Tolkien's "The Hobbit" - the movie (I hate waiting!)

I just watched this trailer... for the third time in 15 minutes...

...and it has gripped me again. As you may have noticed, I am a bit of a fan of fantasy of all kinds. I was nearly wetting my pants in expectation every time a new Lord of the Rings movie was coming out and with this trailer it is the exact same. Damn you New Line Cinema! Damn you Peter Jackson! For already showing us these snippets while it will only be out by December 2012!!! Shame on you all for making me wait :D

P.S. The Dwarven, Gregorian Chant is awesome!

All over the misty mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old.
 
The pines were roaring on the heights,
The winds were mourning in the night.
 
The fire was red, it flaming spread.
The trees like torches blazed with light.

P.P.S. Darn! I can't wait!

RPG Music'N'SFX - Bitbucket and TurtoiseHg

I just committed my first changes to bitbucket for the new version using TurtoiseHg. Yay!

Looking forward to working with that!

... This has the quality of a twitter message -.-

Gildenmagier in DSA

Das Schwarze Auge ist wahrscheinlich das einzige Fantasy-Rollenspiel in dem Magier keine übermächtigen Kreaturen sind. Im Besonderen nervt es mich ein bißchen, dass Magier mit Schaden verursachenden Kampfzaubern sich selbst fast außer Gefecht setzen.

Aber fangen wir von vorne an. Da in DSA Astralenergie (AsP) für Magie benutzt wird, um zu zeigen wie lange ein Magier zaubern kann und diese sich auch recht langsam regeneriert, finde ich magiebegabte Helden generell recht schwach.

Wenn man sich nun aber auch noch aussucht, einen Kampfzauberer zu machen, der sich auf Schaden spezialisiert hat, dann sollte man schleunigst auch Kampffertigkeiten haben. Ein Magier hat durchschnittlich 40-50 AsP. Jeder Angriffszauber legt als Kostengrundlage voraus, dass die Kosten gleich der Anzahl der Schadenspunkte ist. Das heisst, dass der Magier 40-50 Schaden machen kann (ein durchschnittlicher Mensch hat ca. 25 - 30) und danach so lange warten muss, bis genug Tage mit 1W6 + 3 AsP Regeneration vorbei ist.

Ich finde dieses Verhalten unnütz und schlecht. Damit schwächt man die Magier in einer Art und Weise, die das Gleichgewicht schon wieder fest in die Hand der Kämpfer legt. Natuerlich muss man eine Balance finden (vielleicht AsP-Kosten = Schaden / 2), aber durch solch ein System wird man in meinen Augen eines integralen Bestandteils eines Fantasysettings beraubt: Dem Kampfmagier.

RPG Music'N'SFX - A new approach

So, I was chatting with a friend of mine, who I roleplay with and who also happens to be a professional programmer about the music player as such. We started chatting about tagging like it is done in many applications (StackOverflow posts are a great example as well as this blog here). As a side note, those german speakers among you may be interested in this article, who discusses the merits of tagging.

Anyway, so he mentioned that it can also be done for files and it would be interesting to use it in a music player... such as the one, that I use. To cut a short story long, my next goal is to rewrite the already existing RPG Music'N'SFX player using a tagging based approach.

The approach in this case would be to have all files in one folder and sort them by using tags. This would make a lot of things easier simply because I wouldn't have a lot of hardcoded folders and everything would be a bit more dynamic. Also for the user, who would only have to dump all his files into one folder and then use an easily usable GUI to give his files suitable tags. How this GUI would look like is an entirely different question altogether, however. First ideas include a list of all music files in the folder and 2-state buttons for each tag that exists plus a text control for newly introduced tags.

In addition, it looks like the entire design would have to be redone, because it just is not adequate for the dynamics of the system (expanding categories. Tagging of files etc.).

I'll post updates, once I have something presentable.

RPG Music'N'SFX - Music in roleplaying - a first Trial

If you read the blog carefully, you will remember the entry where I mention the music player that I wrote (follow this link). I finally managed to use it in a session. I had several scenarios prepared and I must admit, it worked out pretty well.

I think the proof that it worked very well, was that two of the players after awhile complained that it really had to rain "all the time" (they were fighting a group of bandits in a forest in the pouring rain) while two others said, this should really be the case, because being outside without shelter in the pouring rain "is" miserable. So it definitely had an effect.

However, it must be said that screening the music is a very tedious job. I spent the train journey to the roleplaying venue (about 4 hours) sieving through various games and movie soundtracks.

Improvement wise, I have to say that I best restructure the GUI and add some functionality. It just goes to show that it really is best, to use the classical design for a music player with playlist and so on. I didn't want to do that, because I had three different categories on how to use the files (well, now, I have four) and it would have been confusing.

Now, I think differently about it and I may need to make a bunch of adjustments to give it more flexibility. i realised the flexibility issue after I realised I need a backgorund sound for a graveyard... I didn't see that one coming. Anyhow, more fun to play with python.

Since I started on helping out in the core mentorship program, I have already learnt a fair bit more about various aspects of python.

Conclusively, I would say, all in a ll a very good session again. I am starting to feel more comfortable as a GM.

Sony Vaio Walkman - an excellent mp3 player... except for one slight little detail

I recently was given a Sony Vaio Walkman (follow this link for specifications) as a gift for my birthday and I have to say, it is a spectacularly good mp3/video player. I only use it for mp3, and for that it is amazing. Battery life is ridiculously long and the sound quality is more than sufficient for my needs (god only knows if that is a high standard or not).

There is only one tiny, teeny little detail that really, I mean really, effing annoys me about this player. When the little lever on the side is put on hold, the buttons still respond by switching on the screen and kindly telling me that the player is put on hold EVEN WHEN I SWITCHED IT OFF!!!

This is honestly ridiculous. As a consequence, whenever I have it in my pocket (or in a bag) and to carry it around with me, everytime "something" touches a button, it drains a little bit of battery life. I give you an example. The Vaio was in my rucksack. I put it in there in case I wanted to listen to music some time. Two days later, I take it out in order to just do that. Guess what. Yes! you are correct! The battery was flat!!! Who thought of that stupid design. So rather than having it with me at all times, I really have to think when to take it with me, just in case I accidently drain the battery by walking!?!?!?

It looks nice however... what a bunch of designer morons.

Ubuntu as an office platform

Because I needed a laptop, but had no money to buy a brand spanking new one, I had to resort to using my wife's old one. The problem with this one was, that it only had 256 MB RAM and as a consequence WinXP constantly ran out of virtual memory. So what to do in the short term?!?

I chose to install a dual boot of Ubuntu, which is no big deal nowadays especially since the laptop I have was built for use with Linux.

Now, about two months later, I am in pure amazement of Ubuntu and how far it has come! First of all, without a RAM upgrade Ubuntu was also slow, but nothing in comparison to WinXP, so it was useable for the things I needed. I then chose to do a memory upgrade following one of the many guides out there.

Suddenly, it is a lean, greeeee...y calculating machine. What's even better, I am starting to get into using the open source office suite like Libre Office  and other tools. Today, I dreaded to install the Network printer, because in WinXP it's always been a bit iffy. In Ubuntu in took me exactly 2 minutes (plus minus 10 seconds). It recognised it, installed the drivers and bob's your uncle.

Thinking back on my first steps with Ubuntu, it really has come a loooooong, long way and it is all the stronger for it. Doing proofreading for the python project, I also end up using Ubuntu on this very laptop, which leaves my PC unfortunately rather unused lately, which is a shame really. I may end up having to reinstall Ubuntu there again :D

The Wave: Book vs. Film

I just watched the movie "Die Welle", which is a German adaption of the popular novel "The Wave" by Todd Strasser. Having read both the book and now seen the film, I found it interesting to see the differences. I am not sure how successful the book was in the US, but in light of the story (if you haven't read the book, go read one of the many synopses) and its relevance to the recent German history, this book has been used as a book to read and analyse in German highschools all across the country.

I must say, I liked how the makers of the film tried to put the film into a German and contemporary context, i.e. German high school life is rather different than a US high school. Furthermore did they discuss how the most googled contemporary person was Paris Hilton (not sure if that is true, but it puts it into a contemporary context). I quite like that since I am not a fan of the whole keeping 100% to the script kinda guy.

I was, however, disappointed by the ending. In the book, everything is resolved by the teacher telling them, how they behaved exactly the way they never would and showing them a picture of Hitler. In the film, they felt that it was necessary to have one of the students being killed. I am not sure why they inserted this detail, but I found the story compelling enough without adding such a dramatic detail. The actions throughout the film were dramatic enough for my liking. Having to add a death to the story to strengthen the drama was the wrong move in my opinion.

DSA: Eine rassenreine Gruppe

Wir hatten kürzlich die selten dämliche Schnapsidee mal einen Rollenspielabend lang eine rassenreine Gruppe zu spielen. Nach längerem Überlegen fiel uns dann auf, dass diese Schnapsidee eigentlich ziemlich cool wäre.

Wenn man so einen Fall ausspielen würde, wäre das eine Herausforderung besonders für den Spielleiter und auch für die Spieler. Für den Spielleiter, weil er wirklich alles über diese Rasse wissen muss (ALLES!!!) und auch von Sekunde 0 den Spielern erklären muss, wie die generelle Denkweise der gespielten Rasse agiert. Ich stelle mir da am Anfang einen kleinen Vortrag über die Welt vor, der die Atmosphäre erschaffen soll, und danach durch erfragen der Spieler wird das Szenario erweitert und die Löcher ausgefüllt.

Hier kommt dann die Herausforderung für die Spieler. Sie müssen es schaffen, so zu denken, wie die Wesen. Ein Elf denkt einfach komplett anders über die Welt nach als ein Mensch. Besonders wenn er sich in seiner Sippe befindet. Das kann für die Spieler sehr spannend, aber auch sehr frustrierend sein.

Ich erinnere mich an eine Begebenheit in der ich ein Rollenspiel über Orks gespielt habe (ich wünschte ich wüsste den Namen noch). Das Spiel war eher als Parodie gedacht, aber es erinnert mich daran ein bißchen, weil wir mussten "doofe" Orks spielen. Da kam, dass wir auch unsere Satzstellung und Wortwahl anpassen mussten (Aus "I am rather peckish today, darling" wurde dann sowas we "Me be hungry, she-ork"). Und ganz ehrlich: Das war verdammt schwer! Ich hatte echte Probleme, erstmal, simpel zu denken (ich bin jetzt kein Genie, aber dass sich Seife im Wasser auflöst, weiss ich, und das durfte ich nicht wissen) und auch so zu sprechen.

Mit diesen Hintergedanken haben wir uns überlegt, welche Rasse man nehmen könnte und am meisten würden uns die Achaz reizen. Echsen haben irgendwas. Man muss immer mit viel 'ssssssssssssss' reden, des weiteren sind sie eine ehemalige Hochkultur vor tausenden von Jahren, die mittlerweile zurück in die Sümpfe gedrängt wurden. Das heißt, sie können nicht einfach irgendwohin gehen. Dazu kommt noch, dass die kulturelle Stellung der Frauen und Männer komplett verschieden ist. Hört sich einfach geil an :D

Mal sehen wie weit wir damit kommen :)

Rollenspiel: Meine Erfahrungen als Meister

Nach den Irrungen und Wirrungen unserer Jugend- und Studentenzeit haben meine alten Rollenspielkumpels (dazwischen waren sie "nur" Freunde von mir) wieder den Drang verspürt eine Rollenspielrunde zu starten. Da das Ganze damit anfing, dass ich vorgeschlagen habe an einem Weihnachten mal für einen Abend "der guten, alten Zeit willen" eine Runde zu leiten (diesmal in DSA4). Das rannte dann bei allen weit offene Türen ein, weil die sich auch schon wieder mit dem Gedanken beschäftigt haben.

Auf Grund dessen war ich auf einmal Spielleiter in einer sehr rollenspiellastigen Spielergruppe (Erfahrungspunkte sind irgendwie egal, kein Regelnerd weit und breit, Kämpfe sind eine regeltechnische Katastrophe :D). Meine Erfahrungen und Schlussfolgerungen, die ich daraus gezogen habe, sind recht interessant.

1. Das Alter der Spieler macht wirklich einen Riesenunterschied

Ich dachte mir, ich fange mal mit einem offensichtlichen Punkt an. Das letzte Mal als wir gespielt hatten, waren wir zwischen 16 und 19. Heute ca. 10 Jahre später hat sich der Fokus unglaublich gewechselt. Rollenspiel war bei uns schon immer sehr stark vertreten, aber mittlerweile erscheint es mir wirklich so, als ob den Spielern die Erfahrungspunkte eigentlich wurscht sind :D Mir soll es recht sein. Die haben es tatsächlich geschafft eine Reunion von einzelnen Charakteren mit den anderen in einem stinkenormalen Wirtshaus über 3 Stunden (ja, DREI STUNDEN!!!), also fast in Echtzeit, auszuspielen. Womit wir zu meiner nächsten Beobachtung kommen.

2. Je mehr Spieler desto weniger Plot

Wir fingen diese Spielrunde mit 6 Spielern und einem Spielleiter an. Danach haben wir auf 8 Spieler aufgestockt aus dem simplen Grund, dass wir alle einen festen Job haben, die meisten eine Langzeitpartnerin, manche schon Kinder und generell alle mitten im Leben stehen, also um regelmäßiges Spielen zu ermöglichen.

Mir ist nun aufgefallen, dass je mehr Spieler es gibt, die sich rollenspielerisch austoben, desto weniger Plotelemente kann man einbauen. Als Beispiel, mit einer Gruppe von damals 6 Spielern haben wir es geschafft einem gesuchten Mörder bis zu einer Mine zu folgen, seine Leiche zu finden, einen Mineneinsturz zu überleben, Ausgang in den Bergen finden, weg zurück finden, ein Orküberfall mit schwer verletzten und dann über ein Dorf nach Hause. Beim Dorf stoppte die Show. Ich finde das recht viel.

In der letzten Session gab es besagte 3 stündige Reunion und alle waren so sehr damit beschäftigt ihre Chars auszuspielen, dass es wirklich kaum vorwärts ging. Mir als Spielleiter machte das nix aus, weil ich habe nur zugeschaut. Das hervorragendes Theater. An dem Abend haben es die Spieler in derselben Zeit geschafft zu einem Sumpf zu reisen (eine Tagesreise), sich von Affen verprügeln zu lassen und eine Hütte zu durchsuchen. Wir spielen generell von 15 Uhr bis 5 Uhr morgens...

3. Personal Quests für Spieler lohnt sich ungemein

Das ist etwas, was mir unglaublich viel Spass gemacht hat. Ich wollte das Spiel ein bißchen vom klassischen linearen Plot wegbringen und mehr zu einem offen hin, ein bißchen wie in den Spielen wie Baldur's Gate, dazu habe ich zwei Sachen eingeführt: Seitenquests (davon später) und Personal Quests. Die Personal Quest ist dazu gedacht, dass der Spieler sich mit seinem Charakter mehr befasst und ihn nicht nur als Mittel zum Zweck sieht. Darin wird er fern der anderen in Situation gebracht, die nur er lösen kann.

Es ist unglaublich, wie viel man zurück bekommt, wenn man so etwas startet. Es gibt einfach Momente, wo man nicht jeden Spieler mit einbeziehen kann. Durch diese personal quests hat jeder Spieler jedoch immer etwas woran er unabhängig von den anderen Spielern herumbasteln kann.

Ich habe als Beispiel unsereren etwas leicht Rauschkraut abhängigen thorwalschen Seesöldner zum Leibwächter für Drogendealer werden lassen. Dadurch hat sich ergeben, dass er noch süchtiger wurde und einen Erzfeind hat. Das mag schlimm und schlecht klingen, aber es gibt dem Charakter Tiefe und Wiedererkennungswert. Der Spieler hat das erlebt und kann den anderen "seine" Version erzählen. Das ist seins und er findet das toll. Ich könnte noch alle 7 anderen erzählen, aber der Platz reicht nicht und von manchen anderen wissen die Spieler noch gar nicht.

4. Nebenquests sind toll

Diese Nebenquests waren nie etwas tolles bei mir, sondern dienten hauptsächlich dazu, den Spielern mehr Geld zu geben. Das Abenteurerleben ist gefährlich und teuer, da brauchen sie auch mal einfach Aufträge. Dies kann vom Sammeln der Tannenzapfen der Salamandersteintanne bis hin zum Säubern von alten Gemäuern alles sein, wofür es eine Belohnung gibt. Es hält die Spieler bei Stange und gibt ihnen oft auch das Gefühl, dass sie es ein bisschen drauf haben.

Jedoch muss man vorsichtig sein, wenn man zu viele Nebenquests einbaut, geht der Spielfluss verloren und die Helden kommen nicht vorwärts... Besonders wenn man 8 Spieler hat.

5. Forme die Welt, um die Spieler

Ein Aspekt, der mir unglaublich viel Spass bereitet, ist das erstellen von wiedererkennbaren NSCs. Das habe ich soweit getrieben, dass ich irgendwann beschlossen habe, diese wiederzuverwenden. Falls meine Spieler das hier lesen, werden sie sich ein wenig wundern, wovon ich rede. Noch ist es nicht passiert, da wir noch das Fundament bauen. Es wird jedoch passieren, das manch ein NSC in der Welt auch herumreist und die Helden an einem anderen Ort wiedertrifft. Seinen sozialen Status verändert aber trotzdem noch derselbe ist. Nicht immer muss man sagen, das ist <Name Nachname> aus XYZ, man kann auch nur Gerüchte und Andeutungen fallen lassen, über ein Ereignis, das irgendwoanders stattgefunden hat und an dem eine Person mit einem besonderen Merkmal teilgenommen hat.

Dieses Stilmittel hat zum Ziel, dass die Helden merken, dass diese Welt lebendig ist und nicht aufhört sich zu drehen, wenn sie an einen anderen Ort wechseln...

6. Der Glückswurf bringt Abwechslung für den Spielleiter

Es gibt Momente im Spiel, da will man einfach eine Variable einführen, weil man keine 08/15 Situation erzeugen will. Dazu habe ich mir von einem befreundeten Shadowrun Spielleiter den Glückswurf ausgeborgt. Dieser besteht aus 2W6. Je höher desto besser (Vorteil Glückspilz 3W6, Nachteil Pechmagnet 1W6).

Ein simples Beispiel, dass die Benutzung illustriert. Der Spieler ist in einer Scheune und sucht eine Säge. Warum sagt er nicht und du als Spielleiter hast keine Ahnung, ob in der Scheune eine Säge ist. Generell kann man sagen, es kann schon sein, muss aber nicht. Also lässt man den Spieler 2W6 würfeln und ihm aber nicht die Schwelle zu seinem Glück sagen. Diese behält man für sich und entscheidet dann, wenn man das Ergebnis sieht. Ist das Ergebnis durchschnittlich hat er es entweder gefunden oder nicht (je nachdem was die Schwelle ist). Ist der Wurf besonders hoch (10-12), dann kann er auch noch andere nützliche Sachen finden. Ist der Wurf besonders niedrig (2-4), dann kann der Spieler beim Durchsuchen eines Heuhaufens in eine Bärenfalle treten, die dann auch prompt zuschnappt. Die Falle hat genauso wenig in der Scheune zu suchen wie die Säge, weshalb es dem Spielleiter auch ein bißchen Spontaneität erlaubt in Situation, die eigentlich potentiell nur lahm sind.

Aktuell fallen mir nicht mehr Sachen ein, werde aber einen weiteren Artikel schreiben, sobald ich mehr Erfahrungen gesammelt habe.

Why I refuse to use Apple products

I have always wondered about those Apple fanatics. The ones who have everything. iBook, iPhone, iPad, iPod, iShirt, iCup, iHouse, iWife, iCar etc. etc. etc. There are several things that put me off buying their products. But since I want to give a reasoning and not just bash Apple, I shall start with the merits of their products.

Firstly, the big, huge plus, that Apple has is, that their products are always innovative, easily usable and they always look spiffy. Noone can say anything against that. Once it comes to design, Apple rules the dumpster. There is a reason, the graphics designers tend to use Apple products for their work. They are just good at what they do, it is that easy and I want to make it clear that I have no doubt about the quality of Apple products. In fact, I admire it.

Now my reasoning, why I will probably never buy an Apple product. Let's start with the most decisive one. The price. To be honest, they are just plain to expensive for me. At the time of writing, an Apple MacBook costs €1,139.00 at amazon.de. As I may have mentioned in a different post, this is waaaay too much for me. I always have the feeling with Apple that I pay an extra 200-300 Euro just to a have a half-eaten fruit on my computer.

Moving swiftly on. Mac OS X. I like playing Computer games and I like programming. However much, Apple may want to change it, the OS with the most compatible games is Windows-based. Fullstop. Most games cater for that and I ain't gonna argue. Especially, since I can save money in building my own desktop PC and then install Windows. Programming, I also prefer to use Windows or Linux (also POSIX but for free), simply because Windows is the main platform so anything that I code has more potential to be distributed.

The next point, I would like to make is a bit of a tender subject with the Apple fanbase (and also addresses the fanbase a bit). I don't like it, how Apple always tries to create exclusivity. Y'know, look at how they only have the same suppliers for their MacBook. There is hardly any variation (if any) to their latest products. You cannot choose if you want to have Blu-Ray player or not with a certain setup, it is either that setup or none. Some people may like this, I don't. This coupled with their very aggressive stance in non-compatibility (only iTunes with iPod. If you attach iPod to a PC, no guarantee etc etc yadiyada).

This, followed by a rather annoying fanbase, who does not even want to listen to other people's arguments with regards to other opinions, makes it even more of a turn off to me. Some very good friends of mine belong to said group and it is just plain tedious talking with them about this topic. So I don't and also block it off when they want to tell me something amazing about Apple.

Anyhow, I felt this had to be said ;) Whenever someone now feels the need to try and convince me of Apple's amazingness, I shall direct him/her to this article :)

Tablet PCs - Do I want one? Yes! Do I need one?... Probably... no...

This topic has been going around in my head for hours and hours on end. Some of my friends must be quite bored by this topic by now.

Ever since Samsung brought their Galaxy Tab to the market, I really want a good Tablet PC. I am not a fan of Apple's iCulture, which is why I am not so fond of iPads. But then I see the price and I wonder if I really (and I mean "really") need it.

At the time of writing this, a good 10'' Tablet costs about €550 (compare amazon.de). Now to me, this is a loada dosh. For the same amount of money, I could get a decent laptop for working purposes without a good graphics card. This isn't bad for me, since I prefer gaming on a desktop PC anytime. I am just wired that way.

Now then, looking at what I can do with a Tablet PC. Pretty much mostly multimedia. So, watching films (which I would have to transfer as there is no DVD drive), browsing the net, reading eBooks and the odd app or another.

Now, I needed to assess what uses "I" would like to get out of a portable device. Essentially, I use a laptop mostly for word processing or programming. Not so much browsing the web, but to a certain extent. Unfortunately, for reading and writing code, a tablet is completely useless. Browsing the web is nice, but it is easier on a laptop and watching films is ok, but I like to have a DVD drive, so that I don't have to transfer them onto the harddrive all the time.

In conclusion, I am pretty sure, that all the functions a tablet PC can fulfil, I can cover with a laptop (and if push comes to shove, I may get one of those fancy smartphones) and I could probably get more out of it. Thus, do I need a tablet PC? Hell no! Do I want one? Yes, godsdammit :D

Just a video clip...

Just came across this video clip from the 90s. I remembered liking it as a child, but now that I see it, the first thing, I am wondering is "What's with the wooly hat?!?"

t;

It looks like these little suckling teats, y'know, on baby bottles.

compare with

I don't know what conclusion, I should draw from this, apart from this is really horrible fashion-sense... or maybe fashion is stupid, because in as short as 2 years you probably look outdated if you don't keep up and in 10 years time, you look like an idiot with a potatosack as cocktail dress (if you are a man).

Roland Emmerich Films are boring

Yesterday, I watched, as a favour to my darling wife, Roland Emmerich's film 2012. Now, unlike most Germans, I strongly dislike his movies. Funnily enough, I find them too American and the story is always weak at best.
Whenever, I watched a film, I always get the feeling, that I have seen something like that already. It's always (with a strong American... often Texan accent) "the best <insert appropriate person or machine> in the worrrrrrrrld". Then, the people always speak directly to "the Prrrresiden*no 't'*". Then the world goes to shits and generally some monument or another is destroyed. In 2012, it was the Washington Monument, but we also already had Paris and its Eifel Tower, the White House and many more. Then, they show a couple of pictures of how the world looks like after the apocalypse and then the film ends.

Sorry, Roland, not good enough. Please, PLEEEEASE, pretty pleeeeeeeease, less pathos, better story and "different" special effects, you don't have to go without, just different ones please. Destruction is all nice and well, but does it always have to be the grandest scale of things? For that matter, does it always have to be the "Prrrrresiden of the United States of Amerrrrrrrica" who is a hero (flying a fighter jet or helping the common man and whatnot). Good stories don't necessarily feed off superlatives, they feed off a well-written and well-told script, suspense, a good story arch, a good setting and good actors. Now all these things you can choose.

So please, PLEEEEEEEEASE, change something, SOMETHING! I'm starting to wonder if you prefer to be American. I would have thought that a non-American would add a slightly different viewpoint, too. I heard people refer to his movies as "the great cinema experience"... sadly, they aren't.

The magic of the "Tone" in a text

I've been busy lately trying to figure out how to contribute to the Python Project. Because of this, I have come across Python Mentoring, a fantastic project and idea!

One thing that struck me as outlandish, but which I received very benevolently; Their Code of Conduct:

• We ask everyone to be welcoming, friendly, and patient.
• Flame wars and insults are unacceptable in any fashion, by any party.
• Anything can be asked, and "RTFM" is not an acceptable answer.
• Neither is "it's in the archives, go read them".
• List archives are available only to subscribers, but subscription is open to everyone.
• Since the archives are "closed" - cross posting to public mailing lists is discouraged.
• Statements made by core developers can be quoted outside of the list.
• Statements made by others can not be quoted outside the list without explicit permission.
  • Anonymised paraphrased statements "someone asked about..." are ok - direct quotes with or without names are not appropriate.
• We endorse the PSF's Diversity statement.
• The list administrators reserve the right to revoke the subscription of members (including mentors) that persistently fail to abide by this Code of Conduct.
  • All mentors are signed up as administrators.

This is rather nice, as so far it was quite daunting to even dare to write a question at the danger of not being elite enough. The amount of times I read RTFM lmao, is actually countless times.

Here is a counter example of someone who means it nice but his tone of voice basically says: "Dude, it's probably best you don't bother." This here is the text, I spoke about.

I like how the author tries to make suggestions in how to get the right answer, but his writing style kinda suggests that it is the wild west out there. He does not make any amends for a rather anti social community of people who just want to be left alone with their code ;)

The python mentoring guys have truly noticed that this is a problem. Well, at least it worked with me. I've now submitted my first issue and hopefully will do more in the near future :)

Lots of enthusiasm, no direction

I hate these moments in programming. I have lots of enthusiasm spare in between all these things I do during my daily routine to get some bread on the table, but not project in sight to work on. Unfortunately, I am currently also at a loss as to how to choose a suitable project. Unfortunately, now that the work on my musicplayer is over, I have nothing to sink my teeth into... or better, no idea how to sink my teeth... if that makes sense ;)

ah, well... my search continues...

RPG Music'N'SFX - a Roleplaying Aid Written in Python Pt. 2

Here a little update. I've put the first version online for everyone to download.

https://bitbucket.org/Nebelhom/pymusicnsfx/overview

I don't know yet, how to use mercurial or any of the other stuff, but I'll give it a shot. For now, I am glad that I released something that can actually be used by someone.

RPG Music'N'SFX - a Roleplaying Aid Written in Python Pt. 1

I've been busy the last year or so with writing a little tool to play music in order to help me do the GMing. I figured there are already rules specific GM aids for The Dark Eye, but noone ever bothered writing something with music.

In order to realise this software, I first had to get some parametres straight. Using Python was already set, simply because I didn't know how to use anything else. The next thing was which GUI. This was quickly answered by using wxPython, which is based on wxWidgets, again, because I was most comfortable in using it. The last thing was a good audio library. Now that was a problem.

I wanted to have a library that could play both .mp3, .wav. and .ogg as minimum requirement and play several files of any format at the same time. I wanted to make it cross-platform, but minimum was Windows compatibility.
This proved to be quite challenging, especially that dreaded .mp3 compatibility. Most open source libraries stay well clear of .mp3, because of its licensing issues and prefer the open source format OGG VORBIS. Now this is an issue, since most people who use Windows, use .mp3 instead of .ogg files.
After some searching and trying (which also resulted in my rather amateur GStreamer with wxPython for Windows posts 1 2 3 4) I finally came across a library that would do the trick: PyAudiere. Put plainly it is an awesome library based on the C-library Audiere. It has some issues, but all in all it is a very good library to use. Unfortunately, I could never get it to work in Ubuntu, which actually led to one of my reasons to abandon Ubuntu for the xth time (for more see this post).

Anyhow, so I finally have it written and it is working... rather well actually. All I have to do, is create my own button pictures and remove all test files, since the licensing and copyright does not allow for shipping music files with it. Licensing in general is something, I don't quite understand yet, so I am going to play it safe, before I put it online and use the GNU General Public Licence ver. 3.

The only problem, I currently have is, that it will be quite a task to convince people to install all the libraries on their PCs before using it. I will try and create an installer for this instance and explain very carefully to everyone of them, what they are about to do. It is a shame, that Java's JRE is so widely used and accepted and Python's essentially same approach is not know at all. If I manage to do it, I will post here to tell you and a future me who's forgotten all about it, how I did it :)

This leaves me only with the posting of a screenshot for your viewing pleasure :) Enjoy.

wxPython - Little Things - Pt. 1 of many - Grey out radio buttons

When I use GUIs in Python, I always use wxPython. Simply because when I first wanted to create GUIs, wxPython was the one that I understood quickest. There is not much else to it.

I will not write another tutorial about it, because there are enough out there already. For basic ones, just have a look at these:

http://zetcode.com/wxpython/
http://wiki.wxpython.org/AnotherTutorial
http://wiki.wxpython.org/How%20to%20Learn%20wxPython
http://wiki.wxpython.org/Getting%20Started

and then there are also loads of videos on youtube and on showmedo. And last but definitely not least you may wanna check out the book on wxPython. These are all written (or made) by people who have the tendency to know more about the topic than I do.

So here is what I am going to do. Since I am still a learner myself, I will always try to note down a little bit of wisdom of wxPython to you.

The first one is the EnableItem(n, flag) method for a specific Radiobutton. Until this day, I truly thought that you could only enable or disable the entire radio box widget. Just call radiobox.Disable() or .Enable() and bob's your uncle (this works for all widgets I believe). Today, I wanted to disable separate buttons of the radio.
After some googling, I finally came across the wxWidgets documentation and stumbled across EnableItem(n, flag). So calling this with the index of your selection to be disabled and the flag "False", you actually can grey out a single button :)

Voila.

Geekiness in Movies

Today, I remembered something that I noticed when I watched the film "Swordfish", the film with Hugh Jackman as one of the best hackers in the world, who promised to never do it again and John Travolta as the megalomaniac baddie. For some reason most software developers quote the scene, where Hugh Jackman has to hack into some high security site within ...60 seconds I think or he gets shot, while receiving a blow job from a hottie, as their dream job. Personally, I don't mind challenging situations with a certain amount of pressure to deliver, but this is a bit too much for my taste ;)



Has anyone of you ever noticed how Jackman's character is called Stanley Jobson and one of his hacker friends who gets shot early in the film is called Axl Torvalds? Very smooth, you script writers. Truly very smooth. I was actually looking if Travolta's character was called something along the lines of Brian Gatesburgh... but I guess that would have been a little too obvious ;).

This prompted me to do some little research into geekiness in film... I mean my geekiness, you know, cross-references to roleplaying or stuff like that.

The two latter Matrix movies are gems for that. The first example comes with these creepy twins with the razorblades from Matrix: Reloaded. Check out the first video below and note how right at the end they say "We are getting aggravated... <Other one answers> Yes, we are." Shortly thereafter, they are actually getting blown up in their car (See second video clip). Now comparing this to the White Wolf system and their definition of "Agravated Damage", it makes me wonder, if the wording as it stands, was a coincidence. Personally, I would like to believe that it wasn't a coincidence and that the Wachowski Brothers are RPG geeks :D






The second one, I actually quite enjoyed was in Matrix: Revolutions. To me it was a little bit like the first StarCraft Movie. Just imagine the machines are the Zerg and the humans are the Terrans. If you watch the excerpt of the movie below, I see a striking resemblance between the StarCraft Terran Goliath unit and the robot units that face the machines.



Have you ever noticed some hidden geekiness in movies? I'd be more than interested to learn about it :D

Role-Playing is a hobby like any other, alright?

Many people look at me oddly when I openly admit that I role-play. Over the years this has improved since being a geek is a good thing nowadays apparently (look at those horn-rimmed glasses), but being a nerd is still bad (or so I was told). Still some people really think role-playing is the equivalent of having a fifth, sixth and seventh appendage.
To me role-playing is just another way of hanging out with old friends that I do not see that often. While many people meet up to drink beer in a pub or a club to chat or dance and spent sh*t-loads of money on that, I tend to sit around a table at a friend's place, drink beer and we chat (no dancing really. sorry)... well, play through a scenario essentially and tell a story. If at this point, you as the reader wonder what role-playing exactly is, I would direct you to a couple of good articles, like this one or this one or even this one... or you could just google it. I am not here to explain what it is because many people have tried and did it rather well.

But we lose track, all I am saying here is, that to me this is a great way to meet up with friends regularly and have an enjoyable evening while having some drinks over an activity we all enjoy doing as opposed to meeting up with friends regularly for an enjoyable evening while having some drinks over ANY OTHER activity we all enjoy doing.

The C64 - Nostalgia, Nostalgia and a beer with a little bit of Nostalgia

I remember the Commodore 64 fondly. It was my first exposure to video gaming. It belonged to my eldest brother and it's greenfilter monitor had an almost irresistible pull to me. Problem these days was, I was 8 years old, couldn't speak English and guess what "ALL" games were in English... I have to admit though, it did not deter me :).

Following are a couple of games that I played almost nonstop. It was crazy considering that I actually couldn't speak English back then and the games were heavily text-based... yet, I thoroughly enjoyed them all. Here are my top ten in no particular order as I think that each game was awesome in its own way:

The Great Giana Sisters

 What a great game! My all time favorite. Chris Huelsbeck's PC-Speaker music made it all the more enjoyable. I can still hum the level tunes! Apart from the fact that it is a blatant Super Mario rip off, I have to admit, though, that I actually learnt about Mario after I played this one. To my surprise, when I played it recently, I realised that it has aged rather well!

Curse of the Azure Bonds

Hach *sigh*, my first ever computer-based rpg. It will always hold a special place in my heart. The graphics were shit, the gameplay was atrocious and the story a spin-off from an AD&D book that wasn't that good in the first place. Yet, I had to play it and beat the evil Tyranthraxus who, for some inexplicable reason, faced me as a storm giant (the only storm giant in the game) although he could have chosen any form he liked. My Paladin killed him in two rounds. That's how good that baddie was. Dust of Disappearance made that fight ridiculously easy... I loved that game. Also my first contact with the realms of Faerun. Good times...

Dragon Wars

From what I remember, THE best roleplaying system ever made. It was the only game "to this day" where you do not start as a character class, but you can increase whatever you want. It was just awesome! Shame there is no follow up with the same system but better graphics.

Can't tell you much about the story since the limited Memory of the Commodore 64 meant that a lot of the story was actually written down in the handbook in Entry form. Very often, you would encounter a place and it says in the description <Read Entry xy... 63 or whatever>. Unfortunately, my older brother lost the handbook and it was in English anyway, so no use to my 8 year old self.

Miniput

This game was simply well made. Even back then, they totally nailed the gameplay. To this day, I play miniput games (browser games and the like) and the game play as such has not change overly. What the developers achieved with limited graphics was just plain amazing! It is still a good game to now. Again one of those that aged well :)

Sid Meier's Pirates!

I am not sure if it is just misled nostalgia, but the new release of the game has nothing on the old one. I don't know what it was, but the new, fluffy and spiffy look of the new one just puts me off (together with the dancing). The original was actually just the same.. but it was better goddammit!! The game was revolutionary for its time. The way it was possible to ransack cities with just the right tactics was just plain awesome and the sea battles were breath-taking. I am sure my vivid imagination as a young pup compensated heavily for the lack of good graphics ;)

Tennis-Manager

This game is a weird one. I don't know why I spent several months worth of my childhood sitting in front of the box playing this. All you did, was increase the percentages of each skill, every time you come back from a tournament and then you watch how well you play. It was inevitable that you would reach the number one spot. Simply, because at some point you will reach 100% in every single skill. Nonetheless, there was something endearing about this game.

Winter Games

 

No other game caused as much damage to the joysticks as this game (maybe Summer games as close second). Since the game play consisted mainly of violently yanking the the joystick back and forth as fast as possible (This may have prepared some young boys for their Baywatch watching career), it is understandable that a couple of new joysticks had to be bought. Fantastic group game!

Bruce Lee

 To this day, I have no idea what this game is about, or what I achieved once I finished it. What I know is that it is a fast paced Jump and... Kick and Run Game that makes you enjoy jump kicking ugly, green and fat kickboxing women with a horrendous hair do.

Microprose Soccer

First football game I ever played. Realism looks different, but it was awesome nonetheless. For its time very good graphics and playing against my siblings was always a treat. It just worked. Awesome game :D

Vermeer

The strange story with this game is that I actually didn't know what the aim of the game was (again due to a lack of English skills). I just liked the game, for planting crops and selling the materials in order to get rich. For some reason, I was never bothered that it was open ended ;)

Honorable mentions go out to Mafia, International Karate and Test Drive. Another three beyond awesome games.

Ah well, that's it. I enjoyed that greatly. I will however resist from getting an emulator, because I will only be disappointed. I want those games to live on in my heart the way I remember them. As games that it was worth taking time out over. :)

C#, XNA and Microsoft's Tutorial, they really get it all wrong!

So, I am starting to learn about C# and the XNA Framework for various reasons. I am usually a python ... hmm.. I don't dare call myself a programmer or developer... let's settle for "dabbler", shall we? Anyhow, as a consequence, I have been following Microsoft's tutorial.

Now don't get me wrong, I like it. I don't mind C#. The syntax reminds me shudderingly of Java, which I tried and then stopped, turned round and walked away, so far away, but C# I seem to get fairly quickly. It is probably the way the tutorials happened to be set out.

BUT... and here is the BUT. There is always a but, isn't there. For one, all the online tutorials are written for people who have no concept of programming whatsoever. I would like to learn about XNA and C# and not about the concept of having a variable... It really unnerves me, because the start is soooo superslow. I wish they would do something about it. it really, really puts me off.

The other thing that really puts me off, are the brief introductory videos. I know what they are trying to do, but unfortunately, all the people they choose to let talk, give me the creeps in one way or the other. Adding in this whitened white background and I suspect every single one of them of a felony that does involve the absense of clothing or a fetish. It just achieves the direct opposite of what it should. Instead of giving the reader/viewer a gentle intro to the material, it sitffenes every muscle in fear and the mentioning of the word "gentle" will make you cringe in fear.

Ah, well, on the upside, after 4 lessons, I can now finally make an icon move. Isn't it awesome?

Reloaded - My close but futile flirt with Ubuntu - an ongoing tale of curiosity and being disappointed

As I said, in my first post here, I got back into using Ubuntu :D Strangely this time because of work. I used to have a standard Desktop simply because everyone else had laptops. This was until a new colleague started. From that moment on, we had to share the machine, which was just not viable. As a consequence, I took my wife's old laptop (An Acer Extense 512 MB RAM machine). For the first week, I really, REALLY hated myself for doing that. The laptop is super slow and it takes about 5 minutes (or more) for a browser to open in Windows XP.

Close to despair, I chose to throw Ubuntu on it, and lo and behold, the increase in speed is ridiculous. Don't me wrong. Still slow as hell, but a definite improvement to before. As a research chemist, Ubuntu was for a long time a turn off, because two pieces of software weren't written for Linux. Namely, SciFinder Scholar and ChemOffice. I tried Wine and even those two went on without the shadow of a problem(?!?!?!!?). Within a short time I went from electronic car crash to having a feasible work station together with open office. In the near future, I plan to increase the RAM of the laptop, simply because I never opened a laptop before and I wanna see if I can do it. If it was successful, I will post a detailed report here ;)

My close but futile flirt with Ubuntu - an ongoing tale of curiosity and being disappointed

Ok first of all, I am newbie on the web. I’m a newbie with programming, a newbie to this entire world. I admit it freely and that is simply because the word ‘newbie’ is not negative for me. It just describes how much I can still discover about the web and computing in general.

My little adventure started during my PhD, when I desperately needed something to take my mind of things. I am not a person who watches trash TV all day to switch off. I need "not-work-related stimulation of the mind". A friend of mine suggested programming and threw the word Python right behind and Bang! I was hooked. Nothing I ever did had any sort of grand outcome. I dabbled in the Python Challenge, Project Euler, wrote applications to improve my work load or make things better for other hobbies (all those apps apart from one worked, but never got more than one test run out of it).

Once I’ve gotten accustomed to all the new ideas into my head, I decided to go right for it and install Ubuntu Linux (or Debian or whatever you call it) on my PC as dual boot. The reason was curiosity and because for some reason I dislike Windows. Why? I don’t know. Corporate angst. Maybe. I definitely didn’t think it was a free Windows version, because most of all, I wanted to dabble and fiddle with it and get things to work. Fact is, Windows gave me everything I needed, but I still wanted a change. It’s a bit like leaving an old girl-friend, I guess, when it comes down to it. Ever since then my flirt with Ubuntu was and is a very intensive on and off fling.

My first ever trial was a strange experience. Nothing worked. Truly nothing, but the interaction with the Ubuntu users was an eye opener. I was running against walls left right and center. As a Windows user to install an OS and then see a black screen and nothing else is... well... shit. You are so pampered and used to everything working you see. Anyhow, I really wanted to be part of the Ubuntu people. I heard about open source and the GNU licences and I found it an amazing idea. By users for users. This was fantastic! The freedom to choose how much to pay for a certain software. I believe in a price for a certain amount of work, I just think that companies tend to be too greedy and always try to push the profit-margin. Therefore, being able to donate to a software project and as such choose the price you want to pay was exceptional for me (Admittedly, I am still a cheap skate). I tried to learn to how to package and everything just to find out that I had to learn more. And now and again after I eventually configured my graphics card via the command line with no experience using BASH (hardcore), Ubuntu still threw me the odd curve ball.

I wasn’t expecting much. I just had this idea of being like more mature and using it like an adult. Y’know, no more video games. All programming and writing articles and, well, grown-up stuff. But constantly I found myself needing to go back to Windows. Namely, work-related software that is only available in Windows (and sometimes a Apple Mac). Doesn’t work in Wine. Ok, back to Windows. A couple of months later, I come across VirtualBox and this little light bulb appeared over my head. Use it in Ubuntu and then use Windows inside Ubuntu. In a nutshell, works fantastic, but... there’s always a but... for some reason pdfs and word documents (yea better forget open office professionally for me) looks cruder than in Windows. This was a big issue for my PhD boss who was (I guess still is) a loony for  presentation of work (I also guess he is right in that and I learned a bucketload about it from him). So back to Windows... Another couple of months later, I went again back to Ubuntu to do more programming, then I can’t install some libraries on the Python version. Back to Windows. Again Ubuntu. Ok wanna play some games (goes to show how long that will for maturity lasted). Can’t be bothered rebooting to Ubuntu now... There was always something coming in between me and Ubuntu.

This was frustrating me greatly until I analysed why I always end up back in Windows. I wouldn’t call myself an average computer user. I am an enthusiast who would like to know more about computing but at the same time also uses the PC for more mundane things. And I think that is where the crux lies. I enjoy playing PC games and I am not as clued up about certain PC-related issues as I would like to be. Therefore, if a library isn’t in the repository, most of the time if the outlined installation doesn’t work, I am screwed.

In conclusion, it just appears to me that Linux ...or Ubuntu is just not cut out for my typical PC activities. Windows fulfils all the necessities that I have, although it has its problems. I have to regularly run maintenances on my PC and the threat of viruses and spyware is constantly there. But it works and I know my way around it. Currently, at this juncture, I take the valuable lessons I learnt from playing around with Ubuntu and gladly go back to Windows in knowing what I have there. An OS that works and does what I want it to do... Just ask me in a couple of months if I’ve tried it with Ubuntu again. You’ll probably find that I had a brief fling with it again ;) .