One unexpected find in TV-land has been Merlin. When I first heard about it, I envisioned a sort of mutant combination of Smallville and Hercules, and, though I enjoyed both shows in small doses, the combination did not appeal.
Instead, it turns out that Merlin is a fun, low-key drama with a good sense of humor. Colin Morgan, who plays Merlin does a lovely combination of innocence and impishness and Katie McGrath is a marvelous Morgana, and it's possible to believe that Arthur will, one day, be a great king.
The show plays fast and loose with the legends--Arthur knows he's the crown prince, for one--but maintains its own internal mythology quite well. Season One is available on hulu. Season Two is currently airing on the SyFy channel. They aren't good at regular reruns, so missing an episode is a pain, but they have done at least one catchup marathon in the past & hopefully will again in the future.
Welcome to my dragon's hoard. It's full of book reviews, TV reviews, photographs, musings on life, sewing, gardening, crafting, modding, and whatever other wonders catch my attention.
My blog is hopelessly general purpose, but also relentlessly keyworded.
Welcome!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The Broken Hourglass: A Small Sample of Code
I don't really have anything exciting to say today--mostly just popping in to say "Yup, coding continues." (I almost wrote ~"Coding continues"~ which should tell you something about how dialog is formatted). I'm still working on learning; it's a pretty steep curve. Hmmm... since I'm feeling uninspired and uninspiring today, how bout I give you an almost completely unexplained snippet of code? One that isn't in the game at all.
First, a basic creature looks something like this:
<xml>
<Template value="crecolor_19.CREATURETEMPLATE"/>
<Template value="basic-innocent.CREATURETEMPLATE"/>
<Name value= ~Nemo~/>
<race value="human"/>
<appearance value="mhhero1"/>
<Dialogue value="nemo"/>
<Party value="nemo_alone"/>
<Starting_Itemcount value="simple$(gold,900)"/>
<Starting_Item value="dagger"/>
<Area value="area_govinn"/>
<x value="1539"/>
<y value="2476"/>
<initial_direction value="west"/>
</xml>
Then he has a party, which generally says where he hangs out and who else gets mad if he's attacked, and which can, sometimes, be used to make groups of creatures do things together. His is called nemo_alone:
<xml>
<Area value="area_govinn"/>
</xml>
And then he has a script:
begin nemo
begin talk
goto nemo_greet
end
begin nemo_greet
say ~"Hello. I am Nemo."~
++ ~"Hello, Nemo. I want you to give me some sanguil."~ goto nemo_give
++ ~"Nemo, it is time for you to leave."~ goto nemo_bye
end
begin nemo_give
say ~"I don't normally do things like this, but ok."~ do ( (_atomic_item_give ("nemo"::"CREATURE") ("gold"::"ITEM") ) 25 _player1) goto nemo_enough
end
begin nemo_enough
say ~"Was that enough?"~
++ ~"Yes. Now I want you to leave."~ goto nemo_bye
++ ~"No."~ goto nemo_toobad
end
begin nemo_bye
say ~"Such is the way of the world."~ goto nemo_depart
end
begin nemo_toobad
say ~"Too bad. I'm leaving anyway."~ goto nemo_depart
end
begin nemo_depart
do (_escape_area_remove_from_game _me)
exit
end
end
And here he is, real as life and twice as natural:
There are bits and pieces of tutorial over at the Planewalker Games Website, by the way, if you happen to feel like delving into this in more detail.
Incidentally, this also demonstrates the difficulty I, personally, have in keeping it simple or short, but that is another story.
First, a basic creature looks something like this:
<xml>
<Template value="crecolor_19.CREATURETEMPLATE"/>
<Template value="basic-innocent.CREATURETEMPLATE"/>
<Name value= ~Nemo~/>
<race value="human"/>
<appearance value="mhhero1"/>
<Dialogue value="nemo"/>
<Party value="nemo_alone"/>
<Starting_Itemcount value="simple$(gold,900)"/>
<Starting_Item value="dagger"/>
<Area value="area_govinn"/>
<x value="1539"/>
<y value="2476"/>
<initial_direction value="west"/>
</xml>
Then he has a party, which generally says where he hangs out and who else gets mad if he's attacked, and which can, sometimes, be used to make groups of creatures do things together. His is called nemo_alone:
<xml>
<Area value="area_govinn"/>
</xml>
And then he has a script:
begin nemo
begin talk
goto nemo_greet
end
begin nemo_greet
say ~"Hello. I am Nemo."~
++ ~"Hello, Nemo. I want you to give me some sanguil."~ goto nemo_give
++ ~"Nemo, it is time for you to leave."~ goto nemo_bye
end
begin nemo_give
say ~"I don't normally do things like this, but ok."~ do ( (_atomic_item_give ("nemo"::"CREATURE") ("gold"::"ITEM") ) 25 _player1) goto nemo_enough
end
begin nemo_enough
say ~"Was that enough?"~
++ ~"Yes. Now I want you to leave."~ goto nemo_bye
++ ~"No."~ goto nemo_toobad
end
begin nemo_bye
say ~"Such is the way of the world."~ goto nemo_depart
end
begin nemo_toobad
say ~"Too bad. I'm leaving anyway."~ goto nemo_depart
end
begin nemo_depart
do (_escape_area_remove_from_game _me)
exit
end
end
And here he is, real as life and twice as natural:
There are bits and pieces of tutorial over at the Planewalker Games Website, by the way, if you happen to feel like delving into this in more detail.
Incidentally, this also demonstrates the difficulty I, personally, have in keeping it simple or short, but that is another story.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
The violence, sex, drugs, and constant need to inform the reader every time the protagonist has an erection are not gratuitous additions to the plot of Altered Carbon; they are the plot.
The hero, Takeshi Kovacs, a super-soldier(1) with a dark past spent doing dark deeds too dirty for the rest of us to contemplate, has left the military and turned criminal. Sentenced to storage--in the novel's only interesting bit, people are backed up on computer and can be stacked indefinitely in electronic form before being downloaded into new bodies--he's rented out to a wealthy man who wants to know why the police insist he committed suicide; he insists he didn't and wants to know what really happened (see computer backups). Much blowing up of things, some killing, and some sex ensue as Our Hero tries to figure out exactly what happened. In the meantime, his Dark Past comes back to haunt him(2). Everything is ultimately resolved in an explosive climax and Our Hero says goodbye to the girls before heading back home to, one assumes, more mayhem.
I got about a third of the way through Altered Carbon before beginning to skim and skim some more in search of something that might make me want to read the book. I never found it. There is some interesting stuff about identity and its connection to the body woven in there, and Morgan does seem to mix that in without stopping to lecture, but that was not enough to pull me in.
(1)Aren't they all?
(2) You've read this story before, right?
The hero, Takeshi Kovacs, a super-soldier(1) with a dark past spent doing dark deeds too dirty for the rest of us to contemplate, has left the military and turned criminal. Sentenced to storage--in the novel's only interesting bit, people are backed up on computer and can be stacked indefinitely in electronic form before being downloaded into new bodies--he's rented out to a wealthy man who wants to know why the police insist he committed suicide; he insists he didn't and wants to know what really happened (see computer backups). Much blowing up of things, some killing, and some sex ensue as Our Hero tries to figure out exactly what happened. In the meantime, his Dark Past comes back to haunt him(2). Everything is ultimately resolved in an explosive climax and Our Hero says goodbye to the girls before heading back home to, one assumes, more mayhem.
I got about a third of the way through Altered Carbon before beginning to skim and skim some more in search of something that might make me want to read the book. I never found it. There is some interesting stuff about identity and its connection to the body woven in there, and Morgan does seem to mix that in without stopping to lecture, but that was not enough to pull me in.
(1)Aren't they all?
(2) You've read this story before, right?
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Glorious Gladioli!
A couple(1) years ago, I planted some gladioli. They were a big disappointment--small, spindly, and spotted--and I decided I wasn't too sad that the plumbers had had to take a few out. I took a few out myself.
I left some in, though, since they weren't much in the way, and wow! They really like being settled. The first one to bloom is more than five feet tall and the blooms are a rich, deep, purple. They're also big.
*pauses
There's a moral in here somewhere, isn't there?
(1)Good grief. I found the timing out by doing a blog search. I've been blogging for over two years! Since, um, February 2008, with a bit of a try over in MySpace before that. Should I throw a belated birthday party or something?
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Broken Hourglass: Some Coding, Some Crashing
Remember when I said I'd figured out areatrigger polylists?
Turns out I hadn't, not quite. There was one simple display command that I didn't know and needed in order to make quite sure the trigger covered the full area required. I spent several hours last night incrementally scootching triggers up and down in order to get them positioned just right, and reloading the game to see if they were now in place.
One reason it took so long is that the display command turned out to be one command too many for my poor little Acer One. She's a grand little computer and has worked mightily, but she's not really quite designed to handle all the programs I have open when I code, so I occasionally get the Blue Screen of Death--occasionally until last night, when I got it fairly regularly. Ultimately, things worked (more or less) after I disabled the wireless and shut down absolutely every program that I knew was not related to coding and probably wouldn't actually crash the computer if it were turned off. Whew!
Now I'm testing one of those really simple quests that turns out to be more complicated than it looks--another "I have this, do you want it, and will you pay for it?" deals that goes on and on and on as I think of possible ramifications and results and approaches. No complicated display screens, though, so the Acer's holding up ok.
Turns out I hadn't, not quite. There was one simple display command that I didn't know and needed in order to make quite sure the trigger covered the full area required. I spent several hours last night incrementally scootching triggers up and down in order to get them positioned just right, and reloading the game to see if they were now in place.
One reason it took so long is that the display command turned out to be one command too many for my poor little Acer One. She's a grand little computer and has worked mightily, but she's not really quite designed to handle all the programs I have open when I code, so I occasionally get the Blue Screen of Death--occasionally until last night, when I got it fairly regularly. Ultimately, things worked (more or less) after I disabled the wireless and shut down absolutely every program that I knew was not related to coding and probably wouldn't actually crash the computer if it were turned off. Whew!
Now I'm testing one of those really simple quests that turns out to be more complicated than it looks--another "I have this, do you want it, and will you pay for it?" deals that goes on and on and on as I think of possible ramifications and results and approaches. No complicated display screens, though, so the Acer's holding up ok.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
More Rosey Goodness
The recipe that had me most interested, though, was the Rose Petal Bread which I finally made today. Mostly made--I used some whole wheat flour & cut down on the butter and eggs; it would be a much softer bread with the full amount of butter and with white flour, but much less nutritious. In any case, it's delicious.
The bread dough rose nicely.
See the lovely little flecks in there? Rosemary, rose petal (red and orange), and raisins. Yum!Blue Herons
The herons nesting behind the Balboa Branch Library are getting more active; I'm pretty sure these are two of the babies--they look a bit too scruffy to be adults.
There are also some herons nesting in a tree in the nearby median. I've been using this tree as a landmark for years and only noticed the nests this year. Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Best Laid Plans
It was meant to be a coding the game and watching the owls kind of day.
Instead it was a cleaning the garage and looking for rats sort of day.
These things happen.
Instead it was a cleaning the garage and looking for rats sort of day.
These things happen.
The Broken Hourglass: Today's Plan
Today's plan for The Broken Hourglass is to make sure three separate sets of journals are properly coordinated and have reasonable dates on them.
After that, barring further instruction--
I make Polylists!
Yes, indeed. I finally figured out the practical polylist--the premade shape, at least, and I'm pretty sure, from looking at the code, that I can do custom shapes as well.
It kind of depends--there are a couple of different possibilities.
I'm still more writer than coder, but I must admit, I see the point now, with code; it is no longer inconceivable that someone might actually prefer coding to writing (strange, but not inconceivable).
After that, barring further instruction--
I make Polylists!
Yes, indeed. I finally figured out the practical polylist--the premade shape, at least, and I'm pretty sure, from looking at the code, that I can do custom shapes as well.
It kind of depends--there are a couple of different possibilities.
I'm still more writer than coder, but I must admit, I see the point now, with code; it is no longer inconceivable that someone might actually prefer coding to writing (strange, but not inconceivable).
Monday, May 3, 2010
The Broken Hourglass: Coding Containers, Part 2
It turns out that what I thought were the container coordinates were the area coordinates, so I was resizing the area to make it really small.
Now that that is straightened out, the containers are working, and I've spent the day preparing books and things to go in them.
It's funny, when I started this, it really never occurred to me that any item in the game had to be written, coded, and inserted, one thing at a time.
Now I know!
Now that that is straightened out, the containers are working, and I've spent the day preparing books and things to go in them.
It's funny, when I started this, it really never occurred to me that any item in the game had to be written, coded, and inserted, one thing at a time.
Now I know!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Broken Hourglass: How Coding Went This Weekend
"I think I'm going to make some containers today."
"Look! The container is there! So is the book I put into it! Hurray!"
*Pauses for a moment
"Oh. Wait. How come half the floor area just went black?"
*Fiddles with things.
"It is the container."
*Fiddles some more.
"I think I'll go do some laundry."
///
Right now, I'm waiting for further instruction on polylists. In the meantime, I'm doing laundry, taking care of the roses, and working on some more dialog-friendly commands. _action_walk _me and _atomic_item_swap don't mysteriously crash half of an area.
"Look! The container is there! So is the book I put into it! Hurray!"
*Pauses for a moment
"Oh. Wait. How come half the floor area just went black?"
*Fiddles with things.
"It is the container."
*Fiddles some more.
"I think I'll go do some laundry."
///
Right now, I'm waiting for further instruction on polylists. In the meantime, I'm doing laundry, taking care of the roses, and working on some more dialog-friendly commands. _action_walk _me and _atomic_item_swap don't mysteriously crash half of an area.
V: The Heretic's Fork, a spoiler-ish review
I'm finally caught up with V. Last night, I watched The Heretic's Fork, the show which tried to be morally gray and instead ended up being mortally dull.
To begin with, a detour to the show before, We Can't Win, during which stuff actually happened and one or two people were likable. The computer geek was entirely believable as someone thrown in way over his head and doing his best to fight with the skills he had. In fact, he was better than Our Heroes, since he'd actually thought of a way to connect with other people--true, the V's figured it out, but at least he'd tried. Kyle got to do something other than scowl and proved his usefulness by coolly assessing the situation once the trap for the assassin went awry. Granted, it was a stupid trap--Why'd they stick their potential new ally out to be target practice? All they actually needed was the message about where he'd be and a suitable room to contain him, but I digress; the point is, Kyle got to show that he had some tactical value and actually seemed chagrined when things didn't go off; it's not quite team spirit, but it was an improvement.
And there were two great twists at the end when the identity of the assassin and his motive were revealed. Yes, I thought, things were really looking up!
Then came The Heretic's Fork. Boo! Hiss!
Turns out the Big Reveal at the end of We Can't Win was a lie. The assassin might be human, but he's not someone who has given in, oppressed by the V's apparent might. No, he's a bona-fide war hero and loving father bravely serving the Visitors in return for their healing his daughter. And Our Heroes choose to torture him because they really can't name "one bad thing the Visitors have done" since coming to Earth and are left with "You're wrong" as an argument. Needless to say, this fails to persuade the assassin.
After this, Kyle does some more scowling and we learn that he keeps instruments of torture in his locker, thus proving how Morally Grey everything is, when the heroes need to associate with the likes of him in order to win. And, seriously, just how naive is Erica the FBI agent? Kyle tells her he knows people who can make the war vet disappear into a secret overseas prison and she doesn't question this? Doesn't wonder if sending him there might be worse than killing him outright? Doesn't ask why Kyle, with these resources, hasn't been more useful?
Then the intrepid trio hunt down but do not kill, a Visitor super-soldier sent to kill Val, Ryan, and the baby. Seriously: The Super Soldier is lying on the ground in front of them, still very obviously alive, and they choose to leave rather than finishing the job. Anyone doubt he'll be back?
Tyler, like Kyle, got to do some scowling (though no torture), Ryan got to be an idiot, Joshua got to look worried, Val got to be slightly hysterical, and Erica got to cry, making this a red-letter day for everyone.
For all the "moral gray" shoved into it, the episode was pretty tepid. After watching, a friend said he'd like to see more shooting and less espionage in the show overall, to which I replied "What espionage? What have our heroes actually done lately? Why can't Erica tell us about bad things the Visitors have done? Why hasn't she investigated Ryan's claim that they are everywhere and that no one can be trusted? Why hasn't she checked to see if they are really evil incarnate? What has this trained FBI agent been doing with her time and skills? We know they are evil because we've seen Anna smile that predatory smile and make evil pronouncements. Erica, on the other hand, knows that they have killed a known terrorist group, snuck an apparently innocuous saline solution into the nation's flu virus (As far as I can see, Ryan still hasn't told anyone else what he knows about R-6 or how he knows it), and tried to kill her for being at the terrorist group meeting. Shouldn't she be asking more questions? Can you name one thing she knows now that she didn't know in the first episode? Can you name one thing that we, the would-be loyal viewers know now that we didn't know after that first episode?
Anna's wonderful, but she can't carry the show on her own, and anyway, I'm starting to miss Diana's over-the-top evil and loving it vamping.
To begin with, a detour to the show before, We Can't Win, during which stuff actually happened and one or two people were likable. The computer geek was entirely believable as someone thrown in way over his head and doing his best to fight with the skills he had. In fact, he was better than Our Heroes, since he'd actually thought of a way to connect with other people--true, the V's figured it out, but at least he'd tried. Kyle got to do something other than scowl and proved his usefulness by coolly assessing the situation once the trap for the assassin went awry. Granted, it was a stupid trap--Why'd they stick their potential new ally out to be target practice? All they actually needed was the message about where he'd be and a suitable room to contain him, but I digress; the point is, Kyle got to show that he had some tactical value and actually seemed chagrined when things didn't go off; it's not quite team spirit, but it was an improvement.
And there were two great twists at the end when the identity of the assassin and his motive were revealed. Yes, I thought, things were really looking up!
Then came The Heretic's Fork. Boo! Hiss!
Turns out the Big Reveal at the end of We Can't Win was a lie. The assassin might be human, but he's not someone who has given in, oppressed by the V's apparent might. No, he's a bona-fide war hero and loving father bravely serving the Visitors in return for their healing his daughter. And Our Heroes choose to torture him because they really can't name "one bad thing the Visitors have done" since coming to Earth and are left with "You're wrong" as an argument. Needless to say, this fails to persuade the assassin.
After this, Kyle does some more scowling and we learn that he keeps instruments of torture in his locker, thus proving how Morally Grey everything is, when the heroes need to associate with the likes of him in order to win. And, seriously, just how naive is Erica the FBI agent? Kyle tells her he knows people who can make the war vet disappear into a secret overseas prison and she doesn't question this? Doesn't wonder if sending him there might be worse than killing him outright? Doesn't ask why Kyle, with these resources, hasn't been more useful?
Then the intrepid trio hunt down but do not kill, a Visitor super-soldier sent to kill Val, Ryan, and the baby. Seriously: The Super Soldier is lying on the ground in front of them, still very obviously alive, and they choose to leave rather than finishing the job. Anyone doubt he'll be back?
Tyler, like Kyle, got to do some scowling (though no torture), Ryan got to be an idiot, Joshua got to look worried, Val got to be slightly hysterical, and Erica got to cry, making this a red-letter day for everyone.
For all the "moral gray" shoved into it, the episode was pretty tepid. After watching, a friend said he'd like to see more shooting and less espionage in the show overall, to which I replied "What espionage? What have our heroes actually done lately? Why can't Erica tell us about bad things the Visitors have done? Why hasn't she investigated Ryan's claim that they are everywhere and that no one can be trusted? Why hasn't she checked to see if they are really evil incarnate? What has this trained FBI agent been doing with her time and skills? We know they are evil because we've seen Anna smile that predatory smile and make evil pronouncements. Erica, on the other hand, knows that they have killed a known terrorist group, snuck an apparently innocuous saline solution into the nation's flu virus (As far as I can see, Ryan still hasn't told anyone else what he knows about R-6 or how he knows it), and tried to kill her for being at the terrorist group meeting. Shouldn't she be asking more questions? Can you name one thing she knows now that she didn't know in the first episode? Can you name one thing that we, the would-be loyal viewers know now that we didn't know after that first episode?
Anna's wonderful, but she can't carry the show on her own, and anyway, I'm starting to miss Diana's over-the-top evil and loving it vamping.
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