Sorry for the horrible formatting, slashdot
forces me to hit a certain line count,
and I am tired of messing with coding HTML
just to post to a damn msg board.
They need to get with the future...
I have had some killer boxen I have built
that have worked well for years and have
passed on thru hands of other ppl.
PC hardware like one poster pointed out is
cheap and is gonna break Make up several extra PC's ready to go with a "image" if identical hardware is used.
Keep several ready to go and working in a
storage closet out of site and keep their existence little known or else they will
get appropriated just because ppl "feel"
they need an extra boxen.
Don't tell anyone either they will slip and
tell someone and then they will never stop pestering you til you have no extra boxen .
They will even stoop to calling in favors of
ppl in authority to try to scrounge them an
extra boxen . They are snakes !!!
Users should keep all their files on the
servers, BECAUSE...They will have RAID5 with complementary back ups of each server.
If one server catches on fire, the other
is backing it up during "low load" times,
or at pre-scheduled cron times.
Monitor load usage of network and servers,
plan back ups and other simlar tasks off peak.
IDE based raid is now cheap and reliable and
you can get awesome amounts of storage
for reasonable money.
Ex.: 12 channel IDE Raid 5 controller with
12 - 120 gig drives pushing 1.4 Tera prior
to losing 33% due to overhead of parity .
Keep several extra IDE drives laying around,
use all the same size and order them in bulk factory direct if you can.
Hot swap trays are essential, read reviews and get the best RAID.
Alot of ppl on slashdot have used 3ware and promise, Adaptec is always damn good too .
Ex: order several cases of drives from
the manufacturer . In IDE stay away from
Seagate, and Maxtor drives that were Quantum's .
Alot of ppl I know generally like Western Digital, IBM, and the better Maxtors.
Again read reviews online, learn to form
your own opinion . learn from the pain of others, serach news groups for model#'s you
are considering buying.
Never buy the newest, just got on the shelf products, alot of the time they are buggy
and need BIOS updates.
I know I just bought one.
Tried and true is what should go in a server.
If it is not the pillar of praise, you do not want it in your server .
If you want to be 100% sure, go with SCSI, but
be prepared to pay hideous amounts of money
for equal storage.
Set the 2 Raid 5 arrays to snapshot each
other every day , and you can restore a
backup in minutes this way or incrementally .
The sheer volume of volume will
let you do these monster backups, cheaply,
and quickly if you use 64 bit controllers,
and 64 bit PCI slots.
Dual Xeon's for the Servers is most likely
best . As for waiting for AMD's hammer, that
is postponed damned near indefinitely, I
have heard 3rd or 4th quarter.
When I worked for cisco this is how they
did it, and they snapshotted the desktops too .
The servers, build to the teeth, MAX RAM,
Dual or Quad Ethernet NIC's . Then bond the
NIC ports as needed , load balance as needed .
Set up some basic SNMP package with an
e-mailer to let you know when boxen are
burping.
Careful not to over do it on the SNMP it
can burden your servers or your network,
just the essentail info, the books will
clue you in on this.
Don't bother with the expense of RDR RAM ,
go DDR, use the extra money to buy more of it.
Hell use the extra money for an extra server .
Fast RDR costs almost triple what DDR does,
and RDR only outperforms in select apps .
price compare here : http://www.pricewatch.com
I'd recommend a top of the line Ethernet
switch, after all what good is your servers
if the network is crap.
Consider fiber GBIC's from the servers to
to a blade on a nice cisco switch.
Giga-bit ethernet over fiber is a beautiful
thing to behold.
Consider a Giga-bit link from server to
server to the backups so they do not load
the network .
You can just use a crossover cable if you you
use Giga-bit over copper.
Cisco is expensive as hell, but they are good .
Juniper and Extreme are good too as long as
you are just running one protocol and not
trying to make a hybrid multi-protocol network.
The "Hire a real sysadmin" statement is true,
unless you are one to like new HUGE challenges .
If you are stuck with this, you need to do ALOT
of reading, O'reilly has some good books,
but there are others you will need as well .
Don't skimp here, read the highly recommended
Unix Bible and any books it recommends .
Unix Admin's guide too, but these alone will not be enough .
You are about to read several thousands of
pages of material, you might point that
out to the ppl that dumped this on you .
Software for the servers, I'd do alot of
research, I have no recommendations, I am
a hardware guy . Linux of course, I am partial to Redhat.
As for Sun boxes beating x86 boxes...well
yeah sure, but for the cost of one 4 processor
Netra 1400t with 16 gig of RAM you can build
many x86 boxes and use somthing like a
beowulf cluster or www.mosix.com .
When it comes down to $$$'s, x86 is gonna
win, if you want support, and someone to
hold your hand and be there 24x7x365 go sun .
Sun support, parts, and just about you name
it is mucho deniro . I think if you get your
learn on, you can better spend the money
elsewhere.
The learning curve on this is going to look like the combined eliptical orbits of every planetary body in our galaxy.
Network Security ??? Call in a well known
expert and have them set up a plan , follow
it religiously or get hacked.
Security is almost becoming a science unto
itself , a good firewall, well setup and
maintained.
IP access lists in your Cisco, or other managed Router or layer 3 switch.
Oh, and if your religious, you might pray .
If you have any specific questions just e-mail me at my addy on the webpage below.
If I do not know it, the *nix wizards that
taught me will for sure . I am still learning
myself, but if your a REAL IT person you always will be.
The poles are shared space, my aunt wrote the pole stats for the local Electric utility in a CAD proggie.
Everyone gets to hang off the poles, they just have to talk to the ppl who put them in the ground . 9 times out of 10 it is the local power company.
I still say WISP Coop is the answer to all of this BS , and it would really put a kink in their style.
Once the WISP has enough saved in it's "Not for profit/Non profit" accounts it starts running aerial fiber to local communities, and buying long haul dark fiber as an entire Metro area.
Next thing you know there is a Nationwide WISP Coop Mesh topology, bypassing a good portion of the "Commercial" Internet.
I think communities could start local WISP's and then Coop the long haul, and run the entity as a "Not for profit or Non Profit".
One of the rules of big bandwidth I have seen is 4 times the bandwidth at twice the price.
The more you buy the cheaper it gets.
If communities used aerial fiber like the cable companies did, they could connect the townships in a mesh topology so that if one aerial was cut, it would simply re-route . They could keep local traffic local, and nearby towns could pass data with each other for a song.
Single mode fiber can now push close to 200 miles without a LEM ( line amp ).
Most rural townships are ALOT less than 200 miles from a major city.
The majority of the population lives on the coast.
I think this would work well, start it out small, and build on it from there.
They would have to find ppl for each community to run it, I think grass roots starting with the local PC users groups is the best shot.
Bet you could find a few disgruntled laid off Telecom ppl....
a T1 is only 24 * 64kbit channels, so you end up with slow service if you get a cpl of ppl running a p2p app that has alot of network packet overhead.
God help you all if there was like 5 ppl trying to run them 24x7.
Best deal I think is a wireless WAN underground Coop.
Everyone in a metro get together and connect wirelessly, use ssh2 to encrypt it all much like the Mesh AP at locustworld.com
Then collectively buy a T3 or higher and it should work pretty well.
Hell a T3 is 28 T1's , and a OC-3 is 100 T1's.... If you figure half the ppl use it at the same time, and you assign 512K QOS caps you get 156 ppl signed up paying $40 a month for a little over $6,000.
The OC-3 at $9,000 Is a much better deal, triple the bandwidth for not much more.
155M/bits, oh man...
Just need to use some sort of QOS so ppl do not download ISO's all day and night because they sit at home trying to max out their Cd-r's.
If they want to download that fine, but apportion a "fair" amount of bandwidth to them.
I think you could still handout bandwidth WAAAYYY beyond cable or DSL right now.
If Each major city could get one strand of dark fiber running to each other major US city and had one Metro proxy, we could dump the damn bells.
Your right,
I got 2nd in my state at the Convention we
held called DarkCON, back in the 90's .
I really loved being a DM, and making world's
and have decided to write a book with alot
of the highlights of the games and stories
I had ran, and played in over the past 25 yrs .
The real game did walk all over the PC ones. The PC ones have lots of eye candy these days, and do let ppl from far away get to know each other . The community has grown via the net, but the hand crafted touch, and certain spells are just not there . You cannot include all the sublties of playing a thief, or a ranger, or a bard, etc etc.
A PC has a long time before it can deal with spells like "Wish" or "Enchant item"
Hell alot of Dungeon Master's struggled with it . I was a DM since almost day one, it took alot of reading, and alot of imagination.
The rules were very confusing, especially psionics to the point that ppl often left psionics out . They have made them better over the years, I think 2nd edition got most of it right and was the most playable.
Alot of the books were fluff though and released primarily for cash flow vs. content.
The hard backs are pretty good though.
I think they should have made more epic modules like the temple of elemental evil, The slave lords, Against the Giants, Queen of the Demon Web Pits, etc etc...
There were alot of good modules, mostly old school, alot of stuff from about the time of Jean Rabbe (sp?) started to get too fluffy and lost its edge.
A few years after the fluff club started turning out kiddie modules, things started going south and it was not long til they sold out.
Magic the Gathering stole alot of their players because it was quick and easy to start a game, and you did not need a DM who were usually in short supply for good ones.
Alot of DM's fell into two categories, Mony Haulers, or Killers.
The balance was in presenting a challenge, having fun, and rewarding only enough to keep them hungry, but not disgust them with crappy treasure after a hard fight.
You see this alot in PC games like Diablo 1/2, and others, Dungeon Siege seems a little better about it.
Sorry to hear of the water damage, not many mint copies of that left around.
There are still conventions all over the US every year for gamers, the old school paper gamers.
Now when ppl say gamers, they are talking about PC's or Consoles , hehee.
Someday they will get MMORPG's to be on par with the paper games of the day, but they are just shadow of the subtlety we engineered into it decades ago.
I look forward to a world where you can truly modify the world with your character, like building buildings, castles, etc etc.
It will be a daunting task for whoever creates it, but it will be truly awesome.
A PC game that will let you do "Enchant Item" or other spells that have long lasting effects that have never made it into a PC games.
We actually looked for a cheaper way to get them, and we made our own molds, and used Chem Lab Bunsen burners or Alcohol burners to melt the lead and then pour into molds we made.
Then ppl that were the better painters amongst us would paint them.
Some ppl would spend an entire day or weekend, painting one figurine.
Others would crank an army in a weekend.
Lead figures were purely optional, but it made it easier to tell who was in range when a "Fireball" went off at 33,000 cu. ft of loving .
I can't say how many times players have "singed" themselves with their own fireballs in cramped spaces.
I have to admit most of the games I have run were without lead figures, and then they became banned and pewter is all you could get due to lead poisoning.
Ppl still make them underground though, just not sold commercially as far as I know.
You cannot use about 75% of the spells, and god forbid the combinations.
They are too abstract to emulate in a PC game.
Best example is a "Wish" spell, mostly the PC games are all heal, damage, or enhance.
There were alot of creationist spells in the pencil and paper game.
Then there is all the subtlety of playing a thief, or even subdual combat.
The intrigue, and deception, and mystery, and owning of property, building your castle, town , fortress, etc etc.
Building a fleet of ships on the grander scale, or the low level beginenrs using small sacks of flour to see the invisible monsters.
So many subtle nuances not available in the world of the PC . Some I have not even listed out of the cob webs of my mind and they are long forgotten.
I have been with Ad&d since 1978, not much of lately but I miss it dearly and have seriously considered getting back with some old school gamers and doing some good old quality gaming on a epic scale similar to Tolkien, Robert Jordan, or Stephen Donaldson.
9 out of 10 companies are run by "suits" too .
Tech ppl work as sled dogs for managment
ppl much akin to those starring in Dilbert
cartoons....
Thus why they are so damn popular and so
damn funny....
You prolly do not get this because....
Your a suit...
High Frequency light is akin to microwave radiation, the photonic particles may be blocked, but as we know there is more there than meets the eye.
These non-visible portions of the spectrum are where X-rays, gamma rays, and others come from . Some I am sure we do not even know yet exist , like dark energy being discussed by Stephen Hawking of late.
This Ultra high freuquency radiation is much like super high frequency radar and we know it can shoot thru fiberglass ray domes with the greatest of ease.
So ease up on the name calling, calling ppl names does not make you any smarter, or make ppl cower down to your testosterone powered brain.
I am here on the Navy base, oh wait, you hate the government , LOL.
Yeah, you might not wanna work here, it requires a security clearance.
As a sidenote, this place is hot and humid, and damn ugly.
Internet access is horrible here.
dial up service is worse than AOL, and that is saying alot, I worked for them a long time ago.
LOL
cable modem is capped at 300 meg a month, and the entry rate is $79/month I think , it's latency is so high it is unreal.
Housing, as a sub contractor you will get to live in formerly condemned houses like the one I live in at grandillo circle.
If you think you might feel lonely, don't !!
They will happily provide 2 other roommates you will most likely not get along with and will happily alienate you.
At least they fired the one that was eating all our food , LOL . He also did not know what he was doing and was poster child for WHY the DOT BOMB bust happened.
But I digress...
Tech jobs sure !!! join NMCI or contact general dynamics they are down here too and are looking for suckers like you.
You will love the ratio of men to women too, hehehe , favorite topic among men here.
I am going back to my lady, my land, and never coming back here.
Ex_MislTech Tech Support ( for 2 more days ) Guantanamo Bay Cuba
There is a VAST need for training of ppl
before they get involved with computers .
Or from another perspective IQ tests to
tell ppl they really need to stay away
from the complex machines above lets say....
The over used to cook the G4....
I know ppl that work for Verio and other sweat shops , and they are responsible for a horrendous amount of equipment, and files.
In the never ending quest to lift that stock price, tens of thousands of ppl have been flushed down the toilet.
I worked at Cisco systems and 8,500 of us got canned there, some were awesome workers.
I was perhaps above average, but I worked hard.
With this, make more with less, mentality they have stretched thin what was already running at a pretty frantic clip.
If you are working at some university or government project where there is no corporate blood thirsty pressure, then you are clueless.
Until you live under the shadow of the Axe, with unrealistic managers that are suits, and know not shit of what you do , save your vipers tongue for them.
All to often support ppl support things like oracle that are one endless patch process, and when it breaks enough , they release yet another patch.
So as long as there is crap code out there, there is going to be sleepless support ppl.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry for the horrible formatting, slashdot forces me to hit a certain line count, and I am tired of messing with coding HTML just to post to a damn msg board .
...
.
.
...They will have RAID5 with complementary back ups of each server.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...well
yeah sure, but for the cost of one 4 processor
Netra 1400t with 16 gig of RAM
.
.
.
They need to get with the future
I have had some killer boxen I have built that have worked well for years and have passed on thru hands of other ppl.
PC hardware like one poster pointed out is cheap and is gonna break Make up several extra PC's ready to go with a "image" if identical hardware is used
Keep several ready to go and working in a storage closet out of site and keep their
existence little known or else they will get appropriated just because ppl "feel" they need an extra boxen
Don't tell anyone either they will slip and tell someone and then they will never stop pestering
you til you have no extra boxen .
They will even stoop to calling in favors of ppl in authority to try to scrounge them an extra boxen . They are snakes !!!
Users should keep all their files on the servers, BECAUSE
If one server catches on fire, the other is backing it up during "low load" times, or at pre-scheduled cron times
Monitor load usage of network and servers, plan back ups and other simlar tasks off peak.
IDE based raid is now cheap and reliable and you can get awesome amounts of storage for reasonable money
Ex.: 12 channel IDE Raid 5 controller with 12 - 120 gig drives pushing 1.4 Tera prior to losing 33% due to overhead of parity .
Keep several extra IDE drives laying around, use all the same size and order them in bulk factory direct if you can
Hot swap trays are essential, read reviews and get the best RAID
Alot of ppl on slashdot have used 3ware and promise, Adaptec is always damn good too .
Ex: order several cases of drives from the manufacturer . In IDE stay away from Seagate, and Maxtor drives that were Quantum's .
Alot of ppl I know generally like Western Digital, IBM, and the better Maxtors
Again read reviews online, learn to form your own opinion . learn from the pain of others, serach news groups for model#'s you are considering buying
Never buy the newest, just got on the shelf products, alot of the time they are buggy and need BIOS updates.
I know I just bought one.
Tried and true is what should go in a server. If it is not the pillar of praise, you do not want it in your server .
If you want to be 100% sure, go with SCSI, but be prepared to pay hideous amounts of money for equal storage
Set the 2 Raid 5 arrays to snapshot each other every day , and you can restore a backup in minutes this way or incrementally .
The sheer volume of volume will let you do these monster backups, cheaply, and quickly if you use 64 bit controllers, and 64 bit PCI slots
Dual Xeon's for the Servers is most likely best . As for waiting for AMD's hammer,
that is postponed damned near indefinitely, I have heard 3rd or 4th quarter
When I worked for cisco this is how they did it, and they snapshotted the desktops too .
The servers, build to the teeth, MAX RAM, Dual or Quad Ethernet NIC's . Then bond the NIC ports as needed , load balance as needed . Set up some basic SNMP package with an e-mailer to let you know when boxen are burping
Careful not to over do it on the SNMP it can burden your servers or your network, just the essentail info, the books will clue you in on this
Don't bother with the expense of RDR RAM , go DDR, use the extra money to buy more of it.
Hell use the extra money for an extra server .
Fast RDR costs almost triple what DDR does, and RDR only outperforms in select apps .
price compare here : http://www.pricewatch.com
I'd recommend a top of the line Ethernet switch, after all what good is your servers if the network is crap
Consider fiber GBIC's from the servers to to a blade on a nice cisco switch
Giga-bit ethernet over fiber is a beautiful thing to behold
Consider a Giga-bit link from server to server to the backups so they do not load the network .
You can just use a crossover cable if you you use Giga-bit over copper
Cisco is expensive as hell, but they are good . Juniper and Extreme are good too as long as you are just running one protocol and not trying to make a hybrid multi-protocol network.
The "Hire a real sysadmin" statement is true, unless you are one to like new HUGE challenges .
If you are stuck with this, you need to do ALOT of reading, O'reilly has some good books, but there are others you will need as well .
Don't skimp here, read the highly recommended Unix Bible and any books it recommends .
Unix Admin's guide too, but these alone will not be enough .
You are about to read several thousands of pages of material, you might point that out to the ppl that dumped this on you .
Software for the servers, I'd do alot of research, I have no recommendations, I am a hardware guy . Linux of course, I am partial to Redhat
As for Sun boxes beating x86 boxes
you can build many x86 boxes and use somthing like a beowulf cluster or www.mosix.com .
When it comes down to $$$'s, x86 is gonna win, if you want support, and someone to hold your hand and be there 24x7x365 go sun .
Sun support, parts, and just about you name it is mucho deniro . I think if you get your learn on, you can better spend the money elsewhere.
The learning curve on this is going to look like the combined eliptical orbits of every planetary body in our galaxy
Network Security ??? Call in a well known expert and have them set up a plan , follow it religiously or get hacked.
Security is almost becoming a science unto itself , a good firewall, well setup and maintained.
IP access lists in your Cisco, or other managed Router or layer 3 switch
Oh, and if your religious, you might pray .
If you have any specific questions just e-mail me at my addy on the webpage below
If I do not know it, the *nix wizards that taught me will for sure . I am still learning myself, but if your a REAL IT person you always will be.
Peace...
Ex-MislTech
http://www.geocities.com/duanenavarre
250 million ppl invest $20 a month .
.
.....
, .
.
.
.
.
...
Aka...$5 billion dollars a month
What a system it would be
WISP in the Metro Area Network
Non-profit Dark fiber for long haul
A WISP Coop that would change "everything"
Sure would like to be part of that skinning
of the corporate cash cow
A one year pay out on this would equate
to something like $36 billion
I am pretty sure we can come up with some
bandwidth solutions between just the big
cities for $36 billion
Roll reserve cash into an account to build
out the rural area over a cpl of years
Just my 2 cents
Peace
Ex-MislTech
Wrong on the poles ...
.
.
.
.
.
.
...
...
The poles are shared space, my aunt wrote the
pole stats for the local Electric utility
in a CAD proggie
Everyone gets to hang off the poles, they
just have to talk to the ppl who put them
in the ground . 9 times out of 10 it is
the local power company
I still say WISP Coop is the answer to all
of this BS , and it would really put a
kink in their style
Once the WISP has enough saved in it's
"Not for profit/Non profit" accounts
it starts running aerial fiber to local
communities, and buying long haul dark
fiber as an entire Metro area
Next thing you know there is a Nationwide
WISP Coop Mesh topology, bypassing a good
portion of the "Commercial" Internet
I think it would be great
hehe, Open Source Networks
Peace
Ex-MislTech
I think communities could start local WISP's .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
....
...
and then Coop the long haul, and run the
entity as a "Not for profit or Non Profit"
One of the rules of big bandwidth I have seen
is 4 times the bandwidth at twice the price
The more you buy the cheaper it gets
If communities used aerial fiber like the
cable companies did, they could connect
the townships in a mesh topology so that
if one aerial was cut, it would simply
re-route . They could keep local
traffic local, and nearby towns could
pass data with each other for a song
Single mode fiber can now push close to
200 miles without a LEM ( line amp )
Most rural townships are ALOT less than
200 miles from a major city
The majority of the population lives on
the coast
I think this would work well, start it out
small, and build on it from there
They would have to find ppl for each
community to run it, I think grass roots
starting with the local PC users groups
is the best shot
Bet you could find a few disgruntled
laid off Telecom ppl
Hell I am one of them
Peace
Ex-MislTech
If you want a $9.95 a month net service,
.
.
.
.
.
...
only way I see you getting it is a Coop.
A bunch of ppl sharing a T3 or OC-3 or higher
Then using Wireless to share it
A brilliant Linux man has taken the first
steps of this revolution, chk it
http://locustworld.com
If ppl start a local grass roots initiative
to hook up all their neighbors to the system
and then run it for free or nearly free
It will take ppl being willing to run a
mini-ISP, and it will be some work to be sure
Peace
Ex-MislTech
a T1 is only 24 * 64kbit channels , .
.
.
.
.... If you figure half the .
.
.
.
.
.
.
so you end up with slow service if
you get a cpl of ppl running a
p2p app that has alot of network
packet overhead
God help you all if there was like
5 ppl trying to run them 24x7
Best deal I think is a wireless
WAN underground Coop
Everyone in a metro get together and
connect wirelessly, use ssh2 to encrypt
it all much like the Mesh AP at
locustworld.com
Then collectively buy a T3 or higher
and it should work pretty well
Hell a T3 is 28 T1's , and a OC-3 is
100 T1's
ppl use it at the same time, and you
assign 512K QOS caps you get 156
ppl signed up paying $40 a month
for a little over $6,000
The OC-3 at $9,000 Is a much better deal,
triple the bandwidth for not much more
155M/bits, oh man...
Just need to use some sort of QOS
so ppl do not download ISO's all
day and night because they sit at
home trying to max out their Cd-r's
If they want to download that fine, but
apportion a "fair" amount of bandwidth
to them
I think you could still handout bandwidth
WAAAYYY beyond cable or DSL right now
If Each major city could get one
strand of dark fiber running to each
other major US city and had one
Metro proxy, we could dump the damn bells
Just my 2 cents
Peace..
Ex-MislTech
Your right, I got 2nd in my state at the Convention we held called DarkCON, back in the 90's . I really loved being a DM, and making world's and have decided to write a book with alot of the highlights of the games and stories I had ran, and played in over the past 25 yrs .
The real game did walk all over the PC ones . .
.
.
.
.
...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The PC ones have lots of eye candy these days,
and do let ppl from far away get to know each
other . The community has grown via the net, but
the hand crafted touch, and certain spells
are just not there . You cannot include all
the sublties of playing a thief, or a ranger,
or a bard, etc etc
A PC has a long time before it can deal
with spells like "Wish" or "Enchant item"
Hell alot of Dungeon Master's struggled
with it . I was a DM since almost day one,
it took alot of reading, and alot of imagination
The rules were very confusing, especially
psionics to the point that ppl often left
psionics out . They have made them better
over the years, I think 2nd edition got
most of it right and was the most playable
Alot of the books were fluff though and
released primarily for cash flow vs. content
The hard backs are pretty good though
I think they should have made more epic
modules like the temple of elemental evil,
The slave lords, Against the Giants,
Queen of the Demon Web Pits, etc etc
There were alot of good modules, mostly
old school, alot of stuff from about the
time of Jean Rabbe (sp?) started to get
too fluffy and lost its edge
A few years after the fluff club started
turning out kiddie modules, things started
going south and it was not long til they
sold out
Magic the Gathering stole alot of their
players because it was quick and easy to
start a game, and you did not need a DM
who were usually in short supply for good
ones
Alot of DM's fell into two categories,
Mony Haulers, or Killers
The balance was in presenting a challenge,
having fun, and rewarding only enough to
keep them hungry, but not disgust them with
crappy treasure after a hard fight
You see this alot in PC games like Diablo 1/2,
and others, Dungeon Siege seems a little
better about it
Well, I am rambling, hehe
Peace..Out...
Ex-MislTech
Damn,
.
.
.
.
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Sorry to hear of the water damage, not many
mint copies of that left around
There are still conventions all over the US
every year for gamers, the old school
paper gamers
Now when ppl say gamers, they are talking
about PC's or Consoles , hehee
Someday they will get MMORPG's to be on
par with the paper games of the day, but
they are just shadow of the subtlety we
engineered into it decades ago
I look forward to a world where you can truly
modify the world with your character, like
building buildings, castles, etc etc
It will be a daunting task for whoever creates
it, but it will be truly awesome
A PC game that will let you do "Enchant Item"
or other spells that have long lasting effects
that have never made it into a PC games
Ex-MislTech
That was the Basic Set, I still have it .
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n s/ Basic2Rule.html
A dragon seen thru a doorway, sitting
on a trasure pile, and a scared mage
with his mouth hanging open with a wand
in his hand
Hehe, forgot about the archer
It was light blue , and so was the box,
and came with a few cheap dice too
Here is a picture
http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/SetPages/SetSca
Ex-MislTech
Lead Figurines ...
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, .
We actually looked for a cheaper way to
get them, and we made our own molds,
and used Chem Lab Bunsen burners or
Alcohol burners to melt the lead and then
pour into molds we made
Then ppl that were the better painters
amongst us would paint them
Some ppl would spend an entire day or weekend,
painting one figurine
Others would crank an army in a weekend
Lead figures were purely optional, but it
made it easier to tell who was in range
when a "Fireball" went off at 33,000 cu. ft
of loving .
I can't say how many times players have
"singed" themselves with their own fireballs
in cramped spaces
I have to admit most of the games I have
run were without lead figures, and then
they became banned and pewter is all you
could get due to lead poisoning
Ppl still make them underground though
just not sold commercially as far as I know
Ex-MislTech
Those Chainmails are worth money if they
are in good shape .
Well....
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You cannot use about 75% of the spells,
and god forbid the combinations
They are too abstract to emulate in a PC game
Best example is a "Wish" spell, mostly the
PC games are all heal, damage, or enhance
There were alot of creationist spells in the
pencil and paper game
Then there is all the subtlety of playing a
thief, or even subdual combat
The intrigue, and deception, and mystery, and
owning of property, building your castle,
town , fortress, etc etc
Building a fleet of ships on the grander scale,
or the low level beginenrs using small sacks
of flour to see the invisible monsters
So many subtle nuances not available in the
world of the PC . Some I have not even listed
out of the cob webs of my mind and they are
long forgotten
I have been with Ad&d since 1978, not much
of lately but I miss it dearly and have
seriously considered getting back with some
old school gamers and doing some good
old quality gaming on a epic scale similar
to Tolkien, Robert Jordan, or Stephen Donaldson.
The good ol' days, hehehe
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
Nah, you got 2nd post, 1st post was repressed, LOL .
9 out of 10 companies are run by "suits" too . Tech ppl work as sled dogs for managment ppl much akin to those starring in Dilbert cartoons ....
Thus why they are so damn popular and so
damn funny ....
You prolly do not get this because ....
Your a suit ...
Ohhh,
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Don't get the one with the Sis Video
Chipset, they dropped the ball on OpenGL,
it still does not work
Nvidia still best Linux support so it seems
Ex-MislTech
Uses desktop processor and RAM in a laptop .
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form factor, you can build ur own even
My friend bought one, popped in 512meg
of RAM, a high speed laptop 40 gig drive,
and 2.53ghz desktop processor , and a
DVD/CD-rw drive
It comes standard with USB 2.0 and Firewire
Only draw back, external battery pack
http://www.desknote.net/
Suprisingly, you can get it without M$ preload.
Good luck !!
Ex-MislTech
High Frequency light is akin to microwave .
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radiation, the photonic particles may be
blocked, but as we know there is more there
than meets the eye
These non-visible portions of the spectrum
are where X-rays, gamma rays, and others
come from . Some I am sure we do not even
know yet exist , like dark energy being
discussed by Stephen Hawking of late
This Ultra high freuquency radiation is much
like super high frequency radar and we know
it can shoot thru fiberglass ray domes with
the greatest of ease
So ease up on the name calling, calling ppl
names does not make you any smarter, or
make ppl cower down to your testosterone
powered brain
Chill, read, learn a little
Peace
Ex_MislTech
Time Domain corporation has Ultra Wide band .
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o no mist.htm
and is a better all around product
It does the X-ray vision trick, and it will
make hyper accurate GPS possible
It has many other possibilites including
incredible wireless connectivity
http://www.timedomain.com/Files/HTML/news/TheEc
Check it out !!!
Ex_MislTech
Sure !
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You can have mine !!
I leave 12 feb 2003 if the war is not under way.
I am here on the Navy base, oh wait, you hate
the government , LOL
Yeah, you might not wanna work here, it requires
a security clearance
As a sidenote, this place is hot and humid,
and damn ugly
Internet access is horrible here
dial up service is worse than AOL, and that is
saying alot, I worked for them a long time ago
LOL
cable modem is capped at 300 meg a month, and
the entry rate is $79/month I think , it's
latency is so high it is unreal
Housing, as a sub contractor you will get to
live in formerly condemned houses like the
one I live in at grandillo circle
If you think you might feel lonely, don't !!
They will happily provide 2 other roommates
you will most likely not get along with and
will happily alienate you
At least they fired the one that was eating all
our food , LOL . He also did not know what
he was doing and was poster child for WHY the
DOT BOMB bust happened
But I digress...
Tech jobs sure !!! join NMCI or contact
general dynamics they are down here too and
are looking for suckers like you
You will love the ratio of men to women too,
hehehe , favorite topic among men here
I am going back to my lady, my land, and
never coming back here
Ex_MislTech
Tech Support ( for 2 more days )
Guantanamo Bay Cuba
Format c: will not touch master boot record .
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virii, like stealth-c , just FYI
Peace
Out
There is a VAST need for training of ppl before they get involved with computers . Or from another perspective IQ tests to tell ppl they really need to stay away from the complex machines above lets say ....
The over used to cook the G4 ....
Power to the fiber ya'all :
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Can you say 10.9 Tera-Bits via DWDM
theoretical limit of 150 Tera-Bits ???
That is some speed now
http://www.bcr.com/bcrmag/2001/08/p20.asp
Ex-MislTech
Tech Support
Guantanamo Bay Cuba for 18 more days !!!!
Til they decide to tax it too, then perhaps
we can talk co-op ???
LOL
Peace !
Ex-MislTech
Live from Guantanamo Bay Cuba for 29 more days !!
I know ppl that work for Verio and other .
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sweat shops , and they are responsible
for a horrendous amount of equipment,
and files
In the never ending quest to lift that stock
price, tens of thousands of ppl have been
flushed down the toilet
I worked at Cisco systems and 8,500 of us
got canned there, some were awesome workers
I was perhaps above average, but I worked hard
With this, make more with less, mentality they
have stretched thin what was already running
at a pretty frantic clip
If you are working at some university or
government project where there is no corporate
blood thirsty pressure, then you are clueless
Until you live under the shadow of the Axe,
with unrealistic managers that are suits,
and know not shit of what you do , save
your vipers tongue for them
All to often support ppl support things like
oracle that are one endless patch process
and when it breaks enough , they release
yet another patch
So as long as there is crap code out there,
there is going to be sleepless support ppl
Don't see it going away anytime soon
Peace !
Ex-MislTech