Funky….

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A set of strange dreams…

At first, I was a bounty hunter competing with an old flame (and apparently a bounty huntress) over the current query (female)…. Trying to avoid being killed by, involved with, or injured by either of them while still scoring the bounty. Rather interesting dream now that I think of it lol.

And the second, ordered by an ex member of the Beetles to track down and actor to be his Executive Producer for a film, or “kill him” if he said no. It was like being one of Fat Tony’s goons on the Simpson’s lol.

It’s normal for me to have crazy dreams, if I dream at all. I don’t put much stock in any of my dreams. Because they tend to get very weired after awhile.

It seems I’ll have no days off this week, got dog runs from now til Thursday. Lucky for me, the Live Op I have planned should still be able to go according to schedule, good thing I planned on an early launch time for it. I don’t think I’ve *really* had a day off in 3 or 4 weeks now. It would be nice just to have a few days where I don’t have to do any thing for ‘having to get it done’.

Hmm, maybe some day I’ll get lucky and win the lotto… Thus being able to afford a nice 6-week, all expenses paid vacation to Hawaii to re-cooperate from being over worked.

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I find my self longing, yet having already lost. Stumbled, defeated, beaten. Yet I stand again with determination.

Will I fall again? I wonder and think of vile pains.

What use is one without the other?

Once a time of happiness, turned to a time of sorrow….

Where not even pain resides any more.

Confusion and uncertainty astound me.

I pray for my own sake… To change and want to change, to repent in honesty.

If temptation is removed, how can it truly be an end to it?

Emotion can brew, feelings arouse. Loneliness can be blinding, yet how to endure endless sorrow?

Not by following instinct, not by going in ether direction… Shall I sink like a rock in water?

I know not what to do… My course lays a head of me, but alas I only can see an arms reach ahead of the path.

Others are more fortunite, many have the freedom. Still more have the chance of hopes joyful deliverance.

The pain is gone, in it’s place it leaves some thing worse. With it comes the stench of anguish .

Hope is truly a two edged sword, to lead one through perseverance or into drowning in the mud.

Is realization better then pain? Yes in a way… One can stop hurting and see things for what they really are… Sick in the head and collapsed from torment.

I must correct my self, yet find my self flying to distraction quickly and with ease… When I should be most resolute.

A fight in which I stand, as if alone but yet not really alone..

There is one who stands with me, even if I do not fully understand..

One who feels the blisters of my indiscretions. The face, I can’t bare to see… For what pain I must have caused.

Forgiveness is one of the universes greatest inventions but one must really straighten the course before ye can find it.

The road that I must take,is one I now know I must. But I do not know if I can keep my self on the path I must follow.

It is so easy, to be so sure of my self now. But when the time comes, will I crumble or be crushed under the weight of my own feelings?

Only time with tell, and I pray for the redemption of my soul.

The in purities must be burnt away, even if I must ripe them away with my bare hands. It is better to use an eye, then to be ruined. To lose an arm rather then to be destroyed forever.

I’ve got to put my own foot on the path, it is not one that I may be led in. But one that I must walk in order to find my way back. No one can place me on it, I must come to it if I am to follow it. Not of duty or requirement, but of free will.. To choose it. I can not have it chosen for me, I need to be the one who starts, not the one to cooperate.

— The tormented mumblings of a mad man.

Busy day

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Dang gum it has been a busy day.

Had plenty for work to day and I’ve spent most of my time off work hacking at the SOP Rewrites. Trying to get stuff sent off to GCHQ to approve.

So far the parts of the Table of Contents that have made it to GCHQ are:

   3. The Element Formation
         1. Roles Within an Element
               1. Summery of Roles Within an Element Formation
         2. Organising the Element
               1. Fixed Element Formation
               2. Liquid Element Formation
   4. Standard Equipment
   5. Equipment Handling
         1. Shooting Techniques
         2. Target Discrimination
         3. Reloading
         4. Tactical Aids
   6. Room Clearing
         2. Dominating the Room
               1. Points of Dominance
               2. Areas of Responsibility
         3. Securing the Room
   7. Rules of Engagement
         1. Definitions
         2. Classification of Threat 
   8. Planning and Leading
         1. Way of Engagement
               1. Dynamic
               2. Stealth
               3. Notable Variations
   9. Appendix I: Battle Drills
         1. Making Entry
               1. Bang and Clear
               2. Breach, Bang, and Clear
               3. Shotgun Breach, Bang, Clear

I am making an updated talk as I send out the sections. So that list is not accurate in number or position. It’s just the parts that have made it to the Nit picking by HQ phase.

Almost 0400 here, time for bed…. Good thing work is in the afternoon or I wouldn’t have been able to get this much stuff done.

I bet GCHQ is going to drive me crazy some how….. lol

What is in a name?

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Well, the make the point short. On the Department of Agriculture map in SWAT4:TSS. Up on Level 3 you have a number of hallways, sort of like this:

|            room       |
|  door    door    door |
|-----------------------|--------------|
                  |     |              |
|-----------------|     | door         |
|  hallway              |              |
|-----------------|     |              |
|          |      |     | door         |
|          | room       |              |
|          |      |     |      room    |
|__________|______|     |              |
|  hallway              | door         |
|-----------------|     |              |
|                 |     |              |
|          room   |     |______________|
|_________________|_______________ Stairs

What really pisses me off, is not the very dangerous multiple entry doors. Which when we try multiple entries, we usually need enough men to breach because a random one is usually locked lol.

Is that usually when moving down the central main hall, usually #1 slices left and runs ahead. Rest follow, and check left (hopefully) to make sure it is still clear. The way I was trained, if I called it ‘Clear’ before moving it would’ve been acceptable but hey, I was training to become a [SAS] Recruit back then lol. The problem is, it is just not safe….

If you are just a Private in the regular Army it might be ok too. But this is [SAS], a clan that through solid team work and realistic tactics. In My Humble Opinion (IMHO) comes as close in Video Games to being as good as the British SAS is in real life.

After cringing through a lot of games. I remembered an old training session I attended, Blade was RSM and it is the *only* training session I ever saw him conduct. He was showing us how to cross an outside window. The tactic was against common tactical advice and normal SOP on the matter. But it was basically a strange variation of a Leap Frog. It was not what I would advice for windows but I think it is worth mentioning. Basically #1 would sneak & peak the window, run shout for cover, run accross. #2 do the same, #3, e.t.c. — only problem is very easy to DIE doing it the way he showed us because of the angles. It was an ok way of doing it but not safe for a regular sized window. So with this coming to mind as I sought a way in my mind to safely cross it. I’ve refined the idea into some thing different. It is closer to a traditional leap frog but with a bit of our T-Junction tactics mixed in.

Basically the advantage is we do not really lose speed. Yet we gain a lot stronger covering as we move quickly.

Let us assume on the map that we are coming off the stairs, and want to cross the first hallway.

|            room       |
|  door    door    door |
|-----------------------|--------------|
                  |     |              |
|-----------------|     | door         |
|  hallway              |              |
|-----------------|     |              |
|          |      |     | door         |
|          | room       |              |
|          |      |     |      room    |
|__________|______|     |              |
|  hallway              | door         |
|-----------------|1    |              |
|                 |2    |              |
|          room   |3    |______________|
|_________________|4______________ Stairs

#1 would slice the pie and HOLD and cover the hallway to his left. #3 would step to the other side of the hall and cover ahead of the element. While #2 runs accross.

|            room       |
|  door    door    door |
|-----------------------|--------------|
                  |     |              |
|-----------------|     | door         |
|  hallway              |              |
|-----------------|     |              |
|          |      |     | door         |
|          | room  2    |              |
|          |      |     |      room    |
|__________|______|     |              |
|  hallway              | door         |
|-----------------|1    |              |
|                 |     |              |
|          room   |4   3|______________|
|_________________|______________ Stairs

Now that #2 is covering a head, #3 can form up, #1 is still covering the hallway, R.G. has the stairs.

|            room       |
|  door    door    door |
|-----------------------|--------------|
                  |     |              |
|-----------------|     | door         |
|  hallway              |              |
|-----------------|     |              |
|          |      |     | door         |
|          | room  2    |              |
|          |      |    3|      room    |
|__________|______|     |              |
|  hallway              | door         |
|-----------------|1    |              |
|                 |     |              |
|          room   |4    |______________|
|_________________|______________ Stairs

Now #3 covers rear so the R.G. can cross. Rear Guard then mirrors #1 to cover the side hall and #3 ccan get in formation.

|            room       |
|  door    door    door |
|-----------------------|--------------|
                  |     |              |
|-----------------|     | door         |
|  hallway              |              |
|-----------------|     |              |
|          |      |     | door         |
|          | room  2    |              |
|          |      |3    |      room    |
|__________|______|4    |              |
|  hallway              | door         |
|-----------------|1    |              |
|                 |     |              |
|          room   |     |______________|
|_________________|______________ Stairs

#1 now crosses, gets back in formation, and off they go — I’d suggest immiediately moving out once Point is in position and EL calling for the R.G. to Follow (RvS) or for Trailers (S4) so he knows “Yo, we’re leaving — get your stuff together”.

|            room       |
|  door    door    door |
|-----------------------|--------------|
                  |     |              |
|-----------------|     | door         |
|  hallway              |              |
|-----------------|     |              |
|          |      |1    | door         |
|          | room  2    |              |
|          |      |3 GO!|      room    |
|__________|______|4    |              |
|  hallway              | door         |
|-----------------|     |              |
|                 |     |              |
|          room   |     |______________|
|_________________|______________ Stairs

I’ve posted this in SNCO’s for opinions and most of all, a name for it… my only suggestion is Point Cover.

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I can barly wait till Saturday…..

When I’ll finally be able not to worry about work =/

If I get lucky….

*SIGH*, it’s a living.

Personal Training

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Kill House: SAS Hallway, Practice Mission on Veteran mode.
Character: Eddie Price (Ex SAS, also Dings 2nd in command of Rainbow in the book).
Armour: Light Blue BDU / Vest.
Primary: H&K MP5A4 SMG with attached suppressor (SD) and JHP Ammo.
Secondary: SIG-Sauer P228 Compact Pistol and FMJ Ammo (no attachments).
Tactical: Primary and Secondary magazines (no grenades).

Debrief:

Before the operation I disabled all elements of the games HUD (Heads Up Display) except for the on screen weapon, e.g. I could see my MP5 but no icons, cross hairs or ammunition counters.

I engaged room by room, trying to be careful of crossing doors and being detected. Opening doors and slicing the pie, often trying to recon the room before entry. I engaged in close quarters shooting with several enemy tangos including having to shoot with hostages between me and the terrorists and tangos in close proximity to explosive barrels (Vive la JHP!).

During the room clearing I was almost injured by an enemy pistol shot during the first leg of the journey, it hit the door jam next to my face. The single shot appeared not to alert near by tangos as I neutralized the threat with my follow up shots. Continuing with my clearing efforts I eventually reached the bar at the end. And the very pretty lady hostage marking the final room 🙂

Things I can improve on:

My Accuracy, 71% might be very good for me but it is not all that great in a hostage situation.

My door/corner handling, I was almost injured slicing the pie because I could see the tango but my muzzle did not have a clearly lined up shot.

Overall pace, could have been a lot faster / smoother.

I love BSD !!!!

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Well to make a long story short, I’ve got my older brothers old PC (whats left of it). It’s missing it’s Graphics card, Optical Drives, and DDR1 SDRAM and only has a WinModem for it’s Cards but other wise it’s functional. It’s a originally a Dell Dimension 4500, Ma has a 4550 so i used her user manual to check what kind of RAM I would need.

If I bought 256~512mb of RAM and a Networking card I could get a 4th PC running, maybe try and get a Wifi adopter for it so I could move one of the Towers into my room (where my Laptop usually is stored)… 5 PC’s hehe that would be nice!! And if I get enough money for Christmas I could do it.. I could also buy Ma some RAM to upgrade her PC, or just buy her a new 1GB’s worth and take her old 512’s set.

The Box has a Pentium 4, probably ~2Ghz… Compare to my File Servers Katmai (Pentium 3, 500Mhz).

Having 512MB RAM would be an upgrade from 384MB-8MB for Matrox Gfx that the server has. Even if I had to make do with only 256MB, the processor upgrade would be worth it imho.

I have an old ATI Ultra Rage 128 AGP4X card on my shelf, a 32MB card should be overkill for any thing but gaming.

The IMPORTANT thing is, the hulk came with a 40GB Western Digital PATA drive and a 80GB Hitachi PATA drive.

My OpenBSD server is running off an old Office Desktop PC (cica 1998/1999) and only has an old 8GB Maxtor PATA drive. The BIOS also has a known problem that it can only address up to about 33GB of disk, any more would be wasted.

Guess what… OpenBSD can use the entire drive !!!!!

I installed the 80GB HDD and hooked it up to the (E)IDE cable and power thingy and checked the BIOS to see the setup, I could see that the 8GB root disk was Primary Master, 80GB drive as Primary Slave, and the CD-ROM drive as Secondary Master.

I didn’t really learn much about the innards of Computers by looking it up. I learned most of what I know by pulling a PC apart and putting it back together again.

I tried to mount the disk but could not, even with the mount_ntfs program. Probably because of no disklabel. I booted off my Knoppix Live CD to see if it was working. Sure enough, Linux found a ~75GB /dev/hdb1 and was able to mount it as NTFS. I reformatted it FAT32 and booted back to OpenBSD.

To set up the hard drive for usage, I fdisk’d it

fdisk -i wd1

I gave it a yes to updating and moved on to labeling the disk.

disklabel -E wd1

I used the g d command in disklabel to tell it to use the disks geometry and not the BIOS. I setup a 4.2BSD Partition (wd1a) for the full size of the disk and wrote the label out.

Next I formated it with the UFS file system used in OpenBSD.

newfs wd1a

and mounted it to a temporary mount point

mount /dev/wd1a /mnt

And volia it worked !!! I moved every thing from /usr/local/* to /mnt/ and edited /etc/fstab with instructions to auto-mount the new 80GB drive in it’s place.

Terry@vectra-$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1
/dev/wd0h /home ffs rw,nodev,nosuid 1 2
/dev/wd0d /tmp ffs rw,nodev,nosuid 1 2
/dev/wd0g /usr ffs rw,nodev 1 2
/dev/wd0e /var ffs rw,nodev,nosuid 1 2
# 80GB Primary Slave, PATA drive.
/dev/wd1a       /usr/local      ffs     rw,nodev        1       2
Terry@vectra-$

Now I have good solid storage… No more trying to cram network shares and LAN backups onto a small ~7GB /usr partition.

Terry@vectra-$ df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/wd0a      147M   31.3M    109M    22%    /
/dev/wd0h      393M    378K    373M     0%    /home
/dev/wd0d     98.3M    2.0K   93.4M     0%    /tmp
/dev/wd0g      6.7G    398M    6.0G     6%    /usr
/dev/wd0e      148M    8.3M    132M     6%    /var
/dev/wd1a     73.3G    2.5G   67.2G     4%    /usr/local
Terry@vectra-$

I love BSD !!!

Will the Phoenix Project ever fly again?

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After conversation with some one poked my mind to the subject. I think I might try and restart a little work on some of the stuff I was writing.

I was talking about teaching room clearing in real life easier then in a game. And I remembered an idea I had about a section like that in one of the books. Probably a stupid one to joe blow… but I think it was a funny idea 🙂

I once had a Trilogy planned for a story I thought of in the BattleTech universe. It all started out as a fantasy/day dream. And it lead to me thinking up an interesting idea for some thing, almost a full book in length. And that lead to plans for a 2nd and 3rd book (sequel and prequel). But I never got to finish Book I, The Phoenix Project (the working title). I wrote a short story a little while back based on ideas for Book III but never sorted it out. I figured the short story would be a give a good feeling for writing more about ‘Mechs then Urban combat.. Most of Book I put the protagonists on foot, in the middle of an enemy base having to carry on as Commandos after their ‘Mechs were crippled.

I don’t know if it would be as easy to write the core part of it… The stuff I thought any way made is such a good story. But at least I could probably do a better job of the CQB side of it, there was a lot of Room Clearing involved. I could probably do that much better with 2 years of experience in [SAS] since then.

I can’t say much for the quality of the writing but the story was good lol. Hmm, wouldn’t it be nice if their was a machine that could take thoughts and convert them to words or even Pensieve… That would be sweet.

vim ~/blog

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2007-10-05 22:41:29 :

Well, we are here… mostly un packed. Ma is out to the store picking up a few
things while I watch the dogs (and try to catch up on work via laptop). I won’t
have an internet connection while I’m here so I left my PCMCIA Card at home. I’m
keeping a text file (~/blog) handy so I can record things and post when I get
home. I haven’t had much time lately… Past few days have been very hectic. I’m
glad though that we should be back some time Sunday, hopefully the unpacking
will be done before Monday…. lool. My luggage amounts to my Laptop, a bag of
spare cloths (2 sets) in case of emergency. A bag of misc. Stuff that I’ll
probably never open (DVD’s and a book). A box of HW, bottle of soda, and at ma’s
insistence. An old blanket and a small pillow. Basically 10-15% of what she
packed hehehe.

2007-10-06 00:35:38 :

It has proved impossible to concentrate in this situation (she’s back). The more I
move, the more I cough. And the harder I try not to move the more often I have
to get up!!! Been passing time with mindless runs of Doom II (via FreeDoom wads
and prboom engine). And a bit of Tetris via GNU Emacs and KSirtet. Supper will
be done soon and my mind is almost mush all ready…. What do I have to do to
get some fscking time to study!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-10-06 13:44:03 :

Finished the book about 0235 last night. Washer is loaded, supplies for cleaning
brought in. I have very little interest in helping ma clean.. Now or later. The
one morning I have a chance to sleep late(r then normal work starting hours)….
With the way I’ve been treated, as far as I’m concerned she should find her self
a new slave. Pull the strings hard enough and this puppet will bite if you try
to make one of him. I’ve had it. I want out of this damn business.. But no way
out seems possible. At least until her pension comes in.. Then I’ll have some
chance of escape in the future…… Stuck working usual hours… on one of
those very rare days when I have 24 hours in which to complete my assigned
tasks….. ( Insert screams of aggravation here ).

2007-10-06 15:43:43 :

Most of my work is done, I can’t continue til she is finished… So I’m sitting
down. Her orders were to only do the minimal. So I was able to get done quickly.
I have to be done with all of my work, before she is finished upstairs… Other
wise it’s not pretty. Thus when it comes to working here, I am able to clean
very expediently!! I even got the carpets on the stairs done. Not really
necessary or minimal requirement. But it hasn’t been done in a while, so I did
it. Maybe if she doesn’t send me AFK every five minutes. I can *actually* learn
some thing before I have to load the supplies. For choice of todays studies I
basically have the Lions Book (A commentary on the UNIX V6 Kernel source code)
and R^5RS (The Scheme language standard) to choose from. If all else fails, well
I guess there is always Free Doom and The Battle For Wesnoth =/

2007-10-06 23:59:24 :

Headache….. Between he dogs. ma, the TV (blasting), and my sister (dropping
by). It is very hard to concentrate here.. But I’ve managed to brush up a bit on
my Python knowledge. I was working on a Ruby program earlier, got tired. And
thought I would switch to some thing different. I’m stuck on the stairs since my
chair has been taken =/. Oh well… still might be loud in hear but at least I’m
near electricity. I gave up on hearing things hours ago, the TV is just to dang
loud.. My mother has bad hearing in one ear (and I hate repeating my self 3-4
*).. While I generally have pretty good hearing for sound, if not understanding
words from a distance. So needless to say, most any thing she does is _LOUD_ for
me =/.

Finally home. Day started 0739 with getting ready to leave. By 1045 I was home eating a moon pie. despite the some what hectic nature of getting ready to leave early, I’m glad for it.

Overall…. I’ve gotten a little better at blasting Imps with a Shotgun in DooM II. Playing Tetris out of GNU Emacs and KDE Games. Finished the book I started eariler in the week. I did get a little time to work on reading more of the Lions Book. I also got a lot of work done trying to write a Unix Shell in pure Ruby. But I never got to lay a finger to learning Scheme. Which is exactly what I wanted to do lol. And why I installed the Scheme48 implementation and got a copy of R^5RS before leaving on the trip. Even got some time to brush up on Python, not a language I use often but still a good one.

// Note to self, use less hyperlinks in the future.

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For website:

FIX TEAM SPEAK THING

For SAS Skin Packs:

Switch to heavy pants for all heavy armour (try to fix gfx bug)

strip all emblems from heavy pants

re position all arm patches on light pants

fix sabre packages

make drill instructor skin (maybe SoliderMilhaus91 can help us on this one)

Fix typo’s in loadout screen

remove ‘box’ from Green and Gray BDU sets (and find suitable heavy pants for each)

import new face print and no armour vest (vest maybe needs a colour dab on text)

Be extremely thankful for SoliderMilhaus91 and Miles helping with this!!!

*probably* fix Special Air Service text on back of light armour (team colour tag blares it out a lot).

Also todo:

Make minor adjustments to the Personal uniforms Milhaus has supplied, namely fixing the class files so the names fit in the loadout and chaning a few colours.

Make installer with SAS Assault Kit (Black, Green, Blue), Drill Instructor, and Sabre Squad skins (Based on SWAT3 Sabre Uniform). Maybe include LAPD package.

Make installer with the Custom skins, SAS Personals and SoliderMilhaus91’s LAPD uniform (without whoem we would not have such a great SAS Black kit 🙂 )