August 30, 2008
The high pressure area being... gaming. At least I got 4 posts in this month. Ugh. That is weak as I think about it.
Yet, talk of getting together for a game has returned as the first month of the newborn family member comes to an end. As a father I can sympathize with those first six weeks... as most fathers can.
But my nerdery advances along other fronts, to continue the metaphors.
One item I want to share with you is Ajax proxies for working with remote XML documents or feeds. There are many ways to do them, but I learned one recently that I really like: reverse proxying leveraging the mod_rewrite + mod_proxy modules of Apache HTTPD
There are other methods and patterns, like the PHP proxy, the Java servlet HTTP proxy, and many others. Why do I like the mod_rewrite + mod_proxy method? Simple, it's dead simple. Plus, any sufficiently advanced website will likely leverage hosting services going beyond the free or economy commercial host. This will likely translate for some, not all or most, developers having access to Apache, or other HTTP, server configurations or configuration resources.
How simple? I was able to pull a remote XML resource into my local namespace with two lines of code! Take a look:
...
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/river/(.*)$ http://newweb.erh.noaa.gov/ahps2/xml/$1 [P]
...
With those two lines I can consume the XML feed of river levels from the NOAA Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (if I know the document name of course) in my local namespace and workaround the same-domain security restriction of Javascript!
What exactly is happening there? I'm turning the RewriteEngine on (for the host, if not already on) and then simply stating a request for /river/ and anything following it (the (.*)$ a regular expression for anything following it) be passed to the URI specified then through mod_proxy using the [P] (also stated as [proxy] for the more succinctly-challenged).
Most of the other patterns require far more code gymnastics to perform the same thing. Additionally, the above method is far more powerful than using mod_proxy alone, as well as being a little more secure, as a misconfigured proxy can be an open proxy. And open proxies are bad things. 
August 18, 2008
James Maliszewski's Grognardia is a fantastic blog to read about role playing games, the history of the hobby, and the old school revolution. But what's great about his recent post, The Shoulders of Giants is how it reflects on Avalon Hill and AH's indirect influence on the RPG hobby, as well as how it influenced him.
I know I was greatly influenced by AH and I miss the games of AH terribly (you'll understand in a moment just how much). My father introduced me to board wargaming with Tactics and Panzer Leader. And as senior, VietNam and Gulf war seasoned DOD logistician, handed me my ass more times I wish to admit too. I played both those titles for more than a decade, through college (a military one!) and have owned at least two copies of Squad Leader.
Today, I'm an "game master" and enjoy the role-in-role-playing games more than the game part, but have a well grounded grognard's respect for game mechanics because of Avalon Hill.
James traces the history of Avalon Hill well. James mentions AH licensees, and rightfully cites that "most [of Avalon Hill's titles] are in the vault somewhere, unlikely ever to see the light of day again," he does not mention by name Multi Man Publishing. MMP licenses the rights to Advanced Squad Leader and publishes new rules and scenarios, as well as, promoting the game and the hobby of wargaming around the world. MMP is also releasing an updated version Panzerblitz (which I wrote about here)! I'm such a fan of Panzer Leader I built my own copy!
And for those that want to get more grognard geek on than they can handle, visit The Hundred Years War and read the definitive book on wargaming, The Complete Wargames Handbook, by James F. Dunnigan, designer for Avalon Hill and SPI.
August 13, 2008
The library delivered Robert E. Howard's
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, the first of a three volume set published in 2002–2003. It is a definitive collection. The first thirteen stories in the order they were released by REH, not a perceived order by those that came after, or a forced chronology.
The Forward and Introduction are alone worth reading. The opinion of pastiches by authors that came after, or of those that attempted to finish the unfinished is raw and frank. An opinion to which I heartily agree.
August 09, 2008
The problems with buttons and column headers leaking through the z-indexes in IE 7 and IE 6 are corrected. Finally.
Many apologies for the delay. Busy would not properly define my state of affairs. The orbits of the many things going on around me is entertaining on levels undefined, but to those that follow ACD, most damaging to this blog. And to the WFRP game I have been running.
The party has not meet for 4 weeks. Aside from my state of affairs, a key player just had a baby boy: Rutger Harrison... a great name BTW! His teenage son was a player too, so the party was down two PCs.
And thus play is on haitus.
I carved out some time to improve the Inns of the Empire tool. Some minor visual enhancements are included, but one problem in IE6 is still present: double display of Inn-cidents. Not precisely sure what is causing it, it doesn't behave that way in any other browser and the JavaScript is pretty precise about what to display.
I continue to do more than lurk and will be posting regular again very soon!
August 01, 2008
When I stop to recover my breath and look over the edge of the foxhole at the incoming fire from life, work and hobby... it's amazing I'm still having so much fun!
Enough poor metaphor... I'm still alive and thinking about things WFRP and random tech topics.
Work has promoted me so attention gets focused on understanding the role, at and away from work. But I get to nerd on new technologies and kick the ass of developers still stuck developing in IE.
And I fixed the IE bug in the Inns of the Empire tool. Just have to promote it to production.
July 22, 2008
The Weather Channel is based out of ATL. Some serious storms were moving though the area and it appeared for a moment that The Weather Channel lost it's sat link.
July 20, 2008
How many straight days at work, new partner accounts x 1000, and the
time I need to be at work tonight to support a new release.
Trying to rest before going in. Tonight and tomorrow will truly carry
the meaning of "ACD."
--
Sent from my iPhone 3G
July 11, 2008
July 06, 2008
July 04, 2008
The Fourth of July. A US holiday.
I'm having a donut, some coffee, and exercising some of my JavaScript acumen today sipping on some coffee. The YUI library docs at hand, the Stripes JAR on disk, webapp loaded, and thinking about bagels.
“Bagels? You're having a donut!,” one might query.
My job is such that I have to evaluate tools for improving existing applications. Some quiet time on a holiday let's me do just that. I'm building a bagel club prototype to demo some of the advanced features of the YUI, the Stripes MVC framework, JavaScript, and the DWR for talking to the backend.
Normally, I might devote the day to thinking about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the campaign, &tc. I'll do that tonight. I'll probably, finally, tackle that annoying IE 6/7 display bug in Inns of the Empire. Finally.
July 03, 2008
iPhone.
Some might call me a chump. Others might call me smart for holding out and not jumping in, waters untested.
I like to think I'm firmly planted in the latter group.
July 02, 2008
I've been on vacation with the wife and child.
Three days in Virginia, USA. Specifically, Williamsburg. Precisely, two days in the parks of Anheuser-Busch's Busch Gardens Europe.
Pictured, for your enjoyment, is my new favorite thrill ride, The Griffon. Damn. 205 feet. 90 degree drop. The pitch line, “...the only way down... is straight down!,” could not be more apropos.
After the Griffon, everything in the park is weak. I could spend the day on this thing.
June 28, 2008
My take on the Warhammer world has been weak.
One PC in my campaign just made his third career. The others are on their second. And all of the players have grand plans for the characters.
In reading The Thousand Thrones, it has dawned on me that the Empire is a dangerous place. Very dangerous. Nurgle cultists alone are dangerous sonuvbitches. Death lies around every corner in TTT. Yet, none of my players have felt in peril. And the one that was pulled a lucky charm. At least I know buying those is going to set the player back quite a bit, keeping him in the poor house; and then I'm not even sure that I played the rule for lucky charms correctly anyway. Reading some house rules on the internets, it looks like I'll be adopting the "maybe it wasn't lucky after all" approach with a die roll when he pulls it out.
Adventures in the Old World don't last long. But at the same time a GM needs to carefully balance the danger with playability, lest the game become a "one-shot."
PC longevity is important, but the world should feel "grim and perilous." Every die roll behind the screen should strike worry in the eyes of the players. For instance... and a game story follows, so tread carefully:
The Sigmar priest is earning money by taking offerings for prayers and purity seals. In his travels during the current campaign, he has been hearing of an outbreak of the Weevil Cough in the garrison of Helmgart. Random peasants are approaching him with fears of contracting the disease, or beseeching prayers for loved ones with the disease. I rolled his Toughness during the course of one of these random pleas to see if he contracted the cough. Sigmar shined upon him and he skirted the contagion. By the way, play like this is an opportunity for older GMs to share classic literature with younger players. This behavior by the priest player is almost straight out of history and literature, recall The Canterbury Tales anyone?
To my cyberstalker... beware... your PC might be next. Tread carefully in the OCIC waters. You have been forewarned. Maybe it is time to investigate spiking the mortality rates of PCs me thinks. What say you?
June 24, 2008
The subject of this post is intentional.
It is designed to spike Google searches on the BeerTender by Krups and Heineken. It is designed to inform consumers and to lead to better purchasing decisions.
Buy the BeerTender only, and only, if you like Heineken.
Do not buy the BeerTender if you are beer advocate. If you enjoy variety from the tap, then the BeerTender is not for you. Period. Consider other options immediately.
We are returning the BeerTender I got for Father's Day.
To Krups and Heineken:
The BeerTender: great idea, poor execution.
Heineken would do well to begin aggressive licensing of the "draught keg technology" and Krups would do well by aggressively encouraging Heineken to license. Around the world, beer enjoys a renaissance that is not about brand loyalty, but broad palates. And my wife and I are not going to dedicate counter space to a product that only pours one beer. In Europe the offerings might be more, but in the USA, only Heineken is available. And then the outlook is that only Heineken brands will be available.
Krups, Heineken and retailers lose in this current game of "monopoly." Consumers lose too. Sad really.
June 24, 2008
If you have not gathered, I'm a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fanboy.
Certainly in the last few posts I have not been shy about it. From confessing my one-sourcer position regarding most other games, to pictures of life-size Space Marines outside GW retail stores.
The latter is a bit misleading. Because, generally speaking, the W40K RPG does not remotely interest me.
Sorry.
W40K as a table-top miniature wargame. Yes. As a RPG. No.
I will admit that in college I ran a WFRP 1st ed. campaign where the PC's patron was a retired Judicial Champion, secretly a Space Marine that befell a space warp. I don't recall the thread that had me create this patron, but I believe it stemmed from a White Dwarf introduction to Space Marines, c. 1990. Eh. I doesn't matter, suffice to know that Dark Heresy has not captured my imagination.
And yet I'm not without my criticisms of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd. ed. As a game, it is A+. True to the 1st ed., the long suffering fanbase, and everything I loved about 1st. ed. Kudos to Chris Pramas and Green Ronin for the great job. As for the current canon, Storm of Chaos and all that, I could do without it. In fact, I do.
My current campaign is set in the year following the SoC. Intentionally. It allowed me to push aside must of the fluff, getting the world and its machinations solidly past the events and cut all of the old and new together very smoothly.
So if you want to ask me anything about another system, I'll entertain a grognard outlook and conversation with you. I may even play, as a player. But I'm not likely to invest time or money in another system. I'm very happy with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
And all the baggage being a fanboy brings.
