Cricalix.Net

August 17, 2005

Mid-August roundup

Filed under: 42 — cricalix @ 15:06

Every few days, I take 5 - 10 minutes to ‘flip’ through BoingBoing and see what odd things are going on in the world. Everything from restaurants in Japan using chairs shaped like toilet bowls to an article on Sam Cohen, the inventor of the neutron bomb. It’s certainly an interesting read, and so much of the general comments on politics and fear seem so true in the current world. Worth reading if you have the time.

On another note, I’m off home toBarbados in late September for a few weeks. First stop will be my grandfather’s place to fix his home network, and ensure his DSL line works satisfactorily. I’ll also be installing a Sipura for him, probably a two line one so he has options. He probably won’t use the options, but I think I’ll configure the primary line with either Gossiptel (who seem to have problems recently :( ) or the UK Vonage service. The secondary line, I’ll stick on FWD - he’ll be able to dial myself and my parents for free that way (and could do with Gossiptel, we both have Gossiptel accounts), and could also dial 800 numbers in the USA.

After that, it’ll be 2 weeks of relaxing, picking up stuff from ‘Drew’s place that I’ve had there for years, and generally liming around, getting some good sunlight before winter kicks in. I’ve also got a guest coming from the US, so I may be limited on visiting old friends, but we’ll see. No internet connection other than bugging my grandfather will also be good - need to leave it behind for a while.

Finally, English weather (I use that term loosely I think) seems to have realised summer was meant to be here - a high of 26C! Of course, it’s about 2 months late.

August 2, 2005

Area contest time!

Filed under: Avatar — cricalix @ 8:15

Avatar MUD is celebrating its 10th anniversary - complete with multiple HoGathons (it’s a MUD thing), area building quests and trivia contests!

So, what does a bored Immortal do when the announcement about the area contest comes out? Write the core of a nifty little area in 2 hours. It draws some inspiration from the Death-Gate Cycle series, as well as my general interest in all things steam powered. Got my copy of the builder guide and my vnums (virtual numbers - another MUD thing) via e-mail last night, and I’ve already spent 30 minutes this morning putting in some of the technical markup required to turn my wads of text into something the MUD will parse.

I, of course, have a slight advantage over the other builders who are competing - I can boot a test port on the server and make sure that my area flows nicely :) I suppose it also means I should get off of my rear and put together a cross-platform area editor and run-through tool. DaWiz put together a tool that validates the area, but beyond that builders are stuck with either a text editor, or the ancient AvMZF. I’ve pondered Ruby and Perl so far, but cross platform GUIs for either language seem to be few.

I will have to revisit the text later on - I merely have the first draft, and I’m not too happy with some of the sentences. I’ll probably take a look at some of the work by Nadreck - a fellow member of staff, and a fairly good writer - for inspiration on how to clean my area up.


Powered by WordPress. Theme by H P Nadig