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Face Change

It was time to change up the rm -rf look and feel. The layout and orange was kind of cool for a while but it's time for a more 'clean' scifi layout and color scheme. And beyond that it was time to do some content cleanup. There were some embarrassing errors that crept past my skilled editing and proofreading skills.

As I was going through articles and inspecting the new theme on my desktop I realized the tags were out of control. I had completely abused them. So I am in the process of wiping out nearly all of them, then I'll carefully add more but only as needed and with some thought behind it.

I need to do some work on the mobile version, but I may not be able to do much within the confines of Blogger. I think rm rf is getting closer to a point where creating and hosting my own site and management tools is justified. We'll see. Let me know what you think, or maybe you have some suggestions, those are definitely welcome also.

Put Something On Your Head

I have a lot of hats. Pork pies, pub caps, fiddlers, greek fishermen, cadet caps, Stormy Kromers, dixie caps, Mau caps, jeep caps, beanies, boonies, can hats, and a fez. Hats are a great way to express yourself. I've dug up some of the more unique hats I've encountered and would like to share them with you.

Stormy Kromer - perfect camper / boater
I have a Kromer and I love it. But I do have to be in the mood for it. I typically prefer shapes quite a bit different from Kromer's, but they are so well made. They are comfortable and amazingly functional. With their large bill and snug fit I actually wear mine sailboat racing and camping.

Duck Canvas Greek : perfect Popeye
White fiddlers and fisherman caps are perfect summer caps. They are fun, humorous, and to me scream I AM the party - because they just don't care. And who doesn't want to party with Popeye.

Aphgani Pakol : awesome wool traditionale
I found these a few years ago and really wanted to get one. Had I found the black one I JUST encountered I probably would have purchased it. Wearing one them in this part of the world would definitely be a bold fashion statement. They are nice and minimal, rugged, utilitarian, and wool! I'll have to get one sometime.

Stetson Docker : expensive... beanie?
This one is truly strange. I like the stitched panel beanie idea, but it would have to be fitted. I feel like making it sizeable just makes it look like a classic baseball cap that has had its bill cut off. And then there's the price. Now I am TRULY confused.

Howell Shantung Pork Pie : because, Ska!
To me this hat screams Ska. And I love me some Ska. It is another great summer and party hat, like a young fun cousin to the Panama.

The Telescope : a porkpie cap
This is one of the strangest hat... cap... uh I don't even know.  I have zero love for flatbills, so taking a Pork Pie (Which is a style I love) and putting a flatbill on it is an abomination. The end result looks like a cross between a conductor hat and a Civil War Kepi But I have to give it full credit for its uniqueness.

That's Been Done

Everything has already been done, and chances are it has been done better. In building an IF engine this realization is always lingering in my mind. I will never write anything that compares to TADS. It's just not going to happen. TADS is huge (Inform as well) and has been worked on by people much smarter than I am and for decades. This fact was why I fought the urge to start an engine in the first place. But as I worked in TADS there were some things I wanted to do differently. I've achieved most of my stated goals. Once I get a client written for Android I will be much closer.

This week a friend in the IntFiction IRC channel posted a link to an amazing looking IF game that is ten years in the making. It is truly impressive. It was written in TADS and has maps and other graphical UI components. It has been ported to Steam and has received a decent amount of funding from a GoFundMe campaign. Trailers and other promo pieces were done and it is for sale for about $15.

The game is Thaumistry, written by the legendary Bob Bates. It was created in TADS.

Now not inly am I creating an engine that will never compete with other engines out there, but my games will never compete with the likes of Thaumistry. But there isn't anything else I want to work on, so I am at a quandary. Do I press on, or listen to reason and let it go?

For now I am pressing on  :)

Is Mobile IF's Potion?

In watching some videos of Interactive Fiction's (IF) forefathers, I realized that I am definitely not alone in wishing for an IF resurgence. I can't imagine it returning as a source revenue - capable of sustaining a business at least - but perhaps there IS hope. Right now I am typing this out on my phone. In fact I spend a decent amount of time every day writing on my phone. FAR more time than I spend typing on my computer.... And so is everyone else.

People are scrolling through apps and staring at endless streams of texts. TEXTs. Reading and righting text. I think that IF could do well on mobile devices. From what I've seen there isn't much out there. I know it's very difficult to port IF games to the few mobile clients out there. This might be part of the problem. So I've begun the battle with Android, and working with Android (And probably other mobile platforms) truly is a battle. I am building a WorldWeaver client. It will use the same game DBs that the desktop Java client does, so games can be ported over without any change. I will do the same for other mobile platforms.

We'll see if mobile is the magic potion that restores some of IF's life points.

Check the Crowd Reaction

I remember way back when, playing Gabber in Canada and Oregon state. With live performances gauging the audience is part of the task. Your job is to get the crowd stoked, and you can gauge how you are doing in real time. This is great, you can adjust your performance in response to what is going on in the crowd.

Writing is a totally different animal. I have to try to become the audience myself, and look at what I've written from that perspective. If I am stuck on parts of a story that I am bored with, does that mean the reader will be bored as well? Or would it be intriguing to them, since they don't know what I - as the writer - know?

I am a hobbyist writer, so you probably don't want to listen to me - but...
What I do when I hit a slog in a story is I ask myself if it furthers the plot, or develops a character, or sets a tone, etc. If so it may be useful to leave in - unless it slows the story down, or maybe it reveals too much too soon.

I used to get stuck and situations like this would infect my feelings on the entire story. At that point I would usually just ditch it. But lately I've been localizing that feeling. I'll ditch just the part I'm struggling on, and do so quickly. Then I'll rewrite it - or maybe it simply needs removed. The key is I don't linger.

I just get it did.

Encore: Reaper SubProjects

When making highly technical dance music one technique is to build a synth riff, EQ'd and effected up. Then the riff is frozen, chopped up, effected more, reversed, etc. Maybe that gets frozen and the tweaking and trashing repeats. At each iteration, the musician listens for gold nuggets. The best clips get utilized in the song.

In Reaper there is an amazing tools that makes this technique super-powered. A synth can be added to a project, if it makes the sounds the musician wants, a riff can be written. That track can then be 'opened in a subproject'. The subproject opens in a new tab. Effects can then be added to the track. When the project is saved the riff is rendered as a wave. At any time the riff in the main project can be double clicked to open the subproject. Notes can be changed and effects tweaked etc. When it is saved the riff is re-rendered.

It's amazing, and makes the whole process much less painful, and adds complete flexibility.

Learning From Learned

The other morning I saw a great video on the mistake that ruined Einstein's life. The presentation was put together very well. It began outlining where Einstein had, in the past, been refuted and ceded to those who disagreed with him, figuring they knew best. Later it was discovered that Einstein was right all along.
 

Later in his life, when probability and randomness became the leading thought regarding the inner workings of everything, Einstein stuck to his guns. In doing so he ended up being 'left behind'.
 

I'm no physicist and can't comment on whether he was right or wrong. But I do believe he was right to stand by his convictions. Sometimes we have to stand alone, against a world telling us we are wrong. Sometimes we have to give up everything for what we believe.

Check out this excellent presentation here:
Einstein's Greatest Mistake - with David Bodanis

Are Amoebas Minimal?

Because the Amoeba text editor, or Android sure is. And so far I love it. There is one little toolbar across the top of the screen... and that's it. The file menu is accessed way down in the bottom right corner of the screen. There are no tabs, although two documents can be open at once. I for one hate tabbars. Especially on an OS that allows you to swipe. Just swipe left or right to navigate through the open documents.

It has a great 'magnifier' tool during selection and cursor moving, but there is no select all command that I've seen. This is a must. It's terrible selecting all text in larger files. That is the only real issue so far. Other than that I'm really liking it so far!

Check it out here
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.softevol.amoeba&hl=en

Collaborate and Prosper

I have been toying with writing for many years now. Most projects start out strong but fizzle out. My latest efforts have been done in collaboration with a fellow scifi fanatic and I have to say it has made all the difference. Putting multiple heads together allows you to work out your ideas in ways you would have never thought of on  your own. When you hit rough patches in your work you can talk it over and work through it together. I know that my current project would have been abandoned long ago if I were working on it alone, and it wouldn't be nearly as interesting.

HDD Ugh-ness

Arch install paused. Apparently the first hurdle - disk partitioning - might be the end of this attempt. It seems my HDD may have finally given up the ghost. It has given me grief in the past, but an fsck fixed it. Still at random times I would get disk errors. Now it appears to have gotten pretty bad. Any time I try running fdisk it just blows up with HDD errors.
I have many other projects to work on so the Arch install will have to be put on hold. Kind of sad. I need a decent cheap beater machine to play with. I don't want to do virtual machines, I would rather work on a full on install. So I may be keeping my eyes open for a machine I can mess with.

Arch Adventure

Ok I dug out good ol' broke screen, plugged it into a monitor, downloaded Arch, and put it on a jump drive. Thus begins my adventures in advanced Linux distro installation.

I'm excited. I've never really done a Nix deep dive. I've always run straightforward 'desktop user' distros with graphical partition managers that do everything for you. Wireless connections are part of the install. Piece of cake.

The Arch Linux install boots you to a prompt, with a great install.txt file as a guide. That's it. So the first step is setting up the partitions. Bam. First wall to climb. Even with graphical partition managers I've never taken the time to truly understand how Linux partition tables are typically set up (I know, I suck). So at the first step I have a lot to learn!

As I progress through this project (with my amount of knowledge this is truly a project), I'll post updates.

RT Love

I am not a Macross/Robotech nerd. I am the guy who sees a big cheap watch and thinks it's cooler than the watch on the nearby person - who's wearing a Blancpain. I'm just a dood who digs RT and has read some of the novels, seen some of the cartoons, collects RT/Macross TShirts. Speaking of which, here are the coolest RT/Macross shirts I've found - and or own - so far.

Classic! VF-1 Valyrie
I have this shirt and love it. Such a sweet VF pic, it looks really good.
Link.
https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/864690-vf-1-valkyrie

Guardian - red version:
I bought this shirt when it was still awaiting it first release, so it was a long wait - but totally worth it! Guardian configuration is my favorite, so I love it! I believe this also comes with yellow triangle etc.
Link.
https://www.80stees.com/products/guardian-robotech-t-shirt

Cyclone S&R:
The service and repair shirts are cool. I want to get them all! I have this particular one in gray. I won't list and link them all, but there are S&R shirts for all kinds of RT/Macross tech.
Link.
https://www.teepublic.com/kids-t-shirt/1818454-cyclone-service-and-repair

RDF Logo:
Nice and minimal, and only those who know RT will know what it is. I don't have this one yet, but need to.
Link.
https://www.redbubble.com/people/olahragayu/works/27002779-robotech?grid_pos=3&p=t-shirt&rbs=860521f2-ed38-42dc-b7a2-c4878e7a9189&ref=shop_grid&style=mens

Embrace the Pain

I have not explored the caverns of hardcore Linux yet. But it crosses my mind every now and then. I happen to have an old laptop with a broken screen. I could hook it up to a monitor. And I could put Arch on it. Or Slackware. Or Gentoo.

I could definitely use the experience. I would be forced to become intimately familiar with the inner workings of Linux. I have *sort of* done this in the past. When I hit the network setup wall, plugged in my network cable, and hit the network set up wall again.... and again. I decided I didn't really want to be a Linux guru.

Snce then I've had to do some digging and debugging on my new laptop. So maybe now I know enough to struggle through the process. If you haven't looked into advanced Linux distros before, here's a couple suggestions culled from various distro reviews:

Arch Linux
https://www.archlinux.org

Debian
https://www.debian.org/

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

Fedora
https://getfedora.org/

Gentoo
https://www.gentoo.org/

Zorking Out

I'm doing it. After watching hours of old salts and super gurus talk about the early - lucrative - days of IntFiction, I'm playing Zork. I tried it once a long time ago, well before I had messed around with IF engines and building my own engine and game. At that time I had no idea what I was doing. I'm pretty sure I didn't even get to the forest, just wandered around the house getting angry. Now that I am more familiar with IF it is much easier to get things done.

I can see why Zork was so popular, not just for being groundbreaking, but because it is so well done. I'm already taking away inspiration that will improve Escape Apsis.

Another take away from my video watching:
Addressing my cross platform goal for WorldWeaver. So I am embarking on the VERY painful task of porting the WorldWeaver client to Android. Considering it took a bunch internet searches to figure out how to vertical align TextBox text, I foresee many Android rant articles in my future.

My Favorite Ignored Divers

I spend a decent amount of time perusing watch forums, doing image searches for watches, scrolling through Pinterest watch feeds, and talking about watches. It is safe to say I have a passing interest in them. If you follow my articles at all you know I enjoy all kinds of watches. I have a cllection of cool looking 'space age' watches. Sadly some of them only LOOK cool. cool half of them are sitting dead due to insanely rapid battery depletion, or dead dead - apparently due to rusted contacts. But they look like they came out of yesterday's future.

Ultimately, however, dive watches are my one true watch love. There are other styles I like, but nothing like dive watches. I have a couple Citizen dive watches, and they are beautiful. Nearly every Citizen I've ever seen is really good looking. But my current taste is classic and minimal. I am constantly looking around for great minimal classic dive watches.

I love the look of some of the older Submariners.
Minimal face, dot indicators, minimal hands (I prefer sword hands to the Mercedes hands), clean bezel, flat sapphire  crystal (A nice bevelled edge is cool), date optional, no cyclops.

This love of traditional divers started with the first topic of this article. While it isn't entirely ignored, plenty of articles mention it, but I think it coupd always use more exposure:

Seiko SKX007

The 007. This was is classic. Sure it's no Submariner, but it's just as traditional. It is affordable, mine was less than $200. It's tough and handsome. The face is properly minimal, the lume is decent, the second hand is beautiful. It is reasonably accorate. The movement is a workhorse. And it's ISO certified! The only gripes I have with the 007:

I prefer minimal hands. The arrows bother me a bit.
I also prefer watches on the larger end of the standard sizes spectrum, and the 007 is a bit small for me.

My issue with the 007's size is what brought me to the last topic of this article. This watch truly is ignored. I have seen numerous, articles mentioning Orients, Steinharts, even Invictas, when discussing traditional and homage divers. I've only seen this next watch in a couple places. It was compared to the Steinhart Ocean, and it got a mention in a Watchuseek thread...

Armida A2

The Armida I own is their lower end model. 200m resistance, NH35 movement, no drilled lugs. But it holds its own, in fact I have a difficult time choosing between the Armida and my Marathon GSAR (Which is at a much higher price point). It is everything I was looking for in a minimalist traditional diver. Armida's really deserve more mention. I love the way my Armida looks, and feels. The only gripes I have with the Armida is:

I would prefer 300m resistance.
I wish it had drilled lugs like its higher end relatives.
While I do like Seiko movements - they have reputations of being tough workhorses - the higher end movements ARE more accurate.

IntFiction Flava

I hope I didn't choose poorly. There are all flavors of game building styles in IntFiction, from full on programming language to natural writing-like. From TADS to Inform. In designing World Weaver I took the more TADS route - because that is my personal preference.

I had no delusions that my work would be able to even come close to the power of TADS, Inform or other IF engines. The existing engines are absolutely amazing. There were a few things I wanted to do a bit differently though, and I've mentioned these in the past...

Portability:
My first goal was portability. That was the primary pain point I had with TADS. Of course at this point I haven't really achieved this. The TADS client is pretty well supported on desktop OS's, and so is WW since it's Java. But being a Java console app, I am able to play it in any linux console emulator on my phone. But support on mobile/tablet devices is not there.

Flexibility:
Another goal was flexibility for the game authors. I wanted to make it easy to use game elements however the author wants. There are no built in navigation commands etc. The game author defines them, and what they do. This can be tedious at times, and inheritance, spawning etc can help, but ultimately I wanted to give authors complete control.

FPS:
WW is built with game-like IntFiction in mind. More like an FPS in text than a choose your own adventure. It supports fighting, shooting (Or stabbing, whatever the author defines), the concept of life points, speed, etc. Moving NPCs that can be friends or foes. And more.

I am relying on game authors who prefer a more programming-like means of building IntFiction games. So hopefully there are plenty of you out there!

Branding and Bullets

WorldWeaver is progressing nicely. So far the fixes to spawning performance is tolerable. I will do some rounds of optimizing everything. I had to implement NPC movement. I didn't realize I hadn't done that yet. Is works great for the 'following' mode. I need to test the other travel modes.

I also decided it was a good time to add branding. Until now whenever the WorldWeaver client is launched, it shows the WorldWeaver ASCII title and a list of the installed games that can be played. But now if the .jar is launched with a game's DB file name as a parameter it launches WorldWeaver in 'branded' mode, showing either just the game's name and play/resume cmmands, or it shows the contents of the splash.txt file. In that file can be ASCII art, or any other text-based splash screen contents you want for your game.

When utilizing the splash.txt it is then up to the game author to inform the player of the possible commands - such as play, resume, exit, help.

I have also been digging into Unity a bit. I'm a total noob so it's exciting to see my FPS with a cool looking shotgun... And now, after a bunch of work the other night - bullets.
 

They currently just bounce off stuff but they are there. They disintegrate after 5secs, and actually come out at the tip of the shotgun. Hehe. Total noob.