Annals of the Homestarmy

Games on Linux

nospam@example.com (Ancient of Days) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:45:08 -0600

The live.linux-gamers.net is a LiveCD distribution of Linux which runs a bunch of games "directly...from DVD without the user in need to know about Linux or care about his system".

For those unfamiliar, a LiveCD is a way of running an entire operating system from a single CD without affecting your normal OS - no installation, you simply insert the disk, reboot your computer using the disk as the boot device, do the tasks you're interested in, and then reboot from your normal hard-drive when you're done. So the idea here is that your computer becomes a game console when it boots from the CD, and goes back to being a computer when you reboot.

D&D Write Up--Lissah

nospam@example.com (Daboo) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:53:35 -0600

Fifteenth day of Flamerule
Year of Wild Magic

I keep telling myself the good news, which is that all this walking is really helping keep my legs in shape. We've been to three different towns in the past tennight, and I'm about ready to soak in a nice hot bubble bath for a few hours. Unfortunately, none of my new traveling companions seem to know the first thing about relaxation, much less the sort of skin-care regimen that my poor feet require. I think I might be developing callouses on my heels!

Today we arrived in Mirabar, which I've always heard has some good patrons and a decent night life, but so far all I've done is walk around the city with that lanky black-haired half-elf, Chlorine. You know, I just don't understand her. The guards look at us, and she might as well be walking past trees for all the reaction she gives them. You'd think she could run a comb through her hair once in a while. Sheesh.

Anyway, we went to see Lady Frath, but she wasn't in. Apparently she's hard to see, but I think we can sneak in and talk to her later tonight. She's the noble who was an important patron of Aust Liadon, the half-bearded man we saw at the wedding. It seems to me that we're putting an awful lot of effort in finding a guy who did, after all, help us kill kobolds, but my companions seem to think he's important. And after all, he did try to kill my poor little Clarence, so I guess I'd like to see that big brute Harcrit toss him over a rooftop. Harcrit likes that sort of thing.

I guess Chlorine got tired of watching me get all the attention from the guards, because she decided to go back to the inn while I went to visit Taliend. In fact, strangely, every one of my companions decided to stay behind. It's all for the best, because Taliend knows some things about me that I'd prefer remained secret. Luckily he's discreet, or I might have needed to deal with him before this. But he, like all good bards, knows when to keep silent as well as when to sing. It's a good thing my companions are easy to manipulate, because none of them have suspected anything either. Although that halfling is kind of sly...I'd better keep my eye on him.

Taliend told me some interesting information about the situation. It looks like it's a wider conspiracy than we had imagined. And, unfortunately, we have some competition. Here's hoping that Harcrit, Han, and Chlorine are the very best at what they do. If not, we might just lose our chance.

4E: Some Random Bits

nospam@example.com (Ancient of Days) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:50:55 -0600

I know, I promised some long, juicy posts about Fourth Edition, but I just haven't had the time that I feel the posts deserve, so here are a few random pieces that I've collected in my preparations for the main articles. It's a bit long, and may not be of interest to everyone, so I put it behind the jump.
Continue reading "4E: Some Random Bits"

From the mouth of the man himself

nospam@example.com (Sideshow) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:35:56 -0600

Some information about Dr. Horrible from Joss himself, including when you can see it for yourself.

Visual Studio for Enterprise Architects - or "Where did my 'Generate Database' menu option go?"

nospam@example.com (Ancient of Days) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:32:01 -0600

Trying to work with Johnny, MG, and Sideshow (?) on a side project, I recently came across the fact that Visio 2007 no longer includes the "Generate Database" option. You have to install "Visio for Enterprise Architects" - a product no longer available via MSDN subscriptions. Luckily, I still had a copy of the ISO laying around, so after mounting it as a device, I attempted to install it, only to be greeted by an error telling me that I have to install a supported version of Visual Studio.

A bit of google work indicated that the "supported versions" were 2003 and 2005 - since I already had 2008 installed, I didn't really want to go backwards, so I fired up procmon from "\\live.sysinternals.com" (which I recommend mapping as a shared drive on any Developer machine) and watched for the key it was trying to find in the registry.

Ta-da! In the key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Setup\VS\VSTD, it's looking for a String value "ProductDir". It doesn't seem to care what value is in this key (currently, I have "Microsoft, you guys really need to pull your heads out of your arses" and it works fine!)

Since I didn't ever install 2003 or 2005 on this machine, I had to create everything below the "VisualStudio" level using regedit.

(BTW: I finally fixed those annoying orange xdebug error boxes when you save your article - xdebug rocks, other people's code doesn't.)

I Have Failed... Or Dr. Horrible Teaser Video now online

nospam@example.com (Sideshow) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:39:12 -0600

AoD's ignorance of the below teaser reminded me that I have failed you...

Consider it remedied.

I Love the World

nospam@example.com (The Mad Giggler) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:24:23 -0600

For those who read today's XKCD and said, "Huh?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5BxymuiAxQ

(On Behalf of Chlorine) D&D Writeup

nospam@example.com (Ancient of Days) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:56:49 -0600

This mace thing is taking longer than anticipated. I didn't even sign up for this. I thought the wedding was going to be a weekend gig. Now I'm stuck with a group of adventurers who can't even keep a journal properly much less quest with any sort of efficiency.

To sum up last week, Han and Harcritt, who I guess aren't any good at sleeping even, crept off into the night while we were at Triboar. Han must've had a hunch that there was some kind of bureaucratic information that needed to be had. He was smart enough to take Harcritt along since Harcritt's too proud to take his armor off even on a reconnaissance mission. He may as well have been wearing bells. After Harcritt was captured, Han was simply too honest to follow through with what could have been a beautiful double-cross (for the greater good). I heard that Harcritt's attempt to talk his way out the arrest was most humorous considering the guy has the charisma of a wooden wall.

The next morning we got all the information we needed. The authorities were VERY understanding. I'll have to make a note of the lax system of law enforcement in this town if I ever turn to a life of crime. Apparently the punishment for mass murdering the entire town is four hours in the mobile stocks.

We headed up north, backtracking through Longsaddle where Han had some paperwork to turn in. That little guy is so obsessed with paperwork. Oh yeah, and we left that dark kid Sol back in Triboar. Everyone else was like, oh he'll be fine, he's just hangin' out in that temple. I consider myself pretty religious, but after three hours I'm outta there. Hopefully one of us left a note where we were going. Maybe he'll be in the temple still when we come back in a month or so.

BANDITS!... AGAIN! We decided to avoid the fight, which I don't mind since I pride myself on hiding. Unfortunately, during the "hide skirmish" I bumped into Harcritt and all his bells. The robbers, there were four of them, spotted the two of us. Ever since his arrest, Harcritt has been strangely silent (perhaps he had a weird prison experience), so I had to do the talking. This may sound like a total cliche, but I'd much rather just be one with nature than to talk to people. We probably could have attacked them, but it would have been risky. All of the rest of the party were in good hiding places, but if they didn't come to help in time, it would have been difficult for the two of us to handle four of them. I decided to play a little crazy.

They began the conversation by letting us know there was a toll for passing this area of the land. Rather than thanking them for their time and saying we'd just find a non-toll expanse of land, I told them I'd be willing to pay five gold pieces. They were surprised by my audacity in naming my robbery price and conferred. Fortunately for us, we were able to hear that the bandits we slaughtered on the other road have reached this group's ears. The other crew were "work-peers" of this group. Nervous for their lives they asked how many were in our party. I replied that there was only one of us, which must've been insulting and scary to the gentlemen. I also said I knew their compatriots well before their heads came off. They gladly took the five gold and scuttled off.

Han and I decided it would be a good idea to follow them despite some grumblings from others. Shortly into the stalking, Clarence the kobold made a ruckus and now he and Lissah were spotted by the bandits. Lissah demanded that they give her five gold pieces back which further contributed to their condition of reverse split-personality.

I'm glad Longsaddle was a short stay. These cities make me nervous. Whilst there I came across some noteworthy tavern info. 1) Taliend, Lissah's bard master is heading to Mirabar with the groom from the wedding and his mother (the Westras), 2) Abbott Fostrik, the priest who was supposed to perform the ceremony never returned from his monastery. Hmmm. Well, next stop Mirabar!

On the way there I dazzled the party with my extensive florae and faunae knowledge. One thing we were able to observe is a species of mushroom that only eats other mushrooms! Fascinating.

A Great Hour of T.V. and One with Promise

nospam@example.com (Sideshow) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:34:32 -0600

So gotta say, I highly recommend wipeout.

Also, as a fan of Japanese games shows, I thought I Survived A Japanese Gameshow was pretty good when it wasn't being bogged down by the Reality TV Crap.

The Miracle of Ice Cream

nospam@example.com (The Mad Giggler) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:24:20 -0600

Thanks go to thRhett for his recommendation of Farr ice cream.
Continue reading "The Miracle of Ice Cream"

Test Your Vocabulary, Donate Some Rice

nospam@example.com (Ancient of Days) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:30:23 -0600

I couldn't get past 49 - I actually hit 49 three different times, but each time I would then miss one and end back up around 47.

I have a bit of an issue with how they score, it though - I find it difficult to believe that they consider 'actuate' to be as unfamiliar as 'mingy'.

Patriotism and Wiretaps

nospam@example.com (Johnny Elbows) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:07:24 -0600

A new domestic wiretap law is looking like it will soon pass the House of Representatives (see this article for more information).

Among other things, this law will, for all intents and purposes, grant retroactive immunity to the telecommunications providers who, illegally, cooperated with past wiretap requests. Why are our representatives issuing a "Get Out of Jail Free" card to these organizations who deserve punishment for their criminal actions? This quote from the above-referenced article is very revealing:

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the intelligence community depends on "the backing of patriotic private companies."

In other words, according to Representative Hoekstra, these organizations deserve to be let off the hook because they were patriotic. Perhaps, according to Hoestra's definition of patriotism, they were patriotic. I have to say though, that I have a different definition of patriotism.
Continue reading "Patriotism and Wiretaps"

Screw Gabe and Tycho

nospam@example.com (Ancient of Days) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:23:09 -0600

I know they're not fans, but they still blew it - they should have been the first to tell us that Spore's Creature Creator is now available for download.

This is GAMING NEWS.

Download Firefox 3

nospam@example.com (Ancient of Days) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:17:14 -0600

Seems that the Firefox guys have finally fixed their scalability issues enough that most of you could upgrade to Firefox 3. There are a lot of improvements, including in both speed and memory usage.

Backup Software at GAOTD

nospam@example.com (Ancient of Days) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:42:05 -0600

I haven't had a chance to "vet" it yet, but probably will not so I'm posting it anyway. If you have been searching for a good backup solution, maybe Macrium Reflect, today's Give Away of the Day, will fit your needs. Mostly, it caught my eye because it claims to be

the only imaging solution to offer Linux, BartPE, and Windows PE 2.0 based system recovery options.