Character Assasination

Some of the gamers out there may remember an ambitious "roguelike" game called Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, developed by Tarn Adams from 2000 to 2005.



In 2002 he started working on a sequel, Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress, and has worked exclusively on it since 2006. In the past eight years Dwarf Fortress has acquired impressive depth and list of features while still officially remaining in alpha stage. The game has also attracted a number of dedicated followers, exited at the prospect that it will "Drag the world out of the Dark age of Gaming kicking and screaming!"

Now it seems some Goon has decided to create a clone of Dwarf Fortress, called "Goblin Camp", in a move which has been perceived as a personal attack on Mr. Adams.

Goblin Camp is, not surprisingly, quite similar to Dwarf Fortress, as this screenshot demonstrates:



This picture shows a very early camp with a general stockpile for goods, a small farm for growing Bloodberries, a small workshop with an orc working in it, and a protective fence. There's not much else to the game yet, and it is this general dearth of features and lack of polish in a game in beta stage (remember, DF is still in alpha after eight years!) that has led some commentators to already write the game off.

Though Goblin Camp is ultimately developed by some Goon, he has opened the source code, and accepts additions and improvements from volunteer contributors. So far he has had programmers suggesting rewriting the whole thing, preferably in some other programming language, while some other suggestions for features are, well... see for yourself.



Here we see a more advanced camp with more stockpiles, more extensive fence, a bakery and a brewery. Bakery turns berries into pies, and brewery turns berries into wine.

Notice the brown '~' and '#' symbols near the left edge of the picture. They represent different depths of pools of filth; a great example of features internet forums can collectively come up with!

After your camp has reached this state, there's very little to do yet but watch your goblins harvesting berries and your orcs defeating the occasional attack by hostile animals.

Speaking of hostile animals: because, so far, animals can open doors, you have to come up with creative ways to protect your camp from attacks, like this maze entrance:



There's really not much else to say about the game or the Goon behind it. If you feel like wasting a few minutes of your time, here's the official website of Goblin Camp.

"Go buy yourself a new phone!"

I was cleaning my home and suddenly my phone starts to demand my SIM-card. Trouble was that I never took my SIM-card out. Oh crap. I need to call someone for help... except I can't. So I went to my service providers vendor.  

So I am there waiting for someone to notice me in the phone shop. This paragon of customer service calls me to come to him if I need any help. I walk over there and start explaining my problem. Luckily this man is mixture of engineer and economist - he has social skills of an engineer and a world view of an economist. Rare breed in customer service field, but not unknown. He decided to try if my SIM-card works in other phone and it did! So he quickly concluded that my phone must be broken and told me to go and buy a new phone. He sounded annoyed that I had bothered him. 

I was somewhat stunned as I walked out of the shop without knowing what to do. Only after I was at home I noticed that he could have say... offered to sell me a new phone - I mean I was there in phone shop after all. Or maybe he could have been somewhat nicer. Not so today - luckily my phone started to work again later that day. 

Note: I wasn't happy with earlier draft so this wasn't actually published on standard time as I couldn't edit the post from my now working phone, but I could edit time this post would be published.

Bob Probert 1965-2010

Former NHL-player Bob Probert died on July 5, at the age of 45.

Probert is mostly remembered as a fighter and enforcer, and his penalty minute total of 3300 is sixth highest in NHL history, but it shouldn't be forgotten that he was also a damn fine hockey player. During his sixteen NHL seasons with Red Wings and Blackhawks he recorded 384 points in 935 games.

His best season was 1987-1988 with Detroit Red Wings. He did set the franchise penalty minute record with 398, but he also scored 29 goals and a total of 62 points in 74 games. In sixteen post-season games he added 21 points, the highest on the team. He was also selected to the All-Star team.

He was an exceptional player, and he will be missed.

The man who created one of the most kickass female characters ever has passed away

Last Wednesday I lost yet another piece of my childhood. Peter O'Donnell passed away aged 80.

I can't do justice to him right now. I know he was an old, ill man but... damn.



Sure, Modesty Blaise is a pulp heroine but she is a well-rounded believable character... well, okay, her skills are incredible but she is still a human being, and I love her. I've loved her since I was a kid and read Taste for Death. The first English language novel I ever read was I, Lucifer. I hunted the used books stores for the books and the comics. (Now, thanks to Amazon.com and eBay, I've managed to collect all of the 13 novels & short story collections, but am still working on the comics.)

Even the historical romances (more like adventure stories) O'Donnell wrote under the pseudonym Madeleine Brent are much more feminist than many of their like, and this from a British man who was born in 1920. I had been reading them for years before I found out they were written by him. (Yes, I'm old. This was before Wikipedia.)

Thank you for giving us the stories I can read over and over again, Mr O'Donnell. Thank you for giving us characters whose fates still make me laugh and cry (I might never forgive you for Cobra Trap, though, you old bastard).

Rest in peace.



Modesty: "No villains, no victims, no blood sweat and tears... We'll take a little break, Willie love, just you and me."

Willie: "Best bit of it all, Princess."

2012: Nostradamus

Have we been watching 2012 "documentaries" on the History Channel? Yes.

Are we going to do a series of posts on "the 2012 phenomenon"? Yes.

So, did Nostradamus predict the events of 2012? No.

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Seriously, he didn't. Not a single Nostradamus scholar said or wrote anything about this whole 2012 thing until it was invented a couple of years back. It's only lately that they've jumped on the 2012 bandwagon, cheerfully helped along by the (pseudo-)History channel, who keep running rubbish "documentaries" on the topic.

However, there's one thing we're thoroughly convinced Nostradamus did make several astonishing predictions about, all of which have come true: the National Hockey League.

Take, for instance, the very first quatrain of them all. Century I, quatrain 1:

Tripod seated at night in secret study
Only resting on the aerian saddle:
Tiny flame leaving the solitude
Make prosper what is not vain to believe.

It's clear that "tiny flame" refers to that diminutive Calgary legend, Theo Fleury.

He recently tried to make a comeback to the NHL, or in other words, "leave the solitude". On September 10, 2009, he was reinstated and allowed to make a return in a meeting with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, and league doctors. Notice that's three; Bettman, Daly and the doctors: a tripod has three legs.

They must have done some thinking and research before this meeting, but they couldn't reveal their conclusions beforehand: hence, secret study. I'll bet they didn't get much sleep, apart from what they caught on a plane trip, or, as Nostradamus would put it, "on the aerian saddle".

Fleury's comeback didn't pan out, but he was made to prosper, as his autobiography, published at the same time, did sell quite nicely. A mystery remains, though: is Nostradamus saying that it was vain to believe in his comeback, or is he saying that the allegations Fleury made in his book are "vain to believe"? We don't know. He did.

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Even more momentous is the third quatrain.

When the litters are overturned by the whirlwind
and faces are covered by cloaks,
the new republic will be troubled by its people.
At this time the reds and the whites will rule wrongly.

Can he be any more plain? When the litters are overturned by the whirlwind; like maybe a hurricane? This clearly refers to the Carolina Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup; their jerseys were, at the time, red and white. Seriously, he couldn't make this more explicit without just coming right out and saying that the Canes will win the Cup, and as we all know, prophets just don't do that.

The "new republic" here is Canada, which became a (quasi-)independent state later than the United States, and many Canadians were quite upset when the Oilers lost to the Canes in the final! Astonishingly, Nostradamus knew the Hurricanes were going to win the Stanley Cup over 400 years before it happened.

Again, Nostradamus is telling us something we didn't know beforehand, too: the reference to "ruling wrongly" seems to suggest that the Canes shouldn't have won the Cup! Was there some terrible officiating mistake that cost the Oilers the Cup? Should some other team have represented the Eastern Conference in the finals? Frankly, we don't know. He did.

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In quatrains 12 and 13, Nostradamus predicted the vicissitudes that the NHL Players' Association would face in the 2000's:

12

There will soon be talk of a treacherous man, who rules a short time,
quickly raised from low to high estate.
He will suddenly turn disloyal and volatile.
This man will govern Verona.

13

Through anger and internal hatreds, the exiles
will hatch a great plot against the king.
Secretly they will place enemies as a threat,
and his own old (adherents) will find sedition against them.

The "treacherous man" is clearly Ted Saskin, who became executive director of the NHLPA after Bob Goodenow's resignation ("quickly raised from low to high estate"). He was fired after the NHLPA members found he had masterminded a campaign to hack into players' e-mail accounts. So instead of representing the players, he had "suddenly turned disloyal and volatile".

We remember Verona from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as a city riven by factional strife; not a bad description of the NHLPA at any time! Quatrain 13 details Chris Chelios's campaign to dethrone Saskin, who was forced to resign in 2007.

But wait, there's more! Quatrain 23:

In the third month, at sunrise,
the Boar and the Leopard meet on the battlefield.
The fatigued Leopard looks up to heaven
and sees an eagle playing around the sun.

In the 1995-96 season, the Florida Panthers made it to the Stanley Cup finals. To make a long story short, as is common in prophecy interpretation, the Latin name for the leopard species is panthera pardus, a panther. The Panthers were pretty fatigued by the time they got to the final, where they lost to the Colorado Avalanche. The Avs are based in Denver, Colorado, and the seal of the city of Denver has a bird and the rays of the sun on it. Coincidence? We think not.

What about the boar? Well, wild boars are mostly found in Europe. The Cup-winning goal was scored by Uwe Krupp, who's from Europe. So this time around, Nostradamus knew that the Panthers would make the finals, but lose to Colorado! Over 400 years before it happened!

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Nostradamus also predicted some unpleasant things. Quatrain 26:

The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt.
An evil deed, foretold by the beare of a petition.
According to the prediction another falls at night time.
Conflict at Reims, London, and pestilence in Tuscany.

It's obvious to us that this quatrain refers to Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard. Savard was Boston's number one center, a "great man". He was blindsided by Matt Cooke, which is to say he took a hit that he didn't see coming, like a thunderbolt. You don't see those coming, either. Our Penguin Dictionary of Symbols identifies the thunderbolt in Celtic mythology with the hammer of Sucellus, the "hard hitter"; how unambiguous is that?

This hit was definitely an evil deed, and it was foretold by a petition. In fact, there have been numerous petitions to ban head shots in the NHL for years, but nothing has been done. To cap it off, the Bruins-Pens game on that day was at 3 P.M.; in the day.

Cooke wasn't penalized, and that weekend, on Hockey Night in Canada, it was predicted that more players would be injured unless the headshot rule was implemented immediately. And according to the prediction, another reckless hit left Brian Campbell injured just days later. The NHL may not have known that another player would be injured if they didn't react; Nostradamus did.

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These examples are more or less randomly selected from just the first century of Nostradamus's prophecies. We believe that they are entirely convincing PROOF that Nostradamus was a true prophet, who could indeed foretell the future. Here is evidence enough to convince even the most hardened skeptic.

Most excitingly, it stands to reason that the remaining quatrains contain many more of hockey's secrets. More likely than not, locked away in his prophecies is this year's Stanley Cup winner! We leave the search for this answer up to you. Don't read it here first; read it there yourself. The Prophecies are available on Wikisource: the future is in your hands.

Rembo. He called it Rembo.

I really want to write something about this, but I can't keep a straight face long enough. Go here, which should be a page on Andy Remic's website, about his latest offering, a fantasy book called Kell's Legend.

There's a video, called "promo for Kell's Legend", directed by... Andy Remic. He of War Machine which I tried to read earlier.

I could tell you about it, but really, I can't. Just watch it.

Ye be banning Alonso from F1

So, Renault finally came clean on Crashgate. They've now admitted Nelson Piquet were ordered to crash just after Fernando Alonso's pit stop in last year's Singapore Grand Prix, securing a win for Alonso. Ahoy! Team principal Flavio Briatore and head engineer Pat Symonds have both resigned, and on Monday, ye FIA will be doling out penalties. Yarr!

To start with, Flavio Briatore needs nothing less than a lifetime ban from ye sport. Yarr! Not only be this far from ye first time he's been on ye shadier side of things, but his behaviour when ye allegations came to light were appalling. Which he denies everything and basically calls his driver a queer in ye world media, only to admit everything and resign a week later. I'm sorry, what? Last week they were all lies, and besides, that guy with ye long hair be a faggot.

My two cents' worth: ban Alonso from F1 for good. As far as Crashgate be concerned, there be no way Alonso didn't know exactly what were being planned. Avast, ye scurvy dog! He not only went along with it, but kept his mouth shut and celebrated his win. He's Renault's anointed number one driver; it would be beyond ridiculous to suggest that he had no idea what were being planned, and happily went into ye race with a deliberately weak strategy without so much as a nudge and a wink from someone.

Remember, this be ye same guy who were proven to have cheerfully collaborated in Spygate. He and Pedro de la Rosa quite happily trafficked in information stolen from Ferrari, and Alonso only came forward with it to get back at Ron Dennis. Dennis has since left F1, at least in an active role; now it looks like Alonso's sunk Briatore as well.

Okay, maybe it be a coincidence that one driwer benefited from and were deeply personally involved in two of ye biggest F1 scandals of ye past decade. Or maybe it be not.

In my humble opinion, Alonso has demonstrated a continuing total disregard for rules, sportsmanship and basic honesty. It were scandalous enough that he, de la Rosa and Hamilton got away scot free from Spygate, despite overwhelming evidence that ye lot of them were involved with ye stolen Ferrari data at every stage, ye first two especially so. It beggars belief to imagine him getting away with Crashgate. Howewer, if there be something ye FIA be capable of, it be a monstrous travesty of justice.

In entertainment news, ye head of ye Spanish wing of FIA said Alonso be innocent and his win at Singapore be beyond dispute. He has a seat on ye world council. In related news, he's insane.

I just hope Alonso don't end up with Ferrari. Ye way things have been going so far, whoever Alonso signs with next be in for a session with ye FIA World Motorsport Council. Which I don't know what it'll be for, but his last two team chiefs have ended up in front of ye World Council and retired in disgrace. Why would ye next one be any different?

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In other F1 news, it be been downright bizarre to follow our Finnish drivers' contract situations. In my opinion, no driver could have scored more points with a Ferrari car this season than Kimi Räikkönen, especially over ye last few races. His driving has been phenomenal. After last year's no-show, he's reminded us all of why he won ye world title.

On ye other hand, Heikki Kovalainen be making a very strong case for being ye complete logical opposite of former Finnish F1 driver Jyrki Järvilehto. Yar! JJ were always rubbish at qualifying, but drove well in ye race. Yarr! This year, Heikki seems to be settling into a comfortable method of surpassing himself in qualifying and then throwing it all away by being completely rubbish in ye race. Monza were a perfect example of Kovalainen in action. He had a brilliant qualifying: his car weighed some 20 tons more than Hamilton's, but he were still ridiculously close to Hamilton's time throughout qualifying. Then ye wrong tire strategy, combined with an unbelievably bad first lap, destroyed his race.

Given all this, it were stupefying to hear ye news from Monza. Yar! McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh assured Finnish telewision that Heikki were very close to a contract extension with McLaren, while Ferrari point-blank refused to confirm that Räikkönen would be driving for Ferrari next year. I'm sorry, ye seem to have gotten them mixed up.

For what it be worth, I consider ye rumors that Räikkönen won't drive for Ferrari next year ludicrous. Yarr! Ye amount of money it would take to buy out his contract be just silly, and I don't see any way it could be worth it. Of course, that don't mean they won't do it, but it still don't make any sense. If anyone really thinks that Alonso, or Massa for that matter, would have had a stronger season than Räikkönen did this year in ye same car, they're grossly underestimating Kimi and overestimating Alonso.

Still, who knows? If there be one thing I know about F1 it be that anything can happen, whether it makes sense or not. So never say never.