Full steam ahead for Conroy

The good Senator Conroy is still in the belief that he is doing the correct thing - trying to save Australian net users from the dangers and disgust of an unregulated Internet. He does not appear to be backing down from his stand. According to an article on theage.com.au - Conroy has attacked Google, and ignored pleas from government of the USA to stop his plan of putting an Internet filter around Australia. If you do decide to click on the link, you'll notice that this article has gathered 800+ comments in around 24 hours. I do not know of any other topic that would gather this much attention.

There are even comments from concerned parents asking for Conroy to leave their lives alone. This sole person, who was put in charge of making the Internet better for Australia has been slowly eroding it.

Now the bill goes to government in the next month. If the opposition support it, it will become law. I hope none of the politicians forget they are there for the majority of the people, not just the wowser minority. There's an election coming later in 2010. I've got a suggestion for every Victorian - to make a change that will benefit Australia, and free speech for this world - VOTE CONROY OUT OF OFFICE!

The Toshiba P20 still works...

My main PC is a Toshiba P20, and as some of you may know, I'm running Gentoo Linux on it. After not touching it for over 3 months (call it being lazy from using a work PC with Ubuntu installed on it), I went through the upgrade process.

This time was not like most other times. Things were broken. Packages were outdated or removed, and generally the system would not work. I loved it! I learnt, I tweaked, I played, I worried, I compiled - and slowly, slowly - the system finally returned back to normal.

I'm writing this blog entry from:

evilric@lasek ~ $ uname -a
Linux lasek 2.6.31-gentoo-r10 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Mar 6 22:31:14 EST 2010 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

If there is one thing Gentoo teaches you, it is that you need to analyse when you troubleshoot. Learn how to gather the indicators, read the documentation, and ask for assistance where necessary.

Things I have noticed with the upgrade:

• Gnome 2.26
• Firefox 3.5.8
• KDE4
• Kernel 2.6.31-gentoo-r10
• New versions of applications like GIMP, Blender, and OpenOffice.org
  

Things I still need to fix include:

• Wireless (I have not had this working for a while)
• SD Card reader (this has never worked - and does not work with Ubuntu's live CD)
• Bluetooth (same story as above)
• Remote controller (never tried it - not even when I was running Windows for a day before I installed Linux on the machine)

Wish me luck... or just hope that google does not decide to fold up in the next few days...

Why does it have to end with a penalty shootout?

I was apart of the crowd that witnessed the A-League's Grand Final for 2010 between the Melbourne Victory and the Sydney FC. Sydney played a very brutal game. It was a tactic that worked for them. After 12 minutes, Archie Thompson was sent off on a stretcher, and will most likely be missing 12 months with an ACL injury (saying that, Kitty Kat had ACL surgery done on both of her knees). Sydney were not visiting Melbourne for a haircut - they wanted to win the game, and do the Premier / Championship double - which was first done by Melbourne. They wanted to take the trophy back to Sydney. They did it.

After the first 45 minutes, the score was still 0-0. After 90 minutes, it was 1-1. After extra time, it was still 1-1. This is the part I hate the most. Why does it have to go to a penalty shootout? I think it facilitates a quicker result to a game, but if it is the final game of the tournament, they why does it have to end quickly? The final should be the exception, and implement the "golden goal" rule - keep playing until someone scores. First team to make a mistake, or first team to overcome fatigue wins.

It's a horrible way to loose a championship, but I don't think it's a great way to win a championship either. It really is based on luck - and when I say luck, I mean confidence of the goalkeeper and the penalty kick taker.

Well done to the Melbourne Victory for a great season of 2009 - 2010! I look forward to seeing you more often in the next season.

GO VICTORY!!

I am Blue

I took another one of those "personality" tests to determine which colour I represent in the Magic The Gathering game.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I've taken such a test before, but apparently, I can side with my own "natural" enemies. Does anyone think this is correct?

Where's Ric?

I'm back in Melbourne again. It's been around 2+ years and a lot has changed. Somethings have changed for the worse - somethings have changed for the better. I'm working with a new company, but with an old friend. Lost an ex-wife, but gained a new partner - and this one wants to be around for life. Met some very interesting people while I was working in Canberra, and hopefully they will choose to remain in touch with me.

There's a few things I would like to address with this blog. Firstly, I am still using Gentoo Linux, although I do find Ubuntu Linux a lot easier to administer. There is something about Gentoo which keeps drawing me back. I like it how things may not work correctly when I first used them. It forces me to learn them. I'm currently compiling my Gentoo machine up to the latest repository - well up to about a week ago. It is working, but it has taken some intervention. Things that have changed have been a new version of GNOME as well as a new version of X.org. It seems to be going well. I'll write more about it when it's complete.

Just for your information - if you plan on trying Linux anytime soon, choose Ubuntu over Gentoo. It's been about 6 days since I started upgrading my Gentoo system, and it's still going. A new install could take somewhere in the range of 3 days or so (on my old hardware). I have gotten Ubuntu up and running in about 40 minutes. Another 30 minutes for updates and upgrades and I am fully functional.

Secondly, I would like to continue my observations on Canberra - but they will eventually dwindle down to nothing. They will be based off memory now, and will not be due to direct experiences. I believe I have covered the main points of Canberra, but a few more may pop up.

Look for more to come in the future...

South Australia internet laws - now with backflip and damage control

A prior blog post of mine pointed towards an article stating that the South Australian government wanted to know who was commenting on them during election periods. They are passing or have passed a law about it.

Now, based on a public outcry, it appears they are reconsidering.

Power to the people! Don't let it go!

South Australia starts with internet laws

It appears that the South Australian government would like people commenting on their up and coming election to provide their name and details. Why?

If you are such a government office or official, and you would like my full name and details, please leave your contact details in the comments section, and I will contact you with mine. Anonymous postings will be ignored!

The Chaos Confetti strategy failed!

As some of you may know, I've started playing Magic The Gathering. KittyKat has also started playing, although she has commented that this is "a bit of a nerdy game". Saying that, while she was using her sole white coloured Kor Armory based deck, and I used a 3 coloured deck based on Unnatural Schemes, she won all the games. I put this down to mainly being a three coloured deck, I was much slower to get my creatures, artifacts, and other spells out than KittyKat's mono-coloured deck. This was somewhat true, as I was also playing against Jarvo and his modified 3 coloured Unstable Terrain, it was about a 50% win ratio (on a side note, I think if he got to choose again, he would have probably gone for a Rise of the Vampires, as he seems to like the game mechanics associated with those creatures).

As I started playing more and more games, I started to understand some of the mechanics and the way the cards played in combination with each other. I decided to get rid of the third colour out of my deck, and eventually moving away from a dual coloured deck, to a mono-coloured blue deck - based on the Ninjutsu deck. While this deck did prove good, I found that I still lost a few games here and there. I did not understand how I could loose about 50% of them against KittyKat, whereas I found I was loosing about 20% - 30% against Jarvo. Finally, I moved to a pure black deck with the ninjutsu mechanic in it, being the Rats' Nest deck (which has been modified to compete better against Jarvo and KittyKat). It then dawned on me that KittyKat's major strategy at winning was based on playing Chaos Confetti first, throwing the confetti (usually with good accuracy), wiping out the majority of my creatures on the battlefield, and then following up with a Conqueror's Pledge. This would usually mean she would then be able to swarm me with six 1/1 creatures that would be close to unstoppable.

That is where Chaos Confetti comes undone - a bad throw, and no other cards in your hand (thanks to the discard mechanics of the black Rats' Nest deck), meant she hand nothing else to play after she wiped out two of my creatures. Final Score: my 15 to her -23.


In case any of you are wondering, she does not tear up the actual Chaos Confetti card (just like I do not tear up the Blacker Lotus card when I play it). It is usually a basic land that gets torn up (a spare Island in this case). If you do ever end up playing me, and you do not allow me to tear up a representation of the card, then I'm happy to concede the game - it's just not worth to actually destroy hard to find cards.

My future intentions is to now construct a black / blue ninjutsu deck based on the Ninjutsu and Rats' Nest deck. I will not be doing that for another few more games of playing this sole black deck I currently have. I may add some of the gold bordered cards from Unnatural Schemes to harness the power of multi-coloured decks. Just have to keep on playing and tuning.

And back to the reason before of mentioning why Jarvo would have chosen a different deck if he got the choice - Worldwake has been / is just about to be released. It is the next major block / story line release for the card game. The pre-release was the weekend that just passed, and this coming Friday (5.02.2010) will be the official release. There are already full official card lists on the internet for Worldwake. It looks like the power creature for this arc of the storyline of Magic The Gathering is the vampire as well as a return to the mono-black deck. Good luck if you play!

Things they could fix in Canberra #8

There are a few things that bypass Canberra that are for the general good. One of these is the Hume Highway. On the way from Melbourne to Canberra, the Hume Highway should also bypass Holbrook and Tarcutta (which according to the wikipedia article will be done in 2012), but that is not the reason I am writing right now.

The main reason for this post is that Canberra gets bypassed too much, by sporting events, by international entertainment acts and cultural events. This is a general observation, as occasionally, there are some interesting events that do occur within Canberra. For the cultured art set, there is currently a french art exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. For the sports set, there is the occasional international rugby match or football (soccer) match - unfortunately from the last few soccer matches I have seen, they have been the reserve sides. When it comes to international entertainment acts, most of these will be scheduled for other major cities, but not in Canberra. Working near Canberra City, I have also noticed that Canberra does not attract the busker crowd that I have come to enjoy in Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall and Melbourne's Southbank area. I would expect Sydney to have similar areas.

I do understand why events and acts do not come to Canberra. If I was a company (or even a busker) attempting to maximise profits, I would not haul my exhibition / equipment and performers to a city where the population appears to be stagnant at around 350,000 people. It's just not worth it.

This is a big shame. I think Canberra has spent some money in infrastructure, and has some nice, clean and modern stadiums and arenas to present these acts. Maybe the root cause of this bypass mentality is the small size in population.

I keep hearing in the media that the people that govern Canberra are trying to attract families to come and live in Canberra. While this is somewhat of a noble hope, it is also greatly flawed. With the current situation of how Canberra obtains water, it would not cope with a doubling in population. It would simply run out of water to live. People would have to change their habits of water consumption. The town would stop looking so green. Parliament house would need to stop being watered. Would the politicians want a "nice" meeting place, or do they prefer to have the population of the town around them alive?

Every capital city in Australia (with the exception of Darwin) has a population over 1 million people. Going back to my original thought, those cities are able to sustain shows and events. With these acts and events bypassing Canberra, it subtracts from its character and its atmosphere - giving more credit to the comment that "Canberra is a city without a soul".

Silly combo in MTG

As mentioned in a previous post, I have started to play Magic The Gathering (MTG) - a game where you collect cards to essentially emulate a rock / paper / scissors game. If you've never played this game before, and have never heard about it, think of it like a game of chess where you put together the pieces on your side. You construct a deck of cards, and take turns attempting to eliminate your opponent. No deck is perfect - every deck can be beaten with another deck. Luck has a small component in the game - how well (or poorly) you shuffle your deck before the game and what you draw as your initial hand can determine the outcome. Games can last between 5 minutes to about 40 minutes (depending on which player is in control and what strategy is being played). Certain cards do certain things, and certain cards also trigger combos that allow for other things to happen. There are a basic set of rules as to how to play, but the "golden rule" of the game is that if a card allows you the break the rules of the game, then the card take precedence.

If you would like to watch some videos as to how the game works, youtube has a few tutorial videos for MTG. If you would like to play, to see how the game feels, you can download a java version of the physical card game from the mtgrares blog and play it on your computer. The guy running the blog is documenting his experiences writing the program for the computer game. It's still a work in progress, but still very playable.

As I'm always interested in interesting combinations in cards, I've had a look at my own collection and noticed this set:

To play it, you would do the following:
1. In your first turn, put out an Island.
2a. In your second turn, put out another Island. In that same turn, you also put out a Blacker Lotus.
2b. Now use the Blacker Lotus to generate 4 blue mana, and tap the islands for 2 more blue mana. This will give you 6 blue mana to use. I've used the word "use" in relation to how to utilise the Blacker Lotus. This is due to the fact that to use the card, you need to destroy it. I don't believe in ripping up limited cards, so I will usually substitute the card for another, and destroy that instead.
2c. With the 6 blue mana, use that to cast _____ and Now I Know My ABC's. You will now have 1 blue mana left over, where you can activate the ability on _____ - hence changing its name to ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. That's all the preparation you need to do. Now wait until the start of your next turn.
3. At the beginning of your upkeep stage of your next turn (ie. in the inital stages) you WIN the game - regardless of what life points you or your opponent have, and what else is in play.

Alternatives to playing this would be not getting the Blacker Lotus and having to pull out other mana sources to generate the 6 mana. Ways to combat this winning strategy is to slow down the production of mana (ie. get rid of Islands), destroy / counter the _____ creature, or remove the Now I know My ABC's enchantment.

Did I mention the game is simliar to rock / paper / scissors ?