Ousted by the network router

For the past few weeks, my home network router had been acting funny. Or my wireless network adaptor. The main computer plugs directly into the router. My computer connects to the router wirelessly.

The main computer has no problems surfing the Internet. My computer connects to the Internet in a hit-or-miss fashion, seemingly working only when the moon is in alignment with Saturn or a sparrow flaps its wings in exact accompaniment to one of Mozart’s musical compositions. After some troubleshooting, I found I could connect to another unencrypted router in my apartment block (that generous soul should be slightly worried about security). So my adaptor should be working fine. Well, I’m confused. I was never much of a hardware kind of guy…

Since my iPhone can only do so much in mitigating this Internet-less situation, I’ve decided to take a break in writing articles while I go fix this up (no Internet, harder to write articles). Say until… *looks at calendar* 10th May. You’re strong. You can handle not reading anything from me for about 3 weeks.

This isn’t the only reason for the break. Writing articles still doesn’t come easily to me, despite doing it for the better part of the past 2 years. There are also some stuff I have to sort out, which I can’t do if I’m doing stuff on the Internet at my current level of involvement.

Lately, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by social media and attending some of the social events and “socialising” in general (yes, I see the irony in the double quotes…). My friends on Twitter, Facebook and Plurk are about 100 on each of those networks. Feel free to add me! Wait, didn’t I just say I was overwhelmed… Does it always take being overwhelmed to really appreciate close, face-to-face, honest, and fun meetings with friends?

I’ve been trying to reclaim some personal time. I remember reading books and playing video games. I’m not doing much of each these days. Through an introduction on Plurk, I got to know someone who’s a Dungeon Master for Dungeons and Dragons! Awesome! Try listening to a D&D podcast to understand how it’s played.

There’s some preparation I need to do, and hopefully I’ll get to play a session or two during this break of mine. Hopefully at least one session. Then I’ll tell you all the captivating details of how I nearly died bringing down the orc king Brull the Numbskull. If it means anything to you, I plan to play an eladrin wizard.

“But what am I going to do during this ill-conceived break of yours?” you ask.

Uhm, uh, let me introduce a few of my friends to you then.

• Will Dwinnell, with lots of MATLAB goodness. Check out his article on working with images in MATLAB.
• Ben Barden, a PHP developer. He created Injader, a CMS for building web sites.
• Darran Low, a WordPress developer. He created the MiniMoo theme and coded the Bloggers Calendar 2009 web version.

I will still answer email and be on the social networks, albeit slower in response and less frequently. If you have any ideas you want to discuss, feel free to contact me. I might be so interested that I’m compelled to write something on it!

Now to fix my network router…

Exploring dungeons and slaying dragons

[image by David Kerkhoff]

I just went through a period of nostalgia, of the pencil and paper role playing game type. To understand more, read Wil Wheaton’s posts of his experience as a Dungeon Master in Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and some concluding thoughts. Thanks to Scott Beale for this.

Done?

Ok, I haven’t played much of Dungeons and Dragons (although I certainly owned a few of the books. Just for reference), or any of the other types of pencil and paper RPGs. But I’m absolutely fascinated by them. My first encounter was when I was 12 years old. I bought these books of the Dragon Warriors series.

For some reason, I only bought the first and third of the series. Oh right, the second one wasn’t available. My 12 year old mind didn’t think it was important. Besides, I didn’t know about the genre then. There was a book sale held at my school, and I was browsing when I chanced upon them.

They were totally awesome! There was mysterious magic, dank dungeons, hateful hobgoblins and tantalising treasure. They were different from the choose-your-own-adventure type of books, because anything can happen! The games master (the term used) can devise any manner of story plot to suit the players. The books’ content are a guide, but the games master is free to use the imagination to make the game fun.

Because I was so excited by this, I had to play it. The problem? No one’s around to play it with me. It doesn’t matter if I’m the games master or a player. I just want to play it.

Somehow I managed to drag my friend and my brother into the game. Creating character sheets was fun. Explaining some rules of combat took some time. And basically there wasn’t much of role playing, or creative use of imagination. But it’s ok. Remember, I was 12 then. Those 2 were even younger than me.

I think one of them was a Knight (or a Barbarian) and the other a Sorcerer. Now only the 2nd book (which I didn’t have) details the mechanics of Sorcerers and Mystics. But I went ahead anyway. I mean, the main attack mechanism was the Attack stat for Knights and Barbarians. There was a Magical Attack stat. Not hard to put one and one together.

The magic casting system was based on magic points. Low level magic spells cost less, higher level spells cost more. The first book provided character sheets for Sorcerers, so I had the number of magic points for a 1st level Sorcerer.

What about spells? Well, I made them up. I played enough RPGs to know the basics. There’s always some kind of fire spell, maybe a healing spell. Well, I was 12. Cut me some slack, will ya?

So my party of 2 was starting out in a basic dungeon, the one in book 1. As rookie adventurers do, one of them inevitably fell into a pit. They’re so rookie, the Sorcerer was in front of the Knight in their battle formation, so the Sorcerer fell into the trap first. No!! Spell casters behind front line attackers! *sigh*

They didn’t even think to use the coil of rope in their equipment to try to climb out. Since their role playing skills and creativity were worth squat then, I gently nudged and suggested that maybe a point of magic would allow the Sorcerer to levitate out.

I know, I know, the levitation spell is non-existent. They would also be stuck there for eternity if I didn’t intervene. Their first encounter with a pack of rats almost did them in. Then this pit. I’m no psychic, but I’m pretty sure they would abandon playing the game very soon if things didn’t pick up.

In another instance, my classmate (I’m still 12) held a game session. With 5 players. Or 7. My memory’s hazy on that. And I got to play! He used the same Dragon Warriors book 1 to play. Because I’ve already read my book to tatters, and I was a games master before, I was allowed to play, but I couldn’t make decisions until after other players did. This was to avoid spoiling the fun for others. I was basically in it to slash rats and batter goblins, which was still loads of fun.

His method of games mastering was different than mine. Maybe it’s because of the larger party, so he followed the book almost to the letter. My point is that, in this fantasy world, he controls everything.

He could add another ghoul if the going seemed too easy. He could “cheat” by making the enemies target the more prepared and healthier players, thereby allowing the weaker players to continue. He could drop hints for puzzles. He could add red herrings. He could do anything.

Then the games stopped. As in no one plays with me on Dragon Warriors anymore (or any other pencil and paper RPGs). A year or two later, I rediscovered a kindred soul… and I’ll tell you more in another article. Stay tuned.

Shinkansen Sway

Recently, I went to Japan. One of the highlights was the “bullet train” or Shinkansen. No, it doesn’t travel at the speed of a bullet (much to my dismay), but it’s still fast.

So I was sitting down, enjoying the 2 hour train ride. I can’t read or do much else while travelling (I get headaches), so I closed my eyes to rest… when suddenly the whole train rocked! I flashed my eyes open, and saw another Shinkansen on the right, coming in from the opposite direction. When the two trains “separated”, my train swayed another time.

This happened whenever I travelled by Shinkansen. So I started to keep track. It’s hard, since one never knows when another train will pass by. But I was vigilant. My efforts paid off, and I noticed that my train swayed in a certain direction when the trains meet up. And my train swayed in a certain direction when the trains separated.

So my question to you is, which direction does the Shinkansen sway in, when the trains approach each other, and when the trains separate from each other? Some basic knowledge of physics and a bit of deductive logic should prove useful.