J-Day cometh….
Month: November 2010
Tonight while playing Left 4 Dead 2, I noticed something a bit odd. The games textures for its “Desert Rifle” has markings for a MK 17 Mod 3 written on it along with an indicator of it being the 5.56x45mm variant.
That obvious error aside, what makes this odd to me. Just going on instinct from using the weapon in game rather than close look at the models, I would usually call it out as a SCAR or SCAR-H in game. The MK17 is the “Heavy” version firing 7.62x51mm. Someone later pointed out to me, that the magazines are obviously closer to the SCAR-L; the “Light” version of course, being the MK16 using the same 5.56x45mm you’ll find on an M16 ;). The games stuff for the SCAR mags to me, look like a curved version of the SCAR-H mag.
Most of Left 4 Deads weapons have double their realistic ammunition capacity or close to it, adjusted for stopping power. Personally, I think that’s a flaw but hey, bullets go even faster against zombies! The games SCAR hits more like a MK17 might be expected to, yet the games model appears to have an extended 30-round magazine; L4D does however exagerate the ballistics quite a lot for all the weapons. In game, you get 60 rounds in a SCAR firing on 3-round burst; the old school AR being a 50-round based M16 and the lovely AKM, offering 40 rounds.
3 times the real weapons ammo, can’t beat that for shooting through waves of infected! The real odd thing I guess, is how I know just by looking at it, that the gun isn’t accurate to real life :-/.
As pleasant as being able to install driver updates through the Windows update crap has been, I must admit that being dropped into a 640x480x4 desktop shows me just how horrible the old PCs used to look.
At least on my *nix systems, I’ve only got to worry about keeping kernel + X.Org + drivers in sync >_>.
First time for everything, right?
O.K. Now this was one of those has to be a first time for everything kind of moments. Sitting here, playing Left 4 Dead, we’re having a brutal finale, so many freaking zombies I look like a mad dancer shoving and shooting while we fend off the horde.
All of a sudden I hear enough barking, flapping feathers, and pounding that it sounds like a war is going on down the hall in the living room. Shouted a quick BRB over VoIP while peeling off my headset and going to see what’s exploding.
Found the ceiling fan going berzerk, parakeet going bananas, and the dogs trying to get to the bird lol. After shutting down the fan, ma noticed one of the fan blades were missing. Now absolutely nothing was disturbed anywhere. My mothers gots Thanksgiving decorations and religius stuff on the table, right next to the fan. Practically wall to wall there’s breakable crap near there, birds cage is even in pissing distance of the fan (much to my annoyance). Close enough to opennings that it could even send the blade bouncing into the hallway or kitchen, if it came off at the right angle. To top it off, in the line of fire is a shelf full of my mothers dolls next to the couch.
It took at least 20+ minutes to find where the blade landed. Couldn’t find it anywhere, no sign that it ever happened, except for the broken ceiling fan! While putting all that tactical study to good use and scannign the room, I had an AH HA! Moment.
Sure enough, the blade landed on a pillow on the couch. It was right in this trianglular sweet spot that’s like a foot +/- a couple inches, from either point: My mothers head, Coco, and a small statue of the Virgin Mary by her computer. Statistically you would think that it’s going to cream the stuff on the table, or maybe hit the bird or her dolls, but no…. smack dab right in between biologicals. A little bit more off that course, and either my mother would need a ice pack, or one of the dogs would need a vet lol.
Guardian angels or guardian angles, I think my mother finally has something to be thankful for… I know I am.
Lately my dreams have been getting worse, really not sure if I should look forward to sleep or evade it at this point. On the upside, it beats boredom, on the down side it feels hours longer than the actual passage of time. That kind of adds up after a while, tiring.
I’m really not fond of holidays, haven’t been for a very long time, doubt that’s going to change anytime soon. As far as I’m concrened, just getting it done and over with is a good thing to me.
Really looking forward to getting started on the 30th. In the mean time, I’ve been experimenting with something. In setting up the Windows build for Cassius, I set things up to be able to use the systems lua build (i.e. on linux) or build it as a dependency of Cassius. That’s gotten my brain cooking on making some reusable stuff out of it. Keyed in several libs so far, still need to iron a few things out, like moving header installation from premake time to prebuild time. While doing that and unrolling some loops, I also noticed a bug in some of the path.*() functions that premake uses. Seems that certain paths containing a $ need to be escaped (%$) IAW Lua’s pattern matching syntax, or you get an invalid return value :-/.
Premake was actually my main reason for learning Lua, but never had much chance to use Premake until this month. Kind of been focused on C# the last kind of months, and largely using GNU Makefiles for that stuff. My principal gripes with using C/C++, is setting up Windows builds is a bitch and for most of my own stuff, I require software that works on both. On vaguely POSIX respecting systems, it’s not that bad. One of these days I really need to work on setting up a linux or *bsd to windows cross compile.
One positive thing to come out of tinkering with a library (Cassius) for embedding programming languages. I’ve learned that Lua not only combines most of the features I like about JavaScript with a non CBF syntax, it also is a hell of a lot easier to build/embed then existing JavaScript engines o/. For how much I like the Curly Brace Family versus the irk of embedding stuff, Lua is arguably the better choice in the trade off.
Two ways that I’ve collected so many languages, one is trying to use the tool most appropriate for what I need done, the other is I’m used to juggling between languages rapidly. Whatever the problem calls for and limits implementation headaches, rather than whatever is the ‘mentally’ convienant language of the moment. That’s also some what a necessity of helping people here or there, can’t quite say, “Sorry, brains in C mode, shove your PHP up your arse”, now can I? lol.
Now if only the study of spoken languages were as trivial :-/.
Hmm, can’t sleep. Don’t really feel like coding or gaming. Hmm, maybe a deck of cards…
How I spent my early teens
While shuffling crap around yesterday, I found a folder full of undated papers. On one side are designs for a light strike cruiser and dreadnought done by hand in pencil, on the other side some edition of my Tallgeese manual done in MS Word and printed by the old Lexmark. I know from memory that the latter must’ve been done around the time frame of 2001-2003, so I must’ve been in the 13-15 range at the time. Majorly geeky years!
Basically, I had created my own “What if” story line, a place where my creativity could explore the possibilities without being tied down to anything existing, or having to start Totally From Scratch. I based it on a simple concept: what could happen if you fused parts of the Macross era of Robotech with the Universal Century and After Colony segments of Mobile Suit Gundam. It focused on adopting the character of Rick Hunter from an ace in the first robotect war, into a Lt. Col. leading a combined arms regiment from Earth Sphere United Nations during a massive conflict set in an “Alternate” version of life after Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, one where the weapons of war had not been totally destroyed and world peace, still a hell of a lot further to go! That sentence is my definition of a run on, or at least a mouth full.
Part of that backdrop was focused on the details of one of my all time favourite mecha designs: Hajime Katokis Tallgeese. Some 15 years later it might look more like a Charger in a land of concept Camaros but I love this ‘mech. In much the same vain that Treize Khushrenadas Tallgeese II was modelled after the original Tallgeese I, my theorical “Tallgeese IV” was modelled after the Tallgeese III seen in Endless Waltz.
Intro text on these papers state the Tallgeese IV was a custom made unit done in December of AC 196 (just before the Tallgeese III went into battle) and first deployed the following year. Gundam Wings original Tallgeese design is cannonically recorded as being done in the year AC 175, either on the show or in associated media. So obviously big changes were in order lol.
My design for the “OZ-00MS-IV Tallgeese IV” was drafted as weighing in at 8,200kg empty and reaching up to a gross weight of 27 metric tons fully loaded for a space battle, including a very variable arsenal of weapons. I’ve been known to make things exceptionally weapon laden, so is it any wonder that the original earh-side version of Heavyarms is of my favourite Gundam? (Heavyarms mounted about 7 (later 8) machine guns, four missile racks, and a heat knife.)
My Tallgeese IV was to have a hull made out of an enhanced (neo) titanium alloy, encasing a layer of ceramic polymer composites, then covered over with a layer of insulating materials on the inner side: a Beryllium based materal for shielding against radiation and a silicon covered network of titanium rods for some extra structural reinforcement. Even have a drawing in the printout (done in paint lol) showing the sandwiching of it all; cermaic between titanium and some insul’ on the guts side. To do it all over again, I would probably research how useful a silicon or boron carbide in a titanium matrix (in laymen’s terms that means it would costs mega bucks but could be fucking hard) might work out for that usage scenario, and likely rethink the whole Beryllium thing. All in all, it was basically made to be a ‘mech with a very tough hide and library books didn’t make the study of tank armour and advanced metal stuffs a trivial thing in the early A.D. 2000s.
Basically, super strong armour for protection, wrapped around a ceramic plate for stopping kinetic energy rounds, an armour backdrop and insulation between the armour and the guts.
For the cockpit, the design was to have a “Pod” like module mounted in the chest cavity behind the hatch. The idea being you would have an adaptive chair in the centre, yokes/joysticks on the flanks and a swivelled keyboard in front for details; I would add foot pedals to that, retrospectively. Encircling the pilot would be, basically an industrial strength LCD screen: displaying a 360′ panorama of the ‘mechs environment, using sensors built into the ‘mechs body. Thus allowing the pilot to see anything he could hope to see (except straight up or down), and swivel the chair as needed to focus their peepers at any given point. How is that for eyes in the back of your head!? Note that ‘mechs in Gundam Wing proper, only had a single front view screen. In case of critical failure, the pod was meant to be both ejectable and replacable: punching out with a few hours life support and enough thrusters to move to safety. Not to mention a hardware level to fry all the installed computer systems, in order to prevent an enemy from harvesting any data, or learning about the systems design in the event of capture.
The sections on computer systems is mostly useless from a technical specification but conceptually works well. Big picture wise, the idea was to use a subspace field to push the processing bottlenecks out of theoretical hardware and into the arena pure science fiction, ala converting the warp drive concept into a big ass CPU. Simple as that. At the time it seemed plausible enough that a Faster Than Light (FTL) processing speed might be necessary to keep pace with a combat mechs movements; this coming from someone who had just upgraded from a 233Mhz Pentium II to a 2,000Mhz Pentium 4 a a year or two before hand lololololol. To do things over again, I would use a mega load more of memory and see just how seriously parallel things could get between the hardware and software.
What is pertinent about computer systems described in it: is the concept of how it would be used as part of the overall machine. Conceptually things were meant to use a ‘mech wide network of fibre optical cables to pass data from module to module, running this big distributed/multiplry redundant sort of internal computer network for keeping the ‘mech working like a well oiled German sports car cruising down the Autobahn. These FO cables would be routed through several trunk locations at logical intervals, jacking the bandwidth as it were. These trunks would be placed at various points, like the legs, arms, etc, where important sensors could all link to conveniently and pass on their data. So many data trunks would be primaries and so many would be backups in order to cope with phsyical damage and the possibility of hardware failures, plus an extra set of three trunks for the cockpit: one emergency and two mains containing the heart of the ‘mechs software environment, i.e. the master authority on all things computer related inside the mech.
Swap out the cockpit pod, and bingo: you would be able to overhaul the entire ‘mechs computer systems. Anything that would have to be transferred (cached) at another trunk node, could be transferred from the mains in the cockpit pilot, much like a BIOS flash or an FTP install of Linux. Combining the FO cables with the link aggregation stuff, that should be pretty damn fast enough for anybodies conceivable needs, let along a battle field mechanic of the future >_>. At least that was the idea.
When I was writing this thing, the typical PC would likely still be using a 56K modem with a telephone line. Fiber Optic Internet, wasn’t even talked about in these parts.
I also envisioned that for “Oh crap, everything has broken!” kind of situation, the a single data trunk would be *just* good enough to keep the Tallgeese IVs critical systems functioning, enough to walk/drift back to base for repairs, assuming the necessary cables were intact but the other computer modules offline. In order to make servicing internal components easier, a network of maintenance hatches, and corresponding “Jefferies tubes”, so dubbed for lack of a better name, would run throughout the ‘mechs body. What good is an extremely expensive, ultra advanced piece of war machine, if you can’t fix the thing after it gets banged up, seriously, what’s the point? On top of that would be fire suppression systems to suffocate an internal fires and a way to vent stuff over external fires for an emergency skin cooling.
Like wise, mirroring the networks for data transfer cables, would be systems for cooling and power distribution: including air ducting on the torso with filters, effectively allowing the pilot to breath regular air when earth side and not worry about tear gas, etc. For safety of course, being several sets (redundant) of ducting and putting a computer in place that could switch things around in case a duct got smashed up or severed, by dropping it and inserting a fresh segment, in order to avoid having to place the pilot on internal (space/underwater mode) life support.
As a safe guard against falling into enemy hands, a self destruct system was obviously called for. Both a near instant blow the sucker to kingdom come method, for use in case of being captured, that would be triggered via a hidden kill switch under the pilots seat, or by way of using keyboard and/or a voice activation mechanism to start a count down, for use in kamikaze style suicide. I’m crazy, right? A.) Don’t let the enemy get your most advanced kit; B.) If all else fails, take them with you. Yep.
Since information is power, the Tallgeese IV would have a ton of sensor modules installed. Several arrays planted in the shoulder amour , feet, and head would provide targeting, radar, sensors for magnetic fields, seismic anomalies, infrared, sonar, and conventional radar. The idea being that if its a big hunk of hot metal stomping around, you ought to be able to figure out where it is ^_^.
Since it was set it was set in a story based on the Gundamverse, Minovsky particle based jamming technologies would make radar useless. Thus making most sensor applications limited to visual line of sight, and extras like being able to for example, using thermals and acoustics. I actually got the idea for using an infra system based on the FLIR pods used by the military; and the idea, “Well gee, if it can be forward looking, why not swivel it around!” Looking at that link, seems that kind of technology has existed since the 1960s. Good.
The ‘mechs sensors would gather all that sensory input, route it through the trunks, processing as you go and create something fitting for the pilots view screens to display automagically. For extra benefit, an Initial Navigation System like mapping computer would “Remember” where you’ve walked/flown, and generate a form of spacial awareness. Today I would throw in a GPS too. It gives me a mental hard on just thinking about what programming something like all that might take… lol.
As a gimic, an experimental “Pilot to Mobile Suit Interface (P-MSI)” system was also planned for. Basically, scan the pilots brain in order to increase the response time. This could be thought of as an analogue to Gundams psycommu systems, adapted for regular humans, or a SLDF era Battle Mech helmet.
In terms of communications, several conventional and subspace radio systems would be mounted in the head module, along side a laser based LOS communication system for squad level use. The idea being, radio = fine until the Minovsky particles thicken up and jam it. One of the nifty but occasionally irksome parts of the UC segment of the gundamverse. So in essence, communication is limited to line of sight crap.
For getting around, obviously the Tallgeese design calls for a set of big ass engines. Basically the papers envision a type of nuclear thermal rocket, powered by taps into the ‘mechs reactor: plus the ability to jettison them (and go ground pounding), frying the data trunks in the process. Leaving the secondary thrusters on the hips and rear skirt armour, just enough to perform manoeuvring in space or short rocket leaps in a terrestrial environment. Augmenting that, a set of computer controlled vernier thrusters for precision movements when operating in space. I always had trouble trying to calculate things like the theoretical acceleration rate and such, but I never had that big a grounding in math.
In terms of weapons, the Tallgeese IV was simply an augmented Tallgeese III, modified to suit my tastes. The Big Freaking Mega Cannon mounted on the right shoulder armour was replaced with something more practical yet still highly , that essentially combines a Variable Speed Beam Rifle with a Vayeate style Mega Particle Cannon. Conceptually, it would allow the pilot to dynamically adjust the beam width, pulse length (constant or pulse fired), and power rating. More powerful shots draining energy faster but being able to seriously maintain the DooM title of BFG! A way to self destruct the gun by over charging it, of course being in the concept, hehe.
Backing that up being external weapons. Power linkages inthe hands would allow the use of any Standard beam rifle or conventional autocannon (105mm/40rnd box magazine fed being the standard issue), including a heavy beam cannon designed to serve as a bazooka type shock weapon. It could also mount a 140mm cannon in place of the Mega Cannon.
The real emphasis was on melee weapons: a retractable 25 metre long “Heat” rod was built into a shield mounted on the left shoulder armour, containing a pair of beam sabers and 2-tube missile launchers. Increasing the thick plates defensive ability, the shield was to have a 20mm ablative coating for protection against directed energy weapons, and a low power I-field generator to reflect shots from low powered beam rifles. Tallgeese IV was also designed to have three beam sabers: two stored in recharge racks in the shield, and another hidden within the forearm for use as a backup. Since the Gundamverses beam sabers are essentially a power cell that spews plasma into an I-field, it would obviously be able to melt many conventional bullets on impact, the main sabers would be upgraded to use a denser I-field, in order to reflect shots from low powered beam rifles. Actually making that a useful weapon (Jedi style) however, is rather beyond the capability of a human pilot, without seriously jacking up the computing power.
A pair of head mounted 60mm Vulcan cannons with about 5 seconds of ammo rounded out a rather, comprehensive armament package.
Crankin’ up the radio
I’ve got to admit, friends are right in that actually sleeping from time to time is a good idea. The last few weeks has been spent on minimal sleep levels, as usual for me. Thursday night/Friday morning, I just skipped sleeping, wasn’t tired until like 1100 Friday, and that only lasted like fifteen-twnety minutes, then caught up with me half a day later. I took a friends advice and got some rest, rather than waiting until the 29th, now I’m super charged again. Guess I’ll try and take it easy for a while, rather than focusing on how much stuff I can get done in spare time.
Of course though, my idea of taking it easy is nothing like sitting on my ass, hahaha! Going to get things shifted about, go through my back log of cleaning. I would like to transition to a more normal sleep routine, but that remains to be seen. I also need to get a few things sorted on Cassius, been refining things on the one branch for a while but haven’t had time to step back and prepare it for commit; once things are sorted and I’ve selected a branch to merge into the mainline, I’ll schedule time to sit back and do a review of things. After that I’ll probably find a safe place for storing it, as safe guard against all my computers popping a cork o/. I’m one of those backup freaks lol.
Over the years, I’ve spent enough of my life running on reserves that a little quality R&R gets me pumped up. I’m also not the kind of person who likes to be idle that much, programming at least exercises my thinking muscles a little bit. Right now I feel like I could jog twenty miles, but my feet would keep me if I did that! Actually, it’s kind of funny. When I was a little kid, inside my own head I always used to refer to my energy levels as “Normal”, “Auxiliary”, “Reserve”, and “Emergency” power. As an adult, my batteries don’t recharge so fast any more, sure as hell don’t last as long either: but consistently, the endurance level is still there lol. The real question is whether or not that’ll hold through to when I’m old, grey, and lucky if I can still piss under my own steam >_>.
The things that get me tired tend to differ from “Norms”, maybe it’s because I’m insane or that I hate having nothing to work on, dunno. Either way, time to crank up the radio, get off the PC for a bit, and get stuff done.
Crazy way of relaxing, eh?
Early yesterday morning, I got an e-mail from someone interested in a rounder with some ability at rails, and asking about my availability. Decided to sleep on it after doing a quick review of the company. I wonder what’s changed, that I haven’t been getting so many doors slammed in my face :-/. Spent most of the day focused on a branch of Cassius.
Sometime after setting my laptop on the table and firing up the desktop for a quick game break between interruptions, when checking the laptop, I noticed a pop up message saying something about an incoming call. Loading the stuff on my desktop crashed the game, but well, it was worth it lol. Seems the business that had me in for an interview wants me to show up again, and it sounds like things are going to another level :-). One condition is that I get a GED, which perfectly plays to my favour: that means I can get it sooner rather than later. Since then, I’ve mostly been trying to get stuff in order via an action plan. I figure, may as well have everything sorted and ready to roll, straighten up the car, etc and maybe hit the library a bit, hehe. I like things being organised.
The real twist of my brains interest circuits, the companies name is very similar to someone I’ve known for years. Similar enough that I’m getting finger twisted, and have to re-read the names as I type them lol.
Well ma has managed to interrupt me for over a solid hour, so I’m taking a break. So much for trying to get anything done, o/.
I’ve been experimenting with exporting functions to scripts through Cassius::Engine, one branch oriented towards heavier templating, one branch towards a C++0X only solution, and one towards a more flat method for runtime (ab)use. Now if only I had 36-hour days and some time to myself, that doesn’t involve being buggered off the computer