Khajiit - The Job

Campaign Diary Zero:

De los dioses! Khajiit has grown tired of the gawping younglings tugging on their parents sleeves while pointing at “the big cat-man”. It is time for Khajiit to head South, for adventure and to lighten the pockets of those Khajiit meets. Khajiit is even being paid to travel!

Gundren Rockseeker! A loco name, even for a dwarf! But their coin is good, and the assortment of travelling companions more interesting than Khajiit could have hoped. Khajiit suspects none have seen a Tabaxi before. They are all of the pointy-eared folk, apart from the big green one. This green one, Duncan Blüdlust, scares Khajiit. It is clear they want to see the life drained from another's eye more than gold in their pocket. Khajitt does not understand this.

The wizard, Kerry, and the ranger who does not share their name will prove useful on the road. The fool, Kahjitt is not so sure of. Always playing their lute, drawing attention, they do not seem to understand what is going on around them. This is one to trip if an escape is needed Khajiit thinks.

The job, a simple one, drive the wagon to Phandalin, and do not look in the purse. Khajiit wonders if perhaps they mean not to get caught looking inside the purse. After all, it is a long road and Khajiit's hand are swift…

Block

Oh Tetris. An indomitable force in the gaming world. Stack blocks to fill rows. Completed rows disappear. Clear more rows simultaneously to get more points. Simple and certainly doesn't need building upon. But alas, in the ninety-nine player battle royal free-for-all saturated market, Tetris stood up and said “me too”. Now we have Tetris 99, where you pit your packing skills against ninety-eight other players, and each time two or more lines are cleared someone else gets a row or more of rubbish forcing its way up from the bottom of their screen. Each player chooses (in broad terms) who they attack, whether it be those who are already struggling and about to loose, players who have knocked out others, or their own attackers. All the time, the music and speed at which the tetrominoes fall increases, until only two players are left in a frenzied fight to the death. It's a funny time to be alive really.

Flow

I had a request for more information about my Inhuman Conditions Electronics Assistant code. I can't see myself releasing the code onto the world, primarily because I don't want to have to support it, but also I'd rather not take the feedback on it. It's not that the codes bad, but rather it's not perfect. Instead, here's the pseudo code in an ugly flowchart.

Civilisation

In 1995, I started playing CivNet and sunk hundreds of hours leading my nation to global domination more times than I can remember. Graphically the game as ages incredibly poorly, with almost everything being displayed in a menu or popup window, but in my mind it was all just a representation for something so much grander and, dare I say, epic. That little box with a low resolution Hoplite was a unit of highly skilled soldiers trekking through the wilderness, protecting the borders of my empire and with that, my people.

Much like your nation progressing through the ages in-game, the Civilization franchise is still around today, only they appear to be suffering through a dark age. The latest game requires you to agree to an End User License Agreement that says the publishers can collect what is essentially every personal detail about you from your computer to use however they like (EULA quote below). Perhaps they just miss-clicked and specced into and Orwellian regime by mistake.

The information we collect may include personal information such as your first and/or last name, e-mail address, phone number, photo, mailing address, geolocation, or payment information. In addition, we may collect your age, gender, date of birth, zip code, hardware configuration, console ID, software products played, survey data, purchases, IP address and the systems you have played on. We may combine the information with your personal information and across other computers or devices that you may use.

War

There's a story I heard years ago. One that I've sunk far too much time into finding the original source of without success. I've always wanted to share it, so why not now.

Wargames have been around for centuries. H. G. Wells was an advocate of miniature wargaming and even published a set of rules for it. Before wargames found any sort of recognisable popularity and the player base was sparse, people would play-by-mail. Each player would take turns sending their moves to the other, much like in a game of play-by-mail chess.

Half of the battle would be finding someone in the first place to play against, so people would advertise in newspapers that they wanted to start a campaign. Unfortunately, much like children playing in the park, everyone wants to be the hero and no one wants to be the villain. This is of course where people got creative and a few savvy players, when writing their newspaper adverts, would take on the persona of a Axis General, making bold and highly inappropriate statements to provoke the Allied players into starting games with them. This was met with great success and thus started one of the earliest forms of role-playing in a wargaming setting.

It would be a little while before Gary Gygax would help this evolved into Dungeons and Dragons, but it's pretty neat to think about.

Bike

The last time I went for a “proper” bike ride was on a trip to Norway. It started adjacent to the Djupvatn Lake in Geiranger, some 1030m above sea level and 17.7km back to the cruise ship. To say I was ill prepared for the ride would be a monumental understatement. You see, the last “proper” bike ride before then would probably have been cycling around the local garages pretending to go shopping for my Mum. No, I hadn't gone through a heart-warming period of encephalopathy, but rather I was five or six years old.

The route was dangerous. Before our tour group had even passed through the cloud layer, someone had fallen off a hairpin turn and broken their arm. They would later be flown to a hospital via helicopter. Fortunate sod.

I spent the rest of the journey white knuckled, heavily reliant on the brakes, being overtaken by two story tall tour buses inches away and seeing some of the most spectacular views in my life. It was incredible.

Poison

Welcome to Poisonland, a world just like ours but with one very strange rule; drinking any poison will kill you unless you drink an even stronger poison soon after.

The Ruler of Poisonland wakes up one day and decrees that they must have the strongest poison that exists. So they call for the two highest ranking council members; the Master of Potions and the Minister of Network Security (they're very protective of their digital data in Poisonland). The Ruler says “You both have ten days to make for me the strongest poison feasible. You will each enter my chamber, drink some of the others poison and then drink your own. Whoever makes the strongest poison shall live and I will have the strongest poison in the land!”

The Minister of Network Security leaves, wringing their hands in despair. There was no way they'd be able to make a stronger poison than the Master of Potions. But a thought strikes them! They come up with a way of following the rules of the contest and live without having to make a stronger poison than the Master of Potions. They set about their plan.

A few days later, the Master of Potions hears about this plan. “That cunning devil!” they proclaim, and sets a new plan of their own into motion.

Once the ten days is over, the two council members enter the Rulers chamber, drink from the others bottle and then from their own. A moment later, the Minister of Network Security drops dead.

Now the questions:

1. What was the Minister of Network Security's plan?

2. How did the Master of Potions get around the plan?

3. Did the Ruler get the strongest poison in the land?

The answers:

1. The Minister of Network Security made a mild poison, which they drank before entering the Ruler's chambers, but brought in with them a bottle of water. They would drink the strong poison from the Master of Potions next (followed by some water), which would counter the mild poisons effect.

2. The Master of Potions also brought in a bottle of water, meaning the mild poison they consumed before entering the chamber would kill the Minister of Network Security.

3. The Ruler got nothing more than a bottle of water.

Memory

The Mandela Effect, so called because a large number of people believe Nelson Mandela died in prison some time in the 1980's and not 2013, is something I got to experience first hand this week.

Forrest Gump never said “Life is like a box of chocolates”, Darth Vader never said “Luke, I am your father”, Hannible Lecter never says “Hello Clarice” and Snow White's evil stepmother never said “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”.

But the one that got me was Gandalf never said “Run you fools” but rather “Fly you fools” which is bonkers. Apparently, the original theatrical version said “run”, an alteration from the book for the benefit of modern moviegoers, and was later dubbed over for all other versions. But I haven't been able to find actual video evidence supporting this. Madness.