Thursday, December 27, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls" (Hershel Shanks ed.) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

"In the Shadow of the Ark" (Anne Provoost) - Ditto.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"The Sharp End" (David Drake) - Drake delivers once again. You can always count on him for quality military SF. This story covers the less told story of a squad of Slammers sent to investigate new "business opportunities".

"The Bondage of the Will" (Martin Luther) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

New Stars Status

I fixed a bug due to clicking near a projected ship path. Also, I've added the future paths (show below).



Next step is to fix the scan of enemy ships (mentioned previously), and add checking to the ship designer.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Rainbows End" (Vernor Vinge) - Vinge hasn't written a lot of stuff. I've read his far future stuff (A fire upon the deepness in the sky), which is pretty good. This book is much nearer future. Wearable computing is nearly ubiquitous. And medical technology has gotten pretty good (the "heavenly minefield" as Vinge calls it). The book follows several viewpoints, but the key one is an Alzheimer's patient recently cured. He is trying to adapt to the new culture, and restore some of what he's lost (as well as finally maturing!).

Saturday, November 17, 2007

New Stars Status

Lots of minor problems need fixing. So, I grabbed a bunch and fixed them:
  1. Selecting a planet crashes the program, if the production window has been closed.
    • Fixed the update calls to check for the window's existance
    • Added the "change production" button to bring the window back
    • Defaulted the window to not be shown

  2. No enemy designs in the ship designer
    • Added an interface from the nstclgui dll back to Tcl
    • Updated the ship designer code to show it

  3. GUI oddities when clicking near planet names and fleet flight paths
    • Fixed the ordering of canvas objects so planets are on top


This is taken from the JOAT the turn after they detect the WM scout. I suspected the scan code was not clearing private info. Now I am sure...

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Hey Taxi!

I was looking for a fun little game to play when I get tired of whatever it is I'm working on. I'm tired of solitaire, and the statistics in free cell make it too stressful (same for spider solitaire).

So, I've started hacking Hey Taxi into Tcl. I worked on it about 5 minutes last night, and in less than a half hour this morning, I've got a pretty fun framework. Here's a screen shot:



I've bound up arrow to -10 Y acceleration. If you go below 0, you move up properly. Not sure how much I'll need to add to keep it fun... I think I at least want X thrust.

Update: I added X thrust.

Source for heytaxi.tcl

set ::gravX 0
set ::gravY 1

set ::velX 1
set ::velY 1

set ::taxiID 0

proc eventLoop {} {
if {$::taxiID == 0} { return }

incr ::velX $::gravX
incr ::velY $::gravY

set coord [.c coords 1]
if {$::velY < 0 || [lindex $coord 3] < [.c cget -height]} {
.c move $::taxiID $::velX $::velY
}
after 1000 eventLoop
}

proc thrustUp {} {
incr ::velY -10
}

proc thrustLt {} {
incr ::velX -5
}

proc thrustRt {} {
incr ::velX 5
}

pack [frame .fVel] -side top
pack [label .fVel.lLX -text "X Velocity:"] -side left
pack [label .fVel.lVX -textvariable velX] -side left
pack [label .fVel.lVY -textvariable velY] -side right
pack [label .fVel.lLY -text "Y Velocity:"] -side right

pack [canvas .c] -side top

set ::taxiID [.c create rectangle 10 10 20 20 -fill yellow]

bind . <keypress-up> thrustUp
bind . <keypress-left> thrustLt
bind . <keypress-right> thrustRt

after 1 eventLoop

Thursday, November 01, 2007

New Stars Status

Small changes, but good.



I added the calculations for terraforming to the planet display. I haven't updated the environment bars to show the swing, but you can see the final habitability. I have also been working on correlating our planetary production formula to the original Stars algorithms.

Interesting thing, I found a "bug" in Stars. Stars keeps population in terms of kilotons (100 people per kiloton). When your population grows, you often generate some fraction of a kiloton of people (0..99 people). We weren't previously storing or calculating with this. When I added it, I noticed a difference between our calculations and Stars (the Stars.xls sheet has been invaluable).

So, should the fraction of a kiloton of people contribute to population growth? I thought so, but apparently, the fraction is kept on the side and added in after growth is calculated. I have implemented "bug compatibility", although the other way is commented in the code.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Glasshouse" (Charles Stross) - This book made Stross and Morgan start to run together in my head. Stross depicts another version of "life eternal" after the singularity. It didn't seem very pleasant. Hacked assemblers editing people's memories, huge wars fought across the galaxy against dictators willing to do anything. Life so painful, you willingly submit to have your memories erased. But at least Stross managed to fit in an interesting mystery :)


"The Creationists" (Ronald Numbers) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

New Stars Status

A lot of progress. Some highly visible, some more subtle.

I added the JOAT's final ships (destroyer and remote miner).



I fixed the scrap code to take into account the proper return (was just 100%, now it takes into account Ultimate Recycling, and presence of a starbase. (The JOAT immediately scraps his remote miner). I also had to update the client code to allow issuing the scrap command.



I finally fixed the client to show resources generated (currently pulled from the turn file, not calculated).



The availability of the destroyer also altered the scanning pattern for the JOAT:

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

What is Nuclear Fusion?

Normal matter (stuff) is made up of atoms. These atoms (normally) are made up of protons (positive particles) and neutrons (neutral particles) in a "nucleus", and surrounded by electrons (negative particles). The negative particles repulse other negative particles, while attracting positive particles. The positive particles act in the opposite manner.

In nuclear fusion, very high temperature and pressure are used to squeeze nuclei together. When done to lighter elements (hydrogen - 1 proton, and boron - 5 protons, are favorites), energy is released.

Nuclear fusion holds great potential for cheap, plentiful energy. Hydrogen and boron are very plentiful fuel sources. It is not free from radioactive concerns. Different forms of fusion involve different amounts of radioactive materials (inputs and byproducts). Some are somewhat higher than current fission reactors. Some are less.

The sun is an existence proof for fusion power. There, huge pressure is available due to gravity (the hydrogen is compressed to 150,000 kg/m^3). This allows fusion to occur at a relatively low temperature - 13.6 million degrees. At this temperature, the hydrogen gas becomes "plasma" - the fourth state of matter (after solid, liquid, and gas). In a plasma, the electrons are separated from their nuclei, and the whole thing can be manipulated using electromagnetic fields (very convenient for us).

A typical commercial power planet produces around 1 gigawatt (1 billion watts). Using fusion as the sun does would require 170 billion tons of hydrogen, in a cube-shaped reactor 1 mile on a side (and it would have to sustain the enormous pressure and heat of the sun).

Obviously, some innovation is required to make fusion power work here on Earth. The most promising current projects are:
  1. Tokamak - this is the most well funded type of project. A big donut-shaped container, surrounded by magnets, is used to hold the fusion plasma.
  2. Laser inertia - powerful lasers push two nuclei together directly. This is how fusion bombs work.
  3. Polywell - this design was championed by Robert Bussard (of Bussard ramjet fame). Unfortunately, Dr. Bussard died recently. The project is continuing without him.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Broken Angels" (Richard Morgan) - This was the second book in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy. If I had read them in the proper order, the whole Martian thing would probably made a whole lot more sense :)

"The Rebirth of Orthodoxy" (Thomas Oden) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

New Stars Status

Wow! I got to use polar coordinates (I couldn't remember how to figure it out with regular geometry :)


Here we have the JOAT turn 4. The JOAT's armed probe has been refueled, and is moving along. The WM's armed probe has been spotted by the planetary scanner. I still need to work out some information hiding.

I've also implemented the last direction logic (and draw it in the GUI).

Friday, September 28, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"The Jungle" (David Drake) - This is Drake's cover of the story "Clash by Night" by Henry Kuttner (which is at the back of the book). Not the greatest Drake (no real military action, just hacking through a very dangerous jungle). I think the most interesting part was that the two commanding officers each thought they personally were cowards, and the other man a true hero.

"Evolutionism and Creationism" (Ben Sonder) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

New Stars Status

Check out the scan radii!



This is turn two for the JOAT. He's scanned four planets using his built-in pen scan. I've also added his initial freighter. He is still missing his Remote Miner and Destroyer.

I also fixed the "N light years from Place" readout.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Woken Furies" (Richard K. Morgan) - Apparently the third Tak Kovacs book. Poor Tak, he seemed to be getting his rage/father anxiety under control at the end of Altered Carbon. But things took a turn for the worse at some point and he is raging again. I'm a little disappointed in Morgan for going with the "Martians" deux ex machina. They made some interesting flavor for his universe, but I don't like them as plot elements. In fact, I think he may have killed off this storyline, which is too bad.

"Kingdom Principles" (Myles Munroe) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Tech Level 8 Approaching!

"What do you mean, 'Tech Level 8 approaching?'"

"On a Hawkman rocket cycle. Shall I inform his majesty?"

"Idiot! The emperor would shoot you for interrupting his wedding with this news!"

(with apologies to Flash Gordon)

GURPS uses the concept of tech levels running from 1 to 16. There is a general, societal tech level, but it can also be broken out into categories like power generation, medicine, motive systems, etc. When GURPS was originally written (~1980's) first world nations were described as tech level 7.

So what is predicted for tech level 8?
  1. Computers are about 10 time more powerful. The GURPS authors beat themselves up a lot over this. Computers are probably thousands or millions of times more powerful from a frequency/number of transistors point of view. But from a functionality point of view, it's not too bad.
  2. Human cloning. This one looks on target.
  3. Prosthetics/Bionics. I think we are close on this one. The war in Iraq has been a big driver just in the last few years. We are getting pretty close to full functionality and look for prosthetics.
  4. Robots. I forget the exact capabilities for TL 8. But we are getting pretty good here. Things like humaniform and combat robots are not until TL 9 or 10.
  5. More efficient in-system space travel. I think the development of ion engines has made this possible. There is also some cool ideas in fission driven (but non-radioactive exhaust) rockets. Unfortunately, I doubt governments will do much innovation. The private sector might have some effect (but would they be allowed to develop a fission rocket?).
  6. Fusion power. Ahh, fusion power. Always twenty years away. One of the first things I researched on the world wide web (back in 1998). I'll look into this more depth.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

New Stars Status

Some good progress the last week. I discovered the "JOAT w/IFE" is actually a JOAT w/cheap engines. StructuralElement::isBuildable did not include LRT or PTR calculations.



This screen shot shows the changes in the client. I've always displayed fuel, but the engine was not giving ships their fuel. And moving was not consuming fuel. I've used the War Monger's armed probe to test running out of fuel, and initial speed selection (which ignores return trip, right now). Planetary scan also works (although you can't see it here).

Next step, I think, is to add more player orders to the Two Player test and re-create some of the other tests (fleet follow, combat, bombing, load-unload, and planetary invasion).

I will see what opportunities present themselves for adding some code useful for computer guys.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Altered Carbon" (Richard K. Morgan) - This book was very well done. Morgan creates a very interesting universe. People can be saved and restored, and transmitted digitally (and FTL). Bodies are considered temporary and interchangeable (people refer to them as "sleeves"). The main problem I had was trying to understand why more people don't have backups, and why rich people only have one. Also, why there weren't more crimes that carried the erasure penalty? "Double sleeving" (being in two bodies at once) was the only crime on Earth, most colony worlds didn't have any such crimes.

"The Probability of God" (Stephen Unwin) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

New Stars Status

Things are starting to come together. I have worked mostly on the two player test case. I ended up going after the initial fleet code.

Here is the JOAT w/IFE player (the warmonger posted previously is the other):




Note that JOAT gives all tech at 3, and IFE is good for +1. The fuel mizer is available, so the starting long range scout makes use of it (as well as the Rhino Scanner). I expect a bug, in that IT plus IFE and CE gives Prop 7, which can use Alpha 8. But for some reason, Stars! only gives the Long Hump 7. I'm not worried enough to change anything.

Note that we are not seeding the random generator, so player 1 is back at Marge :)

Thanks to John for adding in all the scanners. I had added the Bat Scanner in XML myself, but I wasn't looking forward hacking in all the others.

I also hacked up a quick tech browser in pure Tcl (using tdom to parse the XML):



Next step will be to add the tech readouts to this, and probably making it editable to enable quick fixes.

For the engine, the next step is scan. Then I will modify the tests to send the scout before the colony ship.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

New Stars Status

Some good progress on the code base. Not a lot visible, because a lot of it is in the initial conditions (making sure all players get the same mineral concentrations and minerals - trying to figure out the distribution of starting minerals).

I started work on the research control dialog, then discovered that players were not getting initial tech. I have it fixed for some of the races now.

I also took care of the initial conditions of the starting starbase (which was initially empty).

Another irritating bug was that the client would open to planetMap(0). That is just what planet is first in the client data. I've fixed it so it goes to the lowest object id planet you own.

The colonize test is looking really good. With initial minerals and factories, the colony ship builds fast, and can move and colonize in one turn. I am moving off of it for now (since the next step would be to give players the initial colony ship - which is supposed to be built with max available tech, which is the beginnings of computer players...).

I created a new two player test. This should be a base for the most of the other existing tests.

Here is the initial load of the war monger player, with a quick F5 to bring up the research panel:

Monday, August 27, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Remnant Population" (Elizabeth Moon) - meh. The story of an old woman contacting an alien civilization is just kind of weird. What really bugged me was a universe with both STL sleeper ships and FTL. It made me want to break out GURPS Vehicles and try to come up with an economic situation where that could possibly make sense.

"The Exemplary Husband" (Stuart Scott) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

"Once a Hero" (Elizabeth Moon) - This looks like a mil-SF book; but it's more like a drama set in a military background. I'll probably read one or two more in this series to see where she is taking it. That's three Elizabeth Moon books in a short span, I still like "Speed of Dark", but I'll probably take a break.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

New Stars Status

Not much progress the last month.

I created a command line version of the client. It just loads the C++ New Stars Tcl library, and issues a bunch of commands. A lot of them use information eye-balled from the files. Here is a sample from orders2400.tcl (which updates the first turn file):


#### copy the colony ship
set colShipId -1
for {set i 0} {$i < $::numHulls} {incr i} {
if {[newStars $::ns_hull $i $::ns_getName] eq "Colony Ship"} {
set colShipId $i
}
}


Another file is applied in 2403 to give the load colonist, move to planet, and colonize orders.

Here is the final screen shot:




I had to fix the server to properly update client object ids to server ids (I didn't see this before, because the client actually generates the turn through the client data - that's a bug...).

I also had to fix the client to properly use GUI load commands (otherwise you need another turn).

The mining rates are probably off. There is an oddity in the battle engine, in that the colony ship and star base try to fight. I need to add lots to the client to get a better feeling for how much ships cost and how long they will take to build.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"The Speed of Dark" (Elizabeth Moon) - I liked this book a lot. On the surface, it is a book about autistic people. But it is also a book about being different. About trying to fit in, being pressured to fit in. Not just fit in, but to be like everyone else.

And everyone knows the speed of dark is faster than the speed of light (Neverending Story 2). That's why it's dark until light gets there. Dark got there first!

"Misquoting Jesus" (Bart Ehrman) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Gianormites of the World Unite!

Gianormous has made it into the dictionary! Except the dictioneers (who else compiles dictionaries?) misspelled it! Everyone knows it's giant-enormous, not gigantic-enormous. Their spelling (ginormous) looks like "djinn-or-mus". Blech!

So everyone needs to start using gianormous. Then the dictioneers can get it right next edition.

Monday, July 09, 2007

New Stars Status

Ok, more progress. We almost have a game:



Here is page 2 of the New Game Wizard. I recreated the race from the colonize test (Ugly Ducklings), and made a tiny sparse game for them by themselves.

Here is the first turn in the client:



I've added 30 factories and 50 mines to autobuild. I had to fix the code to handle this. It would try to build the factories, see no G, and then skip to research. It now works. Here is 2401:



18% growth rate. 20 resources, mines are 5 per. Autobuild shows 0% done for all.



Next turn. 23,600 * 1.18 = 27,848. 23 resources gives 2 factories, and 1 at 30%. Mining rates may be off... concentrations are 80, 76, 20. I forget how to calculate it right now... Original G must of been 15 or 16.

I need to repair the regression. Lots of them have uninhabitable home worlds. The old code was more forgiving of this...

I'd also like to develop a command line version of the client (for regressions to insert player commands).

Then I will add the intervening turns to colonize test, to make it a new game -> first world colonized test. Then I can check the numbers.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Igniting the Reaches" (David Drake) - This is the first book in the trilogy continued in "Through the Breach" and finished in "Fireships". I would say the quality is consistent through all three books. Also, each book stands fairly well on its own. Still, I would of preferred to read them in the proper order.

"In the Grip of Grace" (Max Lucado) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Paying the Piper" (David Drake) - This "Hammer's Slammers" novel is classic Drake - plenty of action, punctuated by brief breaks.


"The Purpose-driven Life" (Rick Warren) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Friday, June 15, 2007

New Stars Status

I actually got a lot done the last month. I have integrated my old universe generation code into the main engine. While I was there, I fixed a bug in the tech research code, and in the colonization code. Now, the colonize test works; and I have added it to the regression. I discovered an oddity in the way planets are handled for players (separate objects), and I will probably rebuild it into a single true object with per-player data views.

Here is the new game wizard:




Only page 1 is done. Page 2 is the race list (the normal wizard has a third page, with victory conditions). Currently, it always saves the game to newFile.xml. I will add a save dialog shortly. The main thing is to update the struct UnivParms to include a race list. Then, update the engine to pull in the races. Then I can add them to the gui.

If you do 'newStars -n newFile.xml' it will generate a universe according to your parameters (to stdout). But there will be no players. We also need to work on random seeds.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Fireships" (David Drake) - This is the third book in a Sir Francis Drake-like future setting. The second was "Through the Breach". I will have to read the first. It was very good. I usually consider Drake to be light on characters. But the characterization was very well done. The ending is tidy, without feeling contrived. And Drake continues to pull off the "history repeated" without damaging suspension of disbelief.


"Essential Truths of the Christian Faith" (R. C. Sproul) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"The Independent Command" (S. M. Stirling) - It's a shame the trilogy has come to an end. Stirling had finally come to grips with the universe and characters. This book is a big improvement over the other two. It has a good treatment of an alien culture and first contact scenario. The ending felt a little rushed and pat, but I have seen far worse. About forty pages from the end, I was thinking, "I need a gianormous space battle right about now." There were plenty of opportunities, but Stirling didn't go there. Not sure why.

"Drawing Near" (John Bevere) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

New Stars Status

Things are moving, slowly but surely:


Here I have taken the colonizeTest (turn zero, player one file) and removed the colonize order. I then added it back through the GUI and saved. A diff of the files yields:

$ diff guiout.xml colonizeTest_P1_Y2402.xml
246,247d245
< <NONPLAYERFLEETDATA>
< </NONPLAYERFLEETDATA>

295a294,295
> <NONPLAYERFLEETDATA>
>
</NONPLAYERFLEETDATA>

For some reason the GUI places NONPLAYERFLEETDATA before the universe planet list, while the newStars -r command places it after. Not sure why... But that is close enough for non-technical people...

Next step is to add starbase designs and create new game. Then let the bugs commence!

Monday, April 30, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Privateer" (S.M. Stirling) - I found this book to be much better than the first. Perhaps Stirling is settling into the material. It is still very campy, but I think that is the target audience. The main issue I have is with Stirling's battle balancing. He takes somewhat fair conditions, then throws in radical elements to make it wildly against the heroes. Then he has to pull out crazy saves for the heroes. I'd much prefer to just see a straight-up fight.

"Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer" (Myles Munroe) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Musical Interlude

Put down that chainsaw and listen to me!
It's time for us to join in the fight.


It's time to make a mountain out of a molehill,
So can I have a volunteer.


Buy some sensible shoes and a Chevrolet,
Then party 'til your broke and they drag you away, it's ok.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

New Stars Status

After much delay, I have load and unload orders working. Here is a clip from the load unload test:



Here we can see the idle fleet has been changed to move to Beta 9 and unload its colonists. I need to fix the text for the order in classdef.h. I also need to fix the engine to understand all the various Stars! cargo orders. But first I need colonize and new game generation. Then the game should be playable.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"Through the Breach" (David Drake) - This is a classic Drake military sci-fi book set in his "sidereal-bubble" universe. It has a almost overwhelming age of sail feel, but I think he manages to pull it off. The science is hard enough to maintain my suspension of disbelief, and the universe has a lot of character. This one seems a lot harsher than I remember Drake's books being, and the impact on the characters psyche is very well done.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

"The Dawn of Amber" (John Gregory Betancourt) - I liked the original books by Zelazny, the world was unusual and the characters well done. This one didn't seem as good. Not sure if I am no longer as interested in that world, or if Betancourt is still warming up.

"Judas and the Gospel of Jesus" (N. T. Wright) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Ruby.new chunky_bacon

Do you want to learn Ruby? Do you want a bookful of random stuff? Better random stuff than I can write? Lots of chunky bacon? Check out "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby".

Word is C++ is dying, and everyone knows Tcl has never been more than a zombie. So I need a new language. Is Ruby it? Please don't suggest Java, I know I need to learn Java, but I refuse. :)

Friday, March 30, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

The Rising: Volume 1 of the Flight Engineer (James Doohan and S. M. Stirling) - Why do we eat twizzlers? You see the bag, you know they aren't very good, but "mmmm... twizzlers", you get them. Then you eat them all. Then you think, "That wasn't very good." And they're not good for you. Some books are like that. Any Star Wars book not by Timothy Zahn, any Star Trek book - this book. I like twizzlers, so I read this book. I told myself, "Maybe Stirling will keep the quality high." I was fooling myself. I mean, mining antimatter from a planet! Why? Why? Ah, well, I'll let you know how the next one is :)

Speaking My Mind (Tony Campolo) - I have spared the zero readers of this blog (I don't need to read it, I already know what's here...), and posted this review on my Faith blog.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Fixing Star Wars - Episode 2

Wow, were in the home stretch now. I think it was about 2 in the morning at this point... :)

Episode 2 is in pretty good shape. Mostly trimming for time and tempo, and patching to fit in the other changes we've made:
  • Cut Obi-wan's bartender friend, and reduce the library search. It slows everything down. Remember any scenes of Jedi training should have them older than five years old.
  • Remove the factory fight (and flying R2). It adds nothing.
  • Shorten the interrogation of Obi-wan and monster arena fight. The action doesn't climax until after the Jedi arrive, and then the stormtroopers arrive. This leads to some amount of saturation.
  • If that isn't enough time savings, the asteroid chase can also be removed. It adds little, and Obi-wan can still need Anakin to relay his message (Ben's ship is too small, or has a random failure).
  • Put in some conflict between Anakin and uncle Owen. That had to be the easiest connection back to the original trilogy, and Lucas dropped it on the floor.
  • Remember that Count Dooku is Darth Maul (per Episode 1). This can help to maintain the suspense on whether Dooku is good, evil, or just independent.
That is most of the changes. I will put together all the changes for 3, 4, and 5 into a final post.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

We Come in Peace!

We come in peace.
We come in peace.
WE COME IN PEACE.


New orders: KILL KILL!

do do doo to do doot

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Fixing Star Wars - Episode 1

(See the previous post: Fixing Episode 6)

Flush with success, we asked ourselves: "Could episode 1 be fixed?" It seems impossible, but let's look at the problems:
  1. Gungans
  2. Confusion in the final act (four disparate settings)
  3. Amidala, the eleven year old politician
  4. Anakin, the five year old love interest
  5. Slow start (the fate of the whole galaxy rests in trade negotiations at a backwater world?)
  6. Darth Maul -> Count Dooku issues
  7. C3PO (a protocol droid) built by a five year old for his enslaved mother?
  8. Light treatment of slavery on Tatooine
  9. Midichlorians (or was it mitochondria?), 'nuff said
Ok, that's a lot of issues. But we can tackle them one-by-one.
  1. One, two, and five are somewhat related, and can be solved together. I think everyone can agree the treatment of the Gungans falls somewhere between atrocity and poorly done. More subtly, they slow down the story at the beginning, and overly complicate the story at the end. It seems Lucas was trying to show that the rebellion includes metropolitan and rural interests. This can be done better by reducing the footprint of the Gungans to a minority population in the cities (on top of cleaning the material). This quickens the introduction, and eliminates one setting in the finale. A handful of Gungans can help Amidala to retake the palace.
  2. Handled mostly above. Also improvement needed in how Anakin influences the battle.
  3. Amidala needs to be either: a beauty queen (like American idol for a position more like England's queen, i.e. public relations) or the daughter of a more senior politician. She should also be older, maybe early twenties. This gives a lot of room to play a smart, rebellious youngster against older politicians.
  4. Ok, I think Anakin was supposed to be closer to ten; but you put him next to Liam Neeson, and he's going to look tiny. A lot of the problem is Lucas is very fuzzy/odd about the Jedi order. From episode 4, Luke is "too old". He was about twenty. But Anakin is "too old" too! Clearly, you have to be about three to be a Jedi! That's kind of creepy. Actually, that's a lot creepy. Combined with 3, Anakin can be about 16. Say 13 is the cutoff.
  5. Handled mostly above. The pod racing scene also could be reduced. Time savings should be converted into deepening characters, settings, and politics.
  6. The Count Dooku issue will raise its head again. But the first step is to stitch together Maul and Dooku. There are supposed to be two Sith (master and apprentice). Instead we get master, old apprentice, new apprentice, and robot apprentice (General Grievous). The solution is to make Maul the mask for the public figure of Dooku (you can even keep both actors). Hmm, now you can't kill Maul at the end of Episode 1, but that's ok. Maul kills Qui-Gon, knocks out Obi and makes his escape.
  7. C3PO is clearly part of Amidala's staff. If you want to show off Anakin's skill, he can create a robot we don't see in the late trilogy (or one we know less about).
  8. There is room in Episode 1 to deepen this. But resolution should probably wait until 2 or 3.
  9. I said 'nuff said!
Ok, that was painful. But we made it! Epsiode 1 is fixed! Now finish them!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

New Stars Status

I used to tell John how a certain GUI feature was only a handful of lines of code in Tcl. He would always come back with, "Yea, but it takes you a whole day to write those lines." It's true. I would look through man pages, and experiment with the console, then finally write a line or two; and modify another line or two.

The latest changes have had me thinking a lot. I need to add waypoint tasks when the user changes the waypoint task drop down. I realized the first step was to add the code to find the planet a fleet is in orbit of (or deep space).

That is finally done. Compare these two screen shots to an older fleet view:




Part of the trouble was I no longer have access to a Visual C++ compiler. The key was to use -mno-cygwin on g++ cygwin. But then I had to rebuild the whole tool chain...

Next step is to add the code to the waypoint task updater.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Laugh til your ribs hurt!

It's not often something makes me laugh until my ribs hurt. Laughing so much, you cannot get air, and it becomes painful. The clearest time I remember, was watching Mytery Science Theater do "The Attack of the the Eye People" (two the's). It was just after Joel said, "It's not really much of an attack. More like, the minor vandalism of the eye people."

More recently, it was the Daily WTF: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Unsolved_Murder.aspx

Not sure why exactly. Maybe something I remember from college, "It is an honor to die for my employer!"

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Stuff I've read lately

Mirror Dance (Lois Bujold) - Another quality Vorkosigan book. About as good as "The Vor Game". Better than Komarr.

Ruled Britannia (Harry Turtledove) - It is a shame Turtledove has decided to sacrifice quality for quantity. The idea of a revolution hinging on a play is just weird.

A Song of Stone (Iain Banks) - I like the use of the second person ("I go this way and you go that way"). You don't see that very often. For the plot, all I can say is "Very postmodern." The main character is so weak and conflicted that he takes six pages to die.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Snowman!

I made me a snowman!