Bioshock or Some Geeks are NEVER Satisfied

Slashdot had a post linking to Eurogamer documenting Problems with Bioshock. Bioshock is a game published by 2k Games. In my not so humble opinion, this is probably the best game I have played all year. Released on the XBOX360 and the PC, Bioshock is a first person shooter with some RPG elements. It is visually stunning, with immersive environments, realistic enemy AI and pretty much does a very good job of immersing the player in the game world. Now I know that this is said of many games but really, Bioshock makes you feel like you are really there. But the above things arn't even the best part of the game.

The best part is the story. I found the story very engaging, and I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Another big part about the story I like was the working of the game's nonphysical weapons, magical/psychic weapons called plasmids into the story. They aren't just weapons that you find on the ground, they are intrinsic to the genetic manipulation/addiction part of the plot. Add to that, the fact that the whole game takes place in a network of underwater buildings. And the story of the game is a look about what can happen in a truly free society, sort of the libertarian worst-case scenario. It is a society that develops a class division based on looks and good genetics, and money, of course. Plus, there are no drug laws in this society, so the lower echelon is made up of crazy drug addicts. And since there is no gun control, they are crazy drug addicts with guns. I know I always wanted to live in a society like that but this is sort of a what-not-to-do for any good libertarian. Add to that, the society's culture is based in a 1940's-ish atmosphere, complete with old music and tommy guns.

There are a few problems with the game, but they are relatively minor in my view. One, the game has no "lives". Every time you are killed, you respawn at a "vita-chamber" sort of a rolling save point. I can see that many people do not like the idea of infinite respawning. People can feel that this does not provide enough challenge or incentive to stay alive. That would be the cas if not for the other minor flaw in the game: its REALLY, REALLY hard. Oh sure lots of you are going to say "What a wuss, it isn't that bad," you guys are on crack. The story about finishing the game using just the pistol? Chambers make the game too easy? Trust me, if there were no chambers, nobody would have finished this game. Taking down enemies like "Big-Daddy" takes a LOT of work. I've also noticed that they seem to be a little stingy on ammo and health. So really, very minor issues. I personally like the hacking mini games and the vending machines. It's a nice break from just running and shooting.

The article defends critical points that geek gamers have had with the game. I still stand by, regardless of those issues, my statement to make this "game-of-the-year". But I guess there are some geeks who had "problems" with the game. If you look through the article, some of those points are just ludicrous. It seems that the article's author and I pretty much agree about the game. My point is, however, that he shouldn't even have to answer those points. Why? Because the only reason that anyone would have any problem with this game at all is because geeks are NEVER satisfied. Never. The sarcasm about the constant critic in my article How to be a geek in 10 easy steps is true. Bioshock is a great game, and it most likely WILL be game of the year on many places where it counts. Yet there are geeks that will rip it to shreds. I'm totally perplexed why geeks do this. It seems the gaming industry is one of the only industries where game of the year has people that cry "the ending sucks" or "the respawn system is horrible". I mean when is the last time a movie won best picture even though most viewers say "the ending sucks!" The last time a musician won a Grammy even though the track arrangement was horrible? It generally does not happen. That is because of the simple fact that geeks are not happy unless they are criticizing someone, somewhere.

I really don't know why geeks do this. Maybe its that over-inflated sense of self worth. Perhaps they are pretty much perfectionists. But you would think that if geeks never liked anything, then nothing in the geek world would ever be popular. But things are popular. This game will be high on any games-of-the-year lists regardless of the fact that it seems many geeks don't like it. It leads me to the conclusion that geeks like anything, but they like complaining even more. I think the Comic Book Guy in the Simpsons summed it up with one statement. Coming out of a film that is supposed to represent Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, he says "Worst film ever. I will only be seeing it five more times. Today." As parodic as that is, I have YET to come up with a line that has more insight on geeks and criticism.

I am an anomaly when it comes to criticism. I really don't like criticizing anything. I guess that makes me a strange geek, but I just don't see the point. You like something great. You don't? Don't play it, don't watch it, don't listen to it. But for the love of god, man up and stop complaining.

Art must be and will be free

Here at PDP, I'd like to take a moment apart from doing the home server how-to's to comment on a recent Internet phenomenon. If you haven't seen the video 2 girls 1 cup, you need to. It is probably the most wretchedly disgusting piece of video that I have seen in a very long time, or possibly ever. I will NOT be linking to it because I am certain that it will violate some rules with my nice host, Blogger, and my sponsors and advertisers.

Why do you need to see it, you ask? Am I actually endorsing sickening and stomach churning “pornography”? Well yes, indirectly. It's not the subject matter of the film, per se, but the Internet cultural reaction to the film that is important. It never ceases to amaze me as to what a brilliantly dynamic place the Internet truly is. The Internet phenomenon, such as the squirrel nuts or the dancing baby, were at one time the top things on the Internet. They peak in popularity than inevitably fade, becoming just another annoyingly stupid Internet cliche`. But for the months that they are popular, these viral Internet works have an amazing penetration (excuse the pun). Nearly EVERYONE who owns a computer and is on the Internet has been attracted to these things.

What is so special about 2 girls 1 cup? First, even though I'm not linking to it, I'm certain you will not have to look far to find this video. It wouldn't be viral if it was difficult to find. Ask around. EVERYONE has seen it, you can find someone to point you to it. Now, if I were to tell you exactly what the subject matter of the video is, you would never watch it. Suffice it to say, it is sickeningly vile. But here is the point. Regardless of the subject matter, millions of people have seen it, and many of them have convinced others to watch it. This is one of the most interesting things about a phenomenon like this. Much like the proverbial train wreck, most of the people, though offended and disgusted, will not be able to tear their eyes from it. They almost have to watch it in disbelief that a human being would be willing to participate in such a vile act.

Many of you are familiar with goatse, which, compared to 2 girls 1 cup, is a children's work. Regardless, millions upon millions are familiar with goatse, and they can instantly recall the shocking image, as well as their almost palpable disgust upon viewing it. To me, both goatse and 2 girls 1 cup are some of the most effective artworks that have existed in modern times.

Artwork, do I hear you say? Effective? Panvamp, have you gone mad? No friends, I haven't gone mad. To me, art is a work that invokes emotional feelings in the viewer, like the Sistine Chapel invokes a feeling of humility or divinity, and The Wizard of Oz invokes a sense of wonder. All works of art do this, great or not-so-great. In the case of goatse and 2 girls 1 cup, the emotion is not particularly pleasant, but the emotion is there nonetheless and it is very, very, strong. I mean do you know how powerful a set of moving images have to be to actually illicit a physical, vomitous response in some people? I don't feel it's up to us to decide which emotion the artwork invokes but there is no question that these works are effective at conveying the emotions. So, now that we have established that these works are indeed art, and they are good at doing what art is supposed to do, the amazing thing is the widespread nature of these. More people have seen these artworks than many classical paintings, and most of the people that do view these are affected more strongly than those people who see the Mona Lisa.

In some societies and cultures, these works are most likely illegal or, at the very least, considered “obscene”. Yet with the magic of the Internet, people in those societies can experience this work anyway. Why does everyone want to see these films? It's the same reason that people spend hours looking at Internet porn. They provoke responses that societies have stated are not good, and should be avoided. But people do not want to avoid emotions. They may think that they do, but people like having emotions, and the act of provoking them is something that they enjoy. Thats why great books, gripping stories, beautiful paintings, and yes, even disgusting pieces of film are watched by so many people. Entertainment is arguably the largest part of people's lives. And people want to especially see “Taboo” pieces of art, JUST because society says they are bad. People WANT art to be no-holds-barred. People want a free expression of information. They don't want limits placed on expression.

I think nothing illustrates this more than the amount of people clamoring to see what they know will shock and offend. Maybe that's one of the reasons that so many people are offended by so many things. Do they enjoy the emotional response? Do they like to have their blood boiled, their stomachs turned, and their skin crawl? I think the answer is yes. The Internet, while in a relatively free and uncensored state (I'm looking at you, China!), is the perfect vehicle for ideas, especially for ideas that are “offensive” though apparently “popular”. Perhaps the anonymity is the factor. “No I'd never watch smut like that,” is probably a common response when people ask others about this video in real life, but trust me, with the door closed, computer is on, and that sweet, sweet, information injection coursing through their veins, the can't help themselves. I mean there is a REASON that there is so much porn on line. Thats what people want!

So go find it, experience it, let it sicken you, let it revolt you and enjoy the fact that you have emotions and emotional responses to things. Its easy to say that we shouldn't have emotions that are offensive or revolting, but first it will be obscenity, then unpopular speech, then violence and soon we say that the only reason that there is anything wrong is because people have any emotions. If you want a little view of that, check out the excellent Equilibrium, starring Christian Bale. No gross out movies in that society I can tell you. And a society who cannot handle ideas, even shocking and revolting ones, is not a society that I want to live in. And thank God for the Internet, for without it we may have lost a worldwide outlet of idea exchange that can influence so many of our lives.

Installing a home server -- Networking Considerations

Hopefully, if you have read by article on building a home server, you have a good idea what you want to do with your box that you will be building. My detailed tutorials are going to be from the perspective of setting up an all-in-one router/firewall/gateway/webserver/media server. You can most likely omit any of the sections and ignore what you will not be needing. If you have a hardware firewall/router, for example, you can ignore the steps about sharing the network connections and setting up the firewall. Some of the steps depend on the others, like the need to install an sql database if you wish to properly use php. But If you don't need to have a shared drive, you can skip the file sharing part.

But the one aspect of this server that pretty much cannot be ignored is that it is going to be on a network. I thought that I would lay out some of the networking concepts that I will be using in building our home servers. This is by NO means a course on networking. If that's what you are looking for, hit a search engine and see what you can find. There are literally countless pages that have as much networking info as you need.

First and foremost, lets discuss IP addressing. An IP address is like a phone number that tells others on the network where the computer is located. If you are using the machine as a router/gateway, you will probably have 2 network connections on the machine. One probably goes to your cable modem or DSL modem. The other will go into a switch or hub in your house that your other computers are going to connect to. Let's call your internet connected network "external" or the "outside" connection, and the other will be called the "internal" or "inside" connection. If you are already network savvy, the outside connection is the WAN connection, and the inside interface is the LAN. Each of these connections will have a different IP address. You probably will not have many options for your external IP. Either that interface gets its IP from your Internet service provider (ISP) automatically using the DHCP protocol, or you will have been assigned a static IP address and subnet mask. This is vital information and you will not be able to complete this setup without it.

The internal address is something I want to touch on a little bit. Your internal interface is pretty much going to HAVE to be set to a non-changing, static address. The reason for this is that you do not want it to change because then the internal computers will not know where your server is exactly, and using DHCP to configure this interface will not always guarantee this. (There are some ways to make it happen, but those are beyond the scope of this article). When it comes to IP addressing and networks, certain rules have to be followed. Your internal network most likely is a private network, so you will have to use ip address ranges in the "Class C" range. This is a special range of IP addresses that can be used for internal private networks like yours. Valid ranges are : 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 and 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255. Any addresses in those range are valid and legal. For example you can give your internal interface of 10.0.0.5 or 192.168.1.1. For various reasons that will be illustrated during the XP routing section in the next article, I recommend that you assign your internal interface to the address of 192.168.0.1 with the default subnet mask. In addition to XP's special requirements, I recommend using this as your internal IP even if you are going the *nix route. It will simplify many of the subsequent steps. You do not HAVE to do this, but I really see no reason why you wouldn't use 192.168.0.1.

Next you will want to decide the way your clients will be connecting to your server. You may either run a DCHP server on your home server and assign your clients addresses automatically, or you may manually assign static IP addresses to your client PC's (or you can have a mix of the two if you follow some guidelines). To be honest, DHCP can sometimes have problems if your outside interface also uses DHCP, but I will show you how to use either way, and really this is a case of personal preference. Decide on this before you start, however.

Also, you need to think about how this machine will be administered. If you are going to want to administer your server over the internet and you have a static IP address, then don't worry, you should be able to access your static IP from any internet connected computer. If you have an ISP that gives you a DHCP address, you can never know when your assigned IP is going to change. If this is the case, hope is not lost. you can use something called a Dynamic DNS. I use No-ip, and if you are willing to use their domains, you can get an actual internet address like mysrvr.noip.com. There is a little program that we can install on the server that will let your dynamic DNS always know the location of your machine no matter how many times it may change. There are other dynamic DNS services, and you should pick one out. For a fee, you can usually get an actual domain and register it with these services like www.mysrvr.com. If you have a static IP you can just register a domain name and have it point to your static address.

Finally, you will need to know about NAT and port forwarding. NAT or Network Address Translation, in layman's terms is essentially this: As far as the outside network or internet is concerned, a request to the internet from any of the clients in your private network looks like it is coming from your outside interface ip address. If you Google NAT you will find extensive information about its nuances, but it's just a principle that says that the ONLY IP address that the rest of the world can see is your outside interface. Here's a dirty little diagram

remote computer--> Outside interface( 9.6.74.15)<-NAT Router-> insideinterface(192.168.0.1) --- client 1(192.168.0.7)

Say remote computer one is an internet web server. Client 1 types this web server address into his browser. The remote computer's web site appears. But as far as the remote computer can see, the request to display his site came from 9.6.74.15. In fact, it isn't even aware that 192.168.0.7 even exists. But how does the outside interface know to send the web site information back to client 1? It uses NAT routing. This is exactly what NAT is designed to do. Most home servers and hardware firewalls/routers use this exact mechanism. This is NAT in a nutshell.

One of the problems with NAT is that if the request for information is NOT initiated by one of the client computers, there is not a way to send any information to client 1. Say remote computer is your work PC at your office, away from your private network. Also, lets say you are not running a web server on your NAT router, but you are running it on client 1. If you type in 192.168.0.7, chance are you will get a page not found message. Thats because your office PC doesn't even see 192.168.0.7. It has no direct route to get there. So how can you access that machine's web server from your office?

This is where port forwarding comes in. You can set the NAT router to route all traffic from remote computers to port 80 (the default web server port) directly to 192.168.0.7. So any request that is made to 9.6.74.15 on port 80, will get sent directly to client 1. So after you set up port forwarding, at your office computer type 9.6.74.15 and poof, you will be shown the web page being served on 192.168.0.7. Any other port will still get processed by the NAT router, but all port 80 requests will go to client 1. You can even run web servers on BOTH machines if they use different ports. I'll touch on that during the installation of the server software.

The great part about this comes with respect to hackers and intruders. Because of NAT, the only machine that malicious intruders will ever be able to hit without being invited or knowing about your port forwarding scheme is your home server. That means that if you run a firewall on the server, you can block any malicious traffic to any of your clients. This eliminates the need to install software firewalls on any of your clients, because the NAT router blocks all of those attacks before they ever hit any clients. Cool, huh?

So do some research, get familiar with the above concepts, and in our next installment we'll begin building a windows XP based home server. I'm really looking forward to it.

Installing a home server

One of the things that I am the most proud of in my technical life has not been anything I have done at work (though there is quite alot of stuff I have done at work that I am proud of). Nope, one of the most things that I am proud of is my home server. There is alot of talk about Windows Home Server , but in my opinion, this kind of implementation is just the tip of the iceberg. It's a file server, a glorified NAS box. My home server fulfills many roles like:

• webserver


• ftp server


• shared media drive


• NAT router (yes router)


• firewall


• video encoder (from command line no less)


• WiFi AP


• streaming music server


• remote bittorrent downloader


• mail server
  


• group ware server


• database server


• DNS Server


• DHCP Server

My server fulfills all of the roles above, and can be remotely administered through ssh. The entire thing runs on commodity hardware. In fact it runs on a nearly seven year old Celeron 1GHZ with 384Megs of ram and a 17GB and 120GB hdd. That, combined with an Ethernet switch, is one powerful little network. Regardless of being a "home" server, learning how to build and use one can teach principles of large servers and corporate networks. You can even expand to include other servers and have your own little cluster.

When building a server like this, first, ask yourself WHY you want to build it. What do you need it for, what do you want it to do, are there better alternatives? Before you ask, "because it would be cool and I can learn all sorts of things" IS a perfectly viable answer as to why you want to build your own server. What you want it to do however, is something you want to spend more time on. You should try to plan a little bit for this. What role is this machine going to fulfill? Is it going to just be a firewall/router? Then perhaps m0n0wall is for you. Just an NAS device? Try Freenas . For versatility and growth however, you may want to stick with a full OS like Linux or FreeBSD . It's even possible to use some versions of Windows.
In fact, my server started as a windows 2000 server and it ran great for a few years. I'd recommend using one of the *nixes, because I find them more robust for a server, and keep in mind, even if your desktop clients are all Windows, you can still use Linux or BSD for your server. They do play nice together with a little work.

In subsequent weeks, I will take a look a closer look and give more of a how-to for setting up some of the particulars of home servers, but I'd like to make some reccomendations here on what to decide in the planning stage.

One, decide how you are going to interact with your server on a regular basis. You will most likely need a mouse, keyboard, and monitor when you set up your server, but one of my goals was to have a box that was a mere appliance, and that meant headless. All administration on my box is done remotely through SSH. I can do this from work or from my home desktop. The caveat about this is that you really need to learn how to use the command line and command line tools. But you CAN load the Xorg gui or using windows remote desktop. You are going to want to keep your box running efficiently though, and you will find that graphical interfaces take up more overhead than most of you are going to want.

Two, decide what sort of hardware you are going to run on. Even Windows 2000 can run on some pretty thin hardware. FreeBSD and Linux headless machines can run on almost a pocket calculator (ok well not THAT thin, but you will be surprised). The processing power and memory are not the only considerations. Do you want to run RAID to handle your files? How much storage are you looking at? Will you have a separate drive for the operating system than you do for storage? If you are running as a router, you will need at least two network cards. If it's also going to be an access point, you will need a compatible WiFi card. Is it going to be in a little box in the closet, or will it be on your desk? How far away are you going to be running? Do you need to run Ethernet cables? Do you want to upgrade your network hardware to gigabit speed? I personally find that 100Mbps is fine for serving video and audio, but you may want to run multiple clients and feeds. Do you have plans to backup your data on an external drive?

Three, try and figure out some of the roles that your machine will be performing? Do you already have a hardware firewall/router? Do you need a DNS? Do you want to keep everything static, or use DHCP? Do you understand the basic theory behind IP addressing, subnets and NAT? Are you going to need a database for anything (if you plan on running php web pages, the answer to that is yes)? Is it going to be on all of the time? How are you going to secure the system or your shares?

Fourth, there are some miscellaneous considerations to think about. What kind of internet connection are you going to use? How is your internet connectivity? When I first set up my servers, my ISP had blocked incoming ports 80 and 25, which are the standard web server and mail server ports. I had to run both of those services on non-standard ports. See I learned something almost right off the bat. Then there is a time factor to be considered. My server grew and evolved over time to the machine that it is now. Don't try to do everything at once. It can take quite a while to install the various things on the machine. Give yourself time. Remember, this is a project. If you need this to be a mission critical machine, you may want to familiarize yourself with commercial server technologies. This is also beyond the scope of this article.

So get prepared, think about what you want, and next week, I will give a step-by-step guide to setting up a Windows based server, and for the two weeks after that, we'll look at using Fedora and FreeBSD for a similar purpose. I'm splitting the open source version into two weeks worth, and since many of the princples are the same for FreeBSD and Linux.

Danger of violent video games?

Hello there folks. I just saw a post on Slashdot entitled Violent Games 'Almost' As Dangerous as Smoking. And as a good violent-video-game-playing geek, I though perhaps I would weigh in my personal opinion.

First, just looking at the title, the article implies one of two things. Either a) violent media is the cause of almost as many deaths as smoking, or b) smoking is not as dangerous as originally thought. I'll tell you right now that it is not the latter, and as a smoker I was very disappointed to find that out. now if you haven't read the article please do so now. Click here TV, film and game violence seen as a threat . If you don't know, I have a little son, Logan. As a father, I am constantly considering what the effects of the media on my child will be, regardless of the fact that he is really too young to see any violent TV or play any violent games. And let me tell you, where the media is concerned, the level of violence in the media is the LEAST of my worries.

Now I realize that at this point most of you will be saying OMG, what a horrible father Panvamp is letting his young child watch violent media! This is not true. I will not let my kid watch anything that I feel is too over-the-top. No Kill Bill for my little guy, until I feel he is mature enough to handle it. I'm not going to be against him watching Spongebob Squarepants because there is a part where Spongebob gets hit with a rock. Or any of the Looney Tunes that are deemed "violent" nowadays that were once considered "slapstick". I have little problem with him seeing it, because if he decides to take a note from Spongebob and smack a playmate or say, his mother, with a rock, then he will be disciplined and punished and I guarantee he will not do it again, regardless of seeing it on TV again. This is part of an ancient skill called "parenting".

Notice that NONE of that has anything to do with the violence being a threat to his health or even "public health". How this relates to smoking deaths is beyond me. And when he is fifteen or sixteen and I do sit down and watch Kill Bill, I trust that my years of parenting will have convinced him that eviscerating someone with a razor sharp katana is just not something that should be done. If I felt that he would do that, not only have I failed as a parent, but there is no way he would be watching violent movies. But believe me, I will not let my kid grow up to be someone that is particularly violent. Will he get into fight or two? Sure. That is part of life. The aforementioned article seems to imply that exposure to violent media will make him more of a danger to health. Of course it fails to mention just WHO'S health. His health? "Public health"? I'm not sure.

The article seems to make a leap of logic as well. Even a smoker can tell you that smoking is not good for you and if you smoke enough, it likely will kill you. The article cites a study where people exposed to violent media are found to be more aggressive than normal. But aggression does not equal death. Not by a long shot. As anyone in the sales and business world will tell you, the aggressive marketers generally win over the more passive marketers. Aggression is good in the sports world as well (but I don't see any articles claiming football or boxing is as dangerous as smoking). Aggression is part of life, and in life, the more aggressive generally do better than the passive. Sure, there are limits on aggression. As in sports, life has rules. There are acceptable uses of aggression that can be used as long as these rules are followed. Hopefully, that is where that whole parenting thing comes in. believe me, I don't want my son being too passive either. If he lets people walk all over him, his enjoyment out of life will be far less. Some of the above statements will not be seen as politically correct, but it does not make them any less true.

Many of you will state that there seems to be a definite rise of violence in the modern world. While this is subjective, I can concur that there do seem to be more shootings and violence attributed to younger people these days. I can imagine that the average person will make the logical leap that these people were raised with violence and therefore violent media causes these incidents. I will go out on a limb here and say that it is not the violent media that causes these things, but a distinct lack of proper parenting. With the rising divorce rates and single parent families, I feel that I have more than a leg to stand on in regards to that statement. I'm not saying that divorced families or single parents cannot make good parents. To me, I feel that a single parent must work twice as hard to parent a child. I realize that it is hard work, but this is the price of having children. When parenting is not done, the child will fall through the cracks. They will become adults that were not told that violence in media should not be emulated and they did not learn that there is a punishment for being violent outside the rules of society.

There is one place where violent media and smoking are related. I realize that as my son gets older, despite my amount of parenting, he will be getting into things and doing things that I don't want him to do. Despite all of their hard efforts my parents ended up with me being a smoker. They were good parents, they told me smoking was bad. I made the choice at 15 to start smoking and the truth is, there really was nothing they could do to stop me. Violence is the same. If I was going to watch something at 15 that they didn't want me to watch, chances are I was going to do it anyway. I am not a violent killer now however, because my parents instilled in me values. They taught me the right thing to do. It didn't matter that I played games where I "fragged the weak, hurdled the dead", I knew that in real life, killing is wrong. I could go on and on stating that gun violence is on the rise because people do not train their kids how to use and respect a firearm, but that is really beyond the scope of this argument. The point here is that proper parenting is supposed to prepare a person for just these type of situations.

I think that if we want to avoid violence in the future society, we need to spend time with your kids. If you cannot handle this, please do not have children. Lord knows I don't want to get a bullet in the back because you didn't tell your kid that shooting someone like in Grand Theft Auto is not appropriate.

On Mailboxes and White Houses

Recently, I finished reading Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction by Nick Montfort. If you are into Interactive Fiction (IF) or have been in the past, this book is an excellent title on the subject. It's not that long of a read, but it provides a wonderful insight into the evolution and history of IF, especially Infocom products (arguably the best commercial IF). There are a few issues that I had while reading, but overall an outstanding work.

I want to break this review down by saying a little something about each chapter of the book. To me, the books preliminary chapters were sort of a slow read. The first chapter defined the "text adventure" and IF as to what it is, and what it is not. Likened to more of an electronic novel experience, the author makes a clear distinction as to what he will be discussing, as well as some of the history of interactive text and hypertext or electronic text. I found this chapter interesting, but I would imagine readers that were not familiar with IF will probably want to spend a little more time understanding the subject matter. Those who are quite familiar with the form may want to peruse this chapter quickly.

The second chapter discusses the riddle throughout history, literature and games. While riddles tend to fascinate me, this chapter had more of a "college research paper" feel to it. In fact, the first two chapters seemed to drag a little, and there were more than a few spots where the author's prose becomes a little "wordy", even catching a run-on sentence here and there . I can see, however, that these chapters are necessary, especially for readers less familiar with the form and computer gaming in general. There are a few choice riddles that I was not familiar with, but for the most part I had been exposed to many of the riddles and the history of them already.

The third chapter, in my opinion, is where the author truly begins to shine. I found myself fascinated by the evolution of Adventure, arguably the first well-known computer IF. He examines some of the university and research works in computer language interpretation, and the rise of some rather intelligent interpreters that came before Adventure, in addition to a detailed look at the first programming and limited academic distribution of
the work on some of the very first electronic networks. Perhaps even more fascinating, the author notes the various versions that were produced. One of the more interesting facets here is a look at how the source code was passed to subsequent authors, and how the versions of Adventure that people are familiar with today are the result of several authors, making it one of the first electronically collaborated work of its kind.

The fourth chapter pertains largely to Zork and works that were developed using large mainframes. For those who don't know IF at all (and its pretty hard for any geeks never to have heard of Zork), Zork is a fantasy IF work that became the public face of IF and Infocom. It is by far my favorite of the Infocom published titles. The version that is discussed in this chapter, though, is not the commercial version, but the sprawling, cavernous version developed at MIT by the original implementors (authors). It looks at some other works that were developed and distributed using the mainframe method as well. In addition to looking at the works, a view of the environment is discussed at length, looking at the PDP mainframe usage and MIT's influence of IF as well.

Chapter five was the best chapter in the book, Taking a look at commercial Zork, as well as some of the other works published by the great Infocom corporation. Montfort takes an extensive look at Deadline and A Mind Forever Voyaging, and documents many of Infocom's successes throughout the 1980's. If reading this chapter does not compel the reader to try and play some of these digital classics, nothing will. The last few parts of this chapter examine the decline and eventual fall of Infocom and IF's mass popularity with the rise of graphical works.

Chapter six was filled with much information that I was not aware of. Montfort looks at some of the more notable international IF works, like English titles in the UK and non-English titles in Europe and around the world. This chapter was a great read. I read the entire chapter in a few hours in fact, while sitting in the White Plains airport. A great and interesting read, the pages fly by and many less notable works are examined. The thing that struck me is the amount of nuance in the descriptions of some of the foreign works. This chapter makes clear that Montfort has done his research, and his clear documentations can be found through the entire book.

The final two chapters examine the rise of the phenomenon of independent IF, and the many works that came from Independent authors like Graham Nelson and Adam Cadre. There is information about the IF competition which exists even to this day, and a look on how IF affected culture and created its own culture. Some discussion is also contained about the earlier newsgroups like rec.arts.interactive-fiction and rec.games.interactive-fiction. These chapters clearly mark IF as a very important part of computer history and culture and lends further credence to the statement that IF works are serious works of computing and art.

I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in PC gaming and IF. It is a great book and deserves a place on any geek shelf. I don't know much about Nick Montfort, but I would like to think he is a kindred geek. I hope to read more works by this author, especially if he is as passionate about other subjects as he was about IF. So hit the link to the right or up top and go to Amazon.com and buy it. It is well worth the money.

Did you remove everything in the FreeBSD /usr/local/bin ?

Classic post again. This one is a boneheaded moment I had during an administration of my FreeBSD server. Since I learned from this mistake, many mistakes can be fixed on a nix based OS. Here you go.

Posted 2005-11-10

So I get an epiphany. I'll just write a script that manually deletes all of the trash out of my user's maildirs at a given time. So I was experimenting and decided to write a script that starts:

"rm -r /usr/home/*/Maildir/.Trash/cur/*"

that should do an rm -r in usr/home and the all of the users Maildir/trash/current folders.

I called it cleantrash and put it in /usr/local/bin.
I added it to the Crontab of the system to purge all trash at 3am.



Unfortunately I must have had a typo in the script. I must have written
"rm * -r /usr/home/*/Maildir/.Trash/cur/*"

because when I tested the script. I did an ls -l on /usr/local/bin


NOTHING ALL GONE

At least it isn't /usr/bin or even *gasp* /bin, but that was ALL of the binary files for all of my ports. (installed programs) Web didn't work, email didn't work...

Well just when I though all hope was lost, I figured I would rebuild portupgrade and try a portupgrade -faO.

Seemed to work at least partially. I couldn't access any of my php based hosted sites (including this one) and now I can. I HOPE this is the end of my bone-headedness. But at least with FreeBSD, almost anything can be fixed without a reimage of the whole os.

One more old post

Okay, one more classic post before I got to bed. In this post, true to geek style, I am complaining about the state of affairs that I am in and lamenting the past. I was a little whinier in the past I guess.

Posted 2005-11-13

About a year ago, Some friends and I started playing a Forgotten Realms 3.5 D&D Campaign. On the first couple of days that we played, I found something. I didn't even know I'd lost it.

It started simply enough. I played with the group and after I while I was my character. That hasn't happened to me for a LONG time. To actually be in another place at another time. It made me feel like I did when I played D&D 15 years ago.

So I re-went through D&D frenzy. This is characterized by an uncontrollable urge to buy every dungeons and dragons product that has come out all at the same time.

But about halfway through a bunch of Ebay purchases for books that I just might need for some campaign or other, it hit me. Or rather my wife demanded more time. So I started canceling some games to be with her. I understand that the requirements of a husband must take precedence over everything. I don't apologize for this, nor do I regret it. But as schedules of the players changed, and the wife needing me at home more, that feeling inevitably changed. I all but stopped going to my once beloved campaign.

It's strange. We do grow up only to pine for lost feelings and things. I REALLY wanted this feeling back. Very badly. Oh, I occasionally get glimpses of it, flashes of it when I play a great Xbox game that really draws me into the story (KOTOR), or while reading a really good Star Wars book, (Dark Rendezvous) or see a great move.

When I saw LOTR, I instantly felt saturated by that feeling. And I still kind-of get it when I watch them. Its weak, but it is definitely there. And the worst part -- I don't think anyone knows exactly what I am talking about. This is no mere nostalgia. It is an indescribable feeling. It makes one feel powerful, large, important, like existence is MORE than just the normal world. This feeling often gave me hope, self confidence, and it made me happy. I hadn't had the feeling even when I played other RPGS on computer or pen an paper. It was just something about this group, this game, that brought it back.

There is one other time when I get a similar feeling. It isn't quite that same swashbuckling adventure, king-of-the-world feeling that I used to get from D&D. Whenever I play any of the Zork games, or Lucasarts or Sierra adventures, I got a different feeling. And over the past year or so most of the Zork sites, most of the "abandonware" sites have been falling slowly into decay, like the Great underground Empire itself. There have been copyright issues, publishing problems, and I'm sure most of those netizens who took it upon themselves to preserve those games and those feelings do actually have better things do do than run a Zork site. Believe me, I know.

I picked up and read through the Domains of Dread D&D Ravenloft accessory last night. Just to read through a little of it. I can tell you this, I felt as if I had put my hands into the soil and sniffed my hands and felt the faintest smell of that feeling. Like it was long gone.

I suppose this could just be youth itself that I am missing. I don't want to admit it, but at 28 years old, I am no longer able to be a child in any way, shape or form. I cannot afford it. It is very possible that this is what a mid life crisis is. If this is what getting old is going to be like, I really don't think I am going to like it that much.

So I am going to make an early new year's resolution. This next year, hell or high water, I want to try and show others that feeling. I know if I do nothing that soon, Zork will disappear. Worlds like Krynn and Ravenloft will be unheard of in the RPG community.

What will this do? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. But I will not just let these loves from my youth roll over and die. I remember my first dragon con. I must have been 13 or 14. I remember setting foot in the Atlanta Hyatt. I saw faeries and knights and samurai and basically a bunch of weird people. Standing there among the masses, I realized something. I am not alone. Other people do these things too. And it is great that someone organized an event to bring them all together to celebrate the things that I love. I want to do that. I want to bring these things that have been lost back to those people. I'm certain there are others who feel the same as me.

below is a token of beginning. There are some great netbooks here: Go get them. Read through them. And see if you can feel that feeling.
The Grave of the kargatane


And if you are curious about Zork, normally you get conflicting viewpoints of where to start.

Start here

And for the hands down most informative zork site on the web,

The chronology of quendor

Thanks,

panvamp

Here's another classic

This is another classic post I did on my old blog. Its an opinion post on the state of video game emulation. If anything, it is MORE true today than when I first posted it.

Posted 2005-11-19

What happened to emulation?

I remember Back in 1996 or 7 when I first got into emulation. Retrogames was the absolute best site there was There was a new MAME release every month or so, and rom sites were all over the place... and now, despite huge advances in xbox emulation, the ENTIRE community seems to have dried up. Its like everyone who actually were interested in emu's just got bored and hung up their joysticks. Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure emu authors with that kind of challenge probably have REAL jobs, and I know that there was pressure from certain copyright groups that shut down alot of the ROM sites.

I do remember, however a certain elitism formed right about when the CPS2 Emu's started showing up. Oh, we won't allow the emulators to play any games newer than 2 years old. MAME still keeps to this as far as I can tell. And many of the authors and web admins also adopted this policy. And then it was not "kosher" to discuss these games, or compiling your own emu to play these games. Yet the dumps still existed. SOMEONE was playing these games. Come to find out, that despite their high and mighty comments, many of these authors thought that if an arcade game was older than 2 years that somehow, that was enough time for the game to be considered fair.

The problem with this thought is well documented on the abandonware site Home of the Underdogs (The underdogs). Her thought is that if the company is no longer making money off of the game, that its probably ok to post. She does not however say that it is not piracy. She makes it very clear that TECHNICALLY it violates patent law. She just says its more for posterity. The emulation community is different. They seem to think that if the magic 2 year number is up than its ok for them to download roms. I Mean who REALLY has a PCB for EVERY game that they play on an EMU? NOBODY! FACE IT, EMULATION USERS ARE PIRATES!!! I'm just not sure I get the piracy, and "only-kind-of-piracy" thing down. You're still pirates, what does it matter if you play them or not. Sure you can SAY don't play them but WTF do you have to code that into your emu's? I mean do you REALLY think that that is going to protect you from Nintendo or Sony? NO WAY.

I really think that that kind of argumentative mentality really led to a decline in the popularity of emulation. I don't see why emulation would all of a sudden just go away. Hopefully it will come back, but almost every emu site I know of are never updated anymore.

Maybe the internet itself is just dying.

Depressing.

Classic Posts

For about 3 years I blogged on my own server. Of course, nobody at all read any of my posts. But since I started this new one I figure I'll try to post some of my better posts. I call these classic posts.
Posted 2005-12-21

Geez. I have just been working and surfing, and I have a new gripe to talk about.

I have always gotten along with people, and I like to think that I am well liked. I can have a decent conversation with pretty much everybody I meet; black, brown, women, men doesn't matter. But, since High school, I have never really "fit in". It bothers me in a way, I mean I like lots of people and lots of people like me, but I am not like anyone else. I have some kinships, friendships, but about the only person that even comes close is my wife. However, even she has some major differences from me.

When the internet first started I started feeling kinships with other gamers and geeks, A like minded people that just fit together. But even that, now that everyone and their mother is on the "interweb", is starting to fail me. The blatant rampant liberalism, Marxism, communism of all the people on the web is appalling. The fact that most people speak about blogging, email and p2p like they actually have some idea of how it works (they don't) sickens me. Now grandma to little johnny is out there all over the internet, and alot of people are just begging the FCC or the UN to come in and take over, so that they can feel safe "on-line". This is not me.

I respect works like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Even now, after their large popularity and so-called "geek chic" B.S, these things are still used as a punchline. AD&D, which I am CONVINCED that the large majority of people just do not understand, is another good example. Before saying that you played RPG's was almost expected. But now, you post anything about it and OOOPS, you're just a geek again.

Sometimes I just feel lost. I am seen by most people as an impossible dichotomy of contradictions. I'm Libertarian. That means that every single liberal I talk to thinks I'm a right-wing wacko, and every conservative I talk to thinks I'm a pinko. I'm against organized religion, but I actively encourage personal religious experiences. That means that I am lost among atheists, but I am also lost among religious zealots. I am a gun owner who does not support the NRA's policies of protecting hunters tooth and nail but being "not-so-vocal" when the stupid assault weapons ban came around.

I just don't know what to do. I feel alone sometimes. I'm a happy person and I like who I am. It's just sometimes I feel like a misift. I guess that happens to everyone... And I know that everyone thinks that they are the worst misfit of them all.

I REALLY want to move somewhere where I can be myself. And with other people that are like me. If only I could live on Summerisle, like in The Wicker Man (sans the Christian burning thing).
It makes me wonder If I am actually capable of building such a place somewhere where we would not be bothered with any laws but our own... and then I wonder if I could actually fill an island with people like me...

Well, If I don't post before then, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and the like.
panvamp

How to become a geek in 10 easy steps.

One of the things that I wanted to do with this site was to educate people into what I think makes a "geek." "Geek" used to be a dirty word. It was a title that I did not want to have in high school. (Yet I got that title nonetheless) I suppose that it still is to some extent, but far less people are ashamed of using it to describe themselves, myself included. I wish to welcome geeks and non-geeks to this site.

I realize that there are alot of people who think that they are geeks because they use myspace and facebook all day. Sure your email box might be filled to the brim, and you may spend more time online than you do sleeping. You might have the fastest, fanciest computer on the market. You get so many IM's you need a second monitor. You might be sitting there with this smug grin on your face saying to yourself, "Oh yeah, he's talking about me." You might even have a nice, cushy job in the IT industry. However, that does not necessarily make you a "geek".

Sure many geeks do that kind of stuff. But there is a certain patina to a real geek. Geeks have a specific feeling, a sort of flair to them. It's not even tangible. But when you are a geek, you know it - through and through. And perhaps the most telling part? Other geeks know it. They can smell it all over they instantly know when they are talking to a geek. The worst pitfall though? They can instantly weed out "wannabe geeks". For some strange reason, some normal people try to pass themselves off as a geek. Perhaps they think it will help them in the IT industry (it won't), or perhaps they think that they can gain some respect among non-geeks. This method will backfire on you if you try it around a real geek. Not only will it backfire, but the geek that sniffs you out will surely tear your ego to ribbons. Trust me, geeks are good at belittling non-geeks.

Well, for those of you who are wannabes, there are ways to become a geek, but understand this: most geeks do/did not try to be geeks. They were born that way. So don't blame me if you do all these things and you still aren't considered a "geek". It's likely that if you don't get it, most likely you never will.

1. Unix/Linux COMMAND LINE USE

This one is probably one that will get you the most cred. If you can use the *nix command line, you are well on your way to becoming a geek. Heck, there are probably geeks out there that have only this requirement. Learn Bash. Learn other shells. You want to be able to administer an entire *nix box from SSH command line ONLY. I also think it is fair to say that if you can master VI then you pretty much instantly become a geek.
NOTE: Though necessary in the modern world, Gnome and KDE are not a show that you are a geek. In fact, if you can muddle through a Linux install and just get to an X gui and never learn the command line at all, then you are pretty much the textbook definition of POSER.

2. Fanboy-ism




This one is also pretty much a requirement. To be considered a REAL geek, you have to be completely obsessed with some form of entertainment. And I mean obsessed. You are the source of all information on the subject. In fact, you know more about this than the creators of the work. There is a little latitude with this, but some good examples are Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dr. Who. You could also be a fanboy of forms of entertainment like Anime or Horror movies.
NOTE: Being a sports geek does not count. I don't care who you are or how much you know, but knowing obscure details about the 4th game of the 1974 world series isn't going to impress any geek. Knowing what the "T" in James T. Kirk on the other hand might get you somewhere. (It's Tyberius)

3. The art of the Flamewar

If you are unable to start an internet flamewar, then you need to learn. It's actually pretty simple. You just find a nice, unsuspecting messageboard where people are having a civil conversation, and you pretty much make a post telling everyone how wrong they are. The art of it, and this is something that only geeks seem to have mastered, is keeping a flamewar going for a long, long time. Bonus points if you know that you are totally wrong, but you start a flamewar anyway. Remember, politics and religion are the best ammo for this.

4. RPG's


Since Dungeons and Dragons came out, it has been a refuge for the geek imagination. Other RPG's are good too, but I am specifically talking about pen and paper RPG's. Computer and console RPG's count to some degree, but there is nothing geekier than dice and books. ALL NIGHT LONG. Yes, participate in an all night RPG session, and chances are you will climb that geek ladder that much faster.
Live action RPG's or Larps, are another insta-geek thing. If you LARP, you probably are a geek.

5. Old school

Geeks are all about "old school". The concept is kind of hazy and ambiguous but trust me, if you want to be a geek, you have to be "old school". This is another one where you have a little latitude. you can be an old school gamer/programmer/hacker, and this includes things like Interactive Fiction, Sierra or Lucasarts adventure games, old Unix distros, programming in FORTRAN, using BBS's playing a MUD, using gopher, the list goes on and on. It doesn't really matter if most of these things happened before you were born, you just need to learn how to be old school. And you have to constantly complain that things aren't like they used to be. For example, "DSL? Pfft. I used to log on to bulletin boards all the time and get stuff on a 9600bps modem. " Now that's old school.

6. Pr0n

Not a single geek is EVER going to admit it but geeks are experts at finding porn. And they all have tons of it. Like I said every one of them will argue to the last breath, but just because it's well hidden, doesn't mean it isn't there.

7. Freedom

Geeks love their freedom. Okay, maybe not politically, but geeks love to have freedom in the digital world. Being involved in an open source project is like getting a geek tattoo. Many geeks will not use anything but free software. Whereas some of the above geek attributes are parodies, I actually agree with free software. But for this to be geek necessity, you must understand, you have to be a Nazi about it. Here is a little example of this attribute at work:

User: Hi, I was having a problem with IE. It seems to crash on a specific page and it takes down my whole computer. can you tell me how to fix it?
Geek1: Switch to Linux.
Geek2: Get rid of Windows.
User: Right but I have to use IE for this.
Geek1: If you don't use Linux you are stupid.
Geek2: Linux is superior in so many ways.
User:But that doesn't solve my current problem...
Geek1: Hey man if you wanna be part of the Borg, this is the kinda stuff M$ is gonna pull. Switch to Linux and help us fight the MAN!

See, the geeks didn't even try to help this user. They didn't even let him speak. Now THAT is freedom at work ladies and gentlemen. Everyone is free to make their own decision about their operating system. As long as it's Linux. Notice that they didn't try to fix the problem that the user was having. You can usually see this in action by a geek's constant use of cute little symbols and sayings: M$, Microshaft,Winblows, etc. Strangely, BSD users don't seem to suffer this kind of affliction, they just seem to be happy using what they like.
NOTE: There are also multiple kinds of free. Free as in beer, free as in speech, free as in not wearing any underwear... you name it.

8. Slashdot


If you really want to get good at the above skills, hang out on Slashdot. On it's own, its actually a really good news site. The comments section however? Oh yeah. That's were you separate the men from the geeks. It's the veritable Mecca for geeks. And every geek on that site knows everything about everything. Really, just ask them.

9. The constant critics


Ever see a movie that sucked? Sure, everyone has. But to a geek, EVERY movie sucks. Geeks are never satisfied with anything. EVER. Oh sure you get some geeks that actually like George Lucas now and again, but most geeks will say that everything sucks. Modern video games: they suck. Modern music: it sucks. Movies: they suck. The current Internet: it sucks. You don't even really have to hate these things, but never admit to liking anything that is popular. EVER.

And finally:

10. Vastly inflated self worth

As a geek, the most important and smartest genius in the universe is you. You can't be a geek without that I'm-so-much-better-than-you mentality. Oh sure lots of people on the planet are like this, but with geeks, almost every one, without fail will have this quality. They can solve all of the world's problems, they know what is good and not good and they all are capable of doing anything, they just don't feel like it.
Like nuclear war, geeks could stop it, but the world doesn't deserve to benefit from said geek intelligence. But it's not only intelligence. If you ask them, every geek on the planet could kick your ass, if it wasn't for their asthma or shin splints or glasses or whatnot.
And it doesn't stop there. Geeks have a long history of taking credit for things that they couldn't possibly have done. Oh you know that stock market crash in 2000? Oh yeah, that was them. hacking the CIA? Yeah they all did that too. The Chicago fire? Yup you guessed it. Geeks.


So there you go, follow these steps and you too will be a hardcore geek. But don't forget I will always be more hardcore than you. ALWAYS.