Free Speech finally has a flag
Those of you not following the various self-generating news sites (SlashDot, Reddit, digg, etc), the HD-DVD encryption key has been leaked. In response to the deletion of posts on Digg.com, the user base has revolted - posting thousands of comments and articles with the encryption key, faster than digg could keep up with them. At one point, the main page had ONLY articles that contained the key somehow. Even Wikipedia’s been having some problems.
Digg’s founder, Kevin, has made a blog post regarding the deletions, and they’ve changed their tune - they’ll fight the MPAA, instead of complying.
Since then, someone has cleverly put together a flag. If you know anything about RGB colors in hexadecimal, you’ll be pleasantly amused, I’m sure.
Linked Lists in Python 2.5
I’ve not used a linked list since my Pascal days, and have oft-wondered how one would create such a thing in Python. Well, I’ve found my answer in looking over the ctypes docs today.
Django
I’ve decided to become more active in Django than I have been in the past. I’ve been brushing up a lot on my Python (and Ruby, but that’s another tale, for another time), and I think I can contribute in a useful manner, other than just commenting on features to add and the like.
I’ve been going through the beta book a bit, and am going to start going through some tickets in the hopes of being able to contribute as much as possible. The more I contribute, the more I learn, the better I feel about Django as a whole. It has a lot of potential - Rails is by far more “feature-complete” - and I want to see it succeed and surpass its competition.
Adrian, my coding abilities are yours for the exploitation! Er.. using!
A new game idea
I’ve been looking for something to develop in order to have an excuse to create an open-source MMOG engine.
I think I’ve come up with one.
- Persistent planet
- No-zoning engine
- Vector-based loading
- Distance-based rendering
- Ruby or Stackless Python (or both!)
- OpenGL and DirectX (and XNA?)
However, you might ask, how does the project make money?
The service itself to play will cost, just as with any other massively-multiplayer game. Accounting systems, of course, will be separate from play systems. The abstract concept is a war-game that has a new one starting every day. You are only allowed to participate in a certain number of wars, arbitrarily set by the administrator(s). The war doesn’t stop until you’re eliminated or everyone else is. The war starts with defense-design. For thirty days before the actual first shot is fired (political and subversive attacks notably excluded), you’re given a chance to tweak the economy and defenses of your plot of land and town. Alliances may be formed at this time, including merging with direct neighbors for shared control over more resources. Once the game starts, management of the resources from that point forward is handled by the network. Upgrades and updates can be made by the “owners” of the area, but the majority of what they’ll be managing is troop recruitment, training and purchases. You can be eliminated on the first day if you didn’t spend your 30 days wisely, leading to someone else gaining your resources. This means you now have an open slot for that day’s new game.
Since we’re talking planetary-scale for the war game, we can have a large number of players without running out of space. It also allows the war’s date to be as far back as one can imagine, and as far forward as the developers wish to go.
The key is dynamic content. Throughout gameplay in the first 30 days, there should be allowance to teach the player a simple “language” to upgrading their technology. In a current-day setting, this would likely be disabled, but who knows? It could be as simple as certain types of objects, guns, vehicles, etc. have different traits that can be plugged in by dragging them around, or as complicated as scripting functionality for those devices in ruby or stackless python. Allowing both in a single game would need to be evaluated closely for fairness. If the players can make their own advances, or create a chain they want to advance throughout this war (pre-planning), it creates infinite possibilities for the outcome of the “war”.
The next part of dynamic content is the landscape and its contents. The city manager will build as necessary for expansion, but the player should be allowed to choose a few basic structure types (A-frame house, etc.) and apply changes where the object allows to create a different look - or a whole new building - for their growing (if capable) city. Again, this could be simple point and click, or scripted, giving someone the ability to create, for example, a mobile iron mine that has a built-in refinery system, along with a lumber processing system. Perhaps the more functions the person creates on the object, the more negatives from a pool they have to add? After a certain amount of time in use, “improvement” points can come along, allowing the creator, or an enterprising owner of said device, to improve output or decrease the negative effects, or with enough, add on whole new functions. The art, of course, would have to be from a pool of generic looks. Something like legos, but without the blockiness.
The players should be given a good amount of land, enough to expand for a month after fighting starts before they’re forced to take more land. Who owns the land? That’s a little more complicated.
A weights system would be used for land ownership. The lower the security rating of the land, the less claim anyone can have over it. If you can claim, for example, fifty percent of the land, it’s yours to build on. Security rating is dependent upon warefare actually happening within a certain distance of that land, the closer it is, the more dramatic the effect is upon the security rating. No action directly on the land causes a positive increase equal to a percentage of the current security level, to a minimum. If there’s lots of war several miles away, it will hover a little above 50, if it’s adjacent, good luck keeping it above 10. The security rating, is the maximum share of control someone can have over the area. Control is determined in a similar system, but based on the amount of troops near, or on the location. Most likely this would be an area equal to something along the lines of an acre.
Crazyness.
The truth sets you free;
Good or bad, the truth is there;
Just look for it, see.
Black Holes as a Data Source??
New Scientist has an article about black holes being the ultimate quantum computers. I started reading the article and thought, neat! Great!
Then I got to the part where it’s not the computer, but the datastream. That is, the black hole is so super-massive that it’s able to eliminate all possibilities but one, speaking in quantum terms, killing Schrodinger’s cat. Then something deep in the pit of my stomach said this is a BAD idea. It sounds crazy, but I don’t think it’s my logical brain thinking it’s bad - it’s my faith.
Black holes represent nothingness, destruction and collapse. Why would we want to “read” the “data” that comes out of one?
And then it hit me..
Sometimes, when someone screws something up royally and it pisses you off, it happened for a good reason.
For example, Acxiom screwed up my background check already with this new job. They called my CURRENT employer and started asking questions.
The good side? To make up for the fact that they may have just gotten me fired, they’re going to push through the background check.
God DOES work in mysterious (if not aggravating) ways…
Sun Try and Buy Program
Well, just as I suspected, I don’t get a fair shake, and can’t get a system to actually participate in the offer put forth by Sun a few days ago.
This is ridiculous. They make what appear to be impossible claims (to me), and then say they’re willing to put the server to the test, but only if you “qualify”.
To quote:
We are sorry, but we have been unable to approve your application for the Sun Fire T2000 CoolThreads server in Sun’s Try and Buy program at this time. This is a result of your application not meeting one or more of the parameters for Sun Fire T2000 CoolThreads Try and Buy Program.
Since he’s closed comments on all his posts, he’ll likely never see my complaint, and my point - I’ll probably NEVER recommend Solaris or Sun hardware again. What does Sun think we are? Donkeys with carrots on a stick?
Heck, I’m all for a revival of the OLD meaning of OSF - Oppose Sun Forever. Hell, I should have stuck with it.
Google Everything!
Sometimes Google scares me:
What is Google’s Lighthouse? by ZDNet’s Richard MacManus — The Google Analyst Day earlier this week threw up a conspiracy theory of sorts, Is it a security function, or a next-generation search for desktop files? Or… with Google initially providing a powerpoint file of the presentation that had extensive notes about upcoming products named as: GDrive, GDS and Lighthouse. Greg Linden was one […]
Love Quiz
The Five Love Languages
My primary love languages are probably
Acts of Service and Words of Affirmation.
Complete set of results
| Acts of Service: | 8 | |
| Words of Affirmation: | 8 | |
| Physical Touch: | 7 | |
| Quality Time: | 6 | |
| Receiving Gifts: | 1 |
Information
Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don’t understand our partner’s requirements, or even our own. We all have a “love tank” that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.
