D. Collins 24/7

SBE Meeting

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:52:11 -0500

We had a rather heated argument today in our meeting dealing with one of tomorrow’s topics. I don’t think I should talk about the details on it yet, though.

So my wife was able to join me for my meeting this month. It’s a refreshing change. We’re currently at the Rock Bass Grill in Harrisburg with the board and the food is looking good.

My Own Facebook

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:21:00 -0500

I’m sure you all know by now that I’m not on Facebook. Nor do I intend to sign back up. The question is: how do I keep everyone knowledgeable of the goings-on in my life without resorting to making everyone visit multiple sites to keep tabs on things?

Easy: I roll my own.

Well, easier said than done of course, but I’m almost there. I have spent the last couple weeks working on a prototype replacement of my homepage that will allow a full look at what I post online.

For those of you interested in my progress, feel free to follow it at http://dcollins.comatosegroup.com. Please keep in mind that it is currently in beta and I don’t know if I’ll have time to work on it any further tonight.

On Endermen

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:28:00 -0400

On MinecraftForum.net there’s a lot of chat about how Notch (+Markus Persson) wants to change them by making them harder. I just thought I would add my thoughts to the discussion.

I can’t speak for everyone, but when I go into a cave system I follow a simple guideline for finding my way. When I’m traveling deeper into the mine, I place all of my torches on the left-hand wall. To find my way out, I simply keep the torches on my right. When I come to a large room with several hallways coming off of it, I look for the one with torches on the right wall and travel that way. It’s an easy way to prevent getting lost.

But what if there was a malevolent force working to keep me in those caverns?

If Notch (+Markus Persson) makes the Enderman spawning code a little more lenient for the amount of light they can spawn in and give them an affinity toward removing torches (i.e. they like the dark and want to put out the lights), possibly placing them elsewhere, I know that I would quickly shift into a panic and probably end up getting lost in the cavern and probably die before reaching the surface. Allowing the Endermen to re-place the torches isn’t necessary, though it would be a nice touch. There are only a couple outcomes to that scenario. Should the Enderman place the torch, but on an opposite wall, I would be completely lost. If he places it, but on the same wall, there’s really no change. If he doesn’t place it, I would re-explore the dark cave and come upon my previously placed torches eventually anyway, but I may end up with hostile mobs between me and my goal.

The only way for this to work though is to make the Endermen silent when they’re doing this. It wouldn’t be nearly as scary if I was aware that it was happening.

I know that using a lot of “I’s” here in this post sounds selfish, but I can’t really speak for anyone else. I can only tell you what would terrify me. And this would terrify me.