More Chess - Toxic Players

I'm beginning to find the online Chess community a bit more feeble than I remember... I used to play on Yahoo Games Chess, years ago... I even met a lass through it once, seriously, chess got me laid... However, playing on en.lichess.org, I keep having my opponents leave the match!

In this case the chap had the upper hand, my opening went wrong, he moved his bishop aggressively into my centre, but then my knights rescued the situation and he left?!?!?!  Leaving me to just have to wait for his time to end or "claim victory".

Chess & Me

I've always been fascinated by board games, Chess was perhaps the first I obsessed over, and I wasn't bad at playing it... When I was around 10 we had a wooden chess set at home, and I'd spend hours looking at positions, but was  never encouraged that this was a worth while thing to do.

When I was in my early twenties, I came back to Chess and had a few books and bits and bobs for it, spent ages analysing positions once.  It's sort of part of me.

Anyway, I recently came across en.lichess.org, and signed up... I had played a few games and got totally thrashed whilst anonymous... But I did a bunch of their training puzzles (some of which I think I saw better options or at least equivalent options for) and then signed up... Ironically when you sign up their capta check is a chess puzzle, and I kept getting it wrong!

But soon sorted and I started my first game, no pressure, so I went for classic 20 minute (plenty of time) game style.  I have this speed chess, I'm not practised enough for it.

Here's my ending board, did I win... I think I did, but the opponent just left :(

(I'm playing white)

Gaming Update - Atari ST - Heroes and Generals

Its been a long weekend, and a busy weekend, first things first, the main man lab now has a new floor laid - the last one I'm doing in the whole house - someone else can lay a new stair and landing carpet, I'm done!

I've also put up two new wardrobes from Ikea, sorted the garage out and also moved the guineapig into a new hutch.  These last two items were related to the rat issue, no sign of any rats I clearly scared that sucker off... But there were other things living in there... The first things I found were frogs, I don't mind frogs and I gave them a lift out in my hands and set them loose in the lilly pands at the bottom of the garden... They looked well happy... The wife however was horrified I'd pick up a frog and ran for it... Frogs are silky smooth very nice to hold... Not slimey and not cold - least not when the atmosphere is not cold... But she'd have none of it.

Anyway, with them moved we took up the old run the rat had got into, and I hung it on the wall as a kind of giant basket for stuff and filled it with a bunch of things, I stacked and piled things and since the last floor had been laid I now knew I could rid myself of the excess packs of Laminate flooring, so they went back to the shop... I'm yet to get a refund, but they went back...  So lots more space in the already spacious garage... Yay.

I also got some time with an Atari ST... yes, I got one down and I played a few games, notably Verminator... Blood Money... and Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters... Lovely.

The wife also picked out a film from pay-per-view... Devil's Due... Utter shit, avoid it at all costs.  I'm staggered such a bad, low tech, inconsequential film was made for 7 million bucks, and made over 38 million at the box office... The film was so bad I was more bothered what happened to their pet labrador then the people, and the film didn't even let you know what happened to the dog.  Terrible, utterly stupid, film with so many dead ends, bad camera work passed off as POV filming, just rubbish.  So avoid that sucker.

Finally, I did get a little time Saturday night playing Heroes and Generals, I was pleasently surprised to see they had a free premium weekend, so I got to play a few missions with premium bonus... And you know what... It was not that helpful... I was making between 5 and 8k  credits per game... and with premium bonus I made between 6 and 9... Nothing to write home about.

But I did have a massive "ahaha I told you so" moment in there... I've been playing with the G43, and complaining about it... and the god damn huge prices for upgrading it for so little return... Anyway, in a mission I pretty much spend my time trying to scround a bolt action rifle... And I found one and had a 14/2 K:D mission... Totally validating my thoughts on the G43, where I can't get anywhere near that without sitting on my ass camping rather than actively playing.

Later on of course I was sent back to a G43... And instantly annoyed as shit at coming face to face with an opponent, putting 4 shells into him... 4 hits... in the torso... and he just turned around and shot me in the face... IN THE FACE PEOPLE... It so unbalanced!

And this ends my rant for the week... Heroes and Generals... I like it, it could be so much better, it needs balancing... Guys over there, go play Day of Defeat for some weapon balance ideas... Oh and weapon sounds, cus the ones currently in game are crap.

Minecraft Ordeal #6

In this update to our Minecraft world, I've pretty much been fleshing out that project I mentioned, firstly I needed glass, so I set about cutting a hunk of desert out...

This made a nice area to set up a small garden...

Not optimised, this is just a grid of pumpkins because I needed lots of lanterns...

So, this is why I needed them... Just a bit of bed rock?...

Well, no, because above is this...

It is a strip mine, straight down, with a large stair case, and fully lit with lanterns, there are regular landings at the higher levels, but from here I'm going to set up four main corridors, for each point of the compass and off of them slowly dig out a huge grid of tunnels, branch mining.

Minecraft - Ordeal #5

Today I've not been to work, when I came in last night I had a terrible, and I mean agonizing, pain under my right rib towards the front... I thought it was trapped wind, so ignored it... Big mistake, its kept me up most of the night, and when I woke up this morning I just could not move.

I'm moving now, but it is agony, I don't want to eat and I'm in such pain... But hey ho.

Before this took over me, I did play some Minecraft, so I drafted this post for you guys last night...

I didn't do anything too interesting, I started a project behind my base, out in the desert, I'm making out a square I'm going to sink as a vertical open cast/strip mine.  But before that I needed to expand and finish the storage.

So there are ranks for 9 more double chests, and then either side, I'm adding two annex's, one for an anvil, and the other for potion brewing.

Also, from above on my base ground level, I'm definitely able to just dump my inventory into the water stream and it come into my junk chest...

 

Minecraft Ordeal 1

Lets take a tour of my new Survival world in Minecraft.  I started this world so that I might actually play the game, but also to experiment with some of the items in it.

For you see, I'm interested in volume rendering, I've been enjoying both Minecraft and CubeWorld, the latter I enjoy the visuals the former I enjoy the details, and though I can't do better than either I'd like to explore GLSL programming and do it with something interesting, so all this play has been about teaching myself about a world, a structure and thinking how I'd like to emulate it myself.

They say this is a form of flattery, and I sincerely hope Notch & Wollay take my efforts (if I ever get properly motivated) as they are intended - sincere and honest flattery to their excellent work.

The first thing I did was open a branch mine.  Luckily I spawned by a river, neighbouring a desert and with chickens a plenty, so after gathering wood and penning up the chickens I dur a stair case down....

Down to bed rock and then I stripped it all out and filled it back in to level with cobble stone, many players and articles say not to bother stripping this out that diamonds won't be found within the bedrock layer, or some other such myths.  In fact, as you can see, stripping down the bedrock and then building it back up does yield diamonds.

And I have found them in significant numbers in both this, and my previous worlds... Where many wiki entries and other such guides actually discourage looking for them.

So the branch mine itself, has two halves, the main hall and then the layered hall...

From this the initial tunnels run out around 500 blocks on both sides, and on two layers, they meet one cave system to the West and an underground river is present there, with the walls of the cave as yet un-tapped for resources.

However, on the lower levels to the East there is a large, deep, magma/lava pocket.  I've hemmed this in with glass to try and build around it, but so far its around 60 blocks wide with no end in sight.

The secondary halls were cut with a landing between them, but they're otherwise the same as the main branch mine hall.

Aside from branch mining, I have been setting up all the comforts of home, I've the start of a storage area.

An enchanting room... with a full library... More about the leather for the books in a moment.

Outside I then have the chickens mentioned earlier, along with a pumpkin and wheat growing area.  There are also sugar cane ranks beyond, but all this is manual farming, nothing is yet automated.

Following from home, before I could build the library, I needed leather, so I set off creating beacon towers to let me find my way home...

My towers went from short squat things, to taller more elegant things as resources became available...

And with each tower spaced to see another, I could track my route across the deserts which seem to envelope my corner of green.

From the last tower in the desert however, I created a small path to a specific area, which I cleared...

For within the area I found, and could breed cows...

This was my first source of leather, however, being open and in the middle of a forest, I had to start clearing and I started to sculpt the land and open up the area, then added lighting to stop the overwhelming mobs spawning.

Finally being able to create a second cow shed, with a roof and proper lighting to support breeding and leather harvesting...

After mile upon mile of desert however I built another tower to the East... And though the views were bleak....

My next challenge soon was spotted....

Let the adventure continue.... I'm hoping this is where Minecraft get to feel like CubeWorld... Lets see.

Its more like a J and a U - Amazon Delivery

So the BBC are covering the news that Amazon are shaking up their delivery charges system, and the BBC describe it as a "U" turn...

The super saver delivery was introduced in 2009... that's four years... to its less of an immediate sounding U and more of an over time "J" that Amazon has reversed the decision in, and the decision doesn't seem to cover everything.

Books, CD's, DVD's and the like are not covered and remain possibly free to deliver.

It does annoy me when the BBC get someone reporting like this from their soap box, its most certainly a personal opinion in this case and to flagrantly describe it negatively as an immediate sounding U turn, when its clearly a longer term strategy is just poor reporting.

About the decision though, one does have to question whether this is a move now to maximise profits as Amazon has shut down and cornered many competitors, such as Play, and now Amazon feel enabled to charge.

I will say I for one will not be going out my way to pay delivery, and paying a charge may reduce my orders from Amazon, but will it stop be using Amazon?.. Probably not, and that's more a sign of how ubiquitous their services are now compared to ten years ago.