SoylentNews

I just set the minimum story count to 15 on the main page. This will give you 5 more stories showing when the day changes. As we are currently posting around 15 stories a day, the new setting will show about a days worth of stories at any one time. The default of 30 max stories has not changed so you will see all of the stories posted in a day on the home page (as we have not posted that many in a day).

I do have code in place to have the max stories preference setting to work again (testing on dev), but it was originally disable due to cache misses. I need to investigate if the code is able to handle arbitrary max stories for each user, without degrading server performance. I had an idea to have the preference a drop down of preselected max numbers so that cache hits would be better as more users would have the same values.

If you have a suggestion please let me know.

So I was just about to install Words With Friends on my android phone, but then it popped up with the list of app permissions that the game requires.

Identity - Who I am
Contacts/Calendar - Everyone I know, and/or what my schedule looks like
Location - Where I am/have been
SMS - What I am saying via text (And also send them)
Photos/Media/Files - All the pictures and music on my phone
Wifi connection information - Everything about any wifi access points I connect to
Device ID & call information - What kind of phone I have, and who/when I have called

All I want to do is destroy my coworker with my immense vocabulary, but now I feel like I need to bust out a tinfoil hat just to download the game.

Now I am not so sure, I mean, why does a Scrabble knockoff need to know everything about me? Is that weird, or am I suddenly paranoid?

exec has been relocated to a (usually) always on webserver, so should be available more

also has remote updating from github and remote restarting, which means i can still tinker on my laptop :-)

try this in irc for a list of supported commands that anyone can run:
~list

use ~join #chan if you would like exec to join a channel, and ~part to get it to leave. #test is the only channel that ~part won't work for.

feel free to play/test/pilfer/etc. suggestions are always welcome too.

source code here:
https://github.com/crutchy-/test

more info here:
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRC:exec

So, it appears we have quite a community of DF players here at SN, and enough I think to warrent getting a succession game going. For those who are unaware, succession games are when one plays for one year (Spring to Spring traditionally), then passes off the fort to the next player in line. Boatmurdered is perhaps the most famous of the succession games ever done, though there are others, such as Battlefailed, Failcannon, and .

I'm interested in doing this, especially since it requires relatively little in infrastructure to setup. I'd like to do it on SN itself, perhaps either with a shared account as journals, or just creating a new section on the site. Obviously I'm going to have to tweak the codebase to allow images, and it gives a way to help build our community out. So, if we do this, here's what we need to decide:

• What version of DF? 2012, or wait for the new release

• What type of biome?

• Any mods?

And probably some other stuff. I've been playing a fort which is at war with the elves, and I find its quite a bit of fun since you regularly get seiged, and requires that we have a badass military to survive (and there are ways, even in stock, to get military training to work and start churning out Lords and Masters relatively quickly.

I recommend we apply bugfixes to the raws such as elven treecap diplomacy, and human merchants, which seriously helps getting the supplies we need. I've had good look with Accelerated Modest Mod for bug fixes, and preventing FPS death even in crud hardware so its my vote if we just don't go vanilla. I also recommend we also use all the DFHack fixes (the patrol bug one is almost essential).

Post below if you're interested, turn list is first come, first serve, but you can sign up for a second turn after your first (likely necessary since I expect only 5-6 players). Regular updates, and timely turns are a must as well. Beyond that, the sky is the limit.

colored city flags implemented.

haven't completed unit attacking yet, but i've sort of got a placeholder for it in the code that occurs when a unit tries to move into another player unit coord (currently outputs a status indicating foreign unit)
https://github.com/crutchy-/test/blob/master/scripts/irciv.php#L902

also have set unit data for attack/defense strengths, and there's some notes about attacking @ http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRCiv#Development_notes

implemented whois-based authentication of internal exec bot administration commands and also alias-specific account lists, and a ~civ-admin alias was added with an account list to allow easier administration tasks in a more secure manner.

administration tasks added as listed here: http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRCiv#Administration_commands
will endeavor to document these a little better down the track. at this stage just trying to make sure i document added usage syntax somewhere so its not forgotten.

coming up next... finishing off attacking foreign units

====
pushed latest code to github: https://github.com/crutchy-/test
note: irciv.php and irciv_lib.php contain most of the game functionality and can be found in the scripts directory
latest web map demo here: http://irciv.port119.net/?pid=2

join the #civ channel in soylent irc

more info:
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRCiv
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRC:exec

Here is a preview of upcoming changes to SoylentNews that are scheduled to go live on 6-1.

• New user selectable themes, including a Night Mode. Themes are now CSS based and use no images for effects.
• New collapsible comment with the Improved Threaded mode. (Will be set as default for all users that have Threaded or Nested set. You can change it back if you dislike it.)
• New message display that shows all messages in reverse chronological order as a full message (now without the email footer). Also set the Daily Newsletter to be off for new users.
• Removed a bunch of unneeded code that will make page loading faster.
• Static pages (FAQ and About) are now dynamic and show the proper user menu and theme.
• RSS now encoded properly.
• Preferences update to make pages work together better. (Most of the work was on the admin side so most of you will never see the bulk of the changes.) Also fixed a issue with the Homepage Prefs where the reset to default would not set everything to the defaults.
• Updates to the Submissions system. The pages look better and now you past submissions are organized better.
• Login system updated to allow passwords with unlimited lengths and user names of upto 35 characters.
• Slashboxes fixed so that they show properly when you change your Homepage settings.
• Pollbooth updates to make pages look better.
• Fixed issue with long words and page elements overflowing their parent divs by adding word-wrap: break-word; to the css.
• And a bunch of smaller fixes that you will be sure to notice.

While not everything has been fixed we are making progress. If you want to check the changes out now go to http://dev.soylentnews.org. If you signed up on SN before 4-1 your account is already on dev and you can log in if you care to.

Managed to kick out the first draft of the bylaws, they're here on the wiki http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/Incorporation/Bylaws for anyone who wishes to take a look. I need to fill out some more paperwork, then submit the entirity of the mess to a lawyer. I got a few recommendations, so mostly now is lawyer shopping.

added detection/visibility of foreign units, including updating of all player maps affected by a move.
added some map features (grid coords, city name labels, unit shields, city flags)
unit shields are colored specific to each player, but yet to color city flags
added development notes to wiki
added "wiki-todo" alias to exec

coming up next... coloring city flags & attacking foreign units

====
pushed latest code to github: https://github.com/crutchy-/test
note: irciv.php and irciv_lib.php contain most of the game functionality and can be found in the scripts directory
latest web map demo here: http://irciv.port119.net/?pid=1

join the #civ channel in soylent irc

more info:
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRCiv
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRC:exec

fixed save/load routines and currently working on refining authentication to allow for smooth bot restart

coming up next (still)... detecting other players within unit/city sight range

====
pushed latest code to github: https://github.com/crutchy-/test
note: irciv.php and irciv_lib.php contain most of the game functionality and can be found in the scripts directory
latest web map demo here: http://irciv.port119.net/?pid=2

join #civ channel in soylent irc to get involved, or use the github source for your own project

more info:
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRCiv
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRC:exec

got fog of war working... thanks to chromas for the idea of using a gd filled circle image :-D

city name and proximity detection also implemented

coming up next... detecting other players within unit/city sight range

====
pushed latest code to github: https://github.com/crutchy-/test
note: irciv.php and irciv_lib.php contain most of the game functionality and can be found in the scripts directory
latest web map demo here: http://irciv.port119.net/?pid=2

join #civ channel in soylent irc to get involved, or use the github source for your own project

more info:
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRCiv
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/IRC:exec