Geekery – Page 33

Running

How to annoy the Customs department and Cyberpunk fans

Long weekend! Hooray!

(Yes, I usually take every second Monday off, so I get plenty of long weekends, but this is one I get paid for :))

Been spending much of my spare time messing around with Warhammer 40k models – the sad, nerdy results can be seen in my Flickr Stream. The boards that Fabes and I have been building are starting to actually look good, and my force of Valhallan Imperial Guard now consists mostly of models rather than paper cut outs. Still a long way to go though – for one thing I’ll have to paint them all.

Here’s a thing – if you’re going to post gaming materials to Australia, do not put “Warhammer Parts” on the declaration form unless you want customs to open it up and make sure you’re not sending someone prohibited medieval weaponry 😀

Oh, and here’s another thing – a promotional video FASA made for their Cyberpunk/Fantasy fusion game Shadowrun back in 1990.

Problems…

No one ever moves like that in real life. If you want to be stealthy you move in discrete jumps from shadow to shadow or cover to cover. You don’t skip down street wagging your head back and forth like a caffeinated hamster.

When you’re making a movie your first budgetary consideration should be hiring actors who can actually act. Costumes, pink spotlights, hairspray and fog machines can come later.

If you come around a corner and spot a guard, what do you do?
a) Retreat back around the corner and discuss your options
b) Stand out in the open, right under a spotlight, and yell at each other.
(Hint – if you chose anything other than “a” you’re doing it wrong)

The whole video reeks of preaching to the converted. If you have no idea of what Shadowrun is, you would be left feeling confused (and annoyed). Where are the cybernetics? Where are the meta-humans? Why doesn’t that guy put on a goddamn shirt?

So, magic requires your shoulders to be exposed, and causes temporary paralysis. Good to know.

I know Netrunners (or whatever they’re called in Shadownrun, my pedigree is Cyberpunk 2020 after all) aren’t meant to be the muscle of the team, but those panels didn’t seem to require a muscle bound freak to open them.

Oo! It’s a cheap-ass TARDIS control room! And netrunning decks look just like chunky 1980’s keyboards. Retro cool!

If you don’t want the future to laugh at you, don’t blow your entire budget (and half your runtime) on computer graphics that are going to look ludicrous in five years time. And if you are going to whack in a bunch of computer graphics at least include some kind of narrative so people can tell that they’re part of the story and someone didn’t just tape over the movie with an MTV clip.

So, intrusion programs are designed by the Tall Man? Neat.

OK, that’s about all I’ve got to say. Go and make your own entertainment.

Signs You’ve Been Reading Too Much 40k…

No such thing!

1: You find yourself saying “feth” all the time.

2: You read an article about bikie gangs and keep reading “Police Commissioner” as “Police Commissar”

3: You see a bright yellow car and think it must belong to the Imperial Fists.

I’ve read six Gaunt’s Ghosts novels in the last two weeks, and am halfway through a seventh. I’ve done all of the above. Maybe I should take a break…

The Crawling Chaos

The throne of Chaos where the thin flutes pipe mindlessly…

My sleep last night was disturbed by a truly odd array of noises floating in through my bedroom window. To wit…

Strange electric guitar warblings, sounding as if Jimmy Hendrix had taken some really bad acid.
Tuneless, repetitive piping on a recorder.
The sound of something large and metallic being dragged around the carpark.

It was positively Lovecraftian. I expected Nyarlathotep to manifest at any second.

Farewell to the Brig

Five Rounds Rapid

Nicolas Courtney’s dead? Massive suckiness 🙁

Watching the Bones

I’ve got the blues Jen!

Man I love Bones. Not an episode goes by where they don’t use technology in a way that it simply doesn’t work.

For instance, in a recent episode they found a negative cast of a skeleton inside a block of concrete. They filled the cast with metal, and CAT scanned it to get a 3D model of the skeleton, which they then printed out on a rapid prototyping machine to get a skeleton they could study. They then solved the murder via a bunch of microscopic scratches on said skeleton. Brilliant!

Except I somehow doubt that,

a) The resolution (for want of a better word) of concrete would be good enough to retain microscopic scratches.
b) A CAT scan would be detailed enough to pick up any microscopic scratches the concrete did manage to preserve.
c) The rapid prototyping machine would have a high enough resolution to print out any microscopic scratches the CAT scan did pick up.

Add to that the scene of the rapid prototyping machine at work – playing a bunch of bright red, clearly visible laser beams all over a tank of goop – well it’s just sheer genius.

(And that’s not to mention the 3D holographic display they regularly use – a technology that just plain doesn’t exist)

Funnily enough, I don’t enjoy Bones for the reason that so many nerd guys do. Emily Deschanel is unquestionably very pretty, but I find Brennan’s characterisation rather annoying. Also, I guess I find it hard to be attracted to a supposed scientist who makes so many basic scientific errors 🙂

On a personal level I’ve got the blues Jen! I’m feeling tired, run down and ineffective. I spend all week hanging out for the weekend when I can actually get things done – then get nothing done on the weekend because I feel so vague, tired and unfocussed. My apartment is in an appalling state because I haven’t got around to tidying it for weeks, and all I want to do is either prowl mindlessly around the net, or crawl into bed and sleep. Hmmm, I probably need more exercise, more vegetables, or a good slap upside the head or something 🙂

Foolish 40k Ideas Number One – Servo Skulls

Skeletons. And Fire. And skeletons on fire.

If your Imperial Guard force includes an Techpriest Enginseer you may take up to three Servo Skulls at a cost of 30 points each.

	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
Servo Skull	4	–	3	4	1	5	1	–	–

A Servo Skull moves as an independent model with a movement of 12″, following the skimmer rules. It may move in and out of cover without penalty and has the Scouts special rule. Servo Skulls count as HQ units and may not claim objectives. They may not join up with other units.

A Servo Skull carries no weapons and cannot fire or assault. It never has to take leadership checks, and in any circumstance where a leadership check would be required is assumed to have automatically passed.

If attacked in an assault a Servo Skull fights as normal, but any wounds it inflicts are ignored apart from for purposes of combat resolution. If victorious in a combat it may disengage and move up to 6″ in any direction at the end of the assault phase.

A Servo Skull is so delicate that it has no Armour Save, and can never receive one. However its small size and high speed grant it a permanent 5+ Cover Save, even when completely in the open.

Destroying a Servo Skull scores no victory points, however if all Techpriests in the force are removed as a casualties, all Servo Skulls are also removed. If all Techpriests are in reserve, all Servo Skulls must also be in reserve.

If a scattering weapon is targeted at a point within 6″ of a friendly Servo Skull, it rolls one less die for scatter. Being in range of multiple Servo Skulls has no additional effect.

So, that will either add some interesting strategic choices to the game, or break it entirely. Have fun kids! 🙂

Hellish

Satan Built My Website

Deville’s Pad may be a fantastically cool venue, but their website is hellish.

Graphics optimised for a white background on black, horribly compressed maps and menus (to the point of near illegibility) and completely built in Flash so you can’t select/copy any of the text or open anything in a new tab.

It’s horrible. I don’t know what they paid for it but whatever it was they got badly ripped off.

(By the way, the design is great – it’s the implementation that’s jaw-droppingly bad).

A Reading from the Book of Truth

All are the three and of the three

The document now known as The Book of Truth was discovered in southern Namibia in 2004, apparently having been deposited by a temporal wormhole of the kind now known to spontaneously occur in that region. Although the date of authorship is unknown, temporal studies have suggested that it originates from at least 4oo years in the future, and (based on isotope readings of the ink) was probably produced in east Asia.

The document is in the form of a slim booklet, hand written on coarse paper, bound with a leather cover fastened with clasps of poor quality steel. Carbon dating of the paper suggests that the document is between 100 and 150 years old. It is written in a language barely recognisable as English, displaying a heavy influence from a south Slavic language – most likely a dialect of Croatian. Translation of the text has been hindered by the fact that the metal components of the work are highly radioactive, whether this is an effect of the time-travel process, or due to environmental factors at the point of origin is currently unknown.

What translation has been possible suggests that the work is religious and philosophical in nature. Extracts from the first two chapters (which are divided into numbered verses) are presented below.

Chapter 1
1: All in creation is composed of the three, and the three are that which is Good, that which is Evil and that which is neither, and the names of the three are potos, ekos and notos.
2: In the moment of creation was made hadaz, the water of the heavens. And hadaz was formed both good and evil.
3: And hadaz did beget the stars, and the stars did beget all. The metal and stones, the air and waters, all that is living and non-living.
4: And all are the three and of the three.
5: Potos and notos shall gather together as a fly in the temple of the wise. And ekos shall weave around them a veil.
6: And the veil shall be many layered and the outmost veil shall be most highly regarded when complete.
7: And the ekos within the veil shall be where it is not, and none that knows where it is shall know where it will be, for there it is not, though it is.
8: And all that is real shall ascend.

Chapter 2
1: That which is light is strong, but that which is heavy is weak and its weakness will be shown when struck.
2: That which is the heaviest is the weakest and in its breaking is poison, but the poison may be harnessed by the wise for acts of power.
3: But the poison of the breaking shall last for a thousand years and corrupt the earth and vex the wise.
4: For it is not the power of the stars, and the power of the stars and the blending of the hadaz shall evade the very wisest.

Odd

Life After the Apocalypse with Power Armour and Demons and Tube Stations and Things

7 Mate (as Network 7 is insisting on calling it’s third channel) is promoting the series Life After People with that picture from Hellgate London.

You know, the one that curiously distorts the layout of the city to get the maximum number of devestated landmarks in?

With the game shut down and all I don’t know what the copyright status of the image is, but it seems like a strange choice. I mean the series is Life After People, not Life After the Apocalypse with Power Armour and Demons and Tube Stations and Things.

Odd.

Packages

Goodies

Two of my eBay orders arrived yesterday (well, actually they arrived earlier in the week and I was only able to pick them up yesterday) which means I now actually have some models for my force of Valhallans. Not a huge number, but it’s a start.

Let’s see, I have a Valhallan Commander (who needs assembling and painting), two Iron Legion lascannon teams (the posting on eBay said they were Valhallan, but hey, I can convert them), a Techpriest Enginseer (who needs some repairs and a decent re-paint) and two partly constructed Sentinels that I’m going to modify the crud out of.

I’ve got some other bits and pieces on order including parts for the Sentinel project, a Commisar and an Valhallan Officer. And a whole load of flock for the game table that Fabes and I constructed over the weekend. I’m also wondering if I have the patience (and money) to build some bear cavalry… mmm…. bear cavalry…..

In other news it’s 9:30 in the morning, and already 37 degrees. The temperature is not expected to drop below 20 until Thursday next week. That’s the minimum temperature I’m talking about. Oh joy.

Later…

Ah! They’ve revised the forecast! Now we’re going to be hit by Tropical Cyclone (Hurricane, Typhoon, whatever you want to call it) Bianca instead.

That sounds catastrophic, but by the time cyclones get as far south as Perth they tend to lose their puff. It’s due to hit on Sunday and will just be a slightly larger than normal storm. The good news is it’ll drag temperatures down to the much more reasonable low 30s with slightly cooler nights. Hooray!