code logs -> 2007 -> Wed, 05 Dec 2007< code.20071204.log - code.20071206.log >
--- Log opened Wed Dec 05 00:00:19 2007
00:05
<@gnolam>
It's the "change formatting completely at RANDOM" that's driving me fucking /bugnuts/ here.
00:07
<@gnolam>
OpenOffice at work: "Oh, he's got a diagram on the next page. I think I'll arbitrarily decide to suddenly blank the last third of the current page and move the text that used to be there to /after/ that diagram. Aren't I helpful?"
00:12
<@McMartin>
Most of my experiences are with Impress
00:12
<@gnolam>
And there are people on the OpenOffice developer team who should simply be taken outside and /shot/ for some of the UI decisions they made.
00:12
<@gnolam>
*cough* Language switching *cough*
00:12
<@McMartin>
Which has, as its sole improvement over PowerPoint, the ability to run on Unix machines as well.
00:13
<@McMartin>
What it does not have is (a) font embedding so that documents are actually portable, (b) An ability to embed tables directly (you're supposed to use spreadsheets), (c) an ability to edit the spreadsheets you're embedding if you want your text to be white.
00:13
<@McMartin>
(e) the ability to print multiple copies at once on a duplex printer.
00:15
<@McMartin>
(a.1) When it finds a font it doesn't know about it appears to replace it with the lexicographically closest-named or something, because on one memorable occasion it turned my entire thesis defense into Wingdings.
00:15
<@Reiver>
00:16
<@Reiver>
Uh...huh...
00:17
<@AbuDhabi>
...
00:18
<@McMartin>
white-on-white Wingdings, if I was editing any that appeared in tables.
00:19
<@gnolam>
Document mangling and apartheid in one, eh?
00:20
<@McMartin>
((f) the ability to export to PDF with embedded fonts, as required by Every Conference In The Universe. I don't know if that extends to Writer.)
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12:44 * gno|Eaglewrangler ponders disemboweling himself with a butterknife.
12:44
< gno|Eaglewrangler>
It would be slightly less painful than using this $!"#¤ program.
12:44
<@McMartin>
What is "Eagle"?
12:50
< gno|Eaglewrangler>
A usability horror of Lovecraftian proportions.
12:51
< Kyrre>
Eteria?
12:55 gno|Eaglewrangler is now known as gnolaptop
12:57
<@McMartin>
Eteria's a Java-based IRC client.
13:05
< gnolaptop>
Too lazy to install a proper IRC client on this thing.
13:05
< gnolaptop>
It's only borrowed, after all.
13:07
<@Vornicus-Latens>
Eteria IRC is the java client found on the Nightstar Java Chat page.
13:08 * gnolaptop prods the .NET installer.
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13:31
< MyCatVerbs>
Hee, looks like the .NET installer proded back.
13:31
< MyCatVerbs>
*prodded, fuck you, keyboard.
14:03 Reiver is now known as ReivZzz
14:18
<@gnolam>
Nah, that was just the extremely poor (for some reason) WiFi reception in that particular lab.
14:23
<@McMartin>
Oh, hey, that reminds me.
14:23
<@McMartin>
This is #code
14:23
<@McMartin>
I recently completed one of my Retro Restoration projects.
14:23
<@McMartin>
An old FORTRAN resource management game, ported to Microcomputer BASIC and published in a magazine in the 70s
14:23
<@McMartin>
To which I found a scan and ported to Python
14:24
<@McMartin>
http://www.stanford.edu/~mcmartin/king.py
14:24
<@McMartin>
With a few enhancements of my own design, including fixing a couple of Ridiculous Game Breaking Design Bugs such as pollution control spending not actually doing anything.
14:26
<@McMartin>
Mac and Unix sorts may need to run dos2unix on it before it runs right.
14:26
<@ReivZzz>
ahahaha
14:26
<@ReivZzz>
I died in the melee on my first turn~
14:27
<@ReivZzz>
McM: I gather pollution control was meant to do things, but it just didn't?
14:29 * gnolam obsessively refreshes SVN.
14:33
<@McMartin>
Reiv: Yes. It's a divisor on Bad Things that happen
14:33
<@McMartin>
But it only actually got divided properly once (deaths from toxic runoff).
14:33
<@McMartin>
Which meant, basically, if you ever sold any land, ever, you were immediately permanently doomed.
14:34
<@McMartin>
This is still, to a certain extent, true, but perhaps not quite as much.
14:34
<@ReivZzz>
But if you don't sell land your people all starve to death.
14:34
<@McMartin>
Don't forget to actually plant crops~
14:34
<@ReivZzz>
'cuz you don't have enough money to feed them and plant your crops, and AFAICT there's no option to install a soylent green factory ¬¬
14:35 * McMartin has actually managed to win a few times selling no land at all, but one needs a bit of familiarity with the mechanics to be able to work out how
14:35
<@McMartin>
And it's not guaranteed.
14:36
<@McMartin>
Try not to have tons of money left over after starving a bunch of people, though; it tends to cheese off the survivors~
14:36 * ReivZzz had 200 people dead by the second year, due to lack of money to plant crops after the 1st and feeding them
14:37
<@McMartin>
Yes
14:37
<@ReivZzz>
They then, uh, kicked me out. To put it politely.
14:37
<@McMartin>
Losing over a third of your populace will make you lose immediately.
14:37
<@McMartin>
And starving people also causes similar amounts of emigration.
14:38
<@ReivZzz>
So what is the sekret? Roll well on the random dice generator?~
14:38
<@McMartin>
That helps~
14:38
<@McMartin>
Controlled starvation, while making sure that you're still blowing out your budget so as to prevent food riots, though.
14:39
<@McMartin>
You can start getting away with selling land later, since the strip mining is a continuing cost that you won't be paying for as long.
14:40
<@ReivZzz>
Mostly in order to keep your people fed in the later years when your farming starts to collapse?
14:40
<@McMartin>
Yeah
14:40
<@McMartin>
Though I believe but have not proven that if you are reasonably lucky you can get into a position by year 3 or so such that you're actually stable.
14:40
<@ReivZzz>
So, basically, you're running a real-world example of a small pacific island: A doomed, basket-case economy ¬¬
14:41
<@McMartin>
With rapacious disaster capitalists Right Next Door.
14:41
<@McMartin>
(You can also lose by having the megacorps devour your government)
14:41
<@ReivZzz>
So, basically, you're running a real-world example of a small pacific island~
14:41
<@McMartin>
Or Carribean, yes.
14:41
<@McMartin>
Most of the names I lifted were actually from fictional European kingdoms, though.
14:42
<@ReivZzz>
(People laugh at our navy. We then point out that we're one of the largest blue-water navies in the south pacific by dint of owning a frigate or two.)
14:43
<@McMartin>
Oop.
14:43 * McMartin loses.
14:43
<@ReivZzz>
(The number of nation-spanning riots that suddenly quieten when a RNZN frigate sails into view and Pointedly Informs people that they will kindly stop setting fire to their foreign-aid-paid-for buildings or we will start getting Grumpy, thank you, strikes a curious balance between hilarious and mildly startling~)
14:44
<@McMartin>
How many nations around there actually require that?
14:44
<@McMartin>
I can only name three or four total, I think.
14:44
<@McMartin>
Not counting, you know, Australia.
14:44
<@ReivZzz>
Australia is a touch bigger than us, yeah~
14:44
<@McMartin>
Indonesia, maybe, Singapore, probably not, Malaysia, no idea...
14:44
<@McMartin>
Borneo?
14:44
<@McMartin>
Or is that a city that isn't a city-state?
14:45
<@McMartin>
Phillipines, kinda far North...
14:45
<@ReivZzz>
Everything north of paupa new guinea and south of china is a jungle-infested civil warring mess.
14:45
<@McMartin>
... I'm pretty sure that includes Singapore.
14:45
<@ReivZzz>
Well, okay, Singapore is okay. Thailand is relatively stable, too.
14:46
<@McMartin>
Laos, Cambodia...
14:46
<@McMartin>
Isn't Vietnam doing OK too?
14:46
<@ReivZzz>
Relatively speaking, yes.
14:46
<@McMartin>
What's Burma called this week?
14:47
<@ReivZzz>
But the rest of them seem about as stable as a mexican with a hangover. We mostly leave them alone, because China is the Big Scary Sod in the area, so it's outta our territory~
14:47
<@McMartin>
Frobnia collapses into Civil War immediately
14:47
<@McMartin>
My next game: North Frobnia.
14:47
<@ReivZzz>
But I was referring to, uhh, the Solomons, Fiji, That Other One, That Other Other One Take Two...
14:47
<@McMartin>
Ah, yes.
14:47
<@McMartin>
The ones small enough that I'd need a magnifying glass to see them on my globe.
14:48
<@ReivZzz>
Correct.
14:48 * McMartin just has this big old archipelago marked "Indonesia", and that's all that's visible.
14:48
<@ReivZzz>
Mostly the hilariously small island nations in the pacific who literally rely on foreign aid to exist.
14:49
<@ReivZzz>
And whose navies were given to them by Australia/NZ/US in the name of getting them skilled workers and combatting piracy/fishery crimes by dint of giving them each a small coastal patrol boat each.
14:50
<@ReivZzz>
So, uh, yeah
14:50
<@ReivZzz>
A full-fledged frigate showing up and being grumpy tends to quieten them down right quick. >.>
14:51
<@ReivZzz>
Anyhoo, I'm getting a little sidetracked~
14:53
<@ReivZzz>
Turn 2: Starvation. Turn 3: Kicked out.
14:53
<@ReivZzz>
I'm getting better~
14:56
<@McMartin>
Wow, this is a first
14:57
<@McMartin>
We had some rough years, and I had to sell some land, but I'm actually turning a profit and my population is growing.
14:57 * McMartin just kind of copied the formulas from the BASIC code, and doesn't really get how migration works
15:02
<@McMartin>
http://www.stanford.edu/~mcmartin/victory.png
15:05
<@ReivZzz>
grats!
15:06
<@ReivZzz>
Though really it seems to be a game primarily based on luck rather than skill, other than Knowing The Knack and being lucky as needed. >.>
15:07
< Doctor_Nick>
remember basic
15:07
< Doctor_Nick>
good times
15:07
<@McMartin>
The main trick is that Full Employment is more important than anything else.
15:07
<@McMartin>
If you have pop X, always, always always plant X*2 of crops. This takes precedence over *everything* else.
15:08
<@McMartin>
Try to keep enough left over to cover funeral expenses, since you can predict how many will die
15:08
<@McMartin>
And it's 9 credits per death.
15:08
<@McMartin>
And you don't want to have to sell land to do it.
15:08
<@McMartin>
If you *do* have to sell land, spending 100-250 on pollution control tends to negate it
15:09
<@McMartin>
But if you don't, once your population drops to 450 or so you're actually self-sufficient.
15:09
<@McMartin>
In that "victory" run I had several bad years in a row and had to sell land to cover death expenses.
15:09
<@McMartin>
Hence the Triparian invaders.
15:10
<@McMartin>
Oh, but while budgeting for funeral expenses, make sure you don't have 500 or more left in the treasury, or you'll get food riots.
15:46 * MyCatVerbs reads the upscroll, dies laughing.
15:59 * gnolam downloads McMartin's game.
16:00 * MyCatVerbs doesn't dare.
16:02
<@gnolam>
... oh. I'd forgotten to re-install Python. That explains why it didn't run.
16:23
<@gnolam>
STOP IMMIGRATING! Close the borders!
16:30 * gnolam longs for his trusty nerve stapler.
16:32
<@Vornicus>
whenever I hear that I always imagine applying a red Swingline to the target's head.
16:32
<@gnolam>
Heh.
16:34
<@Vornicus>
Preferably after a very long surgery.
16:40
<@gnolam>
Success!
16:40
<@gnolam>
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~gnolam/temp/OuterRuritania.png
16:40
<@gnolam>
I pity the next guy in office there.
16:44
<@Vornicus>
Lots of new immigrants.
16:45
<@ToxicFrog>
I gather that, like Dwarf Fortress, new immigrants early on are a death sentence?
16:46
<@gnolam>
Vornicus: And basically no arable land, land left to sell or money left in the treasury.
16:47
<@gnolam>
ToxicFrog: Yep.
16:49 * gnolam ponders taking his old MUD code and adapting it to a (Multiplayer) Stalinist Banana Republic Sim.
16:54
<@gnolam>
Purges!
16:54
<@gnolam>
Gulags!
16:54
<@gnolam>
5 year plans!
16:55
<@gnolam>
Humongous moustaches!
16:55
<@Vornicus>
Don't forget the occasional wacky cargo cult.
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17:27 * gnolam starts sketching up a design document.
17:27
<@gnolam>
Moustaches definitely have to play a part somehow.
17:28 gnolam is now known as gnolamanagement
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18:00
< GeekSoldier>
Today's xkcd: excellent!
18:38 You're now known as TheWatcher
18:44
<@jerith>
Indeed.
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18:52
<@ToxicFrog>
http://2-4601.livejournal.com/27966.html
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18:59 * AnnoDomini hates the M68HC05.
19:00
<@AnnoDomini>
The compiler really, really, REALLY should object when you try to write code in the EPROM or the stack.
19:03
<@AnnoDomini>
I also really hate that we have about 288 memory cells to put code in.
19:04
<@AnnoDomini>
At an average of 2 cells per instruction, it leaves very little to work with.
19:06
<@ToxicFrog>
Oh man.
19:06
<@ToxicFrog>
We got to use the 68HC12.
19:08
<@AnnoDomini>
The last half hour of today's microprocessor technology class I spent going, "ARGH! There must be a way for me to find THREE MORE CELLS in the RAM for that last JMP!"
19:10
<@AnnoDomini>
ToxicFrog: How much RAM does it have?
19:11
<@AnnoDomini>
The tutor board we're forced to use has only the internal processor RAM.
19:15
<@EvilDarkLord>
A possibly stupid question. Are real-world systems today ever as constrained as that?
19:48
<@jerith>
EDL: Usually not.
19:49
<@jerith>
Decent micros these days have several kilobytes.
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20:09
<@ToxicFrog>
AnnoDomini: I think it's 4k onboard memory, 4k onboard ROM, and another 4M on the board.
20:09 * AnnoDomini has space measured in bytes. BYTES!
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21:57 * Vornicus gets tired of making a spreadsheet, asks ResEdit to do his dirty work for him.
22:00
<@Vornicus>
...what on earth
22:00
<@Vornicus>
So, Playing Escape Velocity, decide I don't really feel like tooling around the galaxy writing down what I find on each planet.
22:01
<@Vornicus>
Open up the original game's data, to see what's in there.
22:01
<@Vornicus>
this is using ResEdit, mind.
22:01
<@Vornicus>
Apparently, ResEdit has the ability to read a "template" that describes structured data.
22:05
<@Vornicus>
the result: http://vorn.dyndns.org/~vorn/resourceediting.png <-- the left window shows individual resources; the top right shows what it looks like without a template; the bottom right shows what it looks like with one.
22:09
<@Vornicus>
Completely useless if you're trying to rip, to be sure - but for divining storage formats and hand-editing data, it is /delicious candy/.
22:31
<@gnolam>
Which ResEdit?
22:34
<@ToxicFrog>
...why do you need to write it down?
22:35
<@ToxicFrog>
If it's trade goods and the like you're recording, the in-game map keeps track of that
22:37
<@Vornicus>
Well, except that it /doesn't/ record (for instance) the prices of various goods.
22:38
<@Vornicus>
Or which planet to land on - Hera, for instance, has outfitters and shipyards and a commodity exchange and a bar; Zeus, in the same system, has only a mission computer.
22:44
<@Vornicus>
Then of course there is the outfitting stuff - when I want a Kestrel, or some engine upgrades, I do not want to faff about trying to remember where I can get them.
22:44
<@Vornicus>
Now if I could find a Python module that knows what a resource fork looks like, I'd be damn pleased.
22:45
<@ToxicFrog>
The prices fluctuate, so recording them is kind of pointless.
22:45
<@ToxicFrog>
Point on outfitten and multi-planet systems.
22:45
<@Vornicus>
No, there are permanent price points, and then events (?ops-es) that can occasionally change them.
22:46
<@ToxicFrog>
...are we talking EV, EVO, or EVN here?
22:46
<@Vornicus>
EV, but the same is true of EVO and EVN.
22:46
<@Vornicus>
The price points for resources are always the same, unless an event is in play.
22:47
<@ToxicFrog>
These events must happen damn frequently, then.
22:47
<@Vornicus>
The High/Medium/Low is constant.
22:48
<@Vornicus>
And the prices for those levels are always the same for a given quantity; in EV (I know this because I have the data in front of me) the ratios are 16:20:25.
22:50
<@gnolam>
Ok, it is clear. I have to do the "communist dictator of banana republic" thingy. Maybe not in MUD form, but somehow.
22:50
<@gnolam>
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~gnolam/temp/bananagrad.png
22:52
<@Vornicus>
...hee.
22:56
<@gnolam>
(That started out as an explanatory diagram over IR sensors, BTW. I think I might be a wee bit overtired.)
23:04
<@Vornicus>
http://www.xkcd.com/ <--- also, for those who have not yet seen it.
23:05
<@Vornicus>
Which should be nobody.
23:23 gnolam [lenin@Nightstar-10613.8.5.253.static.se.wasadata.net] has quit [Quit: Z without the question mark]
23:40 * McMartin ponders gnolam's win screen.
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--- Log closed Thu Dec 06 00:00:25 2007
code logs -> 2007 -> Wed, 05 Dec 2007< code.20071204.log - code.20071206.log >