mastodon 4.7.3+vivaldimodOld wizard of randomness
Grumpy old man time. I spent today thinking about what the heck happened to disposable razors. I swear that many years ago I could re-use the same disposable razor at least 8 times. Now I am lucky if I can use a disposable razor 2 times.
So I went and dug up what I use to use Schick Exacta 2(Image 1).
Guess what. Shick discontinued that in 2009.
The latest razor I use is Schick Xtreme 2 (Image 2)
I have a hunch that the company is deliberately making the product worse in regards to how long it lasts.
But to complicate matters, I will say that the Xtreme 2 "floats"? better. It is very hard to accidentally cut your chin with it. But I never cared about that much.
I have often wondered if 9-11 was like the JFK assassination in the shared moment of confusion, doubt, trying to make sense of things in the United States.
Where I worked, everyone just kept doing their job but there was a zombie like quality to everyone's movements. Like people were just lost in thought, but still going through motions.
This even manifested in the drive home through rush hour traffic. Usually, it was madness, with people jockeying to get just 2 car lengths ahead. Man, I hated that commute. So many stupid drivers.
But on 9-11, everyone drove in kind of a zombie like fashion. Maybe even a kinder fashion. Letting people squeeze in from on ramps and the like. No riding bumper to bumper. Still a slow drive, a highway overburdened with traffic, but people left some space between the cars of a a couple of feet and drove in a slow steady pace.
It is pretty clear to me from the last couple of months of work that where I work is just trying to replace people with AI. I mean, they never come right out and say, "We are automating your job away" It is always couched as, "We have to be more efficient". To get clicks, we need our website to be ready for AI crawlers, so we can suckle at the teat of the new AI links that AI services provided people.
The other factor is is provides an excuse for executives to put their finger into all the information the company has. All the jira tickets, all the git logs, all the server logs, all the network traffic logs, all google analytics, all the slack conversations.
Side note, if your company uses office 365, the company can absolutely read your emails. Just FYI.
Before, the executives could not be bothered and did not have the technical chops to make heads or tails of all the information.
But now, they can just get the AI to write them a summary. It does not matter if the summary is incorrect. They believe it like gospel.
Kind of feels like we are just cogs in the machine, keeping our heads down, as we march to our doom. But unlike the terminator movies, humanity is not going to rise up and fight.
In my homebrew game, I have been adding in fighter special abilities, pretty much like 3e feats. It is not easy designing spells, feats, powers, etc..
One issue I always encounter is any power that just gives the player the ability to do damage is always going to trump other powers. Same thing happens in D&D.
Players will pick Magic Missile, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Delayed Blast Fireball above other choices.
In 3.5e, fighters will pick Cleave and Power Attack.
Same thing for defensive powers. If it just gives you more hit points or increases your AC, they will pick those powers. They will pick Toughness.
Now, I know people who sit down with spreadsheets and munchkin their characters will not pick Toughness, but the general player will because you do not have to think! And it grants an easy mechanical bonus. Especially have getting to level 3.
Same thing happens in video games. It is one of the reasons people do not use potions and prefer rings and armor. Sort of a lazy boost to their character without having to do much.
The problem is, if you try to wipe out all of the easy mechanical boosting powers, you are left with some weird powers.
Wizards of the Coast has written to its employees to warn that unionizing could mean staff "end up with more, the same or less than [they] have now," and suggested that "your voice is strongest when it is heard directly."
"when it is heard directly" Yeeeeeah, riiiiight.
I wrote this strange little program to try and figure out just how many magic items would a character have at various levels in Moldvay/Cook B/X Dungeons & Dragons.
The concept is,
You are a level 1 fighter.
You pick what level you want to be.
It generates rooms from the stock tables.
It generates monsters from the monster tables.
It generates treasure from the treasure tables.
You defeat all monsters.
You find all treasure.
The simulation stops when you reach (or go above) the desired level.
I had a meeting with executives yesterday about sitemaps for websites. I am not usually invited to executive meetings. I am just a lowly manager.
The executive's use of AI is really concerning, and annoying. They run everything through AI. Its like they think it is some kind of oracle from the gods.
Updated my little toy dungeon map generator. This code started 20+ years ago and I still open it up and tweak it every now and then.
It now punches through walls to already existing rooms a little bit more frequently.
The displayed dungeon is pure text, you can copy and paste it into a document.
I had to write javascript in the late 90s, 00s. It was truly a horrible experience having to write code for Internet Explorer. Particularly when the world decided every company should use IE 6.
javascript did not even have a trim whitespace function.
browsers did not even have a nice console to go look at what was going wrong.
You had to go install Venkmen to get some debugging capabilities.
https://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/venkman/
Or the Microsoft Script Debugger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Script_Debugger
Truly horrible times. And despite all the progress, and increase in javascript capabilities, and a larger standard library, I still think javascript is a terrible language.
I have done programming in large, boring, enterprise shops for a long time. The code is always a mess.
One thing that has been on my mind lately (while looking through javascript code) is that someone should make a language? enforce a framework? that embeds a database as a first class citizen.
So many problems in code bases come from attaching objects to other objects over time. There is no source of truth. Data is stale over there. Nobody sat down and thought about how to normalize all the data.
Seems like a lot of errors would be avoided if the developer were forced to put their data into a db table like construct right from the start instead of inventing all kinds of data "shapes" to pass around.
Another clue that the Temple of Elemental Evil was suppose to have a more Drow Lolth connection is I believe the bottom level of the temple was suppose to be in the shape of a spider with a human face, like Lolth is depicted in Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits.
I have mentioned before that I have a theory that the Temple of Elemental Evil was originally suppose to be more about Drow and Tharizdun. I was reading ToEE again, and in the clue passage, the players are given a rhyme in a dream.
"The Two united, in the past,
a Place to build, and spells to cast.
Their power grew, and took the land
and people round, as they had planned.
A key without a lock they made
of gold and gems, and overlaid"
"Many now have gone to die
in water, flame, in earth, or sky.
They did not bear the key of old
that must be found-the orb of gold."
And if you read through D3 the Vault of the Drow, there is this curious passage.
"If Lolth flees, or is slain in her current form, a silvery (platinum) egg will be revealed."
"In the egg are an iron pyramid, a silver sphere, a bronze star of eight points, and a cube of pale blue crystal."
This is a similar description in ToEE
"These corridors lead to permanent magical gates, each marked by a corresponding shape already seen in the upper dungeon levels -- a circle for air, triangle for earth, square for water, and the eight-pointed fire symbol."
I met Tracy Hickman once, when I was a kid. It was at GenCon. Not sure what year it was. Maybe it was 1985? I signed up for a talk he was giving. It was so long ago, I can not remember a whole lot about it. Except, I remember he went into designing adventures. And he said something like. Consider if you tell the players there is strange writing on the dungeon wall. You should not put that in the adventure if you are just trying to convey mystery. The writing should actually mean something, even if the players can not decipher it.
I think the reason that stuck with me, is I distinctly remember thinking, during his talk, that he did exactly what he is saying not to do, in B7 Rahasia.
Still, I did not think it was a big deal or anything (even as a young kid I realized you can not account for everything, mistakes can be made, maybe he did have what runes in B7 meant and it just got cut out).
Just it was the only thing I remember about the talk. Other than he seemed nice.
So going back to another thing I do not like about the Dragonlance modules, are all the clones of things from Lord of the Rings. Now, granted, D&D ripped off things from Lord of the Rings, but Dragonlance reaches what I feel is excessive.
Companions of the Lance = Fellowship of the Ring
Cataclysm = Fall of Númenor
Knights of Solamnia = Dúnedain
Dragon Orbs = Palantir
Note also, the plot of the Dragon Orbs is it draws you in (sometimes) and some elf king is driven helpless by evil through the Orb which is like how the Palantir worked via a connection to Sauron.
There is a scene where the players can summon ancient knight ghosts to help in a critical battle around a tower. Just like Aragorn.
The name of the different elves, Qualinesti, Silvanesti, Kagonesti compared to Tolkien's Calaquendi, Moriquendi (although I am sure some Dragonlance afficiando will point out the "i" ending is very ancient roman as prior art).
There is more. More than I can fit in a post.
And I am sure some will say that all fantasy owes a debt to Tolkien, is inspired by Tolkien, but for me, it is just on the side of "too much".
I have been complaining about Dragonlace the last couple of posts, but let me say something good about the concept. It is hard to make up an entire mythos of a fantasy world. It is hard to make up a bazillion names of places and characters. Just making up constellations of the world of Krynn is top notch world building. Tracy Hickman did a good job synthesizing a lot of different things to make a new world.
Although, some of the names are not great in my opinion, enough of them are.
Also, I read he put all this together in less than a year, and also started writing (with Margaret Weiss) the first novel. Even though I dislike the modules, coming up with the concept, getting others at TSR on board, deciding to have novels as tie-ins for the project...
Amazing idea.
I am jumping ahead to DL-7 Dragons of Light because I have read all the Dragonlance modules before, and I remember this is the one that really exemplifies what I do not like about the modules.
The party of adventurers decide to take a boat to Sancrist. I think it is because there are rumours of another Dragon Orb there. (That, I have no issue with).
BUT, they are attacked by a dragon and shipwrecked before they get there! No matter what, they get shipwrecked and survive.
The whole point of the adventure is so they can discover Dragonlances in the land of Ergoth. But they did not know there were Dragonlances there. They just, oh so conveniently, happen to be shipwrecked there. And wouldn't you know it, getting shipwrecked there now turns out to be the optimal move, because otherwise they would have sailed on to Suncrist and never found the critical Dragonlances that are needed to fight dragons.
Where is the sense that the player's actions have any meaning? They did not decide to go there. They were forced to go there by the invisible hand of the referee.
Side note. Anyone know of a high resolution scan or picture of Keith Parkinson's cover of DL4 Dragons of Desolation (Image 2)?
I have seen claims that he hid the Doctor Who's tardis in the image. (Image 1)
And maybe K9 the robot dog too.
So I was reading through DL1 Dragons of Despair again, and I think I can articulate why I dislike it right at the beginning.
In a well run campaign or story, the world is casually consistent and events happen independent of the the PCs (if they are not doing things).
The module starts off with the back story of, "no cleric has been seen in 300 years". But for some reason, the PCs have been searching for a cleric for the past 5 years. And just as they meet, they encounter Toede and hobgoblins who are looking for a "blue staff" which just happens to one of the things associated with bringing gods back to the world.
Then they just happen to encounter Goldmoon (who later becomes the first cleric in 300 years, I guess).
It is all just so contrived.
Everything exists because the PCs are there. Everything feels like a set piece.
The adventure immediately delivers exactly what the PCs are looking for, usually through a series of very unlikely coincidences.
Then, on page 5 it states, Two regions cannot be captured by the draconian army at this time: the Qualinesti Elflands (area 19) and the Darken Wood (22- 26). Theirs is another story, to be told in future DRAGONLANCE modules.
No matter what! Nothing can happen unless the PCs are there.
Every now and then, I bust out my outline of the journey of the Heroes of the Lance, and think about what I would do if I were running the adventure path.
My ideas change. When the heroes split, and some go west and others go east, I think the west path is more cohrent to the overall story, but the eastern adventures are more interesting.
I like functional programming, even though I am not very good at it (based on some of the cool code I have seen from others).
But sometimes I will see a functional programmer write something like
orders
.filter(valid)
.map(enrich)
.groupBy(customer)
.map(calculateTotals)
And I think, I would have done that in SQL
SELECT customer_id, SUM(total)
FROM orders
WHERE valid = true
GROUP BY customer_id;
Many years ago, I use to have to maintain a large ColdFusion application. ColdFusion is a terrible language in my opinion, but it did have some interesting features. Like you could pop data in a cfquery and then query the query, so it was a bit like having a db engine embedded in the programming language.
You can do something similar in php if it has the sqlite extension, by creating the table in memory
$db = new PDO('sqlite::memory:');
but there is a bit of typing out ceremony to insert all the data into the table.
What is the best D&D introductory module for new players?
Feel free to comment with options not listed.
I was trying to get a handle on Howard Hughes claim that the USAAC stole his idea of a twin boom airplane (the D-2) when they made the P-38. Both planes were started in 1937. I found a picture of a model of the D-2. The model exists at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino California.
Model of D-2 (Image 1)
Actual P-38 flying (Image 2)
Note that the P-38 uses Allison V-1710 liquid cool engines, and the D-2 is using air cooled radial engines (possibly Pratt & Whitney R-2800 wasp engines).
There is an interesting technical history story about liquid cooled versus radial engines and developments discovered during ww2, but that is a topic for another day.
Picture of Howard Hughes by the XF-11 experimental aircraft.
It is strange to me now, looking at the picture. Having played Fallout New Vegas, and watched off hand references to Howard Hughes, and now that we have AI, the picture makes me think it is made up! Fake in some way.
But you can find the picture in this article about Howard Hughes famous crash while test flying the plane here at the LA Times.
If you ever want to read a book that copies Tolkien (way more than even Dragonlance), I present to you "The Iron Tower" by Dennis McKiernan.
I read it long ago. I did not actually hate the book, but I can not say I liked it either.
I went and looked it up again on wikipedia, and here are some reviewer's quotes.
"Yet another abject Tolkien imitation. ... Derivative and dreadful." -- Kirkus
"So many of the little cultural details that brought The Lord of the Rings to life are missing here: McKiernan's songs and poems, for example, are pretty awful." -- E.S. Erkes
""The Iron Tower Trilogy is, in fact, The Lord of the Rings with the serial numbers filed off. Crudely. Anyone who possesses even a passing familiarity with Tolkien's masterwork should stand aghast at the 'similarities'" -- Black Gate
Howard Hughes had a new innovative plane (the H-1 Racer) built in 1935. Many groundbreaking technologies were developed during construction to aid in streamlining.
H-1 Racer below a traditional bi-plane(Image 1)
Flying the H-1, on Sept 13th, 1935, Hughes set a new landplane record of 352.39 mph.
He expected the USAAC to buy the plane and make a new generation of fighter airplanes based on the design. The USAAC turned him down.
Howard Hughes claimed, "it was quite apparent to everyone that the Mitsubishi A6M Zero had been copied from the Hughes H-1 Racer."
Mitsubishi A6M Zero (Image 2)
Aviation writer William Wraga asserts that the H-1 Racer inspired later radial engine fighter airplanes.
P-47 Thunderbolt (Image 3)
Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (Image 4)
Howard Hughes wanted to make a wooden aircraft twin engine fighter in 1937. It would have used Duramold which is a composite material process where birch or poplar plies are impregnated with phenolic resin and laminated together in a mold under heat. The general idea is similar to what the British started thinking of making in 1937 and led to the Mosquito (Image 1) Hughes D-2 would have been more smooth and used twin booms. There are not many images of the D-2 (Image 2).
The US army airforce were not enthused about using wood in aircraft. The role of fast twin engine fighter made out of metal was filled by the Lockheed P-38 (Image 3).
Hughes gave up making the D-2 out of wood, and started working on a metal twin engine designated XF-11. There are photographs of Hughes testing the XF-11(Image 4).
In senate hearing testimony, Hughes claimed that the USAAF stole his idea for a twin engine boom aircraft.
Sometimes I torture my brain by reading the set of Dragonlance modules again. There is something about them I really do not like. It feels like everything is scripted, which ultimately, it is, that is what a writer does I guess.
Maybe I should take the leap into the pit of doom, and go and read the novels.
//javascript is cursed
someVar = new Map();
someVar.name = "Bob";
someVar.age = 24;
console.log(JSON.stringify(someVar));
//OUTPUT IS...
/*
{"name":"Bob","age":24}
*/
console.log(someVar.get("name"));
//OUTPUT IS...
/*
undefined
*/
someVar.set("name", "Maxwell");
someVar.set("age", 64);
console.log(JSON.stringify(someVar));
//OUTPUT IS...
/*
{"name":"Bob","age":24}
*/
for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(someVar)) {
console.log(key, value);
}
//OUTPUT IS...
/*
name Bob
age 24
*/
for (const [key, value] of someVar) {
console.log(key, value);
}
//OUTPUT IS..
/*
name Maxwell
age 64
*/
const nextVar = new Map();
nextVar.set("name", "Jane");
nextVar.set("age", 21);
console.log(JSON.stringify(nextVar))
//OUTPUT IS...
/*
{}
*/
console.log(JSON.stringify(Object.fromEntries(nextVar)));
//OUTPUT IS
/*
{"name":"Jane","age":21}
*/
javascript bugs me more than it should. I guess it is because I have to write in javascript from time to time. Today I am particularly annoyed with how to make hashes.
In perl
%hash
In python
{}
In lua
{}
In Ruby
{}
BUT in javascript it is
new Map()
which they only introduced in 2015. Before that, people used objects which are instantiated with {} , but the objects have a bunch of other junk attached to them which makes it harder to reliably use in all circumstances. So, if you just want a hash, plain old data and nothing else it is
new Map()
and it pains me every time I have to type that out.
