STG's

Hacker News 33 has some notable articles: - Using Python and k-means to find the dominant colors in images - How to Set Up your Linode for Maximum Awesomeness - Feross Aboukhadijeh - Simplify your life with an SSH Config File - Joel Perras

Hacker News 34 had some interesting articles: - Four Unix Command I Abuse Every Day - Tom Limoncelli Some different ways to use Unix commands - such as color coding grep results. - Page Weight Matters - Chris Zacharias Short article about decreasing page size for YouTube - and how it apparently increased page latency. Actually, people with really bad net connections started using YouTube since the page was 10 times smaller (200KB vs > 1MB). - The Story of the PING Program - Mike Muss Cute - Packets of Death - Kristian Kelhofner Interesting view on how the author discovered bad packets that can bring down an Ethernet controller. - How I Automated the Boring Parts of Life - Steve Corone Useful automation tips.

Ok, apparently my Kindle is taking the date of this issue seriously, because I just can't find it without using the search function. Weird. Not that surprising though - for whatever reason Amazon has created a very weird format for these magazines. Could be worse, though - in the Android version, it simply didn't remember where I stopped reading. So every time I reopened the magazine, I had to figure out where I was last (sometimes weeks ago, as I usually read only bits on the cell phone). Basically unusable. Well, the big reason I read this one is that Neal Asher mentioned his story: - The Other Gun - Neal Asher A nice novella on Asher's Commonwealth. It is part of a new trilogy - which should be interesting. This one has some serious steampunk flavor (the novella starts with the main character dropping from orbit in a bathysphere, for crying out loud!), and the sidekick is an human converted into an raptor. Nice villain, too. The end seems to drag for a bit after...

Edge of Infinity is an SF story collection. The introduction goes on about how these are the Fourth Generation of SF, but frankly I don't see it. These feel to me to be mostly as edgy as any good Analog stories, maybe a little more. Anyway, for no apparent good reason I'd like to lightly comment on some of the stories: - The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi - Pat Cadigan One of the edgier group. Humans are on the gas giants, and tech is what you'd expect (nothing fancy like FTL or AIs leading everyone), except that humans can change to forms more fitting to low gravity work, which live longer too (the Sushi slang of the title). BTW, there is so much made up future slang that it is quite annoying at first - reminds me of Asimov's introduction on one of his classics explaining why he wouldn't go there (Nightfall, I believe). - The Deeps of the Sky - Elizabeth Bear Also edgy, about sentient life forms in gas giants. Nice. - Drive - James S. A. Corey More of...

Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier is a mixed magic/military book. This is kind of a common theme - some time before the book started (or in the middle of the story), for some reason (specified eventually or not) magic returns to our world. Common people suddenly gain power. In some, monsters of myth return. In others (the Shadowrun games and series, for example), people turn into them. In Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier, people can have several lines of magic powers, such as air, earth, healing, rotting, etc. It is a sequel, but given the much better reviews I read this one first. As the book starts, Coronel Bookbinder, a regular paper pusher, discovers that he is magical now. After no one is able to determine what his magic is, he is sent to push papers in another "plane" - the source, where an American army base explores the area and is in regular combat with the locals (such as goblins, rocs, giants, etc). Of course, what follows is the classical history of the meek pape...

Dirt 3 is a well know race game, focusing more on rally style race. Personally, I had never played it before. But there was a sale on Steam yesterday, and since it has such a nice rating on Metacritic, I decided to jump in. First of all, it is a somewhat big download - 11GB. But Steam was doing well yesterday so it was pretty quick. One unpleasant surprise is that use's Microsoft Live. This time it just added some annoying delays, but no real problems. The game has a lot of talk and screens before you race. Graphics are just beautiful, particularly the cut scenes and cars. One other thing I noticed is the use of controller vibration (I'm using a MS XBox controller), which is very nice on the race start, but not so fun after. There are plenty of offers of car packs and more on live, which are only mildly annoying. I started out on casual, so there are a lot of assists enabled. The most obvious assist effect is a line in the middle of the track, displaying t...

FTL is a roguelike space game. You control a ship and try to outrun a fleet chasing you. Sound and graphics are retro. Gameplay is almost great, except that the game can be very hard and it is easy to be killed because of luck. I can't help but think that a game save feature would be a good idea here. Other than that, the game is fun. Most of the game revolves around picking your next jump and fighting enemy ships (the mechanics are simple but somewhat fun). Placing your crew to best effect is a big deal, as you can have better dodge, shield recharges, gun recharges, etc. You also have to move them around to fix any damage to the ship. You also have to manage power to various systems, and upgrade your ship with whatever scrap you get in the way. There are also stores where you can hire crew, buy and sell parts and get your ship fixed. Overall, the game is OK, unless you like VERY hard roguelike games, in which case it is pretty good.

Weird Worlds: return to infinite space is defined as "a hybrid roguelike game of space exploration, adventure and starship combat". Alien Proctologist? You can choose between a science, a pirate or military vessel, each with different capabilities and goals (meeting aliens, getting goods, etc). Most of the game revolves around traveling to new planets, where you can get new ship pieces, or goods you can trade elsewhere. I found the trade system to be a little baffling - you have to trade an item for another with equal value. So if you have several low value items, you can't use them to get a higher one (at least I couldn't see how to do it). You can also hire mercenaries or acquire new ships on the way. On some systems there might be other ships, at which point they might trade with you or start combat. On a game like this, combat is a big part of the fun. Frankly, I either didn't get or really didn't enjoy it on this one. Graphics and sound ar...

Organ Trail: Director's Cut is a zombie take on Oregon Trails - a strategy game that I played a bit on Apple II. In Organ Trail, you travel around on a zombie wasteland with a group on a station wagon, suffering random good or bad luck events between towns, as well as some choices (example: there is a zombie horde in your way, do you a) wait, b) attack them, c) sneak by). On the town you can buy supplies such as car parts, fuel, food, medkits, etc , sell stuff or do jobs, such as kill zombies, bandits, etc. On everything, the graphics are genuine 4-color CGA, with music and sounds that feel like 80s stuff. If that is good or bad, it is up to you, of course. Gameplay is mildly interesting, but I can't say I liked it all that much.

Sword of the Stars: The Pit is a retro turn based dungeon crawler - in space. Basically you go through a large alien base, killing minor pest and annoying enemies, progressing your character, finding loot and dying - a lot. The Pit is a very, very hard game, even on the easy level. It is very easy to get killed, and it must be one of the stingiest games I've seen on loot. You get tiny amounts, and many of the things you will get at the start can only be used for crafting. There are also mods spread around, both for your guns and body. They are color coded and can have both good and bad effects, though. The tutorial is very adequate, and the shooting mechanics are pretty good (choose target with cursor, then fire, or use auto fire). Graphics are really retro - something you'd see on the late 90s at most. It is, however, very adequate for the game. I understand that it is based on Sword of the Stars and that it has the same characters. I never played any games in the fr...

Miner Wars 2081 is very much like Descent. It is a 6 degrees-of-freedom shooter, in mines (partially, anyway). One big difference is that you can actually harvest minerals and use them for trade. It also seems to have more options to equip your ship. Graphics and gameplay seems to be good, with well thought controls, and sound and music are OK. Unfortunately, the demo ends pretty soon so I have no idea how the sections outside the start level play. Overall, it seems interesting but it is hard to tell from the demo alone.

A few years ago, I reviewed Solar 2  for PC (still one of my top read posts). I really, really liked it. So when it was included in the latest Humble Android Bundle, I just had to try it out. Unfortunately, it really doesn't work well for me on the small screen. The graphics are the same, but everything gets annoyingly tiny, and the controls (both the click anywhere on the screen and special controls) feel awful and hard to use. Not recommended.

Plants vs Zombies is pretty old, and I played through the whole game in the PC a long time ago. It is also old on the iPad, but I finally got around to playing it there, so I will do a quick review. Plants vs Zombies is pretty much identical to the PC version. I hear there are some (minor) differences on the graphics on the Retina screens, but I have an iPad 2. Either way, the graphics look even better in the small iPad screen compared to the PC version. Gameplay is fun, albeit slow at times (I really miss the regular Tower Defense genre speedup button). There are extra modes, such as one where you send zombies to attack plants, a gem twist with plants (for some reason, I don't like the twist action match-3 style), an aquarium, portal (very annoying when suddenly a portal moves and zombies pop in your plants) and more. Some are good, most are not much fun. Either way, they decided to use the new monetize style to sell coins so that you can buy extra modes, plants and tool...

I reviewed Dungeon Defender for PC (demo) some time ago. I really didn't like it. For some reason, everything about the interface annoyed me. I'm stubborn this way, and since I got the Android version in the latest Humble Bundle, I decided to try it. First of all, it is a 20MB download. However, this downloads the rest of the 700MB. OK so far. However, the interface feels even more annoying. It uses a mix of swiping on each side of the screen for character and screen control. I REALLY didn't like it. Not recommended at all. I realize a lot of people like this, I'm just not one of them.

Trackmania 2: Canyon is an unusual racing game. The original trackmania revolved around insane tracks (with loops, jumps, etc) and user-made tracks. Trackmania 2: Canyon is mostly about racing to other people records or medal times. Your only company is the ghost cars running beside you (or inside - there are no car collisions). You also run against your best try on that track. Graphics are just OK, music is acceptable. Controller support is OK, albeit a bit weird - you can't always control the UI between the runs, and have to use the mouse for that. Seems a bit silly. It is an Ubisoft game (I just realized this after buying it, otherwise I probably would have skipped it). Surprisingly, I didn't have any major problems running the game - just a retry on account creation, with just an error message throwing me to the start of the process (keeping all I entered). I wonder why would you do that, instead of just having Retry/back buttons? Just lack of attention to details, ...