Scott's Rambles

First Impressions of Minecraft Beta 1.8 Pre-release (now 2)

2011-09-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

I have been playing around a little bit with the pre-release of Minecraft 1.8. I have been playing my normal world and then just reverting to a saved copy when I go back to 1.7.3. Right at this time I am just exploring, I load up on supplies and take off in a direction to see what I find. I thought I would give my impressions of what I have seen so far.

General
Generally the updates look good. I like what I am seeing. I am praying that the performance is going to get better. I don't run the top of the line game machine, but geez, I had to move my graphics from Fancy to fast and my Distance from Far to Normal and I STILL get real laggy at times. I hope it is just because of the new world parts being gen'd for the first time or something. I really will have a hard time justifying upgrading my machine for Minecraft... It's one thing if it is a brand new MMO or super fancy FPS... but Minecraft?? Really? This game requires that much horsepower?

Rivers
Rivers are awesome. I am burning through my boats. It's like taking the "It's a small world" boat ride at the amusement park. I really enjoy meandering through a biome on a river. That is a GREAT addition.

Villages

I finally ran into a village during my exploring. They are pretty neat. I got to see the new tables (fence post with wood pressure plate on top) and thought the general layout of the village was neat. I liked the fact there was 2 furnaces and a lava pit in the village, it made that building look like a smithy or something. I looked into the well that was in the village and fell in! duh. So that well doesn't quite look right anymore since I mined my way back out. hehe

Ravines
I have ran into a couple of ravines... literally :) and what I have seen of them so far is pretty cool. They are deep, very deep... It's a long fall, trust me. I haven't been able to explore one yet... well, see the first sentence.

Enderman
The Enderman are ok. They are just another hostile mob. I have not had any issues finding Enderman, and very little issues killing them. I am wondering if they are not bugging out when they teleport at times.

Health Bar and Food Bar
The food bar is OK. I really miss not being able to heal in the middle of a fight though. Every once and a while I would get myself in a mess and would eat a couple of times to get through the fight, not anymore. Eating only raises my food bar, who cares when 3 creepers are chasing me and a few skeletons are plucking at me. I think the spawn rate of hostile mobs at night can be a little crazy.

New Blocks
The new blocks are good. I really like having different textured blocks to build with, my favorite by far is the glass panes. They are awesome! They really make my modern house look better. I am going to replace most of my glass blocks with the panes for sure. I am not sure where I need to use the iron bars, but I am going to find a spot for them, just because they look cool.

THANK YOU for the fence gate! Finally! Do you know how stupid all our farms looked with doors to get in! :)

New keys, etc.
The chest are nice the the lids open, but since I made Ethos storage with a 100 chests all over in the walls and the ground, the building looks goofy as all get out with nothing lining up correctly. I know it is a cosmetic thing, but didn't anyone at Mojang ever put a chest in the ground? or one in a minecart for crying out loud? The SHIFT-CLICK seems to work on more things now, which I like a lot. If I put 64 sticks and 64 coal in my crafting slots, once shift click and I get all the torches... very nice. Speaking of stacking. STACKED FOOD IS AWESOME! I love walking around with 64 roasted pork, way better than before. The double tap "w" to sprint is nice. I use that often. It quits on me at different times that I find odd. I can't tell if it is a bug or not.

I haven't figured out poison yet, but I can tell you that if you eat the zombie food, your food bar turns green and you are poisoned. I will have to spend some time researching I guess.

Hostile and passive spawners
My hostile spawner seems to be working fine. No more feathers, darn... not! The passive mob spawner is not working at all at this point. It was cranking out probably 500ish items an hour, and not it hardly drops anything. I am not sure if I haven't got it "spawning" correctly, or something special, but I keep trying different things without much luck. I am little disappointed in that, but hey, I do have TONS of leather, wool and pork now.

What kinds of things have you found? Leave a comment and share!

Minecart Station added!

2011-09-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

Since I am now getting so much loot from my passive mob spawner I ran into a big issue. How in the world do I get all that loot back to my main buildings. I quickly decided I would do my standard underground rail system, but I really hate the end points. I have never liked the way I just had the carts line up and had to manually push them on the powered rail, they would stack up wierd, and sometimes when I sent to many I would get one surprise me and come back.

So I went to youtube on the hunt for a minecart rail system that would allow me to fix my issues. I found the solution using Sethblings Redstone-light minecart station.

I first went to my test area and built the one he built and then tried to figure out how to incorporate it into my current building. I am not completely satisfied yet because it is too open, but I was able to use the furnace/control room to handle it.

I took Sethblings design and switched it around a little bit. I have my departures on the left and arrivals on the right. Since I am normally just moving supplies around I was really happy to find it work fine with a chest and without a chest and any mix of the two. The station I built at the passive spawner more resembles SethBlings, I just made one small adjustment to the arrivals section.

Minecraft
SethBling on youtube

Recreating Ethos Passive Mob Spawner

2011-09-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

My versions of Ethos buildings

I really enjoyed making Ethoslab's main storage building (Daily recaps), Cactus farm and Tree farm myself. It took a lot of time, but the results have been great. The mob spawner is by far the most productive I have ever made. I have chests full of arrows, feathers (who cares), bones, and gunpowder/TNT. I think it is partly due to the fact that I just run by and pick up the drops when I am there. I don't have to think about it, I don't have to go AFK and wait for it. When I am running around the building, if there is stuff in the drop, I pick it up. Done.

Auto Sugar Cane

BUDS

It took me a while to really figure out how nice the Tree farm really is. When I had limited bone meal, it wasn't that good. It seemed to take a lot of meal to get the trees to grow, but now that I have basically unlimited supply, the tree farm is nice. I also took the tree farm and did an ugly upgrade to it. I added and automatic sugar cane farm to it. So now when I hear the notes for sugar cane I run and get sugar cane and cactus. :) Both of those items are almost unlimited also. Thank you Ethos for the BUDS! (Block update Detection system)

So I was trying to decide what's next, and I always watch Ethoslab videos, like everyone else, and when he did the passive mob spawner system I downloaded his world 93 release. I could not believe how much wool, leather, and pork he had in his chests. I never built his Chocolate island passive mob system because I didn't like how it over took the storage building, but the new one... I had to give it a try.

New Passive Mob Spawner

My first attempt building the spawn system went well, but I didn't get very much loot. The mobs only spawned every once and a while. So I looked at the area I was at and started dumping water everywhere to get rid of any grass thinking that was the problem. Well, it helped a little, for only a little bit, but then it would stop. Then I remembered the most important piece I had forgot... The chunk update issues! ARGH!
So I went and watched the chunk video and went out exploring to try again. I found pretty good area that I was able to line up properly with the chunks and went to work AGAIN. I decided that looks didn't matter this time and I only built what I needed to get it working. Once I finished it I went to work clearing the area.

Passive Mob spawner loot

Let me say one thing for sure... THIS WORKS GREAT! I can't believe how much stuff I am getting. I have never had this much leather, wool, and pork before. I already thinking about the super wool building I am going to make. I have had my eyes on a very large pirate ship that has about 3000 pieces of wool in it. :)

I am going to continue to clean 144 blocks around my passive spawner until it looks just like the water world that Ethos and Docm77 have. Even though the start of the passive mob spawner project was frustrating and a failure, starting over, picking a better location, and trying again has been a great success. Now if I could only learn how to park a boat without destroying it... Hey, didn't someone post a video on a boat dock system.. hmmm

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Docm77 Videos

First project using Hirst Arts Molds

2011-09-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

We got our first bag of Hydrostone from Plaster Shak Thursday. I have been surprised about the mixing being so different from the hydrocal. The hydrocal I am 130g water / 200g hydrocal. Last night as I was working out the amounts for the Hydrostone I finally got a good mix at 70g water / 200g hydrostone. I use almost half as much water, which means I also am short on my pours too. So tonight I am going to up my hydrostone amounts to get the proper amount of mix so I can fill my molds like normal. I was surprised that I used almost 1/2 as much water.

The test runs using hydrostone last night looked pretty good. I seemed to have better luck with bubbles on the smooth pieces which was nice, but I could still get some. I need to complete my shaker board and quit doing the back massager by hand, I think that will help also.

I have almost finished the Gothic Church, I just need a few more casts for the roof. I have the small roof done. I was surprised how difficult it was to line things up and get the building square, etc. I am glad I am calling the Church a "test build" because when you look close there are all kinds of issues.

I tried and tried to use the Earth Tone Painting Instructions that Hirst Arts suggested, but I could never get it to look right. I felt the over all look was WAY to dark, and the light color was WAY to light.

I do like the roof though, so I decided to keep that color, and re-paint the entire Church using Hirst Arts Castle Gray Color Scheme. I really like how the Castle Gray Color Scheme turned out and I am calling this project DONE!

My first Hirst Arts model from powder to painted! Yeah! Next up is the Gothic Bell Tower. Someday I will get to the Cathedral!

Here's a link to some of the pictures as I progressed:
https://picasaweb.google.com/113001256212734810954/HirstArts

Hirst Arts - http://www.hirstarts.com
Gothic Church - http://www.hirstarts.com/church/church.html

I see sheep in my sleep...

2011-08-16T08:00:00.001-04:00

I see sheep in my sleep, say that fast 10 times. wow. Now that I have the basic Ethos storage building done I have just been messing around and doing different things... Like filling all my dispensers! lol. So I have been chasing cows, pigs, and sheep to try and get my armor dispensers full, my cooked and raw dispensers full and at least a good stack of every color of wool.

The mob spawner has done the trick of filling up my dispensers for gunpowder, arrows, bones and feathers, but I want all my dispensers full like that. It's an OCD thing! So all day I run around chasing the animals, and then run back at night, put it all away, sleep and do it again.

This proves why Minecraft is a great game. I am not doing anything special, but still having a lot of fun with all these little challenges. I have started spending some serious effort on red wool. Both of my next projects will require a few stacks, and I need to do some coast searching for clay, because I will be needing a ton of bricks for it.

The cactus farm works so well, my dispenser is full, and I have a chest close to full. I never pay any special attention to it, other than when I run in and out I use the door by the water drop off and put the cactus in the chest. It gives me about 15-21 per time. Plus with all my coal I have got spelunking I have been putting it in the furnace for more dye. Ahhh, the good life... Many different dispensers filling up. hehe

Minecraft

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 12

2011-08-15T08:00:00.002-04:00

DONE, I say DONE. I finally was able to get all the silk I needed to complete the storage building! Ever single storage slot now has a dispenser! Yeah! I have a lot of cleanup stuff I want to do, but for now I think the basic Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings is done. I have chose NOT to do the peaceful mob spawn system for multiple reasons. The first reason is it is really big, ugly and the water flow system is complicated and annoying to try and map out and follow. I also really hate the big giant spawning pad, the barn, etc cluttering up the area as much as they do. I still stuggle with surprising spawns under the cactus and tree farm structures because it is so dark, and I don't think I want to do that to all sides of the main storage building.

Some things I am looking at doing is moving the tree farm back to my normal underground controlled environment, and then changing the tree farm structure to be a seed farm or maybe even an automatic seed farm and small automatic cactus farm. I have seen a couple of videos on putting timers on pistons to only have the pistons move every 5 minutes or so, and that looks really interesting.

I also have a lot of earth moving I want to do. I want to level a bigger area around the Ethos storage building and prep the area to add more buildings that I really like. I enjoy building the structures. I am Bob the Builder, not Arnold the Architect so I have been looking over schematics people have done and will probably start building some of those. My eyes are on a modern house and a steamboat right now.

So thanks for reading and I will continue to add posts as I update the buildings and maybe someday I will even add a peaceful mob system, maybe :)

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 11

2011-08-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

Since I am no longer chasing sheep, it is time to focus on the dispensers. I did some checking on the mob system and I think I messed something up when I removed an extra block at the bottom of the water elevator shaft because I went down the shaft to the mob spawner room and I found a lot of silk in the hole. So I filled that hole up and have been getting a little better rates on silk but still not like the other mobs.

I now find myself running outside the second the sun rises to chase down spiders to get more silk. This, of course, has been causing a few issues with getting creeper bombed, but hey, just fill the whole and move on.

I spent some time getting ready to create my basement. I wanted to open up under storage building an area under ground. I am sure I will not be doing an EATS water road system, but I still wanted the area open. So I did some sand and sandstone farming and got enough to cover the walls of my basement. I really like the look of it. It took some time to dig all that out and to add the sandstone walls, but it was fun.

I also went ahead and wired all my doors up to double pressure plates doing it exactly how Ethos did. It works very well, and I have had no issues with it. It took some time, but it wasn't a big deal. I really need to change out all the different blocks I used and choose one block for redstone. I certain color of wool block would be best but that would mean I would have to have a constant supply of wool again... hmmm.. Not sure if I want to have another reason to HAVE to have wool.

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 10

2011-08-11T08:00:00.017-04:00

SHEEP! SHEEP! Come here little sheep. I have chased sheep all over my world smacking them with green dye, then sheering them and it is finally complete.... I have a very cool park on top of my Cactus farm and Tree farm! Finally! Yeah!!

I really like the look of the park. Getting there is a little annoying. It seems that Ethos likes to create a lot of cool structures and sometimes he even creates ways to get there. Getting to the park is via the tree farm, at least in my world.

Next on my hit list is spiders. I still need a ton of dispensers to finish the inside of the storage building, every day I am getting a little closer, but I still need 20 some dispensers, which is 60 silk.

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 9

2011-08-05T08:00:00.005-04:00

I spent time lighting up caves and cleaning things up, so no new major progress. I am happy to report my diamond supply is back and felt it was time to create my diamond block. Let me tell you that hurt to take those nine diamonds and turn them into a block. I know I can undo that, but still, just the thought of taking all those useful diamonds and turning them into decoration.

The spelunking was fun. I found a humongous cave system and just mined and explored forever. I kept running out of food, so it was kill a few mobs, turn on peaceful to heal, then go back at it. I just didn't want to leave till I had my inventory completely full. I found two mob spawners, but alas, no records. But on the materials front I feel stocked right now. I ended up with about 30 diamonds, over 500 iron, tons of coal. I have my dispenser full of coal, a few in the chest, and every furnace either at 64 or close too it. It was a good time.

I also spent a little time and did some redstone testing on making the double doors work together. It's not bad, I will at some point do all of them. I have only done one set right now.

Hey, if you have a link to cool houses, castles, etc. Please post them in the comments. I am always looking for nice buildings to make, but not necessarily large ones. I like it the best when they have a world download, but schematics are fine also, just a little more challenging. I consider the Ethos project a large project. Projects like Castle Estel are not in my radar to build.

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 8

2011-08-04T08:00:00.003-04:00

The cactus farm and tree farm are mostly done. I swear I wish I could count. I was only off on the tree pedestals by 1 block, but for some reason the whole thing doesn't line up correctly. Luckily, it was just moving the pedestals, and not having to redo anything else.

The cactus farm just cranks out the cactus. I have always built very small 4 cactus farms, so this one having 36 is like a factory! Every time I check I have around 12 or so cactus waiting on me. Plus a couple of times I have had weird squid spawns, so there was some free black ink after a couple of smacks. I really like the window system, the way you exit each farm and the path between them. I thought the waterway up to each farm was a little too much, so I just put in a ladder to do it. I am getting tired of water.. lol.

The tree farm is just ok. I am used to a totally different system, and I may go ahead and create one of those like normal, and turn the tree farm into a sugar cane or wheat farm. I am not sure. I have also thought about planting sugar cane on the outside edge of the water, I might do that. My next project will require a lot of paper, so I should start collecting. My normal tree farm is a 50x50 underground room. The underground room allows me to plant a ton of trees, and I don't have to worry about using bone meal, but I guess what else am I going to do with all the bone I am collecting. Collecting the wood doesn't seem as fast as what it is with my big room, this is a lot of planting, bone meal, harvest, repeat, whereas in my 50x50 room, I harvest till I am completely bored, then just replant once and move on.

The roof is completely covered on the tree farm side, and mostly covered on the cactus farm side. I have spent a lot of time chasing down sheep dyeing and shearing them, but for some reason, I tend to always have plenty of green dye! I really liked the green wool roof and think the park area above those farms is really need. I am excited about starting that part.

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 7

2011-08-03T08:00:00.002-04:00

I spent a ton of time redoing the sizzler. I found it very challenging to get all the water flows correct and the design correct to separate the spiders and other mobs. I finally have it done, but I am not seeing very much spider action. I do get some silk, but not very much. This makes me nervous that I have something going on in the mob spawner, so I am going to have to figure out a way to check the spawner system and make sure spiders are able to get up the water elevator. The good news is that I am getting plenty of gunpowder, so I am able to use TNT to blow up the sand dunes to get all the glass I need. TNT is sooo much fun.

After the mob spawner is done I am going to work on the Cactus and Tree farm. I am excited about building those. The first additions to the building!

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 6

2011-08-02T08:00:00.006-04:00

I have loot! I finally finished the mod spawning platforms, and created the collector pipe all the way to the storage building. Creating all the still water by placing 4 buckets of water at each level, was annoying, but it works. I started working on the "sizzler" and it was not bad at all. I needed to finish bringing my collector pipe up from my base to above the storage building a bit, I just needed some more glass and water. After that was finished I was basically able to build right along with the video. At one point in the video it was kind of funny because he made a mistake, so I made the same mistake and got to fix it also!

When the basic system was working and mobs were getting burned or should I say "sizzled" I went and started working on bringing the loot back down to the storage building. I few blocks here and there, and it was done! I actually had look coming right to me. No more going down 60 levels, then running for 50+ blocks because I screwed up where the collector was going to be. This actually worked. Loot coming right too me! wait.. oops.. no spider silk... argh. Sure enough, looked at the newer videos and there was a video that Ethos did that explains how to do the sizzler with a special spider catch so that they drown. Ok, I guess my next step is to tear down the sizzler and make sizzler 2.5! I need to get my dispensers! I need more silk!

During downtime I have been clearing around the storage building. I am sure my next project will be the tree farm and cactus farm. I really like how he built that up higher to a higher level and I think it looks cool. Plus I am really tired of chopping down crazy growth trees that have spurred 10 different branches, those are annoying.

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 5

2011-08-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

Worked on the hostile mob system today. I have to get it running, or I will never have enough string for all those dispensers! The system that Ethos uses felt a lot more complicated than my normal one. Getting all the stairs in the correct spot, and all the signs was a challenge. Getting the water flows working was also not very fun. I have never used signs like that to control water. It is a very clever idea, and I am hoping I am learning from this and not just placing them! I worked and worked to get all that correct, but the slabs are all done and I am going to work on the sizzler next to actually get items! woot!

I will say that for me, all those empty chests are just killing me. I have spent extra time chopping wood, just so I could get a chest full of wooden planks, and one with sticks. Also, all this digging and chopping, but not at depths has really hurt my diamond supply, to the point that I am back at the beginning. I only have 2 diamonds right now. No diamond pick , no diamond axe, and 1/2 a diamond shovel.. for some reason I have 2! diamond hoes, but I don't remember when in the world I made those. :) I am having a hard time going back to quadrant mining, when I have a ton of dirt still to move around the storage building, plus this is only one small part of the whole project. So once again, I am back to being a stone tool kind of guy. I can't bring myself to use iron for tools, I only use those when I have too. Iron is save for rails, etc. it's wrong to just burn through it digging stone blocks. But at least making stone tools is cheap, so I am keeping the chest designated for the tools full! hehe

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 4

2011-07-29T08:00:00.002-04:00

Today I had some fun! I basically just went out and cut down trees and while I was out there doing that, I dyed and sheared sheep. It is wierd making pink and magenta sheep! I also went ahead and dug out the basic outline of the 30x30 room for the mob farm.

BUT the fun part was I watched the Ethoslab video where Ethos moved the Coal ore to the storage building. Well, I was cleaning up getting rid of grass outside the center room and I found a coal vein! So I made my piston and went to work and moved it to the proper spot. It was fun, I was surprised.

I am having some issues with spawns while sleeping, so I have been adding extra torches and glowstone blocks to try and solve it. I have not found the dark spot yet. So I dug down where Ethos would have redstone circuits and made a well lit bedroom. I am tired of getting woke up by a zombie or a skeleton. Actually I am just happy it hasn't been a creeper! I have only been creeper bombed one time and it wasn' that bad. Let's hope it stays that way.

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 3

2011-07-28T09:00:00.002-04:00

Getting the roof starting was difficult. I spent a lot of time going between Ethos' world and my own to try and make sure I was lining up correctly and everything was matching. This project has been challenging, but it also has been a lot of fun. I like the layout, and it is really big.

Once again wood was an issue. Using the solid wood blocks and wood planks look nice, but it means you just burn through the wood. Luckily, I have a large area around the building that I keep planting over and over. I think I am up to planting 256 trees at a time!

So now that the basic structure is built I believe I am going to keep building the structures, and get the circuits going later. So I will move on to the Cactus and Tree farm, and I might also go ahead and dig out the mob spawner. I need to re-watch the video of Ethos Hostile mob spawner to help me get the water flows right, etc. My standard mob farm has always just been the one from the minecraft wiki site.

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 2

2011-07-27T08:00:00.001-04:00

Wow... Ethos, you love using chests and dispensers! I can't believe how much wood I have had to chop down and replant to make all those chests. The dispensers for the storage is going to take me a long time. I have no where near the proper amount of spider silk to make the bows that I need for the dispensers. But that is ok.

Getting the floor going was difficult, but once I got the pattern down I was able to just keep building and building. Besides needing more and more wood, I had to make a few sandstone runs, but that wasn't too bad.

I really was surprised that I enjoyed making all the different colors of wool. I had never done any of them. I spent a little too much time running around chasing sheep, dyeing them, then shearing them. But I was also chopping more wood for wooden planks.. of course!

The center room is almost complete. It will be a while before it becomes my "control room" like Ethos' is. But I got my furnaces cranking making glass.

It's on too the roof now!

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

Re-creating Ethos minecraft buildings - Day 1

2011-07-25T13:49:00.006-04:00

I really enjoy watching the Ethoslab videos on youtube and I am curious. How hard would it be to make everything he has made... and do it without any mods, edits, or building skill for that matter! :)

So I decided to give it a try. I went to my generic single player world, and got to work. The first thing I did was scout out a location. I picked a relative flat spot, then went to work setting up a base camp. I decided to build Ethos' main storage building first. Looking at it, it was going to take a LOT of wood, so I took all my sapling and made a forest to help keep my stock up.

After some work to get the foundation down and getting the first flew levels done, as I was snapping the picture I noticed that I didn't do the creeper face correctly, but I eventually got it right. :)

Minecraft

Ethoslab Videos

How I installed Cassandra and pycassa

2011-05-14T12:00:00.002-04:00

I first went to Debian and downloaded an image for the squeeze. I chose the small iso image, use what you want.

Debian by default does not allow non-free software, which you need if you want to use Sun/Oracles java. I wanted to use apt-get to install the latest version of Cassandra, so after installing debian I first updated my apt source list. I used git and easy_install to install pycassa.

You can obviously use the editor of your choice, I like vi. I am also lazy and get tired of sudo'ing to root all the time, so I just su to root normally.

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

add non-free at the end of the lines so they look like this:

linux/debian/ squeeze main non-free

add these lines to the end of the file. You can choice stable instead of unstable if you don't want the latest version (at the time of this writing 0.8.0~rc1 was the latest)

#Cassandra DB

deb http://www.apache.org/dist/cassandra/debian unstable main

deb-src http://www.apache.org/dist/cassandra/debian unstable main

Once you are done editing the file, then it's time to get the apache keys:

wget http://www.apache.org/dist/cassandra/KEYS -O- | apt-key add -

Now it is time to get a lot of software. Using apt-get get doing the following:

Update the cached database first:

apt-get update

then:

apt-get install sun-java6-jdk libmx4j-java python2.6-dev dpkg-dev python-setuptools git git-doc subversion

I choose to use the sun/oracle java, so I will update my default java. (this only matters if openjava is installed)

update-alternatives --config java

Now it is time to install Cassandra

apt-get install cassandra

I don't know if I should need to do this, but every install I have done I have had to make this link.

ln /usr/share/cassandra/jamm-0.2.2.jar /lib/jamm-0.2.2.jar

To get the Cassandra extra's running jna.jar and the mx counters do this:

wget -O /usr/share/cassandra/jna.jar http://java.net/projects/jna/sources/svn/content/trunk/jnalib/dist/jna.jar?rev=1194

change directory to a tmp or home

wget -O mx4j-3.0.2.tar.gz http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/mx4j/MX4J%20Binary/3.0.2/mx4j-3.0.2.tar.gz

tar zxvf mx4j-3.0.2.tar.gz mx4j-3.0.2/lib/mx4j-tools.jar

cp mx4j-3.0.2/lib/mx4j-tools.jar /usr/share/cassandra

Now I install pycassa

easy_install pycassa

easy_install thrift05

Ok, at this point you should be good to go. I use:

service cassandra stop && service cassandra start

to stop and restart the service. /var/log/cassandra contains the logs so you can check to see if everything is running correctly.

After stopping and starting, and assuming everything is going ok you can do a quick test.

nodetool -h localhost ring

I hope this helps.

For more information see the Cassandra documention, Datastax, Pycassa docs. If you need help getting stress.py running see my other post.

How I got Cassandra stress.py to work

2011-05-13T16:45:00.002-04:00

I am using debian squeeze and already had cassandra running from the debian packages. If you are on a different distribution, you mileage may vary.

Get Cassandra source (current version 0.8.0~beta2)
svn co http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/cassandra/tags/cassandra-0.8.0-rc1/ cassandra

Get needed packages to build Thrift (all on one line)
apt-get -y install libboost-dev python-dev autoconf automake pkg-config make libtool flex bison build-essential ant subversion

Get Thrift (must be version 0.6.0 wiht 0.8.0~beta2 cassandra)
svn co http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/thrift/tags/thrift-0.6.0/ thrift

Now compile Thrift
cd thrift
./bootstrap.sh
./configure (you may need to add --without-ruby or --without-csharp or any other targets that are giving you trouble)
make
make install (MUST BE ROOT! SU or SUDO)

Now make the python libraries
cd ~/thrift/lib/py
python setup.py install

Change directory to Cassandra source
cd ~/cassandra

Now compile thrift for python (I think this is why)
ant gen-thrift-py

Change directory to the python stress directory
cd ~/cassandra/tools/py_stress

Cross your fingers and run it!
python stress.py --num-keys 1000000 --threads 8 --keep-going

Robo Rally Recap

2009-03-30T07:00:00.001-04:00

Attendance: Dan, Greg, Kim, Mark, Scott M, Scott Mc
Games Played: Robo Rally, Niagara

Robo Rally was the first game of the night. Scott Mc picked the map tonight, "Maelstrom", little did he know this would mean death to one player, himself! If you don't know the map, it is completely full of conveyor belts - fast and slow lined up in a whirlpool fashion, pushers, and on board lasers. This was my first play with pushers, they add a neat addition to the game. The pushers work when you land on the square with one. At the end of the register it will push you 1 space if it is "hot" on the current register. These pushers were 2,4 and 1,3,5. So for example on an even register only the 2,4 pushers would activate, and on an odd register the 1,3,5 register would activate.

The players were constantly moved by the conveyors, there was a lot more damage from lasers than normal. We had multiple people end up with registers locked because they were taking so much damage. A few of us also used the conveyors to our advantage by powering down on a conveyor, getting repaired, and having the conveyors move you to the target.

Scott Mc of course had to start the first set of registers running right into a pit, he blames the conveyor belts. Dan and Scott M got tangled early on the conveyor belts with Dan getting the losing end and ended up off the board. Mark was the first one to the 1st flag with everyone right behind him, and then the conveyors would operate and that statement wasn't true anymore. I cannot stress how much the conveyors messed with everyone all night. Scott Mc was the next one to the 1st Flag, but then he and Scott M tangled and Scott M ended pushed off the board.... but with Scott Mc's next register he moved off the board also. We had never seen a Robo Rally game so brutal. Kim was the next one to the 1st Flag, and while Scott Mc was working his way to the 2nd flag he fell in the pit AGAIN! Scott Mc died in Robo Rally!

After Scott Mc died, the board seemed more open. Greg was stuck at the top, Dan, Mark, Greg all had powered down rounds. Mark was first to the 2nd flag, and was clearly in the lead with Kim closing the gap. Dan was able to get to the 1st flag around the same time that Kim go to the 2nd flag. Greg finally got the cards he needed and made a dash for the 1st flag and succeeded!

The race for the 2nd flag between Dan & Greg, and the dash for the 3rd flag by Kim and Mark was going strong. We all saw if the player just got XYZ cards they could win the game this turn, but that didn't work out. Both Mark and Kim tried to stay off the conveyors as they moved to the 3rd flag, but with bad cards and bad luck they were both struggling to get to the 3rd flag.

Dan was next to the 2nd flag, with Greg following and getting the 2nd flag also. Mark finally had the moons and cards align for him and he was able to win the game!

This map was very challenging but also a lot of fun. With 6 players it felt crowed a lot and a lot of damage was taken by all the players. The final standing were as follows:

1. Mark

2. Kim

3. Dan

4. Greg

5. Scott

6. Scott

Since I am the one writing the recap I think it would be fun to not tell which Scott got 5th place. Is it Scott Mc who got to the 1st flag but died?? Or is it Scott M who didn't make it to the 1st flag, but lived through the carnage.... I will let you decide.

Battlestar Galactica Recap

2009-03-23T07:00:00.001-04:00

My first game of Battlestar Galactica was with 5 players. Only 1 of us knew anything about the game, but since all like the show we were all interested in learning and playing the game. Most of the very beginning of the game was figuring out the mechanics and learning that even though the game had a lot of "bits", they were weren't used that often, so you didn't need to concern yourself with them. The characters everyone chose were William Adama, Lee "Apollo" Adama, Galen Tyrol, Laura Roslin, and Gaius Baltar. I was playing William Adama, and when I looked at my loyalty card..... I was also a Cylon.

One of the first crisis cards was "Thirty Three". This caused the Galactica to have to face 2 Basestars and a lot of raiders, so we chose to jump early and accept the 3 population loss. Since I was admiral, I choose where we jumped. At this point in the game, I wasn't real sure what I needed to do, but I found quickly that picking the "best" destination for a jump was going to be a way I could use my Cylon influence.

The game continued on with most Crisis cards being successful. I had difficulties influencing the cards enough. When the “Requested Resignation” crisis card came up, I was quick to grab the Presidency, but really didn't not do a good job of being both Admiral and President. I just didn't know how to use the Quorum cards at this point.

Around the midgame, 2 jumps had been made, with 3 destination points. There was still 10 Population, 10 Morale, 5 Food, and 6 Fuel. The Cylons were still unknown at this time, but that was about to change.

I decided to announce that I was a Cylon because I felt I could do some damage. Now, after seeing the game play out, I know I revealed myself to soon. When I revealed myself as a Cylon, I was the enemy then. So I was no longer a part of the fun conversations about what to do and how to do it. So it made the game a little boring just waiting for my turn. The Galactica lost a food and I damaged the FTL drives when I showed everyone I was a Cylon.

The game was progressing, the humans had completed 5 distances and had 10 Population, 6 Morale, 3 Food, and 5 Fuel left. I decided it was time to use my Super Crisis card "Inbound Nukes". A total of 15 cards were played to try and win. I had played 4 cards and when the totals were completed, someone else had also helped the Cylon win. The humans only ended up with a +2, when they needed a 15 to win.

So as the game comes to a close the humans were at a distance of 7 with 6 Population, 3 Morale, 1 Food, 1 Fuel and they choose to jump. Bad news for them. Both of the destinations caused a loss of fuel! The Cylons win!

When the game was over we finally found out who the other Cylon was. Gaius Baltar had done a good job of causing confusion amongst the other players always leaving a little bit of doubt if he was truly a Cylon. Well, played.

The game was enjoyed by all the players and since we had a couple of people play that normally do not play board games, it proved to us that "theme" in a game can really matter. Everyone who played the game watched Battlestar Galactica so we could make jokes, and the tasks made sense to the non-gamers, FTL drives, Cylons, etc.

Robo Rally Recap

2009-03-16T07:00:00.001-04:00

Challengers: Dan, Greg, Kim, Scott M, Scott Mc

Robo Rally was the first game of the night. Dan and Scott Mc picked the map and they chose "Island Hop". Island Hop is a pretty interesting map because it had good placement of the flags, and plenty of pits and walls to mess your registers up. There was multiple times when people didn't see a wall and their turn was going to be a mess because of it.

On to the game. Kim was the first victim of the night, a mess up with calculating the conveyer belt meant a move directly into the pit... oops. Greg decided to start off shooting Scott Mc on every turn, and since that wasn't killing him fast enough he eventually was able to get into position to push him off the board. Scott Mc probably would have complained, except for the fact he had 5 damage in the first couple of turns and it saved him a power down. Dan and Scott M chose to go straight for the #1 flag, who would have thought that was a good strategy! Dan was the first person to the #1 flag, but on his next turn he had some register issues and drove himself into the pit, this was one of the few opportunities to catch Dan because he brought his Robo Rally "A" game this month and was on a mission to win.

After Dan was on his way to the #2 flag, the rest of the crew were bunching up on the #1 flag, there were a lot of laser shots and bots getting pushed around. Greg did some fine register programming and was able to archive at the #1 flag next. Scott M had a very lucky moment and after getting pushed around like a pinball bumper, he received the very helpful push from Kim to the #1 flag! But Scott M's luck would end there as Greg committed suicide and pushed both himself and Scott M off the board which left a clear path for Kim to archive on the #1 flag. This caused a pause in the game as we went back to the rules to determine what happens when someone is on the #1 flag and their are two bots that need to use that archive marker to get back in the game.

After the rules were cleared up, everyone started their progression to the #2 flag, which Dan had already touched and was moving to the final #3 flag. Scott Mc who had had the very rough start showed up late to the action and had an easier time getting the #1 flag...finally. Greg, Kim and Scott M had been charging to the #2 flag and pushing and fighting all the way. Scott M and Greg finally had some pushes and registers not go well for them, and Kim charged in and got to the #2 flag.

Dan who had dominated the game reached the #3 flag on the same register that Scott Mc sneaked in and got to the #2 flag. Good job Dan!

The final standings were: Dan, Kim, Scott Mc, Greg, Scott M

19 & 1
Village Commons Suites
2070 E 54th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46220

http://www.19and1.com
yahoo group: nineteen_one

Aerodrome Recap

2009-03-09T07:00:00.002-04:00

Pilots: Scott Mc, Scott M, Stan, Tim
Planes: Sopwith Camel, Siemens-Schuckert D.IV

We had some challenges getting started this month. I grabbed the wrong stack of information and so we did not have the rules, control panels, or critical charts. Luckily I did bring the 3x5 cards for the planes so we knew the plane info, and since we have played a lot we more or less have the rules down. We were unable to play with Critical hits because no one knew that chart by heart, and then any rules we had questions about we just "wing'd" it.

The first game was the "Love's vs Scott's". The Love's were the Camels and the Scott's were the Schuckerts. Scott M was not real happy to be with Scott Mc, after Scott Mc was quickly shot down, both Stan and Tim charged after Scott M and Tim was able to get both the kills.

The next game both Tim and Scott Mc got shot down, and then it was the long dance of trained WWI fighter pilots that ended with both Stan and Scott M out of ammo and breaking the engagement. I swear as I watched those planes move across the hex grid they were trying to see how many times they could wave at each other!

The next round once again Scott Mc was shot down by both Stan and Tim this time, they are still arguing who got the kill first , and after that Scott M safely ran for the comfort of home.

The final round Scott Mc was determined he was not going to get shot down, but once again everyone had his number and he was shot down by Tim. Scott M did the final blow on Stan for the kill. After the kill Scott M decided that he had had enough and charged for home with Tim spending the last of his ammo to try and get Scott M shot down, but he made it to safety.

Next month I promise I will have all the stuff, but, I was impressed how well our log sheets worked. Next month we will be adding AAA and possbily Ballon busting for real since we will have the rules... really I promise to bring the rules! I am also thinking it is time to open up the planes to any Aerodrome plane we have, so we will see how that will work.

19 & 1
Village Commons Suites
2070 E 54th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46220

http://www.19and1.com
yahoo group: nineteen_one

Catan: Seafarers Recap

2009-03-02T07:00:00.005-05:00

Players: Dan, Kevin, Lori, Scott

Dan started us off by giving a rules refresh and we decided to play scenerio 1. The wood hexes were on really bad numbers in this game. Wood hexes had the numbers 2,4,11,12 and one island was a 5 so everyone was always hurting for wood in the early game. Dan jumped to an early lead by getting to the Gold island that had the nine. By the mid game Dan had had the robber on the gold island so much he was only able to get a resource of his choice 1 or 2 times. At roughly the mid game it was clear that Lori was in the lead, Dan was next and Scott & Kevin were way behind.

After the mid game things got a little different. Lori was able to secure 2 Cities on a Wheat 10 and an Ore 6, and she had a 3:1 port and 2:1 Wheat port. She was clearly running away with the game. Kevin and Scott finally started getting some traction and moving forward with building, Kevin became known as the Development card guy and sheep guy, he had 2 soldiers showing and 3 development cards not yet revealed. Dan's progress had started slowing at this time and he was fighting with the pack.

At the end of the game Kevin's progress quickly increased and he was able to get a run to 10 points showing on the board and then he flipped his 3 development cards for the WIN! This caught us all of guard, Lori was most disappointed because she felt she was going to win on her next turn. Dan, Scott and Kevin all got to an island, Lori stayed on the mainland.

In the end the final score was:

13 Kevin
12 Lori
08 Scott
07 Dan

19 & 1
Village Commons Suites
2070 E 54th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46220

http://www.19and1.com
yahoo group: nineteen_one

Aerodrome Recap

2009-02-25T16:48:00.005-05:00

Pilots: Kevin, Mark, Scott Mc, Scott M
Planes: Sopwith Camel, Siemens-Schuckert D.IV, Bristol F2B, Halberstadt CL-II

Last night was the first night for a bombing mission. In the first game Mark ran 2 Camels, Scott Mc was the Bristol bomber and Scott M ran the 2 Siemens-Schuckerts. Scott Mc charged the bombing target and successfully completed his bombing run, but was very quickly blow out of the sky by Scott M, BUT Scott Mc was able to return the favor with his tail gunner and shot down Scott M's plane also. Scott M's next target was Marks Camel that was in a spin. He was able to shoot it down before Mark could get out of the spin. Marks final plane ran for edge of the board to fight another day.

The next game everyone switched planes, and Mark was the Bristol, Scott M was the Camels and Scott Mc was the Siemens-Schuckerts. Scott M ran the Camels in perfect formation and just slaughtered Scott Mc's Siemens-Schuckert's fast and painlessly.

The Final game Kevin joined us so we added a Halberstadt. Each team had one fighter and one bomber, and each had a bombing target. The Scott's were the allies and Kevin and Mark were the central powers. The Scott's decided to try and take out the central power bomber first then go over their target. It was a great plan except that Kevin had Scott Mc's Camel's number, and about every turn Kevin got a shot on the Camel. Once the allied fighter was killed Scott M decided it was time to go back to home base and forget the mission!

19 & 1
Village Commons Suites
2070 E 54th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46220

http://www.19and1.com
yahoo group: nineteen_one