Saturday 7 September 2013

Iron Man Zombie Robot Hitler is not happy - and he has a gatling gun

No.
I'm not kidding.
Ben keeps finding these movies.
I don't know how he does it.

He's a node warrior.

In any case 'Nazis at the Centre of the Earth' is worth a look.
If you are into gouging your eyes out with forks that is.

It's appalling.
There are so many 'WTFFF?' moments in this movie I couldn't even begin to do justice to it.
Although in this case justice might be better served by getting every copy on the planet and burning them.
Oh.. And the extra two F's are 100% totally insufficient.

I think the point when I said "Ok. This is very, very bad" was when an Lockheed P-3 Orion survey plane encounters the Nazi saucer rising out of the Antarctic ice and the radio conversation goes something like this:

Pilot: "I'd like to report a UFO!"
Off-Camera Dude: "UFO?"
Pilot: "Yes! It's huge!"
Off-Camera Dude: "You're cleared to engage!"

Wait. What? Engage? With what? Bad language? This is an Orion, not an F-18!

And then the Orion launches 8, yes *eight*, Hellfire missiles at the saucer.

"Calm down Kim... Breathe..."

Two things.

1) It's a frackin' survey plane. I know the Americans go a little gun happy arming things, but an Orion? In Antarctica? Hellfires? Eight of them?

2) As the pilot of the Orion, I would notice that the saucer is size of Nebraska. Oh. And the rivets holding it together were 3 foot across. Eight Hellfires would not be enough. Sixty four wouldn't be enough. I'd be "gone".

Oh.. And Robot Hitler? Cool. In a "WTF?" kinda way. I kept asking myself some things:

1) Why does he need to sit down? He's a frickin' robot.
2) Robot Hitler?
3) Gatling gun?
4) [Head explodes]

But I digress.

Wait. Where was i?
Oh yes.
It's KRAP.
But in a that "Wouldn't Miss It For The World" kinda way.
A kinda "Robot Hitler with a Gatling Gun" kinda way.

Wednesday 4 September 2013

A Movie, my D&D roots and software development

Hmm.
Just finished watching "Tad - The Lost Explorer".
Worth it btw... So go find it and watch it.

In any case...
There was a scene where the explorers reach a chamber.
With dozens of different coloured ropes hanging down.
They eventually picked the right one of course...
And the door opened and the movie continued.

I was reminded of my D&D roots back in the 70's.
I ran a dungeon.
A bad one.
An evil one.
A 'gotcha' one.
An 'oh... I'm dead.. Frack!' one.

One weekend I had a dozen or so people trying to navigate my dungeon.
They encountered a room.
With coloured ropes hanging down.
And a door on the other side with "нажмите сюда" on a button.

(For those that don't know any Cyrillic it *very* roughly means "press here" - I'm not a Russian speaker so I apologise in advance for any butchering of the language)

So...
Here was a bunch of very smart people debating how to get across the room and open the door...

And did they debate?

Hell yeah.

For four weekends they investigated every rock, every crack, every sand grain at the entrance of the room.

I waited... Impatiently I might add...

On the fourth weekend, they had catalogued every rock, every crack, every sand grain...
They roped themselves together and formed a line across the room.
The one at the front (A guy who nearly had a heart attack doing it) strapped three spears together...
And with the air buzzing with protection spells, pressed the button.

And...

And...

The door opened.
The rest started the most excruciating process of getting each member, their donkeys, their supplies across that room.
They all made it.

Why? Because there was no trap...
They were inculcated with the idea that every move would be a deadly one.
My dungeons were death traps.
The slightest mis-step would end everyone.

That room.
They called it "The Room Of Sorrows."
Not that room.
I just put a simple room.
No traps.
No death.
No hidden issues.

I marvelled at their ingenuity at bypassing traps that weren't there.

They made it and congratulated each other.

And now, I look back and see how often a team of developers often does the same.
Not every issue is a "Room Of Sorrows."
You don't need to spend hours on some issues.

Sometimes you need to have the b***s to just barrel in and TRUST that you are frackin' smart enough and ugly enough to work out the issues as you take the path.

Pick a path.

Commit.

Oh. And Push... Mustn't forget the push.

Monday 2 September 2013

GalactiCraft! OMG!

Ok. Haven't posted for a while as I've been rather busy.
Yesterday (Sunday) I decided to rebuild our internal network minecraft server up.
Got bukkit and configured it up and allowed external access to it for my family.

In any case, while doing this I stumbled on Galacticraft.
It's a tekkit mod that is just hilarious and looks very cool.

The site is at:

http://micdoodle8.com/mods/galacticraft

And you should *definitely* watch the podcasts by yoglabs.
Hysterically funny.
I cracked up repeatedly.

My favorite parts are.. are...
Oh what the heck...
ALL OF THEM.
Giant three headed creepers, spiders with spacesuits, Shai Hulud, alien eggs, variable gravity, slow motion skeleton arrows...
I just giggle madly if I think of the spider with a helmet and air tanks.

I could go on...
But you need to go and watch the podcasts.
Do it.
Do it now...

Oh... Shai Hulud... If you haven't watched or read Dune, this won't mean anything.
But don't despair! Go get the book, or watch the movies.
My favorite is the De Laurentius "theatrical" version. (We have all the versions)