Messages

31

/dev/random / Re: Police Encounters: 1st Amendment Audits

« on: April 21, 2018, 11:34:53 AM »

It’s called confirmation bias. If you go looking for cops acting bad videos you’re going to find cops acting bad videos.

The post office video above is an example of an instigated incident. They swooped in with obvious intent to attract attention to their video with the purpose of causing a confrontation. Secondarily, the post office workers don’t know what you intend to do with the video. Is it a pre-assault survey? One premise of the video was “taxpayer money”. The post office receives no taxpayer money. Those days are long gone. Faulty premise leads to faulty conclusion.

If you’re going to run around like an asshole, you’re going to be treated like an asshole.

32

/dev/random / Re: Mind bending test

« on: April 09, 2018, 01:44:16 AM »

So many trolls.

19.
Vertex counts.
Number of bananas in each bunch.
Hours.

Maybe I just don’t have a sense of humor.

33

Quake / Re: What is the name of this map?

« on: February 19, 2018, 01:35:59 PM »

I have grepped the server collection for skit, skt, immort, mnt, activ, activis, and come up empty. Total files searched on the TS collection available to me on the server is 3796 files.

I also entdumped and grepped my local collection for these words and found none of them are associated with any walls, banners or entities in any maps resembling the one shown. Total map files searched 4299.

If the map depicted was a real map either it has never been distributed or it's not an active map in the Tastyspleen collection accessible to me.

You might try Deacon's collection, where he took screen shots of all the maps and see if you can spot it in the list: http://maps.clanwos.org/maponserver/

Good luck.

34

Quake / Re: What is the name of this map?

« on: February 16, 2018, 06:40:43 PM »

Are there any special triggers that display text? Do you remember any text from the map startup like the author name or some phrase? If we can search for a semi-unique text inside the map we can narrow the scope of the search and automate it.

35

Quake FAQs, HOWTOs, and Articles / Re: demos

« on: February 11, 2018, 11:56:52 PM »

Q2 demo files are played inside Q2 client apps and I know of no Q2 clients being built on any phones so I guess the answer is no.

36

Railwarz / Re: Railwarz TMG 0.2.40 Release

« on: January 24, 2018, 12:04:08 PM »

Here's another update to the TMG code (Version 0.2.42). This fixes a bug in the map voting where a vote wouldn't pass... ever... or when WallFly was connected and a single player wanted to vote up a new map. It also fixes some cases where stats logs would drop data due to admin commands.

The binaries are attached here and it includes 32/64 bit versions of q2admin and tmg_mod for Windows and Linux. Read the changelog.txt for the changes made since your current version.

Linux users who already have a clone of the source repository should do git pull, make all to update their server.

As always, the code repo is: https://bitbucket.org/jwaggoner/tmg

37

/dev/random / Re: North Korea

« on: January 03, 2018, 08:39:49 PM »

At first glance it's funny that he thinks he can stoop to Kim's level. Then you think about it some more and you wonder if there really is any adult supervision. But I suspect he's only parroting what his generals actually say in private to him. Then you think deeper and you wonder about the credibility of the US in the world. Of course, as the biggest military in the world and the fact that "American interests abroad" is code for "We'll take what we want from you if you don't take our bribes first" and "by the way we have these fine weapons systems to sell you so you can intimidate your neighbors". We lost any credibility long ago.

I'm hoping the officer carrying the football has a gun and orders to shoot to kill anyone who tries to use it as a first strike weapon.

38

/dev/random / Re: North Korea

« on: January 03, 2018, 06:12:28 PM »

The US has foresworn a first-strike since 1945. It was the fundamental principle of mutual assured destruction in the cold war. Only if attacked, would the US launch a nuclear strike with the intent of maintaining overwhelming superiority in that retaliatory capability. If NK were to launch on a trajectory against Washington or NYC or even the west coast there would be an immediate response. 10 ICBMs would would answer a single one from NK. There is a difference between launching with and without a payload and there is a BIG difference in getting a nuclear payload to survive reentry and detonate successfully but NK has been proven to be surprising and it is very clear they are getting technical help from China even as Trump says China is our partner. He's being played. Bigly.

Transit time from launch to reentry on a true targeted launch is 35 minutes. That's how long it would take for a nuke to make it from North Dakota to North Korea. Same thing goes for NK to Los Angeles or Seattle. So far, NK has been very careful to demonstrate lofted trajectories, very much not to be misconstrued to be targeted flights. Saber rattling.

The only reason Trump's nuclear button looks big is on account of his tiny hands operated by his tiny brain. The problem with "I can kick your ass!" bravado like Trump is fond of displaying is that sooner or later you have to put up or shut up and this draft-dodging twinkle toes with bone spurs is mostly a shut up and go home personality that will back down and declare "victory" even as he cowers in his bunker. This boastful and full of bullshit but when it comes time to put up a true fight he "settles" or declares bankruptcy.

The real problem is that the fundies in Trump's camp think we're living in the end times and they are crazy enough to go along with anything that will help bring it about.

39

Politics / Re: FCC Approves Net Neutrality Rules

« on: December 16, 2017, 01:41:10 PM »

The internet protocols were all developed at taxpayer expense under DARPA funding with the goal of the system being a robust communications system. Since we, the taxpayers and ratepayers paid for the creation of the systems we should have full and unfettered access to them.
NN is about control of content and the price of admission. FCC was originally  supposed to be the guardian of the radio spectrum and had no jurisdiction over cable TV unless it leaked and caused interference. Only later were they required by congress to exercise authority over CATV and fiber. Radio broadcasters have a generally accepted responsibility to the public and are regulated. Telephone companies, under Title II, have the responsibility as common carriers to accept all communications equally, that was the requirement for their use of the spectrum. Now that they finally got one of their own into the FCC they have wrenched control of the spectrum away from the people and control of content will soon follow.

40

Q2 Training Camp / How does Quake2 handle the client configuration files?

« on: December 04, 2017, 03:47:47 PM »

How does Quake2 handle the client configuration files?

There are three files Quake II uses on startup of the client
and on shutdown, they are:

default.cfg, config.cfg, autoexec.cfg

Quake II creates it's own "virtual file system" on startup and
once it's initialized it tries to execute each of these from
within the "current directory". These files are loaded in the
order listed above so anything you write into them overrides
any equivalent setting in the previous file. This virtual
file system is a security feature of the game to prevent
malicious directory traversal attacks and it also includes
the pak files shipped with the game or included with any
mods. This allows mod authors to pak configuration files
into their mods and conveniently ship them with their mod's
custom files.

The Quake II file system is rooted in the Quake2 directory
where the Quake II executable is installed. The maximum path
that Quake II can handle is 64 characters, so you don't want
to use long directory names or long file names and you shouldn't
go very deep. This 64 character limit is hard coded into the game.

How to manage your configuration files.

The original default.cfg is used by the engine when selecting
the "reset defaults" menu item in the Options menu of the game
console. This file may or may not exist on your system as a
"normal" disk file but the default.cfg is defined in pak0.pak
of the original game from idSoftware. Never alter this file.
WARNING: altering idSoftware's pak0.pak should not be attempted.
You can make your game inoperable or incompatible.

NEVER EDIT config.cfg. Why? Because the game writes a new one
each and every time you quit the client. It's used to save the
last state of your binds. Likewise, never make it read-only.
This file is normally located in C:\quake2\baseq2\. You can
copy-paste anything from this file into your autoexec.cfg file
and it makes a handy starting point for your customizations.
One technique you can use is to launch the game, alter the settings
or add binds, then exit the client which forces your current
settings and binds to be written to config.cfg, then copy the
contents into autoexec.cfg and begin your hand edits. This file
is written to the current mod folder when you quit the game from
within a mod, this can be a multiplayer or single player mod.

The autoexec.cfg file is what you or the mod authors want it to
be. THIS is the file you should edit for your default binds and
for your mod-specific binds or parameter settings. There can be
a unique autoexec.cfg file in every mod folder and even in baseq2.

This file is ALWAYS loaded from the current folder for the client
binary you have launched. If you launched the game directly from a
shortcut or from the executable in c:\quake2\ for example, then the
autoexec.cfg will come from c:\quake2\ and not from any subdirectory.

If you launch your game from a game launcher with a target Quake2
server then the configuration files are loaded from the current
mod folder given by the gamedir cvar specified by the server.
Once you are in-game on a modded server the autoexec.cfg and
the config.cfg will be read from and written into the mod folder
for that particular mod.

Enhanced Quake II Clients

R1Q2 and Q2Pro clients also load "postinit.cfg" after loading
autoexec.cfg.

Q2E clients use q2econfig.cfg instead of config.cfg, preserving
the old quake2 configuration file for backward compatibility.

41

Railwarz / Library of 3ZB2 Chaining files for TMG Railwarz

« on: November 06, 2017, 03:42:39 PM »

This is as complete a library of bot chain files as I have found on the net. This is what 3ZB2 bots use to navigate semi-intelligently around various maps. There was an inherent bug in TMG that stifled use of the full library which I have fixed in the 0.2.40 TMG. It is now possible to select between the original *.chf/*.chn files for CTF and DM the *.nav files others have made under the old system. (*.nav files are really just *.chn files and weren't usable in CTF mode. Simply extract this zip archive into your server ctf/cfg/ folder and you're done.

42

Railwarz / Railwarz TMG 0.2.40 Release

« on: November 06, 2017, 03:35:12 PM »

This is the latest release of Railwarz TMG. It adds MoTD text file instead of fixed text, removes the annoying command blockage when connecting to the server and spawns players correctly as spectators and fixes the initial spectator mode. It also adds player stats logging for those admins interested in creating a statistics page for their website. More details in the changelog.txt file. Binaries for Windows and Linux are included. If you don't run q2admin simply extract the *.real.* game mod binaries and rename them per standard.

Source code is available at: https://bitbucket.org/jwaggoner/tmg

43

Jokes / Re: Funny Pictures

« on: October 31, 2017, 08:14:59 PM »

I’m old enough to remember there used to be a thing called a hyphen and editors knew where to put them. One has to wonder who wrote the headline.

44

Quake FAQs, HOWTOs, and Articles / Centerprinted Text

« on: October 04, 2017, 08:04:51 AM »

Tired of exercising your speed reading skills trying to read game banners that were centerprinted when you connect to a server or when presented in-game?

set scr_centertime 5 will make center-printed text banners 5 seconds of dwell in r1q2 and q2pro clients.

Maximum allowed value in q2pro is 10 seconds.

QW

45

0x1337c0de / Re: Building r1q2ded-old from Source

« on: October 04, 2017, 07:53:21 AM »

I've identified the main difference: the old game DLLs had a different set of exported functions. This is where the "Loaded Game DLL, version 3" comes into play. Old mods used a different set of exported functions in GetGameAPI and it looks like the only difference between v2 and v3 was the addition of the ServerCommand function.

The r1q2 sources I have for b7904 and b8012 don't seem to have switches for the -old capability. Presumably, r1ch never published the source for r1q2ded-old.

I'm experimenting with modifying an old v2 game into a v3 DLL and will report results once I am successful. This might allow someone to port source from an old game into a new game