Archive for the 'Asides' Category

SOPA Kills Ten Rats

Posted by Ravious on January 18, 2012 in Asides. 2 Comments

This post is going up as huge sites are blacking out in protest against the horribly-created legislation in the U.S. Congress. This post is more than an assent; it is a warning.

As written SOPA (PIPA) could end Kill Ten Rats, and the countless other MMO blogs you enjoy. We create our posts based on copyrighted and trademarked materials. Screenshots, fantasy race names, locations, characters, etc. are all property of someone else. Sure, even with some criticisms most companies are pretty cool with our [fair] use because talking about their games is usually a good thing. Yet given the huge archive we are sporting, all it takes is one corporate suit angered at one post written three years ago to possibly shut Kill Ten Rats down if SOPA would be enacted.

We are firmly against piracy, as evidenced big time by our ridiculous Steam libraries. Yet, such strong legislation must also be made to strongly protect our free speech.  A “strategic lawsuit against public participation” (SLAPP) is already a thing this century, and SOPA would just make it worse.

Please consider writing a respectful, constructive note to your Congressperson or Senator on SOPA (PIPA) or head to the EFF to learn more. Many have feedback forms on their .gov websites making it fairly easy to have your voice heard.

Sincerely,

The Kill Ten Rats crew

Powers of Two

Posted by Zubon on October 26, 2011 in Asides and General. 6 Comments

This is a fundamentals post. You need those sometimes. Today’s goal is to know your powers of two.

For any readers who have not reached exponents in their math classes yet, this just means 2×2=4, 2x2x2=8, 2x2x2x2=16, 2x2x2x2x2=32, and so on. Even if you are completely innumerate, you have surely noticed that the numbers 128, 256, and 512 proliferate around computers. These are higher powers of two. Computers are binary (two-based), so everything tends to be in powers of two. We talk about gaming here, and lots of things in games are 50% chances, coin-flips, however they phrase it: it is all 2s, and if you know the basic math behind what is going on, you will better prosper and be emotionally and intellectually prepared for the likely outcomes. There are two that I want to focus on today.

2^5=32. 1 in 32 series of 5 coin flips will be all heads, another 1/32 all tails. If there is a 50-50 chance of something happening, there is a 1/32 chance of its happening (or not) 5 times in a row. That’s roughly a 3% chance: unlikely, but not exactly a rare event when you are doing something hundreds of times, so be ready for it. As a concrete example, if you are playing Tyrant and a Xeno Forcefield comes out, you can probably take it out in one attack. On average, it regenerates (refills its hit points) once, but about 3% of the time, you will need to knock that wall down 6 times before it stays down. Given how much you play whatever game it is, you may hit the 1 in 32 chance every day. Watch for it, plan for it.

2^10=1024. Ten doublings gives you a thousand. This is a convenient bit of quick arithmetic to keep in your head, mostly because it stacks. If ten doublings is one thousand, twenty is one million, and thirty is one billion (American billion or British milliard). Doubling adds up quickly. There is the old story about asking for a reward of a single grain of rice/wheat on the first square of a chessboard, 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth, and so on. A chessboard has 64 squares, so it will still be a few from the end when we clear 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. Doubling is powerful, and most people lose track of how the exponents work. The easy math to remember is that 10 doublings gives you another set of ,000 on the end of a number. Use this to estimate large quantities.

: Zubon

A Word of Thanks

Posted by Ravious on October 7, 2011 in Asides. 11 Comments

My last post has actually opened my eyes a lot. I had a conversation with a friend about my post, and while my original point about ‘seeing no change is tiring’ stands, I feel like I see something differently now. I see that I am in a minority, but more importantly that the majority are not idiots or catering to the lowest common denominator. Getting change and trying to overcome the cost to change in any arena is fucking hard work.

After the discussion my respect for all real minorities working for real-world change has risen a hundredfold. Questions of “how can they not see” or “how can they not want change” that comes across in real life issues every single day must be damn near insufferable. Here I am the minority of a stupid MMO mechanic’s club.

It’s a tough dichotomy to not only want change but also to assume that people content with what I want changed are not idiots. I’ve always believed that I have been mindful in life of my actions and their effects around me. Yet, I feel like my world view has been a tad solipsistic. And, I especially apologize for my McDonald’s and K-Mart comment.

Our hit counts tell me that I do better to share love, so that’s how I will keep on trucking. Thanks for reading our fine blog. Excuse the mess.

–Ravious

My Dog Ate It

Posted by Zubon on September 23, 2011 in Asides. Closed

Commenters have raised the issue of lagging out due to a pet’s having eaten the router. They went on to start the real question: how much will this affect performance, and how can we mitigate it?

Is your dog small or thin enough that a wireless signal can still get through? Will it matter if you have a long-haired cat? Are the essential pieces small enough that they could be sufficiently whole after the plastic case has been devoured? And how much battery life does that thing have?

: Zubon

related

Born too Slow (or Bound too Long)

Posted by Ravious on September 8, 2011 in Asides and General. 9 Comments

A post over at Hardcore Casual resonated with me. In it Syncaine writes in the title “This is what happens when the MMO genre sucks and I have ‘nothing to play’. The rest are his thoughts on otherwise passing the time. Except for Guild Wars 2 news, I know I’ve been a little quieter. My style is more about writing what I play, see, and experience. When I played Rift, I wrote about Rift. I have not wrote a Rift post in awhile, ergo…

I have been playing PC games though. I fell in love with the bargain priced Magic the Gathering’s Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. I have the usual smattering of first-person shooters headed by Team Fortress 2. I am still not sure why I bought Serious Sam (again), but it brought back memories. Then Trackmania² Canyon. I’ve been playing that enough to warrant a brand new blog. It’s community is so online based that it feels similar to an MMO community, and there are developer updates, mods, and tournaments that keep things rather fresh.

Continue reading ‘Born too Slow (or Bound too Long)’

Serious Business

Posted by Zubon on July 28, 2011 in Asides. 4 Comments

A community which cannot or will not realise how insignificant a part of the universe it occupies is not truly civilised. That is to say, it contains a fatal ingredient which renders it, to whatever extend, unbalanced. This is the story of one such community.
— opening lines of Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss

: Zubon

Great Moments in Scam Spam

Posted by Zubon on July 22, 2011 in Asides. 3 Comments

A classic scam went electronic, and you have probably seen some version: you receive an e-mail, IM, social networking message, etc. from a friend who is far away, has had his wallet stolen, and needs you to send him some money. Of course, your friend is not in Istanbul, and he would be surprised to learn that he has e-mailed everyone in his address book.

“Everyone” was driven home this morning when an out-of-state high school (not a high schooler, the school’s business address) e-mailed our state police criminal background check address asking if we could help it get back from Scotland. The Academy was on a trip when its bag was stolen, and wouldn’t you know it, its passport was in that bag, and it needs to pay for the hotel and the flight home.

On behalf of a records help address, we have heard your personal appeal from a generic business address, and our heart goes out to your difficulties overseas.

: Zubon

Back in the Bucketseat

Posted by Ravious on July 14, 2011 in Asides and General. 8 Comments

Sorry I’ve been quiet the past week or so. I just moved to the land of toasted ravioli, provel cheese, horrible wine, Brazilian beer*, and Cardinals baseball. Thankfully, Zubon held down the fort more than aptly. I feel that except for my eyeballs on Guild Wars 2 at the conventions, the remainder of this summer is going to be light on the MMO front. In other PC gaming fronts, I am really looking forward to From Dust, Rock of Ages, and Trackmania 2. All three games are well below the normalized $50-60 price point we seem to be faced with for so many “quality” games, and I am going to push all three hard over at Tap Repeatedly.

Hopefully some time next week, I will have digested my immense reader backlog as well as all the Guild Wars 2 news that has emerged. In the mean time feel free to share below what your summer gaming plans are below, and remember… Brazilian beer, like tequila, never does anybody any good.

–Ravious

*Praise all deities that Shiner, Texas has infiltrated this beer market.

Engineers Have Turrets Syndrome

Posted by Zubon on July 8, 2011 in Asheron's Call 2, Asides, Guild Wars 2, Team Fortress 2 and Warhammer Online. 9 Comments

I don’t really have a post here. I just wanted to use the pun.

: Zubon

Steam Summer Camp

Posted by Zubon on July 1, 2011 in Asides, Borderlands and General. 4 Comments

Just to mention, Steam is doing one of their big seasonal sales with bonus achievements, giveaways, etc. Yes, this is a retailer trying to extract your funds, but they have a variety of games at huge discounts (missed Borderlands? It’s 75% off, with all DLC), so you might want to check it out.

: Zubon