Sunday Board Games Club - Kingdom Builder and Cosmic Encounter

I originally planned to play Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island with Chris, who was one of my raucous Talisman players last time, but it was over subscribed. Instead, we sat down to a game of Kingdom Builder from the German publisher, Queen Games, who make Lancaster that I rather liked:

Not bad, and really easy to learn. It's a bit like the old Chinese game Go, but you score points rather than capture territory from each other.

After that we had a go at Cosmic Encounter, from Fantasy Flight:

The rules took a bit of getting used to, but it was good fun. It's a sort of duel game, capturing each others planets until one player captures five and then the game ends. You get various advantages playing different races.

Questionnaire

I found the video for one of my favourite songs on Youtube, Chaz Jankel's Questionnaire:



This is all before CGI, so all the animations have been hand-drawn. Impressive even now.

Base64 Encoding

Although not strictly speaking a cipher (there's no encryption key), Base64 Encoding is important because it allows binary information to be transmitted as text, and so is frequently part of Internet protocols, notably MIME for e-mail. If you look at, say, an MP3 file in a hex editor, you can see the binary, represented in Hex (base 16):

What happens is that the binary data is broken up into from 8-bit bytes into 6-bit segments. These are then replaced by ASCII characters. In the following, the start of the second line in the above example is encoded.

Decimal	57								55								32								72								101								97
Hex (base 16)	39								37								20								48								65								61
Binary	0	0	1	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1
Index	14						19						28						32						18						6						21						33
Base64 Encoded	O						T						c						g						S						G						V						h

You can end up with a file looking something like this:

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (MingW32)

lLtwfrsSgnpfUzopSdKcJjAfA1KE6SFTASBoH8JpnXV4AMrmMJVteTpeXr2nftHq
N8BUidauDqNvhKLADWWm5VhvnD7pkbNUv9nshW3SBT3jtmM/xxB3dNxeIfmSc78T
Z5jlEAjHVpS36KJNZSX+tn4fh8TDiTaw/yFOPxdZmwRXdN+fxAvao0/qq+dfsLQw
U5ELc/RavLf01iYwUrrdu97DUJwoLJIh/rxk2hdjgLY8cZRRexmGugb/tvojbq2L
EdOwa4d1gvDX/DYkYeOC4cCiACqwtTIk8IF+aqfrQ9BN2aVD0iuwm0QKqLsRNgxp
YMjtmF9T3UDmotfVsCNxx/HEaGwhU16VP+td9auMTVD124iQkeGFZfNMNynaeizp
bfRe5+OrzmyKVV/evQVlrHXag3RpG4UQx8yed/R+Ed7opd9KZgKT
=76xn
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----


Oxfam Tuesday - Comics Bonanza

Asked to do a turn at the shop, I got to do upstairs (yay!) after the affable Lee ("I've only opened the till three times this morning!"). I managed to play a few tunes, including one of my favourite albums by Jim White, Transnormal Skipperoo:



We've also had a huge donation of good quality comic books, both issues and collected trade paperbacks, which I was asked to sort and price. Whoever it was had quite an eclectic taste. There was a significant amount of the usual X-Men, Spider Man and Daredevil type-stuff, but a rather large number of independents. One which caught my eye was Stray Bullets by David Lapham:

Obviously a crime comic of some kind, it's self-published. Also there was my favourite, Queen and Country and also some issues of Mouse Guard as well as Lone Wolf and Cub. Also amongst the Manga (Elfquest mostly) was Neotopia, which I thought was rather charming, and I don't usually like Manga!

Mark's asked me to do a comic book window for the shop next week so I'm looking forward to doing that over the half-term.

Chicago Fire

Much more up my street is this from the same people that produce Law and Order:



It seems similar to Third Watch, about ten years ago, which was an offshoot of E.R.. There was also Trauma a few years back as well, which I thought was quite good, but was cancelled after one season:



Hopefully, the same fate doesn't await Chicago Fire.

Update: Looks like Sky is advertising the show.

Beauty and the Beast

Do you ever wonder what happened to Kristin Kreuk? Y'know, Lana Lang, Superman's crush in Smallville. No? Me neither, although she did pop up as a love interest on Chuck a while back. Turns out someone has revamped the old 80's series, Beauty and the Beast:



Although a fine actress, and very beautiful in that small, dark way, I can't see her as a tough, hard-bitten New York detective somehow. Still, some people might watch it out of nostalgia for the old series and it might turn out to be quite good.

The Road To Wigan Pier Revisited

While shopping for a birthday present the other day, I came across an intriguing new book:

In it the author has retraced the steps George Orwell took back in 1936 to examine poverty in Britain in 2010. He also gave an interview to RSA which is on Youtube:



With things this screwed up, is it any wonder people are marching.

Protest and Survive, Part 2 - The Big March

Today was the day of the big anti-austerity march in London. I'd agreed to meet up with the delightful Mr. Glitz and his fiance Toni, but saying something is always easier than doing something. Not only were there scheduled maintenance works for the District line between Upminster and Barking, but C2C had joined in as well. This meant that I had to catch the train to Grays via Ockenden and then catch the Rainham loop train into Fenchurch Street. K.T. texted me to ask where I was and I texted back my situation and impressed upon him not to wait. Luckily, he was with others on the march.

I finally got onto the Embankment between Blackfriars and Waterloo Bridge and walked towards the front, keeping my eyes peeled. It was a HUGE march with thousands of union members, public sector and others.

Everyone was there, mostly Unison (Britain's biggest)

and Unite, but also FBU (Fire Brigade Union),

Prospect (professional engineers, managers, etc.), BFAWU (food preparation and retail), USDAW (shop workers), CWU (communications),

NUT, NASUWT and UCU (teachers and University lecturers), as well as ASLEF, TSSA and RMT, representing the transport industry. Even Equity turned up. There were also "representative associations" there as well, unions in all but name, such as the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives.

And no union march would be complete without a brass band:

My eye was caught by some colourful banners:

and some large carnival-style balloons:

But it was a little girl and her home-made placard which seemed to capture the spirit of the occasion:

Say it like it is, kid.

I finally caught up with K.T. and Toni in Hyde Park, but the day had exhausted me (I'm getting unfit now I'm in the car all the time), plus I had promised to meet some friends for a birthday drink that afternoon, so I didn't tarry long.

As a coda, my friends in the pub talked about the demo. One said that he would be more than willing to accept cuts in public services. The other asked, "Even the Fire Brigade?". "Yes," he said. "Even if it meant your house burning down with you in it because there's not enough firemen?", the other persisted. He hesitated a little and then said "Yep, even then!" Some people are just that stubborn!

Protest and Survive - The Peasants are Revolting!

Tomorrow there will be a demonstration in London that I will be attending. This is the anti-austerity demonstration organised by the TUC against the cuts in public spending which will impact on the most vulnerable members of our society. Obviously some people don't agree with the aims of the protest, and that's fine, because the cuts probably don't affect them anyway. It doesn't really affect me either, but the reason I'm joining the protest is that I'm heartily sick of the idea that when times are tough the people who are affected the worst are the people on the bottom rung. Why them all the time? Why not people on the top rung? It's not as if they can't afford it nor will they miss the money.

Power to the People!

Support Your Local Sheriff!

I got one of those voting cards the other day, the ones that tell you it's time to vote in the local or general elections and where your polling station is. I was a bit baffled as the local elections were about a year or so ago, and the general one's not for ages.

It's to vote for the Police and Crime Commissioner of Essex. Seriously! Check out the web site.

If it was James Garner and Jack Elam, I'd vote for 'em.



Update: Nah, it's just some kind of oversight/public liason thing. Still, a vote's a vote!

C Test - Part 2

...and I got 49.5.

Out of 52, which makes it 95.something percent, the highest mark I've ever got for anything, ever! So the SCJP wasn't a complete waste of time.

As an aside, the Pragmatic Programmer has been published, after a few years in eBook development hell:

A minor classic, I'm currently enjoying reading it.

Squeeze - Take Me I'm Yours

A thousand lifetimes ago, when I was in the sixth-form at school, we had a record player (for those under 30, that's a combined turntable and amplifier). We had one 7" single for the whole school, and this was Squeeze's "Take me I'm Yours", the words we knew by heart. (I think it was broken by one of the girls who got sick of us singing it).



A couple of years later, I bought the album "Singles 45 and Under", and discovered the scope of Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford's abilities and genius. They wrote good pop songs about real life. I've always liked "Cool for Cats" especially.



(In amongst some naughty bits of Kenny Everett: we used to dress just like that back then!!)

The BBC have done a documentary on the band and what a jolly wheeze it is too, full of the old favourites, although you can tell they weren't as much fun after Jools left.

The Laws of Software Design

The technical publishers O'Reilly had a special offer on digital books this week, so I indulged and bought one of the cheaper ones, Code Simplicity by Max Kanat-Alexander.

It's actually a book on the importance of software design and in it he defines the Laws of Software Design as follows:

1. The Law of Purpose: The purpose of software is to help people.
2. The Law of Change: The longer your program exists, the more probable it is that any piece of it will have to change.
3. The Law of Defect Probability: The chance of introducing a defect into your program is proportional to the size of the changes you make to it.
4. The Law of Simplicity: The ease of maintenance of any piece of software is proportional to the simplicity of its individual pieces.
5. The Law of Testing: The degree to which you know how your software behaves is the degree to which you have accurately tested it.

There's also a nice little formula which he calls The Equation of Software Design. This is:

D =	(Vn + Vf)
	———————
	(Ei + Em)

Where:

D	The desirability of the change;
Vn	The current value of the change to be implemented;
Vf	The value of the change in the future;
Ei	The cost (effort) to implement the change;
Em	The maintenance cost of the change (future effort).

(The formula has changed on his web site).

Now I admit that this is all a bit pseudo-scientific. The idea that there are actual laws in software development, what you can and cannot do, has always been a bit ludicrous. There are known good practises and I think this is what he really means by Laws, but an important factor that seems to be missing is the human one (software, like Soylent Green, is people) but the book seems to have it's heart in the right place and is worth a read if only to see how much you disagree with him.

Nevada Smith

It's not often I come across a Steve McQueen film that I haven't seen, but I saw one called Nevada Smith the other day while channel hopping:



Seeking revenge for the murder of his parents, Max Sand tracks the killers down, finally confronting the last, played by Karl Malden, before sparing him and riding away.

It's not a bad film, although calling it a classic is a bit strong, but it has a fine supporting cast and McQueen was a good enough actor to show how Sand/Smith ages throughout the film.

C Test

I have my first assessment test today on the C programming language. ("You're wearing a nice pair of brown trousers, Mr Lemon!!").

Also, the K&R book, The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, is available next month from Pearson in eBook formats. A classic!

Oooo, here's a little puzzle for those of you who are C/C++/C#/Java developers. What's the output of the following:

int x = 10;
int y = 10;

printf("The value of x is %d and x++ is %d\n", x, x++);
printf("but the value of y is %d and ++y is %d\n", y, ++y);

Update: Got bowled a few fast ones but managed to field them quite well (I think!)

The Three Musketeers

Last night, while playing FTL, which I've become mildly addicted to as a distraction from Torchlight 2, I sort of half-watched The Three Musketeers, which was released to no fanfare at all last year.



It's about as far away from the Dumas classic as you can get, a bit Baron Münchhausen really, but everyone seems to be having a great time, and it's worth watching as an instant on LoveFilm, as I did. The bad reviews slag it as not being what Dumas intended, but I think he would have loved it! This was the time of Jules Verne and writers were not as snobby as they seem to be now: if he could have got away with having airships in his books, he would have done it. A not half-bad pizza movie.

Hurricane Fish - 25th Anniversary

Was it really that long ago?

I remember the night itself pretty vividly. I was awoken about 2-ish to a loud banging sound coming from the bathroom. The window latch, which was only a thin strip of metal, had sheered and the window was flapping about. Amazingly, the window hadn't shattered and I managed to seal the whole thing down with insulation tape. The other windows in the flat were all slide windows and so were unaffected. The only other thing about that night was the sound coming from the stairwell. The wind was howling and it was the most disturbing thing I'd ever heard, a keening, moaning sound no human or animal voice could ever make.

The morning after, I tried to cycle into work, but there was devastation all over. One grove of trees (which still show the marks to this day) had the top sheered off as if by a giant's hand.

To Live and Die in L.A. and Mo' Better Blues

Using my subscription to LoveFilm, I watched two movies starring John Turturro.

The first was To Live and Die in L.A., all about a counterfeiter (Willem Dafoe) and the two Secret Service agents (William Petersen, from CSI, and John Pankow) trying to catch him.



Boy has it aged. Very much an 80's film, a bit over-long, and the music is teeth-wateringly embarrassing. It has a magnificent, over the top car chase, driving the wrong way down the freeway.



The second film is Mo' Better Blues, a Spike Lee film with some really cool jazz.



Trumpet player Bleek (Denzel Washington) has to sort out his complicated life and his band, including saxophone player Shadow Hendersen (Wesley Snipes. That's right, Wesley Snipes plays a saxophone player!). It's not a bad film, mellow. Like the jazz!

Codes and Ciphers - Playfair

While looking at something else, I was reminded of a cipher invented by Charles Wheatstone called Playfair. It works on pairs of letters, again using a letter grid. Taking the grid we had before:

Z	T	N	L	5	F
E	4	K	M	S	Y
X	R	9	J	3	D
C	2	I	8	Q	W
V	P	7	H	1	B
A	0	G	6	O	U

We then take a message and split it into two letter groups, so "Send 3 and 4 pence" comes out as "SE ND 3A ND 4P EN CE". If you then look up the letter pairs in the grid, they form the corners of a rectangle. "ND" form a rectangle with "F9" (same row order). "SE" are on the same line, so you select whatever is to the right, in this case "Y4". Similarly, "4P" are in the same column, so we select the next row down, "R0". Continue and we end up with "Y4 F9 XO F9 R0 KZ VX". The letters are wrapped, so "WC" comes out as "C2". Double letters, like "PP" have the second letter as "X", so "PX" comes out as "VR". This makes the decryption look a bit odd, but if you know "X" stands for the duplicate, it's obvious. You're unlikely to get "XX". Have a go at this:

M1

6Z

N8

QA

4H

0X

4Z

VM

4Z

U0

YO

EJ

4X

Y3

UE

LP

UA

0X

L4

03

MZ

A1

MZ

EU

F9

S6

X4

Z4

4H

4X

0Z

XC

30

A6

B8

7K

3Y

3U

M1

GE

4Z

VM

XU

JT

7K

U7

FW

35

LY

UE

GZ

3Y

6Y

S4

34

ZM

OE

MV

0Z

V6

ZJ

50

53

16

24

UX

0Z

XC

(I've padded some lines out to even letters with an "X")

The advantage of this over other, simpler, substitution ciphers is that the normal frequency analysis (counting the amount of times a letter occurs) doesn't work as well as there are 36*35 letter pairs, rather than just 36. A weakness is that pairs can be the reverse: "BR" comes out as "PD", but "RB" comes out as "DP", a property which can be exploited by a cryptanalyst who knows that this cipher is being used.

Playfair wasn't particularly secure, but then it wasn't meant to be. It had to last just long enough for the information to be effective: by the time the enemy had broken the code, it was already too late! For this reason, it's sometimes known as a tactical cipher.

Tom and Dick

'Tis the season to be ill. I managed to survive most of the week, but in the end it got to me too.

As an antidote, here's a video of lots of young people running about and having fun: