The doctor has cleared me to return to school, good friends are able to give me ride in the morning, and I'm mobile enough that I can get around campus. Its time to get back to work! Now what was I doing again?
I return to find that the printer is out of toner. In fact, its out of both yellow and black. I'm betting his means the color printer was effectively a black-and-white printer until the black toner ran out, at which point it became effectively broken. Last time we ran out of black I was the one that ordered the new toner and the first thing I did when I got in was order a complete set of cartridges. When later installing them one of my lab-mates commented, "That thing has been broken since December."
My desk is like an archaeological site, with artifacts of the former occupant's life covered in a fine layer of dust. That former occupant is me and though this is all my stuff is mine, I hardly remember it at all. I see a complex colored diagram I did of some of the system power flows and I remember thinking how useful it was but I look at it now and it puzzles me. What was so important about this? I see other scraps of paper with notes on them; are any of these worth saving? What's the number for the phone at my desk again?
I'm recounting the story of being hit by a car with my lab-mates and one of them mentions a class that he is taking this semester. Its highly related to my research and I think it would be a great class to take. Is it too late to enroll? Do I want to officially enroll or just sit in to learn what I can? I'm not very interested in doing homework and taking tests again and I'm really trying to get done with this degree but how can you pass on a class that is over half of your dissertation? For this week, I'm going to be sitting it in and see how it looks. How do I enroll in a class as an audit?
The clock in the lab isn't working. Battery ran out? Actually broken? Its high on the wall over a doorway so getting to it to diagnose the problem could be tricky.
Somebody unplugged/turned off the fridge over the weekend and everybody's food rotted. It stank in the lab until we were able to drag it out into the hallway and let everything air out. Now the microwave, which was on top of the fridge, is living in a chair in a semi-level fashion.
Really, we are all working on graduate degrees here. I promise.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Data Security
I just got The Email from Target.
Sorry. The Bad Guys got your name, phone number, email, and mailing address from us. We know you hardly ever shop here and only ordered that one thing from us online years ago but, hey, we hold onto all that data. We have and now they have it. You might want to sign up for this credit-reporting service because who know what's going to happen now.
I'm signing up and Target is footing the bill which is the responsible thing for them to do at this point. I hope its not too late as the theft of the data was weeks ago.
We all shop online because of the convenience but convenience has a cost and when it comes to computers, that cost is often in terms of security of data. Many website that allow/force you to have an account will keep you logged into the site as a convenience to you. Whenever you go to the site, you enter it already logged in; no password typing. Of course, that means anybody using your computer will also enter the site logged in as you. Spouses, kids, person who broke-in and stole your computer, whoever.
And if that site is a retailer, many go the extra mile and will automatically or upon your non-refusal (that is, by default) store your shipping information for you to make checkout easier. Some will even offer to store your payment information to provide a one-click shopping experience.
Over the course of the past few years, Intuit, the makers of TurboTax has been offering an online version of said software. Rather than buy a disc and install TurboTax on your computer, you go to their website and do your taxes there. Being online, they are able to suck in a bunch of data from other online sources and save you some time from manually entering in the data yourself. To use the software on your computer can, depending on the version you use, cost you more than the online version.
There are a broad range of attitudes and perspectives when it comes to data security. We each have to decide what level of inconvenience we are willing to bear for a desired level of peace of mind. But without any experience involving identity theft, it is easy to overvalue the convenience and underplay the risk. Due to my recent experience of being hit by a car, I imagine it feels similar how I thought about insurance. It wasn't until I was dependent on the other party's insurance and saw the actual price of emergency medical care did I realize how important insurance was. The financial side of that collision would have played out very differently if the details of our coverage had been slightly different.
I don't know what changes I am going to make in light of this personal data theft. The data that was stolen from Target is probably enough to do some damage but pales in comparison to what a theft of my tax data would provide access to. For the foreseeable future, I'm using TurboTax on my computer and not the online version. With one big exception, I don't have any online retailers store my payment information and I choose to actively log in and out of accounts when I visit various sites and retailers. The exception is Amazon. I'm going to have to think long and hard about the convenience/security trade-off there.
I've thought about using my Mac's whole-drive encryption for my home computer. Any computer made today has enough horsepower to run this service with virtually no loss in performance. That would provide another layer of protection in case my computer was stolen. I'm going to have to do some more reading on it before I make a final decision.
Even though it is highly related, I don't even want to talk about passwords; that's a whole separate topic. I'll briefly say I use the Mac's Keychain (and I've mostly been able to get my wife to do the same) and I think everybody else should too. I've considered going one step further and using a more full-fledged password manager so that all of my passwords are a mess of un-memorizable characters but I'm not sure how that would play out in my life. I routinely work on two computers and a mobile device and am not sure I how much of a hassle it would be.
See, convenience versus security. Even nerds have to make choices.
Sorry. The Bad Guys got your name, phone number, email, and mailing address from us. We know you hardly ever shop here and only ordered that one thing from us online years ago but, hey, we hold onto all that data. We have and now they have it. You might want to sign up for this credit-reporting service because who know what's going to happen now.
I'm signing up and Target is footing the bill which is the responsible thing for them to do at this point. I hope its not too late as the theft of the data was weeks ago.
We all shop online because of the convenience but convenience has a cost and when it comes to computers, that cost is often in terms of security of data. Many website that allow/force you to have an account will keep you logged into the site as a convenience to you. Whenever you go to the site, you enter it already logged in; no password typing. Of course, that means anybody using your computer will also enter the site logged in as you. Spouses, kids, person who broke-in and stole your computer, whoever.
And if that site is a retailer, many go the extra mile and will automatically or upon your non-refusal (that is, by default) store your shipping information for you to make checkout easier. Some will even offer to store your payment information to provide a one-click shopping experience.
Over the course of the past few years, Intuit, the makers of TurboTax has been offering an online version of said software. Rather than buy a disc and install TurboTax on your computer, you go to their website and do your taxes there. Being online, they are able to suck in a bunch of data from other online sources and save you some time from manually entering in the data yourself. To use the software on your computer can, depending on the version you use, cost you more than the online version.
There are a broad range of attitudes and perspectives when it comes to data security. We each have to decide what level of inconvenience we are willing to bear for a desired level of peace of mind. But without any experience involving identity theft, it is easy to overvalue the convenience and underplay the risk. Due to my recent experience of being hit by a car, I imagine it feels similar how I thought about insurance. It wasn't until I was dependent on the other party's insurance and saw the actual price of emergency medical care did I realize how important insurance was. The financial side of that collision would have played out very differently if the details of our coverage had been slightly different.
I don't know what changes I am going to make in light of this personal data theft. The data that was stolen from Target is probably enough to do some damage but pales in comparison to what a theft of my tax data would provide access to. For the foreseeable future, I'm using TurboTax on my computer and not the online version. With one big exception, I don't have any online retailers store my payment information and I choose to actively log in and out of accounts when I visit various sites and retailers. The exception is Amazon. I'm going to have to think long and hard about the convenience/security trade-off there.
I've thought about using my Mac's whole-drive encryption for my home computer. Any computer made today has enough horsepower to run this service with virtually no loss in performance. That would provide another layer of protection in case my computer was stolen. I'm going to have to do some more reading on it before I make a final decision.
Even though it is highly related, I don't even want to talk about passwords; that's a whole separate topic. I'll briefly say I use the Mac's Keychain (and I've mostly been able to get my wife to do the same) and I think everybody else should too. I've considered going one step further and using a more full-fledged password manager so that all of my passwords are a mess of un-memorizable characters but I'm not sure how that would play out in my life. I routinely work on two computers and a mobile device and am not sure I how much of a hassle it would be.
See, convenience versus security. Even nerds have to make choices.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Christmas Board Games
This Christmas was a board game Christmas. Virtually all of my gifts were board games and at this point, I have more than enough to keep me busy through the rest of the year. Perhaps even longer.
I've had a chance to play a few of them (though not all) and it is an interesting mix.
I think of this game as Puerto Rico set in space; a lot of the mechanics are similar. Each player chooses an action that all players will execute but he/she gets a bonus for choosing it. There are goods that have to be produced which can be turned into victory point or turned into money. Developments can be built that enable a variety of advantages such as greater yields during production or lower cost of expansion.
There are key differences, though, which makes the game far from a re-themed Puerto Rico. Most importantly, the game is a card game which makes it both simpler to manage (fewer bits all over the place) and more complex as the costs and advantages of each card are much more variable. It kind of feels like a hybrid of a deck-building game where each card adds unique abilities and a role-picking/resource development game like Puerto Rico.
There are other differences which I find as advantages over Puerto Rico. The game can be played with only two players with no compromises or alternative rule sets. Once you've got your handle around the iconography, the game plays very quickly, less than 30 minutes for a two player games. Though I've only played a few games, the possible strategies seem quite varied and of course, with any card game, there are a number of expansions to increase the variety.
Though I didn't get this game for Christmas, it has gotten a lot of play time among me and my friends lately. The first two times we played we used a modified rule set to try to get our handle around the rules. The third time, a few weeks ago, we played using the full rules and the experience was great. At least I think so, as I was the sole Cylon traitor and despite making a few crucial errors, was able to destroy humanity right as they were about to reach safety.
I feel the game does a great job of capturing the desperation and paranoia of the the television show and I expect it will become a favorite among my friends. Clearly, though, it is a tough game to learn. It took all of us six or seven hours of gameplay to feel like we had a handle on it. The first night we played, we had a string of bad card draws that made the game seem impossible to win and on the second occasion, this time playing without traitors to give ourselves a change, it seemed too easy. It is due up for another play in the next few weeks and we'll see how that game turns out.
If you've played Apple to Apples, then you understand the basic play of this game. For Dixit, though, the play revolves around cards with fantastical images rather than phrases or titles. On a player's turn, he/she picks a card, gives a clue and all the other players contribute cards that they think best match the clue. Points are awarded if the players guess the clue-giver's card and the non-clue-giver's get additional points if people guess his/her card is the clue-giver's.
The artwork on the cards is evocative and I think the game can really thrive when playing in larger groups with people who are capable of giving obscure and oblique clues. The game is quick to learn and removes some of the arbitrariness and silliness that Apples to Apples can bring. (Not there is anything wrong with those; sometimes that's what everybody wants). I think of Dixit as the artistic, creative, and imaginative party game.
I've had a chance to play a few of them (though not all) and it is an interesting mix.
I think of this game as Puerto Rico set in space; a lot of the mechanics are similar. Each player chooses an action that all players will execute but he/she gets a bonus for choosing it. There are goods that have to be produced which can be turned into victory point or turned into money. Developments can be built that enable a variety of advantages such as greater yields during production or lower cost of expansion.
There are key differences, though, which makes the game far from a re-themed Puerto Rico. Most importantly, the game is a card game which makes it both simpler to manage (fewer bits all over the place) and more complex as the costs and advantages of each card are much more variable. It kind of feels like a hybrid of a deck-building game where each card adds unique abilities and a role-picking/resource development game like Puerto Rico.
There are other differences which I find as advantages over Puerto Rico. The game can be played with only two players with no compromises or alternative rule sets. Once you've got your handle around the iconography, the game plays very quickly, less than 30 minutes for a two player games. Though I've only played a few games, the possible strategies seem quite varied and of course, with any card game, there are a number of expansions to increase the variety.
Though I didn't get this game for Christmas, it has gotten a lot of play time among me and my friends lately. The first two times we played we used a modified rule set to try to get our handle around the rules. The third time, a few weeks ago, we played using the full rules and the experience was great. At least I think so, as I was the sole Cylon traitor and despite making a few crucial errors, was able to destroy humanity right as they were about to reach safety.
I feel the game does a great job of capturing the desperation and paranoia of the the television show and I expect it will become a favorite among my friends. Clearly, though, it is a tough game to learn. It took all of us six or seven hours of gameplay to feel like we had a handle on it. The first night we played, we had a string of bad card draws that made the game seem impossible to win and on the second occasion, this time playing without traitors to give ourselves a change, it seemed too easy. It is due up for another play in the next few weeks and we'll see how that game turns out.
If you've played Apple to Apples, then you understand the basic play of this game. For Dixit, though, the play revolves around cards with fantastical images rather than phrases or titles. On a player's turn, he/she picks a card, gives a clue and all the other players contribute cards that they think best match the clue. Points are awarded if the players guess the clue-giver's card and the non-clue-giver's get additional points if people guess his/her card is the clue-giver's.
The artwork on the cards is evocative and I think the game can really thrive when playing in larger groups with people who are capable of giving obscure and oblique clues. The game is quick to learn and removes some of the arbitrariness and silliness that Apples to Apples can bring. (Not there is anything wrong with those; sometimes that's what everybody wants). I think of Dixit as the artistic, creative, and imaginative party game.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Making a Custom Board for "Power Grid"
I am thankful that I am not the only one out there that likes to modify, improve, and customize my board games. It was my exploration on the web that lead me to build a storage box for my Dominion cards, a similar effort for my copy of Carcassonne, and my latest board-game project: making custom boards for Power Grid. The game board for Power Grid is a map of country or region with key cities connected by transmission lines. All these maps are two-sided and the board that comes stock with the game has the US on one side and Germany on the other. There are many expansions you can buy that provide maps for places like Japan, China, and Northern Europe (to name a few).
Those with a more creative drive make their own maps and many have posted the image files for these maps online, freely sharing their work with others. The quality of the work varies greatly with some appearing nearly as good as those professionally made and other with quality more in line with my own drawing and sketching abilities. Two circumstances lead me to try to assemble my own custom board using some of the higher quality files I have found.
Circumstance one: a friend of mine had come upon a large-format color printer and needed some material to use for test printing. He knew I had some larger Power Grid map files and suggested he try a couple of them.
Circumstance two: I was ordering some photo albums for my customary photographic year-in-review and noticed the same vendor offered a product they called "chipboard" which looked suspiciously like the material used to make game boards. I measured one of my existing Power Grid boards and discovered the smaller but thicker version they sold was very close to the correct dimensions. It was 1/4" too short in one dimension and about 25% thicker but neither one of these was a deal breaker; I was convinced I could make it work.
My friend delivered the prints a few weeks ago and the blank chipboard showed up a week later. With a little bit of spare time late this past week, I decided to try to put the pieces together and see how it looked.
The first job in making the board was trimming and scoring the board to the correct size. The board has a quad-fold design which is easier to show than explain:
To make the cuts and scores I used a utility knife with a new blade along with an aluminum straight-edge as a guide. Both cutting and scoring required three to eight passes but the results turned out great. I ended-up reinforcing the hinge points on the board with book tape. I suspect this is not actually necessary but its an easy precaution to take.
To mount the prints, I trimmed the margins off of each print and confirmed they would fit on the board. First problem: the prints were not quite the correct size for the board with both being slightly smaller than desired; additionally, they were not the same size. In the spirit of making a prototype, I decided to use the prints as is, re-trimming the chipboard to the size of the larger of the two prints.
Once these adjustments were made, I used spray adhesive to carefully attach the prints to the chipboard, one on the front and the other on the back. The alignment of the print to the board was not perfect but it was good enough and probably as good as I could do on my own. Before the glue had fully set, I used a utility knife with a new, fresh, blade to carefully cut the mounted images along outer-opening fold-lines. (That is, fold-lines that expose the chipboard when folded.)
The final step was applying a protective coating of some kind to keep the surface from being easily damaged during game play. Upon advice of the internet, I used a polyurethane spray wood finish, applying two or three light coats to each side. The can says that the finish will "amber" lighter colored objects but most of the board is more darkly colored and thus not worth worrying about.
The final product:
For a prototype, I happy with how things looks. I haven't played on it yet so I'm not sure how it will hold up over time. The varnish may or may not be thick enough. The exposed edges of the board may be a problem and fray with use. (The professional boards fold the image over the edge and attach is underneath the image on the reverse side.) Like I said, though, its a good first try.
Those with a more creative drive make their own maps and many have posted the image files for these maps online, freely sharing their work with others. The quality of the work varies greatly with some appearing nearly as good as those professionally made and other with quality more in line with my own drawing and sketching abilities. Two circumstances lead me to try to assemble my own custom board using some of the higher quality files I have found.
Circumstance one: a friend of mine had come upon a large-format color printer and needed some material to use for test printing. He knew I had some larger Power Grid map files and suggested he try a couple of them.
Circumstance two: I was ordering some photo albums for my customary photographic year-in-review and noticed the same vendor offered a product they called "chipboard" which looked suspiciously like the material used to make game boards. I measured one of my existing Power Grid boards and discovered the smaller but thicker version they sold was very close to the correct dimensions. It was 1/4" too short in one dimension and about 25% thicker but neither one of these was a deal breaker; I was convinced I could make it work.
My friend delivered the prints a few weeks ago and the blank chipboard showed up a week later. With a little bit of spare time late this past week, I decided to try to put the pieces together and see how it looked.
The first job in making the board was trimming and scoring the board to the correct size. The board has a quad-fold design which is easier to show than explain:
To make the cuts and scores I used a utility knife with a new blade along with an aluminum straight-edge as a guide. Both cutting and scoring required three to eight passes but the results turned out great. I ended-up reinforcing the hinge points on the board with book tape. I suspect this is not actually necessary but its an easy precaution to take.
Scored and cut game board.
Book tape used to reinforce the hinges.
To mount the prints, I trimmed the margins off of each print and confirmed they would fit on the board. First problem: the prints were not quite the correct size for the board with both being slightly smaller than desired; additionally, they were not the same size. In the spirit of making a prototype, I decided to use the prints as is, re-trimming the chipboard to the size of the larger of the two prints.
Once these adjustments were made, I used spray adhesive to carefully attach the prints to the chipboard, one on the front and the other on the back. The alignment of the print to the board was not perfect but it was good enough and probably as good as I could do on my own. Before the glue had fully set, I used a utility knife with a new, fresh, blade to carefully cut the mounted images along outer-opening fold-lines. (That is, fold-lines that expose the chipboard when folded.)
The final step was applying a protective coating of some kind to keep the surface from being easily damaged during game play. Upon advice of the internet, I used a polyurethane spray wood finish, applying two or three light coats to each side. The can says that the finish will "amber" lighter colored objects but most of the board is more darkly colored and thus not worth worrying about.
The final product:
For a prototype, I happy with how things looks. I haven't played on it yet so I'm not sure how it will hold up over time. The varnish may or may not be thick enough. The exposed edges of the board may be a problem and fray with use. (The professional boards fold the image over the edge and attach is underneath the image on the reverse side.) Like I said, though, its a good first try.
Thursday, January 09, 2014
Dog Park in Winter
We've had a fair amount of snow and cold weather here in Wichita over the past few weeks and several times have taken the dogs to the snow-covered dog park near our house. Almost nobody else is willing to go out in the cold to play but our dogs don't seem to mind. Basil in particular loves rolling in the snow.
Thursday, January 02, 2014
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