the first game I tried out...which was, interestingly, Bioshock, which does not run properly on my XP box. Works great, so I need to try some other things out, too, like UT04 which has quit working on my XP box. Need to try out Oblivion (and when the hell is Elder Scrolls 5 coming out?).
Case/mobo comes with two monitor sockets on-board, and the video card (ATI 4670) has two more, so i could put four monitors on this. Think I'll see about getting another 24" one...four monitors. That's what I'm talkin' about!
Gotta put a carrying handle on top of this one, too.
Win 7 boots pretty damn fast, and the wake from sleep is damn fast, too. Hooray!
The trick will be to not install so much stuff that if I have to do a complete wipe/reinstall it won't be too hard...
A month or so ago I got a dual 1TB raid unit set to mirroring. I have pushed all the mp3 stuff from the old pc onto the raid unit. It's not real fast, but does ok to play music. And all the machines can see it. (actually this "not too fast" issue is alarming/weird--should be at least 100T ethernet going in the back, but it seems like no more than 10T at best)
See you again in 3 years or so on this same topic.
----
Bioshock has behaved weirdly for me...Oblivion has been great, except when i was trying to run bioshock, which was having/causing some really weird audio problems. So long as I steer clear of BioS, everything else seems ok...which won't be hard to do, because I've reached a point in BioS where I literally cannot continue, there's some bug I'm hitting.
Oblivion plays quite fine on this system, even with a bunch of the graphics aspects near maximum (which, btw, are pretty but unhelpful: if you turn on nearby grass, there will be plenty of cases where an outdoor opponent drops a weapon and you can't find it).
I've been playing with some different techniques this time: You can run sneak to 100 on the very first guy in the tutorial, there's a sweet spot where, as reported before, you can set a weight on an arrow key and just walk away. You can do something similar with most of the magic schools, too, which is also interesting. I'm level 35 now, have done very little fighting overall, and I am absurdly easy to kill. I went with being a Khajiit, which is a weak character to begin with, so I'm mostly having to play by letting summoned things do the work. The reason I went ahead an leveled up is that I being so weak I needed to get to the point where I could kill/soul-trap grand-level souls (aiming at chameleon 100), and you can't even encounter them at level 2 (well, excepting that you kill some necromancers and get black soul gems). But I'm level 35, and I haven't even started the main story line, or gone very far with Mages Guild, or even the first task for fighters guild.
In addition to being a weak character, my armor and blade skill levels are low, which contributes to my being easily killed. Turns out that "fortify blade on self 100 pts for 30 sec" spell is far better than "fortify strength 100 pts".
Oh...the other reason I'm easily killed is that I set the difficulty to max, which makes for a really different game experience. At least until I got to chameleon 100, I got killed entirely too often. At normal difficulty, with sneak 100, you can sneak in the day without being seen...not even remotely possible at max difficulty.
So it's been interesting again...
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
TorchLight game
I have a Steam account, but I mostly have Steam not running...for other reasons, I had it on last week, and up popped one of their infomercial windows (a key reason why I don't run it), and the top thing was "TorchLight", and there was a free demo.
Steam is actually pretty slick overall, although it didn't start out that way. Now it's excellent.
Anyway.
I played the TorchLight demo...this is basically Diablo 2.5, or Diablo 2 with Warcraft graphics. So I bought the full game.
Pretty Nice. Many identical names for things, there's a good merchant system, each one has a brand-new load of stuff for sale when you return to town (a la Dungeon Siege). There are Town Portal Scrolls, Identify Scrolls, a nearly infinite qty of merch items with lots of recombination and predefined things (although their definition of "unique" is slightly different from mine...at one point I actually *did* have 2 of the same "unique" item). There are some health-recovery gems, you can fuse them for higher value, and pop them off to reuse.
There's a near infinite amount of play possible, because one of the things you can do is buy a scroll that will open a portal to another map--one not connect with anything else in the story--and it will be instanced to about your current performance level. Or you can buy them and hold them for a while, until they become easy walk-throughs.
The monster at the tail end is REALLY difficult. I think I got killed like 6 times while working him over. A key thing to have learned before going in there is how to summon a lot of helpers (Skel 6 seems best), and the Level 30 spell for seismic shock, which has this interesting advantage of being usable multiple times with no wait in-between (although you will run out of mana). It can take down a lot of opponents at once. [my son also played TL, and did the mage character and boosted his various summon skills to the point where he had a squad of 15 or so summoned things, meaning he didn't have to actually get close to directly fighting anything]
I think the idea of needing "Identify Scrolls" is stupid/pointless..
You have a sidekick/pet, which can help fight, but won't be as good as the skels, and is best used as pack mule...with one added bonus: when the pet is full up, you can send it to town to sell everything it is carrying, and it will come back with the cash. That's what I'm talkin' about!
The various map levels will reload with opposition creatures, if they don't have some special relationship to the main story line. This allows you to redo a level for more points or goodies.
I did have a couple of problems, one task just isn't completing for me...I think I did it, but it still registers as not done, which means I can't move on with the supplier of it (who probably has other tasks).
Apparently levels dynamically generate, so they should be different for a game restart...didn't look like that was true, though. Diablo 2 did do this--if you started over, levels were fairly different, other than some set locations that were quest-specific, but you could redo the entirety of all of them.
I thought the game was too short. I played the entire thing in just over a weekend. You can play as one of 3 character types, so I probably should go do one of the others...and it turns out that you can give a bunch af items to your other selves via the "shared items chest" which is a huge deal in your favor, if you actually know this. Too bad you can't give $. Still, it does argue in favor of keeping a variety of items on hand to pass on, covering a range of levels.
Steam is actually pretty slick overall, although it didn't start out that way. Now it's excellent.
Anyway.
I played the TorchLight demo...this is basically Diablo 2.5, or Diablo 2 with Warcraft graphics. So I bought the full game.
Pretty Nice. Many identical names for things, there's a good merchant system, each one has a brand-new load of stuff for sale when you return to town (a la Dungeon Siege). There are Town Portal Scrolls, Identify Scrolls, a nearly infinite qty of merch items with lots of recombination and predefined things (although their definition of "unique" is slightly different from mine...at one point I actually *did* have 2 of the same "unique" item). There are some health-recovery gems, you can fuse them for higher value, and pop them off to reuse.
There's a near infinite amount of play possible, because one of the things you can do is buy a scroll that will open a portal to another map--one not connect with anything else in the story--and it will be instanced to about your current performance level. Or you can buy them and hold them for a while, until they become easy walk-throughs.
The monster at the tail end is REALLY difficult. I think I got killed like 6 times while working him over. A key thing to have learned before going in there is how to summon a lot of helpers (Skel 6 seems best), and the Level 30 spell for seismic shock, which has this interesting advantage of being usable multiple times with no wait in-between (although you will run out of mana). It can take down a lot of opponents at once. [my son also played TL, and did the mage character and boosted his various summon skills to the point where he had a squad of 15 or so summoned things, meaning he didn't have to actually get close to directly fighting anything]
I think the idea of needing "Identify Scrolls" is stupid/pointless..
You have a sidekick/pet, which can help fight, but won't be as good as the skels, and is best used as pack mule...with one added bonus: when the pet is full up, you can send it to town to sell everything it is carrying, and it will come back with the cash. That's what I'm talkin' about!
The various map levels will reload with opposition creatures, if they don't have some special relationship to the main story line. This allows you to redo a level for more points or goodies.
I did have a couple of problems, one task just isn't completing for me...I think I did it, but it still registers as not done, which means I can't move on with the supplier of it (who probably has other tasks).
Apparently levels dynamically generate, so they should be different for a game restart...didn't look like that was true, though. Diablo 2 did do this--if you started over, levels were fairly different, other than some set locations that were quest-specific, but you could redo the entirety of all of them.
I thought the game was too short. I played the entire thing in just over a weekend. You can play as one of 3 character types, so I probably should go do one of the others...and it turns out that you can give a bunch af items to your other selves via the "shared items chest" which is a huge deal in your favor, if you actually know this. Too bad you can't give $. Still, it does argue in favor of keeping a variety of items on hand to pass on, covering a range of levels.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Taxes and government
It continues to amaze me how poorly so many people understand economics and government.
Where I live, as with very nearly every other state, we have budget problems. We have things that need money spent on them, and the state doesn't have the money to do so.
Services cost money. Plain and simple. We need road work. We need police. We need fire/emergency help. We want good schools. We want a working court system. These things cost money.
There are groups which advocate more government-run activities, and groups which oppose such.
I am in neither. Government should do some things, and not others. Government should do things where all citizens need exactly the same thing at all times, or as close as is feasible to provide. (By "do" here, I could mean "regulate", as well, where the actuality is performed by some other organization, like your electricity supplier).
If you want, for example, snow removal service during the winter...that costs money. That could be commercially provided, but how would that get done? I want all the roads I am likely to use to be plowed right away. And my driveway. I don't care about other people's driveways, nor do I care about roads I don't use...Except that maybe I need for others to be able to use those roads in order to make deliveries I will need access to, like the grocery store. "Stock up in advance" you might say...and that certainly works to an extent, given that where I live snow generally doesn't last too long (although it has been known for one single snowfall--a blizzard--to last a couple of weeks). But there was a time when I lived in Massachusetts, in 1994, and there was 9 (yes, nine) feet of snow that winter (two years later it was ten). That snow didn't all melt away for four months. Not really feasible for me to "stock up" (although the Pilgrims must have done so somehow). I can't get to work without plowed streets, so that blizzard here in 1996, which the county did not deal with effectively, kept me stuck at home for a week.
So I am willing to have some tax dollars go to providing this service. Lacking a county-funded provider of snow removal, I'd have to get all my neighborhood together, and we'd have to pool to hire someone, or buy the plows ourselves to fit the pickup trucks of those who live in the neighborhood. The question then is what do you do about the people who live in your neighborhood who don't want to pay for this? The government has some measure of coercion it can apply, but you do not. Do you just pile up the snow in front of their driveway? Suppose they need an ambulance?
So this is a thing that government should do, or regulate. It will work best if there's a single provider, for uniform results.
In contrast, trash collection is done differently. There are county-gov sanctioned providers of collection service, I pay the provider directly, there is competition, it's not too expensive, and I could change providers if I wished. What I can't really do is let trash pile up, if I wished to not pay for it at all, although that's mostly because I don't *want* it to pile up. I recycle a lot of stuff, but that's the same service provider there. I could take recyclables to the center, for free, and if I could keep my packaging-materials limited to paper, I could probably go without the trash service; paper I could burn, or compost to an extent. Could snow removal work the same way? Maybe...it's an expensive business to be in, you only need it a few times/year, whereas trash service is every week. I'd be willing to do some plowing of the neighborhood, and maybe bit beyond, but no way I'm plowing the highways. I think that could work, except for those folks who would want it done but not pay for it.
Government needs to do other things, too, but plenty of folks don't want to pay for those things.
So what I'd like to see...recall how we keep hearing that the "states are little experimental test areas where ideas can be tried out" ?
Let's try out the idea of zero government.
No taxes. No laws. No police. No courts. No water/sewer service (unless you dig well, septic). No electricity (except self generated). No roads except those you create yourself. No trash collection, no snow removal. No regulated businesses. What would that really look like? Who would live there?
Partly it would look a lot like "the wild west": the guy with the biggest gun and greatest willingness to do grievous harm to others will be in control. Most people would get along with each other ok, I expect, but they'd also become victims.
But it'd be an interesting experiment. Could it work?
This idea was triggered by a couple of things: one was some interviews with protesters in DC a week ago, and there was this one woman who said she wanted government out of her life completely. The guy with the mike/camera didn't pursue that far enough, but I suspect she doesn't *really* want government entirely out of her life, because she does want water, sewer, trash, snow, electricity, police, etc. She might want her taxes to be zero (who doesn't?) but she probably doesn't understand what all those taxes actually pay for. My impression is that most folks don't.
And of course going along with the "pay for it" issue, you also hear "waste, fraud and abuse". I really think that's a euphemism for "fire people", but since we can't seem to figure out who to fire, let's just fire them all.
Where I live, as with very nearly every other state, we have budget problems. We have things that need money spent on them, and the state doesn't have the money to do so.
Services cost money. Plain and simple. We need road work. We need police. We need fire/emergency help. We want good schools. We want a working court system. These things cost money.
There are groups which advocate more government-run activities, and groups which oppose such.
I am in neither. Government should do some things, and not others. Government should do things where all citizens need exactly the same thing at all times, or as close as is feasible to provide. (By "do" here, I could mean "regulate", as well, where the actuality is performed by some other organization, like your electricity supplier).
If you want, for example, snow removal service during the winter...that costs money. That could be commercially provided, but how would that get done? I want all the roads I am likely to use to be plowed right away. And my driveway. I don't care about other people's driveways, nor do I care about roads I don't use...Except that maybe I need for others to be able to use those roads in order to make deliveries I will need access to, like the grocery store. "Stock up in advance" you might say...and that certainly works to an extent, given that where I live snow generally doesn't last too long (although it has been known for one single snowfall--a blizzard--to last a couple of weeks). But there was a time when I lived in Massachusetts, in 1994, and there was 9 (yes, nine) feet of snow that winter (two years later it was ten). That snow didn't all melt away for four months. Not really feasible for me to "stock up" (although the Pilgrims must have done so somehow). I can't get to work without plowed streets, so that blizzard here in 1996, which the county did not deal with effectively, kept me stuck at home for a week.
So I am willing to have some tax dollars go to providing this service. Lacking a county-funded provider of snow removal, I'd have to get all my neighborhood together, and we'd have to pool to hire someone, or buy the plows ourselves to fit the pickup trucks of those who live in the neighborhood. The question then is what do you do about the people who live in your neighborhood who don't want to pay for this? The government has some measure of coercion it can apply, but you do not. Do you just pile up the snow in front of their driveway? Suppose they need an ambulance?
So this is a thing that government should do, or regulate. It will work best if there's a single provider, for uniform results.
In contrast, trash collection is done differently. There are county-gov sanctioned providers of collection service, I pay the provider directly, there is competition, it's not too expensive, and I could change providers if I wished. What I can't really do is let trash pile up, if I wished to not pay for it at all, although that's mostly because I don't *want* it to pile up. I recycle a lot of stuff, but that's the same service provider there. I could take recyclables to the center, for free, and if I could keep my packaging-materials limited to paper, I could probably go without the trash service; paper I could burn, or compost to an extent. Could snow removal work the same way? Maybe...it's an expensive business to be in, you only need it a few times/year, whereas trash service is every week. I'd be willing to do some plowing of the neighborhood, and maybe bit beyond, but no way I'm plowing the highways. I think that could work, except for those folks who would want it done but not pay for it.
Government needs to do other things, too, but plenty of folks don't want to pay for those things.
So what I'd like to see...recall how we keep hearing that the "states are little experimental test areas where ideas can be tried out" ?
Let's try out the idea of zero government.
No taxes. No laws. No police. No courts. No water/sewer service (unless you dig well, septic). No electricity (except self generated). No roads except those you create yourself. No trash collection, no snow removal. No regulated businesses. What would that really look like? Who would live there?
Partly it would look a lot like "the wild west": the guy with the biggest gun and greatest willingness to do grievous harm to others will be in control. Most people would get along with each other ok, I expect, but they'd also become victims.
But it'd be an interesting experiment. Could it work?
This idea was triggered by a couple of things: one was some interviews with protesters in DC a week ago, and there was this one woman who said she wanted government out of her life completely. The guy with the mike/camera didn't pursue that far enough, but I suspect she doesn't *really* want government entirely out of her life, because she does want water, sewer, trash, snow, electricity, police, etc. She might want her taxes to be zero (who doesn't?) but she probably doesn't understand what all those taxes actually pay for. My impression is that most folks don't.
And of course going along with the "pay for it" issue, you also hear "waste, fraud and abuse". I really think that's a euphemism for "fire people", but since we can't seem to figure out who to fire, let's just fire them all.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Java 3D software
Was trying to do the 3D thing again a few weeks ago. It's got to be possible.
I was trying to get my wireframe globe working (actually, someone else's code).
So it turns out not to be too hard, but there are a couple of subtle parts, and I did not find the right explanation on-line anywhere.
There are four parts involved:
The online help doesn't mention those .jnilib files, despite their presence in the library downloads. Your java command-line has to mention the jar files, of course, but NOT the jnilib files, but the jnilib files have to be in $CWD, or the same folder as jogl.jar
So it's really not very hard, but I spent a lot of time not getting that figured out.
On windows/linux, there are also some .dll or .so files that appear relevant.
On my mac, just things in the list above. Works great, and instantly.
I also found this, http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/, which is like google earth (except older)... Except that there's a java version, with Swing and AWT versions of an embeddable panel that you can pop into your app. Works great!
So now I have NASA World Wind in an app. This is the other reason why I needed to figure out the 3D library files. It does, of course, use NASA's servers, but hey--NASA owns a lot of imagery n stuff, like the Blue Marble pix...have a look at the demos page. Lovely stuff.
That said, I don't like how part of it works...the part about making my own layer. I ought to be able to create a layer, populate with the items I want drawn, and it should draw them. That seems not to even be part of the concept. GAK! It appears that you have to serve results from a Web Feature Service, and connect a layer to that. NOT what I want, at all.
I have some other things I want to do in 3D, so I need to go back to the wireframe globe and start there...the first thing I have discovered is that OpenGL *still* can't draw a general filled polygon properly. This is fargin' horrifying. That is a solved problem, people. Use it!
I was trying to get my wireframe globe working (actually, someone else's code).
So it turns out not to be too hard, but there are a couple of subtle parts, and I did not find the right explanation on-line anywhere.
There are four parts involved:
- Your code
- JOGL.jar
- libjobl.jnilib
- the O/S libraries
The online help doesn't mention those .jnilib files, despite their presence in the library downloads. Your java command-line has to mention the jar files, of course, but NOT the jnilib files, but the jnilib files have to be in $CWD, or the same folder as jogl.jar
So it's really not very hard, but I spent a lot of time not getting that figured out.
On windows/linux, there are also some .dll or .so files that appear relevant.
On my mac, just things in the list above. Works great, and instantly.
I also found this, http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/, which is like google earth (except older)... Except that there's a java version, with Swing and AWT versions of an embeddable panel that you can pop into your app. Works great!
So now I have NASA World Wind in an app. This is the other reason why I needed to figure out the 3D library files. It does, of course, use NASA's servers, but hey--NASA owns a lot of imagery n stuff, like the Blue Marble pix...have a look at the demos page. Lovely stuff.
That said, I don't like how part of it works...the part about making my own layer. I ought to be able to create a layer, populate with the items I want drawn, and it should draw them. That seems not to even be part of the concept. GAK! It appears that you have to serve results from a Web Feature Service, and connect a layer to that. NOT what I want, at all.
I have some other things I want to do in 3D, so I need to go back to the wireframe globe and start there...the first thing I have discovered is that OpenGL *still* can't draw a general filled polygon properly. This is fargin' horrifying. That is a solved problem, people. Use it!
Saturday, September 12, 2009
recent reading, again
Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove.
It's one of those alternate history things. Actually this is "MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE" redux. This is pretty detailed on the historical accuracy...imagine what might have happened if someone had time-traveled from 2010 back to 1864 and given Gen Robert E Lee 100 thousand AK-47s and unlimited ammo. Would the south have won?
Damn right. Those guns, while not 2010 state of the art, were 100 years in advance of the standard single-shot manual-load rifles of the 1860s.
So I found this book offensive...not the part about the south winning...given the AK-47 premise, that was inevitable. This seemed overmuch like "how to write a book in 1992 in which you get to use all those words and ideas from 1864 that are clearly offensive now, like the infamous 'N-word'".
It of course opens with some history, although not enough of the history that you remember what the fight was really about, from both sides. This is more just about the battles (quite lopsided with the arrival of AK-47, which was superior to hand-loaded single-shot Enfields/etc in every way you can think of, and not manufacturable anywhere in the world at that time (the south had insufficient manufacturing to make weapons/etc as it was, so there really was no way they were going to win). The suppliers of these guns are some unhappy white folks from South Africa, who are so resentful of the black takeover there, that they think altering history will help them. They pay in gold, which has serious value, as opposed to Confederate money, which, as the saying goes, "wasn't worth the paper it was printed on".
The author clearly doesn't understand time-travel paradox well enough to explain that part. He also misses the relevant background history (Missouri compromise [1820], Dred Scott[1857], etc); it's not like that info is hard to come by.
He also mostly bypasses the "why" of confederate secession. It was, from the southern side, presented as "those people can't tell us what to do", and "the federal government cannot tell the states what [not] to do"...the one thing the federal government was trying to do was tell the southern states they couldn't allow/continue/expand slavery.
(look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_leading_to_the_American_Civil_War, for the Wikipedia pages on this whole thing)
So: the south: "it's all about states' rights", the north: "it's all about slavery"
Really: it was both, of course. It was all about the right of southern states to sanction (and tax) the ownership of one human being by another.
Don't kid yourself, blacks weren't liked up north. They just weren't slaves.
So at the end of the book, the confederate government, now with Robert E Lee as president, learns how they have been manipulated by the South Africans, and learns a good bit about the future, decides that slavery must be eliminated. (That seems unlikely, to me, given that the elimination of slavery occurred because the South lost the fight. Dramatic military superiority would change the equation quite a bit--the military's strength is more or less untouchable.)
Like this is really somehow different from what the north had been arguing for some decades? "It's ok to eliminate slavery if WE decide to do it, not if THEY tell us to do it". So what happens when one of the southern states decides to secede from the confederacy? All the same arguments could be made over again ("we don't want some other states telling us what we can/can't do"). The southern states were not terribly unified amongst themselves; if you're willing to secede once, you're willing to do it again.
Author does cleverly manage to work in a variation of the infamous "battle of the crater" near the end. That was amusing...it's a little different, of course, because in the story the "civil war" is over by this time, so this battle is against the South Africans. Who, despite the radically superior technology (i.e., things more advanced than an AK-47), are numerically too small to win a war with any attrition. I actually thought this the best part of the book.
'twere better all around had no slaves ever been brought here. The real problem is that a lot of people are lazy enough want others to do their work.
Of course, the situation in the Confederacy wasn't nearly as simple as you were taught it in school. There were plenty of "Unionists" in the south who opposed the secession, and some actually fought against the South while living there.
And apparently there was something known as the "Twenty Negro Law" whereby one military-age male was exempted from serving in the Confederate Army for every twenty slaves owned on a plantation. Of course it was only the wealthier who owned slaves, and they tended to be those in state legislatures, too, and therefore could vote themselves these kinds of exemptions...resulting in the actual conscription being the poor, fighting for the rich, to preserve the rich folks' way of life of owning slaves. (see HERE, and HERE for the exact wording, which is a bit obtuse)
It's one of those alternate history things. Actually this is "MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE" redux. This is pretty detailed on the historical accuracy...imagine what might have happened if someone had time-traveled from 2010 back to 1864 and given Gen Robert E Lee 100 thousand AK-47s and unlimited ammo. Would the south have won?
Damn right. Those guns, while not 2010 state of the art, were 100 years in advance of the standard single-shot manual-load rifles of the 1860s.
So I found this book offensive...not the part about the south winning...given the AK-47 premise, that was inevitable. This seemed overmuch like "how to write a book in 1992 in which you get to use all those words and ideas from 1864 that are clearly offensive now, like the infamous 'N-word'".
It of course opens with some history, although not enough of the history that you remember what the fight was really about, from both sides. This is more just about the battles (quite lopsided with the arrival of AK-47, which was superior to hand-loaded single-shot Enfields/etc in every way you can think of, and not manufacturable anywhere in the world at that time (the south had insufficient manufacturing to make weapons/etc as it was, so there really was no way they were going to win). The suppliers of these guns are some unhappy white folks from South Africa, who are so resentful of the black takeover there, that they think altering history will help them. They pay in gold, which has serious value, as opposed to Confederate money, which, as the saying goes, "wasn't worth the paper it was printed on".
The author clearly doesn't understand time-travel paradox well enough to explain that part. He also misses the relevant background history (Missouri compromise [1820], Dred Scott[1857], etc); it's not like that info is hard to come by.
He also mostly bypasses the "why" of confederate secession. It was, from the southern side, presented as "those people can't tell us what to do", and "the federal government cannot tell the states what [not] to do"...the one thing the federal government was trying to do was tell the southern states they couldn't allow/continue/expand slavery.
(look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_leading_to_the_American_Civil_War, for the Wikipedia pages on this whole thing)
So: the south: "it's all about states' rights", the north: "it's all about slavery"
Really: it was both, of course. It was all about the right of southern states to sanction (and tax) the ownership of one human being by another.
Don't kid yourself, blacks weren't liked up north. They just weren't slaves.
So at the end of the book, the confederate government, now with Robert E Lee as president, learns how they have been manipulated by the South Africans, and learns a good bit about the future, decides that slavery must be eliminated. (That seems unlikely, to me, given that the elimination of slavery occurred because the South lost the fight. Dramatic military superiority would change the equation quite a bit--the military's strength is more or less untouchable.)
Like this is really somehow different from what the north had been arguing for some decades? "It's ok to eliminate slavery if WE decide to do it, not if THEY tell us to do it". So what happens when one of the southern states decides to secede from the confederacy? All the same arguments could be made over again ("we don't want some other states telling us what we can/can't do"). The southern states were not terribly unified amongst themselves; if you're willing to secede once, you're willing to do it again.
Author does cleverly manage to work in a variation of the infamous "battle of the crater" near the end. That was amusing...it's a little different, of course, because in the story the "civil war" is over by this time, so this battle is against the South Africans. Who, despite the radically superior technology (i.e., things more advanced than an AK-47), are numerically too small to win a war with any attrition. I actually thought this the best part of the book.
'twere better all around had no slaves ever been brought here. The real problem is that a lot of people are lazy enough want others to do their work.
Of course, the situation in the Confederacy wasn't nearly as simple as you were taught it in school. There were plenty of "Unionists" in the south who opposed the secession, and some actually fought against the South while living there.
And apparently there was something known as the "Twenty Negro Law" whereby one military-age male was exempted from serving in the Confederate Army for every twenty slaves owned on a plantation. Of course it was only the wealthier who owned slaves, and they tended to be those in state legislatures, too, and therefore could vote themselves these kinds of exemptions...resulting in the actual conscription being the poor, fighting for the rich, to preserve the rich folks' way of life of owning slaves. (see HERE, and HERE for the exact wording, which is a bit obtuse)
Friday, August 14, 2009
The Philosophy of Engineering (part 2)
What does it take to motivate engineers? (Or anyone, for that matter)
I.e., what can I do to motivate engineers?
Will it take an Advanced Degree (TM) to figure this out?
Let's start with: what motivates me?
Me: interesting problems to solve. I like solving problems, I like making things. Things I like making have included some of my furniture (actually quite a few pieces), computer programs, electronics, model railroad stuff...there have been other things as well (deck outside house in Dallas).
I got started down the engineering path by about age six because I watched my dad fix things, and I was intrigued at the insides of things. At age 14, I found out that engineering pays better than most other jobs, which certainly clinched that.
So let's speculate that most engineers are motivated by having interesting problems to solve. A good team has an interesting large problem to solve, and many smaller ones that can be handled on an individual basis. A problem that *can* be understood, and a solution that *can* be found without it taking forever, materials and tools to go from the beginning to the end, and the satisfaction of having succeeded and producing a final widget--one that people actually use and like.
What of other folks, for whom the challenge of the problem is not sufficient? Do they need a $ incentive? What other incentives might there be? Formal recognition?
Here's a reference that covers similar territory. Actually, it *really* covers the same territory, except they left out problem challenge (unless you say challenge=creativity, then it's "internal"). Here's the detail.
Another link HERE has a really good first comment:
"People also get motivated when they are working for a leader who has the following traits:
Why do you/I/we care?
"Employees who are motivated are willing to invest discretionary effort to go above and beyond the call of duty." (HERE)
That's something you want.
But different people have different motivations, and need different incentives. From some recent reading on this (related to above links), money appears to be one that doesn't work too well. I can't say that a tiny amount of money would get my attention...you'd have to offer at least $50k to even get my attention, and more like $100k to get my participation. Maybe if I had some debt issues...but $1000 doesn't do it for me.
Getting one's paycheck is a motivator, of course, but you really need to like your work to go beyond that. What makes that happen?
Probably you want a suite of incentives, to get folks going. Recognition for performance. Influence over what gets done. Money. "Internal" reasons (see that first link above; this includes a number of factors, I think, good mgmt, good team, creative challenge...).
So how to do you define those incentives? Recognition could be as simple as a thank-you from the boss...but that could be pretty hollow, too. A private thank you for something that no one else even knows about, and then nothing...why bother? I want something a little more serious than that.
I.e., what can I do to motivate engineers?
Will it take an Advanced Degree (TM) to figure this out?
Let's start with: what motivates me?
Me: interesting problems to solve. I like solving problems, I like making things. Things I like making have included some of my furniture (actually quite a few pieces), computer programs, electronics, model railroad stuff...there have been other things as well (deck outside house in Dallas).
I got started down the engineering path by about age six because I watched my dad fix things, and I was intrigued at the insides of things. At age 14, I found out that engineering pays better than most other jobs, which certainly clinched that.
So let's speculate that most engineers are motivated by having interesting problems to solve. A good team has an interesting large problem to solve, and many smaller ones that can be handled on an individual basis. A problem that *can* be understood, and a solution that *can* be found without it taking forever, materials and tools to go from the beginning to the end, and the satisfaction of having succeeded and producing a final widget--one that people actually use and like.
What of other folks, for whom the challenge of the problem is not sufficient? Do they need a $ incentive? What other incentives might there be? Formal recognition?
Here's a reference that covers similar territory. Actually, it *really* covers the same territory, except they left out problem challenge (unless you say challenge=creativity, then it's "internal"). Here's the detail.
Another link HERE has a really good first comment:
"People also get motivated when they are working for a leader who has the following traits:
1. Good memory
2. Genuine interest in people
3. Integrity
4. The ability to communicate effectively
5. Decisiveness
6. The ability to relax
7. Genuine enthusiasm."
This is about teamwork and good leadership. Good management. I can't argue with that, having had both good and bad (which is separate from experience, although there is a correlation). More detail can be found HERE.
There are probably some other ones...More are listed HERE.Why do you/I/we care?
"Employees who are motivated are willing to invest discretionary effort to go above and beyond the call of duty." (HERE)
That's something you want.
But different people have different motivations, and need different incentives. From some recent reading on this (related to above links), money appears to be one that doesn't work too well. I can't say that a tiny amount of money would get my attention...you'd have to offer at least $50k to even get my attention, and more like $100k to get my participation. Maybe if I had some debt issues...but $1000 doesn't do it for me.
Getting one's paycheck is a motivator, of course, but you really need to like your work to go beyond that. What makes that happen?
Probably you want a suite of incentives, to get folks going. Recognition for performance. Influence over what gets done. Money. "Internal" reasons (see that first link above; this includes a number of factors, I think, good mgmt, good team, creative challenge...).
So how to do you define those incentives? Recognition could be as simple as a thank-you from the boss...but that could be pretty hollow, too. A private thank you for something that no one else even knows about, and then nothing...why bother? I want something a little more serious than that.
The Philosophy of Engineering (part 1)
A year or two after I joined my current employer, I became interested in what I now call the "Philosophy of Engineering".
What is that exactly? Let me offer an example...
In 1992/3, I worked on a health-care project. It was 10-20 years ahead of its time then, and still is, although the concepts behind a little of it are now being talked about, and some of the associated hardware has come to exist since then...
That project was a team effort--the best team I have worked in ever.
Immediately upon joining my current employer, I was in a new team. One which I have since described as "five guys with the same charge number"; not really a *team*, as I had just experienced it. I was the latecomer, and I ended up with the largest responsibility: integration and delivery and support...
I don't recall that this second team ate lunch together more than 3 times over 20 months. I don't recall that we ever held anything resembling a design meeting/discussion, or really anything I associate with a good team. So that was the worst team I've ever worked on.
I've been on various in-between ones since then, or solo. All have their little problems, none are perfect.
So what is it that makes for a good team? Does it take an Advanced Degree (TM) to figure this out?
Crucial elements:
You need someone (at least one, but not very many) who is the keeper of the vision. That person is often (around here) known as a "Principal Investigator", which is not necessarily the same as a System Engineer, although it could be the same person. The PI should do things like define the concept being attempted, create/locate/define/refine examples like "use cases", make presentations to existing/potential customers, and could offer implementation suggestions. I've never quite had exactly that kind of PI, yet.
You need a System Engineer, who can figure out exactly how to implement the vision. This has often been my role.
You need an implementation team. These folks are not keepers of the vision, and they are not decision makers about system block diagram kinds of things (although they might be); these folks are the ones who create what the SE decides should be created. I've been this person too, although most commonly I am a combination of SE and implementor.
You need a good Program Manager. This guy deals with the financial aspects, meetings with customers, marketing, personnel...all that mgmt jazz. The PM should not be the SE, probably should not be the PI (although that is common).
The last actual team I worked on (2004/5) had a decent PM, a not-so-great PI (only did about half the job), myself as SE, and one implementor guy (so of course I did a lot of implementation). That was actually going well until the PM found himself unable to continue in that role (he commuted in from a ways off, and then his wife got pregnant with triplets). The new PM was a jerk, really unsuited to the role, not interested in the project, obnoxious in meetings. I had tried to get someone else to take the role, but that person was not yet interested/ready to do that. My involvement faded out, and the project died within a year after I wasn't working it any more.
Mind you, that really cool health-care project got killed, too, although that was because too many managers wanted control of it, not because it wasn't going anywhere.
So I'm thinking next time I'm in at the beginning, I'm going to specify exactly who/what I get on my team, else I'm not getting on it myself.
What is that exactly? Let me offer an example...
In 1992/3, I worked on a health-care project. It was 10-20 years ahead of its time then, and still is, although the concepts behind a little of it are now being talked about, and some of the associated hardware has come to exist since then...
That project was a team effort--the best team I have worked in ever.
Immediately upon joining my current employer, I was in a new team. One which I have since described as "five guys with the same charge number"; not really a *team*, as I had just experienced it. I was the latecomer, and I ended up with the largest responsibility: integration and delivery and support...
I don't recall that this second team ate lunch together more than 3 times over 20 months. I don't recall that we ever held anything resembling a design meeting/discussion, or really anything I associate with a good team. So that was the worst team I've ever worked on.
I've been on various in-between ones since then, or solo. All have their little problems, none are perfect.
So what is it that makes for a good team? Does it take an Advanced Degree (TM) to figure this out?
Crucial elements:
You need someone (at least one, but not very many) who is the keeper of the vision. That person is often (around here) known as a "Principal Investigator", which is not necessarily the same as a System Engineer, although it could be the same person. The PI should do things like define the concept being attempted, create/locate/define/refine examples like "use cases", make presentations to existing/potential customers, and could offer implementation suggestions. I've never quite had exactly that kind of PI, yet.
You need a System Engineer, who can figure out exactly how to implement the vision. This has often been my role.
You need an implementation team. These folks are not keepers of the vision, and they are not decision makers about system block diagram kinds of things (although they might be); these folks are the ones who create what the SE decides should be created. I've been this person too, although most commonly I am a combination of SE and implementor.
You need a good Program Manager. This guy deals with the financial aspects, meetings with customers, marketing, personnel...all that mgmt jazz. The PM should not be the SE, probably should not be the PI (although that is common).
The last actual team I worked on (2004/5) had a decent PM, a not-so-great PI (only did about half the job), myself as SE, and one implementor guy (so of course I did a lot of implementation). That was actually going well until the PM found himself unable to continue in that role (he commuted in from a ways off, and then his wife got pregnant with triplets). The new PM was a jerk, really unsuited to the role, not interested in the project, obnoxious in meetings. I had tried to get someone else to take the role, but that person was not yet interested/ready to do that. My involvement faded out, and the project died within a year after I wasn't working it any more.
Mind you, that really cool health-care project got killed, too, although that was because too many managers wanted control of it, not because it wasn't going anywhere.
So I'm thinking next time I'm in at the beginning, I'm going to specify exactly who/what I get on my team, else I'm not getting on it myself.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The cutting edge is in my rear-view mirror (TM)
I needed a motto, and that one came to me 30 mins ago. I like to think of myself as doing programming few others are doing; examples available upon request.
a few months ago came this one: Cloud Computing: not as scary as you might think.
that one was intended as humor...
a few months ago came this one: Cloud Computing: not as scary as you might think.
that one was intended as humor...
Sunday, July 19, 2009
politics 2
so Sen (R) Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, doesn't like Sonya Sotomayor, a non-white, non-rich non-male as a Supreme Court candidate.
born in Selma, Alabama, according to his wikipedia page...you'd think he'd have a better appreciation...but...
is anyone surprised? The guy's an insensitive jerk. Why is he still in office? Why did he ever GET into office?
born in Selma, Alabama, according to his wikipedia page...you'd think he'd have a better appreciation...but...
is anyone surprised? The guy's an insensitive jerk. Why is he still in office? Why did he ever GET into office?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Star Trek movie 2009
OMG was this good. Better than I was expecting, really. I was afraid it was going to be "Star Trek kids".
They did of course have to show the one and only Starfleet Academy episode of Kirk's of any significance: Kobayashi Maru. Really, no way to do this timeframe in his life without it, that would have really been ripping off the audience. I did think he was a little smug about it, though, eating the apple...there should have been a point at which he say something more like "when faced with that kind of impossible situation, change the rules".
Only complaint: they missed a couple of opportunities for the various characters to say a phrase permanently associated with them: "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ___" -- Bones did *not* say a variation of that in the movie, and he should have...and Spock should have said "Fascinating" or "indeed" or "that would not be logical" at some point. Scottie did at least say "I'm givin her all she's got, captain"...[later: upon watching DVD, Bones *does* say it: "I'm a doctor, not a physicist"]
Otherwise, damn near perfect. Except for being a parallel-universe Starfleet...I mean, Spock's mom dead? Vulcan destroyed? How will there be the "Amok Time" episode now? I thought for sure the movie denouement was going to be the time-travel-to-set-things-back-on-track sort of thing...[apparently, from an interview, this change was deliberate, allowing a retread of some familiar things, with a different approach]
But nonetheless...this bodes well for a sequel working out well...and I cried at the end when Nimoy said the opening words: "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages..."
They did of course have to show the one and only Starfleet Academy episode of Kirk's of any significance: Kobayashi Maru. Really, no way to do this timeframe in his life without it, that would have really been ripping off the audience. I did think he was a little smug about it, though, eating the apple...there should have been a point at which he say something more like "when faced with that kind of impossible situation, change the rules".
Only complaint: they missed a couple of opportunities for the various characters to say a phrase permanently associated with them: "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ___" -- Bones did *not* say a variation of that in the movie, and he should have...and Spock should have said "Fascinating" or "indeed" or "that would not be logical" at some point. Scottie did at least say "I'm givin her all she's got, captain"...[later: upon watching DVD, Bones *does* say it: "I'm a doctor, not a physicist"]
Otherwise, damn near perfect. Except for being a parallel-universe Starfleet...I mean, Spock's mom dead? Vulcan destroyed? How will there be the "Amok Time" episode now? I thought for sure the movie denouement was going to be the time-travel-to-set-things-back-on-track sort of thing...[apparently, from an interview, this change was deliberate, allowing a retread of some familiar things, with a different approach]
But nonetheless...this bodes well for a sequel working out well...and I cried at the end when Nimoy said the opening words: "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages..."
Friday, July 17, 2009
Monty Python
a personal favorite for years...my son is properly fond of them as well...spouse too.
this is hilarious:
click here for MP game fun
this is a hilarious YouTube piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luVjkTEIoJc
and this is another one...it starts slow, but just you wait:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enlyHAJfwyI
this is hilarious:
click here for MP game fun
this is a hilarious YouTube piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luVjkTEIoJc
and this is another one...it starts slow, but just you wait:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enlyHAJfwyI
recent reading...
Julie Czerneda's "Stratification" trilogy 1-3, which are actually 1-3 of 9, where 4-6 were published some years ago...and she's working 7 now...kinda like Star Wars, eh?
These were pretty good...I don't remember 4-6, so I guess I'm going to have to go read those again...
These were pretty good...I don't remember 4-6, so I guess I'm going to have to go read those again...
Monday, July 13, 2009
computer games on Steam
Steam is of course the service from Valve (Half-life)...this seems to be working pretty well overall.
I snagged some of the game demos, which weren't too bad. I punted one or two right away for being too short, but others were ok.
There's this one series you can get all of for $15, and the demos are decent, called "Alien Shooter" in which have to eliminate aliens from an underground facility or two. Alien Shooter Revisited is the original with newer artwork, AS 2 has a bit more interesting "inventory" system, and Zombie Shooter is essentially the same game except with Zombies. How much better can a game get than whacking umpty-thousand zombies with nifty weapons?
however...Alien Shooter Revisited has flaws...one of which is disastrous...on level 5, near the end, there's this yellow forklift, and if you run to it, you can get math-locked onto it. No way off, which means there's a serious path-finding error combined with what is probably a 3D-model-positioning error, so that you go through a tiny little gap that the path-finding can't get out of. Has happened to me twice now, I've sent a msg to the devs, and I am done playing that one.
Had the same problem with AS 2, got math-trapped in an odd spot. I can't even allow a monster to kill me, their "AI" is too stupid to path-find closer to me.
Apparently AS 1 has a couple more expansion packs, and Zombie Shooter 2 is due out soon.
I snagged some of the game demos, which weren't too bad. I punted one or two right away for being too short, but others were ok.
There's this one series you can get all of for $15, and the demos are decent, called "Alien Shooter" in which have to eliminate aliens from an underground facility or two. Alien Shooter Revisited is the original with newer artwork, AS 2 has a bit more interesting "inventory" system, and Zombie Shooter is essentially the same game except with Zombies. How much better can a game get than whacking umpty-thousand zombies with nifty weapons?
however...Alien Shooter Revisited has flaws...one of which is disastrous...on level 5, near the end, there's this yellow forklift, and if you run to it, you can get math-locked onto it. No way off, which means there's a serious path-finding error combined with what is probably a 3D-model-positioning error, so that you go through a tiny little gap that the path-finding can't get out of. Has happened to me twice now, I've sent a msg to the devs, and I am done playing that one.
Had the same problem with AS 2, got math-trapped in an odd spot. I can't even allow a monster to kill me, their "AI" is too stupid to path-find closer to me.
Apparently AS 1 has a couple more expansion packs, and Zombie Shooter 2 is due out soon.
Jason Bourne...
Robert Ludlum is one of my all-time favorite writers...he was a master of the conspiracy story...
The Bourne Identity was perhaps the most intense story I've ever read...
So I was excited when my wife came home with the "new" Jason Bourne story, "The Bourne Legacy", by Eric van Lustbader. Pretty sure I've read some of EVL's scifi/fantasy stuff at some point, but I don't own any...suggesting it was short stuff, or uninteresting.
Well, this book stars Bourne...but it's not Ludlum, it's not a Ludlum-style conspiracy...it's really more like a recent James Bond (hm...note the initials on both of them) film. Other than the lack of explosions at the end of the book, it really felt like Bond movie with fewer overall scene locations.
I thought Bourne got into too many fights where he got hurt a bit more than I thought appropriate. He seemed more fight-savvy in the Ludlum books.
It is based on the very early Bourne history, as David Webb, prior to his training that turned him into Bourne. Some of that didn't hang toegether as well as it needed to...
Apparently EVL has written several more Bourne books since this one...well, this story was ok, just not RL. Maybe I'll read the next one, but only as a used pb, not a new one. And maybe not any time soon, I have A LOT of other stuff to read already on a shelf here.
The Bourne Identity was perhaps the most intense story I've ever read...
So I was excited when my wife came home with the "new" Jason Bourne story, "The Bourne Legacy", by Eric van Lustbader. Pretty sure I've read some of EVL's scifi/fantasy stuff at some point, but I don't own any...suggesting it was short stuff, or uninteresting.
Well, this book stars Bourne...but it's not Ludlum, it's not a Ludlum-style conspiracy...it's really more like a recent James Bond (hm...note the initials on both of them) film. Other than the lack of explosions at the end of the book, it really felt like Bond movie with fewer overall scene locations.
I thought Bourne got into too many fights where he got hurt a bit more than I thought appropriate. He seemed more fight-savvy in the Ludlum books.
It is based on the very early Bourne history, as David Webb, prior to his training that turned him into Bourne. Some of that didn't hang toegether as well as it needed to...
Apparently EVL has written several more Bourne books since this one...well, this story was ok, just not RL. Maybe I'll read the next one, but only as a used pb, not a new one. And maybe not any time soon, I have A LOT of other stuff to read already on a shelf here.
Stephanie Plum...pt 2
Plum book #15 was just published last month...got it and read it last week.
Classic goodness, and this time Stephanie's car blows up again. Twice...well, actually it's Ranger's car each time, but still...that was a signature event in the first 10 books, and then it stopped for a while...I emailed and got a rather stupid reply from some worker-bee who wasn't the author. But it's back.
I definitely recommend this, although if you haven't read the others, don't start with this one, you need the character background, and don't worry, the used bookstore has plenty of copies.
Classic goodness, and this time Stephanie's car blows up again. Twice...well, actually it's Ranger's car each time, but still...that was a signature event in the first 10 books, and then it stopped for a while...I emailed and got a rather stupid reply from some worker-bee who wasn't the author. But it's back.
I definitely recommend this, although if you haven't read the others, don't start with this one, you need the character background, and don't worry, the used bookstore has plenty of copies.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Oh frabjous day! Calloo callay!
(look that up if you don't know it)
So this year I paid more attention to the April calendar and certain "events".
Why?
Well, I think I wrote about this before...apparently in this area (I don't know about elsewhere), beginning about 2 weeks before Passover, and probably for a week or so after, you can actually get what is colloquially (and probably somewhat pejoratively) known as "jewish coke"...
Which is to say, Coke made with sugar.
OMG is that good. I went home and promptly over-caffeinated myself and was awake most of the night (apparently caffeine doesn't pass through me quite so well as it did when I was a lot younger :)
I bought about 45 bottles (it's only available in the 2-liter). Same price. Why can't Coke just go back to that? I called on the phone several years ago to ask about this, but whoever I talked to didn't know anything about the annual recipe change, and I hadn't heard of it yet.
NOT telling you where I got it, I don't need competition next year.
So this year I paid more attention to the April calendar and certain "events".
Why?
Well, I think I wrote about this before...apparently in this area (I don't know about elsewhere), beginning about 2 weeks before Passover, and probably for a week or so after, you can actually get what is colloquially (and probably somewhat pejoratively) known as "jewish coke"...
Which is to say, Coke made with sugar.
OMG is that good. I went home and promptly over-caffeinated myself and was awake most of the night (apparently caffeine doesn't pass through me quite so well as it did when I was a lot younger :)
I bought about 45 bottles (it's only available in the 2-liter). Same price. Why can't Coke just go back to that? I called on the phone several years ago to ask about this, but whoever I talked to didn't know anything about the annual recipe change, and I hadn't heard of it yet.
NOT telling you where I got it, I don't need competition next year.
Presidential dining
Apparently when Obama went to Ray's Hell Burger there last week he wanted some Dijon mustard on his burger. Probably been even worse if he'd wanted the foie gras on it. (I happen to like some funky mustards, and have been known to put dijon on one)
And has since caught A LOT of flack about that, at least from the standard bunch of tired old conservative/republican talking heads. You can tell that their lives are pretty feeble if this is what they need to complain about.
Of course, you can tell this is all out-of-town chatter, because whoever wrote about it couldn't manage to get the restaurant name correct. This is probably the same bunch that thought "Freedom Fries" was a good idea.
---
I haven't been to Ray's HB, which is because I'm not much at my company office the past 3 years...Ray's HB is just up the road a tiny bit. Ray's The Steaks is even closer, and I have been to that, shortly after it opened; it's probably better now, I thought it a shade high-priced and under-good right at the beginning. [later: it IS better now]
And has since caught A LOT of flack about that, at least from the standard bunch of tired old conservative/republican talking heads. You can tell that their lives are pretty feeble if this is what they need to complain about.
Of course, you can tell this is all out-of-town chatter, because whoever wrote about it couldn't manage to get the restaurant name correct. This is probably the same bunch that thought "Freedom Fries" was a good idea.
---
I haven't been to Ray's HB, which is because I'm not much at my company office the past 3 years...Ray's HB is just up the road a tiny bit. Ray's The Steaks is even closer, and I have been to that, shortly after it opened; it's probably better now, I thought it a shade high-priced and under-good right at the beginning. [later: it IS better now]
Gimme that old-time religion
Oh, the irony.
Can you believe this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8041421.stm
Well, the Catholic Church is certainly an expert at mixing religion and politics--been at it longer than any other organization you can name.
Can you believe this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8041421.stm
Well, the Catholic Church is certainly an expert at mixing religion and politics--been at it longer than any other organization you can name.
Fallout 3 followup
Have played a decent ways into this...
recall the earlier I wrote that it seemed jerky at times...turns out that my machine has other stuff going on that causes it...not sure what, but as an example, if I let NAV run (which it generally does, overnight), that just about kills F3...even if nothing else is running.
F3 runs ok after a fresh reboot, but of course that's only good for a few hours before it's bedtime and NAV runs. Gad.
And as noted the terrain is kinda boring. There are two flavors: southwest US badlands-looking desert-with-rocks, and bombed-out buildings.
The other thing that is really bothering me right now is that a number of areas are only reachable by going through the subway tunnels...because they are actually separate maps that get loaded. You cannot just walk everywhere, from anyplace to any other place, as you could in Oblivion. This means that if the map marker you have to travel to is on one of those other map areas, you are going to have to figure out what combination of underground travel is going to get you to the right place (GNR is the first one where this is a hassle).
And you can't "noclip" to just fly over the buildings, that doesn't work. Bummer. I'm losing interest...I can't be more than halfway through the main quest, and that's after accidentally short-circuiting some of the early stages.
I wish Starcraft 2 was coming out sooner.
recall the earlier I wrote that it seemed jerky at times...turns out that my machine has other stuff going on that causes it...not sure what, but as an example, if I let NAV run (which it generally does, overnight), that just about kills F3...even if nothing else is running.
F3 runs ok after a fresh reboot, but of course that's only good for a few hours before it's bedtime and NAV runs. Gad.
And as noted the terrain is kinda boring. There are two flavors: southwest US badlands-looking desert-with-rocks, and bombed-out buildings.
The other thing that is really bothering me right now is that a number of areas are only reachable by going through the subway tunnels...because they are actually separate maps that get loaded. You cannot just walk everywhere, from anyplace to any other place, as you could in Oblivion. This means that if the map marker you have to travel to is on one of those other map areas, you are going to have to figure out what combination of underground travel is going to get you to the right place (GNR is the first one where this is a hassle).
And you can't "noclip" to just fly over the buildings, that doesn't work. Bummer. I'm losing interest...I can't be more than halfway through the main quest, and that's after accidentally short-circuiting some of the early stages.
I wish Starcraft 2 was coming out sooner.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
playing Fallout 3
I think I reported earlier how Fallout 3 installs ok, starts up ok, and plays ok *until* you get to this point early where your gf has just told you the cops are coming to arrest you. As soon as you exit your room, some script is triggered and the game crashes to the desktop for me.
So I let my son run it a bit on his computer (32-bit) and do some saves, so I could try to run from one of his early saves...which worked just fine.
In one sense, F3 is "Oblivion with guns". Except that I don't think it's as interesting...and my son has already finished the game, in just a few days...apparently when you complete the central quest sequence, the game terminates. Not interesting.
Have had some trouble with it, in terms of mouse-responsiveness, etc. It feels a little jerky in comparison with Big O.
I don't really/yet like the skill-leveling approach. Big O did this well...I.e., if you spend time sneaking, your sneak skill goes up. In F3, you have to get XP in order to level up, and then have skill points to spend to level-up individual skills. So there's little value to sneaking very much.
Son says you can read multiple copies of a skill-book and increase that skill multiple times.
I haven't gone very far yet, but it's not as interesting as Oblivion. It does have a lot of similarities, but the terrain isn't as interesting or variable (at least as far as I've gone). Looks like burned-out wasteland. Which of course it should, but that's all there is. I'd have definitely gone for more of the Wash DC buildings. It's not like that would be hard to do, since you could go photograph the outsides, and paint those results onto the models as wall textures...and a work acquaintance is telling me he knows how to extract a 3D point cloud from an image sequence taken as you drive past a bldg...instant-3D model!
So I let my son run it a bit on his computer (32-bit) and do some saves, so I could try to run from one of his early saves...which worked just fine.
In one sense, F3 is "Oblivion with guns". Except that I don't think it's as interesting...and my son has already finished the game, in just a few days...apparently when you complete the central quest sequence, the game terminates. Not interesting.
Have had some trouble with it, in terms of mouse-responsiveness, etc. It feels a little jerky in comparison with Big O.
I don't really/yet like the skill-leveling approach. Big O did this well...I.e., if you spend time sneaking, your sneak skill goes up. In F3, you have to get XP in order to level up, and then have skill points to spend to level-up individual skills. So there's little value to sneaking very much.
Son says you can read multiple copies of a skill-book and increase that skill multiple times.
I haven't gone very far yet, but it's not as interesting as Oblivion. It does have a lot of similarities, but the terrain isn't as interesting or variable (at least as far as I've gone). Looks like burned-out wasteland. Which of course it should, but that's all there is. I'd have definitely gone for more of the Wash DC buildings. It's not like that would be hard to do, since you could go photograph the outsides, and paint those results onto the models as wall textures...and a work acquaintance is telling me he knows how to extract a 3D point cloud from an image sequence taken as you drive past a bldg...instant-3D model!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Idiocy in Pakistan
Today is April 28, 2009. For reference.
What do you think the likelihood is of the Taliban taking over Pakistan this year? How about next year?
Personally, I won't be surprised if it happens this summer.
It *IS* going to happen. Soon. Not enough people there with a clue how bad that is going to be. Or how undifficult to solve. Hard to feel sorry for them...the only really bad part about this is that they'll probably have something in the way of a nuclear device.
Maybe I need to start a pool at work. That'd be interesting.
What do you think the likelihood is of the Taliban taking over Pakistan this year? How about next year?
Personally, I won't be surprised if it happens this summer.
It *IS* going to happen. Soon. Not enough people there with a clue how bad that is going to be. Or how undifficult to solve. Hard to feel sorry for them...the only really bad part about this is that they'll probably have something in the way of a nuclear device.
Maybe I need to start a pool at work. That'd be interesting.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
conservative writers
I do find it amusing reading the editorials in the Wash Post. Not sure if I've ever really changed my mind about anything based on them...Some are better than others.
in the Post, there are several conservative writers who appear regularly. Krauthammer and George Will are the most "prominent".
George Will wants to be William F Buckley the 2nd. You can tell this because he uses a lot of "buckley words" -- you know, the ones that cost $20. Buckley loved them. George does too.
So much so that you can measure the pomposity of Will's columns in "buckleys" -- i.e., how many buckley words he uses.
George Will is at his best when he writes about either baseball or First Amendment issues. The rest of the time, he's just a pompous, unhappy conservative.
But occasionally he's unintentionally funny, like a couple of days ago...when he wrote a column in effect showing what a geezer he has become, because he doesn't like the fact that so many people don't dress the way he wants them to, i.e., too many folks wear denim too often. And then he complains that too many people over 18 play computer/video games (probably would prefer that they listen to him pontificate [ooohhh, I used a buckley word]).
This reminds me SO much of the classic quote attributed to Socrates (approx 400 BC) about how the young people of "today" don't respect their elders and behave like their elders wish them to:
(the full quote is better, but seems hard to find online?!)
Socrates was pompous, too.
in the Post, there are several conservative writers who appear regularly. Krauthammer and George Will are the most "prominent".
George Will wants to be William F Buckley the 2nd. You can tell this because he uses a lot of "buckley words" -- you know, the ones that cost $20. Buckley loved them. George does too.
So much so that you can measure the pomposity of Will's columns in "buckleys" -- i.e., how many buckley words he uses.
George Will is at his best when he writes about either baseball or First Amendment issues. The rest of the time, he's just a pompous, unhappy conservative.
But occasionally he's unintentionally funny, like a couple of days ago...when he wrote a column in effect showing what a geezer he has become, because he doesn't like the fact that so many people don't dress the way he wants them to, i.e., too many folks wear denim too often. And then he complains that too many people over 18 play computer/video games (probably would prefer that they listen to him pontificate [ooohhh, I used a buckley word]).
This reminds me SO much of the classic quote attributed to Socrates (approx 400 BC) about how the young people of "today" don't respect their elders and behave like their elders wish them to:
Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
(the full quote is better, but seems hard to find online?!)
Socrates was pompous, too.
Old people
What is it with old people and sticker bushes?
You know what I'm talking about. If you are older, let's say past 50-something, live in a single-family detached house, eventually you are doing gardening in your yard. At some point you decide that what would look good is a sticker-bush, so you plant one. Or two. Or more...
This has a pleasant side-effect: kids will now avoid your yard, so you don't have to go out and yell "get out of my yard!" at them.
But still...I hate sticker bushes. Partly because I remember being a kid having to go through yards where there were sticker bushes...
So a few years ago my mom decided she had to have a couple of sticker bushes. Guess who had to trim them when they got too big? They're gone now, thank you.
But still...am *I* going to want a sticker bush in my yard in 10 years? Kill me now.
You know what I'm talking about. If you are older, let's say past 50-something, live in a single-family detached house, eventually you are doing gardening in your yard. At some point you decide that what would look good is a sticker-bush, so you plant one. Or two. Or more...
This has a pleasant side-effect: kids will now avoid your yard, so you don't have to go out and yell "get out of my yard!" at them.
But still...I hate sticker bushes. Partly because I remember being a kid having to go through yards where there were sticker bushes...
So a few years ago my mom decided she had to have a couple of sticker bushes. Guess who had to trim them when they got too big? They're gone now, thank you.
But still...am *I* going to want a sticker bush in my yard in 10 years? Kill me now.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
another brilliant statement in the Wash Post
"Team cohesion and concentration on missions would suffer if our troops had to live in close quarters with others who could be sexually attracted to them."
The authors on this are a former SOCOM cmdr, former CNO, former SAC cmdr, former assistant USMC cmdr.
Who is being referred to here? Care to guess? When was this written?
----
Can't have women in the military, can we? Troops might get distracted.
But this one is about gays in the military. Any real difference between the two groups in this case?
The authors on this are a former SOCOM cmdr, former CNO, former SAC cmdr, former assistant USMC cmdr.
Who is being referred to here? Care to guess? When was this written?
----
Can't have women in the military, can we? Troops might get distracted.
But this one is about gays in the military. Any real difference between the two groups in this case?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)