Archive for the ‘Gaming’ Category.
23rd August 2006, 12:47 pm
Gregg Easterbrook’s excellent football analysis column Tuesday Morning Quarterback has returned to espn.com, and this season’s first, second, and third installations are up. Writing on the (recently resurrected) plastic.com, I’ve called TMQ the only column of its type which possesses literary merit. Easterbrook is funny, well-read and does not shy from doing his research, and his work answers the question of what a scholar would have to say about the least beautiful game.
His return is a little surprising, though, considering the firestorm he kicked up with his ill-considered comments in his now-defunct blog back in 2003. The parent company of espn.com, Disney, booted him when he criticized Disney executives Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein in a jeremiad which some perceived as anti-Semitic. After a short hiatus, Easterbrook re-pitched the TMQ tent at nfl.com (archive), and apparently enough time has gone by for his work to be judged again on its own purely footbally merits.
At any rate, I had been waiting for a new TMQ, checking in at nfl.com for the last couple of weeks, when I stumbled upon the column in its new home completely by accident. I figured I’d give Google one more path pointing to Easterbrook’s recent change of address.
16th July 2006, 09:50 pm
I finally got around to polishing off an Ajax version of Bob vs Sam, just as a little tech demo to make sure I’ve got the concepts under control. It’s something I had been putting off for a while. But now that it’s done, there’s no page reloading or re-rendering, and the Bob vs Sam performance is significantly better, thus alleviating concerns which were often keeping me up at night. Just in case you may not have been around for the beginning of Bob and Sam’s gripping Peano-inspired donnybrook, they’re racing… to infinity… and they need your help.
The actual coding was pretty straightforward. If you go to the web toy - open it in another tab or something, go ahead - and View Source, you’ll see that most of the intelligence is in the “client,” written in Javascript and embedded in the recalculate() function up in the <head> element of the HTML. There are some gotchas.
Continue reading ‘Now with Ajax!’ »
22nd June 2006, 04:19 pm
As described in comment-#557, an excerpt from the testimony of Inspector Legrasse:
The devotees of the tiny, foul thing gathered in the fane of the QTek 8500. Bluetooth accessories, including adherents of the debased A2DP, found their place with the MicroSD card among the caffeinated beverages and the office supplies. As the fluorescent lights shone eldritchly upon them, they called upon their absent master for its favors.
Suddenly, a hush - the arrival of the priest! It was a black can - not a Negra Modelo, but a truly black can - and it led the trembling half-and-half into the midst of the unclean company. It raised the knife, and a pongoid yawp arose from the throats (can I even call them throats? gorges?) of the congregation.
Unified in abandon and ecstasy, they cried as one: “Ph’ nglui mglw’ nafh 8500 Yoopies’ Shiping-center wgah’ nagl fhtagn.” The knife fell and fell again, the priest transported and possessed by his task, proxy to the One Who Will Ship Real Soon Now. The rite reached its unholy climax as the priest spat into the spilled milk.
The atmosphere was electrified as the milk spread and soaked into the paint of the cube shelf. A voice low beyond hearing spake unto each of the celebrants:
Colin,
We are emailing you today to give you an update on your order of the QTEK 8500. We just received word that there has been a last minute delay by QTEK on shipping these devices. Due to this delay we now expect to ship your phone the middle of next week. We are very sorry for this delay and we are doing everything we can to get your order in and shipped out as soon as possible. We will send you an update next week if there are any other delays. Otherwise, you will receive an email with your tracking number as soon as it is shipped to you.
Thanks,
Shawn
16th May 2006, 10:19 pm
So, I played with my friends John and Avri at the Team Pro Tour Qualifier. We did strictly OK, but I feel like I’m improving, and I really enjoyed myself. Part of the reason I had as much fun as I did was the deck I played - the Black-White Promise-Husk deck debuted by Michael Diezel at Pro Tour Honolulu. The deck is so good because of its ability to jump from the control role to the beatdown role from turn to turn, denying its opponents the ability to seize either of the Flores roles of Magic theory, and because of its nifty combo finish (feeding low-power creatures to Nantuko Husk, probably including four or more Promise of Bunrei tokens, and likely boosted by an Orzhov Pontiff, a.k.a. Battle Pope - more on him later).
The control side of the deck is built around card advantage generators like Dark Confidant (”Bob”), Battle Pope, Promise, and Plagued Rusalka. In particular, the interaction between Battle Pope and the Rusalka can act as a Plague Wind against most opponents. Equally critical, when in the control role against an aggro deck including protection-from-black creatures, is the interaction between the colorless Promise tokens and any sacrifice outlet, which keeps Jitte nonsense to a minimum while you wait to start your offense, clear your opponent’s side of the board, or find a Pithing Needle. Bob… well, it’s nice when he draws you extra cards, but most of the time he just attracts some kind of kill spell right away; it happened to my Bob squad so often at the tournament that I named the gambit (”the Bobeque”). He is, of course, pleased as punch to jump into the graveyard with reckless abandon if the life loss starts to hurt too much, since nearly a quarter of the deck consists of sacrifice effects, but honestly he never stuck around long enough to be a liability on that front for me.
The aggro side is built around efficient beaters like Isamaru and Kami of Ancient Law (”Koala”), high-quality fat like Ghost Council of Orzhova, and a versatile disruption suite of Castigate, Pithing Needle, and Mortify. Add the combo power of Nantuko “Ravager” Husk, Promise of Bunrei in the Thoughtcast role, and Battle Pope in roughly the DotV slot (as a reach extender by getting your guys in), and the dirty Affinity feel is definitely there.
Continue reading ‘Spring forth, Battle Pope!’ »
10th May 2006, 12:14 am
I have some pretty nifty souvenirs from my knee arthroscopy, chief among which is a CD full of stuff including an MPEG video, which I have yet to watch but am definitely looking forward to (it’s the feel-good movie of the year!), and some photos of the work done on my knee. Here’s one I thought was especially cool:
Part of the problem was that my lateral meniscus - the cartilage that sits on top of the tibia and cups the lateral condyle of the femur - was shredded, as you can see near the arrow. Since the femur slides across the meniscus during knee flexions, every movement of my knee was attended by rather unpleasant sounds and occasionally unbearable pain. (edit 12 May 2006: But this picture is actually of the other side of the lateral femoral condyle-lateral aspect of tibia interface - it’s of bone and cartilage grown over the tunnel through which my ACL runs. Same complaint about every movement of the joint making awful sounds/pain applies to this injury, as well as to the meniscal tear off screen in this shot.) From the inside, the meniscus cartilage looks like it’s been TPed. The sharp-toothed tool there was used to give my knee a haircut and remove the overgrown bone. Now it just needs to get a job.
At any rate, I’m doing fine, hoping to be be back at work “for reals”, as the kids say these days, by the end of the week, and ready for the Team Constructed Pro Tour Qualifier this weekend. I’m not quite a big enough geek to schedule my surgery around a Magic tournament, so I’ll have to play through my injuries, like Curt Schilling in the ‘04 ALCS. Hopefully, not so much blood, though - it warps the cards.
