PsychicGoldfish Telepathic Transmissions

Thursday, May 30, 2002

Scorched Earth 2000 is an online Java port of the best game ever made. You play a little tank sitting on a mountain range. Your opponents are also little tanks. This is similar to Artillery for you old timers out there. Like Artillery, the basic idea is you enter an elevation angle and a power level, and fire a missile at your opponent. Then, if he lives, he gets a turn to try to do the same to you. Simple, right?

But Scorched Earth takes it a step farther. Add a few dozen fancy weapons, like napalm, tactical nukes, giant blobs of dirt, and so on. Throw in forcefields, parachutes, and batteries to keep you alive. And voila! Best time sink ever created. I highly recommend it. I sunk countless hours into the old MS-DOS version back in my school days. And this port seems to be pretty faithful to the original. They're still working on some of the weapons, but the weapons inventory is still varied enough to keep things interesting. And the AI opponents are still pretty unimaginative. They don't buy or use equipment, for example. But if you are playing head to head with real opponents (with maybe a few AIs thrown in for target practice), this isn't a problem. The AIs are still deadly enough shots with the basic ammunition to keep you hopping during practice games.

I miss the randomized color text thrown in when the AI tanks fired in the MS-DOS version, though. I still break into giggles when I think about the Moron AI tank saying "Hey, what does this button do?" before dropping a shell on it's own doorstep. Or the wise advise of the Shooter: "In times of trouble, go with what you know!" Said before blowing you out of the water, of course. And the classic taunt "I will grease my turret with your blood!" never fails to take your cowering foes aback. I tried that one in SE2K, in the live chat mode, only to be greeted by a torrent of cyber speak and one "What?!? You pervert!"

I suppose the live chat was provided to replace the canned color text. It is better to tailor your trash talk to the situation at hand, although many of your foes will think "Huh huh. Nice shot, dumbass!" is the pinnacle of rapier wit. Otherwise, the majority of the humor seems to revolve around the manipulation and firing of a cannon as a metaphor for masturbation. I suppose gun turrets and phallic humor are inextricably linked in this kind of thing. I think Lori Petty ruined lighthearted tank combat (granted, not a huge genre) for everyone in the classic movie adaptation of the Indie comic Tank Girl. At one point in the climactic (ahem) battle at the end, she straddled the barrel of her AI driven tank's cannon and defiantly taunted "Mine's bigger than yours!" Then, just to prove the point, she blew the heck out of something or other. Okay, it really was a pretty funny visual, but all I could think at that point was "Ouch!" There's a little thing we like to call "recoil" that might come into play here. Not to mention how hot those gun barrels get after a few rounds. A basic grasp of thermodynamics and kinematics is obviously not considered a prerequisite in the Hollywood screenwriting community. So I suppose I have to excuse it. They're a product of their environment and all that. I guess my trained engineering-type brain keeps getting in the way of my suspension of disbelief.

Still... Ouch.

Posted at 10:27 PM

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

Another update report:
I've added a couple new documents to the PG Archive, and added a picture of myself to the PG Originals section. Don't get your hopes up, it's just a caricature. (I don't plan on ever sticking a real picture of myself on the Web. Can't jeoprodize my secret identity.) Oh, and I added a primitive toggle to the navigation links bar on the bottom of each main page to turn the top navigation frane on and off. I'll eventually add a "kill frames" button to the navbar itself, when I figure out how to make it look nice. Much as I like the little navbar, I can understand why some folks get all uptight about frames.

Oh, and I'll also start updating this thing more often, with real content (or at least the occasional personal anecdote). I cannot long stand against the onslaught of pestering and wheedling from a certain person (she knows who she is) to write more Blog entries.

Posted at 11:12 PM

Sunday, May 19, 2002

Advice for Apartment Dwellers: Squeezing the last BTU from your A/C in a pinch.

I had originally planned on including this in a longer essay on general air conditioning maintenance for renters. In fact, I may still do so, if I can hit on the right combination of accessibility and technical accuracy. I sometimes have trouble with that, especially in my own field. I suspect most people in technical professions have similar problems. When you know the topic thoroughly enough to at least fake making a living with it, it's hard to scale back to what the layman knows without either appearing condescending or confusing the heck out of people. But, anyway, this seemed to be worth saying now, as the summer months approach.

There are times when your air conditioner just isn't up to the task at hand. Now, I'm not talking "summer" or "every afternoon from one until five," or whatever other daily problems you might face. The sad truth of the matter is that, if your apartment has it's own central air conditioner (that is, an evaporator/air handler above the ceiling, and a condensing unit outside), odds are it is woefully undersized. I will spare you the many ways this can happen, but it all comes down to the almighty dollar, with a dash of stupidity thrown in for good measure. Either through ignorance or through deliberate corner-cutting, initial construction and later repairs on residential units almost always result in inadequate capacity. Air conditioning is usually seen as a good place to cut costs, because it's hidden and because problems aren't immediately apparent until the next hot summer day (when all parties concerned with the installation have long since moved on). And for most people, an air conditioner is a mystery box that sucks up electricity and spits out cold air. And that is as it should be. The beauty part of modern technology is that you don't have to understand it to make it work for you. (I know I'm glad I don't need to understand all of the mysteries of computer hardware to convert my ignorant thoughts into these gems of wisdom for the eager masses! And I'm just as happy that I don't have to bone up on thermodynamics and the Otto Cycle again just to drive myself to work each morning.) The combination of delayed detection and (justifiable) consumer ignorance is perfect for an unscrupulous contractor or manager who wants to save a buck. And it's an easy problem to miss even if there are no nefarious intentions.

Regardless, dealing with a continuing air conditioning problem is a concern for another time. (There are a few simple and reasonably obvious things you can do to make the best of a bad situation, which I will probably cover someday.) The situation I am talking about is a temporary spike in loads. For example, when you are having a party or other large gathering, and are expecting to have several extra warm bodies heating up the room. As bawdy and exciting as that sounds, I suppose, it can make for some uncomfortable and disgruntled guests. Accordingly, you can do a few things to plan ahead, to get the most out of your system for the few hours necessary to get you through the event.

The simplest method to deal with uncomfortably warm temperatures is move the air faster and create a breeze. This is obvious to anyone who's employed the "4/60" air conditioning plan on his beat up Ford back in high school. If you're hot, roll down the windows and drive faster! If the air is moving, more heat is removed from the body. More sweat is evaporated, and more relatively cool air passes over the skin to encourage direct heat transfer from the body to the air. In your apartment, this means making sure the air is moving at all times. Obviously, if you are lucky enough to have ceiling fans, use them. They are actually fairly simple and surprisingly cheap to install, if you don't have one already. Consult your handy do-it-yourself guide or reputable hardware man. Some management gets snarky about such installations. Others will gladly help you with them, either because they want to make the renters happy or because a ceiling fan will reduce potential temperature complaints later on. Use your own best judgement, and make sure you know what you're doing. It's also remarkably easy to do some serious damage if you do it wrong.

But, there's one feature of almost all air conditioners that many people either don't know about or don't use. If you look at your thermostat, you will see some type of fan control. On the cheap electromechanical jobs most people have, there will be two switches. One will switch from cooling to heating. The other is the fan control. It will be labelled "On" and "Auto," or something similar. Most people leave it on "Auto," and just forget about it. And this is usually the most energy efficient way to run your system. In auto mode, your evaporator fan will turn on only when cooling is required by the thermostat. The compressor, condenser, and blower will all turn on when the thermostat senses the room is too warm, and all turn off when the thermostat is satisfied. However, if the fan control is switched to "On," the evaporator fan will always remain active. The compressor and condenser will just cycle on and off as required to keep the air at the required temperature while the fan continuously blows air. Accordingly, when the fan is just switched to "On," your guests will always have some air blowing on them, whether it is cooled or not. This will make warmer temperatures more tolerable. You will probably want to switch the fan control back to automatic when the party is over, to save yourself the cost of running the fan continuously.

(While this is somewhat off the topic of dealing with short-term heat loads, one should use caution when using electric fans in hot weather. If the temperature inside your apartment (or outside, if you are sitting outside) is above about 83 to 86 degrees (83 at high humidity levels, 86 at low humidity), you should be careful about using fans. At these temperatures, increased airflow is actually adding more heat to your body than it is removing, even if you are sweating profusely. This can lead to heat related illnesses, sometimes without the victim noticing, as he can still feel cool on the surface of his skin while his core temperature rises dangerously. This is a particular danger with small children and the elderly. If you are unfortunate enough to have your air conditioner break during hot weather, or otherwise have the temperature in your apartment climb to those temperatures for extended periods, use extreme care when supplementing with fans. If worst comes to worst, consider going to a conditioned public place, such as a shopping mall or a library, during the hottest parts of the afternoon. Some cities and neighborhoods even run heat shelters during the summer, in churches, school cafeterias, gymnasiums, and so on.)

You can also consider precooling the apartment. Set your thermostat to a few degrees below the desired temperature for an hour or two before the gathering, on the assumption that it will soon warm up to a comfortable level when the party gets under way. Subcooling is often used in larger, intermittent occupancy spaces in order to save initial costs on equipment. For example, many churches subcool their chapels or sanctuaries for a couple of hours before services. This allows them to use smaller air conditioners overall, as it is much easier (and cheaper) to cool down the large volume of air beforehand than it is to fight against the heat load of a couple hundred worshippers. You are essentially banking a mass of cool air ahead of time to deal with future heat loads. But, this means that the building will often be uncomfortably cool for a while at the beginning of the event. Unfortunately, this method doesn't work as well with relatively small spaces, like homes or apartments. You have a much smaller volume of air to play with in those cases. But, it can't hurt. However, you should never just yank your thermostat down as far as it will go, either to attempt to precool or in general operation. An air conditioner will cool the same whether it is set at 73 degrees or at 50 degrees. The thermostat just determines when it is turned on, not how much cooling is applied. However, if the thermostat is set to an impossibly cool temperature (you will never cool your apartment down to 50 if it is 95 degrees outside, unless your air conditioner is hugely oversized), the air conditioner will never shut down. All this does is waste energy, and can damage your air conditioner if the setting is left that way for extended periods.

If you have rooms that will be unused (such as a back bedroom or bathroom) during the period of increased load, you should consider closing off the vents in these rooms. This will divert more cold air to the occupied spaces. Most hardware and home supply stores sell flexible sheet magnets which can be placed over metal grilles, if you want to close them off completely. Taping a piece of cardboard over the vent works just as well. Actually, if you find that your air conditioner is undersized in general, and if you don't mind stretching or standing on chairs, this can be a great help in squeezing the most from your system. Just get in the habit of throttling back registers in rooms you don't plan on using for a couple of hours. If you make a habit of this, you'll want to leave some air going in all rooms at all times, just to prevent spaces from becoming musty. You'll also want to make sure to allow some air for computer or stereo equipment, if you leave them running at all times.

Finally, as a last ditch effort, you can temporarily remove your air filter. This will allow the evaporator fan to operate more easily, and provide more cold air to the apartment. There is a limit to the benefit you can achieve from this method (large volumes of fast moving air cannot be as effectively cooled as slower, smaller volumes). But in most cases, this will lead to a marked increase in cooling capacity and air velocity, especially in older systems which are already choked back below design air volumes by dirt buildup. However, the filter is there for a reason! If dust is pulled into the evaporator, it can foul the cooling coil and fan. If your cooling coil is coated with dirt, it obviously won't cool as effectively. Fans become inefficient if they are plugged up with dust, as well. Further, a thick coating of dirt can trap moisture against the coil. And since the dirt is preventing the air from effectively warming up the coil, it can freeze this moisture into a block of ice encasing the coil. This will at least reduce your airflow to nil, and can potentially do serious damage. In short, operating without a filter for long periods can be bad news. (Same with failing to replace your filters regularly, as dirty filters reduce overall airflow, and allow more dirt to reach the air handler.) Cleaning evaporator coils is a messy and time consuming process, especially in the limited space provided in apartment installations, and should only be attempted by management or their contractors. That being said, if you only do so for a couple of hours every once in a long while, removing your filter can help to get a good bit of extra capacity from the air conditioning system. If you know in advance that you will need to do this (for a large party in the middle of August, for example), I would suggest vacuuming and dusting before removing the filter, to minimize the airborne dirt produced from all the extra guests milling about. And replace your filter immediately after the gathering (even if you're exhausted). In general, just use some restraint and common sense, and don't do this every day. Otherwise, if you ruin your air conditioner, don't complain to me about it. On your own head be it. (This applies to all advice given above, actually. It's a sad world when such disclaimers are required on friendly advice, but there it is.)

And if, after all that, you still find you and your guests are too warm, well, you're on your own. Think cool.

Posted at 2:48 AM

Thursday, May 02, 2002

Well, I received my first comments on this weblog a couple days ago. It went something like "so... ya have a blog now, do ya.... HAHAHAHAHA." Okay, it went exactly like that. Can you feel the luvvvvv?

It occurs to me that, if I am going to make this into a going concern, I am going to have to find some kind of hook. I kind of like the log over at Wil Wheaton Dot Net, actually. It's more or less what inspired me to start this thing. (Well, that, and some casual suggestion from the person quoted above. She knows who she is.) But, when you get right down to it, I'm not a celebrity. Yeah, I know, shocking revalation. And I know this website sure isn't my route to fame and fortune. If this is ticking away my 15 minutes of fame, I demand a refund. Not that I have any particular desire to be famous, anyway. Who needs the hassle? But it's the principle of the thing.

I can't use the word "principle" without thinking back to junior high. Our English teacher kept saying "The principal is your pal," over and over again, in a vain attempt to make us remember the difference between "principle" and "principal." Well, I guess it wasn't a vain attempt. I mean, it worked. I seldom misspell it. But it costs me about 30 seconds of Kung Fu-esque flashback time to do it right. Fair trade, I guess. At least it's not as bad as "encyclopedia." I always have to remember Jiminy Cricket admonishing Pinocchio to "look it up in the Eeeee... N-Cee... Y-Cee... L-Ohh... P-E-D-I-A!" That was in an edumacational film they showed us back in the days of cooties and "pasghetti."

But I digress. Frequently.

My problem is I am somewhat limited by my meager audience. I suspect my primary readership is composed of people I know directly. I mean, I get the occasional surf-through from links at other sites. (If you don't know me, well, hi! Nice to meet'cha and all that.) But most of the traffic is word of mouth, or one degree of separation from me at most, I expect. I probably should get a web counter or similar logging device, but I really don't want to know. So, as I mentioned back on 4/17/02, I can't really use this as a repository for my deepest, darkest secrets. I can't talk about how I get a lump in my throat every time I see that lovely young lady at... Nope, she read my page once, and maybe even bookmarked it. I can't talk about how pissed off I am at that guy over at... Nope. Knows someone who knows me and reads the page frequently enough to taunt me about it. You see my dilemma. It's just childish, not to mention chicken, to use this page as an outlet to say what I think about people, instead of saying it to them directly. It'd be easier if I were a hermit, I suppose, but then I'd have nothing to talk about but the draft in my cave, and how annoying that badger family I share it with has become. Well, that, and continual complaints about the difficulties of maintaining Internet access in a badger-infested cave.

And that's completely aside from the fact that even I am not vain and Narcissistic to post my "Dear Diary..." crap to the web, anyway. Vain enough to make a webpage dedicated to my living room, yes. But, not enough to post my minute-to-minute angst and thoughts for the world to see. Well, maybe if there's something entertaining in them. But not normally.

Narcissistic. I love that word.

So, I suppose my point is that there won't be many posts beyond update notices for a while, until I figure out something worthwhile to say that isn't directly related to my day-to-day experiences. Those will be mentioned here from time to time, too, but it'll be kept to a minimum unless it's an amusing anecdote or something otherwise worth writing.

Not that my standards for what is worth writing are that high, mind you. But that's another matter entirely.

Posted at 10:06 AM

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