Jozeph

Merry silly season

2009-12-24T10:34:47Z

As all the news dries up as politicians and celebs stop being out in the open, and the rest of us pray that a small polynesian island doesn't blow up, so dawns silly season, where journalists go and find loonies around the world and tell us about them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtDXq0xD9zY

Man marries Dating Sim character.

..

For Science!!

2009-12-23T19:26:50Z

(it works, bitches)

From the university of Nottingham :)

http://www.periodicvideos.com/ Periodic table of videos (check out the professor!)

http://www.sixtysymbols.com Sixty Symbols

part two.

2009-12-21T15:35:35Z

This is what happens if I get an idea and then a whole load of keyboard time. part two (maybe) of some.

Roll the fan-fic!

The wind blasting off the river had the rain coming down sideways, soaking me to the skin. The flimsy, slashed blouse had reacted badly to the water, and was clear as the grimy glass I was peering through into the warehouses, looking for somewhere to hole up.

The flow must have been with me. The third house along had a lone guard, sat idly thumbing a book, eating some kind of flatbread, smeared with a greasy congealed yellow and red coating. He jumped as I bashed the door glass out with my hammer. Easy pickings.

I quickly shredded the skirt with a shard of glass, and wrapped the hammer containing it's final rounds. I didn't want to have to expalain that again. By the time the guard had plucked up enough courage to open the door, he was facing nothing out of the ordinary. Just a bedraggled little chinese girl in torn clothing shivering in the rain.

"foo' prease mista", I stammered in my best ham. He stared at me blankly. I mimed eating, and looked expectantly.

"beat it, chinky. I ain't got nothing for your kind. go beg some place else."

I let my arms drop from my chest to clutch my stomach, and shivered. "i' so col' tonigh'" I gave him my best doe eyes, hoping he wasn't paying that much attention to them any more. "i make you warm for ea'?"

He dragged his gaze back up to my face and I dodged it. I let his hand grab my shoulder and throw me through the door out of the rain, where I bounced wetly on the palleted floor.

"guess I'm feeling kind today. you better be worth it."

I rolled to my knees and held up my hand. "come in light. i make you warm."

As he approached I wrapped my arm around his leg, rubbed my face aginst his thigh, feeling the heat I was generating. I slithered up him, rolling my hips to meet his, and coiling my arms around his chest, easing over his body until I could draw his sidearm.

There was the flash of realisation. The surge of chi as my body bent like willow over water around his feeble attempt to grab my arms. The look of surprise as I twisted the gun back up to point blank, and heaved the clunky metal movement into action.

..

I flopped down in the reclining office chair with my oversized guard's uniform, picked a piece of skull off the peperoni and chowed down to contemplate my next move.

Times they are a-changin.

2009-12-18T23:57:18Z

Another long night of me vs. the keyboard.

This is what my mind popped up for the results of the 30's face-off. Obviously, I wouldn't reccommend reading it if you don't want to know what the outcome of the first story arc is going to be!

It isn't narrative (I may do that later - cue fan-fic!), but it is a future history.

The shift has massive effects. The Dragons free-for-all attitude pervades the world. History says there was still a second world war, as the world tries to determine who is the big fish. When the dust settles, it's a massive mexican stand-off between the two biggest fish - America (and allies) and Russia (and allies). All in all, not a lot has changed in major brush strokes.

But round the edges, a lot has. With the Dragons relying heavily on Fu and Magic, people are a lot more accepting of the improbable. Masked avengers don't have to run from the cops any more. The juncture modifiers of Hong Kong apply to the whole world, and have done since 1937. Supernatural creatures can enter fringes of society and not be immediately witch-hunted (they may even score with high-school cheerleaders..). Hedge magic is commonplace, though not mainstream, and it works.

The contemporary (2007) world of the Dragons is a world of impossibilities on the brink of collapse. Things don't happen because the government says so. Things happen becasue everyone up the chain likes the guy in charge. A plucky individual can sway the world, and quite frequently does. In fragile areas, like africa, the balkans, the middle east, and many others, no-one rules for long, and revolution is yearly occurance.

The supernatural is almost at tipping point into common knowledge, though not acceptance. Everyone knows that the president (or party chairman) has guards that are way beyond what a normal human could do, but no-ones ever seen it. The final clinging remnants of the skepticism engineered into the world since 1850 by the Ascended, shattered by the supersoldiers of the second world war like Catain America and The Red Skull, are about to depart.

In december 2012, an unknown hacker going by the moniker Captain Chaos posts a cryptic message to slashdot (a popular hacker information/news website). The message reads simply "welcome back". What's unusual about it is that it tops all ratings and the moderators cannot delete it. Within not too long, the internet community is wondering what is being welcomed. Days after that, thousands of micro reports, followed by many major reports, of magical phenomena and supernatural creatures spontaneously reverting to monstrous form surface from across the world. Captain Chaos posts ":)". The thread is locked.

The five years that follow are a brital battle between humans and supernaturals. Humans have numbers, and most of the technology. Supernaturals have, well, supernatural abilities. This goes badly for the humans, reducing the world's population by about two billion, most of whom are victims of supernatural feeding after fighting the other humans.

The war's turning point comes with organised human resistance. Human crime dynasties, long acustomed to organisation under the noses of vastly superior foes, begin to slowly oust governmental supernaturals and pull favours. In 2018 a multi-billionare called Damian Knight, with additional resources from the Mafia, Yakusa and Triad families declares his intent to build a human refuge for humans in northern california. He gets as far as raising the foundations of his city before it is overrun with supernaturals in 2020.

After two more years, Humans want peace, they can't afford the losses. In the ruins of Knight's city, the human leaders meet the supernatural spokespeople to discuss a truce. Both sides are unaware of the true significance of the location.

As the final delegates arrive, the crime family's trap is sprung. Most of the city was layered with anti supernatural materials (such as silver). Couple this with the several kilotons of explosive yield buried years before in the city's structures, and a coup-de-gras was dealt to both sides. The family's secret weapon, millions of trained monster hunters revealed themselves and began to cleanse the supernatural from the world.
With the bulk of the supernatural forces now able to be combatted, and the human governments reeling from the shock, the family moved it's people into power. Once the governments, and hence the humans, under control, the family turned it's resources toward researching ways to alow it's operatives to take on the big supernatural targets. After several years, functional cyber technology was issued to the hunters, making them equivalent to thier supernatural foes in body as well as mind.

By 2057, the war is over. The supernaturals that are left are either too large or too wily for the Syndicate to bother tracking down. If one becomes a problem, a squad of Fu-fighting cyborgs with magical support is dispatched to deal with them. The same is true for dissidents against the Syndicate, or rivals to it's rule. Thier vice-like grip (pun wholly intended) on the world is every bit as solid as the Buro, but they aren't enforcing equality. They are reveling in the lack of it. The rich/ poor divide is clear as a good sake, those that have have, those that don't won't ever. Those unfortunate to be in the middle may as well be poor and aren't happy. So the rockerboys say.

The year is now 2067. A rival corporation selling biotech has come to the fore. Thier tagline "Sowing the seeds of new flesh" is winning over a lot of the populace away from syndicate-produced metal enhancements. A splinter group of the triads, calling themselves the lotus petals have begun undermining drug operations in asia. In europe, the spiritual lodge of masons has decried the use of cybertechnology, and many have pledged thier voices behind this campaign. And there are always those people for whom "we own you" just isn't acceptable.

The Syndicate is blissfully unaware of the secret war. But now they run the future, that will change, or they will never have existed.

ICHI

2009-12-17T23:33:29Z

Tonight, I have mostly been watching:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060256/

not something I have come across before, although it is a re-make. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it. Plot is good, downsides are the Ham, and the brief flip-flop cut fight scenes. But it's not about the fighting, so you can forgive that bit.

Also

Warrior King
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427954/

Nothing at all to do with a warrior king (well maybe a bit). Suspect it's a title chosen to appeal to western market, but that doesn't stop it being an excellent movie (if you like that sort of thing). More on the martial arts (YUM YUM YUM Capoeira vs Maui Thai 5-10 minute show-down :) Not so much on the plot, but hey, cheap excuse for lots of equal-opportunity butt-kicking!

Note to self: burning down temples is only bad Karma if it doesn't look awesome.

Feng Shui

2009-12-16T23:55:04Z

I'm feeling very like writing stuff just now. I've spent all evening writing up some ideas I've been kicking about for a Feng Shui campaign. Based in the newly formed 1930's juncture shortly prior to, and in the immediate aftermath of the critical shift that spawns a new faction, and radically alters the future.

Obviously this is completely non-cannon, as cannon for the RPG is still stuck in the late 90's. But cannon for the gameworld background is in 2009.

Anyway, for interested parties, I still don't know when I'll run it. I may just write it up, like Snowball's legendary Star Wars campaign.

But I'll be posting bits of things here for anyone who cares. Do pop a comment if you have anything to comment on.

Here are some thoughts on sorcery (posted here so you don't end up with a bile-filled rant on play styles)

Sorcery Revisited

Blast re-do

It was felt by players (who I think rather missed the point of sorcery), that the blast shtick of sorcery wasn't on a par with the other shticks of sorcery, and wasn't on a par with just picking up a gun.
The argument being that with guns you get variety, wheras with blast, you are limited to the few blast types you have. It was noted also that whilst blast had secondary effects, they weren't as useful as the gun secondary effects of dual wielding or mookinating.
This is an attempt to rectify these concerns.

When a sorcerer buys blast as a shtick, they do not pick blast effects as written. Blast now gives 'slots' for a sorcerer to pick effects. You can only carry with you appropriate sorcerous acoutriments to produce effects up to your slots, but these may change between adventures. What you have in your slots need not be declared until you use it.
example:
Kang Li has the blast shtick with 3 slots, and normally carries Fire powder (for fire), The tongue of a swamp demon (for acid), and an enchanted talisman of the names of Destruction (for disintegration).
Knowing that he will soon face Four Burning Fists, a demon of fire, he elects to spend some (off-screen) time studying, and enters his next confrontation carrying flakes of eternal cold (for ice), rather than fire powder.

As in the core rulebook, a sorcerer may buy new units of blast shtick. These can be used to buy extra 'slots' as above, or to purchase up to two stars (as stars on gun stats), which lower the difficulty of targetting mooks with all of your blast effects.

I feel that the fact a sorcerer can't dual wield blasts (as BGB) or reduce shot cost of blasts v mooks (as CoC) is something that they will have to deal with. Guns characters have to have something that makes them special. You get other stuff than blast, you know.
Alternatively, if your sorcerer has some kind of mental block and can't figure out what the rest of sorcery is good for, let them buy gun shticks and apply them to the blast shtick. Just remember to ammo limit them as an offset (until they buy lightning reload...).

-----------

Buff magic

FS doesn't sit well with buffers as we know them from MMORPGs, and DnD. Sorcerers, for the most part are portrayed as summoners, influencers or healers. With the advent of the Purists, they brought a new flavour to Magic, with the concept of paradox and probablility control.
It has been tabled that this might lead to 'buffs' being available as a shtick in thier own right, as the proablility master changes you ability to hit, thier ability to defend, make the right choices etc. My personal belief is that all of this can be done with proper application of fertility and influence.
Remember that what's in the book is examples to show you the way to go with the shticks, not a limited spell list.

Try these:

Resist disease/ poison: HEAL
Increased toughness: HEAL
Increased speed: MOVEMENT
boost to-hit: FERTILITY (boost/ curse luck)
boost to-dam: FERTILITY (by virtue of increasing to-hit)
boost dodge: MOVEMENT
apply special damage type: BLAST or SUMMONING

16 YO letter meme

2009-12-11T09:16:44Z

letter to a 16 year old me.

Hello, this is you from 2009.

Time travel has been invented. As part of a non-governmental initiative to educate the populace and de-stabilise the economy, and study the effects of temporal paradox, we are being encouraged to let our 16-year-old selves know about this fact.

So, in the spirit of Back to the Future, here is the news. Which may not happen if there is a lot of this temporal stuff.

In four years time a company called Google will write a search engine (which is something to do with the internet - ask Dad), BUY LOTS OF SHARES as soon as you can.
When football comes home, remember it lives in Germany.
The world doesn't end in 2000, although there is the possiblity it might in 2012.
We don't have hover-boards :(
We don't have robots (well, not autonymous ones). There have been 2 more terminator films and a TV series. T3 sucked.
Cyber-eyes, arms, legs, and exo-suits are in working prototype phase.
Put money on Manchester United. They win more than they loose.
There is an economic boom in 2000, and 2005. Buy property.
You (I, we?) were right, my first love's name was Amey.
Girls: Single, Sexy, Stable, pick 2. One day you find one that matches all 3 and then you get to decide which one goes.

And here's some advice from a concerned friend. Which, if you take it, will negate this letter and cause a massive paradox. Maybe.

In September 2001, do not go to New York. Really. (I didn't anyway, but it's a reminder).
Take a gap year, Learn Oracle (it's a database program, ask Dad), you'll like it, and well-paid employment beats the dole. Do Uni later.
Wear Sunscreen (you'll get that gag aroundabout 1999).
Don't Panic, put everything you can on direct debit. You forget a lot of stuff.
Say good-bye to Matt and Brad and Gray. They are good friends, but you forget a lot of stuff.
When Doug owes you £20, Tell Doug that I still remember he owes me £20. This will almost certainly be the enduring memory I have of him.
Get as many people as you can to worry about global warming.
When you feel a relationship is going badly, for the love of god knock it on the head. It will hurt you. A LOT. It will hurt her. A LOT. You'll hate yourself for doing it and it will ruin you for about 2 months, but you forget a lot of stuff. This applies to all of them.
Talk to Dad. A Lot. Get him off cigarettes. Tell him to start moving your grandparent's money off them now, so that the 7 year inheritance tax gift penalty doesn't hit you. Then move his.
DON'T SELL THE FARM!!!! You'll regret it, although it probably makes more sense to do it.
Talk to Uncle Roland, if you can. Tell the girls to as well.
Tell Mum you love her, if you do.
Tell Mum I love her, and I didn't do it enough.
Tell David not to start smoking, although he probably won't listen.
When they invent time travel and you write this letter to yourself, don't post it on the internet where your neurotic girlfriend will read it and ask you loads of awkward questions about it, then get grouchy when you don't answer them.

Last thing:

Enjoy it. Your mind won't like taking risks, but you work better with them. If you can go outside your box, you'll find it's ok.
But you now have a rare chance to know it's going to be alright. So live a little, safe in the knowledge you get this far.

For Dodge.

2009-12-07T13:04:19Z

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/520146

GI Joe film

2009-12-04T16:41:45Z

I finished a 60 hour meeting yesterday, and I was a bit tired. So I decided to get myself home and have a night in with pizza. It was pretty good and I also got in a film. I got the recent GI Joe film.

Now I'm not going to say it was a bad film. It was a classic near-science fantasy no-brainer where teh americans win by shooting it lots with dumb luck. Prefect for coming down off 60 hours of caffiene.

I'm not going to whine that it had a MASSIVE canon break in it. Or that snake eyes was meant to be a BLACK guy. And BLIND (so how can he see the fragging telly?!?!?!?).

What I am going to say is this.

Some of you may remember a small problem about a film callled 'Mission to Mars' where the pseudo-science that saves the earth is something that GCSE schoolkids are taught works totally differently. As in, you can't do that.

I never saw that film, so I never really had a problem with it. But I could empathise.

GI Joe has gone one step further. And this time, I have a serious problem with it. *spoiler alert*

The bad guys have a secret underwater base. It's below the polar ice cap (note the non-specific-ness there, but anyway). The good guys (tm) end up assaulting the base is a flotilla of microsubs that work pretty much like planes (ok....). As the boss bad guy escapes, he decides he doesn't like the swarm of good guys around his base, and so he detonates teh secret booby trap. A bunch of exposive charges in the ice cap, which will split up the ice cap and cause the resulting debris to FALL AND CRUSH THE BASE AND THE FLEET.

FUCKING WAHT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

which it then proceeds to do.

DOUBLE
FUCKING WAHT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Ice.

In water.

Falls.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Really good puzzle gamer.

2009-11-25T13:13:08Z

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/518729

but not for the puzzles.

-

I love the internets. It provides me with stuff I can use. Isn't character background wonderful?

wheeee

2009-11-13T10:11:42Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8349923.stm 'Road trains' get ready to roll

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8182003.stm Call for debate on killer robots

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1127012/Police-arrest-goat-accused-armed-robbery.html

For Lentil

2009-11-06T15:39:25Z

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/516397

RAR!

2009-10-28T14:32:50Z

http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/images/projects/optimisedsushi/sushi6.jpg

10 years of product development to go....

2009-10-14T10:44:36Z

http://www.livescience.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=LS_090526_Artificial-Retina

your all ghey

2009-10-09T15:10:53Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8296190.stm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0m8bebUGq4&NR=1

*pow* right in the kisser.

Disturbing news.

2009-10-08T11:24:44Z

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/quarter-of-global-population-can%27t-get-drunk-or-look-at-boobs-200910082122/

This is quite worrying.

for penny

2009-10-06T14:49:58Z

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/513573

I saw this and thought of you

some links

2009-09-17T16:56:10Z

http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/nigella-lawson/ham-in-coca-cola-recipe_p_1.html
(use left-overs to make) http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=13831

http://www.oddee.com/item_96801.aspx

Pork in mead sauce

2009-09-04T16:08:00Z

I wanted to write this down becasue it was tasty, and I'll forget otherwise.

I had a couple of pork steaks in the freezer that needed eating. I had some other left-overs.

Ingredients:
2 pork loin steaks
some new potatoes (for 2)
some carrots (for 2)
a glass of mead (just under a quarter bottle) (I used Norfolk Mead 'broadland', which is a dark mead like Moniack.)
a generous teaspoon of easy ginger (about a 1-inch cube of root ginger chopped)
a generous teaspoon of dried sage
a veggie oxo cube
100 ml of double cream
a teaspoon of dried mint (or a sprig of fresh mint!)

Method:
Put the pork steaks in a tupper box and pour the mead over. Then add the ginger and sage, try to evenly distribute between the steaks.
Cover steaks and leave to marinade for 48 hrs in the fridge.
put the potatoes on to boil up with the mint
put the carrots on to boil up
Take the steaks out of the marinade, add the oxo cube to the marinade, reserve marinade juice.
Fry steaks until done
Take steaks out of the frying pan, put marinade juice into the frying pan, add cream.
Stir and reduce sauce a bit.

Add to plates and consume.

Yum.

RIP Laeniri

2009-07-23T08:40:43Z

My house was burgled. No signs of forced entry, everythign was locked. Found the back door left ajar.

One thing gone. My lappy, in it's bag.

not the wii on the windowsill next to it. not the two desktops on the floor next to it. not the other laptop, not in a bag, by the door. not any of the big crate o booze. not the bag full of cash, creditcards and my mobile. Not the two amps and the guitar in the hall.

a laptop bag, on my sofa. that's it.

obviusly it had everythign digital that i have made over the last two years on it. And that's quite a lot. plus all my RPG library (character sheets plus books). plus all the music I scored off Dom (who has gone), and Eric (who has gone), and the work music repository (which has gone).

I'm not right happy right now.

orcs, Orcs, ORcs, ORCs, ORCS, ORCS!

2009-07-02T08:38:27Z

Green, is Good. I was in the internets trying to find some good source material for my new armour (more on that in a moment) and I found a good community FREE Lineage 2 server. So I rolled an orc. Words cannot express just how awesome it feels to be green again. And the most kick-ass of the greenies to boot. On a server of people who disrespect the green. Largely because the L2 community as a whole disrespects the green, because it's green.

Anyway - armour. I agreed to go to a con with Mew. I figure that I haven't been to a con in a while and they are quite fun. But it's an anime con, and my tolerance for annoying fanboys (and fangirls) is dismally low. So I thought of the most kick-ass anime thing I could reasonably cozplay. Which was an Overlord, from the Linage 2 video game. The get-up is feral-inspired shamanic, but I'm going to build it in white, a-la the Majestic set. This will give me a persona to hide behind at the con, and allow me to 'IN-CHARACTER' tell them to chew my manly green ass if they piss me off.

But spending a shit-load on just a cozplay is SILLY. So I needed a set of extra-shiny but workable armour for SCA fighting. So I'm going to make it SCA legal too. Then I'm going to go to the SCA event in it as well, and have everyone there beat me senseless for wearing silly, shiny, white, anachronistic armour. Which will make it more kick-asss my making it not shiny white. So when I take it to the G for monstering, it will look lived-in and used, and 'white'.

And awesome.

Like orcs.

WOW (not blizzard wow)

2009-06-12T16:43:08Z

It's not often that something interesting happens at work. Something interesting that cought me completely by surprise happend today.

I won an award. For outstanding behaviour. !!!! (!) .

A manager nominated me for the 'who do teh managers think is useful this month' award. That's not waht it's called really, but it's what it means.

Turns out they liked the PHP course. Pity the designers are not so groovy as to have done the excercises. I don't hold out much hope for them filling up the excercises by the time the next talk comes up. Then they will just look at me blankly because they didn't do the work...

Bumper crop of internets

2009-06-11T16:41:33Z

cooking-sama

serial environmentalist

The video archive of the first zombie war. (ongoing project.. donate now!)

I need chocolate.

Talky toaster?

2009-06-09T16:37:53Z

Talky toaster might be more universally understood, but I can't believe I hadn't thought of this before last night.

So.. I heard you leik Mudkipz...

1 nub neonate: $free
surviving 10 years: $blood
linearing in summer in full armour: $sweat
losing ghouls to get psychology 5: $tears
1 loooove Mudkipz!!! : Priceless.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mudkips

Chromed VIP site

2009-06-01T20:43:00Z

Blegh. It's too hot. I wouldn't mind, but most of the day I'm wearing 2 jumpers. Ahhh, the wonders of modern technology :) Making it too damn cold ALL YEAR ROUND.

Anyhew. I downloaded Chrome, the new browser from everyone's favourite mega-corp today. I must say that it's pretty much a browser. It doesn't have mouse gestures (that I've found), and it doesn't have the GODDAMN AMAZING firebug. It does re-assign all my (web-type) file associations (so they don't open with an editor, they open with chrome). grrrrr. It does not show me when a page has a javascript error (which as you might imagine is quite important to me). grrrrr.

Chrome is highly failing to wow me right now.

So I spent some time over the weekend re-doing the skin on the VIP site in preparation for re-doing the code ahead of me spending some XP. Hell, it hasn't happened in a year or so, I thought it deserved something special.

VIP test page

If you don't like it, leave a comment, tell me why, I might re-design it. If you think it's design is shit - you draw a better one. Send me an appropriate rez image, and I'll skin it up. Otherwise STFU.

In other news, August is going to me busy. 5 events spread across 4 weekends. MMMMMMMMMMMMM.

And, I have been asked to give the designers a shot at PHP coding. This is the ultrabasics, and 3/4 or them won't get it. So if you want to read along with mama:

Our Design test area

This is a free invite to anyone reading this, provided I know you. If you are any good, you might get a job. We are hiring :)