Dwarfishness - Fortress Planning

Well, I thought I'd write a small post on fortress design...

As most of you know, I'm a feverent fan of dwarf fortress. I love the design abilities, and engeneering traps for my enemies. At times, I try and provoke the elves and the dwarves to attack early, just to start driving them through some of my setups.

Here's my generic main gate design. I build my entrances on flat ground in contrast to most dwarf fortress designers, who build thier fortress on mountainsides. It takes more effort to begin with, but it makes it easier to direct enemies to where you want them. I also always give the enemy at least two controlled options to enter my fortress, and different gate mechanisms to control the options available.

This is my medical tower and jail. I place these off to the side, and in a fully contained area that can only be accessed from sublevel 3. This has two purposes... firstly, this means that I can keep my prisoners near medical facilities, just in case. The second thing this means is that I can do this:

Added security, let's just say...

The final steps I add is a gate on each side(north, south, east and west), a large perimeter wall, a elevated entry walkway and a Hydra Lock. The theory behind the hydra lock is simple -- If I have any people escape he main bulk of my traps, I pull a lever and my main fortress is sealed off, and that entry way, the outer ring, is completely filled with water, drowning all opposition. The main part of this is easy, resettable traps... I'll work out a post on my Hydra Lock system next... it's simple, easy to control and makes defense easy.

Some Uploads

I was messing around with some of my old files, and came across something I made with Finale ages ago. I thought it was neat, so I uploaded it. See it here:

There are times where I can't believe what I'm reading...

I love my wife, more then anything. However, there are some things that she insists on doing that just rile me up. The biggest is her forums...

She frequents a "forums", which is fine and all, but it seems that there is a large collection of detrius that has made it's way on the internet and found a way to post messages. These people just boggle my mind.

The latest, and "finest" of these, was a woman who lived with her 40ish year old husband. He has a seventeen year old daughter, and she spends two days a week living with them. During those two days, her boyfriend comes over and basically lives with them. Loud, noisy sex, the whole kit.

She is expecting a baby any day now, and her husband wants his daughter to live with them. Niether of them stand up to this girl, and from all sounds of what was posted, she feels like she's walking on egg shells every time this girl is over because of her actions.

She dosen't want to stand up to the girl, and she dosen't want to push her husband to, which is fine and I can really understand that... untill we get into the problem she has with the girl. The only reason(and she admits it multiple times) that she really wants the girl gone is she wants the bedroom free.

This... makes me really rile. If your in a relationship, you need to take everything that comes with that, children and all. This means that if her husband is not taking authority, she should be. If she dosen't want the girl in thier life, she should bring it up to him and they should talk about it. The point is, someone needs to take controll. At the moment, though, the one in controll seems to be the daughter, and we all know how that will end.

It's just sad, really, and It's going to probably cause way more trouble then it should.

(Clarification: I don't mind the forums, I just hate the epic stupid that seems to spill forth. That's the problem with forums... most of the time, the people know what needs to be done, it's just thier too stupid/lazy to do anything about it.)

Junk the Debunk - Science still proven to many...

I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about a new report from the Chronicle Herald trying to debunk a study linking childhood vaccines to autism.

Here is an excerpt from their article:

Sadly, there's likely little hope that erroneous conviction will be much altered by last week's news that the 1998 study, which purported to link autism and the MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine has been declared a fraud by Britain's pre-eminent medical journal. The British medical Journal's condemnation of disgraced former Dr. Andrew Wakefield to work.  First published in the Lancet (which last year finally retracted the article) couldn't have been more unequivocal.

The BMJ said that Mr. Wakefield had, in an unmistakably intentional way, altered the data to produce a result that wasn’t there.

Coming on the heels of the Lancet retraction, last year’s decisions by the British General Medical Council to declare Mr. Wakefield’s actions as bringing the medical profession into disrepute and also to strip the doctor of his licence to practise, the BMJ’s denunciation leaves the study’s — and Mr. Wakefield’s — credibility in shambles.

I like to interject here are a few things about the medical studies. There have been a lot of studies in the past that have been funded privately and by the government which have shown results that it's are not up to par with the original reasons for the study, for example, all of the tests that led to all the scandal over in Ontario and that whole groundwater fiasco.

The fact is, when you're doing a study you are taking a large selection of people, and those people it you assume have had no exposure to anything that wouldst weigh the study from one-way or the other.  You're basically assuming that there is a Blank Slate.

Here's the steppingstone: the vaccines that it's are in question to use a mercury-base to help break down the virus so that it can be more easily administered.  This basically supposed to weaken the virus so that it will not be able to gain a foothold in the body. The problem calms that that heavy metal is still eating inject into the body and the body cannot easily get rid of it in ads to unmount that may be gleaned from a natural environment for example from stock of fish or other wildlife that have been exposed to high mercury levels and other heavy metals that may already reside in the body.

Here's another excerpt for you:

Past investigations had already shown that Mr. Wakefield’s study received funding from lawyers suing vaccine manufacturers and that the researcher, who developed an alternative to the MMR shot, stood to gain financially if the accepted vaccine was dropped from use.

It will make it true that Mr. Wakefield may have received donations to its funding from lawyers who are looking to combat the vaccine manufacturers on behalf of their client and he does not pose that he altered the date and the actual suggestion here has no basis, unless the facts and where they believed that the data was altered was to be published along with this report, which they have not.

As the story goes on to say that no credible scientific study has ever been able to duplicate Mr. Wakefield results now this is this comes across to me as if their studies out there that are literally been discredited.  Just because the result they came to not buy the science is used to come result, which is something you'd expect from the British constitution if they are discrediting the results because they do not match the status quo, then we have a bit of a problem.

The problem also stems from the problem that the British medical institution in the American medical institution and by extension, the Canadian medical institution has with the findings of this report the problem is with vaccine manufacturers that level mercury is well within the safe amounts that is the manufacturers are allowed to pull within products, that's highly publicized but we basically as consumers we are allowed to have a certain amount of heavy metal be ingested to products and be it fish in more any other food for that matter will be it any supplies like paint.  Any aerosols or any other type both spring on product or by construction materials etc. etc.

The problem is is a combination of all of these factors.  It literally means that you may be ingesting peel the lethal dose from two or three or four sources, plus a it's the assumptions made when they monitor.  The product, whatever it may be that you're only going to have a short-term exposure to them may be you may use the product lets say(because I don't have exact numbers) once a month at best.

The assumptions made that you'll only be exposed to that product for that duration and only that product having the exposure through only that duration so for example, if the product being tested is a fish that have contamination of mercury in their suit and that you're only going to be eating that said product once a month for 12 months of the year.  That basically means if you would eat in that product for a second time during that week you doubled your own allowed dosage for that amount of time, things like heavy metals...  They don't break down easily.

No, not trying to scare tactic you hear into not eating fish or not painting, what I'm trying to do is trying to explain to the groundwork that they're working on for this. It's a problem because life is not sterilized lab, and you will not be exposed to one thing at a time...  Usually you're exposed to multiple things at a time and you just crossing your fingers and hoping it works out for the best.

Here's the problem with what they're doing here.  There is an alternative that does not use heavy metals.  There is a healthy alternative that has been proven to work the problem is: it's expensive.  It's literally a pennypinching effort, and what's really sad about this is these press releases and conferences are costing way more money than it would take to move the entire infrastructure from a mercury-based that we've been dealing with since the mid-30s and 40s to a more better and healthier type.

It'll just comes down to pennypinching. The truth of the matter is that this could be easily done, and the government does have the funds.  However, most of the funds are being misappropriated to other projects that really don't matter such as, and people don't like me saying this, the Olympic bids.  Things like that, appearing as the grand spectacle for the rest of world instead of fixing our problems is was getting us into these pits. I mean, look at Vancouver. But that's not a subject for right now.

In summary, I view this as an unfair discreditation. And if they really want people to take them seriously, they should release a facts.

Original Article

(Sorry if this is wierd, I just got Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 and I'm still training it. Work in progress!)

Review - Man in a Gap

Hey guys, just a quick tidbit on another neat little game I found on Kongregate, Man in a gap.

This is a very simple puzzle game, where you need to guess where the opening is in a floor and a cieling piece, and position your character accordingly. The art direction is quite simple, but works quite well, and the animation is really smooth and fluid. The game responds nicely, and is quite good for a few minutes of entertainment.

Link: Man in a gap


(I'm trying to find a better way to link flash games, but this will have to do while I tinker...)

Review - I am an Insane Rogue AI

This... this game is epic.

If you're not familiar with nerdook, I suggest you look them up on Kongregate. They are the masters of really simplistic, fun games. The art style of all of thier games is definatly unique, and quite refressing in comparison to the photorealistic art styles that most games are moving towards. It's nice, simple, and processor friendly!

The game is exactly what you would expect from the title. You play a insane, rogue AI, and your goal is to infect all computers and the server in each building. It's simplistic, but exceedingly fun. The units are simple, and each does one or two things to help hinder your process, but at the same time many of the units you can turn against the occupants of these labs, making your job easier. There's some nice references to popular science fiction, but it's enough that although the characters are recognisable, It's not really overpowering.

This game is a fun distraction, and is one of the better free puzzle games relesed recently. It's certainly worth a look if you have a few, free minutes.

Link: I am a insane, rogue AI on Kongregate

Review - Thief: Dark Project

Hardly anyone in the gaming community has not heard of the company Eidos. This company made a lot of my best remembered games from the late 90s, and produced the first game where I got to actively experience the new "espionage" genera.

Thief is the first game I played that wanted you to think in 3 dimensions, and was also the first game I played where background atmospheric dialog occurred at random intervals. It was a weird feeling to sneak up on a pair of guards who where just milling about, talking to each other.

The game simulated noise and light, which meant that the guards acted very intelligently for the age, with the exception that there were times where they would spot you... through a physical object. You had the ability to put out torches with water arrows(sigh), rope arrows to climb up to high alcoves, and the first game to cause a sneak attack to take out a guard instantly. It was also the first game I can remember that forced you to hide the body of guards.

If you want to take a look and see how far the genera has come, or some of the best early entries into the world of gaming, try out Thief: Dark Project.

Get it Here!

Reviews - Diablo II

This is a game that in no way needs any introduction. If you have played RPGs in the past 20 years, there is no way that Blizzard Entertainment has not in one way or another changed your life. At the moment, they are best known for thier World of Warcraft online MMO. That was far from thier best game, though.

Enter the world of diablo, where demons and angels walk the earth, battling for the souls of men. What at first may sound like any number of fantasy books is made unique by the way the story is told, and by the immersivness of the enviroment. Harking back to the last Diablo, all enviroments are randomly generated, meaning every instance of the game is a different and unique expirience.

On learning C++, Spagheti code, and Hostile Forum Goers

So, time to talk about my little pet project. I'm in the process ot trying to learn C++. As you can imagine, this means alot of trial and error, and quite a bit more book reading. The fun part of learning C++ is the multitude of ways something can be done, and how none of them are apparently correct. It's "fun" to watch groups of people battle over the specific way a segment of code should be carried out, and as a complete newbie, it gives me a real feeling of being in the center of a war zone.

Everything, apparently, I code is incorrect. I use goto statements and lead them to loops. I nest if/elseif/else statements into one another, and I really don't comment my code much. I misuse functions, abuse pointers in ways that shouldn't happen, and generally mash things together until they work exactly the way that I want them to... which at times is not really that good from a technical aspect. To the user, it looks just fine.