SoylentNews

A journal by NCommander the other day got me thinking (I know, dangerous but I was bored) and what we need here is a Gamer's Corner for fellow Soybeans users to post what games they are playing, build teams, trade in game items, etc. I think this would help build unity and community while at the same time helping the users hook up and do better in their games.

Anyway until one of the admins gives us a true gamer's corner section I figured we could use this post as a starting point so feel free to post what games you are playing you'd like to have others join, in game gear you'd be happy to give away/swap, basically anything to do with games and gaming feel free to post it here.

Allow me to get the ball rolling with a little gift for the fellow Soybeaners...if you recently picked up Borderlands II GOTY off the Steam sale and haven't maxed your character yet? I have plenty of orange items from the great loot hunt last year, lvl 50-70 and I'll be happy to work out times to hook up in game and dole out the loot. Drops will be limited depending on how many folks respond and will go on until the loot is gone, I don't have enough of each weapon to take requests for specific guns but feel free to ask and if I have it its yours, also have some sweet blue and purple weapons like the Morningstar sniper rifle I'll be happy to drop and if you prefer a particular type of weapon, like say shotgun or rifle I'll be happy to look and see what I have.

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

Mostly for my own sake: AC comment.

I find NUCLEON interesting in all sorts of ways, one example would be that the resource requirements could be tiny compared to a lot of the other stuff. There's also a sort of a phreak angle to it, phreaking on steroids where it's not "just" about dial tones any more but voices. It feels very tangible (wrong word) or even tactile (even worse word) but then again I really am a weird nut who enjoys listening to my computers sing (relatively new ones, I'm not talking about ancient beasts). If it's warm, humid, and otherwise silent my ears can easily pick up various electrical components chirping etc., I did say weird! XD

I guess that part is a bit similar to the fun that can be had experiencing a beam blast of static electricity from turning on an unused old terminal. Still weird? Okay lol.

The main thing however would be to consider NUCLEON in combination with the digital nature of modern telephone systems. Not even normal landlines are POTS in the original sense of it any more, they might still be called or referenced as POTS but that's mostly just for convenience; the centrals are digital. Although I doubt it I guess the US could still be some weird exception as they often are but in Europe this change happened during the nineties in at least some countries, maybe all. That's roughly twenty years ago and I've gotten the impression that the changes these days are the potential dismantlement of the lines themselves, switching to the competing technologies, however that could be an extreme example: I wouldn't know. Of course in other countries (like in the developing world) it's nearly all mobile infrastructure anyways which was always digital.

What I was getting to is that most people don't know a thing about old telephone systems beyond "cups on a string" and that even with the prevalence of mobile phones (no string) the NUCLEON thing psychologically takes a solid step into "the physical world" in ways that a lot of the other NSA things don't appear to in the same manner. A lot of people still have a different take on telephones than computers and when it comes to actual voices I think it would become even more "real" for many of the ordinary citizens who might have trouble relating to what is going on.

I have no idea why nobody seems to be talking about it. There's a lot of that going around if you ask me, some of it might be information overload.

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.

Here at the shop I get to use and try more gear than most and one thing I've noticed is that AMD driver 14.4 is to be AVOIDED at all costs! they have already issued one fix so far but even the "fixed" driver just doesn't work. I use a lot of the HD77xx series cards (liked them so much myself and my family are all on HD77xx) and the new drivers are just terrible on those cards, it makes boot slow to a crawl, many formats of video just don't play, even seeing BSODs when playing some H.26x formatted vids.

If I had to guess its the new HSA or Mantle causing the teething problems but until they figure out the cause its best to stick with 13.12 which is rock solid.

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

For those that haven't tried it lately Comodo Internet Security has added a bit of brilliance...a virtual machine desktop! With this even your most clueless users/friends/relatives can have the added security of surfing in a VM without having to know squat about OSes and VMs, here is how...

1.- Give them the free Comodo IS, 2.- If they don't have it install MSFT Silverlight (no worries about zero days and the like though, because the VM runs in a locked down sandbox), 3.- Show them where the big button is that says "virtual desktop". For the most clueless Comodo comes with a widget on the desktop with most functions including virtual desktop. 4.- There is no step 4, let your user enjoy a virtual desktop loaded with Google apps and Comodo Dragon for surfing while you enjoy not having to worry about infections on their system. Hell it even comes with Angry Birds to give 'em a reason to start using it!

For years we've known that using a VM locked down and separate from the OS was a good thing but its just been too complicated for Joe and Jane, well Comodo hs that problem licked, I have handed it to some of my most clueless and virus prone customers and so far? Clean as a whistle. Its easy, increases security by a large amount, and its free...what's not to like?