A very Diggy Diggy Minecraft and Gaming Christmas!

Well.
Not just MineCraft.
Here's some photos:

Our decorations include Minecraft items!

And Daleks and K9 and some paper figures of us:

 

Ben got a metal Millenium Falcon to make. Warning: You will need snippers, a tweezer and the eyesight of an eagle.

He got me a Minecraft GiftPack of books.
Aimed at kids, but really cool.
I particularly liked that on page 2 of every book is a page about staying safe online.
Sigh. Vanilla Minecraft. Awesome.

Also some Minecraft paper figurines.
(The video is Wil Wheaton and others playing Ticket to Ride)

I got him a baby StrandBeest!
It really works and walks and creeps you out with its organic look when it's moving.

And would you believe it, we bought each other a copy of the KJV Manga Bible!
See Moses using his Ninja Skills!
Curiously the one on the left covers the whole old testament in great detail while the one on the right skips most of it to concentrate on the new testament.
Both leave out a shed load of books from both testaments, but they are both very cool.

Oh. And here's Ticket to Ride!
We played it straight away and love it.

"Minecraft Colada" Parody of Escape (The Piña Colada Song)"

I was gaming with my lady, been on our console too long.

Replaying all those old missions, felt just like donkey kong

So while she installed some patches, I browsed a forum instead

And in a thread about questing, there was this post that I read...

[chorus]

If you like mining for diamonds and hunting sheep in the rain

If you'll forge your own armour and you'll eat zombie brains

If you kill endermen at midnight... and you wear a cool cape

I've the game that you've looked for... play minecraft and escape

I didn't show it my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean...

But she seemed happy with the console, I didn't want to break up her routine

And so i logged into the forum, and hit reply on the post.

I wanted to try this new game, was even willing to host.

[chorus]

Yes I like mining or diamonds, and hunting sheep in the rain

Zombies, skelons, and spiders... all of these will be slain

I've got to log in by tomorrow night, for a gaming escape

We'll use a mod pack from yogscast, while it's still up to date.

And so I spawned on the server, and started punching a tree

I saw my new gaming partner... as she killed squids in the sea

It was my own gaming lady and she said, "Aw, it's you."

Then as she put down a workbench, she said "I never knew."

[chorus]

That you like mining for diamonds and hunting sheep in the rain

And the crafting of armour, and the farming of grains.

if you kill endermen at midnight... and you wear a cool cape

Your the player I've looked for... play with me and escape

[chorus]

If you like mining for diamonds and hunting sheep in the rain

If you'll forge your own armour and you'll eat zombie brains

if you kill endermen at midnight... and you wear a cool cape

I've the game that you've looked for... play minecraft and escape

[chorus]

Yes I like mining or diamonds, and hunting sheep in the rain

Zombies, skelons, and spiders... all of these will be slain

I've got to log in by tomorrow night, for a gaming escape

...

Minecraft Yogscast Complete Pack - How to make BRONZE!

Annoying as buggery.
Want to play with BEES!
But you need bronze.
And wouldn't you know it if you pop 3 copper ingots around a tin ingot in a crafting bench as described in the wiki it does nothing.
Nada.
Nil.
Zip.
I thought it might be that the ingots were Mekanism, but I tried others.

So here's the trick.

1) Get a stack of ingots and go to your crusher.
2) Crush them to dust.
3) Go to your metallurgic infuser.
4) Pop the dust in the left hand "power" bar (purple box).
(If you have redstone or coal in it, click the 'dump' button')
5) Pop your stack of copper ingots in the input (red box).
6) Out come bronze ingots.

MicroServices explained in a visual medium: MineCraft!

I got sick of the endless power point and slide share presentations of what MicroServices are so I created a MineCraft version:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN2jfHfKDn4eQ1B1O_gazraS53i77puGn

Just published my first book!

Well well well.

Many people have asked me to curate all the humorous posts I've done over the years and publish them.

So I did.

244 pages of them.

From 2005 to today. Ok I lost a few due to hardware failure, but I made up for it by adding some humorous photos and of course: Kittens!

To whet your appetite here is a sample of the contents:

• Blackpool. Gack...
• Superman and other heroes...
• Marcel, Speed Cameras and Rat Throwing as a Sport
• Greek Gods, Washed Hedgehogs and Bluetooth
• Dead Flies and Calculations
• 12 steps for vampires
• Obesity is the key to the survival of man!
• When Sticking a Screw Driver in your Face is Preferable to Going to the Dentist and More Movie Reviews
• Cthulhu Eggs and What's really funny
• I am not “The Internet with Boobs”
• Monastic Speeders, Pants around Ankles and Bikes
• Rawhead Rex, Maniac Nurses and a Steam Powered Cat Cannon
• Is everything shit or is it just me? Oh and H.P.Lovecraft
• Rats, an old house and worlds craziest chases
• Deep Fried Squirrel with Garlic Mayonnaise!
• Mansquito (TV 2005) O.M.G. Bad Sci-Fi Reaches new Lows
• There's a dead cockroach next to my ashtray
• Portal for Programmers - Still Have a Job
• Mambo Number 5 for Programmers - Rebuild Number 5
• This is an ex-iPhone...

So go to https://leanpub.com/randomactsofsentience and support your local nutter! That's me if you haven't figured it out.

I'll be starting my next book shortly.

Memories of my mother

1955.

1956: Where I was born:

And her first house where I grew up:

Gawd I was a big baby:

Hi Mum!

My mother died this morning

I received the message that the time of death was 7:20am.
I was just arriving at my desk at the time, and sent hurried emails to various people indicating that I would have to be involved in the final arrangements.
I was first to arrive at the 5-star aged care facility and had to “identify” my mothers body.
(That's an informal identification purely for the bureaucrats)

I have seen many deaths in my lifetime but that I was struck dumb because this was my mother.
I stroked her head and said:

"Goodbye. You had an absolute shit of a life but at least you had a few weeks of pampering to make up for it."

My siblings arrived and we went through the process of saying goodbye, signing forms etc.
We then went to my house and made funeral arrangements.
The funeral people took the necessary steps and my siblings and I evacuated her room so as not to encumber the staff at the facility.

We have now dealt with all the arrangements in a calm orderly way.
Having said that, we’re all a tad shattered by the suddenness of her death.
As such, I will be taking tomorrow off to... well basically... grieve as I have had to keep my emotions in check for the day to ensure a smooth process for all involved.
As have we all.

Tomorrow I will weep.

Somewhat humorously, her passing (and perhaps others) might have happened last week in a explosive fashion.
And I *do* mean explosive as she was caught with a cigarette in one hand and the mouthpiece for an active oxygen cylinder in the other at 1am Friday morning.
I have to say that when I go, I’d like to do it that way.

Tough bird my mother.

For more details: http://www.randomactsofsentience.com/2012/05/mothers-day-my-mother-is-one-tough-old.html from May 2012.

Goodbye Mother.

I love you.

OMG I'm covered in BEES!

I've got more stories than... than..

Ok. I was at work and got a phone call from my other half.

"We're not alone"

My first thought was that alien life had been discovered.
But sadly no.
Bees.
A swarm of them had invaded the weep holes above the front door and were preparing to nest.
My first thought was to get a bee-keeper in.
Sadly a search proved fruitless in our area and I eventually suggested that Ben find an exterminator.

I reached a logical break point in my work and raced home.

Swarm *partially* under control.

They’re not native ones BTW.

I went out with a half full can of "Nest Control” and sprayed the buggery out of the area infected.
In the weep holes as well until the can ran out.

Neighbours must have thought I was nuts as while doing that as I was dum-de-dumming "Ride of the Valkyries” loudly and shouting at the buggers “I love the smell of insecticide in the afternoon!” all in my currently cracked voice.

Not a complete fix, but it will stop them coming into the house via the light fixtures.

Which they were doing.
Lots of them.
And attacking any light that was on.
The first time I have seen venom dripping from a light bulb.
Yes really.

I swatted about a dozen which had invaded the kitchen.
That’s how I know they’re not native bees.
Fat little European buggers and frackin’ aggressive.
Eventually I managed to scoop up dozens of little bee bodies.
Bucket'o'bees it was.
Like the Marne.
We'll be finding little mummified corpses for days.

I also covered up the light fixtures downstairs with Ice Cream container lids and blu-tack.
Obviously I couldn’t spray liquid into a light fixture!

Several exterminators were called before finding one which would agree to deal with the issue.
(Wow. The number of “Bees? You’re fucking kidding!” responses followed by “click” was a tad disturbing)
We eventually found a dude who would deal with the issue.
"George" said he would come around the next day between 8..9am.

So. It was a dark evening with the incessant buzz of BEES!

Unfortunately Ben can’t deal with the little buggers for two reasons:

1) Since he went diabetic, he’s developed a swathe of allergies and almost certainly one to bee stings and
2) Two of his sisters are strongly allergic to bee stings, which means he probably is as well.

I don’t think I’m allergic to bees and in any case I’m a head first sort of person, and I’m at a point where if ONE MORE FRACKIN' THING happens in my life, I’ll go postal.

Anyway, the dude turned up at 10am the next day.
Pretty laid back kinda guy.
Brought out the biggest frackin' vacuum cleaner I've ever seen.
Size of a 44 gallon drum.
On wheels.
He scooped up a metric-shit-ton of them and fluffed dust into the weep holes.

So...
We're free of the communist-led left-wing all-your-weep-holes-belong-to-us bee-collective for the moment.
This is our 3rd infestation.
I try to do my best and find bee-keepers.
Why? Because... Because... BEEs!
Which you would have thought would be doing a roaring trade given the number of these incidents.
But no.

Still. Another story to add to my repertoire. Sigh.

An almost exhaustive list of YogsCast Complete ores and their processing options.

Ok.

Anyone who has been watching my videos on YouTube regarding Minecraft Mekanism will be confused about some things.

The link to the videos is: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKqnDY-A2QkgxxN6Z5bjmNQ

The list of Ores in the YogsCast Complete server is gi-normous.
How do you process them?

Well, I went to the trouble of sorting through as many ores as I could find and here is the list of options:
(Warning: The last table is wider than will fit, and has notes at the end of some lines. So Cut'n'Paste it into TextWrangler or whatever)

Oh... Just a thought... If you wish I can create a GitHub project to store detail like this. Advise via comments.

Ores that work with 4-way system:
---------------------------------

Pack                Name            Code
------------------- --------------- -------
Minecraft           Gold            14      
Minecraft           Iron            15      
Mekanism            Copper          3007:1  
Mekanism            Tin             3007:2  
Mekanism            Osmium          3007
Factorization       Silver          1002    
Tinkers Construct   Gold Gravel     1488:1  
Tinkers Construct   Tin             1475:4  
Tinkers Construct   Copper          1475:3  
Tinkers Construct   Iron Gravel     1488    
Tinkers Construct   Copper Gravel   1488:2  
Tinkers Construct   Tin Gravel      1488:3  
Galacticraft Core   Copper          3410:5  
Galacticraft Core   Copper          3451    
Galacticraft Core   Tin             3451:1  
Galacticraft Core   Tin             3410:6  
Mariculture         Copper          500:1   
Thermal Expansion   Silver          2701:2  
Thermal Expansion   Copper          2701    
Thermal Expansion   Lead            2701:3  
Thermal Expansion   Tin             2701:1  
Emasher Resource    Cassiterite     3173:1  
Emasher Resource    Galena          3173:3  
Emasher Resource    Native Copper   3173:4  
Metallurgy 3        Silver          1702:1  
Metallurgy 3        Tin             1700:1  
Metallurgy 3        Copper          1700    
Forestry            Tin             1398:2  
Forestry            Copper          1398:1  

Ores pushed to an Enrichment Chamber (factory) -> Smelter (factory)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Metallurgy 3        Sulfur          1705:7      
Metallurgy 3        Phosphorite     1705:8      
Metallurgy 3        Magnesium       1705:10     
Metallurgy 3        Potash          1705:12     
Metallurgy 3        Saltpeter       1705:9      
Metallurgy 3        Eximite         1700:5
Metallurgy 3        Meutoite        1700:6
Metallurgy 3        Carmot          1706:6
Metallurgy 3        Mithril         1706:7
Metallurgy 3        Rubracium       1706:8
Metallurgy 3        Orichalcum      1706:11
Metallurgy 3        Adamantine      1706:13     
Metallurgy 3        Atlarus         1706:14     
Metallurgy 3        Bitumen         1705:11     
Metallurgy 3        Platinum        1702:3      
Metallurgy 3        Infuscolium     1706:2      
Metallurgy 3        Prometheum      1706        
Metallurgy 3        Deep Iron       1706:1
Metallurgy 3        Oureclase       1706:4
Metallurgy 3        Astral Silver   1706:5
Metallurgy 3        Manganese       1700:2
Metallurgy 3        Zinc            1702
Emasher Resource    Pentlandite     3173:5
Thermal Expansion   Ferrous         2701:4

                                                Redstone    Enrichment  Pulverizer  Induction   Purification
                                                Furnace     Chamber                 Smelter     Chamber
Factorisation       Dark Iron       1004        Y           .           Y           Y           .
Tinkers Construct   Aluminum        1475:5      .           .           Y           Y           .
Tinkers Construct   Ardite          1475:2      .           .           Y           Y           .
Tinkers Construct   Cobalt          1475:1      .           .           Y           Y           .
Tinkers Construct   Cobalt Gravel   1488:5      .           .           .           .           .               *Smeltery
Tinkers Construct   Aluminum Gravel 1488:4      .           .           .           .           .               *Smeltery
Mariculture         Rutile          500:2       .           .           Y           Y           .               
Mariculture         Bauxite         500         .           .           .           .           .               *Smeltery
Galacticraft Core   Silicon         3410:8      .           .           .           .           .               
Galacticraft Core   Cheese          3451:2      Y           .           .           .           .               
Galacticraft Core   Aluminum        3410:7      Y           .           .           .           .               
qCraft              Quantum         804         .           .           .           .           .               Unknown
ProjectRed          Peridot         2130:2      .           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher
ProjectRed          Sapphire        2130:1      .           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher
ProjectRed          Ruby            2130        .           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Applied Energistics Cerus Quartz    902         .           .           Y           .           .               *Crusher
Railcraft           Dark Diamond    458:2       .           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Railcraft           Dark Emerald    458:3       .           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher, Smeltery
Railcraft           Dark Lapis      458:4       .           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Ars Magica 2        Vinteum         1141        Y           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Ars Magica 2        Blue Topaz      1141:2      Y           .           .           .           .               
Ars Magica 2        Moonstone       1141:3      Y           .           .           .           .               
Ars Magica 2        Chimerite       1141:1      Y           .           .           .           .               
Ars Magica 2        Sunstone        1141:4      Y           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Magical Crops       Essence         3714        .           .           .           .           .               Unknown
Biomes O' Plenty    Tanzanite       1942:8      .           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Biomes O' Plenty    Topaz           1942:6      .           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Biomes O' Plenty    Peridot         1942:4      .           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher
MineChem            Uranium         3790        Y           .           Y           Y           .               
Biomes O' Plenty    Amethyst        1942        .           .           .           .           .               Unknown
Biomes O' Plenty    Ruby            1942:2      .           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Biomes O' Plenty    Sapphire        1942:12     .           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Biomes O' Plenty    Malachite       1942:10     .           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Magical Crops       Nether Essence  3713        .           .           .           .           .               Unknown
Emasher Resource    Bauxite         3173        Y           .           .           .           .               
Emasher Resource    Emery           3173:2      Y           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Emasher Resource    Sapphire        3173:7      Y           .           .           .           .               *Rock Crusher
Thermal Expansion   Ferrous         2701:4      Y           Y           Y           Y           .               
Factorization       Dark Iron       1004        Y           .           Y           Y           .               
Thaumcraft          Cinnabar        2608        Y           .           .           .           .               
Dartcraft           Nether          1900:1      .           .           .           .           .               Unknown
Dartcraft           Power           1900        .           .           .           .           .               Unknown
Big Reactors        Yellorite       2740        Y           .           Y           Y           .               
Forestry            Apatite         1398        .           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher
RailCraft           Sulfur          458         .           .           Y           .           .               *Rock Crusher

So.... Yeah... Here's some advice if you're using rsync to transfer large datasets from an iMac Mavericks to a Drobo (or other NAS)

Don't use the built in rsync.

I was only getting 18Mb/s transfer from an attache WD 4Tb My Book.

That's crap to start with as it is USB3 and should be much higher.

I tried BlackMagic and what not and... nope... It's not running USB3.
Switched ports on the back of the iMac to see if it was a positional issue.
Nope.
Cable? Hmm. It's blue and says it's USB3...
In any case this post isn't about WD external drives, USB2/3 or iMacs or Mavericks.

It's about rsync.
And I was getting atrocious copy rates to my Drobos.
18-20Mb/s at best.
Gack!!!

So let's look at the installed version of rsync:

/usr/bin/rsync --version
rsync  version 2.6.9  protocol version 29
Copyright (C) 1996-2006 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.

What?

I have brew installed, so I did a brew install rsync.

/usr/local/bin/rsync --version
rsync  version 3.0.9  protocol version 30
Copyright (C) 1996-2011 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.

Better, but the surprise was that when I substituted the brew version for the installed version I went from 18-20Mb/s transfer rate to 40-100Mb/s (depending on the file size and file type of course).

It's not a perfect solution and doesn't explain why the WD 4Tb My Book has such atrocious rates, but I have no time to fiddle with that right now as I have 4Tb to transfer and 40-100 is better than 18-20.

So...
Yeah...
Suggestion: Install the brew version of rsync and use it instead.

Oh... Don't suggest putting a rsyncd service on the Drobos.
That's not the point.

[WARNING] [Minecraft-Server] Can't keep up! Did the system time change, or is the server overloaded?

No.
No the time didn't change.
No the server is not overloaded.
There's no-one frickin using it.
No processes other than MC.
And no users because I re-started it.
Version 2.9.2.4

top - 12:23:31 up 12 days, 19:51,  4 users,  load average: 0.57, 0.46, 0.42
Tasks: 122 total,   1 running, 121 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 13.9 us,  0.4 sy,  0.0 ni, 85.7 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:  12286436 total,  5003584 used,  7282852 free,   388952 buffers
KiB Swap: 16756732 total,        0 used, 16756732 free,  2731256 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 7137 kim       20   0 4369m 1.4g  22m S  58.6 12.0  86:01.56 java

No one else on the server.

I stopped the service and re-started it.

As soon as Galacticraft loaded, I got this warning.
What the hell?

Can someone please modify that warning to give some more indication as to why it occurs?

Please?

Well here is something fascinating about DroboFS devices.

Had a problem.
With a very old DroboFS.
We have two, named Moya and Lexx, which if you aren't familiar with... Oh WTH. Go look it up.

In any case...
Moya started developing some issues.
Strange responses, 'name too long' and so on.
Tried to delete krap folders without effect.
Eventually the device went west.

Removed drives, rebooted, all ok.
Latest firmware.
Drives back in in exactly the same positions.
Same issue.
Device reboots constantly, all drive bays lit up like christmas.

Hmm.
Ok.
Other DroboFS.
rsync'd all data off it.
Removed drives.
Booted it.
Dashboard shows it as Lexx.
Ok.
(This took nearly a week I might add. Old Drobos aren't quick on the network front)

Inserted all drives in exact same positions from Moya and booted.
Watched with bated breath at the Drobo dashboard.
Wait.
What?
The device changes it's identity to Moya.
Even the IP address changed.
Wait.
What?

Ok. You learn something every day.
Currently rsync'ing all the data off it in prep for a complete burn.

Also, and somewhat off-topic, been reading up on MTBF of various brands of drives.
All the drives in Moya and Lexx are Seagate Barracuda 2 and 3Tb.

No more, she said!

After such a good experience with the Synology DS214SE with WD 3Tb Red NAS drives, I'm switching.
I'm going to pimp out these old Drobos with WD from now on.

For the record: Minecraft YogtCast Complete 2.9.2.4

This is what I use to create a YogsCastComplete Server using the AWESOME ATLauncher pack:

Optional Mods:              Recommended
--------------              -----------
Cauldron [formerly MCPC+]        .      Server super weapon
Cauldron Libs                    .      Mandatory Libraries for Cauldron
Advanced Genetics                Y      Custom Eldritch Horrors
EiraIRC                          .      IRC Extensions
Ex Aliquo                        Y      From nothing to everything
Ex Nihilo                        Y      From nothing to something
ICBM [wildex999 Fork]            .      Blow things up in style
Logistics Pipes                  .      Even more amazing pipes
Mobius Core                      .      Doctors toolkit
MystCraft                        *      See below
Not Enough Codecs                Y      Adds AAC/MP3 support to open blocks
OpenEye                          Y      Issue tracker
Opis                             .      Opal Map Scanner
Resonant Induction               y      Bulwark of electricity
Resonant Induction [Archaic]     Y      Stone age fun
Resonant Induction [Atomic]      Y      Plasma and particle accelerators
Resonant Induction [Electrical]  Y      Tesla Coils
Resonant Induction [Mechanical]  Y      Gears
Sync                             Y      Provides clones
Morph                            .      Allows players to acquire morph skill and turn into other mobs

I chose 2.9.2.4 with recommended, and added MystCraft.
Notice no Rei's minimap.
Maybe not included in this version.
This is a list of the required mods to work.
Sigh.
I should include links to the wikis, but I've had too much bourbon,

Required Mods

-------------

Forge

CodeChickenLib

ForgeMultipart

World Core

CQ Libs

denLib Utils

Java 7 Checker

Additional BuildCraft Objects

Advanced Thaumaturgy

Applied Energistics

Ars Magica 2 [by Mithion]

AutoUtils [Chisel Labs]

Backpacks

BDLib

BiblioCraft

BiblioWoods [Biomes o' Plenty]

BiblioWoods [Forestry]

BiblioWoods [Natura]

Big Reactors

Binnie's Mods

BiomesOPlenty

Blood Magic

Carpenter's Blocks

CCTransport

Charlotte's Utilities

ChickenChunks

Chisel [Asie]

Chocolate Quest

CodeChickenCore

CoFH Core

ComputerCraft

DartCraft

DartPatch

denLib

DenPipes

DenPipes-Forestry

Dimensional Anchors

EmasherResource

Enchiridion

EnderIO

Ender Storage

Engineer's Toolbox

Enhanced Portals 3

Extra Cells

ExtraTiC

Extra Utilities

Factorization

Finndus Fillies

Flat Signs

Forbidden Magic

Forestry

Galacticraft Core

Galacticraft Mars

GasCraft

GenIndustry

GraviGun

Greg's Lighting

GrowthCraft [Apples]

GrowthCraft [Bamboo]

GrowthCraft [Cellar]

GrowthCraft [Core]

GrowthCraft [Fishtrap]

GrowthCraft [Grapes]

GrowthCraft [Hops]

GrowthCraft [Rice]

Hardcore Ender Expansion

HexWool

iChunUtil

Immibis Core

Immibis Peripherals

Infinitubes

Iron Chests

Jabba

JAMI

KeithyUtils

Liquid XP

Mad Science

Magical Crops

Magic Bees

Mariculture

Mekanism

Mekanism Generators

Mekanism Tools

Metallurgy

Micdoodle 8 Core

MineChem

MineFactory Reloaded [Skyboy Fork]

MineTweaker

Modular Forcefield System

Modular Powersuits

Modular Powersuits Addons

Natura

NEI Addons

Nether Ores [Skyboy Fork]

Not Enough Items

Not Enough Keys

Numina

Obsidiplates

OpenBlocks

OpenComponents

OpenComputers

OpenModsLib

OpenPeripheral Addons

OpenPeripheral Core

Ore Dictionary Converter

Partical Physics

Plugins for Forestry

PortalGun

PowerCrystals Core [Skyboy Fork]

Project Red: Base

Project Red: Compat

Project Red: Integration

Project Red: Lighting

Project Red: Mechanical

Project Red: World

QuarryPlus

Random Things

Redstone Armory

Redstone Arsenal

Redstone Paste

Refined Relocation

Reliquary

Remain in Motion

Resonant Enging

Rock Crusher Metal Dusts Add-On

Simple Recycling

Simply Jetpacks

Slick Util [MPS]

Small Boats

Soul Shards Reborn

Statues

Steve's Carts

Steve's Factory Manager

Super Crafting Frame

Switches

Technomancy

Thaumcraft 4

Thaumic Tinkerer

Thaumic Tinkerer KAMI

Thermal Expansion

Tinker's Construct

Tinker's Mechworks

Totemic

Translocator

TubeStuff

The Twilight Forest

Universal Electricity API

Vending

Waila

Witchery

WRCBE

AnimationAPI

Railcraft

Game Mode: Make Powergen Fair

Game Mode: Make Oregen Plentiful

EiraIRC Server Config

Buildcraft Tools

Hardcore Questing Mode

Hats

HatStand

MrCrayfish's Furniture Mode

qCraft

The SecretRoomsMod

This wasn't covered in YouTuber 101...

I...
Wait...
What?
Oh lord.
I have to take 36min capture, cut it up into smaller chunks using iMovie '09.
Then export them to separate MOVs.
Then upload them individually into YT.
It's the waiting.
The waiting.
The waiting.
Th endless, take a shotgun, two shells and call me in the morning waiting.
Oh lord.
Recording it was easy.
Editing, cutting and uploading is a PITA.

Movie upload failed

Seriously.
Why?
This leads you to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD8CJ9Pa-SY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Which says:

The video you have requested is not available.

WTF?

So WHY is the upload failing?

YouTube?

Anything?

Uthgar?

Anything?

WHY?

The Sheer Ham Fisted Genius Of Belkin Designers!

Ok.
Bought a new window mount because Ben wants to have his iPhone attached to the window of the car.
Belkin.
The genius of it.
Here's the box:

Now we open it as any NORMAL PERSON WOULD DO.

And this is what we see:

The sheer genius of it.
INSIDE the top of the box.
Not OUTSIDE.
INSIDE.

Look and be stunned.

Or amazed.
Or LOL.
Or ROTFL.

Whatever.

Give Me GigBit NetWorking OR Give Me Freedom!

Oh Lord.
Trying to frantically backup a DroboFS to a Synology DS214SE.
The latter, I have to say, was a brilliant purchase.
But networking.
Networking.
Sigh.
GigaBit Networking required.
And I only have 10/100.
Expensive weekend I fear,

Mincraft - Series 2 A Mob Interlude - complete

Series 02 - A Mob Interlude is now complete.
A tad dry but fun dialogue.
Plus I make a massive mistake between D H Lawrence and H P Lovecraft.
Wait.
What?
Yes really.
Joy of joys.
But I make amends with the last video.

Why certain practices in companies stay the way they are despite being silly.

Two points:

1) See http://freekvermeulen.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/monkey-story-experiment-involved-5.html

This story illustrates the point succinctly.

2) I have a personal non-work example.

When I was very young in the early 60's we didn't have a 'cooker'.

We had a coal fireplace and 'hobs' which were swinging cast-iron arms that moved over the fire.

You put kettles, pots etc on them and your food got cooked.

For several years we moved from house to house and then to Australia in 1968.

It had a gas cooker that was so big you could put a side of beef in.

I watched my mother get a roast ready.

She got the roast and cut the top third off and placed the 2/3rd and 1/3rd next to each other in a tray.

I wondered why, but didn't ask her why.

Then in 1977 I travelled to the UK and visited my Aunt and Uncle.

My Aunt did exactly the same thing my mother did.

2/3rd 1/3rd of a roast in a tray.

Later that year I visited my GrandParents.

To my total surprise I saw her do the same thing.

I asked why.

Her response:

"When I was young we only had a cooker that was about 4 inches tall run by coal.

So I cut the top off the roast so that it would fit.

I just haven't changed."

Ah. I see.

We tend to do the same things because other people do it that way because of some reason that doesn't matter anymore.

So. Re-evaluation time for your habits.

Seriously. You know you'e neurotic when a HDD gets down to 1Tb and you start panicking.

Cleaning an old Drobo.
Copying stuff across from another.
Status shows 1.10Tb left on target Drobo.
OH NO!
WORLD IS GOING TO END!
Because?
Aliens!

Wake up call. 1 Frickin TerraByte left. Seriously?

I've being doing this for waaaaay too long.

Transcript todo list for episode 6 - Minecraft, YogsCast, Mekanism, Metallturgic Infuser

The last video had to be split into two parts for which I am apologise.
There was a point where I showed a text file showing my 'process' which I'm sure people will ask for.
So here it is in all its glory and typos included for hilarities sake:

Building a metallurgic infuser chain.

Make four furnaces
    cobble  cobble  cobble
    cobble          cobble
    cobble  cobble  cobble

Place 2 furnaces down

Get Coal
    At least 4 Stacks of it
    Put 1 stack in each of 2 furnaces

Get Sand
    Smelt 36+ glass blocks

Get Osmium Ore

Make Osmium ingots
    Smelt them in the furnaces to create a bunch of ingots
    Need one to make the infuser

Get Iron Ore

Make Iron ingots
    Smelt them in the furnaces to create a bunch of ingots
    Need 4 to make the infuser

Get Red Stone
    At least 8 stacks of it!
    Actually as many as possible.
    Try getting 32 stacks if possible.

Make one
    Iron    Furnace Iron
    Ingot           Ingot
    
    Red     Osmium  Red
    Stone   Ingot   Stone

    Iron    Furnace Iron
    Ingot           Ingot
    
Make some enriched alloy
    Purple top left box <= Stack redstone
    Green right top box <= Stack redstone
    Red box <= Stack iron ingots
    Output => Enriched Alloy

Notice what you see when you mouse over the right moving arrow.
    You'll see 'recipes'.
    9 pages of them.
    READ THEM ALL!

Extract the Enriched Alloy

Extract the Redstone from the top right box

Click the 'Dump' key.
    This will remove ALL redstone from the left vertical power bar.

However you want to create osmium dust
    This can be done with a crusher or whatever    

However you want to create gold dust
    This can be done with a crusher or whatever    

Create 9 Speed Upgrades
                Glass
                Block
    Enriched    Osmium  Enriched
    Alloy       Dust    Alloy
                Glass
                Block

One by one right click the speed upgrades and drag them to the top right upgrade area.
    You probably will have to type xxx in the NEI input to clear the massive menu.
    Tjis is a pain as sometimes the right-click-hold fails.
    Persevere.
    Do all nine.

Create 9 Energy Upgrades
                Glass
                Block
    Enriched    Gold    Enriched
    Alloy       Dust    Alloy
                Glass
                Block

One by one right click the energy upgrades and drag them to the top right upgrade area.
    You probably will have to type xxx in the NEI input to clear the massive menu.
    Tjis is a pain as sometimes the right-click-hold fails.
    Persevere.
    Do all nine.

Now create encriched iron.
    Top left purple <= coal or charcoal
    Left red <= iron ingot
    Top right green <= Red Stone
    Blue output => enriched iron

Now create steel dust
    Top left purple <= coal or charcoal
    Left red <= Enriched Iron
    Top Right Green <= Red Stone
    Blue output => Steel dust

Place steel dust in furnace to smelt Steel Ingots.

Gradually building up my Minecraft, Mekanism, JABBA, and YogsCast videos on YouTube

Yeah. Yeah.
I'm now officially a YouTuber...
It's actually kinda a lot of fun.
Plus...
I get to hear what I sound like for real.

Scary...


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKqnDY-A2QkgxxN6Z5bjmNQ


Hope you like them.

Hmm. How the hell do I make money from this?
Anyone?
Just me?
Uthgar?
No?

Ok. As of today I'm a MineCraft YouTuber! Mekanism, ProjectRed, JABBA etc YogsCastComplete

Soooo....
Yeah...
Had a go.
Few false starts with SoundFlower on Mavericks, but it worked in the end.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E30lOC6Ta80&index=2&list=UUKqnDY-A2QkgxxN6Z5bjmNQ
For the first instalment.

Hmm. How many people would be interested in minecraft cheat sheets for Mekanism, ProjectRed, JABBA etc?

I've been a avid fan of Minecraft for some time.
I tend to always "build" in survival mode.
And since I'm just shy of 60 I tend to forget the recipes and have to sit there running back and forth between a tool station and chests as I use the '?' button to remember what I need to make stuff.
So in sheer frustration I created a series of A3 PDFs of various components I use regularly, printed them out and stuck them to my wall.
Then I could just glance sideways and know what I needed.

Because I may be over-stepping copyright boundaries and what not, I decided to contact the authors of the various mods to see if they would be amicable to having me make these available outside of their 'official' wikis.

No response.

Hmm. Ok. It's only been a coupla days... So I thought I'd ask my readers if they would be interested in giving feed back that I could use to bolster support.

So you're not left hanging as to what these sheets look like here are some partials I took:

So... Any bites? I'll gather results and pass them on to the authors of the ModPacks and see if I can get these out there...

Your call...

Ta muchly
Kimbo

Minecraft - Sieve Automation

You have a mouse.
It has a right boo-ton. Yes. That's how you pronounce it...
Not 'T-u-n', but 't-o-n'.
Booo-Ton.
(Watch YogsCast on YouTube for how you pronounce stuff. Like Bah-bee not Bay-Bee)
Anyway.
Rant over.

So to avoid RSI of one of your fingers...
Get your sieve.
Fill your inventory with Earth or Gravel or what the frick ever.
Carefully right click to start the process.
And then gently place a reasonably heavy object in the same spot your RSI addled finger was.
I use an iPad cover.
Then you can safely sit back and watch shattered ores, seeds or what-the-frick-ever fill your inventory.
While you sip (or gulp) at your favorite beverage.
(Mine's bourbon).
So PLEASE stop searching for some mechanistic approach and go back to basics.
You have a mouse.
It has a right boo-ton.
You have a heavy object.
You have a glass of your favorite beverage.
Thimk.
Thimk.
Do... There is no try. There is only Dig or No-Dig.

People wear hats in Peru! Because: Aliens!

Re-Watched Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Daniken for the first time in years.
(Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_the_Gods)
I first watched it in 1971 (I think) when he was touring the world showing it in school/church halls.

ROTFL.

Can't believe I ever took this seriously.

The process is something like this:

"People in Peru wear hats. Here are pictures of statues on Easter island. The hats are strikingly similar."

"Huge stone blocks! Pyramids! Thousands of tons!"

And so on.

It's never explicitly stated but the underlying message that should be added to every sentence is:

BECAUSE: ALIENS!

Sorry.
Nope.
The past is human and when this kind of bollocks is produced and distributed it demeans the achievements of our ancestors.

Here is a table:

+---------------------------+----------+
| Question:                 | Because: |
+--------------------------------------+
| Vimyana?                  | Aliens!  |
| Ark of the covenant?      | Aliens!  |
| Wall paintings of people? | Aliens!  |
| Ezekiel?                  | Aliens!  |
| Hats?                     | Aliens!  |
| Maths?                    | Aliens!  |
| Legs?                     | Aliens!  |
| Brains?                   | Aliens!  |
| iPhone?                   | Aliens!  |
| Democrats?                | Aliens!  |
| Republicans?              | Aliens!  |
| Sean Hannity?             | Aliens!  |
| Putin?                    | Aliens!  |
| Glenn Beck?               | Aliens!  |
| Obama?                    | Aliens!  |
| Taxes?                    | Aliens!  |
| Big Foot?                 | Aliens!  |
+---------------------------+----------+

Depressingly familiar, no?

And just for the heck of it, go to http://aeon.co/magazine/ and read some of the articles.
I was particularly entranced with:

http://aeon.co/magazine/world-views/beauty-is-truth-theres-a-false-equation/

And:

http://aeon.co/magazine/world-views/logic-of-buddhist-philosophy/

As it has a lot to do with:

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/05/programming-sucks-why-a-job-in-coding-is-absolute-hell/

Because I'm a developer and *KNOW* the web consists of chicken wire and chewing gum.
We're all doomed.

Because: Aliens!

Was capitalism cancelled without me being informed? Ah rats. I'm a dummy...

Got up this morning at the usual time (around 6am), showered, dressed, grabbed a cup of coffee, took my medication all in my usual morning daze.

Then got in the car and went down the driveway.

As I prepared to turn onto the road I noticed that the apartment construction site just down the road was deserted.

"Odd," I thought, but drove on with my head filled with plans for the day.

As I drove onto the main road that led to where I work, I noticed a distinct lack of vehicles. Bugger all in fact.

"Odd," I thought, but drove on with my head filled with plans for the day.

I passed a shopping centre and noticed the car park was empty.

"Odd," I thought, but drove on with my head filled with plans for the day.

I got to work and drove into the public car park staff area.
No cars. None. Nil. Zip. Nada.

"Odd," I thought, but got out, locked the car and went to the elevators with my head filled with plans for the day.

Got to the ground floor and out into the mall.

Normally bustling with activity at 7am, but now deserted.

Wait. Was capitalism cancelled? Had some massive disaster occurred that I knew nothing about? Was it the second coming? Hoping not on all counts, I walked to the entrance.

Then I saw a sign saying that there were Anzac Day services across the road.
I live in Australia.
Anzac Day commemorates the landing of Australian forces at Gallipoli during world war 1.
It's a public holiday.

Doh! I'm a dummy.

So I turned around, went back to the car and drove home feeling foolish.
And annoyed because I had a shit-ton of work I wanted to do at work today.

Avalanche Sharks!

"Avalanche Sharks". Oh lord it is so bad. I need to wash my eyeballs with bleach. A pineapple enema would be better. Is this Ebola? Or am I just bleeding from my eyes in shock? Demon sharks in snow? Wait. What? And what's with that dog? They've tasted human flesh! Oh why, oh why do I watch these movies? Because they are soooooo bad. That music? Dum Dum Dum! That's actually Dumb Dumb Dumb! Teenagers. Spring break. Guns. Avalanches. Sharks. Ancient Indian Burial Ground Sharks. That haven't eaten for 25 years! What could possibly go wrong? "They love people meat" Apparently. And leap into spas full of spring break teenagers. And burst out of the ground to eat guys proclaiming love. What's next? Tree sharks! Swinging from tree to tree! Great sharks! In british columbia! With their girl by their side! And they'll sing! Sing! "I'm a lumber shark and I'm ok! I sleep all night and I eat teenagers all day!" I swear some of these lumber sharks are Canadian! I would swear i heard one lumber shark say"sorry" as it ate some one. Spoiler alert! Some random Japenese tourist straightens some bent sticks! And. And. Lumber sharks vanish! Next in this gripping shark fest: "They thought they were safe on the space station..." Monkey Space Bread Shark! From the people who brought you"Killer Croissants" and "Blood Soaked Baguettes"! Bread Sharks! High gluten terror! "This time... The bread slices you!" You know... Seriously... SciFi would probably make that movie. Er... I'd watch it... And while I'm on a ridiculous point, I've figured out why SciFi produces these appallingly bad movies. To stop an alien invasion. "Wait. What?" I hear you say. Well think about it. Our movie broadcasts are being picked up from civilisations out there. And to be sure their unaminous conclusion has to be: "Land there?! You're joking right? Have you seen the sharks? They're fucking everywhere. They fucking fly for GondFlangle's sake! No fucking way am I exposing my crew to that place.You can't conduct a proper anal probe if you aren't sure there aren't such things as ass-sharks! It'd be be Butts, Blood and Gore all over the medical bay"
What's next? Ben has some ideas... ArachnoShark! Swim into my web of terror! The eight finned freak of nature! Eight mouths! Eight Eyes! Eight stomachs! Eight fins! Eight... Eight... Oh... Whatever

I'm 57. I'm not old.

To anyone who hasn't had a Pythonesque upbringing...
Well...
You missed out.
Sorry.
Better hit the 'back' button because you're unlikely to get any references from here on in.

Now.
Where was I?
Oh yeah.
57.
I'm not fucking old!

Old is when you accrete cats.
One that pisses everywhere and is called Samson not because he's strong but because he has long hair.
And he's a she.
And one that refuses to be petted and shits in your shoes.
"Those" kind of cats.

And you have one of those ride on carts.
With "Go Faster" stripes.
And aerials.
And a stick so you can poke young people and say: "Get a job! Cut you hair! Marry a cousin!"
Maybe not the latter although Pat Robertson may disagree.

Wait.
What?
Where was I?

Oh!
Yeah.
Being old.
No.
No. Fucking. No. .COM.
Not old.com.
"Experienced"
experienced.com.

"Experienced" My Fucking Phhhbbbttt.

I just survived.

Survived the cold war. Fucking nutters.
Survived hippies. Fucking nutters.
Survived Ayn Rand. Fucking nutters.
Survived fucking tons of crap...
Well..
Get off my lawn!

Served.

Anyway.
Where was I?

Oh Yes.
Minecraft.

Getting a tad annoyed.
Seems like I spend time building spectacular... Wait.. Adequate.. Wait... Shit... Apartments...
For testificates.
They swan around.
They are ignoring the Tom Clark Memorial Mega Tower (Thanks Sips) I spent fucking ages building.
And they... Well... They're "young".
And they expect me.... Me... To provide them with a Mega Tower.
With shopping malls.
And the MC equavalent of FCUK.
Wait.
What?

I'm the geriatric.
They're folding their arms and acting like it's expected.
Screw them.

I'm the geriatric.
So screw minecraft.
I'm following Sips lead and trying "Banished"!

Oh.
Oh Crap.
Banished needs Windoze.
Oh crap.
Bugger.

Bloody young whipper snappers.
What the hell is a snapper anyway and why would it whip?

Wait.
What?
Is it someones birthday?

Frickin Chocobos - Tennis elbow generators

Ok. We have a Hexxit server.
So one day my other half suggests I breed chocobos.
"Why yes," I say, "That sounds like a good idea."

WTF was I thinking?

I managed to scrounge up a few yellow choco-bastards and corralled them as best I could.
Grew acres and acres of frickin Gysahl Greens.
Then off to the pens.
Right-Click, Right-Click, frickin-right, frickin-click.

I am so SICK to the back teeth of right clicking.
And the incessant "Wiperoo" sound they make.
Aaaaaaah. Frickin Aaaaaaaah!
I'm going nutso-bong!

So after many, many hours of right clicking I get a few Greens and Blues.
And after many, many hours of chasing the mad, flighty bird-bugger-it-i'll-kill-them-alls around I manage to get 3 whites ones.

And... Wait for it... They're all FUCKING female.

Now I want to share something.
Something dark.
Very dark.
And I *KNOW* dark.
I want to imagine you've been breeding these frickin noisy flighty birds for ages.
And you try once again to breed a white one.
And you get yet another frickin baby Blue or Green.
And you snap.
Snap.
Snap deeply and profoundly.
"Crack goes the mind boys, crack, crack, crack."
And you chase that frickin little choco-kid-bastard around with a steel sword until you get it.
And you retreat from the awful, hateful, awful, incessant "Wiperoo" sounds to the safety of your house.
Burdened down by frickin blocks of frickin feathers.
WHAT THE FRICKIN USE ARE THE FRICKIN FEATHERS?
I HAVE FRICKIN CHESTS FULL OF THE STUPID THINGS.

Anyway, calming down now.
Deep breaths.
Chests with 12 by 64 blocks of choco-drum-sticks.
Cooked.
Cooked child chocobo-drum-sticks.
Nom.
Nom Nom.
Nom-frickin-child-chocobo-drum-sticks.

Oh the choco-bird-ity of it all.

Then!
Then!
Then your spouse announces that he's been to the Nether and managed to coax three PURPLE chochobos back.
And crows over his achievement!
Oh.
And he has equipped them with saddles.
And...
And...
I just remember being up to my arm pits in chocobo-chicks with a steel sword.

I FRICKIN HATE chocobos.

And I have tennis elbow.
In the real world.
Frack it.

I'm off to dig a hole.

Update! My other half took some umbrage at the above. He suggested that his effort to bring back Purple ones from the nether was a Herculean task and he should be lauded. I did that female thing of staring at him in a 'pointed', 'dagger' like manner. He suggested that I open a Kentucky Fried Chocobo Stand. I demurred. Meh.

Ruby: Class loading/unloading example

Recently I had the unfortunate task of writing specs to test a singleton.
Why would that be a chore I hear you ask?
Because the singleton in question had several configuration options.
Most of which were file based.
So out of the ~60 specs, 50 of them were for error conditions.
(File missing, folder not readable, not JSON, JSON but with invalid stanzas etc)

The problem was that each test had to start with a clean slate.
The singleton class must be pristine and new each run.
How the hell do you do that?

Unload the class, then reload it.

I fiddled about quite a bit with this, so I've put together a simple project that illustrates how this is done.

The bottom line is that you have to send :remove_const and the class name to the module or whatever your class is defined in.

For example, say a class is defined in a file skavee_bloopsie.rb thus:

module Skavee
  class Bloopsie
  end
end

Then this is what you run to unload and reload it:

Skavee.send(:remove_const, :Bloopsie)

This works at any depth of modules:

module A
  module B
    module C
      class Z
        def ohai
          'ohai!'
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

A::B::C.send(:remove_const, :Z)

You can test this yourself by copying and pasting this into irb:

module A
  module B
    module C
      class Z
        def ohai
          'ohai!'
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

a = A::B::C::Z.new
 => #<A::B::C::Z:0x007fc78c9b1dc8>

puts a.ohai
 => "ohai!"

A::B::C.send(:remove_const, :Z)
 => A::B::C::Z

b = A::B::C::Z.new
 => NameError: uninitialized constant A::B::C::Z

And here's the Gotcha!

a.ohai
 => "ohai!"

Wha? Well it's obvious. The instance is still being referenced.

So be careful out there people.

An example gem is available via my repo at https://github.com/ZenGirl/ruby-class-unloading