January 2012
1 post
the end is nigh
It seems that the world as we know it is about to end, but most of us haven’t noticed. I guess it’s not the kind of thing you usually want to go noticing.
The “world” I’m talking about isn’t the actual world (I’m pretty sure Earth will be around for a while yet, and I’m quite confident people will be scumming up the surface while simultaneously...
May 2011
2 posts
The Dice Hate Me
Just for fun, I decided to roll some ability scores using the classic “4d6 discard the lowest” method. I felt like sharing the results, because they include two of my best ever sets of rolls, and two that don’t even meet the old criteria of “…too low if your total modifiers are 0 or less, or if your highest score is 13 or lower.”
15 [+2]
13 [+1]
12 [+1]
12 [+1]
...
Ruby Gotchas 1 – Return in Ensure
The difference between Ruby’s implicit “value of a block” and its explicit “return from a method with a value” is best illustrated by example.
def foo
puts 'a'
0
ensure
puts 'b'
1
end
def bar
puts 'a'
return 0
ensure
puts 'b'
return 1
end
irb(main):001:0> foo
a
b
=> 0
irb(main):002:0> bar
a
b
=> 1
The explicit return statement literally means...
January 2011
1 post
beds
When I was a boy my bed had a well-defined and understood head and foot; it had orientation, and a proper way to sleep.
My eldest treats her bed as a great big squishy thing on which sleep is to be achieved, through any and all means necessary.
My youngest begins the night in the usual north-south orientation, but for some reason always rotates 90° in her sleep, and ends up spending most of...
July 2010
1 post
3d6 Revisited
After a few sessions (has it been two months already?) using 3d6 instead of d20, I’ve come up with a few revisions and clarifications of the original rules. These are designed to increase the fun; the balance has to be accounted for elsewhere.
1,1,1:
automatic miss.
If the power has the keyword “weapon” or “implement” you drop the appropriate item;
If...
May 2010
1 post
d20 or 3d6
I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just come out and say it:
I’m going to replace my players’ d20 attack rolls with 3d6.
Since it’s my first time DMing 4e, and we’ve decided to start at level 5, I reckon there are enough differences already that making one other change won’t cost too much in terms of organisation. Sure, I’ll have to balance...
March 2010
3 posts
Software Design
Lemma: the primary function of any computer program is to produce outputs derived from some inputs.
The correctness of a program is defined by its ability to consistently produce the correct/appropriate outputs for any set of inputs. To this end, every program could, given an infinite storage and appropriate retrieval mechanism, be represented by a finite state machine. All computer programs are...
The Moat
Ever since The Google’s impenetrable fortress of impenetrability was penetrated by The China, our boss/CEO has been terrified of The China breaking into our company and stealing all our IPs.
Despite the fact that we don’t use password authentication, ldap, Windows, or IE8, apparently we’re still at risk. The only real solution (it would seem) is to isolate all our IP...
Wide Screen Web
Every screen these days is wide. As if the traditional 3:4 landscape ratio wasn’t hard enough for presenting text, now we have lap-tops with 800 pixels crammed into a six-inch vertical frame, and 1.6 times that many horizontally; yet we’re somehow expected to present information — textual information — in this environment. I don’t know about you, but I have trouble...
February 2010
3 posts
Paternity Part 2
So, a little research has revealed to me the Y-Chromosomal Adam and the Mitochondrial Eve. So apparently chicks have an unbroken matrilineal line too, which is pretty cool. It’s good to know that the things I think of have been thought of before by people who actually know about these things.
Paternity
In the olden days paternity and the male line were a big deal. Which is silly, because when a chick gives birth, you can only really be sure of exactly one parent. Especially in the olden days, those tarts. But thinking about genetics, as one does, I realised that the paternal line has the only sequence that actually does continue unbroken from generation to generation: the Y chromosome. All...
Genesis
So, I signed up for tumblr. I’m assuming I’ll work out what it is as I go along. There are things I love, and things I hate. There are things I like, and things I dislike. But for the most part there are things about which I don’t care in the slightest. I probably won’t mention them again here.