Mind mapping

It's been a little while without anything major happening on the project. Both Greg and I have been tied up with more immediately pressing responsibilities giving diminished time for this project. That's not to say that nothing has happened, little tweaks and decisions have been ticking along in the odd moments we can spare. 


I did think it was worth pointing a blogging finger at the project mind map that has recently surfaced. I'm a big fan of mind maps when their use adds value but so often have found that they turn into little more than a time sink as a simple list would suffice. However, for this project I'm finding it very handy indeed to be able to dump thoughts in a structured manner. With scary speed the complexity of the map is increasing - or rather it is driving out the complexity already within the project.

No doubt as this map is expanded, revised, reiterated and reviewed it will drive the development of the requirements and be a good refresher when we're working on the code details. Anyway, I'm a fan and it turns out a couple of interesting images so I think that makes it blog-worthy. If the title image leaves you wanting more then here's the current version in full for your perusal.


I'm still looking about for an online collaborative mind-mapping tool that I like so you only get images for now.

dmzdkp project introduction

A few days ago Greg approached me about writing a new version of the DKP system we use for DMZ-Gaming. He was looking for a project to gain some more coding experience. As it happened this is a project I have had on the drawing board for quite a while now and jumped at the chance of having some help on the venture. I also saw this as an opportunity to dust the rust off of my software-development project skills that have pretty much sat idle for the best part of a year.

The version in use at the moment is pretty much just a procedural core of a system that has had features and functions bolted on over time. The result gets the job done but could be a lot easier to build upon, service and generally comprehend from a coding point of view. As such I'm keen to use as much of the design process as I can to ensure that the final result is not only better coded but actually has some documentation behind it.

We have also gone with the open source approach. As much as we might like to make oodles of cash for our efforts that isn't the aim of the venture. As such almost all the documentation will be hosted on various parts of Google (including this blog). I've also become quite smitten with Dabbleboard and LovelyCharts, they are making the design documentation so much richer and easier to produce. Links to all this stuff are on the sidebar.

So anyway, here's the project blog where, with any luck, we'll post any developments of interest. For now I'll simply welcome anyone reading this and end the post with the project description that's on our Google.code page.

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WHY dmzdkp?

We believe that people who invest the most should have the greatest reward. We believe that a good DKP system is smart enough to be fair, yet simple to use. We believe that raid selection and DKP tools should help you resolve conflicts, not start them.

We have developed a DKP system that rewards effort, like EPGP; is non-inflationary, like Zero-sum; never needs to be reset; avoids the instability of Suicide Kings or bidding systems, and is acessible to all.

This system was developed by DMZ-Gaming for World of Warcraft and is now being taken into a second generation where it will be freely available to all who want to use it.

We aim to include:

• DKP listings and breakdowns
• Raider management
• Raid scheduling and signups
• Item details and looting history
• Steady decay to avoid hard resets
• In-game tools for raid setup and loot distribution
• Tracking of DKP standing, signups, attendance and much, much more

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What is DKP?

DKP stands for Dragon Kill Points. These points are a form of currency for endgame players of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games). Points are earned through partisipation in events and spent on equipment (gear) to improve the person's character. The concept was created for Everquest at a time when the only events were to kill dragons.

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[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

~Rudyard Kipling

Pies, Porridge and Everything

I have a mate at work and we go to lunch each day in
the campus canteen. Over our pies and occasional puddings we have conversations about all sorts of stuff, preferably of a scientific ilk. For example we have a long running disagreement over the nature of the universe - I don't believe that time and space were created at the time of the big bang and are not features of what we call our universe but merely some where (and some when) for our universe to happen in. While the 'big-bang' was undoubtedly a pretty momentous event in our history I think that it is just one of many in the infinite reaches of nothingness and boundless time of the 'everything' that it happens 'in'.

I've started to put words into quotes a lot because language starts to break down when we try and talk about infinity and everything. The human brain is ill equipped for considering, let alone comprehending, infinite anything and so also can't handle infinite nothing. We measure, we compartmentalise, we compare. None of these things work with infinity; there's no measure to be made, you can't put it in a compartment and can't make a compartment out of it. Don't even try and compare anything to it because next to everything, all else is nothing.

There is a concern among many scientists with an interest in cosmology. It seems that this universe is just right for us. I know, that sounds like a good thing, so what's all the concern about? The more we learn about the universe (the rocks, burning gas and other debris that are left after this very big bang) and how it was just after the explosion, very small parts of a second after it, the more we learn that if one of the properties were just very slightly different we would have had no chance of existence. If gravity had been just a little weaker then the gasses and other bits wouldn't have started clumping up and getting all hot, so they wouldn't have started burning and spewing out heavier elements. Lumps of dusty stuff wouldn't have got together to make rocky stuff. And so on. Make gravity a tiny bit stronger and the whole lot collapses back into some kind of implosion or other very nasty situation.

So, we're just lucky? Well, no, there's no co-incidence that we should happen to evolve in a universe that is the cosmological equivalent of Momma Bear's porridge. If it weren't we wouldn't be here to observe it. One is the product of the other, no luck or fate brought the two together.

Why are they concerned? Taking the gravity thing further we find that not only is it set just right for clumping the bits into bigger bits and having some bits spin happily around other warm bits but while it's all getting bigger it is slowing down and might stop. It might not. It might reverse. We don't know, not just because it's incredibly difficult to measure but also because with each new measurement it gets closer to the incredible balancing point.

Imagine a huge smooth dome the size of a house, and imagine rolling a snooker ball up the side. If you roll the ball gently it will roll back to to you. If you roll it herd enough it will roll right over and down the other side. If you roll it just right you could, just maybe, get it to come to rest balancing right on the top of the dome. That's easy compared to the balancing act the universe seems to be trying.

Here's where my theory comes in. Imagine trying that snooker ball thing again, but you have to do it first time. Not very likely at all. How about if I said you could have as many goes as you like in an hour, or a year? you might get it if you stuck at it for a whole year. Even more likely if you did it every day of your life. How about you got some friends to help, and their friends too, everyone with their own dome and ball? Or maybe an infinite number of people with an infinite number of attempts. Surely with that amount of time and resouces then if it's possible then it is bound to happen.

So that's it; we're here because this universe is just right for us. This universe is here because it's possible for it to be. The real kicker here is that this means that it is also possible for an infinite number of other universes to exist. They don't have to be in 'parallel dimensions' just somewhere else, over there somewhere.

My mate doesn't agree with me about this, but then what does he know? He only used to be a nuclear physicist. We do agree on what makes a good apple crumble though, and that's what's important.

I'm a gay robot

No, I’m not coming out or exposing some kinda mechanised plot to hide amongst humanity before launching a grand scheme to overrun the planet. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you need to keep reading cos there's something really cool you've been missing.

Those of you who do recognise that quote will, I'm sure, agree that Red V's Blue is essential viewing for gamers. For those who don't know, it's a comedy machinima (movie 'filmed' within a game) made in Halo. It follows two teams of misfits and dumbasses as they exist and battle in (initially) blood gultch.

I've been re-watching the DVDs of the first series and the thing doesn't seem to date. the gags are good and the characters engaging. Pretty stunning as they always wear helmets and almost always hold a pistol. I think one of the things that I appreciate most about it is that they take the piss out of themselves, not the characters (tough there's plenty of that) but where there is inadequacy in the show mechanism they point it out and make fun of it.

Screw it, I'm not here to promote this stuff. I like it, watch it and see if you do.

Cock bite.

Red Vs Blue site
Wikipedia article

Vista looks nice

I've been thinking about buying Windows Vista. I feel like a guy at an AA meeting there, "Hi, my names Dom and I use Windows." I'm torn between the burgeoning geek who feels that the use of Microsoft products is some kind of betrayal of a nerd fraternity and the gamer who knows that there's no such thing as a Mac/Linux gamer.

So, anyway, Vista looks nice. There's not too much more to say about it really. It's pretty hard to get excited about 'improvements' in Microsoft 'security' so there's not much left to wow over. I would like to start using a 64bit OS as I have 4 gig of RAM in my system and know I'm not using all of it but since that couldn't motivate me to installing XP-64 (despite being given a legit copy) it's not about to be a decision maker here.


Vista looks nice though. It feels like that shouldn't mean anything but it's pretty important. Windows was an ugly beast to begin with and it wasn't until I installed Win 95 (all 13 floppies of it) that I could be persuaded to leave DOS behind. Win 95 looked nice, it felt like you were using a smart computer, it gave you an impression that computers were indeed heading towards the truly useful beasts we were promised by TV. XP was also kinda sold on it's looks but frankly the appeal passed me by and I've always run XP in classic mode.

But Vista really does look nice. Yeah, that's probably all I want it for. I'm being seduced by slick black bars and glassy panels. By '3D' stacking of windows and application previews on alt-tabbing. It looks nice to use. It looks like a modern and slightly futuristic computer should look like. It looks like it will compliment my slick black box of powerful parts and my two slick TFT monitors. It looks like it'll make me feel more powerful, more in control, more...


Looks just like a Mac though, doesn't it? I dunno, I know macs have always been prettier but that's never tempted me to want to buy one. Macs are for people who value form over function, for artists who have only ever used Macs through design school cos Macs used to be better for graphics ten years ago. Macs are for people who have more money than desire to play with wires and PCBs. Do I care if Vista Aero looks like Mac Aqua. Not at all, just at long as I don't have to spray my system white and pay twice as much for it I don't mind at all.

It is expensive though. You can get a basic version but since it lacks most of the eye candy (glass effects). You'd be better customising XP to have black bars and a swooshie desktop background. So if you want a real Vista, the one that's being marketed at you, you have to pay more, much more. Cost verses candy.

I'm gonna be thinking this one through for a while now, maybe there'll be a stable version out by the time I make up my mind.

Wikipedia article

New week - new site

I spent most of the weekend building a new website. This time it was for the fire marshal community at work. The marshal for my area has moved on and so I was asked to move from deputy to marshal and I figured this would be a good time to try and drive home some of the communication issues I felt needed to be addressed in this community; particularly the lack of training and guidance.


The site is, once again, based around a punbb forum. I'm getting to know the code quite well and it's pretty easy to add portals and other stuff quite quickly. I added the standard portal page and (new for me) the pundokuwiki mod. The portal I edited a bit to get it to display an icon next to the news items (based on a string in the post subject). The wiki was a little troublesome, first off the language file wasn't being accessed properly (thanks to Sajjid for finding the post answering that one) but more importantly the user access bits aren't working. I'll be trying to sort that out but in the mean time I have to upload the data files by FTP.