Another Point of Singularity

Young Garrett has been shorn to pre-hippy hair levels and now sports an older style bowl cut. His hair will be donated to wigmakers for making wigs for chemotherapy patients. I'm quite proud of the lad, for sticking it through when we made him comb the snarlys out in the morning, and constantly take care of it, and putting up with being mistaken for a girl. Well done, my boy.

I was more than puzzled to log into GMAIL(tm) this morning and see a link to what appears to be a boffo new service by Google called AUTOPILOT, which apparently learns your communication style and answers emails for you.

How does Gmail mirror my communication style?

The more Gmail messages Autopilot can sample, the better. With fewer than 100 messages, there may not be enough data to calibrate Autopilot effectively. You can adjust tone, typo propensity, and preferred punctuation from the Autopilot tab under Settings.

You may want to log in every week or so to ensure Autopilot is calibrated optimally.
Does Autopilot work for Gmail chat too?

Yes. Chat was actually simpler to build, given the natural language headway made by Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA. While many claim ELIZA oft times passed the Turing test, Gmail Autopilot passes with 99.9% accuracy due to the inclusion of human-like qualities such as compassion and wisdom and CADIE's related ability to calibrate to match your chat style.
What happens if a sender and recipient both have Autopilot on?

Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot's responses and further messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you have no interest.

What the heck? Then I read the the individual examples of correspondence and realized it was April the first. D'OH! You scamps!!



Man, taken in by geek humor... this office needs some windows, for God's sake.

(It really was amusing, Google, thanks!)

I saw this on TMP last night. Some chaps are working on an old school, Nethack-like two dee top view Roleplaying application, for public distro. It's called DUNGEONCRAWLER.



At first glance it reminds me strongly of NETHACK or an old freeware game I played on the Macintosh called Quest for the Orbs. Great fun indeed!

I had a very good COLD WARS this year. The first one I've been to since I stopped being a CD in fact. I had taken a break from wargaming for a while; honestly, a person can burn out after so much exposure to it. So it was good to get away and reconnect with the things I like about this hobby; friends, good company, moving lead around, having fun.

I was very fortunate to be allowed into Chuck Turnitsa's Red vs. White 15mm Russian Civil War game on Friday morning, which worked out really well-- I had a night shift on the Events desk. It was Chuck's home system, a mix of many things. The outcome was a draw.

Quick gulp-down of dinner, and a long shift slinging tags. I haven't done that in a while. And I thought it would be slow! HA!

I was a bit beat to get into a night game, no great loss. I went out and played ILLUMINATI with some friends I know locally-- that game still has it!

Saturday, worked an earlier shift, but it was pretty inconvenient being midday. Missed out on a few games I had a jones to play. So it goes. Did some frantic shopping. Invested in UNCHARTED WATERS, which looks highly amusing.

got some dinner, came back and played in a Howard Whitehouse game, his new COMBAT! system for Wargames Factory. A great time.

Met up with John and Dewey at the end of that. We broke out 54mm gladiators and had a quick game with Patrick from the HAWKS. I noticed a game of WEREWOLF going on in the corner and jumped into it.. man, I'm a target for these things. Why is that?

Loved the game, it was fueled by booze.

Overslept Sunday, tried to flea market sold almost nothing. Did a quick pass around the vendors, and then I was heading homeward.

Great Show, Frank Preziosi and crew! You deserve every bit of the compliments you will have showered upon you for your hard work and dedication.

yes, I'm old enough to have seen their stuff at the Biograph Theater in Georgetown, when it existed.

Make a Hot Knife using a soldering iron - More DIY How To Projects

From the latest Instructables...

Matakishi's Tea House is a wonderful site to visit for terrain, scenery and modeling projects, usually on the cheap with available materials. I highly recommend the Tea House, it has a little bit of everything.

One of my gaming group (The TNGG at the Game Parlor, Chantilly, VA) has put up photos of fantasy buildings made out of cork board recently, and it got posted on the Tea House. Bravo, Sir!

I think I wouldn't have left the house like this, if it were me.

I'm jaded about politics. This is hardly a secret-- I live in the environs of Washington DC and have seen them come and go over the years. Like any sensible American, I'm wishing our president EVERY success... I'd be a fool not to. I admit he has a certain candor and wit, and tremendous potential to charm-- but I can't say I'm a huge fan of the man himself, like a lot of us, I'm waiting for him to prove himself. Until then, I'll reserve judgment and fervently hope he doesn't screw things up. I was amazed at my own response, recently, upon seeing a Japanese game show lampoon the president with actors in blackface.



I like shock humor as much as anyone, but this is a bit much. Oh, those wacky Japanese.. maybe they can bring back Amos and Andy while they are at it.

I LOVE this series, and this might be my favorite car in his garage:

Park Police photograph of the crowd conditions on the mall for the Obama inauguration.



Click to enlarge.

We did reasonably well.. Garrett's "gold brick" car did well, not as good as past years, alas. I have to share the race car cam that one of the den dads made, it's super cool:

I had tried the Squad Battles system by HPS Simulations before. I think the game was "When Eagles Strike" or some such. Honestly, it was ho-hum for me. I guess I've seen one too many small scale World War Two games set on the Western Front. Just out of curiousity, I was over at the HPS site a month or so back, and discovered the HPS people had made a version of the Squad Battles for both the Spanish Civil War and the Russo Finnish War. Now this was a totally different kettle of fish. I picked both of them up (used) and installed them on my old beater Vista "fun machine" in the study. Even though I'm more of a fan of the Spanish Civil War I installed and played Winter War first.

I've changed my mind about Squad Battles. What fun this is! There's something inside us all that approves of heroic last stands, and the Finns were all over this in the Winter War early in World War II. To quote the advertisement blurb:

For 105 days, the tiny nation of Finland fought a war that typically merits only a footnote history books, or a passing remark in a WWII documentaries. Taking on the vast manpower of the Soviet army, the Finns put up a fanatical defense of their homeland, inflicting horrific casualties on the invading Soviet army. In the end, the overwhelming number of Soviet troops and tanks sent into Finland forced the Finns to sue for peace, but they walked away from the conflict with their much bigger neighbor with their independence and national pride intact. Their struggle influenced the landscape and direction of the entire World War that followed--and perhaps the outcome as well.

Winter War is a tactical level simulation of this conflict using the Squad Battles system... and it's pretty complete, too. 75 scenarios, 3 major campaigns.



My second attempt at Squad Battles revealed it's depth to me. There are many options here-- the AI may not be brilliant, but it is relentless (if you set it high enough) and if you play the Finns in the Winter War, well, your work is already cut out for you. Click on the picture above to see the result of a recent narrow Finn victory, where the Finns were defending a rail line with small outposts here and there on the map. The Finns had men with rifles, two very useful armored trains that were dispatched early as you can see, and a few buildings to hide in, and good cover. The Soviets had tanks, artillery, hordes of men, and air support. The dead (rifles), pinned (P) and Demoralized (D) markers are ample testimony that the AI knows how to attack, Soviet style.

I'm greatly pleased with this purchase and unlike a lot of other computer games at various scales, I don't see me getting hugely bored with it that quickly.

Northern VA Gamers (NOVAG) is holding their WINTER GAME DAY this weekend, on Saturday, 24 January 2008, from 10 to 5 EST. Please consider attending this one-- it's important.

Why?

The recent economic downturn has hurt many businesses, especially ones that have to do with leisure time. Even the Game Parlor, which we have been very fortunate to have in the Washington DC area for so many years, is hardly recession-proof. To quote from a recent NOVAG-gram from Tim Tilson:

He says that TGP went
thru a recession in '07 but survived and '08 looked fine until..... the crisis
last September. He says that spooked the banks and consumers. Bank bridge
loans for small business like TGP have dried up. And his creditors/suppliers
are not as acomodating as before either. Therefore he had to make these changes
which included firing some workers. If things get worse, he will have to lay off
more workers and probably charge for tables.

Specifically as to his choice on hours, the staff will be working four 10.5
hour days with 1 hour for lunch. He does not want to work the staff more than
40 hours. There were suggestions he move the opening time to 12:00 on some days
to allow for later evening hours. However that would require him to have the
staff "volunteer" to work a longer day and cut other staff hours. Additionally
the 10:00-11:00 a.m. period does twice the business as the 9:00-10:00 p.m.
period. At the Chantilly store, they do get a lunch hour rush.

If the economy improves he will consider returning to the longer hours. He,
himself will open the Woodbridge store at 10:00 for the NOVAG game day.

What can you do to help?

-Buy something at the store, even if just a water.

I will certainly do my part to continue purchasing games directly from TGP in the future, rather than through mail order (when it is feasible to do so).

In the meantime, I'm going to drop by on Saturday and help out a brick and mortar store owner that's been a friend of gaming in the DC area for the last decade or more.

I stumbled upon Mr. John Lerchey's Miniatures Gallery the other day, while I was doing a search for the old RIVETS miniatures by Martian Metals, a defunct company.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Lerchey not only had a few, he has ALL OF THEM. A couple times over. Lucky dog.

he also has most of the older, Martian Metals versions of the old Ogre Miniatures that were manufactured long before the notion of "Ogre Miniatures" (the game) or Deluxe OGRE and GEV.

Needless to say, he has a lot of these, as well. Sniff. At least they are easier to get these days.

Mr. Lerchey's page was a nostalgic delight! I owned a few of these back in the day (more of them now, at least the OGRE minis). It's rare to see all of this stuff in one place.

He rounds the page off with a nice workbench section that outlines conversions of 6mm miniatures for OGRE play (a subject near and dear to my heart) as well as tiny terrain techniques. A tip of the hat to Mr. Lerchey for a nice collection and a very entertaining webpage.

Click to proceed to site

Click on the book cover to be transported to the site of THE RECENTLY DEFLOWERED GIRL, by Edward Gorey. An old book rediscovered, scanned and made available for perusal. You will be very glad you did.

(NOTE: Original Livejournal link is down, redirected to another site)

A recnet sutdy desecivrod taht hnuams are rkalmarbey clbpaae at rndaieg smbelacrd wdros when the fsrit and last lteetrs wree kpet icantt. A follew (or gorup of feollsw) at a bolg caleld "001% PO-gr" hvae put a vrey ntfiy ltitle gdaegt OINNLE that will sclmrbae text for you to tset this apsoimtsun. Ntalalury, I had to psot tihs post sbmleacrd. Naet, eh?

The DEN OF GEEK released their "Top Fifty Special Effects Shots" lists. Ofttimes I dismiss various "top 50 lists" as bogus, but for once, here's a list where I can't really complain about any of the choices; the larger 'famous' effects (Metropolis, the Day the Earth Stood Still, Jason and the Argonauts) share time with the more subtle "hey, how did they do that?" moments, such as Forrest Gump lifting fully limbed Gary Sinise playing legless Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump. Of course, I know my favorite, perhaps the most referenced special effects shot of them all.