CT 2007-06-10

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Manged to get some training ops in today.

Faces I can specifically remember being there ->

[SAS] Involved:
Rct Sniper
LCpl Miles
Vet Ghost
SSM Spidey01

Non [SAS] Involved:
ST*MFA*
Claudia
Raiden
Matsuro
WinterShadow

Maps:

Presido — Tango Hunt
MP Warehouse — Hostage Rescue
Import-Export — Tango Hunt
MP Prison — Hostage Rescue

We did a mix of stealth/dynamic assaults in one and two Elements at a time. Operations were largely successful with low to medium casualties. We managed to keep a pretty good pace about it. Next time I should cook up a harder batch of missions hehe. I think every one did very well and I hope to see more in the future.

I generally gave direction for the missions. In the hopes of keeping the planning phase relatively simple.

I’ve been doing it a long time, so I’m pretty comfortable at planning and leading an operation in RvS. Some thing I find a bit hard to hand down.. I’d really like to try and set up some operations where the less experienced can give it a shot and have time to work through things in full. The problem is how to do that right, without locking the server down to like 3 or 4 [SAS] lol…

I’ve never considered my self a leader, just look at Random if you want a true leader! But I think in my case Rouges sig puts it best. “Lead me, follow me — or get out of my way”. I don’t mind leading and planning a mission, but I do want others to have a chance to do it too.

The only problem is in training ops, getting 2 Element Leaders (Senior / Junior), giving them a brief, a set of goals and operating guidelines + them planning the shindig and executing it takes all day. And I’m sorry to say… most weekends I can’t devote that much time.

In to days case I got off work early, since I only *tend* to have light duties on the weekends. So I got to spend a lot of time on the server both before, during, and after training today. I don’t think I’ve gotten to spend that much effort on it since I was a Trooper hehe. Felt dang right un natural to spend all day on the PC. And I’m the kind that nearly dreams he’s working at the computer !

One thing I do want to do is try to get some thing set up for SWAT4 Continuation Training. But its very difficult because, well to put it simply SWAT4s stock missions SUCK compared to RvS’s on what I can use them for. But in S4 its so much easier to get into the nitty gritty elements of the training. *sigh* this will take much thought.

Ich bin muede

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I drift alone in a sea of disaster…
My arm reaches for my savior but I have trouble grasping hold.
I find my self on a deserted shore…
I try to stand, yet me knees give way before me.
So I crawl throughout the dark, my legs a dottle behind me…
What was once my hearts only passion.
Turned black as ash, destroyed in the fires.
Pain you can’t just heal…
of a future that could’ve been.
Alas to a life of labour…
Forced to fight, doomed to die.
But to what cause ?
To what do I find my life consumed…
Tis naught a bright future.
yet not black as cole…
I am but a fool.
Like a wild ass in the desert…
I draw close to a stream.
Only to find it flowing with poison…
Escape ! Yet so inevitable a fate.
What is to become ?
Should a simple being relent or…
shall one continue to strive to be the best.
But to what end is life ?
— Spidey01, 2007-06-09

The sad thing…. I’m not drinking !!! I’m perfectly sober. Just collecting my minds thoughts. Mm, I remember it wasn’t always like this. I dunno if it was an improvement or a loss any more. No point to idle in the past.

This months been heck but is far removed from it. I guess I need to keep going, but I don’t know to what end. I… need a vacation.

My idea of the perfect rest.. right now would be a deserted island, a nice stiff tropical drink. A good book and no one around for miles. Just me, no one to bother me, not even a computer.

but it’d be some damn boring…..

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What a day.

Freezer burned out, 3 trash bags of frozen stuff gone. Plus the refrigerator’s freezer is packed full(er).

And to night about 0200~0300 local the Air Conditioning is kaput’s.

NICE !

Plus it looks like we’re be missing work or rescheduling.. days pay gone !+ good, but it’d be n ic eto have a little rest.

0410 Local, or in UTC:

Terry@vectra-$ date
Wed Jun  6 08:09:58 UTC 2007

I love having my server set to UTC!!!

Dunno if I can sleep, I’m wide awake and a maintenance crew is due approx 0900 local.. Why bother ?

The Software that saved my Arsch

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Was doing a little ‘cover’ work so to speak, had to look up a pair of User IDs. Quickest way to do it, since I was to lazy to just run the SQL Query in the right table 8=)

Was to bring up the user accounts details in the editing interface…..

So I accidentally renamed account1 account2 when I meant to bring up account2 in the web interface…

Needless to say bringing up account2 showed me account1’s details !

I changed the username back to account1 and vola it restored every thing as good as knew. At least as far as the site is concerned. *Whew* deffo good thing to have good software… One thing I like about CLI, you always know exactly what you asked for, without having to worry about where you clicked hehe.

Well, if the two users spim my X-Fire in the morning about why their passwords have been switched, I’ll know why ! LOL

My first moment of feeling like Bart Simpson.

I didn’t do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can’t prove anything.

But of course… I’m honest or else I wouldn’t be posted this <_< If any one asks, well they know who to shoot at.

I have to little time on my hands

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Some times I think I must be drunk off of thin air ^_^

/*
 * All nicknames changed for confidentiality
 */
(07:35:07)  My Nick:  One day, old Linus was aboard the H.P.C. Tux, sitting
hacking at Linux -- Power PenguinPC's are just so much better then regular
penguins :-P 
(07:35:35)  My Nick:  When a Kraken came a knock'n on his cabin door. And
threw him in the county lockup 
(07:36:54)  My Nick:  One day, the great Microsoft corruption posted that
they had 'acquired' the rights to all Linux code past and present through a
will. 
(07:37:03)  A Nickname:  laugh out loud 
(07:37:13)  A Nickname:  Microsoft would wreck it 
(07:37:44)  My Nick:  RMS & ESR got together and sat a think'n on how to
save the day 
(07:38:01)  My Nick:  RMS: Surely they have taken him prison ! 
(07:38:08)  My Nick:  ESR: But where ?? How ! 
(07:38:20)  My Nick:  RMS: There is only one place !, Bills Bunker 
(07:38:31)  My Nick:  ESR: We must go at once and rescue him forth with ! To
the emacsen 
(07:38:44)  My Nick:  RMS: Careful, to only route to Bill's Bunker is by
hacking in QBASIC 
(07:38:47)  My Nick:  ESR: ... 
(07:39:24)  My Nick:  The two legends started hacking away at QBASIC leaving
a trail of bugs behind them. Till they fell off the end of the Internet and
landed right next to Linus in Hackers Hell 
(07:39:48)  My Nick:  Linus: Hey ! get me to !$#$ out of here 
(07:39:59)  My Nick:  RMS: Uhh, I didn't think of that.... 
(07:40:19)  My Nick:  ESR: I know how but it is indeed not pleasant.... We
must go back and fix all our bugs. Using QBASIC 
(07:40:34)  My Nick:  Linus: Oh GOD no, we can just rewrite Windows 
(07:40:44)  A Nickname:  heh 
(07:40:51)  My Nick:  Six billion man hours later, they broke out and hit
the court house. 
(07:41:48)  My Nick:  Steve Ballmer: All your base are belong to us! 
(07:41:53)  A Nickname:  heh 
(07:42:35)  My Nick:  The mighty war PC's of the free Software Fleet and BSD
Hackers stood tall 
(07:43:22)  My Nick:  A massive battle ensured, the E.S.S. SUSE was capsized
as Hovsepian jumped ship 
(07:43:41)  My Nick:  In the end, all were destroyed but a single Operating
System. 
(07:43:45)  My Nick:  Emacs !!!!!!! 
(07:43:48)  A Nickname:  Linux 
(07:43:50)  My Nick:  < the end > 
(07:43:57)  My Nick:  lmao, I really need a life 
(07:44:05)  A Nickname:  laugh out loud

Maybe I should just sleep instead of looking for good code to read.

Nerds log.

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Been pondering a lot of stuff.

I’ve especially been trying to learn more about stacks, queues, lists, and stuff. And it makes me wonder about things we take for granted.

Like arrays for example. How I see an array, at least from a C perspective — personally I think languages like Ruby. That have arrays that don’t need to be ‘re sized’ on command must have implemented arrays in the language. As objects acline to a doubly linked list.

Generally (C like) when I look at an array. I think of it as a pointer and a block. A block of probably contiguous data in memory — its close together if not physically in hardware then as we may address it from software. And I see the array also as a pointer I can use to reference that block. That points to sections in that block of memory. Where each section is the start & end of a chunk of memory. e.g. the difference between ar[1] and ar[2] is [1] points to the start of the 2nd memory block of the array which is the end of the first. While [2] points to the end of the 2rd but the beginning of the 3rd.

Thus if all memory in an array. Had no padding to note and by incrementing or decrementing the memory address. Our point of reference would advance to the next mark. Sorta. If all addresses were in a fixed range of integers, say 0 – 10. address+1 or address-1 would move our reference to +/- 1 sector of memory. — Even if the physical hardware doesn’t address memory like so, it seems to me by the time we hit software we can run on the machine via an OS / run time it gets this way.

| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |

To be honest, I don’t know how arrays are implemented. I expect it to be a simple bunch of blocks of memory close together or just a fat segmented block. Where an address reference’s marked points of it. In such a way that we have an abstraction in the language that,

for ( i = 0; i < MAXCNT; i++ ) {
do_something( ar[i] );
}

works, gets down to assembly code that makes just as much sense but is more complicated. Then down to hardware that knows what to make of machine code. And down to the physical machine to run it and a realm for electrical engineering or some thing.

When I think about functions. I tend to think of it as a block of memory with all the data it needs, like variables in its scope and what not. and a system of pointers that handle calling and returning. Like

ch = fgetc( fp );

I think it would allocate memory (I hear C is stack based?) for the function (fgetc), use a pointer to fetch that address (call the function). Set the pointer or another pointer or some t hing like that to the return value of the function. Run the code their some how work it out so what the called function returns is what ch contains when references in memory. To me a variable is just a name for a value.

foo = 5;

To me says instead of typing 5 every where, I’d like to be human and just talk about foo instead. And let you (computer) fill in the value the name points to. Or some thing like that any way.

And in a similar light that I’d want to use ‘ch’ as a reference to the data returned by fgetc(fp) rather then have to know what the freaking location in memory it has !

Ok, so maybe I’m talking out of my ass or maybe I’m getting smarter as time goes on. Who knows…

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Now this would be a great sig line loool

So if you can’t lead and you won’t follow, at least try not to throw shit at the luckless bastard on the spot. Cut him a little slack; after all, he’s working for you.

good games

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[SAS]_Miles Red 1, Woodlake88th Red 2, [SAS]_Spidey01 EL, Jonsi Blue 1.

Sisters of Mercy Hostel

We had a plan of STC (stealth to first contact). Wedge all the lower doors and enter the kitchen from the rear. Secure it & head up. Simultaneous entries on the top rooms if compromised else stealth.

The plan hit the fan about 15-20sec in. So we wedged the doors and moved into the chapel (we got compromised there). Red held cover on the landing going up while Blue cleared the front of the building.

We regrouped and headed up banging and clearing rooms then headed down threw the chapel and cleared the kitchen area by rolling a flash bang down the stairs from the lower landing.

Every one did very well and the op went off like it was without a hitch. Although the plan few out the window faster then Homer Jay can start drooling over a Duff.

All in all I’m some what impressed for a mixed Element with only four Operators !

It would’ve been great if we had 2 more operators. We could’ve followed it in and cleared the chapel and left a team to secure the hallway. Rather then having to pause and do that first.

Like wise 2 could’ve secured the front area while 4 went top side and clear the entire map quicker.

Oh well, alls well that plays well.

Continuation Training, RvS TG#1

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Got to run continuation training today. I was hoping me and Miles could get together and get some thing done. Wasn’t to sure if I could get it done but my shifts worked out just right.

Set up 3 scenarios. After being given a chance to get the teams in order & briefed. The EL’s got 5 Minutes to plan the map and 2 Minutes to revise things on failure. Almost no one took these time limits into strong consideration lol.

Scenario #1
Map: Presidio
Mode: Hostage Rescue
Objective: Rescue L1 Hostage quickly
Rounds: 3/3 — fail

Valroe and Sniper took EL with JB, Grishenko, Caern, and Miles as teammates. 2 three man Elements. They were assigned to enact a Dynamic assault, the hostage will be ‘executed’ at a random time frame. Most of the time I set the time frame for 2 or 3 minutes after the first gunshots.

Mission was generally a failure, often time was spent in clearing areas that could’ve been blocked with gas and bypassed. There seemed to be a bit of a lack of communication between EL’s.

Scenario #2
Map: Training
Mode: Tango Hunt
Objective: Secure the area, safely.
Rounds 1/3 — success

I enabled smoke and disabled mini scopes, flash bangs, and gas masks to give it a bit more difficulty. Its just a T-Hunt after all lol. The plan basically consisted of using Smoke screens and clearing the buildings. I if could’ve I wouldn’t enabled cheats and made my self invisible. So I could set up shop /w a SAW and suppress smoke screens to make it harder by shooting at them (i.e. help the tangos). But oh wellz. I grabbed a PSG-1+IR Smoke and Frags and went Sniper to back up the Elements. Valroe finally considered the 5 minute limit.

No one called on my support but most of the team died quickly and LCpl Miles saved the day xD

Scenario #3
Map: Banking House
Mode: Mission
Objective: Secure the records room within 8 Minutes
Rounds 3/3 — success

Miles cooked up the scenario for this one hehe. JB took EL and we went in SD Red and Loud Blue team. The Element did ok but kept getting killed until the last round lol. JB got it planned in ~3:50 but no one paid attention to the 2minute ‘tween round time.

Map went pretty good, aside from Rasa puffing smoke in my face.

I hope next time to have a course of study rather then some generic CT work. I tried to pick harder scenarios. Give’em a real run for their money. The format I stuck with is pretty close to James’s original continuation training. Except he had done the Mission Planning himself for most of it. And done it impressively in <= 2 Minutes if I recall correctly. So I figure 5 Minutes to plan and 2 Minutes to correct is plenty for Recruits lol.