RPG Articles

So, I picked up Chromehounds, since Aaron decided to get a 360, and I lust for mech combat.

I’ve completed all but the final single player mission, which I haven’t even looked at yet. More on that later.

It’s from… uhh… From Software, the guys behind the Armored Core line. There’s definitely some similarities, but it’s more of an underlying philosophy than anything specific.

Points of similarity-
Customizable mechs
General control scheme is very similar
Overall look of the models

It diverges pretty wildly though. AC has always been a fast moving game, with a very ninja robot feel. Even the slow mechs could boost along at pretty high speeds. This game feels more like a conventional armored column. Combat is intense, but not terribly fast in any sense. Even the fast machines feel more like jeeps than, say, a spaceborne rocket. Pretty much everything is earthbound, though there’s a component to let you hover for a few seconds, it isn’t anything like the boosters in AC.

There’s a ton of intelligence gathering and disruption options. Mechs only get a radar image of very close targets that are on the move, except for the commander, who can see any unit positions within the network area you control. Missions can happen at night, and unlike most games that can mean damned near pitch black. You have a headlight you can turn on, but all that really does is mark you as desperate or retarded. To this end, you can equip a flare launching mortar, or nightvision.

The flares are awesome. Not only do they show off the studly lighting effects, but targets within the flare radius will show up on your radar, and the flares are up long enough to actually be useful.

The nightvision is also great, but obviously only helps out one guy. Also, like real nightvision, it isn’t really as useful as, say, a small sun illuminating the hostiles.

The maps have COMBAS towers, which create the network area. Units outside of the area lose communications, and towers are captured by standing next to them for 10 seconds. The commander equips a portable version, enabling them to keep the shit together. There are also jammers, so your scouts can play hell with the enemy line.

Blah blah blah, I fucking love the game. The single player is just training, and a way to get parts, before you go online and, presumably, get your ass handed to you over and over. The parts are what keeps me from that final mission. See, and S rank gives you more parts, so I’m redoing every mission I didn’t already get an S in.

More after I’ve drank enough to go online.

This is fun.

Get Your Cyborg Name

Get Your Monster Name

Get Your Sexy Name

You know, I like a lot of the character behind The Flash, specifically Wally, but this whole Speedforce thing makes me want to dig someone’s eyes out.

If you weren’t so handy you’d be worthless. I swear though, if I ever find a good alternative, it’s over.

Anyway, on to the meat of this post. I had trouble getting Hamachi to run on my linux box. Wouldn’t go, wouldn’t error, wouldn’t anything.

Finally I found this post, and lo, it solved the whole shootin’ match of issues. I can’t even conceive of why.  For those that just want the answer, I installed the upx-ucl-beta from Synaptic, went into /usr/bin and ran upx -d hamachi .

This “unpacks” the binary. If you can tell me what that means, feel free.

Now… I’m not really a security expert, and I’ve never been tasked with making something as socially critical as a power plant safe from electronic attacks, but I think I have a solution to this problem.

There will be profanity. Ready? Ok.

Don’t connect your fucking powerplants to the fucking internet, you fucking chimps. Internet access? Sure, fine, power plants use email too. But none of the actual control or production equipment has any reason to be connected to the internet. I know your IT guy adored Hackers, and whatever, but you had to smell the bullshit on this at some point.

I’ll close by saying that I don’t defacto trust any of the items presented in this article. It seems thin and too vague. Also, it mentions the CIA, which demerits a claim by at least 25%.

“….i never understood that line (at the end of BLADERUNNER)..

..does it mean that they are ALL robots?

..or maybe that they all just have shit lives?

because if it means theyre ALL robots… then.. its pretty shit.”

How do you not understand “It’s too bad she won’t live, but then, who does” ?

This is like not getting “No matter where you go, there you are”. While certainly carrying some profoundness, it isn’t rocket science, all it requires is reading at a 5th grade level.

This is something I just setup for a client of mine, whose company processes payroll and taxes. I honestly don’t know the full extent of what ATX does, but here’s what I do know- It’s written in Java, yet is platform dependent. That’s quite common with this sort of thing, and I don’t know why, but it’s a good sign that the software blows.

Anyway. Looked fairly reasonable, overall, but would stall out sometimes because of Java’s magic. Overall, didn’t really look at it enough to tell you anything beyond it’s as poorly laid out as any super industry specific software.

ATX Scan & Fill was something I had to install. It let’s you scan documents in, such as invoices and W2s, and save those under client profiles.

First, I looked for an option to import clients from ATX. That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But no, nothing there. Thankfully he only has like 5 clients in the system currently, but still.

Next I tried to add a client. This took some time, because it just had a “Create new folder” option, which turned out to be it. I imagine it’s rather a pain in the ass to work with, based on my small sample. Supposedly you can scan W2s, and similar structured forms, and it’ll use OCR to fill in the electronic info from that. Aside from that there is literally no reason to use it.

Why? Because in ATX, when you click the option to import from Scand & Fill, it’ll let you browse to any image you want. Sure, it supports some search parameters, and the fill option, but it’s something to bear in mind if you don’t want to buy them both right off the bat.

I wish Republicans and Democrats were similar to matter/antimatter, in that they should annihilate, mass for mass, upon entering the same room, or seeing each other on any kind of teleconference.

Hell with it, throw all the indies in there too.

Idiots, the lot of them.

Also, if I hear or see “change” listed in some manner that suggests the word, all by its lonesome, is some objective goal, I’ll show you some damned change, in the form of fires the size and rough shapes of houses.

Though who knows how or why.

Anyway, aside from being yelled at for not wanting a sandwich, a novel experience at least, the standard, though lessened, caffeine deprivation headache, and wandering around several shops as though I were a goldfish, it wasn’t a bad birthday, given my track record.

Watched Walk Hard, which was way awesome, and had some great Thai food from Chaba Thai. I think that’s the only Thai place around here that doesn’t use something stupid in the name, like Beau Thai or Typhoon. At least Typhoon does it phonetically. I should open a place called Thaied Up, with a bondage theme.

The worst birthday was when I was pretty young. 10 or 11 I think. I convinced my parents to get some invitations, setup a couple tables in the backyard, tossed up some streamers. Etcetera. Invited everyone I knew. One person came by for about 10 minutes. Not even Art showed up.

I think this taught me something important- expect nothing good and treat anything pleasant as suspect.

Now that I think about this, and how often it’s actually proved out, I’ve made myself sad.

Since that time I downplayed anything related to my birthday, and the whole thing is bastardly awkward in my mind. Moreover, pondering it now, it seems that this is one of those events I’ve allowed to define me, perhaps even the one defining my primary public face. That’s sorta funny.

Ok, very tired, very rambling. G’night world.