Ridiculous Thoughts

I’ve been working on a web application and Fan Site off and on for a few months now. The site is designed to make it easier to put together armies, called task forces, for the miniature wargame CAV.The basics were completed in a couple week, and I’ve been puttering on it since then. I recently got back from RailsConf and I was  inspired by a couple sessions there to get the site up ASAP, let people start using it and to start collecting feedback. I decided that I would launch withing a week.

Well, it is exactly seven days later, and I’m please to announce the Launch of the CAV Comand Console. Hopefully the site speaks for itself, so go over there and take a look.

Steve

 

According to this: http://blog.codefront.net/2008/04/27/living-on-the-edge-of-rails-18/ the functionality provided by the MySQL Bigint has finally been integrated into the recently released Rails 2.1, and I’ve gotten reports from a couple of users on this, though I haven’t tried it myself yet.

I’ll continue to support the plugin for older versions of Rails, but I won’t be doing anything other than bugfixes. I may also move the plugin to git hub with the rest of my projects in a couple of weeks. If that happens I’ll announce it here.

Finally, thanks to Mike Mangino of http://www.elevatedrails.com for mentioning the plugin in his RailsConf 2008 talk on Facebook apps. You can see the details, and download the slides, of the talk here: http://en.oreilly.com/rails2008/public/schedule/detail/1829.

Steve

There seems to have been a lot of interest in my plugin for enabling MySQL bigints in Rails migrations.

I got a few questions and two patches from Tomasz Wegrzanowski of Trampoline Systems. I’ve reviewed and incorporated these patches in this release. Many thanks for submitting the patches.

The changes in this release are as follows.

1. bigint primary keys are now signed. This complies with the rails standards and allows the next item to work. See below for suggested next steps on this.
2. bigint foreign keys now work. The signed/unsigned incompatibility fixed above was causing problems.
3. The plugin is now transparent to other databases. It has been tested with Oracle and Postgres. I’m interested in hearing if there are issues with the other databases.

I believe that there are other plugins that enable unsigned integer support. If somebody wants to make this plugin compatible with one of those plugins, I’ll gladly incorporate the changes.

Feedback is always welcome below, Steve

My wife and daughter love to collect and trade pins when we go vacation at Disney World.

It seemed a shame to pack these beautiful pins away between trips so I came up with a simple and inexpensive frame to hold them. I’ve written up and made it available as a page on this site.

Enjoy, and as always, comments are welcome below.

Steve

Pin Links

• Official Site
• Wikipedia Article
• Dizpins
• Pinfinder

Voting has begun for the Ennies, the fan awards for tabletop role-playing games. The best way to get more of the kinds of games you like is to speak up and vote.

Animal Jockey

Mules, camels, sled dogs and elephants—pack animals carry supplies over difficult terrain with a reliability that vehicles of the 30’s can’t begin to match. People with the skills to handle and care for these animals are essential to any successful trek into the wilderness. These individuals may also have valuable skills for dealing with local fauna the expedition might encounter. Animal handlers don’t like to risk their animals but an expedition can provide a way to pay the bills.

Examples: Cavalry Officer, Teamster, Dog Handler

Everyday Joe

Everyday Joes are the right people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe she was on vacation when her ship gets caught in the Bermuda Triangle, or maybe the bank financing the expedition sent him along to audit the expenses. Once over their head, the Everyday Joe will find a way to persevere and survive; and hopefully find enough gold to pay off that mortgage.

Examples: Cook, Bureaucrat, Bartender

Kid

The youthful combination of curiosity and naiveté leads kids to turn up in all kinds of surprising places. Kids seem to find trouble easily, but their small stature and harmless appearance can get them out of many situations. While they may not have much in the way of useful skills, they may have exceptional local knowledge and a fresh perspective. Frequently underestimated, exceptional children can be worth the inevitable pain.

Examples: Street Urchin, Spoiled Brat, Teenaged Runaway

Servant

Servants are responsible for much of what actually gets done in the world. They carry supplies, remove obstacles and handle many other details. In the 1930’s wealthy people will have personal servants and any expedition will have a number of laborers to move the expedition along. Servants may also be able to blend in and mingle with working class society, becoming a source of local information. Servants are not mindless automatons, they have their own goals and motivations and can be key contributors to any expedition.

Examples: Loyal Butler, Experienced Sherpa, Rugged Porter

New Physical Flaw

Youth: Your character is young, impatient and inexperienced. He does not have the same rights as the other party members and others will often him like the child he is. If you are a teenager you are size 0, if you are younger than that you are size -1. You also suffer a -2 penalty to any roll that depends upon age or experience, like a roll to recognize somebody famous or remember some historical event. You earn a Style point whenever your character’s standing (physical, emotional, or social) causes him severe difficulties.

As always, comments are welcome below.

Steve

9 out of 10

Product Description

As the Nazi menace grows an ancient secret starts to leak out into the world. Will the characters prevent the Nazi’s from gaining access to this secret? Will they profit from it themselves? Will they even survive the journey home.

Hollow Earth Expedition (HEX) is a role-playing game, published by Exile Game Studios, of pulp adventure set in the 1930’s. True to the genre, the game features true heroes, evil villans and fast-paced action. The HEX rulebook clocks in at 256 pages and is available as both a hardcover book and a pdf file. The hardcover costs $39.99 and is available at your local game store or you can order it online from the publisher (www.exilegames.com) and from amazon.com. The game is also available as a pdf file from the publisher and many of the online pdf games stores including www.rpgnow.com, for $24.99—as of the publication date the pdf version was on sale for $19.99 but I don’t know how long that will last.

Fit and Finish

While I love pdf gaming materials for their portability and searchability, this is one product that you want to be sure to own the hardcover for. It is a beautiful piece of work. The cover and binding are solid and look like they will hold up to use. The paper stock is heavy and easy to manipulate. The fonts are well chosen, evocative of the period and genre, but easy to read. The layout of the pages is simple, with an shaded, aged look on the edges of the pages that doesn’t detract from readability—unlike similar effects in other popular game books.

The art really sets this book apart. The exterior art, by Stephen Daniele, is gorgeous. It portrays a party, beset by dinosaurs trying to get back to their drilling machine and escape from the Hollow Earth. The interior has less color than I am used to seeing in books in this price range, but the vast majority of if is excellent; high quality and in an appropriate in context. In particular, I like the drawing of the T-Rex charging the hunter on page 140 and the illustration of the small boat traveling between giant Atlantean columns on page 189. These illustrations really convey the grandeur, danger and mystery of the setting. Even in the couple of places where the art doesn’t live up to these high standards, it is still better than much of the art floating around other rpg products.

Rules Overview

I found the rules to be similar in style to one of my favorite games of all time, Feng Shui. Like Feng Shui, HEX aims to keep the rules lite and out of the way of both the story and the action.

HEX is the first game based the Ubiquity role-playing system. Ubiquity uses dice pools to resolve conflicts and actions. Your skill determines the number of dice to roll, bonuses and penalties add or subtract dice from this. You roll the resulting number of dice of any type. Even numbers are successes. If you score more successes than the difficulty of the action, you are successful in your action.

This dice pool system is both simple and fun. If you like rolling dice you can roll them. If not, you can simplify this further by reducing large number of dice to the average. For example, if your dice pool is 12-dice, you can assume the first 10 resulted in 5 successes and roll the remaining two dice. Similarly, you can “take the average” on any roll where the average result of your dice pool is greater than the difficulty of the task. This allows you to avoid rolling dice altogether in these situations.

Character Generation

Character generation is done on a simple point buy system. You have 15 points to spread between the six different attributes. If you’ve played other games you can probably guess what these attributes are. Combinations of these attributes are used to calculate another six secondary attributes. From there you can select skills and talents and an optional flaw which can provide interesting role-playing opportunities.

Fundamental to character creation in HEX is the selection of an Archetype and a Motivation. The archetype helps define the type of character you are playing, a hunter, an academic, etc. Many examples are provided, but you can be anything with your GMs permission. Motivation is your character’s reason for adventuring. As with archetypes, many examples are provided. These two things provide a foundation for determining attributes, skills etc. They are not limiting in any way, instead they provide a concise description of your character. Motivation is similar to the plot-hook that required of Feng Shui characters.

One of the things I found particularly interesting was talents that allowed abilities other then strength and dexterity to be used for combat. A character could, for example, use intelligence instead of dexterity for firearms combat. This might represent a character who uses intellect and practice rather than a natural talent for this skill. I like this option because I can make a smart military leader who would be useful in an action oriented game. To do that, I’m sacrificing a talent that I could use to enhance other things, so there is balance and more choice for the player.

The other interesting character component are style-points. Characters start with a certain number of these and the GM can award additional points for role-playing or enhancing the game in other ways. Players can spend these points to get extra dice in their pool when they really need them. This isn’t a new idea, but it encourages role-playing and works well in this genre.

Combat

Combat is tight and simple. After an initiative roll, actions are resolved with opposed attack and defense rolls. The difference between the attack and defense rolls determines the damage done. This simplifies combat and keeps the number of rolls down. Rules are provided for most of the combat actions you would want to take, including aggressive attacks and defensive options. I also like the “Continuous Combat” option which replaces the usual initiative roll and round-robin combat sequence with a continuous sequence of phases. Your character’s initiative determines when he acts first, then the actions he takes determine how many phases later he gets to act again.

Background Material

The background material that is provided is of the caliber you should be expecting after the rest of this review. There is the usual bit of introductory fiction to set the stage for the game. In this case it is a series of journal entries from an expedition to the North Pole that accidentally ends up in the Hollow Earth. An extensive introduction to the 1930’s is provided. This section includes information on many countries around the world and their condition upto 1936 when the game begins.

The description of the Hollow Earth is broad rather than deep. This is just the way is should be; leaving the GM lots of options to run the kinds of adventures he wants. Additionally, the players, who may have copies of this book, don’t get enough information to ruin an adventure or the sense of wonder at their GM’s interpretation of the Hollow Earth.

Finally, there is a section of references and inspiration for pulp adventure in the 1930’s. A lot of this you are probably already aware of if you are interested in this game, but I found some interesting stuff in there.

Room for Improvement

There are only a couple parts of the game that I felt were lacking. I missed a system, or guidelines, for magic/psychic powers for the characters. Magical devices are discussed, but other than psychic sensitivity, occult characters don’t have much to take advantage of. This is disappointing given the amount of background material given to mytics and occult. I would also like to have seen a little more diversity in the beastiary. There are a lot of dinsosaurs and prehistoric animals. I would have like to see a few less of those and see some other staples of the genre. A mummy or animated golem would have been a nice addition.

Conclusion

In summary, if you like a fast, easy rule system and a genre where the emphasis is on fast moving stories, real heroes and action, then you will enjoy Hollow Earth Expeditions. I feel that this is one of the best games to come out in a long time.

Steve

I just returned from the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference last week. I love it when I can go to conferences with so much professional and personal interest for me. I’ll be blogging in the future about how we’re going to use geospatial technology at PatientsLikeMe, but for now, I want to focus on mapping and astronomy—in particular Google Earth and Astronomy.

Now, at first blush it may not be obvious how an Earth mapping tool is useful to amateur astronomers. The key is in the layers. These are files that you can download to layer additional information on top of Google Earth.

There is a new version out, so before you try any of these files go to http://earth.google.com and download the latest version and install it. If you are new to Google Earth (GE, from now on) take some time to explore the GE website, and the application before diving into the layers below. Getting familiar with the application now will pay big dividends later.

While you are surfing around Google, there are two more google websites of interest to us. These are Google Maps of the Moon and Mars. The Mars map, in particular is amazing. I use it in some of my Solar System Ambassador programs. The moon map is nice, be sure to explore the moons secrets at the highest magnification level.

As you download the layers below, save them somewhere on your local PC. You should be able to click on them, or use the File -> Open menu in GE to view them. As you open them, they will overlay onto the map images and appear as “Temporary Places” in the “Places” panel on the left side of the screen. You can check and uncheck these layers to turn them on and off and control the transparency with the slider below.

North American and European light pollution overlays. These layers show the levels of light pollution on their respective continents. Zoom in and check your standard observing sites. You might be surprised. If you are in California you can grab the BLM & NFS layer to see public lands, layer the light pollution map on top and look for good observing sites; like these guys did.

MilkyWeb Astronomy has a GE layer with lots of observatories from around the world. Download the and you will see yellow push pins, called place marks, scattered across the map. The list of observatories is on the left. Double-click on one of those to see where the observatory is located.

Information on impact sites can be found in these layers. Impact sites are marked on the map. Click on them to learn about size, age and a link to a wikipedia article if it exists.

Probably the most complete atlas of space related locations is on the X-Prize page. This layers seems to have all of the observatories and impacts, as well as historical and current landmarks in the exploration of space.

I hope that you enjoy this look from space down as a change of pace. I’m sure that there are more wonderful layers out there. If you know of any add them in comments below!

Steve

I fell out of gaming several years ago after a bad experience trying to write in the industry. I’ve found new loves around astronomy, education and small town politics and returned my career back to software engineering.

My son turned 10 and got a copy of the new D&D boxed set and some D&D miniatures for Christmas. We’ve been playing with that some and I’ve gotten a mind to get back into gaming. I’m not looking to give up any of my other things but I think I’m ready to get back into gaming.

For some time now I’ve been looking for a good game to try. Something interesting and different. I saw this This Post on Hollow Earth Expedition.

The beautiful cover drew me in. I went to Exile Games read the forums and read a couple of reviews on the net.

I still had some questions and a minor technical glitch with the Exile Games online store. Jeff Combos, the president e-mailed me right back and was tremendously helpful and cleared things right up.

Great. personal service and I great looking game. Jeff obviously cares about what he is doing. I can’t wait to get my copy and I’ll post a review here when I do.

Thanks Jeff!

Steve

I have been planning to post something up here explaining why the residency restriction Holden is proposing is a bad idea. My friend Cynthia sent a speakout into the local paper that covered it all, so I asked her for permission to reproduce it here.

This proposal was dreamed up as election year pandering by a candidate who has refused to support the school district and the public safety building. The evidence is in. Colorado and Iowa have seen the results and are looking to remove these restrictions from their states.

Let’s keep the debate firmly focused on the safety of our children. It isn’t intuitive and it is hard to believe; but the evidence is overwhelming. This proposal is a danger to our children.

Vote with your minds or vote with your hearts. But don’t vote with your guts—instincts will lead you astray on this one.

As always comments are welcome below.

Steve

—-—-——-

The rush to enact a sex offender residency restriction bylaw here in Holden is misguided, ill-informed, and potentially dangerous for our children.

According to the United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics — the authority regarding factual matters of criminality — fully 93% of child and juvenile sexual assaults under age 17 are committed by either a family member or an acquaintance of the victim. Thirty-four percent are committed by family members and 59% are committed by acquaintances. That leaves only seven percent committed by strangers. Almost half of the offenders of victims under age 6, by the way, are family members. “Stranger Danger” is a dangerous myth that creates a false sense of security and denies the fact that 93% of child sexual assaults are committed by family members or acquaintances of the child.

But many of you do think that creating buffers around schools and child-care centers will reduce the number of child sexual assaults. It may save one child, you say. Well, other states have gone down this road and guess what? Colorado, Minnesota, and Iowa as well as the Department of Justice’s Center for Sex Offender Management and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children have come to realize these buffers don’t work. Restricting residency has no positive effect on the incidence of child sexual assault. Indeed, their experience shows such restrictions have the opposite effect; they actually endanger children. As recently as this past December, the Iowa County Prosecuting Attorneys Association recommended Iowa rescind all of its residency restrictions. And these are prosecuting attorneys who have real experience dealing with the consequences of residency restrictions. Post-release, virtually half of their sex offender population feel off the map, becoming either homeless or living somewhere in secret. How is losing track of sex offenders supposed to make our children safer? The notion is absurd.

So let’s say a residency restriction bylaw is enacted anyway. Remember, nearly half of all sexual abusers of children under age six are family members—and your bylaw does not speak at all to the first-time offender. Whether you like it or not, those offenders often go home to their families. Are we going to make them move? Now families are uprooted, many of whom have children who have already by victimized once. Here’s what will happen. Offenders will be homeless or will lie about where they living. That’s the reality. Homeless high-risk sex offenders, lost to follow-up, are a serious danger.

Lastly, I want to talk about responsibility. As elected officials considering a bylaw with far-reaching consequences, you have a professional and ethical responsibility to do your homework. So far, those of you who support this bylaw have demonstrated no evidence that these bylaws protect children. None. Zero. You seem willing to “legislate,” if you will, by the vagaries of your gut. You seem willing to ignore the considered opinions of real experts with real experience managing this offender population. Well, here’s the rub. Your support for a bylaw that is known to create barriers to effective law enforcement, that is known to result in dangerous sex offenders becoming lost to follow-up guarantees you this: you will be held responsible for your decision, which includes the first sexual assault by a sex offender who failed to register because of your bylaw. Perhaps then you will see the merit of rational and reasoned decision making over tough-on-crime rhetoric that “feels” good.

Cynthia Bazinet