gazpacho dot net

Spycraft LARP Video

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:38:11 -0600

Spycraft LARP Video

Read a Book

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:57:32 -0600

Hey Nick, it was great seeing ya at DieCon. Congrats on fatherhood. Dis onez fo' you, know what I'm sayin!

WARNING: Bad language and biting social satire

The Great Divorce

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:43:40 -0600

During my trip I finally read C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Although he is better known for the Narnia series, it is considered one of his better books. He considers the fact that we know relatively little about the afterlife. In his fantasy world the afterlife is a strange and dangerous place where souls take a phantom shape. Residents of the strange world try to coax the phantoms into repenting and entering into Heaven. Interestingly he compares a soul's time on Earth to being in Hell. It is an existence of joyless, friendless unhappiness. Hell is represented by "grey town". an ever expanding metropolis that is grey and grim. In some ways it reminds me of playing some MMORPGs.

I am looking forward to the arrival of Prince Caspian in theaters. Although the critics have panned its overt Christian references, that is exactly what makes it interesting and, yes, refreshing.

JavaOne 2008 Report, Part 4: Friday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:52:05 -0600

I woke up Friday and decided to skip the final keynote address and remaining sessions. I had a raging headache and was anxious to get home. I did a little shopping for Mother's Day. Then I took the subway to the airport to see if I could catch an earlier flight. Unfortunately, I did not have luck and settled in for the four hour wait before my flight.

It was probably best that I did not good back to the convention center. I probably would have bought another book from the bookstore. Here is a list of books which I bought while at JavaOne:

Think Better by Tim Hurson
The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
Effective Java, 2nd Edition by Joshua Bloch
Prototype & Scriptaculous in Action by David Crane and Bear Bibeault with Tom Locke

Yesterday the headache returned. I spent most of the day taking it easy including a three hour nap. When I finally checked my email I saw this notice:

The JavaOne conference team has been notified by the San Francisco Department of Public Health about an identified outbreak of a virus in the San Francisco area. Testing is still underway to identify the specific virus in question, but they believe it to be the Norovirus, a common cause of the "stomach flu", which can cause temporary flu-like symptoms for up to 48 hours. Part of the San Francisco area impacted includes the Moscone Center, the site of the JavaOne conference which is being held this week. We are working with the appropriate San Francisco Department of Public Health and Moscone representatives to mitigate the impact this will have on the conference and steps are being taken overnight to disinfect the facility. We have not received any indication that the show should end early, so will have the full schedule of events on Friday as planned. We hope to see you then

I feel much better today. I am catching up on chores and preparing for my week. I am looking forward to discussing some of the interesting things I saw with coworkers and friends.

JavaOne 2008 Report, Part 3: Thursday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:58:00 -0600

Well folks, this is gonna be a short entry. Tomorrow is the last day of JavaOne. I need to pack up all of my stuff and swag in order to be check out tomorrow.

I dug the session on Nimbus. Vector-based UI components for a cross-platform look and feel just makes sense. The presenters showed off a nifty tool to design new vector-based components. Impressive stuff. I am anxious to download Java 6u10 and tinker with this. I am especially interested in reviving an old drum machine project I started writing in Gnome/GTK. I think I can utilize the customization available in Nimbus to make a custom, professional looking interface without the ugly hacks I had to use for GTK.

The Scala session made me want to puke. The presenter proudly proclaimed that the language is the next generation of Java and that it is everything that Java should be. I almost walked out when he said that they removed the "break/continue" mechanism in favor of "goto". WHAT?! I decided to stay for the rest of the session to give the presenter a chance to redeem my opinion of my language. No luck. I was not impressed. So friends, I flipped the bozo bit for Scala.

The Filthy Rich Client session was great. It really got me thinking. Last year I wrote an app that animates dots starting at the top of the screen and falling to the bottom. The problem is that I hit barrier where it would not run faster than 30 fps. At the beginning of the session they demonstrated bouncing balls app that ran at over 100 fps. They explained the issues with Swings timer thread. I am hopeful I can revisit the app and get it working at a respectable framerate.

The session on Unit Testing with Groovy gave me a bunch of ideas I plan to take back to work with me. I talked to some guys who commit to the Groovy project about how we can work about issues we have with testing singletons. They gave me an idea or two to try out.

The Java Posse guys gushed about Scala in their session. The session was fun but not great. It made me nearly regret my decision to skip Sun's After Dark party where the band Smash Mouth performed.

Overall it was the best day yet. I may not post the next blog entry until Saturday. I will be travelling tomorrow for over six hours and will be crossing two timezones. Calfornia was okay but will be happy to return to the familiarity of Illinois.

JavaOne 2008 Report, Part 2: Wednesday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:44:42 -0600

Ok, I just got back from the Sun Developer Network Party. I am going to make this short. My plan is to revisit these blog entries once Sun releases the videos and slides from the JavaOne sessions in the near future. Here's my brief recap of today's fun.

First of all, Scott Davis is a brilliant speaker. I highly recommend his Groovy: the Red Pill presentation. I missed this one at No Fluff, Just Stuff a few months ago. You will not look at the EXPANNNNNNNNDO-METACLASS the same way again.

The Struts 2 presentation flew over my head. I wasn't sure if it was my relative lack of experience with Struts 1 or the presenters lack of examples. When the speaker pronounced HTTP as "Haytch Tee Tee Pee" it pulled my mind out of any comprehension of any point that he attempted to be communicated. This session was a waste.

The OpenSocial Container presentation discussed a project named Shindig. One of the presenters started working on his Web 2.0 social network website in January and finished in April. Am I in the wrong business?

I cannot wait for the Compelling User Experience session to make it online. Nothing was sacred. The presenter threw stones at a lot of today's paradigms. I couldn't agree with him more!

The video games BOF introduced me to the javagaming.org forum.

The Groovy in a Cloud session got me to thinking about the benefit of deploying virtual servers much more quickly than it would take any corporation's purchasing department to acquire the equivalent harware.

The GWT and Comet session introduced me to the Grizzly Comet project which uses contrinauations to push data asynchoronously from the server to the client. Imagine an auction website where an auction's high bid is updated automatically on your web page without having to refresh the page. Who knew it was possible to suspend a browser's session?

The Groovy Builder session discussed making Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) with a part of the Groovy language with which I am not yet familiar.

Ok, friends, more later.. Off to do a bit of reading before turning in.

JavaOne 2008 Report, Part 1: Tuesday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:56:00 -0600

I made the trip out to San Francisco for JavaOne. The first day kicked off with a speech entitled Java + You. I came in late because, well, I had an issue finding the right conference center.. not Moscone West, not Moscone South, but Moscone NORTH, whew! I enjoyed the talk until they trotted out Neil Young, the ancient musician and liberal crackpot.

My first scheduled session was on Project Darkstar. The presenter covered Sun's massively-multiplayer system. In describing the server he mentioned the design goal on achieving low-latency using objects that sounded a lot like stateless session enterprise java beans (EJBs). In his demo he used assets from Bioware's Neverwinter Nights -- while that was cool it looked dated. I found it strange that the demo for a MMO was empty except for the player character.

The talk for Project Aura was better. This is an open source project that provides recommendations based on classifications. They pointed out the shortcomings of the traditional recommendation engines, specifically music recommendation systems. Their approach would improve on them by automatically classifying music using artificial intelligence. They also show why the recommendations are made. This would be an improvement over, say Amazon inexplicably recommending clean underwear when I look at a book on chaos theory.

Most sessions are a cattle call. Imagine a large nerd herd of hundreds of attendees congregated outside conference rooms waiting for the room to empty and the staff to let them in. Lunch was the worst crowd. Thankfully, the lunches were boxes and line moved quickly.

After lunch I attended a session on upcoming Java changes. There are interesting things coming. Here is what I managed to scribble down:

Multi-catch

try {
// stuff
}
catch (X1, X2 e) { foo(); }
catch (X3 e) { bar(); }

Safe Re-thow

try {

// stuff
}
catch (final Throwable e) {
logger.log(e);
throw e;
}

Switch on String

switch (value)
{
case "red":
foo();
break;
}

Modules

module org.netbeans.core;
package org.netbeans.core.utils;

Annotations (JSR 308)

Adds annotations on generics
List <@NonNull String> strings;

Adds annotations to casts
endRegex = (@NonNullPattern) endRegex;

I went to a session on Grails that was pretty similiar to the class I attended at No Fluff, Just Stuff a few months ago. Following that I went to a class on GWT where the only thing I picked up was that testing GWT classes in difficult. Then I ended the night with a session on writing plugins for Eclipse, NetBeans IDE and IDEA. The main takeaway from that session was that Eclipse uses plugins in SWT and everybody else uses Swing.

It has been a long day. I have classes tomorrow on Groovy, Struts 2, OpenSocial and Comet. So I'm off to bed to do a bit of reading before calling it a night.

Groovy Credit Card Number Validation

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:16:47 -0600

Back in March I attended a software conference hosted in St. Louis called No Fluff, Just Stuff. The lectures introduced me to some cool new technology. It was small and intimate. I had an opportunity to speak to the instructors and conference organizer.

The classes I took covered these technologies: Ajax, Hibernate, Spring, Terracotta, Grails, Groovy and GWT

During one of Jeff Brown's Grails talks I heard him say that there is built-in validation of credit card numbers, but it is limited to just checking the size. It is possible to validate the value of the number using the Luhn Algorithm. So, the following is my implementation of Luhn validation written in Groovy and suitable for use in Grails.

class LuhnValidator {

    def isValidCreditCardNumber(number) {
        def sum = 0
        def alternate = false
        number.reverse().each { value ->
            if (value =~ /\d/)
            {
                def n = value.toInteger()
                if (alternate) {
                    n *= 2
                    if (n > 9) {
                        n = n % 10 + 1
                    }
                }
                sum += n
                alternate = !alternate
            }
        }
        sum % 10 == 0
    }
}

Wish You Were Here

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:09:21 -0600

Carroll David Conder 1950-2006

Love Note

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:00:59 -0600

Do you like me?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

War Saves Lives

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:49:54 -0600

A man used the medic training he learned in America's Army -- a video game the Army gives away as a promotional item -- to save a life.

It is the same game that the Iraq Veterans Against the War protested last year at the Black Expo in St Louis. There they lined in formation and yelled "War is not a game!"

I am grateful for their service to our country, but in this case, War Saves Lives!

Improving Cell Phone Reception

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:15:47 -0600

I have Verizon. A coworker described how to improve cell phone reception.

The cell phone has a Preferred Roaming List (or PRL). This list tells your card which towers to look for when establishing connection. As new EVDO towers are installed, your PRL will become out of date because it won't know to hunt for these new towers.

From http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/howTo/prlHowTo.jsp

Updating Preferred Roaming List(PRL)

Verizon Wireless is constantly advancing its roaming technology to provide you with superior roaming capabilities. By updating your PRL every few weeks, you can be sure you have access to our enhancements. As a result you may experience:

* Longer battery life
* Fewer dropped or blocked calls
* Clear, crisp connections in more areas across the United States
* Ability to connect to the digital network in more parts of the country

Instructions for updating your PRL:

1. Power on your phone within any Verizon Wireless digital service area.
2. Dial *228 and then press SEND (this call is airtime free).
3. When prompted, press option 2 to update your phone's roaming capabilities
(the update may take up to 2 minutes).
4. Once completed, a confirmation message will appear to inform you that your phone has been re-programmed with the new PRL.

Here Another Year

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:03:30 -0600

Friends, thanks for your birthday wishes! Seeing as how we are twins, today is also Kevin's birthday. Happy Birthday, bro!

Cowgirl

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:07:15 -0600

For my favorite cowgirl..

everything.

I'm invisible.

an eraser of love. an eraser of love.

why don't you call me I feel like flying in two.

I'm invisible.

an eraser of love. an eraser of love.

why don't you call me I feel like flying in two.

an eraser of love. an eraser of love.
I don't dream. (ice cream.) I scream so much.

you know what I mean. this electric stream.

and my tears in league with the wires

and energy and my machine.

this is my beautiful dream.

I'm hurting no one. hurting no one.

I want to give you everything.

I want to give you energy.

I want to give a good thing.

I want to give you everything.

everything.

in one final scream of love who could

climb this high she looks beautiful

like a child I feel tears.

and I want to scream.

you know what I mean cause this is hurting no one.

an eraser of love.

hurt. the necessary feeling.

why don't you call me I feel like flying in two.

an eraser of love.
"Cowgirl" - Underworld

Gen Con 2007 Report, Part 5: Sunday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:40:18 -0600

Last month I attended a gaming convention known as Gen Con. The following is my recap what happened on Sunday, my last day there.

:: SUNDAY

After I settled the bill with the hotel I had breakfast with BYOV guys. I really appreciate the effort Jay put into letting us share the room with a BYOV game master. Everybody was tired. I was a little sad that it was over.

Squash and I headed back to the vendor hall for one last pass and to say our goodbyes. I talked to folks at Kayuda Maps. They are producing a advertisement-driven map editing web site for fantasy gamers. When they mentioned that they told me they planned to add icons to represent items on their maps, I asked them if they considered using icons that professionals working the logistics industry use. They had not considered it, but seemed open to the idea.

I watched a patron demo a MMORPG called Age of Conan. The game was gorgeous. But it is definitely for mature players. I wonder if this will limit the success of the game when it hits the market in late October.

I bought a copy of Kill Dr Lucky from the Paizo Publishing booth. I have not yet played this game but I look forward it.

Signgirl and I love to play Fluxx. I noted that Looney Labs plans to publish Zombie Fluxx in early October.

That wraps up my recap of Gen Con. Once again I had a good time. It was over too quickly. If you enjoy gaming, you and your family should consider attending next year's convention which will be held August 14-17, 2008. Watch the Gen Con website for information on how to register for games early next year. Or better yet, check out the Gen Con Community Forums.

Gen Con 2007 Report, Part 4: Saturday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:00:19 -0600

Gen Con Indy happens every year sometime in August. This is my recap of Saturday, my fourth day there and the last full day of this year's convention.

:: SATURDAY

I completed the Mayfair Games Ribbon Quest. It worked like this. For every Mayfair Game you demoed in the vendor hall or attended in one of the game halls they gave you a badge ribbon. The badge ribbons were different colors and read "Ore", "Wood", "Sheep", "Clay" and "Grain", one each of the resources found in the Settlers of Catan game. When you collected all five you received a Knight of Catan ribbon, a Catan-related goodie and a coupon good for 50% off of a Mayfair Game of your choice. I bought the Kids of Catan game to play with Signgirl and her son D, who loves the game.

While I was there I also picked up a copy of Patrician. It is a well-balanced game of tower building that I enjoyed playing with Squash, Brian and Mike.

I helped Squash with his ribbon quest by demoing another game. We played Shear Panic. It is a cute game that involved maneuvering sheep for the most points while preventing your neighbor from getting his points.

Cpt Squash and I went to our next event, the Amazons LARP. Once again I crossed gender lines to play a Amazon magic user. The character who really the actress Lucy Lawless in disguise and did not have any magical abilities. So my goal was to keep my disguise and not to draw attention to myself. A ceremony was planned at which my character was supposed to perform real magic. Fortunately events unfolded so that I was able to meet my goals.

My last game was Crafty Games' Ten Thousand Bullets LARP. I was a little apprehensive that a LARP set in a prison would not be very much fun. They did some interesting things with the game. To start with they put us in "cells" which were a series of chairs arranged in small groups. If you wanted to talk to a prisoner in another cell, you have to go to imaginative lengths to keep the conversation private. One player wrote messages on paper and threw it when the players playing the guards had their backs turned. My character had an escape plan that kept me engaged in the game until the very end. I enjoyed this game a lot more than I thought I would.

Squash and I met up with another gamer buddy and his female friend and went back to the RAM. We hung out at the RAM for a while talking about the past week. We discovered that our buddy's friend had her Masters in Mathematics. When I told her I had considered going back for a Master degree, she encouraged me to pursue it. It really made me consider my decision not to commit myself to getting an advanced degree.

I dropped by Mike B's room party. It was hot and cramped in there. I met a gamer who lives not more than twenty miles from the town in which I grew up. Small world! I didn't stay long and left to get some sleep.

Gen Con 2007 Report, Part 3: Friday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:52:10 -0600

Every year for the past six years I have attended Gen Con. What follows is my recap of Friday, my third day there.

:: FRIDAY

I had lunch with Jay of BYOV, Cpt Squash and other members of the Atomic Squash gaming club. We went to an Italian place named Buca Di Beppo. I recommend it highly. We got a laugh when Brian made a big deal about his serving of lasagna was smaller than his buddy's lasagna. So somebody mentioned it to the waitress who in turn summoned the manager. Brian was very embarrassed. Of course we gave him a hard time about it.

I found myself with time to kill before my next game. So I went to the convention center and checked out the Gen Con Auction. I bought an auction card and watched for a bit. They were auctioning off items from some obscure role playing systems and later cards from collectible card games. I walked over to an area they had set up with used games and related items at a fixed price. It can best be described as a garage sale for gamer stuff. I found and bought A Merry Kobold Christmas, a campaign I did not have for the Kobolds Ate My Baby roleplaying game.

Next I walked though the miniature painting area. I keep meaning to try the paint and take when I am there. Ah well, another time. I went to the vendor and demo some games at the Mayfair booth. First I tried Age of Discovery. The game had a lot of little pieces and took a long time. The worst part of the game was at the very end you could affect your score with a multiplier that was not easy to understand.

There was a giant-sized Kragmortha board game set up. I was pleased to see another Atomic Squash gamer and his family join the game. While the game was interesting, it quickly became boring. In a way it reminded me of the late Gregory Horror Show game.

I played a quick game of Elk Fest. Do not call it Elk Hunt. Shame on you. The game has a simple mechanic. Your elk must pass from one ice shelf to another by using stones that you flick into place on your turn. If you fall off the stones you must start back from the beginning. It plays quickly and can be entertaining, especially if somebody else is bumping the table.

The last game I demoed was Hey! That's My Fish!. In this game players are penguins was move around a grid of cards. The trick is that once you land on a card it is removed when you move off of it. In this way you can strand other players on their own ice floes. This is a type of game where you get to mess with the other players. The rules were easy to learn. I really enjoyed this game.

I spun by the Mongoose Games booth. I learned that they did not yet have the Spycraft World on Fire. That was disappointing. This is the system on which we based this years Spycraft LARP

I bought a copy of Kobolds Ate My Baby Deluxe Hard Cover for Signgirl. She promised to help me write a new Kobolds LARP. I am so excited to have her assistance! She had some great ideas that helped me spice up the characters for the aforementioned Spycraft LARP.

Lastly I picked up Gloom, a card game from Atlas Games. Squash tells me it is fun game. I cannot wait to play it.

I went to my scheduled game, the Harry Potter LARP. This year's game focused on the students of the Slytherin house. A player or two took this game too seriously. C'mon now; it is a game. Lighten up and have a good time. If you feel you did not get the character you wanted, you should not make all of us listen to you whine about it.

Tom J, the game master, talked me into playing the game again this year after my sour experience last year. Mission successful! I enjoyed the game.

This video features Slate's take on gamers. There are quite a few scenes from the Harry Potter LARP including an interview with Tom J the Snape-looking game master and Henwy playing the evangelist.

Gen Con 2007 Report, Part 2: Thursday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:44:01 -0600

During the third week of August I returned to Indianapolis for my sixth Gen Con. While not everything went off without a hitch, I am choosing not to dwell on those things. What follows is my recap the first full day at the convention.

:: THURSDAY

Thursday is the first full day of Gen Con and the official start. The vendor hall opens at 11 AM to the masses. I slept in this morning and had lunch so I missed the giant nerd herd of gamers who storm the vendors looking to be the first to get their hands on the shiny new games and demo this year's latest and greatest offerings.

The vendor hall was massive this year. There are thirty rows inside where in years past there were twenty two. Most noticeable for me are the companies that were absent. Chaosium was not at Gen Con this year.

The big news was the announcement by Wizards of the Coast of the long rumored Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. That was more exciting than their sad attempt at social networking called Gleemax. Is this is their way to reach out to the role playing community after booting non-Wizards games from the RPGA?

Signgirl and I have been playing Magic: The Gathering lately. So I stopped at the Dave and Adam's Card World booth and bought two boxes of Magic cards. Come to find out they were in Chinese! Fortunately they later let me exchange the one unopened, sealed box of cards for credit toward the English version. Signgirl is selling the opened box on eBay for me. Any takers for Chinese Magic cards?

My first game was the Torchwood LARP. Torchwood is a British sci-fi series that is best described as a combination of X-Files and Angel. In our game I played a military leader who was illegally running a black market operation out of the Cardiff base of operations. I had the best time with this group of players. Everybody was played their parts superbly. I reveled in my role of troublemaker as I set up distractions for anyone who got to close to my operations.

Next Cpt Squash and I played in a Fey LARP loosely based on the writings of Laurell K. Hamilton. Fey are fairy folk. Theirs is a world of acrimony that rivals the Vampire: The Masquerade or the writings of Anne Rice.

I played a female assassin who was a human monk. My role was to assassinate the visiting Pope. This was not my last trans-gender roleplaying at the convention. Fortunately, the female players were terribly offended by the way I choose to play my character. I did get an education on the sisterhood of shared governance which I mistakenly called a cabal.

Here is my only picture from the Fey LARP. Mar was showing off the pirate puppet he bought earlier that day. This picture makes me smile.

Gen Con 2007 Report, Part 1: Wednesday

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:00:00 -0600

This year was my sixth year attending Gen Con. It is a large annual gaming convention attracting over 25,000 attendees. What follows is my recap of the first of the five days at the convention.

:: WEDNESDAY

I met my buddy Captain Squash at his place. We loaded into his vehicle and headed out. On the way we listened to several podcasts. The first was Fear the Boot. We listened to their recap of this year's Archon including coverage of the R-rated Furry panel. They ask an interesting question: who invited the anthropomorphic fetishists into the gaming subculture?

Next we listened to an episode of Diggnation, a show where two guys that used to be on TechTV talk about the top stories posted on the digg.com social bookmarking news site. Basically these guys sit around drinking beer and riff on new articles. It is pointless really but they did use the words "poon palace" which made Squash and I laugh.

Lastly we listened to an episode of This Week in Tech hosted by Leo Laporte, another TechTV refugee. I quickly got bored with the endless prattle about Apple's iPhone. I wonder what Laporte thinks of Apple announcing that they will cut the price of the iPhone by $200 just two months after introducing it to the market. Suckers!

Thanks to Jay of BYOV we stayed at The Hilton this year. The room was nice. Even though the hotel is not one of the ones attached to the convention center by the skywalks, or hamster tubes as we like to call them, it is decent place to stay during Gen Con.

Cpt Squash ran off to watch a minor league baseball game. I wandered down to the RAM to see if I could get into a session of Wednesday Gaming there. The meeting room was packed wall-to-wall. While I was bummed that I couldn't find a game, I was pleased to see that Wednesday gaming was popular. I bought a mug from the RAM while I was there and left for the convention center to pick up a swag bag.

Later Cpt Squash and I made our way to the Fourth Annual Gen Con Forum Stink, a gathering of regulars who frequent the Gen Con online community forum. When we arrived they gave us a bag of swag -- free promotional items and other stuff.

They had a passport game as an icebreaker. They had several categories such as "Veteran Stinker", "Attended 10+ Gen Cons" and "Played True Dungeon". When you found a player that matched a category you could ask them to place a sticker in your book. I ran into a bunch of old friends and met some new ones.

After the Stink several of us wandered over to the RAM. Since it was packed, we decided to trek to Rock Bottom instead. I have to say it was just as fun as the RAM. They had specials on drinks. Squash and I tried a sampler of their beers. They were good. The consensus was that Rock Bottom may become the new Wednesday Post-Stink place in the future.

We left there to go to a place that had karaoke. After listening to somebody massacre Creed's "Arms Wide Open" I had a massive headache. I took some Tylenol and hung out until our buddy Otter took her turn at the mike. She blew everyone away and ended up taking home a cash prize for placing in their karaoke contest.

I Know What You Did Last Labor Day

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 10:36:26 -0600

Well, the word is out. I am leaving my current client, Lockheed Martin, for a position at Express Scripts. The past week or two has been a blur of phone calls and meetings.

My Linux box was being temperamental. It would not allow me access to my email. I have it set up to download the email from my gazpacho.net domain as well as yahoo.com and hotmail.com. Then all mail is filtered through a custom-configured SpamAssassin. I then use Mozilla Thunderbird to read it via imap. Well, somehow the imap database became corrupted. Also, one or more Berkeley DB binary files may have been corrupted/deleted. I took the opportunity to upgrade to Fedora Core 7. It was a painful process that took me most of the Labor Day weekend. I'm not going there.

I ordered a Dell laptop with Ubuntu Linux on it. My plan is to migrate my files off of the Fedora Linux box.. and be rid Fedora and its RPM madness for good!

I watched signgirl's dog while she went up to Chicago. Her dog was an angel. But she made me concerned because the silly thing would not eat her food.

Signgirl has been selling some of my junk things on eBay. It is amazing what people will buy. A sealed box of Lord of the Rings Risk went for more than I paid for it at retail. A bag filled with Gregory Horror Show miniatures went for approximately $30 to a lady in the United Kingdom. Somebody wanted the copy of "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" DVD I won as a prize at a LARP. Who knew?

The 100 Best Meme

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:28:04 -0600

Since I have been back from Gen Con real life obligations have colluded to prevent me from posting the planned Gen Con recap blog entries. Or, maybe it was the mullet I borrowed from Kentucky Fried Gamers. My IQ dropped the moment I put it on and has not yet recovered.

Currently the internal network is down at work leaving me with a moment to crank out a quick entry.

One of the cool things I missed at this year's Gen Con was Green Ronin's Hobby Games: The 100 Best book. The following meme lists the hobby games found in the book and asks the blogger to indicate their level of personal experience.

Boldface if "I own this game."
Italics is "I have played this game."
Italic and Bold are "I both own and have played this game."

Bruce C. Shelley on Acquire
Nicole Lindroos on Amber Diceless
Ian Livingstone on Amun-Re
Stewart Wieck on Ars Magica
Thomas M. Reid on Axis & Allies
Tracy Hickman on Battle Cry
Philip Reed on BattleTech
Justin Achilli on Blood Bowl
Mike Selinker on Bohnanza
Tom Dalgliesh on Britannia
Greg Stolze on Button Men
Monte Cook on Call of Cthulhu
Steven E. Schend on Carcassonne
Jeff Tidball on Car Wars
Bill Bridges on Champions
Stan! on Circus Maximus
Tom Jolly on Citadels
Steven Savile on Civilization
Bruno Faidutti on Cosmic Encounter
Andrew Looney on Cosmic Wimpout
Skip Williams on Dawn Patrol
Alan R. Moon on Descent
Larry Harris on Diplomacy
Richard Garfield on Dungeons & Dragons
William W. Connors on Dynasty League Baseball
Christian T. Petersen on El Grande
Alessio Cavatore on Empires in Arms
Timothy Brown on Empires of the Middle Ages
Allen Varney on The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Phil Yates on Fire and Fury
William Jones on Flames of War
Rick Loomis on Fluxx
John Kovalic on Formula De
Anthony J. Gallela on The Fury of Dracula
Jesse Scoble on A Game of Thrones
Lou Zocchi on Gettysburg
James Wallis on Ghostbusters
James M. Ward on The Great Khan Game
Gav Thorpe on Hammer of the Scots
Uli Blennemann on Here I Stand
S. Craig Taylor, Jr. on A House Divided
Scott Haring on Illuminati
Dana Lombardy on Johnny Reb
Darren Watts on Junta
Greg Stafford on Kingmaker
Lester Smith on Kremlin
Wolfgang Baur on Legend of the Five Rings CCG
Marc W. Miller on Lensman
Ted S. Raicer on London's Burning
Teeuwynn Woodruff on Lord of the Rings (boardgame)
Mike Breault on Machiavelli
Jordan Weisman on Magic: The Gathering
Steve Kenson on Marvel Super Heroes (Jeff Grubb version)
Gary Gygax on Metamorphosis Alpha
Greg Costikyan on My Life with Master
John D. Rateliff on Mythos
Chris "Gerry" Klug on Napoleon's Last Battles
John Scott Tynes on Naval War
Erick Wujcik on Ogre
Marc Gascoigne on Once Upon a Time
Mike Bennighof on PanzerBlitz
Steve Jackson on Paranoia
Shannon Appelcline on Pendragon
JD Wiker on Pirate's Cove
Richard H. Berg on Plague!
Martin Wallace on Power Grid
Tom Wham on Puerto Rico
Joseph Miranda on Renaissance of Infantry
James Ernest on RoboRally
Paul Jaquays on RuneQuest
Richard Dansky on The Settlers of Catan
Ken St. Andre on Shadowfist
Steven S. Long on Shadowrun
Peter Corless on Shadows over Camelot
Dale Donovan on Silent Death: The Next Millennium
Matt Forbeck on Space Hulk
Ray Winninger on Squad Leader
Lewis Pulsipher on Stalingrad
Bruce Nesmith on Star Fleet Battles
Steve Winter on The Sword and the Flame
Jeff Grubb on Tales of the Arabian Nights
Shane Lacy Hensley on Talisman
Douglas Niles on Terrible Swift Sword
Ed Greenwood on Thurn and Taxis
Mike Fitzgerald on Ticket to Ride
Thomas Lehmann on Tigris & Euphrates
Warren Spector on Tikal
David "Zeb" Cook on Toon
Mike Pondsmith on Traveller
Zev Shlasinger on Twilight Struggle
Kenneth Hite on Unknown Armies
Sandy Petersen on Up Front
R. Hyrum Savage on Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
George Vasilakos on Vampire: The Masquerade
Kevin Wilson on Vinci
R.A. Salvatore on War and Peace
Jack Emmert on Warhammer 40,000
Chris Pramas on The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Steve Jackson on The Warlord
John Wick on Wiz-War

Clearly I have more gaming to do! I will attempt to post the recap entries later this week.

I Could See the Squirrels

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:11:13 -0600

I failed to get a job at Google. I am not angry or sad about it. I have been thinking about it lately because they plan to move me to a different cube at work. The situation reminds me of the scene in the movie Office Space where Milton was talking about formerly having a desk from where he could watch the squirrels play. "And they were merry", he noted. I guess Google seemed like a place where I could have an office from which I could watch merry squirrels while tackling some interesting computer science problems.

Sometime last year I was interviewed by Google. Theirs is a consensus-driven decision-making process involving a multitude of interviews. I made it through a total of two telephone interviews. The first was a screening interview where a recruiter asked me some career oriented questions and finished with a quiz of technical questions. The second interview was conducted by an engineer working in the department in which I most likely would have worked and was a technical interview involving low-level networking and Linux operating system details.

Since they do not have any opportunities in the Midwest -- a glaring oversight on their part I might add -- I asked for a position at the Googleplex, its Mountain View, California headquarters. I was told that they might not have a position for me there but they did have openings in Zurich and Dublin. I told the Google people I was not interested in working outside the United States.

Just between us, maybe I'd consider it if Hillary Clinton succeeds in her attempt to become our next president. Speaking of politics, Google is too cozy with liberal politicians. Environmentalist crackpot and failed presidential candidate Al Gore serves as Senior Advisor to Google. Also, in the 2004 federal elections a staggering 98% of employee's campaign contributions went to Democrats. Are they building a culture of innovative engineers or ideological cronies?

According to an article in Forbes magazine Google and its recruiters doubled its head count to 20,000 from 10,000 at the end of last year. The article goes on to say that Google disappointed Wall Street after admitting it overspent on new hires during its latest quarter. So, if you have a copy of your resume online, do not be surprised if you get a phone call from their people. Honestly, I wish you the best of luck. Perhaps you will be a better fit than this conservative computer scientist who loves life in the flyover states.

Is there a job you should have gotten? I would like to hear about it.

Gen Con Indy 2007 Schedule

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:57:49 -0600

Friends, it is time for Gen Con. I will be there from sometime Wednesday afternoon to Sunday morning. As I type this I still don't know in which hotel I'll be staying or what time I'll be arriving.

So, who's going? Give me a shout out if you see me, even if I am zoned out in my own world. I *love* to hear the words: "I read your blog". If you'd like to join me for lunch, I plan to be at the RAM for lunch after Killer Breakfast on Saturday.

Those of you who have been to the Indy Convention Center know that cell phones do not get good reception and the ambient noise in most places make phone conversations impossible. If you try to call me, please leave me a voice mail message. Or, send me a text message.

Here is my schedule for this year's convention:

Wednesday, Aug 15

?? pm - Arrive and Check in to Hotel
?? pm - Grab Swag Bag from Indianapolis Convention Center
?? pm - Gen Con Forum Stink
?? pm - BYOV Room Party

Thursday, Aug 16

11 am - Vendor Hall Shopping and Swag Grab
5 pm - LRP00089 Torchwood: Remember The Time?

Friday, Aug 17

4:30 pm - LRP00087 A Holiday at Hogwarts: Slytherin House

Saturday, Aug 18

9 am - RPG00010 Hickman's Killer Breakfast
11 am - Lunch at the RAM
7 pm - LRP00056 Ten Thousand Bullets LARP: RIP

I hope to bump into each of ya there.

Rock On, Stevie

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:21:29 -0600

Who knew Stevie Wonder can rock out on the drums?! I am impressed.

Howdy Neighbor

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:30:25 -0600

The other day my neighbor saw me outside ripping out some dead landscaping and came over to talk. Boo, I have bugs! Anyway, I tend to avoid my neighbors. At the last block party a neighbor lady referred to me as the guy who waves from his car.

How well do you know your next-door neighbors? I do not really intend to be anti-social but I have seen quite a few families move in and out of my block over the last five years. In fact when my house was built most of the surrounding lots were just muddy plots. Careers bring change and people move on. While I try to be a good neighbor, I am just not a very social one. I don't know my neighbors very well. I am okay with that.

Wedding Bells Are Ringing

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:48:00 -0600

My buddy Larry is getting married. I plan to go to his ring ceremony in a couple weeks. He has been married once before. I think he realizes that being bitter does not help anything. He moved on, met a nice gal not long after his divorce and is getting married after a few months of dating. I respect his resilience.

He and his wife wished for a church-sponspored ceremony that only Mormons can attend. Since Larry is Mormon and his ex-wife has not filled out the proper paperwork, then the ring ceremony may turn into a full-fledged wedding.

What was the last wedding you went to? Mine was a coworker's wedding almost a year ago. They had a nice reception in the Gateway Convention Center. It is the same center in which they have Archon. I asked folks at the reception to picture the place filled with Klingons and nerdy gamer types. It was funny to think about a dude with Spock ears standing where a dude in a tuxedo was standing.

One of the cool things I witnessed was that the photographer took the wedding photos digitally. The bride and groom were able to review them at the reception. I think that is a wonderful idea.

What A Character

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 21:55:20 -0600

I went to the Scott Air Show at Scott AFB with Signgirl and D. We were treated to a rare display of a grounded B-2 Stealth Bomber from Whiteman AFB. The bomber is seldom seen outside of its home base and is even more rarely seen grounded. We also toured a massive C-5. We climbed the ladder to the cockpit and checked out the cramped sleeping quarters up there. In spite of the heat D played in a bouncy castle. We had a good time. I highly recommend the show especially for parents with children interested in airplanes.

Today we went to the Saint Louis Science Center. They had a special exhibit with Marvel Superheroes that D enjoyed. They had several Playstation 2s set up for kids to play Marvel-based video games. This got me thinking of a question: who is your favorite video game character?

My favorite video game character is the space ship. I really enjoyed playing space shooters such as Wing Commander and FreeSpace 2. It is a shame that there has not been any innovation in this genre since FreeSpace 2's massive capital ships and foggy plasma clouds. Graphical hardware and CPU horsepower has improved to the point that it would be possible to have battles with massive ships and have it highlighted with dramatic interaction with your teammates.

Recent history has shown that a smart company can breathe new life into a underappreciated genre. Role playing games had been given mediocre treatment for years when BioWare came along and blew everybody away with Baldur's Gate. The company breathed new life into the genre and continued rolling out successful titles for years afterwards. They gave us these gems: Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

I would love to see some company buck the trend of Resident Evil clones and Grand Theft Auto knock-offs. Making a space shooter is a risky proposition but could be profitable for somebody willing to take the risk.

Ode to the iPhone

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 13:29:10 -0600

This poem is dedicated to those who possess the iPhone and those who wish they did:

ODE TO THE IPHONE

Twinkling
All that glitters is not
A high-tech surrogate for
Something you cannot do without
This year
Who cares

No keys
Just use pointy fingers
Touch the screen wherever you wish
It will find your important contact
Last year
Who cares

Look there
It rotates quickly
And plays your tunes nicely
Web browser says Democrats win
Evil fools
Nobody cares

Cellphones
A computer and radio
Together in one small package
Is not magic technology
Learn more
I care

Our world
Does not spin around desire
It makes its trek past the red sun
Without the latest gadget
Not that
You care

Real Life Music Visualization

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:51:06 -0600

Physics rocks! Check out this demonstration of a Ruben's tube. In this video a foil lined PVC pipe gives a real-world visualization of sound. Remember friends, PVC at this temperature can melt and emit noxious fumes.

I have been playing Puzzle Quest for my Sony PSP. It uses the same "connect-three-matching-items-in-a-grid" game mechanic throughout most of the game. What is interesting is the RPG aspect that they layer on top of it. The monsters you compete against have the ability to heal themselves, leech health and mana off you and alter the grid. As you level up you can train mounts, research spells and forge magic items which give you bonuses. It is a cute little game.

Caffeinated Soap

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 10:18:56 -0600

I have been using a bar of the custom-made Atomic Squash caffeinated soap I had made to give out as prizes at the Spycraft LARP. Folks, I'm a believer. The caffeine in the soap definitely gives you a boost.

Now I wonder if I can find more bars of caffeinated soap for a reasonable price.

Toward a Perfect Character

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:21:54 -0600

I recently had a disagreement with the organizer of the Spycraft LARP. We worked under considerable schedule pressure to produce the game. Characters were being changed up until minutes before they were printed out. Even though most of them were proofread a week before, some ugly looking mistakes were introduced during the final two days of development. The typos and the misspellings are an area I identified for improvement. The LARP organizer responded that it is impossible to eliminate mistakes. I disagree.

Character Development FlowchartVolumes of books have been written about defect management. There are times when it is impractical to eliminate all possible defects from a system. It could take more than a year to test every possible combination of characters that could be entered into a tax preparation program. This is no good when the program has to change every eight months due to new tax laws. So in order to eliminate defects you must be practical.

I believe it is possible to implement a process to reduce, and maybe eliminate, errors in character sheets. I know the word process summons images of straitjackets to some. But those folks are only fooling themselves. Processes improve quality.

Here is my process. I introduce the concept of a status to a character sheet. When a character sheet is first written is in the working status. Once the author feels it is ready, then he submits it to the scrutiny of a peer review. Let us call this a review status. Other authors have the opportunity to examine the character and provide constructive criticism. If too many defects are found, the character is rejected and returns to the working status. Otherwise the defects are fixed and the character gains the accepted status. Once a character is accepted, the project leader must review it. If there are more than minor changes, then it returns to working status. If not, then the character is ready for the player and reaches the finished status. If an accepted or finished character is modified, it returns to the working status and must be reviewed again.

Now this process is not so rigid that it cannot be bent. There is little benefit in sending a character back through for review for relatively minor fixes. The important points are 1) all characters are subjected to the scrutiny of your peers and 2) the project leader has the final approval on characters.

You may point out that this requires more time in order to produce a character. But I believe the turnaround time for peer reviews can be improved by setting a reasonable deadline for comments and gathering them electronically, i.e. through the character's wiki talk page.

Does this seem unreasonable for a volunteer project? I do not think so esp. if your goal is to produce characters without embarrassing flaws.

Disconnected My Home Phone

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:29:21 -0600

I disconnected my home phone. I seldom received calls at that number other than telemarketers. The line was often filled with static to point of being impossible to hear the conversation. The "new" AT&T had the nerve to tell me my cellular phone might have issues with its quality of service. Oh k. If you want to reach me, please use my cell phone number, friends.

Am Quietly Man

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:09:38 -0600

Kevin bought me a copy of a book entitled 52 Fifty-two Poems for Men.

It inspired me to try my own hand at poetry. This one is dedicated to the lovely Signgirl.

AM QUIETLY MAN

We left for
a trip
to the place
up north

You drove your
big car
and listened
to tunes

We always
go back
for something
we forgot

Software for a Blue Sky

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:21:13 -0600

I was thinking today, friends. Scary, huh? I was trying to think back to the time when I was young and the sky was blue.

I realized at a young age that computer software could indeed be beautiful and have a positive impact on our world. In grade school I was put in a remedial reading class because I had difficulty reading out loud in class. It may have been because I can be incredibly shy in intense social situations. Well, having my peers listen to me read was intimidating to me back then. Anyway, I aced all of my remedial reading lessons usually finishing early. Since I had extra time, the instructor let me write some simple programs on the computer that was used to run some teaching software. That is when the programming bug bit me. I was hooked.

That enthusiasm followed me to college where I studied computer science. The sun shone brightly in my blue sky. I ravenously studied algorithms and software architecture. I read books outside of the assigned course material. I experimented with new ideas. I wondered what software was like in the real world. I was excited by the promise of working on computer software that could make a significant impact on society.

In real world there are storm clouds in the skies. While I hate to say that my enthusiasm has diminished, I prefer to say that I learned a number of lessons over the years.

There are problems that computers cannot solve. It has been shown that it is impossible for a computer to decide whether statements in arithmetic are true or false.

Computer software is written to tackle real-world problems. A vast majority of software is written to meet business problems. I do not believe that custom software will become a commodity because business problems are never the same long enough for the proposed solutions to be economical.

The ultimate product of a software project is an executable. But that product is not useful without good documentation. Documentation is often overlooked. Open source documentation is underappreciated. I will never forget the sinking feeling the first time a colleague told me he did not need documentation since his code was self-documenting.

Writing great software involves managing complexity and balancing design decisions. Programmers tend to eliminate redundancy by refactoring common code. So, if new code is necessary, it will be unique and will increase the complexity of software. A good design will mitigate how complex a system needs to get in order to meet its goal.

Writing software is limited by time and budget. For example the work on Y2K software had a deadline of New Years Day 2000. A disciplined company has a regular release schedule of software. As a manager put in once at some point you have to cut the baby and deliver a product!

For all of the dark clouds there is still a reason for software architects and engineers to get out of bed in the morning. There are problems for which elegant algorithms do not yet exist. In fact there are problems that people have only imagined for which no software exists. Futurists imagine a world, for example, with flying cars. In order for flying cars to be as easy to use as conventional automobiles we need sophisticated computer software. I do not think the futurists picture a generation of people spending time to learn to use a vehicle that is as complicated as a helicopter to operate.

I regain my enthusiasm when I think about the challenges that the world continues to face. Friends, I want to write the computer software that rises to meet them and makes life better for us all.

We Got the Blues

tomc@gazpacho.net (Tom Conder) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:34:05 -0600

I went up to the Chicago Blues Festival with Signgirl this past weekend. The weather was great. I met her friend Karen and got reacquainted with her parents. My brother was in a weird mood, but seemed to enjoy himself at the festival.

We also checked out some used books at Printer's Row. Signgirl bought some Dr Who books. I would have bought some, too, if we hadn't had to carry them around all day.

The Scott Air Show will be July 7-8 this year. It includes a display of a B-2A Stealth Bomber, the most technologically advanced bomber in the world, which is rarely seen outside of its home base, Whiteman Air Force Base.