Brief little update. I've been hammering away at the DH chargen, and it's nearly complete. My task now is taking all the info the users have selected and presenting it to them in a variety of easily-printable formats. The best-case scenario would be an actual character sheet, though printing to an image file may be difficult and I don't believe using a premade sheet will really do the trick. I may be able to alter one of the official sheets, but we'll see on that. If anyone has specific recommendations or desired formats, please let me know.
I expect to have it finished either tonight or tomorrow night, depending on how much extra crap I find myself needing to do. My favorite part, namely the little character summary of all the things you've chosen (including optional extras like mementos, family history, etc.) hasn't even been touched yet, and I'm not sure how long that will take me, but everything else is pretty much completed. I also need to do general error-checking (to help prevent players from missing a selection or section on the chargen) and make sure all the mechanics are functioning, but at this time you should be able to use the character builder right now and see all the little numbers add up, including bonuses from starting packages from the Inquisitor's Handbook and the like.
As always you can view the Dark Heresy Character Generator here.
So, uh. Remember, boys and girls, when replacing a processor fan, be absolutely, positively certain of what processor socket you're buying before you buy it. Also, be absolutely, positively sure that if you happen to buy the wrong part, you don't accidentally snap the bracket for the old processor heatsink, leaving you with a useless corpseputer.
Yeah. I kinda fucked up the old server machine. A replacement heatsink is $25, and I can't really return the old one ($13 fan, $9 to ship it back plu $2 restocking fee...); money isn't an issue, but I have, in the meantime, found a replacement machine to use in its stead. It's a little toaster Shuttle case, 1.7GHz Sempron, 1GB RAM; cute, probably uses less power. It runs pretty hot, but unlike the previous machine the processor isn't spiking crazily and the thing (despite its physical apparent heat) has an internal temperature of 55C which never moves up or down. It also runs far, far smoother than the older machine; despite the slower processor and less RAM, it seems to fly. I'm going to try it for a few days and if it crashes, too, or just seems to not work out, I'll order the new heatsink for the old machine.
In other news, I'm doing a lot of work on the DH chargen tonight; thanks to my brother, SniperGuyy, a lot of the time-consuming data entry has been done, so I can copy and paste into the chargen with ease. I don't think I'll have it 100% completed tonight, but it'll be damn near ready.
... still worried about the heat this thing throws off... I wonder what the max core temperature a Sempron takes...? Oh shit, this thing goes up to 90C according to some sites. The Celeron taps out at 74C according to Intel. The Sempron seems to be keeping the CPU usage down to a mere 1-3% instead of 5-10% with random giant spikes. Maybe I've got my new server right here...
God, I've been so busy these past couple days. First things first, I suppose: We now have a TF2 server, which can be reached at xen.thisisnotatrueending.com:27015. It hasn't seen much in the way of special configurations yet, but more will come, don't worry. Jump in and enjoy.
Second, there is now a sup/tg/ Radio by way of SHOUTcast. You can access the stream in your favorite media player of choice at http://xen.thisisnotatrueending.com:8000/ or http://xen.thisisnotatrueending.com:8000/listen.pls. For an embedded Windows Media Player page, try http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/shoutcast.html. You can also listen to sup/tg/ Radio in the TF2 server by typing !radio into chat (!noradio to turn it off again). There are a number of DJs that have been trying their hand at musican gaems, so who knows what it'll be playing at any given time.
Lastly, I feel like a bit of a butt for not doing more than cursory additions to the Dark Heresy character generator over the past week. Originally, the week of vacation had been slotted for getting the Xen server stuff up and running, with DH as th secondary project after that; however, due to incessant hammering on my house during my prime REM cycles (I get to bed between 4am and 6am, they start hammering at 8am), and delayed start on the Xen, I really got... nothing done on the DH chargen that I'd originally planned.
So, tomorrow, err, today, Monday, my last day of vacation, I shall dedicate to completing (or at least getting as far as I can) the DH chargen 2.0. There will be a bit more to add after the next iteration, but my last items will be the "flavor" (name, eye color, weight, etc.; family generation; extras from the DH site) and starting background packages from IH. I've also enlisted my little brother to help with the mostly-data-entry-intensive step. This will be followed by a text printable character sheet, then MySQL database (which I neglected to do originally but did for the WHFRP), then finally I'm going to try and get it to print onto a charsheet image. 2.5 or 3.0 will likely hold the ability to add promotions and do the calculations for you.
As a kind of addendum and note to self, I'm also going to be replacing the fans tomorrow, provided they've shipped and arrived (they should have been in on Saturday). I'm sick of the server constantly dying of heat after the processor spikes for whatever reason. It's pretty annoying for everyone and hopefully the new fan will fix this. I can't promise the problems will cease, but the fans should at least allevitae the issue considerably. I hope. It had better, anyway.
Why do I do this to myself? I know full well that this could all wait until the following day, but I stay up until six fuckin' o'clock anyway messing with it.
So, I could have worked on the DH chargen today, but instead it was brought to my attention that, yes, in fact, I now have access to the Xen servers in Chicago as opposed to the internal closed company beta servers (read: in the office on the floor in a closet). To celebrate, I've set up both Team Fortress 2 and Battlegrounds 2, a HL2 Revolutionary War mod. Battlegrounds is crazy fun, considering you've got a rifle that takes seven seconds to reload and you're bayoneting people in the face the rest of the time. Both servers will have Mani's Admin Plugin and Metamod, but that can actually wait for tomorrow.
In other news, I'm probably going to die an early death and become some kind of case study for long-term sleep deprivation. Oh, you mean about sup/tg/? Right, right. I'm not moving the site over, and I don't know if I ever will (it's still a "beta" and this could all vanish at any time), but I do know that I'm going to find a way to create a redundant IRC somehow using the Xen stuff. That way if one server goes down the other will be available. The only site stuff I may move over would likely be the DH character generator when it's finished, and then it'll just be a redundant page (so the DH will remain even if the rest of sup/tg/ keels over when my home server an heros again).
Speaking of which, the fans should be here tomorrow. The server's been behaving but the sooner I get that new fan in, the better. Well, my energy's run out so I'm going to go to bed now, everything else can wait until tomorrow.
fffftired
Quick notes. I've added a few more bits and pieces to the DH chargen, such as Wealth and starting insanity. I laid more groundwork for more features tomorrow, but I mostly need to check myself and ensure everything's working as it should up to this point. I will then add the starting packages and get to work on the data-entry-heavy background generation.
The Xen server has a TF2 server running at the moment, though I don't know how long it will be available or how well it will work. For now you can reach it at xen.thisisnotatrueending.com:53 by adding the server manually in Steam. Enjoy, let me know if it fucks up or if it works great or whatever.
Also Ruler is going away to Anthrocon Anime Evolution for a few days, so anyone that might be there should find him and make him feel awkward and uncomfortable! Here is a picture of him for reference:
Have fun at your con, Ruler! We'll miss yoooou~
So, I think I've finally, positively identified heat as the problem with the server. I installed a nifty little app called SpeedFan, which displays the fan speed and temperature gauges. After startup, the computer's temperature seemed steady at 48C, and crept slowly up to 50-52C, whereupon the icon changed to a fiery warning icon. It seems to be mostly stable somewhere in the low fifties, but every so often some process on the server spikes the CPU usage to 100%. This spike directly results in the CPU temperature jumping another four to eight degrees.
If the server manages to survive this spike, however brief, the machine remains running. If the failsafe mechanism kicks in, the server shuts off to preserve the CPU integrity. Basically, the computer runs uncommonly hot just as its usual state of being; when it's under heavy load, for reasons I cannot yet divine, it skirts dangerously close to (and then over) the failsafe limit.
So, as of right nowish, I'm heading out to go to Circuit City and pick up a new CPU fan. Something a little beefier should do the job. Right now I've got a frozen water bottle and a small fan (kinda like this) sitting next to the open case and trying to cool the thing. Yes, even with the new fan and a source of cold, the CPU is running at 53C on average. With luck, the new fan will do the trick and the server will remain standing... you know, outside of delicious Hot Pockets.
Update: Unfortunately my little trip to Circuit City, Best Buy and Radioshack was in vain. Each store had the same two or three Antec fans in stock and nothing else, and each store was more expensive than the last. So I went to Newegg and picked up not one, but three new fans for the price of one of the available brick-and-mortar items. This is the new processor heatsink I got; it should do a fine job. I think the one I have now just may be on its way out and requires replacing, and a case-installed fan should help additionally ventilate the heat away from the poor server. The machine, by the way, seems to be doing fine at a steady, slightly too-hot 52C, but as the processor tops out at 74C, this should be an okay stalemate until the parts arrive in three days.
Update the Second: For some reason the archive update script got stuck on something, caught itself in an endless loop, and jacked the CPU usage to 100%. This immediately resulted in the processor temperature jumping up to a dangerous 80C. I am considering disabling have disabled the archive update script for the next couple days to ensure the stability of sup/tg/ in general. You can still add them, and attempting to re-add a thread will update it with the current contents, but I really don't want to accidentally fuck up the computer permanently because of a script mistake on my part.
I just finished going through most of Strike the Earth! and making it look halfway decent. Instead of a bunch of boring black text on white background, I've given it a makeover similar to sup/tg/ and even added a sidebar picture. I've been thinking about doing this to sup/tg/ itself, so this is a bit of a "test run" for a new design.
Years one, two and three are now up on StE!, although as of yet no one has written an official journal (including myself), though CAPSLOCKGUY did provide this "teaser" entry to tide us over:
this one time i stuck a dildo up my ass and it shot out
like a bird with bacon in its teeth.
Exciting stuff. Also this is what DiceMaid, myself and Hugbox look like as lolis, apparently:
Good to know. I especially like DiceMaid. Thanks Minneso-tan!
In other news, I think tomorrow will be the day I dedicate to working on the Dark Heresy character generator. I really want to get it finished and promised myself I'd get it done this week. Really, all it needs to do now is spit out the user's choices into a usable format (e.g. text file, will try to make it print directly into a printable image file). I need to add a few more details for the worlds and the starting packages, but after that it should be pretty good to go. Version 3.0 (this being 2.0) will likely include the ability to add PROOOOOOOOMOTIONS to your character.
Out of fukken nowhere, the sup/tg/ succession game continues! Since Beryl derped out (the game crashed in Autumn of his year and he lost interest) and Xom apparently forgot that I told him it was his year, the game had fallen by the wayside... until Fatum came to the rescue!
Here are some overview shots of the game thus far:
Start of Year 1
End of Year 1 (a)
End of Year 2 (a)
End of Year 1 (b)
End of Year 2 (b)
It is now CAPSLOCKGUY's turn; I don't know whose turn comes after this, because everyone signed up for the turn order but nobody prompted me for it until Fatum took the initiative. If you want in on the game... well, screw the turn order; we'll have a vote or roll some dice or something when CAPSLOCKGUY ends his turn. You can find my total lack of a summary and save files for each years here. I'll write a journal at some point, I swear!
In other news, I'll be on vacation all next week. I don't have any particular plans (I will fucking eviscerate the next asshole that says staycation) so I should be around for some gaming of some kind. We've been playing a lot of Alien Swarm and UT2004 lately, so that will likely continue. I'll also take a nice chunk of that time and complete the Dark Heresy character generator.
Update: hurr wups I had a typo in the 4chan fix, THANKS A LOT ADSLASHIT. The entry was 'chan.org', which has been fixed to '4chan.org', and apparently 'www.4chan.org' was also missing from the list, which has now also been fixed below. I've also edited the HOSTS file on the server so it will continue archiving threads properly; I'd left it alone figuring it wouldn't be necessary and that 4chan itself would be back pretty quickly, but it's still down and unfortunately the archive tries to pull CSS from 4chan instead of locally (which I intend to fix at some point). This causes all archived pages to lag, timeout, then load all broken.
So it looks like Moot figured out that redirecting a perfectly good external page to a 4chan.org address only works when your domain isn't fucking broken, and thus 4chanstatus.blogspot.com actually works again (as opposed to trying to redirect visitors to status.4chan.org, which I swear it was doing earlier).
Ffff, okay, so, it looks like 4chan's down again. This time their DNS servers appear to be nonresponsive to queries, and blah blah jargon jargon flux capacitor inverse polarity discharge the ionic tacyon pulse you stopped reading at "DNS."
So, here's how you fix it, courtesy of Adslahnit's copypasta:
Go to C:/Windows/system32/drivers/etc, open up the file called "hosts" with Notepad, and Ctrl+V the following into that file:
74.125.47.121 status.4chan.org
206.220.140.2 ns1.4chan.org
216.213.88.50 ns3.4chan.org
207.126.64.165 ns2.4chan.org
207.126.64.166 4chan.org
207.126.64.166 www.4chan.org
207.126.64.167 content.4chan.org
207.126.64.168 orz.4chan.org
207.126.64.169 tmp.4chan.org
207.126.64.171 rs.4chan.org
207.126.64.172 static.4chan.org
207.126.64.176 zip.4chan.org
207.126.64.177 bin.4chan.org
207.126.64.178 dis.4chan.org
207.126.64.181 img.4chan.org
207.126.64.182 dat.4chan.org
207.126.64.186 cgi.4chan.org
207.126.64.187 nov.4chan.org
Save the hosts file, clear your browser's cache, and then try refreshing 4chan again.
It won't hurt anything if you forget to take these out once 4chan's back up, although it'll mess things up if 4chan changes IPs and these are still in there.
Update: Oh, you want details, do you? Fine then. Below is a DNS trace of what happens when someone tries to visit 4chan. The first portion shows the root servers, the second portion shows the .org servers, the third portion shows the nameservers for 4chan, and the fourth... times out.
~$ dig 4chan.org +trace ; <<>> DiG 9.3.1 <<>> 4chan.org +trace ;; global options: printcmd . 311275 IN NS J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. . 311275 IN NS G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. ;; Received 488 bytes from 216.177.15.102#53(216.177.15.102) in 1 ms org. 172800 IN NS C0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.INFO. org. 172800 IN NS D0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.org. org. 172800 IN NS TLD1.ULTRADNS.NET. org. 172800 IN NS TLD2.ULTRADNS.NET. org. 172800 IN NS A0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.INFO. org. 172800 IN NS B0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.org. ;; Received 417 bytes from 192.36.148.17#53(I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET) in 97 ms 4chan.org. 86400 IN NS ns2.4chan.org. 4chan.org. 86400 IN NS ns1.4chan.org. ;; Received 95 bytes from 204.74.113.1#53(TLD2.ULTRADNS.NET) in 20 ms ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
See that last bit? When you try to ask 4chan where it is, it hurpderps the fuck out and doesn't answer. The website is there, everything's working just fine, but you just don't know where it is. DNS is like the phone book of the internet, and someone scrubbed out all the numbers for 4chan.
The HOSTS file is a kind of override for DNS. Any entries you put into the HOSTS file will be used instead of actually going out and asking the DNS servers for information. For example, if you look in your HOSTS file, you'll see a single entry for localhost set to 127.0.0.1, which is your computer's loopback address. A useful way to stop certain kinds of phone-home DRM validations is setting their destination to 127.0.0.1 in the HOSTS file, then running a little server on your computer that returns "good" to all requests. This tricks the software into asking your own computer for validation, where your fake server validates it, and the software goes on its merry little way.
As for why 4chan isn't responding to queries... well, I have no idea, honestly. It's possible that they're getting DDoSed from another angle, but I could be wrong. Maybe their DNS servers just crapped themselves. In any event, this is why it was nice when the 4chan status was at 4chanstatus.blogspot.com, as that's external to 4chan entirely; because 4chan's DNS is down, it can't answer questions about status.4chan.org, making the whole status page thing pretty damn useless.
If I figure out more or hear more information about why the DNS servers for 4chan are both down, I'll be sure to post it here, but at the moment I can't rightly say. I can only assume DDoS based on the fact they were getting DDoSed last week. 4chan should probably look into getting some external DNS hosting that can handle an attack... and next time the webserver's getting DDoSed, set 4chan's records to 127.0.0.1 so the hackers aren't actually wasting bandwidth, though they should probably reduce the TTL values for their records, as last I checked they're set pretty high and blah blah jargon jargon...
General quick update. I haven't added much to the DH chargen since my three-plus hour stay at the Ford dealership, but I did add quite a bit during that time, so I figure it evens out. I've added in the base statistics and will be adding special traits next. (I also need to remember to add Wounds and Fate Points which I missed initially.)
I'd like to get some Alien Swarm going at some point. AS is a top-down bug hunt (FILTHY XENOS), a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004. It's great stuff. If anyone's interested, stop by #alienswarm on the IRC. (Make sure you upgrade to the latest version of both UT2k4 and AS first!)
I'd like to take a moment and reflect on a few numbers I've noticed very recently.
712207. This is the number of the second- or third-ever /tg/ thread about Timevan, the wacky crazy 3.5E game run by T1000. If there's any single credit that started the seed of sup/tg/, it was T1k's game; it gave me my moniker, and the small little website I put up for the game was this site's very first incarnation. I found the page again tonight, which prompted this little reflection. You can view it here if you'd like to see what sup/tg/ 0.1 looked like.
108. That's the maximum number of concurrent users that the sup/tg/ IRC has seen, a record achieved a few short hours ago. When I started this site, I figured I'd see a handful of users - no more than a dozen, maybe twenty or so if people liked the site - and never expected to see it grow much further than that. Then one day we had fifty people, and that was an impressive number, but probably a fluke. Then it was the average. Now it's seventy, and climbing. We've broken 100 at the cap, with the average hovering in the low eighties on busy nights. How I ever thought we could fit this many people into the Meebo chat...
734. This is the number of threads in the archive right now. The very first thread in the archive was added on October 29, 2007; counting the dozen threads stored in other secions and the dozens I've deleted, we've seen 850-900 total /tg/ threads ever recorded. Hundreds of threads, tens of thousands of posts. Sure, a lot of them a shit, but a decent fraction of them are liquid win, the essence of /tg/ in all its glory.
It's not often I just sit back and... marvel at what sup/tg/ has become, and how many awesome people have contributed to its growth and success. I'd just like to thank everyone - there are so many names, and I'm terrible with names, so please forgive me if I don't give a list - for everything they've done to make this site and /tg/ as a whole such a wonderful place to be. My life would be much more boring without you guys.
Thank you.
Stiiiiiiiiiiill waiting.
I've taken the day off from work (since it's pretty slow today and some of my particular projects are dead in the water due to required people being on vacation), so I'll have a lot of spare time today. I think I'm going to finally clean out the archives. (Whatever happened to "end of month cleanup?" More like "end of every three months or more" amirite?)
I'm going to pretty much kill everything in the red. If you have suggestions on threads to keep or delete, drop by the IRC and let me know. This is going to be a fairly significant culling this time around. There are a lot of really awful threads in there and I just haven't gotten around to deleting them... so today is their last day. I'll post an update with the statistics and list of deleted threads when I perform the removal.
Update 7:06pm: Here is the list of my first pass on the thread archive, which means deleting pretty much everything under -6 votes and anything with the word 'rape' in it:
Pre-culling: 778
Post-culling: 726
The threads have been moved to a 'purgatory' for a couple days, after which they will be permanently deleted. If there is a thread you believe deserves redemption, shoot me a message and I'll review it. Update 7:38pm: Now with humorous commentary!
I'm sitting in a waiting room at the Ford dealership right now while they replace my tires and headlight, so I figured now was as good a time as any to keep working on the chargen and make a little note about last night's excrement-related inclement weather event.
The long and short of it is this: Please don't bring your drama from /tg/ into the IRC, and please don't bring your drama from the IRC onto /tg/. If you have a problem with a poster on /tg/, keep it there; if you have a problem with a user in the IRC, keep it there. It's pretty straightforward. There is absolutely no reason for you to log into the IRC for the express purpose of publicly calling out an individual, nor is there any reason to post on /tg/ about someone or something you don't like in the IRC.
I apologize for overreacting last night, though in hindsight, threatening to (temporarily!) ban people for refusing to stop stirring up drama is a fairly common universal rule, whether you're a companion site to a Traditional Games board on 4chan or an official IRC server on any forum anywhere on the internet. Everyone involved knew the discussion was just a pointles whine-fest, and yet they refused to let it die. Even this post itself is a continuation of a discussion that didn't need to be discussed.
To beat the point to death with a tire iron, I will repeat it again: If you've got a problem with someone, bring it up with them in the same venue it occurred. If you're getting trolled on /tg/, keep it on /tg/, and if you're getting trolled on sup/tg/, keep it on sup/tg/. Sheer common sense aside, if you're having a problem, bring it to the attention of the moderators of the venue and they'll fix it. Drama cross-pollination is only an effective tactic if the individuals involved allow it to be effective, and I refuse to allow it.
And, finally, of course, no one person represents any group as a whole, for better or worse. I don't claim to speak for /tg/ or 4chan in any capacity, and no one save myself speaks for or acts on the behalf of sup/tg/. Furthermore, for those of you that can't seem to count, one person acting like a jackass that happens to frequent a particular site does not constitute a raid from said site.
Now back to your regularly scheduled gaming.
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