No one but me. I bet there are tons of people who know "Necronomicon", though.

[BEGIN nerdity]

I think I'm gonna keep ranting on Hibernate's claim of "removing metadata hell" until I die.

Let's say I create a class, a ListEntry. It's very simple. Dutifully, I create an ORM mapping file for it. Fields of entryID, addTime, completedTime, userID, and entryText (for now). These map fine.

I also create a class, User. I dutifully create an ORM mapping file for User.class, too (userID, email, registrationTime, cryptPW, firstName, lastName, registrationKey).

Now, the User objects have a one-to-many relationship to ListEntry. Several ListEntries on a User. So there is a method/field on the User: Map[Long,ListEntry] entryMap.

Hibernate, in theory, has this bad-ass thing. I just add to the User.class mapping a couple of lines saying, "it has a field, entryMap, and it gets filled with ListEntry objects from the DB that have the same userID as the user."

Now, you would think that it would know that when I say "this map contains ListEntry objects" that it would do something intelligent. Like, oh, maybe go to the ListEntry ORM map and get the mapping from there.

But no! It doesn't do that. I have to *replicate* almost verbatim the information in the ListEntry ORM file into the User ORM file - thus *doubling* the amount of metadata I need to keep track of for one class (and correspondingly increasing the likelihood of version drift).

Irritating.

[TANGENT]
Astute readers may notice that the fields above are things like "addTime" and not "addDate". This, too, is a nice irritating thing about Hibernate. I, like any reasonable nerd (and I haven't met a Java programmer who thinks different), store dates in the database as longs/BIGINTS and turn them into Dates on the way out (setAddDate(new Date(rs.getLong("addDate")))).

However, Hibernate will only automagically map Date objects into DATE or TIMESTAMP datatypes. Thus, I must create separate fields for those (addTime()) and then convert to Dates on demand.

Seriously. Who the fuck stores Date objects in what could be non-portable datatypes? For that matter, what idiot actually uses java.sql.Date? Too many heartaches and broken bones with that lot, mate. You can play with Calendar all you want and God have mercy on your soul as you do.
[/TANGENT]



[END nerdity]

I and Maynard and a couple others are going to see Indiana Jones at 12:01 am WEDNESDAY NIGHT at the Century 20 Daly City.

You are invited to attend. I suggest you purchase tickets NOW.

In the offchance that it sells out, I have a *very* limited number of extras.

Today, it is very easy to understand why our barbarian forefathers gave worship to the great yellow eye.

In other news, one of my favorite things in the world is the concept of "color". I cannot fathom the thought of enduring a black-and-white existence.

Once or twice a month I have a service show up and clean up my bachelor-lifestyle messes. This is always a fun day for the household as the entire process takes about two hours and involves lots of loud vacuuming and scrubbing and chemical smells and anywhere between five and ten women dressed in white scrambling through the house.

The event utterly, completely traumatizes the cats.

Every time, after the cleaners leave, I get to play a game: Find the Felines. This is not as easy a task as one might think, especially since Clementine is not only able to squeeze into an area the volume of a ripe orange but is also exceptionally clever about choosing hiding spots.

Today she was hiding almost in plain sight and it took me about a half hour to find her: she'd nestled in and slightly under the pillows on the bed - which are the same color grey as she is. She was situated in such a way as to be able to see anyone coming or going.

Simon, on the other hand, had somehow managed to get himself trapped behind one of the servers. I don't know how he got in there in the first place, and he sure as shit wasn't getting out on his own, so I had to move a bunch of hardware for him.

Now they are cautiously wandering around, wrinkling their noses at the Stink of Clean and quite likely plotting to pee everywhere.

Such is the price I pay for being a lazy bastard.

So, now that Nexus Wars' Straylight version has landed, and things have started to calm down, I have decided to begin thinking about the next level of optimizations and so forth.

This means, really, the use of Hibernate. And since I don't feel it is wise to just "drop in" a radical change in datasource management to a hundred-thousand-line codebase, I'm starting a new, small, toy project (a "to-do" list web-app that I can use through the iPhone).

( Nerd Wankery and Bitching )

Anyways. At least it's not Perl.

Okay, so I'm finished with the GTA IV. I pretty much spent the entire weekend playing through the storyline to the end. I've done some jumps, capped some pigeons, and pretty much tasted (or entirely consumed) all the elements the game has to offer.

And I'm kind of disappointed.

The game got "perfect 10" scores from everyone. I'm not sure what game those people were playing, or if they actually finished the storyline or not, but the game is, by no means, a perfect ten.

Despite the graphical and usability enhancements, it is a far lesser beast than its predecessors - as a game.

I wonder if the developers decided to actually take Roger Ebert's challenge about video games not being art. That's what it feels like. Ebert says that games will only be art when they can move us emotionally. And, well, that's what the story in the game does.

Well, almost.

It's a well-crafted story. It is complex. It involves some choices, and I like that. I've got saves for both "endings."

But they both. . . well. They're both really fucking depressing. There is no way out into the sunshine - there is no "winnning". However, that may very well be the entire point: at the end of the journey, no matter how hard he tries, Niko Bellic lives in a world of bullets, blood, and funerals.

No wonder he's such a fucking nihilist.

There are movies that I call "punishment theater." Schindler's List. The Piano. The Diary of Anne Frank. Requiem for a Dream. House of Sand and Fog. Hell, even Romeo and Juliet.

We, the viewers, are punished merely by watching the films. They're great films, but they are subtle, and stab you as you watch, and you leave the theater feeling worse than you did going in. They are thought-provoking, and sometimes life-changing. But they are by no means pleasant.

Grand Theft Auto IV is a punishment theater film punctuated by short bursts of button clicking.

At the end of forty-odd hours of gameplay, I have to ask myself: was that fun? Honestly?

No.

It was work.

At one point (I think about ten missions from when the "finale" missions open) I remember thinking to myself, "Christ, can we just hurry this up? I want to get it overwith so I can start doing the fun stuff." You know. The fun stuff. Doing jumps. Exploring the map. Playing the mini games.

About 2/3rds through the storyline, the mission quality just turned into utter, complete shit. And I mean the drippy kind. I just wanted to get it over with - finish up the dirty business so that I could take a shower. Nearly every mission in the last 1/3rd of the game involves either:

a) Clearing Out a Building of Goons. These missions are not fun because it's just blithe repetition. It's Nintendo Hard. Other games do the exact same thing (like Gears of War or Army of Two or any other 3rd person tactical shooter) but they do it better because that's what those games are about.

Gears of War has all sorts of combat mechanisms about getting cover, blind-firing, mantling, etc. It's built for that. The GTA IV combat system is not - which means that the battles (and seriously, there are too many of them) are tedious. And just when you think you're done? Oh noes. Another truckload of goons shows up.

b) A Tediously Long Chase Sequence. And these aren't "good" chase sequences, either. They usually involve you being forced to use some crippled vehicle (a scooter, or a car without a wheel, or a dump truck) while the other guy has a Ferrari. That's not so bad, though - all the GTA games had that. But here's where it falls down: usually, the "mission" is simply, "kill the guy you're chasing."

Got it. Kill the guy.

Only, and this is seriously the most irritating thing ever: the guy you're chasing is usually invulnerable for about five minutes of the chase. Throw all the bullets you want into his car. Nothing is going to happen until he reaches the trigger point in the chase.

I'm normally fine with that as long as you tell me that's what's going on. But there's a violation of the player/developer compact here: don't tell me to do something and then make it impossible for me to do it. It's even worse in a game like GTA: sometimes, I just wanna fire a rocket at the dude at the beginning! I have one! Let me kill him how I want to.

c) A Combination of Tediously Long Chase Sequences and Buildings Full of Goons. This is the most popular configuration of the missions. Drive from point A to point Bumfuck. Chase the guy at point Bumfuck to point Fuckbum. There, go inside and kill a building of dudes. Oops, one is getting away; you have to chase him, too. Only this time we're giving you a garbage truck and he's got a motorbike.

(Another fun bit: the final mission's last "leg" introduces a new kind of vehicle for you to chase someone in, and it handles like shit. Good luck!)

It feels like they forgot the fun in place of the story.

And what's worse, I don't feel like I've accomplished anything. The XBox Achievement for finishing the storyline is called "You Won!". I'm fairly certain that is intended to be sarcastic: you don't "win." You don't get to have a cool mansion in the hills, and you don't get to go around town and buy a bunch of buildings, and you don't get the girl. No, you cannot have a pony.

You get a hollow feeling in your guts.

I'm now pretty heavily into GTA IV - far enough that I feel I can talk about it with some authority and not have it be entirely "first impressions." A lot of the initial "wow" factor has worn off now - I've been playing it pretty solidly for a couple days, given that the start date for my new job got pushed out to Monday (hey, free vacation).

I'm going to quote my friend, Marc:

"I wish it were a little less simulation and a bit more game."

( Minor Spoilers )

So. It's a great deal of fun, definitely an A+ title, but I don't know that it has the same soul that Vice City does.

I have a gay marine hitting on me.

The bottom of the screen says "Take Dimitri to the sex shop."

I get in the car, and the first thing I hear is Iggy Pop say the words "Fucking puppets? I'm not going to pay for that."

Soon: killing smot pokers for rastafarians while Queen plays over the radio.

One flesh one bone,
One true religion,

[POW! POW! POW!]

One voice one hope,
One real decision,

[POW!]

Woah-oah-oah, gimme one vision...

Today I had jury duty. I was excused - pretty much because I think chiropactors are nutjobs and that the entire field is pretty much a placebo system that sucks money from clients without healing much.

However, I met this totally awesome chick, so my day was not entirely wasted.

Further, The Bionic Woman is an awful, awful show.

1) Russian rap and punk rock is awesome.

2) Queen!

3) Not so much a fan of the new control scheme. However, my difficulties could stem entirely from the fact that a) I just need to get used to them and b) all the cars I am driving so far are totally crappy and spin out at the slightest twitch.

4) I like the new mechanism for evading stars. There is a "cop awareness radius" that you need to get out of before you can fade into the shadows. I expect that it worked this way in previous GTAs; however, in IV they show you the zone.

5) I totally suck at the bowling minigame. I realized it was easier to not try to aim; if I did that I guttered; without aiming, I could at least hit *some* pins.

6) I could swear that it was really New York I was wandering around in.

7) Haven't quite gotten the hang of combat. Again, I figure this is a case of getting used to things.

8) I'm a bit . . . overwhelmed by the size of the place.

I'll have more thoughts later, as I get deeper into it.

Don't work today; don't work tomorrow.

However, I might have jury duty tomorrow.

If I don't, I just might head out to the midnight GTA IV thinger.

So, today is (and has been, since Wednesday) the launch day for Nexus War Version 2.0.

This was fraught with any number of complications:

1) While in the middle of the database migration script, my internet route to the game server died. Everyone else could see it; just not me. That was fun.

2) Turns out that the staging environment was NOT an identical copy of the production environment. Namely, production runs on 8080 and for some reason staging was set to 8081.

3) About 5 minutes after it went live, freakin apache went tits up due to a MaxClients problem. That was awesome, too.

The database, however, migrated cleanly. And the server is now running smoothly. I've caught a couple jsp issues and fixed them in situ. There are other weird things that are bugging me (like having log4j cranked way too high) but otherwise she's sailing pretty smooth.

It's gotten more traffic in the past hour than I think it had in the previous day. Srsly, crazy crazy.

Right now, I'm stressing because previous releases had been fraught with all manner of migration problems or serious "WTF WASN'T THIS CAUGHT IN TESTING" bugs. But nothing like that right now. Right now, I'm sitting, watching all the logs scroll by, seeing the activity.

This is fun:

15:41:36,776 [ INFO ] GreatDragon :: KILLED TARGET: Geht [87589]
15:44:52,243 [ INFO ] GreatDragon :: KILLED TARGET: Shadya [123790]
16:00:44,140 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Degoth Demos [106213]
16:01:24,346 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Heart is not an element [126454]
16:01:49,609 [ INFO ] GreatDragon :: KILLED TARGET: PeDantic [124068]
16:02:09,707 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Astatine [124879]
16:06:30,753 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Avatar of Grenth [126110]
16:07:00,712 [ INFO ] IronJuggernaut :: KILLED TARGET: Cossane [123211]
16:07:50,833 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Orochi [19830]
16:08:21,221 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: the erratic weather [100649]
16:09:06,264 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Avatar of Abaddon [126109]
16:10:41,539 [ INFO ] GreatDragon :: KILLED TARGET: Herr Doktor Robert Von Wicked [126523]
16:14:57,718 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Neuromancer [122856]
16:15:52,804 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Vladimir Rotchenco [126774]
16:18:28,613 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Yakumo [126236]
16:19:38,760 [ INFO ] GreatDragon :: KILLED TARGET: Fujiwara no Mokou [104495]
16:21:15,690 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: a Self-harming Emo [96988]
16:21:30,760 [ INFO ] GiantTroll :: KILLED TARGET: a gigantic bunny [83256]
16:25:36,421 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Justine Joli [126392]
16:28:01,933 [ INFO ] GiantTroll :: KILLED TARGET: sebaceous gland eater [126756]
16:28:37,552 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: a courier [126616]
16:29:32,827 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Martin Pale [121057]
16:30:07,768 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Munkir [126906]
16:35:30,924 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Eric Blair [113199]
16:36:55,119 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Reino [112231]
16:37:25,582 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Schrau [27966]
16:39:01,394 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Chang [126369]
16:41:16,987 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Kill me I'm Evil [121505]
16:45:42,583 [ INFO ] DemiLich :: KILLED TARGET: Cold Raven [128082]


My friend Scott is a bad-ass painter. He is the painter I wanted to be.

He made a crap ton of bad ass paintings for me to use in Nexus War version 2.0 (launching soon at an intertron near you!).

I used to spend every Independence Day at his place, before he moved to Austin. I miss those gatherings.

IT BLENDS.

It is one thing to have code working with a database that's only about 10 megabytes in size and has roughly 1500 characters and a whole 'nother mess of worms to deal with a database that's over 370 megabytes in size and has roughly 18,000 characters.

But the initial migration tests have gone smoothly (well. I ran out of HeapSpace at one point.)

Here's something neat:

Nexus War version 1.4 (the current live version) takes FOREVER to start up.

INFO: Server startup in 1320377 ms

That's a 22 minute start up time.

Straylight, the new version that I've been working on, with the same dataset:

INFO: Server startup in 123123 ms

2.05 minutes.

That's an. . . uhm, 11,000% increase in startup performance.

Plus, the pattern freak in me enjoys that it's 123, 123. Harh.

I am having this situation whereby my hands feel kind of numb if I close them into fists - and they don't want to curl into fists. Like, there isn't enough strength for them to close entirely, and if I force it, they feel numbish - similar to when you crack your funny bone.

Anyone know anything about this, or have experienced this before?

Dethklok is coming to the Fillmore.

I have already bought a ticket. So has kbk and a zillion others. The presale password is "duncanhills".

Come.

As he stood there, unarmed, with his back to me, it came to me suddenly, 'Now or never is your chance. If you don't get him now he'll get you tonight.' Without further thought or a moment's delay I pulled my revolver and leveled it as I sat. He heard the hammer click as I cocked it with my thumb and started to turn as I pulled the trigger. The ball struck him just behind the ear and he fell like a log, dead."

Lesson One: Never unbuckle your gun belt in front of a coward.

Lesson Two: Certainly don't turn your back on him if you do.