TriTryst nears completion

I’ve spent a lot of time this weekend on my rewrite of TriTryst.  The game’s functionality is complete now, at least the first version.  I have to write the online help, create some levels, and do something about the art.  Something that I didn’t realize before this weekend is just how hard it is to create a playable level.  I’m sure this problem isn’t limited to this particular game.  There’s a very fine balance between too hard and too easy, and you have to take into account your experience level as you’re working.  What I may find easy after years of playing the game, a novice may find very difficult.  This is one reason I’ve added the ability in the game for users to create their own levels.  It takes time to design and test a level, and a feel for what’s fun, too hard, or too easy.  Perhaps somebody who’s better at it than I am will create some levels and send them to me.

So how close is the game to done?  Barring anything unforeseen, I will have the first version of the game (With a new name. Any suggestions?) completed and uploaded to my web site by the end of January.

Fire ants like compost

Fire ants like compost.  There’s nothing quite like turning a 4′ x 4′ x 4′ pile of compost that is completely infested with fire ants.  I added a bunch of leaves and grass, some sulfur, and lots of water.  Between the heat of composting and the ill effects of the sulfur, those ants probably won’t outlive the bites they inflicted.

New tires

We had to get new tires for the car today.  Not that I’m complaining–we got 60,000 miles out of the original set.  My truck has 72,000 miles on the original tires.  It’s about time to replace those, too.  People often don’t realize that technology is more than just computers and cell phones.  It wasn’t so long ago that you couldn’t even get 30,000 miles on a set of tires.  Today, for about $500 (includes mount, balance, road hazard, etc.), I bought four tires that have a 45,000 mile manufacturer’s warranty.  That wasn’t available at any price 10 years ago.

Part of the price was a $2.00-per-tire disposal fee.  I forgot to ask who gets the 2 bucks, and how exactly the tires are disposed.  I certainly hope they’re recycling the tires, rather than sending them off to be incinerated or dropped in a landfill.

RoadRunner blocks port 80

I learned today that RoadRunner (my broadband provider) is now blocking port 80 on the network.  They’ve been doing it for quite a while, but I didn’t notice because I haven’t had my server running.  I of course couldn’t call and ask them why, ’cause my contract says I won’t run a server on their network.  And typically I don’t, but I need to test something.

They started blocking port 80 because so many people who did have servers got infected with the Code Red virus, and all those infected servers started searching for other servers to infect.  From the continuous flashing of my cable modem’s activity light, I’d say that network utilization was maxed.  That’s stopped since they started blocking.   That won’t prevent people from running servers, as it’s easy enough to put an HTTP server on port 81 or 2563 or whatever, but it’ll limit the vulnerability to things like Code Red.

Computers of the future: Yawn

CNN is running an article about 20 trends and technologies that will affect personal computing over the next few years.  Lots of cool stuff there:  400 GB hard drives for the price of today’s 80 GB units, 1 GHz palmtop computers, organic LEDs, and other stuff just sound neat.  At the end of the article they have a section that lists expected desktop computer specifications in 2004 (2 years from now).  Those specs aren’t terribly impressive:

4 or 5 GHz processor with  512 MB of RAM, 400 GB hard drive, rewritable DVD, 128 MB 3D video card, flat panel screen, and Windows.  All for under $2,000.

No huge leaps there, and most of the cool technologies they discuss in the first part of the article just don’t affect the everyday computer.  Ho hum.  Is there any excitement left in this business?

Lazy holiday week

I had Monday and Tuesday off, so Saturday night I turned off my brain and spent the rest of my time off playing computer games, finishing the second and third books in the Harry Potter series, and generally just relaxing.  One of these days I might even be able to do that without feeling guilty about it or worrying about all the things I should or could be doing.

I’m wondering if these anxious feelings are the result of over commitment—having too many projects going on at once.  We’ll see.  I’m making a concerted effort to cancel or complete all my current projects before starting anything new.  Oddly enough, canceling a project (hint, it’s not canceled unless you’ve deleted it from your hard drive) can be more liberating than finishing one.

Movie review: The Fellowship of the Ring

Debra and I went to the theatre today to see the Harry Potter movie, but got there about 90 minutes before the movie was to start.  Not wanting to wait around, we decided to take in The Fellowship of the Ring, which was to start in 20 minutes.  When the movie was over three hours later, I looked over at Debra and said, “Damn.  That was good!”

Understand, I’m not a huge Tolkien fan.  Sure, I’ve read The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy a few times each, but I don’t read or speak a word of Elvish nor do I dwell on the history of Middle Earth.  I read the Trilogy over the summer in preparation for the movie and could hardly get through it.  I don’t recall being so bored by the books when I read them about 10 years ago, but this time The Two Towers put me to sleep.  Anyway, back to the movie.

I’m not a movie critic.  I don’t study film.  I don’t know the first thing about directing, editing, lighting, or even acting for that matter.  I do, however, know when a good story has been turned into a great movie.  This is one, and it’s done the old fashioned way with good acting and an attention to detail that is nothing short of astounding in this age of movies that are typically actor-centric rather than story-centric. (Come to think of it, that’s one thing I liked so much about Monsters, Inc.: the story, not the actor, was the primary focus.)  In The Fellowship of the Ring, every actor nails the performance.  There’s no need for stupid camera tricks or hokey computer animation (although there was plenty of that, too) because the actors actually act.  Their characters were entirely believable.

With the exception of the cave troll, the entire Moria sequence was excellent.  There was plenty of CGI in the movie, and none more than in Moria, but I hardly noticed it all except for that laughable cave troll.  The creature outside the gates was just as I had envisioned it from the book, and the scenes inside the mines were masterfully done.  The Balrog was perfect.  Every bit as frightful as described in the book; perhaps more so. 

The editor did an excellent job keeping the movie on track and not distracting us with scenes from the book that don’t advance the main story.  The movie’s still three hours long.  Not that I’m complaining.  I think the last time I was so fully engrossed in a movie was the first time I saw Star Wars.  This movie is much better now than Star Wars was then.  Debra echoed my sentiments when she said “Maybe we should have seen Harry Potter first.”  After The Fellowship of the Ring, nothing will compare.

Go see the movie, even if (especially if) you’ve never read the books. 

Are we still evolving?

In its simplest form, evolution theory states that environmental factors ‘select’ stronger organisms by killing off the weak before they can reproduce.  The result is that the strong survive to procreate, and random beneficial mutations advance the species.  There can be an end, though.  Sharks, for example, are so perfectly adapted to their environment that they haven’t changed in hundreds of millions of years.  Some organisms adapt too well.  The stromatolites of prehistory, for example, were by some accounts so successful that they poisoned themselves with their own waste (oxygen).

What happens, though, when a species gains control over its environment, or adapts to the point where environment exerts no selective evolutionary pressures?  Sharks are perfectly adapted to the ocean, but environmental factors (predators, etc.) still play a part in killing off the weak before they can reproduce.  The environment exerts no such pressures on humans, especially those living in industrialized countries.  We have reduced infant mortality to less than 1 percent (down from over 10% 100 years ago).  Childhood mortality, too, has been reduced.  The chance for a US-born person to live long enough to reproduce is easily 90%.  Environment just doesn’t exert any selective pressures. 

This is perhaps not a good thing.  Evolution strengthens a species by removing undesirable traits from the gene pool.  We’ve done just the opposite.  By minimizing the effects of undesirable traits–making it possible for ‘weaker’ people to live and reproduce–we allow those traits to spread.  We have adapted too well and are in essence poisoning ourselves with bad genes.  Maybe.  I’m certainly not suggesting that we prevent people with cystic fibrosis from reproducing.

I’ve been chewing on this one for a couple of days and don’t quite know what to think.  I just come up with more questions.  For example, is is possible that industrial nations’ mastery of environmental factors will result in an overall weaker people who can be conquered by less industrially advanced people from areas of the world where external evolutionary pressures still exist?  Could the difference in living conditions and available medical care result in speciation (the formation of a new species)?  It fairly boggles the mind, the possibilities.

The World Factbook

Doing some research recently I ran across The World Factbook, published by the Central Intelligence Agency.  This is an example of what the intelligence community calls Basic Intelligence–factual reference material on an issue.  And, oh boy is it full of facts.  Want to know the infant mortality rate in Angola?  How about the percentage of arable land in Zimbabwe?  A map of Central Africa?  It’s all there, for free.  You can get a copy for yourself at http://www.cia.gov/cia/download.html.  68 megabytes is no big deal for a broadband connection, but you’ll probably think twice if you’re on a 56 KBPS modem.  It’ll unzip to about 100 megabytes, or about $1.00 worth of storage space at current prices.  I’m going to make a point of downloading this every year and burning it to CD.  It’ll make for some interesting historical research years from now.

More on fat kids

Surgeon General David Satcher weighed in last week on the obesity issue, saying that the obesity epidemic in the US has gotten so bad that it soon may overtake tobacco as the leading cause of preventable deaths.  According to the article, 300,000 people die each year from illnesses directly related to being overweight.  300,000?!?!  60 percent of adults and 13 percent of children are overweight or obese.  We are becoming a nation of fat people at an estimated cost of $117 billion per year.

Among his many recommendations was this one:

Ensure that more food options that are low in fat and calories, as well as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat or non-fat dairy products, are available on school campuses and at school events. A modest step toward achieving this would be to enforce existing U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations that prohibit serving foods of minimal nutritional value during mealtimes in school food service areas, including in vending machines.

I’ll leave it to the experts to dissect the food, but restricting students’ access to junk is a no-brainer.  Get rid of the vending machines!  Or at least replace the sodas and candy bars with something healthy.  Cripes.  Are you telling me that kids can’t get through a school day without a soda or candy bar between classes?