Found Lemmings.

Lost time.

One word.

Wow.

The music for Tyrian is stunning when played via the DOSbox GUS driver.  Time to see what other older games I have will support it!  I’m annoyed that I didn’t know about the GUS when I was growing up.

I’ve spent quite a few hours over the past week or so cleaning up the Value Editor mod for the EVE Killboard, along with patches to the core code, such as implementing the ability to store raw mails and fixing the portrait grabbing code.  I’ve also spent several hours providing support on the killboard forum for various other users of the software, and I have to say, I’m quite content now.  There’s something about providing code (for free) that people find useful.

Not sure what I’ll tackle next (other than the value editor, it needs a few more tweaks) – perhaps the mod that shows ship fits as a graphic.  One of the forum users has reported that it whacks their Apache installation load wise.

Work has thrown up an interesting project recently; I’ve had to learn a fair bit more about Asterisk, and some lingo for a totally different world than computing. The project has also given me more reason to knuckle down and get a distribution server up and running, using knowledge from the previous job. It’s certainly different working for a (slightly) larger company – in comparison to both the previous job and my work in academia post-degree. That said, I’m enjoying it thoroughly, and picking up more Windows administration skills than I will ever admit to knowing (like using VBScript + HTA + ODBC to make a 30 minute task take 1 minute).

On the EVE front, the corporation I’m in is back into Empire space, having grown tired of the antics of the alliance we were in. Three other corporations have ever so kindly declared war against us, so we’re having fun shooting them, not playing by their rules, and never talking to them in the chat channels. The ‘never talk’ one seems to really get their goat. Led a fleet operation on Saturday, and managed to lose no ships while destroying four of the enemy. Only four battleships though, we missed the heavy interdictor.

Also on the EVE front, I’m doing more work on the kill board software that we use to track our kills and losses. I wrote a value editor module for version 1.2 of the kill board, and have been keeping it compliant with 1.2, 1.3 and the latest 1.4 release. Also been contributing patches to fix other issues with the software, though mostly minor ones. Assuming no one reports problems with the value editor, I should be submitting a rather large patch to the KB folks to get the latest version included into 1.4 (they have an old version, and it confuses people!).

And just because I’m living in the UK: My, what strange weather for this time of year.  Unseasonably warm.  Frogs are spawning already.

The first is Neal Stephenson on the origins of the command line, and how Microsoft is actually a good thing. It was written pre-Apple-on-Intel, but it’s still an excellent read. He later remarked that with the advent of OS X, he switched and never looked back.

The second I found via Digg, and it discusses 8 things you can do to keep a geek happy at his place of employment. The author (rightly) doesn’t limit the view to computer geeks, though there is a bit of computer-geek focus in the article.

Finally, there’s an interview in Popular Science with Will Wright, on a game called Spore. Spore is his follow-up from Sim City, Sim Ant and The Sims, and attempts to encompass multiple layers of game play – from cellular level to space-faring race. Hopefully, it’ll be as good as the videos show.

Some screenshots – I’ve run from episode 1 to 5, and looped back around, so I’m in a nice beefy ship with everything maxed out (except shields).\

Bonus part about Tyrian (and Tyrian 2000) was typing ‘destruct’ at the main menu and getting a Scorched Earth clone! :)

Work is sending me to a 1-day conference in Leeds to learn about server and storage virtualisation (VMWare etc). We’re rapidly growing beyond our storage and processing capacity, so we need to find a long-term solution in the short-term – or something like that at least.

The garden is starting to recover from my mangling it – rain has delayed further log-roll installation (as has lack of stock at my choice of supplier), and removal of plants. The peas are doing well, more carrots are showing, and I can see chives! The compost didn’t compost very well last year, Mum reckons it was too wet. I’ve emptied the compost out, and will restart it next week I hope if the rain holds off.

Went to Mill Meece Pumping Station today to see the engines steamed up. Fred Dibnah was right, there’s something about the smell of coal-fired steam engines that’s just addictive. They’re a volunteer run organisation, and it’d be a shame to see them close down, so I’m pondering financial membership at least. The engines at Mill Meece are tandem compound rotary engines – what a mouthful. Apart from the clacking of (what I think was) a control rod release, the engines are pretty much silent. Wonderful sight to see them steamed up, and in the case of the 1928 engine, powering the pumping head outside (not pumping water though, two electric torpedoes do that).

Got the quote for installing my kitchen. Have to find out if it’s ex-VAT or inc-VAT, but even if it’s the former, it’s a darn good quote, and includes the CORGI work to move my gas pipes, and the electrician’s charges for new wiring in the kitchen.

Ran Illegal Activity in EVE this morning, and landed a bit of kit valued at 24M on the market, so promptly sold it and doubled my bank account. Pity I can’t do that in real life! And speaking of missions, for 1665 scordite (15K market value), I picked up an implant worth 10M (or 2 willpower). Considering the haul this morning, I’ll take the willpower, as it helps with ship skills.

And finally, we have an example of a local cat giving me a death glare, not realising that my legions (of one) of stone rabbits are about to pounce!

Hello, and welcome to Top Gun with me, Shailo Koljas. Tonight we’ll be looking at the Caracal, a cruiser class ship for the Caldari State.

Traditionally, the Caldari have favoured function over form, and it shows in the bare-bones, no-nonsense lines of the Caracal. From the long hull, to the stubby stabilising ‘wings’, to the 5 launcher mounts, the Caracal is all about one thing – raining death on your enemies, such as the Gallente. After all, who can resist blowing the Gallente out of space when they come prancing by in their latest creation?

Four million ISK gets you a basic Caracal – top speed of 187 m/s, five high slots, four medium slots and two low slots. The interior on a from-the-dealer Caracal isn’t really that special, the designers have gone for the traditional cold-forged steel look, with the occasional touch of fake wood. The dials, however, are very retro, and fit the cockpit space quite well.

Rumour has it that you can contact Pimp My Ship on Sobaseki XIX, and they’ll give you a complete overhaul for about 2 million ISK. This includes chroming your exhaust ports and launcher barrels, tinting the cameras, adding alloy rims to your afterburner, and installing a 4000W stereo system with external speakers for demonstrating your love of classical music to the Guristas. Sadly, your insurance won’t cover these upgrades, so if you get blown up, you’ll have to have it all done again.

Zero to 187 takes about four seconds, which really isn’t too bad for a ship the size of a Caracal. Don’t try pink slipping your local Merlin though, unless you’re sporting a stealth micro warp drive, as you’ll lose before you can say ‘corners like a pig’.

We gave our new Caracal over to our trusty driver, the Stag. Some say he eats nuclear warheads for breakfast, others say he’s a ghost. We know he’s a damn fine ship driver. He’ll be doing our standard 40 AU track, complete with chicanes, Gallente sentry guns and interceptors.

[ video elided ]

Well, as you can see, the Caracal is a fine ship, though you have to watch out for that under steer on sharp turns, and be prepared to warp when you see your armour depleting.

Thank-you and good night!

Today, while running Technological Secrets part 3, I decided to fly straight at the nice big cruiser (same size ship as me) on afterburner and get in range so that my light missiles and heavies would hit.  This might have actually worked, had it not been for the large chunk of asteroid between me and it.  Does my ship fly around the asteroid (considering the asteroid is a few thousand metres wide and long)?  No, it decides to be friends with it.

So while my ship was greeting the asteroid like a dog in heat, all of the wonderful computer-controlled ships were dumping missiles on me.  I try to tell the ship to navigate away from the asteroid – it doesn’t seem to listen.  When it finally listens, I’m on 30% structure, and trying to click the darn warp button just wouldn’t work.

Needless to say, I’m now kitting out a new ship.