How to Rebuild All of Computer Science Using a Blank Computer and a Floppy Disk

I found this post on Reddit and wanted to save it for posterity.  It reminds me of the old days in both good and bad ways ...

Planetside 2

Once again, I am reminded why I do not play Sony games.  Planetside 2 is full of bugs.  How do I loath thee?  Let me count the ways ...

• I use a Dvorak keyboard layout.  This makes keyboard remapping a complete necessity.  Which they do offer.  But I have to remap even the most basic movement keys for being on foot, in a land vehicle and in an air vehicle.  How about we just make movement a global setting?
• Constant crashes.  I only play for about half an hour before the client locks up.
• There are many cases where Vanu Sovereignty purple and New Conglomerate blue are pretty much indistinguishable ... cases in combat where milliseconds count.  And I'm not even color blind!  My best friend, Punish, he's color blind in such a way that makes it hard to see the red in colors ... like distinguishing purple from blue.
• Graphics glitches.  I had to experiment with the graphics settings for about half an hour before I could get some settings that actually worked.  It turned out that I needed to set the basic "Graphics Quality" setting (that has no description tooltip) to Low.  Everything else I can set as high as I like.  From what I can tell, this forces the client to use the low-quality models.  If I set the graphics quality setting to anything else, even Medium, I get strange artifacts where polygons aren't erased and everyone has crazy-ass googly eyes ... (it appears the eyeballs are drawn on the outside of the head).

I am soooooo glad I didn't pay for this piece of crap.  Oh, and the most hilarious part ... in one of those frequent crashes I noticed something.  When I went to Task Manager to kill the locked up client ... it had the version number in the description: v0.470xxx.  It's not even version 1!  They knew they were shipping crap.

Tribes Revisited

While I was trying to find the time to coalesce the thoughts and feelings I had around Tribes: Ascend, Tycho over at Penny Arcade went ahead and did it for me.

Another Potential Boon to Wargaming - Kickstarter

If you haven't heard about Kickstarter yet, you should take the time to check it out soon.  Kickstarter is a crowd-sourced angel investorish system that anyone can get in on.  The idea is that if you have a project or product or something that you want to launch but don't have the money for, you post the idea on Kickstarter and ask if people want to invest in your idea.  You give a goal of a certain amount of money by a certain date and if enough people invest in your idea to where you reach the goal in the time allotted, your project gets funded.  It's a great system that has funded a lot of cool new businesses.

The reason why I think it could be a boon to wargaming is that a little company calling itself Tectonic Craft Studios has already used Kickstarter to fund its idea of making a new line of wargaming terrain.  All they asked for was eight thousand US dollars, but the Kickstarter community put together over $40,000 for them!  I hope that they are able to take this start and make a great business out of it.

What other ideas are out there in the wargaming community where the creativity and the initiative has always been there ... but the money to get started has never materialized?

Tribes: Ascend

A new entry in the Tribes saga came out yesterday, Tribes: Ascend ...



What you may not know about me is that I was a big Tribes 2 fan back in the day.  It is the one first-person shooter (FPS) game that held my interest for any length of time and the only one where I actually enjoyed playing against other human players.  I was even a member of a ranked team on the Tribes 2 ladder at the time.  What made Tribes different from all the other FPS games out there?  I'm glad you asked ...

Strategy

The vast majority of FPS games, then and now, have no strategy to them.  Each person playing the game is just an interchangeable and disposable cog with nothing to differentiate them, nothing to encourage or support alternate play styles other than "run up to the other guy and shoot them in the face until they fall down".  It's kind of like the philosophy of sword fighting explained in The Mask of Zorro: "The pointy end goes into the other man."

On the other hand, Tribes 2 (and noted exception to the above Team Fortress) highlighted only one game mode, Capture the Flag.  There were others, but the real way to play Tribes 2 was to play Capture the Flag.  This introduced some strategy, yes ... but where it really shined was the fact that the maps you played on featured bases with defenses, sensors and generators to power it all.  So you could actually build up your base's defenses to make it harder for the other team to get to your flag.  Or they could sneak in and take out your generator to make all your automated defenses come down.  So you had players that became good at different roles, like generator defense, defense setup and maintenance, flag defense, flag capture or flag runner.  (Yes, capturing and running were generally two different roles, at least in my clan.)  I actually was very good at defense setup and generator defense.  I studied the maps for the best places to plant my turrets, my mines and then stand in heavy armor to wait for the inevitable sneaker to try to get through.

All Tribes did was give the player some choices and a game with a captivating amount of depth was created.  One could play offense, defense or "transportation" (some of the maps in Tribes 2 were so huge that you needed vehicles to cross them with anything that would be described as rapidity).  One could wear light but fast armor, heavy but slow armor or split the difference with the medium armor.  One never even needed to take a shot at another player, going only for the support route by running around the base and repairing things that the other team broke.  (I particularly liked this role ... it was my own, personal type of griefing.)

I haven't gotten deep enough into Tribes: Ascend in order to determine if it will hold up to my memories of Tribes gone by ... but I'll be posting my thoughts here!

das Keyboard for Mac

I've been touch-typing for a long, long time.  I originally taught myself to touch-type on my dad's old manual typewriter from college.  I remember a time when pretty much all keyboards were metal and seemingly constructed to withstand a nuclear blast.  I've always been pretty picky about the keyboards that I use, even going to the extent of learning the Dvorak keyboard layout.  But it wasn't until recently that I really started pining for the old mechanical-switch-style keyboards that have come into vogue.  I like the clicky-clack of the old keyboards ... and it wasn't until people started pointing out that old keyboards truly were different that I took a look around and decided to do something about it.

I eventually settled on the das Keyboard.  Partially it was because of the attention to detail.  Originally they touted that the various keys were loaded with different resistances depending on how strong the finger was that was intended to operate it.  Partially it is because I could get the same keyboard in loud or quiet form.  But eventually, it was because it was one of the few mechanical keyboards that offered a Mac model that said it would work with the various Mac function keys like volume and brightness control, etc.  Also, they offered a key puller to let you rearrange the keys so that those of us who use a Dvorak layout could actually have the keycaps displaying it.

I got my new das Keyboard for Mac yesterday and have been playing around with it for a bit.  I immediately pulled all the keycaps off and reorganized them.  Despite seemingly encouraging exactly this practice, it seems the keyboard isn't designed to pull the caps off and rearrange them, just clean under them.

It's fairly easy to see that the "?" key and the "-" key are a little out of plumb.  What's less obvious is that the bracket keys are a little shorter than their horizontal neighbors.  None of this has affected my typing so far or irritated me, but it was one use case that I thought I would have and don't seem to.  Had I known, I'd have thought more about getting the blank keycap version.

On the positive side, the keyboard is solid.  It is heavy and feels like it could withstand a nuclear blast ... except all the plastic keycaps would melt.  But it feels like the innards would be fine.  And it feels like it will last a long, long time.  We'll have to wait and see on that count.

Despite being heavy and solid, it is not bulky.  The desktop footprint is only a little larger than the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad that I had been using previously.  It also has two USB ports in it, like the Apple keyboard.  Unlike the Apple keyboard, they are full power so they can charge an iPhone.  The das Keyboard manages this by having one USB cable with two plugs.  One for the keyboard and one for power for the hub.  If you don't need to charge things with the USB ports on the keyboard, then you only have to plug in one of the connectors.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the new keyboard and its ultra-clicky sound ... just like I remember it.  We'll just have to wait and see if it stands the test of time.

Personalized Search

I have a great idea for a search engine to implement.  I have multiple tools at my disposal for trying to remember stuff that is on the Internet.  I can make a bookmark in my web browser.  I can use a tool like Instapaper.  For programming, I can make a question and answer on Stack Overflow.  But these are all a bunch of data silos.  I can't readily search across all of them.  And if I forget where I read that one article ... did I archive it on Instapaper?  Did I drop it into Evernote?  I have a solution ...

I want the search engines to provide a way for me to mark something as of "personal interest" to me.  Then when I search for something, it will rank my personal interest items alongside everything else, but give my personal interest items a boost in the rankings.  Or maybe just list them off to the side in a kind of, "Hey, I noticed you're searching for information on Git, it looks like you have a guide to Git bookmarked and it looks like it has the information you're looking for."

I would have to sign up for an account with the search engine of my choice for this to work, because I would want my "personal interest" items available no matter which machine I was logged into.  But, for this feature, I would gladly do so.  I would also like this to be an API that any service across the Internet could use.  So Evernote could submit my notes to the API.  Instapaper could submit my articles to the API.  Perhaps it could even boost the accuracy of the ranking systems the algorithmic search engines use because it would be another source of data separate from links between web pages.

Anyway ... Google?  Bing?  Either of you listening?  Whichever one implements this to my satisfaction first wins my business.  

Greedy Fat Cats

I've been a long-time reader of Penny Arcade and even been an Enforcer at PAX for the first six years of its existence.  I have a ton of respect for the folks behind Penny Arcade including Mike Krahulik, Jerry Holkins and Robert Khoo among others.  Today, Mike tweeted, "... Gamestop is a greedy fat cat that didn't do shit."  I have very specifically taken this quote out of context because I find the comment itself interesting as an indication just how much the Internet has changed things in our world.

When I was younger, the supply chain behind bringing a good (as opposed to a service) to market was pretty much assumed to be: manufacturer, distributor/wholesaler, retailer and customer.  Each step in the chain provided some benefit to the customer.  The manufacturer created the good.  The distributor or wholesaler was good at getting a certain class of goods from various manufacturers to tons of locations around the country or the world.  The retailer provided a clean, stable, safe and (sometimes) knowledgeable environment from which you could inspect, sample and purchase the good.  I would not have known about a great many computer games in my youth had my local Egghead Software not stocked them.

The role of the retailer has certainly changed significantly in the last few decades.

3D Printing Potential Boon to Miniatures Wargaming

I've been following the 3D printing scene for a little while, thinking that I'd really like to get my hands on one of those and do something really cool with it.  3D printers like the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic have the potential to be the beginning of something really special, I believe.  It's one of those ideas that I can't yet conceive of how it will revolutionize things, but I believe it will.  Perhaps this is how my parents felt when my dad was working with computers in the 1970s and thought that we should have a computer at home because they knew that it was going to be the future.  But I digress ...

Anyway, I've been on a "reduce all the things" binge around the house because I'm at the point in my life where I want things simple.  The problem here is that I've been a good American consumer and bought a metric crapton of crap!  (I think I've found a new state of George Carlin's classic stuff/crap dichotomy: When you no longer want the stuff you have, it becomes crap.)  I want to organize my house and one of the easiest ways to organize things is to reduce the number of things that need organizing by getting rid of the things you don't really need but are afraid to throw away.  Getting a 3D printer (one more thing) that will allow me to make things on demand (probably a whole bunch of things) is ... shall we say ... somewhat counterproductive?

So I've been able to resist the temptation to purchase one of these wonderful contraptions, so far.  But that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about what I could do with one of them, if I were to purchase one.  And then I saw on Twitter that someone had made a 3D terrain map of the Hudson Valley using a MakerBot.  Then it hit me, what if game clubs or game stores purchased MakerBots and started printing their own miniatures, terrain and so forth?

Currently, there are a couple ways to obtain or create miniatures suitable for wargaming.  One can purchase off-the-rack mass-produced miniatures.  Or one can create one-off or even small run miniatures using a resin casting method.  Resin casting generally provides lower-quality miniatures than mass produced ones, but are generally cheaper than their mass produced counterparts.  I would expect 3D printed miniatures to be more expensive than resin cast and possibly mass produced miniatures, but to have quality rivaling or even exceeding in some cases the mass produced miniatures.  The exact differences in cost and quality would require more research.

But think of the convenience!  What if I were a sculptor with some talent for creating miniatures models?  Or a 3D artist?  Perhaps I could sell designs that people with 3D printers could use to create their miniatures with?  Perhaps deals could be struck between the artist and game stores where the artist gets a percentage of every miniature printed by the game store?  Perhaps new miniature wargaming companies could sell designs with their rule sets so people could print the miniatures at home or take them into the game store to be printed for a modest sum over cost of materials?  And just think, for the people for whom the painting of the army is ninety percent of the fun of having a huge miniature army ... an endless supply of things to paint!

The mind boggles!

Trials and Tribulations with My New iMac

I recently bought a new iMac, making my conversion to The Dark Side complete. I got it almost completely tricked out. I was especially glad to get the SSD/HD combination. It's a 240GB SSD for the system drive and then a 1TB HD for whatever. The problem is that the way the system comes configured from the factory you would end up just using the SSD for everything unless you do some wizardry first. So I had to go and teach myself the wizardry through a couple failed attempts before I landed on what I believe, now, to be the proper solution.

Form 1: Default Configuration
The default configuration from the factory makes the SSD the main drive where everything gets stored.  The system, all the applications, all the user folders, everything.  The problems with this configuration are that I have a 1TB drive that is now useless and the SSD is only 240GB.  This is big enough for a while and may even be big enough if I wanted to really watch my disk usage.  But the whole point is that I don't want to watch my disk usage!

Form 2: Move /Users to HD

This is more like it!  So now I have the operating system, applications and such on the super-fast (but small) SSD and all my big fat user files like pictures and music and videos on the HD.  This is how I did it:

1. Create a Users directory on the HD (named "Macintosh HD 2" by default).
2. Copy the contents of /Users to the new Users directory.
3. Open System Preferences.
4. Select Users & Groups.
5. In the lower-left corner, click the lock to unlock and make changes.  (Authenticating as an administrator also, if necessary.)
6. Right-click on a user and select "Advanced Options...".
7. Where it says "Home Directory" click the Choose button and select the new directory in the new Users folder.  (This would be /Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users/[username] if everything is still on its defaults.)
8. Click Ok and repeat for the other users.

The problem I ran into with this configuration is that some stuff I use at the command line chokes on a home directory path that has spaces in it.  This led me to ...

Form 3: Delete /Users and Create a Link

What the link does for you is that anything that looks for "/Users/Foo" gets sent to "/Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users/Foo" instead.  But it is all behind the scenes and isn't the wiser ... so it doesn't have a chance to choke on the spaces in the path.  This is how I did it:

1. Delete /Users.  (Not a big deal because everything was already pointing to the other drive.)
2. Open Terminal.
3. Type the command: sudo ln -s /Users /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ 2/Users

The nice thing about this is now /Users and /Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users were essentially indistinguishable.  But then I read this article from MacWorld and learned of a weakness in my plan ...

Form 4: Abandon the Link and Go Back to Form 2

The problem with this plan is exposed in the final paragraph of the article.  (Good thing I read the whole thing!)  What happens if at some point the HD dies?  The system could still boot because the SSD is working, but it can't because it doesn't have a way to log in as any valid user!  But how do I take the advice and still keep my command line stuff from choking on spaces?  Rename the drives!  I renamed "Macintosh HD" to "System" and "Macintosh HD 2" to "Data".  Then I had to delete the link and recreate the /Users directory.  Here's how I did that:

1. Open Terminal
2. Type the command: sudo rm /Users
3. Type the command: sudo mkdir /Users

Then I went in and created a new administrator user called "backupadmin" and left their home directory in the default /Users location.  Any other real users I create will have to be migrated to the HD by hand, but I think this will work best in the long run.