Messages

16

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 29, 2020, 03:18:43 AM »

We always fear "the other".

Growing up in white suburbia, I never experienced racism firsthand until I was in college and hung out at the broadcasters club that ran the local student radio station with a black student from Ohio. We did a show together and went out for lunch one afternoon in my Corvair convertible with the top down. The black students at the stop light called him Uncle Tom for hanging out with a white guy. So long as people believe themselves to be different from others they will continue to be treated differently by others.

As open minded as I try to be I still can't get over the eewww factor of Buttigieg and his husband and I confess I am not ready for the "First man" unless he's the husband of a female president. I'm too old for that. Let the people choose that after my time on earth is passed. I think I would be OK with a Sanders-Buttigieg ticket though. I won't be watching the presidential inaugural ball, however.

17

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: A smiley face & rainbows r_explode pcx for pak use

« on: February 29, 2020, 02:51:02 AM »

I'm not authoritative on PCX vs. JPG color images but IIRC, the original Quake II graphics system used PCX (indexed color images) mapped onto a particular VGA palette used by the game client graphics drivers. This is why Q2 has an orange-yellow tint in modern OpenGL RGB mode. The original Quake II was targeted for the lowest common denominator SVGA systems with a 256 color pallet and had the ability to accommodate higher resolutions and 32-bit (RGB) colors. I know the game did change palettes when switching from game mode to cinematic mode for the single-player interludes between game units.

Comparing Costigan's PCX sample and Focalor's JPG sample in Gimp, I see orange and they render identically. This tells me the difference in rendering in the game is due to the way indexed PCX is mapped onto the RGB system in the client. I have no idea how to tweak those settings to change those renders at this time.

I think Costigan's distribution of a single PCX file is quite incomplete since it requires the end users to rename and copy files and this is prone to error. It definitely needs more effort to be a proper distribution.

Focalor's fix is more complete and targets RGB clients and I don't think anyone in the 21st century is still using 256-color SVGA anymore. This is a better distribution technique.

I think for compatibility the JPG and PCX skins 1-7 need to be merged into a single PAK file and the clients can select the appropriate PCX or JPG file per their configurations. I'd like to see an experiment conducted with both formats in the same PAK.

I believe clients like r1q2 and q2pro running OpenGL automatically choose the highest picture format available in order: PCX, WAL, TGA, PNG, JPG with the later ones overriding the earlier ones. The original game only looked for PCX, WAL, and TGA.

Attached is the index color map for the PCX. Index 243 is pure blue RGB (0,0,255) while yellows 218 (255, 255, 127); 219 (255, 255, 083); 220 (255, 255, 039) are present but I don't know what black magic maps them into the 32-bit RGB display.

QW

18

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 27, 2020, 08:57:50 PM »

Gabbard is an excellent choice for president. She speaks in complete and syntactically correct sentences and it contrasts sharply with the finger wagging and angry harrumphing of the old bulls like Biden and Sanders who are past their mental peaks. Mayor Pete is sharp but this country will never elect an openly gay man in our lifetime. Ignorance and bigotry are dominant in this time and it will take decades more to undo the damage done in these last few years.

Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill. 

19

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 27, 2020, 12:16:51 AM »

I agree with Focalor.

It was all about their strident messaging. They worked to hammer home their defining messages but sounded shrill in the process. 

They all want to prove they’re energetic and can go toe to toe with Trump in a debate. Biden is a non-starter for me. His time was 2016 but he didn’t go for it and stood down for Hillary and she screwed it up. Warren belongs in the Senate writing good laws like she did with CFPB. Unless there are good honest senators with power acting honestly nothing will get done. It won’t matter who is president.

20

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 25, 2020, 01:39:10 PM »

I don’t know how many pages are in the Medicare requirements. All I know is I‘ve been paying into it along with my employer all my working life in addition to paying even more to private insurance companies and received insignificant benefits all those years. Now, under Medicare in my senior years I’ll be paying 1/8th the premiums I was paying to private insurance and receiving greater benefits with smaller co-pays.

As far as the wife’s treatment went, we didn’t have to contact Medicare at all. The procedures were approved within a month of the diagnosis and the procedure occurred about a month after that. I have EOBs from Medicare just like a private plan and statements as to what I may be billed after Medicare paid. The providers billed me exactly what Medicare stated as the remainder. One exception: my wife likes to use a chiropractor about every two months for her back. Medicare pays all except $9. The chiropractor writes it off.

One thing. Medicare is very slow issuing EOB. I wait until I receive the EOB before paying any bills unless the summary bill shows Medicare paid. I’ve never been dunned or had to pay interest or fees on those bills. The EOB have so far always agreed with the statements from the providers. That was never the case with private companies in my lifetime. I was always having to deal with them on payment issues or with corporate HR.

Medicare worked for us with no hassle at all. Now we’re both on it and I’m glad I don’t have to pay $1000 a month for individual coverage that never covered anything for me. Paying for prescription meds is trivial compared to the premiums that didn’t pay 100% of that in the first place and no more annual hassle of open enrollment periods and “Your company chose us, here’s what you’ll pay, here’s what we cover, sign here”. That’s not choice, that’s not freedom, that’s servitude.

21

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 25, 2020, 01:08:08 PM »

So I guess your answer is no, it wouldn't have been better if I stated it would eliminate what "little" competition exists.

You ignored my question “Where’s the competition?”, so why should I pay attention to yours?

The fact is there is no competition except for territory (contracts) with doctors and hospitals and they necessarily cannot be exclusive. Therefore, all they do is increase administrative costs for the health providers who must have staff in place to negotiate and navigate the complexities of the contracts. What it all boils down to is a war between providers and insurance about how much will be paid for a particular service and the difference will be paid by you, the victim of the contract, who is wholly responsible for it all anyway. You’ve paid for coverage that the insurance companies work very, very hard to not provide.

Insurance companies don’t pay for research. All research in the United States is funded by government grants, private donations or trusts, or self-funded development by pharmaceuticals who recoup cost by prices of patent drugs, most of which are treatments, not cures. 

22

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:06:50 AM »

Again, there is no competition there is only the Las Vegas odds and the house wins the more you play.

But I’m going with #YAAAASPLEEN


https://youtu.be/7Z2XRg3dy9k

23

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 24, 2020, 07:19:54 PM »

Excellent COVID19 video.

Haunted, there is no “competition” in the health insurance industry. It’s all about statistics and probabilities in the general population. The actuaries track the population and diseases and they all use the same measures. If you become sick enough you will be dropped. The fact you were dropped by one carrier means no other carriers will take you and you have one course ahead of you: go broke seeking a cure or treatment and once you are broke, you die. Be sure to save enough for your survivors to bury you. Insurance companies weed out the burdensome patients and keep the healthy premium payers. They select for profit. Premiums are calculated on the basis of expected payouts of the sick population in order to maximize profit and minimize payouts. The co-pays and contracts are calculated with those same goals.

The insurance companies negotiate drug prices in secret with manufacturers and distributors. Those manufacturers also limit supply to keep prices inflated. That’s why epinephrine costs $600 per dose and insulin, who’s patents expired 60 years ago is upwards of $450 per month. The list price of insulin has gone from about $20 per vial in 1996, when Humalog entered the market, to about $275 per vial today. Where’s the competition?

The next time you go to buy your prescription medication ask the druggist what the insurance company pays above your co-pay, then ask what the retail price is. First answer: we can’t disclose that. Second answer: you probably can’t afford it.

Generic Metformin, a diabetes treatment, costs about $0.55 per 500mg dose, and it costs about $0.02 to make. It was discovered in 1922, 98 years ago. French physician Jean Sterne began study in humans in the 1950s. It was introduced as a medication in France in 1957 and the United States in 1995. Extended Release metformin, Metformin ER is now under patent. The retail price is more than $1000 for 60 doses and it’s available for the bargain price of $418. Guess which brand you doctor is most likely to write a prescription for. It costs about $0.05 per dose to make.

MRI was invented in England, not USA. CT was invented in 1972 by British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield of EMI Laboratories, England and by South Africa-born physicist Allan Cormack of Tufts University, Massachusetts. The gamma knife used to treat my wife’s tumor was invented in Australia and wasn’t introduced to the United States until 1987. Philips AG, a Dutch company, produces the best MRI on the planet. Get it out of you head that the United States has the best equipment and research, because we don’t. We have the highest costs per patient and statistically, the poorest outcomes in the industrially developed nations.

24

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 23, 2020, 10:36:54 PM »

My wife had a brain tumor diagnosed in 2017. A trip to the ER after a fall discovered it. She was old enough and fortunate enough to be on Medicare. The total expense and treatment has now exceeded $170,000 and my total out of pocket is very affordable for us. The approval of treatment and coordination of payments didn’t even involve us. The treatment was successful and we will be doing one more annual followup MRI this year to be sure it’s not growing.

I paid into a private family health insurance program for 30 years at my employer and they dropped me after a heart attack required me to get two stents and 13 weeks of disability. I had to sue to make it a worker’s compensation case to get coverage. I left the company 3 years later and started my own business. Even after, as a self-employed business owner I was forced to buy coverage under the ACA at $9,700+ per year and it never paid for anything but 50% of the labs and two low cost medications. The premiums were going to exceed $11,000 this year but I turned 65 and I’m now on Medicare and dropped the ACA. Every year was another price increase and benefit decrease for three years straight.

Anyone who thinks private insurance is better than a universal coverage system needs to look at the books of those companies and examine their rising profits and increased CEO compensations vs their total benefits paid in the name of their covered individuals before they say no to Medicare for all. They also need to know that they are just one bad day away from losing their job and their coverage simultaneously.

25

/dev/random / Re: The Strange and Interesting Thread

« on: February 23, 2020, 02:59:50 PM »

Yep. He’s a flat earther.

26

dm / Re: User Abuse Towards Others

« on: February 22, 2020, 04:02:29 PM »

It's a script or bot of some kind. It shoots intermittently, repeats taunts, runs backwards, doesn't seem to work to acquire weapons and when it drives itself into a corner or water it doesn't work to escape and often drowns. I watched it walk backward off a spawn point and into lava.

27

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: February 21, 2020, 12:49:06 AM »

I don’t know if he was being glib or ignorant but when he pronounces John Locke as John Loki he lost all credibility with me. The rest of the video was noise.

28

/dev/random / Re: The Strange and Interesting Thread

« on: January 29, 2020, 01:47:25 PM »

 I was surprised to find this story is already a week old. He was arrested in San Diego.

https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2020/01/20/police-arrest-la-mesa-store-owner-after-videos-show-attacks-on-tv-news-crews/

29

/dev/random / Re: The Strange and Interesting Thread

« on: January 28, 2020, 04:13:25 PM »

I guess he’s having a hard time coping with the attention.


https://twitter.com/tonygidlund/status/1219490641886859264?s=20

30

Trouble Shooting / Re: The [recursive error after: FreeLibrary failed for game library] problem

« on: January 13, 2020, 12:05:09 PM »

I'm sipping my coffee waiting for the brain to kick in.

All good info here. Let's discuss.

I'm currently using Quake 2 Pro as the client and Quake 2 DOS as the dedicated server that running on the Maraakate's coop server mod with newly added maps. i don't believe that could be the problem due to changing the maps because of three occurrences the happen as to when this error appears.

I don't think the client matters. Mostly, the client can only ask the server to do something, it's up to the server game code to decide whether it will do it and how it will do it.

The first occurrence is when a player exits the map.

Exits as in taking an exit door, I presume. When that happens the next map opened is the one defined in the current map. All the original single-player maps had a next map, the SP game depended on this. Many DM maps don't. Failing to have a next map defined is supposed to cause the server to choose one, usually from a map list. The map list file (assuming there is one) is defined by the mod code. Some mods didn't always change maps gracefully when this happened. I don't know if this is one of those.

The second occurrence is when the player votes for a different map.

If the mod uses the "map" command to change maps on a vote then the engine will unload and reload the game DLL. This is why you use the "gamemap" command instead. R1q2 will refuse to use "map" in rcon and I assume it will also do so for a voted map but I have not tested this. (IIRC, mods are supposed to use the "gamemap" command in what amounts to a sending of a command string to the engine via the gi.AddCommandString function but I suppose one could put a new map name into the level.changemap string and call ExitLevel.)
From this source: https://bitbucket.org/neozeed/q2dos.git
… and looking at the coop code, I can see many different map votes:
restartmap causes a map command.
gamemode causes a map command.
coop difficulty causes a map command.
warp causes a gamemap command.
playerexit causes a gamemode command which causes a map command.
Lots of ways to force a DLL reload. Most of them would be necessary since they need to force GameInit.
If you are restricting your server to coop only mode I recommend disabling all but the vote warp commands or testing your server to see which are safe to use.

And the third occurrence is when changing the map to a different map though the Q2DOS console. Now, when you mentioned running the gamemap command, I will be sure to use that for running such commands in the Q2DOS console.

I used to use the rcon map command until I was enlightened by r1q2.

I wanted to also mention that when I run the Maraakate's coop server on the alternative game servers listed: r1q2 dedicated, quake2 dedicated, yamagi dedicated, q2pro dedicated they also produce the wrong Game library is version 4 expected 3 and vice versa. I mention this because I presume there might be a possibility that I wouldn't get that FreeLibrary error message for those alternative game servers if they were to work without crashing and without producing the improper Game library version error.

Wrong game library version is a very bad no no. All bets are off and the engine has every right to not run a game DLL of the wrong type.

The game version is a number that specifies the interface between the engine and the game. The interface is the imports and exports to/from the engine and the game DLL. They specify the contract between them and it affects what functions they can use between them. The version number is the first thing the engine checks when it loads the DLL. EVERY engine should reject a wrong version DLL unless it's going to go to some extreme measures to figure out how to accommodate a different version DLL. There is NO WAY to tell, from the version number alone, what the interface looks like.

The coop code in the neozeed repo I cited above is version 4. It will not work with any other engine but Q2dos which, it would appear, expects version 4 DLLs.
Looking at the coop code I see they added a function to the engine called cvar_setdescription in the game that is called numerous times in the game startup.
An engine that doesn't export this function will fail when the game calls it.

When an engine rejects a DLL for wrong API version number it must never call anything in that DLL and it must immediately unload that DLL and stop game service.

If you want a version 3 DLL of coop I suggest: https://github.com/basecq/q2dos.git but I don't know if it has the same features. There are a lot of differences in the code that I am not prepared to analyze.

All this is TMI and more than you wanted to know but that's what happens when my coffee kicks in and I have a day to spare.
I hope it guides you in your troubleshooting.

QW