Wilcox Family BLOG – Page 8 – Welcome to the Wilcox Family weB LOG, your source for the latest Wilcox news, anecdotes, and rants; and, as Jack Benny quipped on his first radio show (March 29, 1932), â€œThere will be a slight pause while you say, â€˜Who cares?â€™â€â€

April 25, 2010

LARP or Party Game: How to Play “Zombies”

There’s something fascinating about zombies, and a current cultural meme seems to have made them even more popular than the silly idea that the world will end in 2012. (One of the most popular video games around now is the second installment of Left 4 Dead, called Left 4 Dead 2, which is a teamwork-based game pitting humans against hordes of “infected.”) I’ll remind readers that I was a fan before the current massive popularly, generally ever since reading Max Brooks’ brilliantly-written survival-guide parody The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, and his captivating World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War novel.

Zombies seem to be everywhere. There’s even a Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me parody centering on a zombie apocalypse.

LARPingâ€”live action role playingâ€”is detailed in Little Brother, which can be downloaded for free at Corey Doctorow’s site, or, of course, purchased in hardcover.

Somewhere between reading Little Brother and being inundated with zombies, it occurred to me that a zombie hunt LARP would make a great party game for David and his friends on his 11th birthday. Here’s what we did:

One person is elected to be the starting zombie.
The zombie “infects” others by giving them a gentle “Indian sunburn.” (I didn’t want the kids biting each other.)
Once infected, a human has wait 30 seconds and then become an active zombie, hunting any human he can find.
The only way to stop a zombie is to shoot the zombie in the head with a Nerf gun. Such a shot removes the zombie from the remainder of the round.
Zombies move slowly and relentlessly, generally while moaning loudly.
The round ends when all human have been infected, or when all zombies have been killed.

Overall, this went very well. Next time, I’ll include a couple of minor improvements:

The kids kept barricading themselves in bathrooms. This sort of interior door will absolutely not stop a zombie, but will slow one down for a moment or two. I think to account for this, I’ll have the zombies go back to a central location, and get a paper sign that, when slid under the door, requires those within to open the door.
I need to figure out a way to allow for simulation of decapitation by sword. I think a Nerf or toy sword to the neck should work. Water-based magic markers would be fine, too.

There were a couple of really great moments. One was when my sweet daughter Naomi came up to me and gave me the “Indian sunburn.” This was perfectly reflective of the psychological difficulty of fighting zombies who were formerly loved ones. I should have shot her on sight!

Lego_Left_4_Dead_by_XenoPrime — Lego Left 4 Dead: Coming Soon (image thanks to XenoPrime).

(Sadly, you probably won’t see this anytime soon, but you never know. I remember when Lego wouldn’t manufacture Lego weapons for their minifigs.)

April 20, 2010

What to Do When Comcast’s Norton Security Suite Breaks Your Shared Resources

Comcast has recently switched its provided-for-free antivirus vendor from McAfee to Norton Security Suite, from Symantec. The subscriptions to McAfee Security Suite are due to expire in May. (Norton is named after Peter Norton, a true god of early personal computing utilities back when DOS was king and before all the cool things Peter wrote got licensed by Microsoft for use within their operating systems.

Overall, this is probably a good move, as Symantec’s 2010 offering seems to have recovered its lagging performance, and surged ahead of McAfee in the ratings.

A month ago, I installed Norton on our mostly-gaming-and-homework computer to see how it would run. I hadn’t had any real problem with Norton, and it does seem to be less intrusive than McAfee was, doing most of its scanning during idle times. I also switched our church’s media computer over to use it, and had only one minor problem that a reboot fixed.

(I should interject that “the cloud” has allowed me to radically de-task my specific-machine-focused life, so that, for most of the things that were so critical before, it now doesn’t matter which computer I use. Our wilcoxfamily.net e-mail and calendar are hooked to Google Apps; my notes are in Evernote, frequently accessed files are in DropBox, and even remote access tasks can be handled through LogMeIn.)

Last night I decided to switch from McAfee to Norton on the computer that gets the most use at home. This is the one that hosts our shared printer. I ran the installer from Comcast for Norton, which automatically uninstalls McAfee, lets you reboot, and installs Norton. There didn’t appear to be any problems … until Isaac tried to print from the other machine, and got an error.

I checked the cables, successfully printed from the host machine, but nothing I did would fix the printing. I also discovered that trying to get to my host machine’s C drive from the network wouldn’t work (usually we do \{machinename}c$ to open it as a network share), although the D drive would open. I tried disabling the Norton firewall and anitvirus temporarily, but the network resources still wouldn’t connect.

I fired up a chat session with a Symantec representative named Srini, and he checked my spooler settings. Ultimately Srini wasn’t able to help. While this fairly slow support was going on, I hit the Web, searching for one of the error messages I received while trying to open the C drive, “Not enough server storage is available to process this command.” Among other results indicating the same problem, I found a KnowledgeBase article at Microsoft that describes the symptoms and a possible fix. I also discovered a number of posts suggesting that this was a relatively common problem with Symantec products, although other products or networking configurations can produce the same symptoms.

So, having nothing to lose, I took a stab at fixing the IRPStackSize property in my registry. In my case, the key didn’t exist, so I added it by using RegEdit to navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesLanmanServerParameters key, and then added a new DWORD named IRPStackSize (the capitalization is important). I right-clicked on the new key, and edited the decimal value to 18 (hexadecimal 12). Then I restarted the computer, which is necessary for the change to work.

Yep, there's your problem right here: Setting the IRPStackSize parameter in the registry editor.

Upon restart, my network resources were accessible again, and printing to the shared printer worked perfectly. Tonight I’ll try to contact the Symantec representative again and let him know how this was fixed.

April 4, 2010

Christos Anesti!

He Is Risen

Alithos Anesti!

April 1, 2010

Dharma Inititive Alarm Clock

From ThinkGeek.

March 24, 2010

Our Artist, Naomi

Naomi has become quite the artist; much like Isaac, she loves to draw.

Naomi drew this during our small group Bible study a week or so ago. She copied the illustration from the front of the drawing pad, and embellished it a bit.

Our 6-year-old artist at work. Media: Marker on markerboard.

A birdhouse NaNi sketched a number of months ago on a visit to Pat Metrano. Note the recreation of perspective.

Naomi used an illustration in the book to draw Junpei from Megatokyo.

A better shot of NaNi's Junpei drawing, including his weapons.

Naomi's completed drawing of Junpei from Megatokyo.

Naomi drew this freehand this week, with only her imagination as her guide.

This is a style Naomi learned from Isaac's girlfriend, Lucia.

This freehand drawing is another during-small-group creation. I love that she always gets the color orders in the rainbow correct.

External references: Junpei; Megatokyo.

March 17, 2010

How Our Government Works

Once upon a time the government had a scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, “Someone may steal it at night.” So they created a night watchman position and hired a person at $18,000 a year for the job.

Then Congress said, “How does the watchman do his job without instruction?” So they created a planning department and hired two people—one person to write the instructions for $22,000 and one person to do time studies for an additional $22,000 per year.

Then congress said, “How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?” So they created a quality control department and hired two people. One to do the studies for $31,000 and one to write the reports for an additional $31,000 per year.

Then Congress said, “How are these people going to get paid?” So they created the following positions: a timekeeper for a $35,000 annual salary and a payroll officer for an additional $35,000. Then they created an administrative section and hired three more people—an Administrative Officer at $155,000 per year, an Assistant Administrative Officer at $125,000 and a Legal Secretary at $100,000 per year.

Then Congress said, “We have had this operating for one year with a budget cost of $574,000 and we are $18,000 over budget. We must cut back costs.”

So they laid off the night watchman.

(Contributed by Paul Anderson, via e-mail.)

March 12, 2010

Kid Conversations this Morning

NaNi:

While I was getting ready to go to work this morning, Naomi stood in front of the refrigerator, and said, “Dad, watch what I have learned.” She opened the refrigerator, and demonstrated how she could press the switch in the front to turn the refrigerator light off. She proudly announced, “I figured out how this works. See,” she closed the refrigerator door slowly, “when you close the door, it presses this switch, and the light goes off.”

“Good investigation, Naomi,” I praised. “My little engineer.”

“Just like her daddy,” she responded, with her usual smile.

David:

David was watching an online episode of “Bleach” anime at the computer. “So, watching some ShÅjo manga?” I asked, sneakily.

Unusually, I fooled him. “Yes,” he replied, “Wait! NOOOOOO!”

(Laughter)

March 9, 2010

How Adam-12 Ruined My Squeaky-Clean Reputation

Courtesy of Netflix streaming over our Xbox 360, my son David (primarily) and I have been enjoying watching Adam-12, the police television series that started the year I was born, and ran for seven years thereafter, and much longer in syndication. Adam-12 was one of my favorite televisions programs when I was a kid, and I remain impressed by its lasting quality, straightforward, honest characters, and clear moral implications. (Director Jack Webb, of Dragnet fame, was clearly not an “everybody’s-doing-it” kind of guy, even in the ’60s.)

Officers Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and Jim Reed (Kent McCord) from the Adam-12 television series.

In 1978, I was in Mrs. Lovell’s third grade class at Parkview Elementary School, in Easton, Massachusetts.

One day we were reviewing vocabulary with a small reading group after a multiple-choice exercise. The vocabulary word in discussion was heroine, and, among the possible definitions was a medicine.

When the correct answer was given by another student, I suggested, a medicine, getting me quite a troubled look from Mrs. Lovell, who then asked, “Do any of you know what he is referring to?” “Drugs,” answered Dennis, with an implication of disgust.

I’d never heard the female version of hero, but Adam-12 had provided me with an excellent education in the dangers of illegal drug use. In my eight-year-old mind, heroin was a drug, and one obtained medicines at the drugstore, so a drug such as heroin perhaps could be classified as a medicine.

I was too embarrassed by the reactions of my teacher and peers to explain this logic, and the incident eventually became eclipsed by even worse incidents of faux pas that we shall consign to the horrible depths of “the junior high years.”

Adam-12 photograph courtesy of http://www.kentmccord.com.

March 7, 2010

Happy Birthday, Nichelle!

Today is Nichelle’s birthday. Generally, for reasons which have never been clear to me, it is considered impolite to ask or tell a woman’s age, so I won’t do that here.

Jack Benny, star of stage, screen, and radio.

February 8, 2010

To Boldly Go: Star Trek Online

A couple of weeks ago marked a watershed moment in MMORPGs: Star Trek Online wrapped up its mostly-open-beta program, and went live with its early-access-for-preorders launch. Delighted with the quality of the game, we sprung for a lifetime membership, which is approximately as costly as paying per-month for a year and a half. (I wish World of WarCraft would offer such a deal.)

The boys and I have been hooked. (Isaac, the weasel, has remained several levels ahead of me, and is about to get a promotion that will give him access to even better ships.) The game features space exploration and combat, and ground exploration and combat. The missions are described as “episodes,” and, like the plots of a television series, often require following unexpected developments and changing tasks as the plot unfolds across planetary surfaces and space. Each player captains his or her own starship, outfitting it with weapons, equipment that gives bonuses, and senior officers who also provide special abilities. I’ve attached a couple of screen shots of the gorgeously-rendered space exploration scenes below. The planets are beautiful, often including moving cloud layers that partly cover the ground below, as well as appropriate atmospheric illumination by the planet’s star, depending on one’s location in orbit.

The USS Naomi, approaching a planet within the Delta Volaris sector. — The USS *Naomi*, approaching a planet within the Delta Volaris sector.

(My first ship is named the USS Nichelle.)

The USS Naomi, exploring a system in the Delta Volaris sector. — The USS *Naomi*, exploring a system in the Delta Volaris sector.

Ground locations are often also highly detailed, with a wide variety of plants and terrain. Some of the outdoor ground locations (there are also caves, and starbase and other complex interiors) sometimes seem very reminiscent of the ToS set locations, although generally with more detail than the show’s budget allowed.

Combat and exploration are both integral to the game. Combat is far more skill-intensive than most MMORPGs, particularly as one commands an “away team” to whom orders must be given, and as space combat works in three dimensions and often against multiple enemies. Some missions automatically draft the cooperation of other players, and nearly everything can be accomplished by choice as a teamwork exercise. Like the best MMOs available, there are also large PVP combat areas where players can earn even more rewards.

The game is still in early release, and is apparently only going to get better, but it still shows some weaknesses of an early release with higher-than-expected levels of demand on its servers, and some frustratingly common bugs, such as the game locking up.

Overall, though, our romps through the Star Trek universe have been delightful, with much future enjoyment anticipated.

Addendum, Stardate 201002.18: I am fully convinced that this game was worth every penny. Even my beloved World of WarCraft has never captured me with this intensity.