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Tech Pedantry

February 23, 2015 by Belghast

Roguish Charm

This weekend was one of those where we stayed inside for the majority of it. For starters I still feel like crap, with whatever bronchitis type thing that I have. I think it might be getting slightly better, but still feeling drained from all the coughing. For the most part I spent my weekend in a blanket cocoon on the sofa catching up on the show scorpion and playing an awful lot of Final Fantasy XIV. While some of my time was spent with the guild running group content, a far greater amount was spent working on leveling rogue. The class is really starting to grow on me, primarily because of the extremely well done animations. Even though I essentially only have four buttons that matter right now, the animations feel important and it feels like I am the master of dagger based combat. I started the weekend at level 18 and ended the weekend at level 26 so I am pretty happy with that.

For the longest time I had struggled with what to level next. My monk was the closest to max level at 33 but really there is just something about it that does not excite me. I’ve never really liked unarmed/fist weapon classes in games. At high levels you can get some insane looking claws which I am sure improves the enjoyment… but in general I have never actually liked monk characters in the Final Fantasy franchise. Tifa, Sabin, Yang, and Zell all got a minimum of use in my parties, always favoring other jobs for my melee classes. So I guess for me I don’t have this fond nostalgia for the monk and as such it just feels like a less interesting dragoon. Rogue and I am hoping ninja on the other hand feels like this blade master that moves swiftly and delivers fast attacks on their target. I can see leveling both at some point, but I think for the time being I will be “yet another ninja” waiting in the party finder.

Tech Pedantry

The other aspect of this hibernation was watching all sixteen episodes of the show Scorpion to catch me up to date. For some time now my wife has been telling me that she thought I would enjoy the show. Some people are pedantic about grammar or spelling… for me it is about technology. If you show a technology used in an inappropriate way it grates on my nerves and I struggle to get past it. The logo for the television show is stylized as </scorpion> which is an ending html tag… and it drives me insane that they did not instead use the appropriate syntax for a single tag which would be <scorpion />. Anyways at some point I pushed past this frustration when I kept hearing from friends how good the show was. It took me a few episodes to start caring about the characters but right now I think I am officially hooked.

The strange thing about the show is that for the most part they do get technology right. When they go into a nuclear reactor they talk about SCADA based systems, which are an actual protocol that for the most part runs all major infrastructure. Other elements have a bit of science fantasy applied, but still the vast majority of it checks out in theory. The only question is just how much of the show is based on the real Walter O’Brien and how much is made up for the sake of Hollywood. The hacking NASA thing is supposedly true, but I feel like much of the show is romanticized for the sake of the screen. I am just happy to be watching a show that does a pretty fair job of representing tech, and doing so as close to reality as probably any other show has managed to get. Sure it suffers from the same “goofy interface” issues that any other show does, but I have connected enough with the cast of characters to get past that. All I have to say is that Happy Quinn is a badass, and so long as she continues to be an interesting character I will probably keep watching.

Best Shoes Ever

I have this strange attachment with Vans, Airwalk and Converse shoes. There is just something I like about canvas low tops that make me happy… especially the slip on varieties. I would not say that I collect them but I definitely have more than a handful of pairs that I swap back and forth between. The other day my wife stumbled onto the above pair of shoes and thought I needed them. That is how cool my wife is, that she found something like this on her own and suggested I order them. Granted for size 13 shoes they were a bit more expensive than I originally thought, but damn are they worth it. Today is going to be the first time I wear them, and I am sure I will get some goofy looks… but fuck it… they are amazing. They did have some really subtle Darth Vader shoes that I contemplated getting, but I only wanted to get one pair… and the choice was obvious.

While I am posting pictures, I figured I would drop this one on the blog as well. This is one of those rare moments when all three of our cats are getting along. It is a great size comparison picture that shows just how insanely huge Chloe is compared to Kenzie and Allie. As I write this I have Kenzie the kitten sleeping on the top of a computer case on my desk, Allie picking at a box on under my desk, and Chloe sprawled out blocking the exit to my room. They feel like they should be fed apparently, and are going to guard me until I make it happen. Every time I stop typing the look around anxiously as though I am going to bolt from the room and try and shake them. Living with my fuzzy menagerie is definitely an interesting existence, especially when at the same time both ferrets are demanding attention. These are all the reasons why I often am late getting out the door in the morning, but I would not change it for the world.

Tremors in the Force

October 13, 2014 by Belghast

Glorious Weekend

The entire weekend was pretty crummy outside here in Oklahoma, so as a result we spent most of it inside. I curled up on the couch with a brand new fuzzy blanket and spent it gaming on the laptop while watching stuff on television. It had quite literally been a few months since I had last watched television really. Granted there was a bit of television each night and each morning while going to sleep and waking up respectively, but I had not actually sat down to watch anything of any importance in a very long time. As such I had a bunch of shows stacked up that I wanted to catch up on. The most important of these was this seasons Doctor Who. I had watched the premiere several weeks back, but had not seen any of the episodes since.

I feel like the jury is still out on how I feel about the new Scottish Doctor. I guess I am just used to the normal fun loving slightly insane Doctor, and this interpretation just feels strange. The dynamic between Clara and the Doctor also feels a bit strained. Granted the companion that survives a regeneration I guess is always a bit odd, but this one seems more so. It seems in part that the Doctor still has a crush on her, and as he is watching her get on with her life… it feels a little awkward. As far as the stories have gone, I think I like the “Time Heist” episode the best. Trying not to go into much detail for fear of spoilers… because I am sure there are others out there that have not caught up yet. In fact public television here in the United States tends to be one full season behind.

Tremors in the Force

Other than Doctor Who I finally got around to watching the first two episodes of the new Star Wars animated series “Rebels”. What amazes me is just how well both of the animated series have managed to get the feeling of the universe, whereas the prequels failed so miserably. Star Wars Rebels is pretty much the perfect Star Wars show. You have a scrappy group of fighters, and interesting relationship between reluctant Jedi Master and a force sensitive padawan… all after the fall of the Republic in a super scary time where being a Jedi means being hunted. There are just enough call backs to the original series to let you know when exactly this adventure is set. In the first episode Ezra the main character happens to open a Jedi Holocron with the message Obi Wan Kenobi left for all Jedi during the events of Episode 3 – Revenge of the Sith. Then in Episode 2, you encounter C-3PO and R2-D2 who are on their way to the Tantive IV. With those two little vignettes it tells you that the events are sometime in the gulf of time between episodes 3 and 4, which is a super fertile place to base a new series.

The characters are likeable from the start. They are just “scoundrel” enough to come across as being selfish… but quickly transition into a cell of rebel fighters trying to survive however they can. The entire series has a very “Firefly” vibe too it, and honestly I am just wishing there was more of the show to watch already. So far you have Hera Syndulla the Twilek Pilot/Engineer, Sabine Wren the Mandalorian Weapons Expert, Garazeb Orrelios the Lasat Muscle, Ezra Bridger the Street Kid Force Savant and finally Kanan Jarrus the leader of this group and a former Jedi Padawan at the moment Order 66 happened. The mix of personalities and skill sets makes for a really good viewing experience. Since Star Wars meant so much to me growing up, I am always happy to watch the fires get reignited for new generations. I just wish that it was still on Cartoon Network rather than Disney XD, since I seem to be far better in keeping up with Cartoon Network than any other channel. If you have not watched any of the show and are an old school Star Wars fan I highly suggest you check it out.

Eating some Crow

I finally decided to start giving ArcheAge a chance this weekend, in part because I have realized that so many people I know happen to be playing all in the same place, and same guild to be more specific. Other than ventures into Final Fantasy XIV this was the ideal game to sit on the sofa wrapped in my blanket cocoon and watch television while playing. The game itself is still intriguing and intricate, but the thing that turned me off of the game in beta was just how horrible the community had been. So far the launch servers seem to be far better than they were before. I was able to complete the early quests without much attempt at griefing. The place where I had so much frustration during alpha was when you are asked to take a rowboat across a bay. In alpha there were tons of high level ships waiting there to capsize players as they attempted to cross. This time around there was just a single high level ship and they seemed to be loading up for a trade run and completely oblivious to the fact that I was trying to do something.

Similarly I have actually had some decent random grouping experiences. So while the community is nowhere near as nice as say Cactuar in Final Fantasy XIV… it is at least up to WoW Standards… which admittedly isn’t saying much. I did have a really positive experience in doing an elite quest. There is this event that happens in a fallen fortress where between the hours of 2am and 2pm in game time hordes of undead spawn with a boss and you are given quests to kill multiple undead. I noticed that it was nearing the spawn so I wandered up into the hills and decided that I would just kill undead while waiting. There were numerous people up there waiting, and it was moments later that I was invited to a raid team. Folks were relatively well organized and the leader made sure that everyone had gotten all 20 kills before we downed the final boss. Granted this might be an aberration, but it seemed like a pretty reasonable response to the situation.

At this point I am still not terribly certain how often I will play. Right now I have a level 16 Doomlord on Naima Western Continent. This seems to be where most of the people I know are playing, and white honestly I HAD to play Nuian because they were the only race that offered anything even closely resembling proper facial hair. Additionally the Western faction is supposedly going to get dwarves whenever XL Games decides to give the North American servers the expanded racial options. I’ve applied to be in the same guild as Liore, Zelibeli, and several others from both the Machiavelli’s Cats and Multiplaying/Alliance of Awesome communities. I have to say being patron seems to make all the difference in the world because as a true free to play account you have next to no labor points. I am not declaring this game the “best ever” or anything like that, but it seems to no longer be nearly as toxic as it was in early testing. I still prefer FFXIV, but right now I just haven’t had the oomph to grind up another character. So mostly I am working my way through my book quest and doing my daily elite dungeon. However since my friend Eliyon is now a newly minted 50 I can see myself probably playing a lot more in the evenings there. It was a fun weekend nonetheless and I look forward to piddling around in it some more.

#DoctorWho #StarWarsRebels #ArcheAge

Return to Minecraft

July 10, 2014 by Belghast

When it Rains…

The old euphemism “when it rains it pours” is fitting today because it is absolutely drenched outside… and additionally we have been dealing with all sorts of issues this week. Over the weekend we had to deal with my wife’s vehicle and the tensioner going out in a rather dramatic way. For those that don’t remember we were driving Sunday and the bolt essentially sheared causing pretty much every light on the dash to come on at once and us to barely make it home before the engine overheated to the point of no return. Monday during the day we got that issue fixed and it was a rather simple mistake that lead to it. I thought we were done with our auto troubles for the time being, but reality seemed to have other ideas.

Yesterday over lunch I ran to Target to pick up cat food and while I was out something to eat. When I started up the jeep there was a very loud mechanical whirring noise that I didn’t recognize, but otherwise the vehicle seemed to perform fine so I tried my best not to think about it. As I was heading back from lunch and entering the edge of downtown I noticed that the red battery light had come on. At this point I am not really sure what to do… I’ve had a few alternators go out, and generally speaking that light combined with the whirring noise I heard earlier probably meant mine was dying. I parked in the garage and went into the building calling the shop to see if they could work me in. Sure enough they could, so I thought I would try and make my way there, hoping I did not get stranded along the side of the road. I mean we have AAA so in theory there was never really the chance that I would truly get stranded… but I crossed all my things in hope that I made it through successfully.

When I got out into the jeep I turned everything off that could possibly be drawing power. So by the time I made it to the shop I had a rather sweaty windblown hairdo that I am sure was extremely attractive. Thankfully the shop we use is around the corner from my house so I could drop the vehicle off and walk home. Just about the time I walked in the front door my phone was ringing. They had been able to assess the issues and said it was in fact the Alternator, that the bearings were bad and it would need to be replaced. About three thirty they called back letting me know the vehicle was ready for pickup. It is probably a bad thing that the girl behind the desk addressed me by name when I walked through the door. That means we have been in there entirely too often lately. Good news is that my Jeep appears to be fine now, and since both of our vehicles are paid off… I guess paying a car payment a piece worth of repairs is not too bad in the long run.

Return to Minecraft

A few days ago Zeli mentioned that she would be setting up an Alliance of Awesome Minecraft server so that her child could have a safe place to play the game. It is a whitelist based server, and since my Minecraft name is pretty easy to remember I asked her to go ahead and set me up. Last night I finally got around to logging in and playing. For some time House Stalwart has had a Minecraft server run by a member, and at this point we have conquered pretty much all of the land surrounding the spawn point for a few days worth of travel. While this huge sprawling city is awesome to behold, it doesn’t leave much room for you to go out and tame the wilds. So I opted to start fresh on a brand new server, since really the “taming the wilderness” phase of a new server is the most enjoyable for me.

Zeli started us off with a stack of steaks, a steel pick and steel sword, which is a pretty good toolset to gain a foothold in the wilderness. I however squandered this horribly. Having been so long since I played on a server, I forgot about all of the controls like /sethome and wandered around at night for awhile and down into a cave managing to get myself killed… and as such losing all of the nifty baubles that I started with. I really had no clue where I was in relation to the spawn point, so I pretty much set out to start fresh. We have a village near the spawner, and I managed to find it… which means that we also have the village trackstar zombies at night spawning near us. It took me a lot of deaths to finally get to a place where I had enough tools to defend myself.

I did not get terribly far, but right now I have the start of a mine dug into the side of a hill, with a bridge extending from it out into the water where I am slowly building a tower of sorts. I figure the mine will feed my need for resources and the tower out in the middle of a pond will give me plenty of defense. Just going to have to come up with a clever way to get in and out of said tower. The area I am in for some reason has a couple of golems spawned near me, which do a fair job of keeping the baddies away at night. I am guessing someone spawned the golems at the spawner and they just wandered off. Additionally there are mass amounts of horses and cows where I am set up at, meaning I have eventual transportation and a ready source of meat and leather. This time I did remember to type /sethome. Right now I am very much in the “locking things down” phase, trying to create something that will protect me entirely during the nights.

Farscape

While playing Minecraft last night I opted to hang out downstairs and watch Farscape. This is one of my favorite television shows, but I have not actually made it all the way through the series. I was at the very tail end of season three when Netflix lost the license to the show the first time. For awhile I was having them ship me individual DVDs but that process got rather frustrating. I could have of course gone out and found the episodes otherwise, but I got sidetracked. At some point in the last few years they managed to get the licensing set up again and all of the episodes are now ready for streaming in all their glory.

The thing I love the most about this show is that it actually has some pretty diverse aliens that are both a member of the crew and ones that you encounter along the way. The claim to fame of the show that it was done by the Jim Henson creature shop, and because of this the aliens that are brought to life by master puppeteers just have a realness to them that you cannot get with CGI. Dominaar Rigel feels like a real character and not a small puppet, and because of this the show has held its production value, whereas most science fiction feels cheesy a few years after it is made as our graphical standards keep increasing.

At this point I have just finished season three and am ready to start the fourth and final season. If minecraft continues to hold my interests, I will probably spend a few more nights watching Farscape and building away in the Alliance of Awesome server. In fact I think that is what I did last time I watched Farscape… build away on the House Stalwart server. Minecraft and watching television seem to go hand in hand for me. If you’ve never seen Farscape I highly suggest you check it out, as it has this whole Buck Rogers meets Star Wars feel to it. I pretty much like all of the characters except for a late addition to the crew … Jool. It is not that I mind her character, it is that I mind the sonic assault that is having her in any sort of action situation. When she gets freaked out she emits this high pitched scream that drives me up a wall.