Vista Nonsense

I haven't posted in awhile, and now I'm only posting on the off-chance that someone still looks at this blog from time to time.

My copy of Windows keeps pestering me to install Windows Vista. I'm assuming that I have some kind of evaluation copy, but it doesn't say that anywhere. I put in a legitimate key and it says it has been activated successfully but then it just displays the old key and pesters me. I have an installation disc for Home Premium, but the only option it gives me is to erase everything and do a fresh install. Fuck you, if I wanted to do that I would have done it long ago.

I'm sure that's what I'll end up doing anyway. Trying vainly to back up everything knowing that I'm going to lose a ton of data that I don't even really think about anymore. Preferences, website history, saved passwords, the works. And of course I have no idea if the version I end up installing will actually work or if it will just continue to pester me with bullshit about upgrading. Windows help does nothing and best of all they want you to pay them for even basic support.

At this point I'm almost completely done with Windows. I may just put it on there for the most minimum game support, then use some flavor of Linux for everything else. The fact that they even have some weird kind of time-limited license is bad enough, but the fact that there is no really good explanation for how to upgrade is inexcusable. I should be able to put in my legitimate key, it downloads some updates and I'm done, but instead it wants me to start from scratch.

Total horseshit.

Addendum to Up a Level

I think I'm going to start a series of programming books called "What the fuck does this mean?"

I will be a co-author.

I will sit in a room with an expert programmer. I will hand them a basic tutorial question and they will write out a small response. Then they will hand it back to me.

Then I will scream "What the fuck does this mean?" And I'll hand it back to them.

They will re-write it. And hand it back to me. And I'll scream again. This will continue until I'm satisfied that what they have handed me is a coherent sentence and not some recursive brain-melting word problem.

The whole book will be written in this manner.

I may have to escalate to electric shocks during the process.

Up a Level

I think I've figured out that my difficulty with programming isn't the programming language itself, it's the specific syntax used to describe the language.

Every language builds up its own specialized syntax. Even when there are common terms the implementation of those terms can vary wildly.

I'm looking at Python again. Figured I'd give it another go. Fine.

This, for example, is mostly gibberish to me:

"The actual parameters (arguments) to a function call are introduced in the local symbol table of the called function when it is called; thus, arguments are passed using call by value (where the value is always an object reference, not the value of the object).

When a function calls another function, a new local symbol table is created for that call. A function definition introduces the function name in the current symbol table. The value of the function name has a type that is recognized by the interpreter as a user-defined function. This value can be assigned to another name which can then also be used as a function. This serves as a general renaming mechanism."

The tutorial hasn't mentioned local symbol tables. Call by value hardly makes sense since they haven't explained anything about an object reference. It's useless to me.

And this kind of shit is everywhere in "basic" tutorials. None of this syntax is the same in any programming reference I've ever seen. It even changes when you start talking about language variants or special extensions or "wrappers," whatever the fuck those are.

Not to mention that most beginner tutorials in Python do everything through the interpreter. This is, I guess, supposed to make things easier. But if you try to put the same stuff into an IDE text panel and then Run it from there, none of the examples work properly. Variables aren't initialized or you can't return a result from something something. No explanations whatsoever.

The tutorial starts so easy, too. Here is arithmetic. Here is a while loop. Oh, now here are twenty kinds of functions that won't work outside of the interpreter. No, we aren't going to explain any of the specific terms in use.

This is pretty much every programming tutorial I've ever read. It's like going to Cambodia thinking you have at least a conversational grasp of the language and suddenly you're confronted with a few thousand local dialects that sound almost nothing alike.

Bleh.

Request

Can any of my older/more learned readers recall the names of any of those classic programming magazines? The kind of thing that would feature little snippets of BASIC code and simple algorithms. I'm still toying with roguelike stuff and it's tough to get a grasp on things. There are a few reasons for this:

1. The old code is in very old languages. Not only can they be very hard to understand but the implementation may be so vastly different that it won't be useful with a newer language.
2. The newer/maintained code has grown incredibly complex and fragmented. You have to understand every single part if you want to extract even one piece of it.
3. Some of the really inventive, new stuff isn't open-source. Both Incursion (which has a very robust implementation of the d20 SRD in it) and Dwarf Fortress (which is mind-boggling) are closed-source with no apparent plans to open-source. I don't think Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is open-source, either.

Any suggestions?

Avoiding Homework

I've got homework to avoid, so I'm going to suggest some answers to a question posed by Unfettered Blather and backed up over at Man Bytes Blog.

The question at hand is: "Now, please explain to me why future weapons will have less options than weapons available today?"

With pleasure.

1. Technology implementation is not consistent across any culture. The things we use everyday do not correlate with the most advanced tech. In addition, often the most advanced tech can only be used at great expense and only rarely. Why do most firearms still use combustion technology that has been around for at least 700 years? Why isn't caseless ammo standard? It isn't a question of can you implement a technology, but can you mass-produce it, will it be reliable and can it be made for least cost (both labor and materials)?

2. What does Faster-than-light travel have to do with military weaponry? Seriously. Our submarines use nuclear reactors that allow them to stay submerged for months at a time, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the grunt in the field. Not only is implementation not consistent, but neither is advancement. There are often limits on knowledge that are not immediately apparent.

Most military organizations are conservative when it comes to changing tactics or adopting new machines. Patton was laughed at for championing the usefulness of the tank in World War I, and yet it became a pivotal weapon in the next World War.

3. All those fancy attachments don't necessarily make the weapon better.
Consider the M203 grenade launcher attachment for the M-16. First, you can't fire the rifle when the grenade launcher is attached. This is because it uses the barrel as a place to build up gas pressure to launch the round. Second, you have to reload after every shot and, even though it's a grenade, you can still miss. Third, you need extra training to use it and even more training to use it well. The M203 uses a leaf sight, which is only accurate if you know what you're doing, and even then you have to account for wind, recoil and other battlefield conditions.

Think about this: The M16A1 service rifle had the capability to go fully-automatic. The current service rifle, the M16A2, does not. This is because allowing full auto led to grunts spraying rounds without regard to where they went. It wasted ammo, weapons deteriorated faster and was less effective in combat. This is one of those clear-cut instances where fewer options actually resulted in greater combat efficiency.

4. In addition to specialized training, attachments require their own special maintenance. Yes, let's give everyone a laser sight. How long do you think that's going to last, crammed into a grunt's pack with sand and dirt and an entrenching tool, thrown into the back of a Humvee and dragged along the ground as the grunt low crawls into position? An improperly maintained and calibrated scope is less useful than half-decent iron sights. And if you can count on anything, it's that any equipment you send into the field will not be properly maintained or calibrated.

Here's a funny story. The Marine Corps was looking for a new pack to replace the ALICE pack, a canvas bag with a metal frame that's been used in one form or another since the 1970s. So a company came up with a super-advanced pack that was ultra-light and waterproof and modular with a durable plastic frame. The pack went through the company's own rigorous testing and then it was released to select infantry units.

The damn thing fell apart. The grunts rejected it 100%. The vaunted super-tough material ripped in a day's time after normal field punishment. The plastic frame snapped. The modular pieces got lost all the time. Despite using "advanced" technology, it was worthless.

5. The two most important characteristics an infantry weapon needs during a ground invasion are durability and ease-of-use. The weapon shouldn't break and any idiot should be able to get steel near a target. Every time you add an extra function to the weapon you make it harder to maintain and more difficult to use.

6. Fancy toys don't beat unit cohesion, smart tactics and solid weaponry. Look at our current state of affairs in Iraq. We have plenty of fancy equipment at our disposal and it doesn't matter. Even if we outfit every grunt with a computerized tactical HUD, auto-targeting weapons, thermal scanners, etc., it wouldn't do a damn thing against an IED stuffed into a coffee can.

So the short answer is: Maybe those options exist but aren't worth the negative factors of implementing them.

Or it could be game balance, I guess.

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As a small illustration of my point, Rainbow Six Vegas has lots of cool options for each weapon. There's thermal vision, different kinds of scopes, silencers, firing modes and laser sights. Every time I'm in a firefight I have to take the time to sort through all the options available while I'm responding to real-time threats. For every time one of those fancy doodads is useful there's another time when it ruins the assault.

The laser sights tip off the enemy to your location. The 6x scope limits your vision. The thermal vision picks up all hot objects in the area. Full-auto has uncontrollable recoil.

Which means that there are plenty of times that I try to get all fancy when just shooting from the hip or going to iron sights would more than suffice.

I end up at the Reload Last Checkpoint screen a lot.

The Ground Went Sour

This falls under the category of Ancient Pointless Trivia.

The movie "Pet Semetary" isn't horrible for a Stephen King adaptation. In other words, it's not a good movie but it's not the worst, either.

But the setup is terrible. This guy moves into a house in the country. There is a road nearby. Big rigs zoom down this road day and night.

Why didn't he notice that when he was looking to move into the house? Why doesn't he build a fence? Why doesn't he put a leash on the cat? Why doesn't he put a leash on his child? Why did he move into such a dangerous house anyway? Why can't he get a county ordinance passed to stop the trucks? Has Stephen King never heard or Business routes?

I know, I know, there wouldn't be a story without trucks barreling down the road. Not to mention that Stephen King and ham-handed plots are pretty much synonymous.

This one just feels a little sloppier than others.

Still, it's not the worst Stephen King story with murderous trucks. That honor goes to "Maximum Overdrive."

The Perils of the Digital Age

One of the big drawbacks of companies merging is that suddenly you have one less way to recover your account should something go wrong.

Last year my Yahoo account suddenly rejected my password, the password I've had for years. The auto-sign in would show me mail going to my account but it wouldn't accept the password. Yahoo wanted every single last bit of information from when I opened the account, over ten years ago. Fuck them.

Well tonight I wanted to get into my Flickr account. Oh, whoops, Yahoo merged with them, so I can't access that, either. I can no longer access pictures of myself online. I hate these people. All the correspondence to Yahoo basically ends with, "Sorry, but we need information you entered ten years ago which, even if it were accurate, you probably don't remember anyway, like what your zip code was when you registered."

If anyone wants to take a crack at hacking my yahoo or flickr account, the account name is Thothanon. The password is anybody's guess.

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I guess the real lesson in this is that using the internet for things that are even mildly important is a very stupid thing to do unless the service you are using has a real physical location. Otherwise you'll get cut-and-pasted answers back from customer service reps who barely even read your complaint. They won't be able to deviate from the company line even if you're willing to send them a photocopy of your ID and birth certificate.

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Update: This is actually kind of funny. Yahoo must have closed my account or something, because it no longer recognizes my account name. But the Flickr account still exists. The only way to sign in is with a Yahoo ID that no longer exists. I hate the fucking internet sometimes.

What?

I just saw a commercial for Lost Odyssey with "White Rabbit" playing throughout.

It's fucking horrifying and probably the weirdest attempt to create an association between two completely different media creations I've ever witnessed.

Ron Pall

Is it a requirement that the field of Presidential candidates must always include a third-tier wacko?

I speak, of course, about Ron Paul, he who has galvanized a motley procession of internet glibertarians, gold-standard tin-foil-hatters, colloidal silverfish and neo-paleoconservatives.

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There is literally nothing about him that isn't batshit insanity masked by the most reasonable facade. He's a snake oil salesman peddling cyanide. Just go to THOMAS and check out his bill sponsorship.

He wants to repeal the estate tax. He wants to make it so that children born to non-citizens won't be citizens themselves. He wants to put into law that human life begins at conception. He wants to bar the Federal government from putting any funds at all toward family planning, which means Planned Parenthood would be completely gone (instead of just underfunded and gutted, like all social programs after Reagan's rape of The Great Society).

He wants to get the US out of the United Nations, because if there's one thing he learned from Bush's shitty foreign policy it's that the US needs to isolate itself from the world even more. He wants to "restore the second amendment rights of all Americans," which means that he doesn't want the government to distinguish between automatic weapons made for killing lots of people and sports rifles, and he doesn't want laws about child safety locks or safe storage. Oh, and you should be allowed to carry your Gatling gun into National Parks, goddammit. Also, no gun-free school zones; as long as the children are packing heat, they'll be fine.

Jesus, I can go on. He introduced a bill that would've helped out with his Colloidal Silver scam by making it so that if you claim your bullshit cures people then the FDA can't label it a drug unless there is no scientific evidence supporting it. Like you can't find a crackpot doctor to sign off on your bleach-flavored boner pills.

He doesn't want any Federal funds going toward any universal health screening program. Offshore drilling. Canceling fuel taxes when the prices reach a certain amount, thereby "promoting free trade," also known as "kickbacks to Big Oil."

He wants the President to have the authority to issue letters of marque and reprisal against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. If you don't know what that means, he wants the President of the United States to have the authority to pay pirates and mercenaries to capture persons and property affiliated with bin Laden or al Qaeda. I'm guessing the burden of proof wouldn't be on the mercenaries.

Fuck this guy. For every reasonable Puppies Are Cute Act he co-sponsors, there are three of his own pet projects that read like Sean Hannity's dream journal.

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Look, just read this piece from Reason magazine. It concerns newsletters that bore Ron Paul's name and were published with his full knowledge and which he of course disavows. Smart, because the content is no better than the screeds put out by Stormfront.

I know he says he didn't approve the writing. Either he is lying or he's a fucking moron. Maybe both. It's very possible Lew Rockwell, a good buddy of Mr. Paul, actually did the writing, which doesn't make things any better. Lew Rockwell's a sanctimonious little shit, and just the type of guy to still use the term "comsymp" in 1991 (when referring to Martin Luther King, natch).

Vote for who you want. But don't fucking try to convince me that Ron Paul has anything in common with the left-wing just because he's up for legalizing marijuana and doesn't trust the government. He's pretty much a textbook example of a reactionary states-rights Dixiecrat with just a hint of Ayn Rand's anal-fixation philosophy.

Surfing With the Alien

Audiosurf just may be the best rhythm game ever created.

Go to the site and sign up for the beta. Trust me.

As a game it has a mix of both timing and puzzle challenges, your speed is determined by the music tempo, you collect colored blocks that fill gauges and you try to grab three blocks of the same color (in a column or row).

The design is simple yet clever, with very small tweaks altering the gameplay significantly. Not only that, but they had the foresight to include a casual mode, where the puzzle element is gone and you merely have to ride along and collect blocks - or just ride along, if the mood strikes.

This game would be perfect for the iPod.

Dead Waning

I'm glad I waited at least a year before purchasing the 360. It has a respectable catalog and the early titles are already released as Greatest Hits, putting them in the 25 dollar range.

I tried out Dead Rising and it is an example of how some of the best core gameplay can be completely marred by the worst design decisions.

Let me count the ways:

1. Timed fetch quests that culminate in escort quests. I decided I wouldn't bother rescuing any more people after I spent a half hour clearing a path for this lady only to have three things completely botch my progress.

A) Followers have to be a certain number of steps before they will follow you through load doors but the game doesn't tell you if they aren't close enough, B) if you don't get them through the door and then go back to the previous room their position will "reset" somewhere near the middle of the map instead of where you fucking left them and C) I hit a cutscene trigger as soon as I entered the door, but apparently zombies are spawned in based on time because when I went back the path I had cleared was entirely overrun.

2. Unblockable attacks. Zombies will initiate close up attacks. Sometimes you can shake them off, but you will always lose at least one health point. There is no 100% way to detect this, since the distance varies from zombie to zombie. You start with four health points. Whee. Most bosses have attacks that are unblockable and aren't interrupted by your attacks - not even when you slam a sledgehammer onto their heads.

3. The game is based around iteration but without saving any of your game progress. What this means is that you are expected to do a few "dry runs" where you level up your guy a lot and then you play the game "for real". Fuck that. The quests give you the most leveling points and most of them are terrible, so you're basically supposed to do horrible quests over and over again before you arrive at an optimal experience.

4. You'd think that killing zombies using found objects is perfect for core gameplay. Apparently the designers of Dead Rising thought it better to give you some hackneyed mystery plot where you track down zany characters. The zombie killing ends up being tangential because of the stupid time limits to get to the next mission.

5. Horrible characters. Across the board some of the worst, most insipid personalities brought to life by jerky animation and atrocious voice acting.

6. At a certain point in the game the large center park area will spawn a jeep with a .50 cal mounted on the back, containing three violent militia members. So instead of a nice wide open space to kill zombies it's now an area you have to run through as fast as you can while dodging psychopaths. Yes you can kill them but they respawn.

7. When Otis calls you on the walkie-talkie to tell you about missions, you can't fight. Even if you are surrounded by zombies. You have to run around like an idiot until he goes through his whole spiel.

The whole game is shot through with horrible design decisions. I keep trying to get psyched about picking it back up but playing it feels like an actual chore.

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The worst thing about Dead Rising is that it could be a great game.

I would center the game around an extended siege, say, a week. You and several other survivors are trapped in a warehouse that is constantly under attack. The gameplay has two parts: fending off assaults and going into the mall to scavenge for needed supplies. The original game already has the player going into stores to grab new weapons/clothes, so wrap this into the core gameplay.

Maybe you'd be tasked with finding a first aid station to raid for medical supplies. Along the way you find a hardware store and pick up nails, which will help you restore some of the barricades.

In Dead Rising zombies are set dressing, a diversion while you deal with the annoyances of the main game.

It's hard to hope for a sequel when the original is such a mess.

Merits a Look

I'm addicted to a simple, fun roguelike called Meritous.

The rooms appear to be generated fractally. On my current game there are 3000 of them. Part of the fun is going room to room and watching the larger pattern appear on the map.

It's not quite a one-button game but it's close. You move with arrow keys. When you hold down the spacebar you generate a psychic charge - when you let go the charge radiates in a circle from you.

The charge will destroy enemies and their projectiles. You go room to room, destroy enemies with your psychic charge and collect psi crystals.

Those crystals are used to upgrade your shield and charge.

The game is largely about movement and timing, dodging shots in order to build up a more powerful charge. Some enemies will only be destroyed by a powerful blast of psi power.

You'll be surprised at the depth to the system. I think it's genius that extra functionality is contained inside objects - the upgrade machines, teleports, save points. The primary verbs never change, you don't have to worry about anything but the core gameplay and proper assessment of your enemies.

Give it a try. Even the graphics are a delight.

Excuses

Every time I miss the Round Table I always have some kind of dumb excuse.

Well, this time I have a real reason. I wanted to write a post. I tried to write a post.

But I already wrote it.

I wrote it June 19, 2005.

I spent a long time researching that post and a long time writing it. It was difficult, largely because I'm not overly familiar with the subject. I don't hesitate to say that I think it's one of the better pieces I've written on this now-and-then-serious blog.

I got exactly zero responses to it. Nothing. No e-mails. No comments, and I have open commenting. The post is even in my sidebar.

I didn't really feel right asking to have it included in the Round Table, but I offer it up again in case anyone wants to know what I thought two and a half years ago.

Hope it holds up.