The Farstrider Scout

Whose head
Is often in the clouds,
Occasionally in the gutter,
Or even his pants,
Even sometimes in his heart,
But rarely where it belongs –
On his shoulders.

After living with someone, plus two dogs, for five years, having an empty house is startlingly quiet.  You tend to jump at things that never would have bothered you in the past.  Take last night, for instance.

I had just gone to bed, and I hear a rattling from the back door. Now, the alarm system is armed, and had I thought things through, I probably would have taken the time to grab the shotgun and load it, and still be ready in time to blow a hole in whoever walked in the door before they set the alarm off… But no, I go down the hallway, buck naked, and grab the axe I had sitting by the garage door. By this point, the thought had crossed my mind that it might be one of the seemingly infinite number of cats we have plauging our neighborhood trying to get in, but by the time I picked up that axe, the thought was firmly in my mind that it was NOT just some cat, but someone trying to jimmy the door.

So, axe in hand, I flip on the back lights, and what do I see? A cat, running off to the fence. Boy do I feel like an idiot.

Still, it took me over half an hour to calm down… With a loaded shotgun under the bed.

Yes, you’re reading that title correctly. I had to go AFK while playing EVE the last night, and spent about an hour away from the keyboard. When I came back, my desk was in disarray – moreso than usual, at least – and the headphones were on the floor.
There on the monitor, however was some strange messages from my character in local chat. Ok, so that’s par for the course – she’s done stuff like that before, though usually it’s sending messages over Xfire.
But later, I went into the screenshots folder to look at a few pictures I had taken earlier, and lo and behold, there were five more pictures in there that I hadn’t taken!  She had even gone so far as to open up the map after taking a picture of the stargate I was at…

So, now that I’m home, I really only have one small thought that I can share…

Doesn’t “The Path of Least Resistance” sound like a religion?

It certainly can be a way of life to ascribe to.

Not saying that it’s a good one though.

For the swine flu zombie apocalypse?

So, what does one do when they game that they had planned on playing for a long time falls through with no decent replacement in sight?

In my case, it involves going back through whatever games I had installed on my computer – Silent Hunter 4, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Everquest 2, Lord of the Rings Online, Team Fortress 2, Jumpgate…  All with mixed results.

The changes being made in Age of Conan are a huge letdown. Unfortunately, despite the 200 page thread on the forums regarding the issue and the drop in players as shown by Xfire’s tracking, Funcom has seen fit to ignore the outcry and forge ahead, leaning more and more to a forced group/guild style game.

We don’t do that kind of thing, so we’re taking our money elsewhere.

Whelp, we’ve cancelled our AoC accounts (for now), thanks to a sweeping, and gamebreaking, change in game mechanics.  I’ll probably resub in a week or so, once I get tired of playing Silent Hunter 4, because try as I may, I’m finding it difficult to go back to any other MMO’s.

But, back on subject…  This gamebreaking change that Funcom has seen so wisely to implement, is to scale all elite mobs and bosses to the player’s level and, more recently increase the difficulty of all mobs level 70 and above. 

The first change was made (don’t quote me on this, as I can’t find the source of this information) in order to address the issues with gold farmers.  Unfortunately, the end result has been cutting off content for those who are incapable of, and/or unwilling to, find a group to do this with, as well as making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to complete the content with a group at the required level range.  Not to mention that, since normal players can’t farm grey elites now either, it makes any gold seller’s job easier, as horses cost a minimum of 2 gold, which is quite a sum.  Most items at level 40, when you can first ride a mount, sell to a vendor for a copper or two and some odd tin.  Since in this game, 100 tin = 1 copper, 100 copper = 1 silver, and 100 silver = 1 gold, that’s quite a lot of farming you need to do in order to buy your mount within a few levels of being able to ride it.  Most people I see in game don’t have a mount until around level 55.  There is a thread on the Funcom general forums with over 100 posts of complaints, and well over 1000 views…  Yet Funcom has seemingly seen fit to ignore this issue.

The second change was only made today and while it’s too soon to tell for sure, early rumors are saying that it’s impossible to solo at level 70 now.  Can you say “Forced grouping”?  I sure can.

The dog door is finally installed, but only after destroying the only blade I had for my reciprocating saw.  The dogs (who are enjoying the new back yard IMMENSLEY), haven’t quite gotten it figured out yet, but they should in a few days.

Next up, the project that I have been waiting and waiting and waiting and…  You get the idea.  Running a Coax line and CAT-5 through the house.  Measurements come first, so we head up into the attic and I spelunk my way through to the other side with a string line.  I think the hardest part of this will be getting it up into the attic, but we’ll see.

With that finished, we head down so I can shower, since I stink (it’s hot up there!), and we start making a list of the stuff we need.  I mention that I need a new saw blade, and my wife remarks “Ok, well, I want to get a new shower blade….”

… What?

Turns out she wants a new shower rod for the master bath, but “shower blade” is just one in the many interesting phrases that she comes up with, due in part to her illness…  Phrases like “comploded” and “rocket surgeon”.  But at least we get a good laugh out of it, and in retrospect, there are times where I’m not much better.

So we have internet now…  But the cable I wanted to be run wasn’t, because the line tech. isn’t allowed to fish through the walls, so I get to do it as I originally intended, in addition to LAN…  But apparently I’m supposed to have other priorities, so that will all have to wait until after the toilet is done, which will probably wait until after most of the moving is done.

And I’m still leeching, at least until I can get our wireless router set up the way I want it – secured, and I can get the neccessary wireless drivers on to my desktop so I can stop tweaking my back trying to use the laptop.

In any case, I’m beat.  I must have moved about 5-600 pounds worth of books this evening, and I get to go clean some 600 odd M-16A2 rifles tomorrow…  Glee!

Question 1:  Is there a way, a formula, where, given the radius or diameter of the base of a cone, the distance from the base to the peak along the angled edge, and any angles involved, you can calculate the radius/diameter of the cone at any given point within it?  (I think I may have just answered this question by considering it as looking at it like a triangle instead of a cone, but W/E – question still stands.)

Question 2:  Given said above formula, how big would the moon be, if when viewed it was the same size as currently visible in the sky, but close enough for it to be in, say, Low Earth Orbit.

Question 3:  Assuming that density and mass would scale in addition to size using said formula, would the Moon’s gravitational effects remain the same as they are right now, or would they be different?  Would the moon even be able to maintain that orbit?  Or would it crash into the Earth in a cataclysmic collision, killing us all?

 That’s all.

Today’s Random Thought of the Day brought to you by the number B, and the letter 7, and the bald eagle I saw on the way to work.