Nuff said

Some days I really fucking hate my life.

Weekend Update

Last weekend I tried to install Arch Linux, which I have done before, but ended up having several issues with it. The Arch Linux kernel build is trash, sorry, but its the truth. So I went back to Ubuntu, although usually I use long term support versions, I decided to instead use the latest version 19.04, simply because it is using the most current kernel version 5.x.

The reason I wanted to go to Arch Linux was it is supposed to be the best distribution for using GPU pass through. For those who don't know what that is, it is basically isolating a 2nd video card for exclusive use with a virtual machine. The reason this is done is because you get 95% of a bare metal install of Windows, this is useful for running games or any application that requires serious video rendering. I spent 6 hours last weekend trying to get this done in the midst of my system locking up, including recompiling the kernel from scratch.

This weekend after installing Ubuntu 19.04 last week, I decided to try to get GPU pass through working on Ubuntu. It literally took me an hour to do, and most of that time was spent installing Windows 10 into a virtual machine, and the whole thing works flawlessly.

Now if I could just remember what exactly I needed Windows 10 for.

Nurseferatu Podcast #5

In this week's episode we start with Viagra and end with hemorrhoids.

https://nurseferatu.net/2019/04/30/ask-a-nurse-practitioner/

Just as an insight into this weeks show, I literally made up those questions 5 minutes before we started recording, Leigh had no idea what I was going to throw at him.

Roll20 and The Fantasy Trip

I spent some time building a character sheet for The Fantasy Trip on Roll20. At this point it is pretty crude and only really supports Melee and Wizard.

• Download TFT_html.zip from the link below and extract it.
• This should give you a file named TFT.html, open it in a text editor.
• Now goto Roll20 and create a new campaign, type in the name you want and under Choose a Character Sheet, choose custom from the drop down menu and press the Create Game button.
• Once at your new games home page, click on the Settings drop down and click Game Settings.
• On this page scroll down to Character Sheet Template and you should see a black editing box, make sure you are on the HTML Layout tab, copy all of the text from TFT.html and paste it into the editing box.
• Click Save Changes, then you can click on the Preview tab and if you did everything right, you should see the character sheet.
• You can now launch your game and add characters.

I am not sure how much time I am going to have in the future to improve this, but I will certainly take feedback. Eventually I will make it available on Roll20's github. I make no claims to this code, do what you want with it, all I ask is if you make improvements, you give back to the community.

Download link:
https://carnifex.org/downloads/TFT_html.zip

Edit:

I have updated the sheet over the last couple of days. I removed all the obsolete table tags and replaced it with more modern CSS code. It looks more or less the same, but it should make maintaining it easier going forward. I have placed it on GitHub, the download here on my website is now obsolete, I am leaving it there purely for historical reasons.

https://github.com/cjstoddard/roll20-character-sheets/tree/master/The%20Fantasy%20Trip

It has been accepted into the main branch, this post is completely obsolete.

Nurseferatu Podcast #4

https://nurseferatu.net/2019/04/15/this-weeks-podcast/

Nurseferatu

Leigh Sampson-Seitz invited me to co-host his podcast, to add a laymen view point on medical healthcare. While I know nothing about healthcare, I do have an opinion on just about everything, which makes me at least as qualified as Jenny McCarthy to talk about such things, so I readily accepted the invitation.


https://nurseferatu.net/2019/04/02/podcast-3-better-than-2/

Sigh! Bored Now!

WOW, it has been over a month since my last post. I have not really been doing much, which is probably why I have not posted much. Today is the last day of my spring vacation. I did absolutely nothing of value. I spent most of the week on my computer wasting time. I did get a little writing done and I added a 2nd monitor to my computer, not really because I needed to all that much, but more like, I have these 3 monitors laying around not doing anything.

My next vacation I am going back to Montana, that will be in June. I decided to go back during the summer this year, because holiday travel kind of sucks and I do not really want to risk being exposed to a lot of snow, I got lucky the last few trips back. I am also going across a weekend so no one has to take time off from work. We can have a family get together over the weekend, then I can spend time with some old friends and make a day trip to Bozeman.

I wish I had more to talk about, but I don't.

Stranger Things + Dungeons & Dragons

I suppose it had to happen, this spring Hasbro (the parent company to Wizards of the Coast) is releasing a new version of the D&D starter set. This version will be tied into the Netflix original series Stranger Things. The new set includes revised rules for the game, although you will still need either a Players Handbook or the downloadable basic rules to play and some dice. More interestingly, the adventure included is "The Hunt for Thessalhydra", the adventure Mike Wheeler is running at the beginning of the 2nd season and the Player Characters being used by the group in the show. Oddly, the miniatures included with the set are of neither a Thessalhydra or Demogorgon from the first season, but rather the petal faced demon. I get it, TV show tie in, blah blah, I just found it odd is all.

I think this is a great idea for a couple of reasons, first because it will attract new players. Hopefully some fans of the show will decide to check it out and some percentage of those fans will continue to the game long after. Secondly, this shows Hasbro is interested in building a long term strategy for D&D and bring D&D into the mainstream by occasionally printing these tie in products. I would not mind it at all if starter sets became an evergreen product as a gateway to the more complex game.

Who knows, I may even use this to kick off my next campaign, due to start either later this year or early next year. It really depends on the level of the module, I suspect it will be a 1st level module, but judging by the TV show, it may be a mid level adventure for 5th plus level characters, it is hard to say.

Review: The Power of Now

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The good: There is a lot to like in this book. It puts a modern spin on some old ideas. I like the idea of not letting the regret of past actions or worry for future actions take you out of what is important right now. I really do think we spend a lot of time and energy worrying about things we really have no control over and it is a good thing to concentrate of the things we do have control over, which are all in the here and now.

I would dearly love to be able to shut down my thinking, at least occasionally and just be happy with where I am and what I am doing. I have never been able to meditate, more because i never understood why I should, but this book gives a good clear answer as to why meditation is good and can help you, although he does not go into meditation directly, I can see where it would be helpful. It also explained very nicely why some processes I use seem to work so well for me. Like when I have a problem I cannot solve, setting it aside and doing something else allows the answer to come from somewhere deeper inside me. I knew this worked for me, but I did not understand why it works for me.

I also really liked the idea of listening to yourself talk in your head and separating yourself from it so you can judge if what it is saying the correct thing, or if its just going off into directions that may not be the best option. I have always known there were two voices in my mind, the loud one and the one that is much softer and is often more like feeling than conscience thought. Reading this book, I realized the loud voice is basically a hammer I use to pound on problems with, while the other is more nuanced, that I often ignore.

The bad: I kind of felt like he was talking down to me throughout the book. I felt he expected me to "Just Get It" and when I did not, I felt myself resisting what he was trying to teach me. I also felt he was trying to sell me on something, which also caused some resistance in my acceptance of his message.

The ugly: The author is really not a very good writer, besides the above mentioned condescension, he also tended to repeat himself and towards the end of the book I found the repetitive nature of his writing style to wear thin. I also did not care for the question and answer format of the book, it made it feel like I should have already been familiar with his work and that I was missing something important, like I had not done my homework so to speak.

Overall, it is a pretty good book, it was well worth the read. However, if this is your first book of spirituality, I would suggest going for something a little simpler, perhaps a good book on meditation. This will help you understand some of the concepts he kind of expects you to have already grasped. He does have a book he wrote later Practicing the Power of Now, which I have not read, but is supposed to give you a basic framework and help you integrate his ideas into everyday life. In retrospect, I should have read that book first.

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Review: Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those books I knew I was going to love in the first chapter. Most post apocalyptic stories these day tend to be dark and grim, even when the hero wins all they have done is survive another day. This book, in spite of the "End of the World" story line, is pretty up beat, it is not just about people trying to not die, it is about people who are genuinely trying to make the world a better place. Not through defeating some evil villain or by trying to bring back the old world in some grand gesture style quest. But rather these people are doing small things, like going from town to town playing music and performing theater, or building a museum in an airport terminal. Don't get me wrong, there is some action adventure going on and there is plenty of grittiness, it is just not the overall theme of the book. I am 100% sure I will eventually read this book again.


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