Thursday, January 31, 2013

Guild wars two character profiles

Finally have a level 80 char. But I have been away for a awhile so its been hard to remember what my niche was.

Anoiki
 Silvari Necromancer Barbarian Scientist
She is a green healthy healer, a location based AOE tank who really needs help to take down bosses. Been cloaking into the death shroud to use life transfer or use the emergency health.
For the traits Anoiki focused on wells and extra health. so that makes vitality and healing power important attributes. Plus also being a vampire is a nice touch, with the runes of vampirism.

Hyperdimensional
 Char Thief Noble Stealth Knight
Initially Hyperdimensional disliked stealing on principal, plus the variety of stolen objects was confusing. So She relegated herself to leatherworking, slowly working towards the overpriced 20 slot leather bags.
But stealing can help to gain stealth and stealthy dodging teleports is what Hyper likes. Flitting around battle, chaotically spamming abilities. Now that Anoiki is more experienced Hyper is no longer restricted to the simplicity of signets either.
So now all Hyperdimensional's traits are focused on fleeing agro, either by stealing to gain stealth or dodging and shadowsepping away.

Raskalnickoff
 Asura Ranger Charming (Order of whispers?)
While trying to find a friend Jeebus I thought it would be prudent to have somebody called Raskalnickoff Raskalnickoff. Since the necromancer Anoiki was limited in minions and they were not particularly helpful (eg. Jagged Horrors only crowd the screen and taunt) I decided to go ranger as they seemed to have usefull pets and lots of them. Being tiny and flinging myself into the air with a great sword was hilarious so I ended up getting a lot of action. Then Rask found a teleporting cat and named her Hypersimensional. Next he went on a pokemon hunt until he found that a bird will give you speed and that underwater combat is actually fun with a shark called Jonah's Submarine.
My pet bird Juvenile Delinquent grants swiftness when Rask is travelling, so long as the attack is spammed so move speed is mostly unnecessary.
As for traits Rask needs a bit more adventure time before committing but Nature skills and moving spirits are a must.
Boon duration is probabbly the best thing to add to my clothes which ate currently a complete Sentinel's set. meybe I should change to a "Giver" set with snowflakes.
Also shark pets are awesome, and calling him "Jonah's Submarine" made it awsomer.

Banananancer
there was quite a discussion on the correct spelling of this nime. I think its silly, but aparently bananna is wrong.
 So josh and nicole decided to create new characters and while I was having fun again with my necromancer Anoiki and found I could be reallt gothic. I got roped into this. I think Warfame was a bit of the cause as well.
At any rate we are the Necromancers of the Fruit, the PlantPower Rangers, with our powers combined you will be shrouded with death, overwhelmed by wells, massacered by minions, all with a fruity aftertaste.
We all chose our stories to be mutually exclusive but hope to have others join us to dance in beginners clothes.
Since I'm surrounded by other necromancers I wont be aiming for conditions and I still dont like minions and Anoiki is currently all marks and wells for the AOE. So I suppose I'll try out all the spectral skills. Though there are not a lot of tie-ins and so my traits list is a little incomplete. The other alternative to try something different would be maximising on fear and spreading terror where we tread. thus I'd need these traits.
note: Corrupt boon applies fran when removing stability
The Curses 25 trait "Corrupt the weak" increases damage of fear.
The fear build will be easier to make a start on but will take longer to complete. I'll have to see what others will try and then not do the one that overlaps.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Perpetual rain machine

Was looking at stuff about phase transitions and wondered about glass. Without using many polysylabilistic words. If you cool something down quick enough and its viscosity reduces in a uniform manner if should become a glass. Glass then is like a single crystal, but without any sharp edges. It will still look like it is a fluid because the outside edges are defined by its surface tension when it was a liquid. In all respects it will appear as a liquid that has been frozen in time.

So possibly this will be a phenomenon that occurs at the same time as when trying to make cold light.



It seems glass isn’t a proper state of matter, it’s an Amorphous Solid, like jelly and kind of stuck in between being a liquid and a solid. Apparently it’s a dynamic thing and depends on the pressure and how fast the cooling rate was. In the end glass should be solid, brittle and have no internal diffraction surfaces (ie. can see through it). Apparently if you cool it enough it will have to shatter to for crystals because they are more stable at lower temperatures, eventually the stability difference will be enough to break the glass.



Then I was wondering what would it be if you got stuck between a liquid and a gas? I suppose it would depend on the vapour pressure. Imagining a Kg of H2O, that is neither fully evaporated into steam, nor is it cooled into water. The temperature and pressure would have to be uniform and precisely controlled. I suppose it would look like a mist or rain that doesn’t fall. The steam would condense into raindrops, but then evaporate before gravity takes hold.



Hmm, I wonder if anybody has tried to make a rain machine like that? It would have to be tall to allow for a temperature difference to occur. The sides would have to be clear to see what is happening and hydrophobic to stop the water precipitation on the sides. Would need some sort of heater on the bottom to boil the water and a freezer on the top to remove heat from there. The whole vessel would have to be pretty tall.

So then at the bottom the water would be boiled to steam and disappear. Probably have to be an electric element that can be turned off automatically when there is no liquid.

Then the invisible steam will travel up to the top with all the heat from the heater. At the top there may be too much heat for the steam to precipitate so a cooling device may be required. But the vapour mustn’t freeze on the walls. Then when droplets form they would fall down towards the heater as far as the heat will allow them to.

ten for january

Probably should have real the previous update when writing this, but here goes.


1 well I am sharing my house and home with 2 people currently. That was an unexpected and big step. With Ed in particular I have also shared quite a bit of my life.

2 With more people in my home I’m less inclined to tidy it up. Subconciously I keep thinking I only need to clean a third of the house. But that just doesn’t work. Being disorganised is OK so long as I’m prepared to be unprepared. Like leaving my clothes on the line for 3 days then having to wear a shirt to work that has the morning dew on it.

3 Sharing food had meant that I have less myself, and the kitchen hasn’t been tidy enough for me to feel like cooking. So I have eaten less and been much more frugal with my food purchasing of late. I’m also pretty pleased with my recent logistical manipulation of time.

4 Learnt all about Blades of Time over the xmas break and have been competing with Revi & Deo. Into the second year of the Technomancer’s Sojourn Inc. and have a few creative ideas for logos.

5 Gave up on dancing due to the lack of pretty young things, mostly replaced tis with time kiteboarding. Have also dabbled in underwater hocky and am looking at having a go at Vollyball, when I find a team to join at Beach365.

6 Began reading the Dao Te Ching, started to get back into the BASIC youth group too. Still going to church and Wednesdays bible studies, have been reading the bible sporadically in the morning.

7 Ed and Ten are living in my house. Been hanging out with ROTORACT people a bit in addition to church and the Technomancers. Went on a blind date type thing which was interesting, a mutual friend tried to hook us up and it surprised me how much we have in common.

8 Currently I cant think of much that got broken, maybe a lack of sleep? Swam through sea lice (or something) a few times as well. Seems I am a surprisingly health individual.

9 10 11 nothing I can think of currently

eternity for 2013?

In relation to an Eternity 13 email I received:
Given the number of people I know who gave up going to church as soon as they weren’t taken by their parents I’m not sure why you would focus on children. Once you leave home and go to uni you get the opportunity to easily break all your habits and meet a lot of people with different beliefs to your own. It’s a good time to fight against the preconception bias. I also know a few people who prioritised their first part time job over going to church. Same thing, just like in the “cake or death” skit, you can’t really confirm what you believe when there is no valid alternative.
So in the interests of a balanced augment and to make an informed decision the schoolkids would also need to understand the belief system of the Muslims (because they are in the news), antitheists (essential to be aware of if you are remotely interested in religion), Shintoism/ancestor worship (they are nearby religious groups) and also atheists (because that’s what you are if not something else). Just because Galileo believed the earth was round didn’t make him right in fact he was found guilty of heresy and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. Psalm 93:1 & 96:10 say the earth doesn’t move, Galileo’s opponents believed that so strongly that they couldn’t see past that and make an informed decision.

Aside from that this person uses a lot of church jargon so that I’m not sure what he is really talking about and if gave this to Ed I know he would be alienated, not curious. Phrases like “make Jesus the lord of their life”, “born again”, “natural man”, “know and love our neighbour” are all esoteric. It’s like me asking somebody to re-evaluate the DM% as it is an outlier for the hyperdimensional spectral ellipsoid of chips; Sure people at work will see the joke and people with a chemistry or statistics background will agree with me but for everybody else I could just as easily say “the chips are cold and soggy, so I don’t want any”.

What I believe is twofold
1 There are people who believe things different to me.
2 Telling me I’m wrong will never make me believe what you believe.
When making a choice you should be informed of and understand at least two possible alternatives.

Sure I believe we will face a “cake or death” choice and that a lot of people don’t know what that means, even more people will think you are joking if you tell them Jesus=cake. If the remaining choice is only “or death” what’s the point in fretting about it?

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Anoikis's Warband 8: Snow day like today



The first two tournaments were no challenge at all and I was able to net myself 3000 apiece, I think I also managed to find all my old companions as well. Although I may have forgotten one like they forgot me. Obviously I didn’t make enough of an impression with my Axe+Axe+bikini+ugg boot style.
The third tournament posed a bit of a challenge, it was being held in RiverCreek and I was worried the Vague King might be there. So I covered myself up and collected four quarterstaffs and attempted to sneak in. One of the guards recognized my boots though so I had to bash him over the head, Pretty sure he slept through the whole tournament.
A couple of my companions also entered, they had no trouble getting through the gates. But unfortunately there was no nobility participating, so I made short work of the competition with my bow and won once more, it’s a pity my party members didn’t get past the half way mark. One bonus of having no nobility was now I knew nobody was guarding RiverCreek, so after a little celebration in the tavern I laid siege to the city. Once again the Vague King attacked me and one again I rode all over him, next time I may catch him too.
I kept making silly mistakes on the front line and having to get rescued, so it took three tries to capture the city. In the end they gave up and accepted me as their Queen. When I went to sell my loot in the armoury I found a masterwork siege crossbow. I really wanted it, but even selling all my gear didn’t come close to the asking price. I bet it was worth more than the city itself. I really need to train somebody up as a trader so I can get better deals, though even that may not have helped. I probably would have given it to my companions anyway because I like riding my horse.

Now that I once  again have a place for my court to meet I think it is time to siege some more, my budget indicates I make quite a bit of capital from the rent of my holdings. Though I really need more minions to secure my land, so off we go to war. Three castles down I have defeated another four Vague Lords and on my way to the fourth castle I have to backtrack to break a siege. Only it’s an ally sieging my castle?

After a rather confusing conversation it seems he wants to join my cause. I said OK and he wandered off. I don’t know where he came from or where he went and I really should have asked him his name.  I suppose I should give him a castle as a reward for believing in me.

I think from here the plan will be to make the Vague Alps mine, there’s snow day like today, and delaying is just boring. I want all my companions to stay with me for a while yet, so I suppose I’ll have to look for more local Lords to maintain my lands. If I can press the offensive hard enough I may be able to oust the Vague King before he can mount a counterattack. If I can defeat two enemies and not be defeated myself in every battlefield I see no issues with this plan. Mostly it seems that with the help of ten competent warriors I can take/hold any fortress. After all only 2 people can swing an axe on the stairs at the same time. 

51 Days after everybody else getting amnesia I have gathered all of the Vague Kings land under my banner, I dont know where he has gone but half his Lords turned up in RiverCreek to swear Loyalty to me. I'm not entirely sure I trust them but at least now I wont have to micromanage all my future takings. My Bikini Parasise is in red below.

On my way to have another chat to Perl Firentis, the Kinslayer, came to me grumbling about my choice of companions. I like all of them but not many of them seem to like each other. So I decided to send him on a holiday. Almost immediately after Art the Architect threatened to leave me for the same reasons.

Lez on the other hand decided to give me some helphull advice. Though mostly I fond my minions charge up on their horses and then stand there on horsback swinging at anybody who comes near. permenant high ground but not much more strategy than that.

Finally found Perl again but she no longer wants my help because I have become a queen myself. I'm not sure if I would be able to undo all that work. I suppose I could pick a fight with every nation, then let them take all my lands? Meh instead of going for Girl Power, I will just have to get the title of Empress for myself. I was probably going to do that later regardless.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Anoikis's Warband 7: Amnesia? How cliche!

No it does seem everybody forgot who I am, even Perl. Once again I feel like a novice in a new land and have to build up my reputation from scratch. So here I am a stranger in a familiar land, with nothing but Ugg boots a tan bikini and my trusty axe. Once again I have a long road in front of me and a lot of learning. This time though I know what is achievable so I’ll make no secret of my plans to take over the entire world. First I’ll need to acquire a horse and some food. With that I should start trawling the taverns for adventurous individuals to help me in my quest.

Yeah, pretty much everybody had amnesia. Although it was nice to be reminded of somethings. I met up with Perl again and apparently I need a better reputation, she doesnt beleive I could take over the whole world, I suppose I did fail last time. So I went to claim myself a winter villa.

The King of the Vauge didnlt appreciate this at all Probably because I acheived three things at the same time and he was jealous. With the frequency castles chage ofners it couldnt have been that I stole his land.
Although the seige itself was easy enough to win, it was pretty boring waiting for the action. So after breaking the seige thrice and defeating the Vauge King twice I was eventually too far from my villa to rescue it the fouth time.

Maybe tournaments will be a better way to regain my fame?

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Last One Percent

One of the things I like about steam acheivments is the last one percent, there are a couple of games where I have aceived this now. Though I dont think I've ever gotten 100% completion.
Currently only 83% of people who own this game hace started to play it 2.3% have played with a friend. I built move speed early and got all exept the swords from outbreak. after finishing the plot the first time I redid the last level with a chest to find the mirical blades and was pleasently surprised that they increaced my speed. This motivated me to try hard and collect the rest of the chests. I didnt really find hard any harder, the small increase of speed saw me avoid a few more fights. Also the bosses had me worrying about RSI from the number of clicks it toot to move their health bars.

Kiteboarding: Planning to plane

Finally was able to hydroplane this weekend. The wind was SSE ~15-25Knotts. On Saturday not much at all was achieved, but we got a few good ideas for Sunday.
Starting off hip deep water is best
Once moving the board first acts as a displacement hull
As a displacement hull need ~15cm of water, otherwise I got stuck in the sand
When hydroplaning 5cm of water is plenty (fin deep)
Need to be able to fly the kite in one hand
Get into the board with the kite directly overhead.
Drive the kite down to gain speed & lift from water, then across to pick a direction and slow down.
When crashing keep the board infront of you and send the kite to the edge of the wind envelope, bringing it up after.
Once the kite is in position you don’t need to move it.

Mostly we could only do a beam reach (broad reach was too scary and got shallow quickly) on a port tack. The starboard tack was all back to front and because it was going back to shore we had less&less water. On Sunday we mostly verified the new ideas and I for one started to get a hang of controlling the speed while planning plus starting to compensate for the waves. I’m also pleased that mostly when I fell off I didn’t also crash the kite.

Next challenge will be to get going on a starboard tack, then turning. After that then it will be back to practicing technique. Be a while yet before I try any jumps I think. Also I finally have a collection of photographic proof that I’m not making all this up.


Launching the stuntkite while setting up the big one.
Alice playing with the stunt kite.

Prepared: 3 changes of clothes/ Snorkelling for 2 people/ Kiteboarding/ swag.
 Tony struggelling to position the kite.
Tony on the very first time he stood up sucessfully.
 Photographic proof of Ben with a kiteboard.
 Getting ready for another go.



Pity you have to be so far away with the camera to see both the rider and the kite that I can hardly tell who is kiteboarding.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Time to trial Linux

So I’ve got a new PC, repaired my old one and cant be bothered installing WinXP and all its service packs again. Although I know I could run Win7 I don’t want to fork out the cash for it.

Time to trial Linux.

I’ve mostly sorted this out now but decided to write myself some instructions for next time.

Currently I want this new system to:
Watch anime; will have a second HDD, intranet and VLC.
Surf the net; firefox with the sync thing enabled.
Play games; unlikely but the golden grail, apparently steam will now work. No wine, defiantly no winetricks. I have been down that path before.
Sounds like a HTPC; may have to look into XBMC.

Fist I need to decide on a distro:
Lubuntu; works well on my 2003 laptop, uses few resources, doesn’t have LTS versions.
Ubuntu; is fairly mainstream and I think of it as the next windows, has lots of flashy UI features and is easy for anybody to use.
Mint; apparently more mainstream then Ubuntu, never used myself.
Puppy; May try this later as a setup that solely runs emulators (SNES/GBA/Atari)

I’ve settled on Lubuntu because Ubuntu was slow in tests and then it’s the same as my old laptop. It made my old laptop feel new again. Looking around I think it is the best one for games if they ever get ported to linux. Also the XBMCbuntu OS is built on it.

Secondly
Download an ISO, error check; Burn to CD, error check; boot CD in PC, error check.
Its worth it, the install may be flawed and painful otherwise.
Run the OS from CD, check the feel, surf the net.
Keep the CD around as it will be a good diagnostic tool and can be used to salvage your old OS, whatever it may be.

Thirdly
Use the live CD to partition the drive in preparation for the install.
I’ve always had to check the boot sequence, sometimes more than once.
RAM is cheap at the moment so install a lot of it on the motherboard. 4GB on a 32bit system or 8GB on 64, more if you like as it makes everything faster. On a 32bit system any program cannot use more than 3GB, but with some terminal code the OS can use up to 64GB (apparently)
If you are using a thumb drive like I’ve done make a small (512MiB) Fat32 partition. Thus windows can see that a disk drive is plugged in and wont ask to format it. Everybody can read files in Fat32. Also Win can only see the first logical partition on a SSD.
If you intend to make use of Hibernation or are installing to an internal HDD then make a swap partition at the end of the drive the same size as your RAM. If 1GB ram then 1024MiB of swap.
I haven’t ever bothered with a /home partition as I don’t share my PC.
All the rest gets formatted to ext4 (or8 when it comes out) and this will be for the OS.

Fourthly
Begin the installation process. Other people will give more up to date guides with pictures. My only additions are.
Install GRUB onto the same disk as the OS
Always install all the extras. If you miss an NVIDIA/ATI driver then you will never see any graphics. The only reliable fix is to reinstall the OS again.

Fifthly
After restarting try to play a song. If this works then everything else on the motherboard should be OK. If it doesn’t try to increase the volume/install another audio thing. Failing that check the forums.
Adjust the screen resolution.
Then try a movie. Then try YouTube, if you tube doesn’t work it should tell you why.
Change the “Software Sources” so that it prefers the internode mirror to save the internet before installing anything.
Install Java and Flash through the software center.
Turn the PC off
Unplug everything and but it back in in different sockets if possible. This will eventually happen and its better to find problems today.
Assuming all that works smoothly open the “Software Center” or equivalent and start installing your favorite programs.
Java
Flash
Acrobat reader
CutePDF
Steam
Firefox
VLC

Sixthly
Run the software updater, hopefully by now you have found all the issues and fixed them and will not be wasting your time with this download. Once done restart the PC and run the updater again to confirm everything went smoothly.

Seventhly
And on the seventh I rested, go to the beach or something, use your other computer for a few hours, anything but linux.

Eighthly
I didn’t know that was a real word, anyway the system should be ready to use but I seem to spend as much time playing with Linux as I do playing on Linux. Surfing the web works fine from the CD but none of your preferences or bookmarks get saved.




Afterwards there are always more tweaks to make, after all linux systems are permenantly stuck in beta:
  • HDMI to TV doesn’t work
Open terminal, type “alsamixer”, go to the section “s/PDIF” and press “M” to toggle the mute.
Esc to exit.

  • Application Launch Bar
The icons here can be changed by right clicking on one of them.

  • VLC doesn’t play midi files
Apparently the Linux version of VLC just can’t handle them. According to Benjamin Hodgetts (robotbutler.org/article/49) you need to install Timidity++. And then replace the default soundfont with one Shan made.

  • Gamepad/controller
Apparently both an Xbox and PS3 controller can work. Or I could get another Logitech generic device. This place helped to installed the afterglow wired controller on Win7. Strangely enough it had to be done manually. Sourceforge appears to have an equivalent linix artical here. There is also a userspace thingy here, for a belts and bracers approach.

  • Logitech Bluetooth unity compatibility
To use as a HTPC wirelessness is preferable and this preserves USB connections. Can connect two things onto the same dongle in windows and then they remain paired for everything else. I'm currently looking at this wireless controller + keyboard.

  • Creating shortcuts to network locations
Right click “Create New” -> “Shortcut” seems to only work for executable files.
Using the terminal typing “ln –s /home/Raskalnickoff ~/Desktop/” I was able to create a symbolic link on my desktop. Leaving out the ~ places it in my personal folder.
Alternatively holding Ctrl+Shift and the left click dragging a file to the desktop also seems to work, sometimes.

  • Creating shortcuts to secondary HDD
Apparently the program PySDM will automatically mount all drives that are connected. I intend to try this with ell. If it can dynamically add the internal drives of whatever PC I connect ell to that would be great (ell is Lubuntu installed on a 16GB USB).
Alternatively this document may be required AutomaticallyMountPartitions and I could hardcode individually each drive I may come across once I find its UUID.
The symbollic link thing worked for this once the HDD stayed mounted. When the HDD is not connected I get an error before the login screen that needs to be "S"kipped. I think I can change this to after loging as well.
  • Remembering the login for my Win7PC
Apparently I can also creat a mount point to do this, but it sounds like I need to manually edit files. I will have a look at the guide "Mount password protected network folders" later, after I have an easy to use keyboard.