Programming, NaNoWriMo, Gaming and Social News, the Socialist Tide

[tcpip]

Not surprisingly both prior employers have contacted me asking for advice. One requested that I come back in the future saying "that your finger is really on the pulse" on what needs to be done. Er, thanks but no thanks. I still have one hefty web contract outstanding and as such I've spent quite a lot of time reviewing and rebuilding my Apache, PHP and MySQL knowledge along with installing OpenSuSE in preference to Ubuntu on my desktop - and just in time for major changes between Novell and Microsoft. Further, because it rocks, I've started programming in Free Pascal, something I haven't done for a good fifteen years.

Also simpy because I can I've joined NaNoWriMo yesterday. My novel is entitled "The Outcast Girl" and is loosely based on the Ten Thousand Islands PBeM roleplaying game I ran many months ago. In a nutshell, it's a historical and anthropological study of Malay society in the early sixteenth century, with a monomythic narrative. Two thousand words done, fourty-eight thousand to go!

Gaming this week consisted of further development in our DragonQuest world (I'm really enjoying the additional grounding in the earth sciences this is giving me), a new initiative system for AD&D that actually makes sense, Urban Arcana last Sunday where the noble PCs saved St Kilda's prostitutes from a "Jack The Ripper" demon, and Diplomacy and Carcassonne (courtesy of anthanum on Tuesday. Came second in Diplomacy, but was thoroughly thrashed in Carcassonne, which I played for the first time. The latter is really quite a brilliant production. The rules are very simple but the strategic depth is excellent. Social life included a wonderful fourtieth birthday party for splodgenoodles with culinary delights provided by tenbears and halloween drinks and zombie movies with severina_242 and _zombiemonkey

In world politics over recent months I've noticed a run of victories for various left-wing and socialist parties, including the re-election of Lula in Brazil, the re-election of the socialist president in Bulgaria, a surprise win by the Social Democrats in Austria, and even little Montenegro. The only exception is Congo where the politics are personality-based rather than ideological. Alongside all of this, the world's biggest union has just been formed. Is the world going a slight shade of red without the mass media noticing? And what will this mean for that Stern Report? It takes New Zealand newspaper to accurately display Australia's view.

Comments

[curufea.livejournal.com]

Designing new rules variations for D&D is pretty much rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic :)

Anyhow - I haven't touched Pascal in years, but it's the language I grew up on in school. Although we used Turbo Pascal. Strangely enough, when my IT section at work failed to produce any meaningful software, workaround, or response for a request we made for a label printing program when I first started working at the National Library - I wrote one in Turbo Pascal. That was over 10 years ago.

It is still being used today.

Scarey, huh?

They use a dot matrix printer with it and a dos window.

[goatunit.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I didn't know you were a Role Player. That's awesome.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh, only for about twenty five years or so. Even did some writing for ICE once upon a time.

My collection, others will attest, is indeed mighty.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Designing new rules variations for D&D is pretty much rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic :)

Not at all. The system in question is quite adaptable.

Scarey, huh?

It shows the resilience of the program. TP is very fast, the code is clean to read and easy to write and from what I've been told, Lazarus (the Delphi-like RAD) is damn good as well.

[curufea.livejournal.com]

Not at all. The system in question is quite adaptable.

Pshaw.

(that's a verbal noise of disgust and dismissal indicating my wish to not get involved in a lengthy discussion especially as I'm using Hero)

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

Classic cartoon... There's a guy here at work, very friendly, but unfortunately brought up in a conservative christian household so he's fucked for life really...

I find it strange that these people with no scientific background and no real interest in science, will still call upon websites with supposedly scientific data in order to disprove global warming. Why do people polarise themselves along these invisible lines? These people don't think for themselves, they blindly follow a vague arbitrary party line.

The funny thing was that the website he used as a reference, www.friendsofscience.org , has been debunked as a front group for oil companies. What a world!

[anthanum.livejournal.com]

truly it is :)

[curufea.livejournal.com]

You mean - there are IT folk out there that DON'T roleplay?
;-p

[taavi.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to the 10,000 islands novel!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I should mention I picked up 54 Dragon magazines yesterday as well. There's quite a lot of reading there; I've already picked up two useful articles for my Sunday AD&D game...

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Not a Pascal fan myself, though Modula 2 had its moments, but kudos to you for getting back into programming. Language choice depends on experience and goals, of course. At the moment I wish I had more time to work on getting good at Python.

Looking forward to the Ten Thousand Islands novel! I enjoyed the game a lot, and think it got a lot more subtle in its attention to detail and theme than most. I'm thinking of starting an Ars Magica game in a similar PBEM format (though with more use of web resources, and more rules transparency) myself soon.

AD&D? As in, super retro? D20/3E really is a much superiour game, and captures the retro elements quite adequately I feel (I enjoy the retro OTT violence, garish bizarre monsters, and utterly mad completely adventure aligned gameworlds, but I don't miss the bizarre rules inconsistencys and schizophrenic proclamations of the one true path to role playing).

Carcassone is indeed a fine game. The whole german-style board game renaissance is a very good thing.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

There is a good argument against the "I found it on the Internet" point of view. A "friendsofscience" site has as much legitimacy as an "aliens stole my baby".

Only scientific journals and actual scientific websites (like those with a .edu on the end of them - and not some student's homepage) begin to smell of legitimate research.

I always like to start at Wikipedia. It's not quite as good as (say) Brittanica, but it's going well.

Refer your friend to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

The name "Friends of Science", smacks of pseudo-science or complete bullshit. Science doesn't need friends. It's science, bitch. I went to google and typed ' "friends of science" front ' and the first link to come up told me the apparent truth.

I will send him there, though I'm sure it'll start an argument. He's one of these guys that, when presented with a large body of evidence and conclusions drawn from same, will fall back on "Yeah but that's just opinion". He seems unable to comprehend the idea of a consensus 'truth', or the fact that opinions (such as his on global warming) can be WRONG.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

No really, Hero System initiative, all based on SPD, right? Nothing to do with weapon length or weapon speed? No fending? Or retreat/press?

A SPD 3 character with a dagger still gets to attack more times than a SPD 2 character with a halberd?

[curufea.livejournal.com]

Except for the reach giving a hit first, and the lighter weapons meaning no encumberance penalties to your DCV. Although that's all based on characters in a fantasy setting holding their actions. But then - in the fantasy genre for Hero that is what you do.

I don't know if weapon speed is really a good attribute name - weight would be better.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

"Yeah but that's just opinion".

Peer review in science is anything that "just opinion". The process of hypothesis making and hypothesis breaking is utterly savage in its rigour. When it comes to these field of inquiry, scientists are not nice people, and nor should they be. They are utterly amoral in the pursuit of truth.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

But that's just your opinion man ;)

It's a fairly effective argument - if you wish to remain an ignorant fool your whole life.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

WRT programming Pascal is the language I have the most (ancient) experience in. I have fond memories of it. Like yourself I have looked at Python with some interest.

As for 10K Islands, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was attentive to detail and theme, although I feel I failed in sufficiently generating a storyline. I'm hoping I can do that with the novel.

The other thing about 10K Islands is that you (successfully) hammered into my head what narrativism really is. I have you to thank for that.

Send me an email WRT to Ars Magica. I reckon I could be very interested in that.

AD&D as in superretro (indeed the mailing list is entitled "RetroADnD). I know that 3ed is much better, but it's just what we've been playing. After all, we've been using superretro modules too (U, A, G, D, Q).

Glad to see that you approve of Carcssonne. I was a little worried when the rules were listed as "age 8 and up". But that's more an indication of how clever and subtle the rules are...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I must say I'm having a lot of fun writing it as well.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I've met a couple in my time... But only a couple. And they should.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

But that's just your opinion man ;)

Hmmm.. Maybe they need to actually spend some months doing research science.

[lokicarbis.livejournal.com]

What's your username on NaNo?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Except for the reach giving a hit first

That's in 5th edition? Because I sure can't find it in 4th or ... ahh, I stand corrected. Optional rules for Fantasy Hero, p84. They're not too bad either.

I don't know if weapon speed is really a good attribute name - weight would be better.

A sword will always be faster than a morningstar of equivalent weight due to balance.

[severina-242.livejournal.com]

Oh my GOD! You're writing *fiction*!!! (Drops dead from surprise)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Historical fiction. Indeed, historical fantasy at that.