Jim’s Brain Online

Posted by Jim at November 25th, 2006

The following is a summary of a role-playing game. People with no interest in them will probably want to move along now. This isn’t the blog entry you’re looking for.

I’d intended to write up my portion of the Nine Worlds game of last week sometime last week, but I didn’t. Prompted by Ed’s write up of his own portion of the game, I’m either inspired or shamed into action…

Too bad I don’t (as per Amber) get points for doing so, eh?

So we left Cyrus in the process of exiting the Jovian atmosphere and traveling to Earth with Milo Icarius. Milo was, as mentioned, a lead weapons designer for Zeus.

The first portion of the game involved the two week trip from Jupiter to Earth. Not willing to risk being contacted by Aegis agents, Cyrus choose to go straight to Earth without stopping anywhere. Thus, he spent most of the journey talking with Milo, learning about what it was like working as a weapons designer for Zeus and talking about his plans.

Cyrus is, as I’ve mentioned previously, a bit of a revolutionary. In a universe where each planet is ruled by a god, he believes that the planets should be democracies. Inconveniently for his hopes, the solar system is in the midst of a cold war between the Titans and the Eternals–two groups of deities. Also inconveniently, the order of the universe requires that each planet be linked to one individual ruler who gains considerable power as a result. Cyrus is trying to work out a way to allow a democracy in this situation, and he’s got some ideas, but it’s not fully worked out.

For the moment, he’s simply attempting to create a society that can pull down the Eternals and simultaneously defend planets against the Titans who will undoubtedly take advantage of the confusion that a revolution will cause.

A more sensible person would probably start by creating or joining a secret society. Cyrus, being an engineer, decided to start by creating a lab. What sort of lab? One focused on the creation of telluric weapons–the Nine Worlds’ equivalent of WMD’s.

Milo listened politely about Cyrus’ plans, but doesn’t really care. He’s more interested in finally being able to create things that he’s interested in rather than having goals dictated by the Jovian bureaucracy.

When they reached Earth, arriving at Europa Major (Earth’s spaceport which appears at random locations on the planet), Cyrus began putting his plans into motion.

Buying a deserted warehouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (his hometown), Cyrus used his contacts to arrange the purchase of Nine Worlds and 21st century Earth style lab equipment. Then he started up his lab.

Though initially more interested in exploring Cyrus’ CAD software, Milo was eventually lured back into creating telluric weapons by the fact that Cyrus started working on one himself (and asked questions about Milo’s designs).

They could only go so far however without obtaining orichaulkum, a metal that is hidden by illusion on Earth, but used commonly in devices among the Nine Worlds. Not being able to import it, they used Cyrus’ spacecraft (the “Ben Franklin”) to fly to Greece and mine orichaulkum there.

Interestingly, they were not the only ones looking orichaulkum. With the metal, they also found one of the hundred handed ones and a cyclops. Milo immediately befriended the cyclops (one of those who created Zeus’ lightening in myth and his telluric weapons in the game), leaving Cyrus to talk to the hecaton.

It turned out that the cyclops was there by force and wanted to escape while the hecaton was his keeper and was there under orders from Hades.

Cyrus is, as I mentioned, something of a revolutionary and isn’t particularly keen on the idea of enforced servitude. On the other hand he’s smart enough to realize that he’s not powerful enough to take on a hecaton.

Thus, rather than attacking the hecaton, he deliberately caused a cave-in, burying the hecaton in tons of rock. In game terms, he started a conflict with the wall rather than a creature that could undoubtedly destroy him.

After that, Cyrus, Milo, and the cyclops raced to his ship with the ore and introduced the cyclops to designing with modern technology at the lab.

So by the end of that game, Cyrus has good reason to fear the attentions of:
1. Zeus: In the form Aegis (his agents) for freeing Milo Icarius and probably for bringing in the cyclops as well.
2. Hades: The cyclops and the hecaton were on a mission for Hades when Cyrus interrupted them.
3. Prometheus: While Prometheus doesn’t rule so much as let things happen as they will, the knowledge that Cyrus is creating the Nine Worlds’ equivalent of nuclear weapons has the potential to move him or the Illuminati (a secret society that acts his agents) to action.

Not to mention
4. Ares: Early in the first game Cyrus smuggled Earth technology to rebels on Mars.

At this rate, he could have reason to fear the primarch (ruler) of each of the Nine Worlds within two or three games.

Technorati Tags: Nine Worlds, role playing games, rpg’s, indie games, indie rpg’s, the forge, chimera games, greek myth

Posted by Jim at November 21st, 2006

I don’t know if this happens to other people, but personally it seems like the most frustrating problems I’ve faced in programming/system administration have been caused by myself.

For example, a few nights ago I set up a cvs repository. While setting it up was no problem, I found it absolutely impossible to access the CVS repository remotely. For some reason I was getting errors along the lines “No connection:I/O Error:blah-blah-blah:no such repository…”

This was rather irritating as I knew for a fact that there was such a repository.

I then spent a great deal of time experimenting with the various ways I could configure CVS on a CVS client, but no matter what I did, the client never connected.

I also checked out the inetd.conf file. “inetd” for those of you who don’t know is the unix daemon used to control connections from outside computers to yours. In the case of CVS, you’re supposed to enable a line that allows the particular CVS protocol that you’re using. Part of this line describes the path to the CVS repository. Get it wrong and you risk allowing people access to your machine.

I got it wrong.

Bearing in mind that the computer was on my home network, this was not a security problem. Nonetheless it took me a few days to notice this despite checking the file several times.

Grr…

Posted by Jim at November 18th, 2006

Kristen went to the Grand Rapids Symphony last night. She went with my sister because I was going to a role playing game.

When I got home she complained that some people in the row in front of her were drunk and hollering at the points where you could applaud. Apparently, the people next to her actually moved because they didn’t want to sit directly behind these people.

I’d never imagined the Grand Rapids Symphony as something that could be improved with copious quantities of alcohol. Drunkenness seems like something you’d do at a more popular event like a hockey game (”HEY NUMBNUTS!”) * or a rock concert.

UPDATE: According to Kristen, I missed many of the more annoying activities of the drunken women in the row ahead of her. Thus it’s worth noting that they also:
1. Sang along
2. Swayed along with the music
3. Pretended to direct the orchestra

Their ages? Fifty-ish according to Kristen. In short, old enough to know better.

* Actual quote (among many, many others) from a very drunken man I got to sit behind at a Griffins‘ game. And did I ever tell you about the Red Sox vs. Yankees game I once attended? We got seated behind an entire bar full of people. At least that’s what I guessed from their identical t-shirts. I can only assume that they’d hung out there before the game because they certainly had no need to get beer at the stadium (which didn’t stop them) and shouted abuse at the Yankees practically from the beginning to the end of the game. My dad likes the Yankees, but I don’t remember him being particularly vocal about that at the time. Maybe he should have been drinking.

Technorati Tags: public drunkenness, life, strange things, grand rapids symphony

Posted by Jim at November 11th, 2006

I’ve been following Narbonic for a while now.

It’s a webcomic about mad scientists, their henchmen, and a number of other things. I’m partial to comics with on-going storylines and Narbonic is one of them. Not only that, it’s also funny, something that isn’t required for me to like a comic, but it is cool when it happens.

Anyway, that’s not the main point of this post. The main point is that today’s strip includes a visual reference to Sandman #11, “Sound and Fury.”

It’s the bit where you see a person standing against a background and then you realize the person is standing in a much larger being’s hand.

So anyway, that’s cool.

If for some reason you feel inspired to read more of Narbonic, go for it. The archives used to be visible only with a subscription to Modern Tales. Now, however, they are free to all and very much worth the read.

Posted by Jim at November 10th, 2006

In an effort to move this blog away from political commentary and back into more typical stuff, I point out the following site: Will It Blend?.

While it’s primarily an attempt to plug a brand of blenders, it does offer a series of videos in which a man in a white lab coat places various objects into a blender to test if they will blend.

The answer is almost always yes.

P.S. The one where he blends the rake handle amuses me. Oh yeah, also the Coke can.

Posted by Jim at November 7th, 2006

Those of you who were reading here two years ago, know that robocalls irritate me. This year I haven’t gotten as irritated as other years (I once got 14 on a single day) because the number of robocalls hasn’t been so bad.

I live in a racially mixed area and one that trends democratic.

Thus, I’ve gotten an interesting series of phone calls over the last few weeks. They’re all from someone with obviously African-American speech patterns. Within the first few sentences, she complains that Granholm (Michigan’s governor, a Democrat) has been taking “us” for granted.

In the first call, she encouraged people to split their ticket and vote for DeVos (the Republican candidate). In the next four calls she’s left a number of variations on that message, telling potential voters that:

–Granholm is damaging the public schools
–she’s actually working to send money to suburban schools
–she’s got a Ku Klux Klansman working for her

So far she’s only promoted voting for DeVos (though never by name) and concentrated on convincing people that Granholm is evil.

It’s not illegal, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Posted by Jim at November 7th, 2006

Not to nag, but, you are going to vote, aren’t you?

Posted by Jim at November 3rd, 2006

As someone who considers himself a moderate, I’m not particularly inclined to believe one party rule is a good thing. I want each party to be in charge of something. That way each of them have a stake in government and no party constantly gets their way.

Divided government also requires each party to compromise, forcing people to govern from the middle of the country rather than Dennis Hastert’s “middle of the majority.”

That’s one reason I’m hoping that the Democrats will take at least the House.

If you’re interested, here’s an article about divided government that I’m largely in agreement with.

Posted by Jim at November 2nd, 2006

Recently Topher wrote about the Electric Company, a cool and rather surreal show from his childhood (as well as mine).

If you feel the urge to watch clips from the Electric Company, try this youtube search…

UPDATE: While you’re at it, take a look at this video which manages to parody the Electric Company, Mister Rogers, and 70’s rock music all in the space of 10 minutes.