Viva la Revolution! That's all I can really say.

Even with ideological fervor aside, the impact of free software on computing in general cannot be denied; and for most people, the true significance of the Prophet will perhaps remain unnoticed for years to come.

Here we go.

Written from scratch… sort of. I used the CakePHP MVC framework modeled after Ruby on Rails, and despite my complete inexperience with MVC frameworks, I found it very clean, easy to learn and intuitive. Actually allowed me to write the entire thing in two days.

And if we have such awesomeness for the good old PHP, why do we need Ruby to begin with?

The source code is available in SVN at the SourceForge page (CakePHP should be downloaded separately – it requires no installation and works with both PHP4 and PHP5). New features compared to Chirpy (the old QDB engine) include OpenID integration, the bioreactor, and new formatting, done with TFN in mind.

Yes, I am obsessed with OpenID integration.

It was actually quite a pain importing data from the old QDB. They’re kept in separate MySQL databases (lucidfox.org has two of them), and for some reason, both the mysql and mysqli APIs plain old refused to connect to either of them, and I’m certain I wrote the calls correctly. PDO worked, though.

Also, if a line begins with "Re: ", it is bolded (actually formatted as a header), like this:

RE: Is jecen teh most pwoerful Jedi evar?

And blockquotes are displayed in the WordPress-style:

[quote]Quote text[/quote]

becomes

Quote text

Also, if a line begins with "Re: ", it is bolded (actually formatted as a header), like this:

RE: Is jecen teh most pwoerful Jedi evar?

And blockquotes are displayed in the WordPress-style:

[quote]Quote text[/quote]

becomes

Quote text

"I like to play with things. I'm a convinced believer of the "BOLD, revert, discuss" principle, which usually goes this way for me: I screw things up, people complain, I revert the changes, and we discuss them — and what would have been better."

Read more...

I've been on Wookieepedia almost since its launch — I say "almost" because I was initially skeptical about it, I just started editing Wikipedia's Star Wars articles and I didn't understand the point of copying articles from Wikipedia. Eventually, though, frustrated with Wikipedia's "Lists of minor anything", I moved.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Star Wars fan — I just like the way it all fits. Continuity. However, my involvement with Wookieepedia so far was 5% Star Wars and 95% technical issues. The Consensus Track, the new Community Portal, the first FA system, Main Page v2, Main Page v3, meta-templates, infoboxes, infoboxes v2, the Senate Hall, CSS, JavaScript, the first droid, QOTD... I start things, but rarely maintain them - rather, I create the necessary structure that allows others to do that. Like I did when handing QOTD over to Sentry in August, the result being the automated QOTD rotation.

I like to play with things. I'm a convinced believer of the "BOLD, revert, discuss" principle, which usually goes this way for me: I screw things up, people complain, I revert the changes, and we discuss them — and what would have been better.

Of course, while being bold, I'm usually not being reckless. Almost everything is discussed on IRC. If I feel there are enough people backing me up, I go and implement it. I'm always the one who volunteers to do the most crazy stuff, which nobody else will dare to do. I piss people off and get away with it, and frankly, I like to study their reactions.

So, in essence, one can say that there is a cabal, from a certain point of view, like Obi-Wan said. Most of the brainstorming and decision-making occurs on IRC, and I'm quite happy with this approach — I'll explain why. However, our little IRC gang is not so secret after all, and thus not a "cabal" in the traditional sense. The process is not transparent for the average Wookieepedian, but most of them know who is responsible, and that is enough.

One problem with today's Wookieepedia is its obsession with bureaucracy and instruction creep. This is what Wikipedia is not, but apparently on Wookieepedia it's okay to have a detailed policy on everything and then enforce it to the letter. In the Olden Days™, I got frowned upon for enforcing the 3RR for the sake of it. Nowadays, such behavior is considered the norm.

I'm also concerned about "literalists", people who think our policies are to be followed strictly and to the letter, and who argue about the intended meaning of text. The fact that the Wikipedia-imported "ignore all rules" policy was outvoted so quickly is rather troubling.

The CT is slow and unresponsive — it has always been, but while it was okay when we didn't have many contributors, now it's simply unacceptable. Hence my obsession with avoiding votes whenever necessary and with the "finding consensus, not voting" stuff. Generally, I close discussions as soon as it makes sense — as soon as either it becomes evident that it's going somewhere, or it becomes evident that it's not going anywhere. Really pressing issues like sourcing get closed rather quickly. For VFDs, on the other paw, there is no deadline, and some stay there for weeks.

Sometimes I close discussions rather abruptly, inventing some lame cop-outs for what are really "cabal decisions" or my own meddling. This is all a case of "the ends justify the means" — in my opinion, at least. You know, I envy Sailor Pluto and other characters with an "omniscient morality license", who can do all kinds of crazy things because they just know it will turn out okay.

The CT is by no means just a "rubber stamp" whose sole purpose is to approve pre-discussed things — sometimes these pre-discussed things get rejected instead. But as it stands now, most of our CT-ers are rather inert and won't propose anythign radical. Fresh ideas, initial brainstorming and experimentation — all these things require operativity and constant feedback, and so far, IRC (whose promotion on Wookieepedia remains one of my primary goals) has been rather successful in this respect.

Excerpts from my old conversations with Jabberwacky, still preserved on their website.

06:10, 26 February 2007 JSarek deleted "Cracken's Rebel Operatives (Adventure Journal" (Deleting all evidence of my incompetence. content was: '#REDIRECT Cracken's Rebel Operatives (Adventure Journal)' (and the only contributor was 'JSarek'))

That's it: I was born exactly 20 years ago.

To celebrate the double holiday (February 23 also happens to be a holiday by itself in Russia), I deleted Windows and copied the complete Ubuntu repository to my computer, so any programs are installed almost instantly.

Farewell, Microsoft. I hardly knew ye.

NWN2 review... sort of

Having enjoyed both KOTOR games, I finally decided to take a look at Obsidian Entertainment's second project: Neverwinter Nights 2. Another sequel to an award-winning BioWare game. Obviously, before I actually installed the game, I was sort of worried.

KOTOR II: The Sith Lords was by no means a bad game. Obsidian, and Chris Avellone in particular, enriched the Star Wars canon with such prominent characters as the Jedi Exile, Kreia, Visas Marr, G0-T0, and, of course, Darth Sion and Nihilus, as well as expanding Canderous' role in the Mandalorian Wars and their aftermath. All of these were referenced in later Star Wars materials, and have firmly taken their appropriate places in the Star Wars setting.

Yet the game itself was obviously unfinished — and it took a whole another game from the same developer just to realize how unfinished it was. Never mind the Restoration Project. They will obviously improve the game, and greatly so, but not to its intended glory.

Because NWN2 is everything TSL could be, had Obsidian more time. Blame LucasArts. Obsidian is innocent, and completely redeemed themselves with the second, finished game. It was the greed of the publisher that nearly ruined TSL, and a team as professional as Obsidian was the only thing that saved it from becoming a total flop.

That being said, I should probably put a disclaimer of some sorts. I'm not an RPG fan, I haven't played any "true" RPGs besides both KOTORs, and only because they're Star Wars. Well, I also played a bit of the first Neverwinter Nights (to see what was borrowed into KOTOR) and a bit of Planescape: Torment (to see what was borrowed into TSL). I found the dialogues in the second game too incomprehensible, however, and the graphics too horrible.

I've never played any pen-and-paper RPGs, don't know how they work, and I don't have a slightest idea how the Dungeons & Dragons system works. Even after playing through two of the three NWN2 acts, I still don't understand what an "attack of opportunity" is.

I remember the opening of NWN1: a pre-rendered epic cinematic, telling about Neverwinter City and the Wailing Death... It was dark and scary. Then it cut to my character in a ridiculously small area with a single NPC, and I spent a minute moving around, getting used to the camera, which reminded me of old isometric games like Diablo and Nox. After KOTOR, it was seen as a drawback.

The opening of NWN2 is anything but epic. Of course, I created a female character, and, after a KOTOR-style cutscene with Daeghun the foster father, was left to explore the controls. I spend several minutes bumping into things, cursing, wondering where the heck the keyboard sensitivity setting is, how to get a KOTOR-style camera, and, after I finally customized the camera to my preferences, how to exit this damn building. I clicked on the door to open it, then, being used to KOTOR, tried to run through the doorway... to no effect. I finally realized that I had to click on the already opened door to exit the area.

The village of West Harbor reminded me of the Half-Life 2 mod Eclipse: the same fairy-tale-ish, beautiful scenery and an overabundance of bloom. The performance, however, was awful. Only after I disabled shadows and adjusted a few other parameters to minimum could I call the framerate "okay".

Of course, KOTOR's Odyssey engine never exhibited superior performance, and, as it turned out, neither did its "younger brother" Electron, both of them derived from NWN1's Aurora engine. Still, I had to install the 1.03 patch just to find the game playable, with the "camera always behind" setting.

After the cutscene with Amie and Bevil (think Bastila and Carth in a medieval peasant village) warning me about the attack on West Harbor, I was like "meh... how unoriginal". I gathered the militia, and here came the first shock: Amie died. My reaction was "Wha...?" and, if I could, I would slaughter all those NPCs telling me she was dead for real. Only after I looted her body did I realize that she isn't going to get up, and this made me greatly upset. The second surprise came when Bevil left the party. Not only did I lose one companion, I didn't even get a chance to travel with the other one!

...But let me continue my rambling. The party members are stupid. The enemies no longer suffer from the Sith Trooper Indifference Syndrome, meaning that if you attack a group of them, be sure that the nearby enemies will actually run to help them, not stand still and wait for their turn. In the Bandit Camp, they gave me, Khelgar (who boldly ran to the next group immediately after offing the previous one) and Neeshka (who couldn't last a couple of seconds if a bandit got to her) such a serious beating that I considered stopping playing altogether, fearing that the game was too difficult. Fortunately, the difficulty seemed to lower in Highcliff and further lower in Neverwinter, almost reminding me of KOTOR, where you could survive massive fights with barely a scratch.

Almost. I found it next to impossible in this game. Lightsabers were obvious game breakers, and without such uber-weapons, I found most of the enemies quite tough. You can't get a Terminator-class Jedi Tank to Force-push a dozen of enemies at once and then finish each one off in one strike, one by one, while the others are stunned. Fights are actually challenging and thus interesting.

Also, skill points didn't come cheap. I multiclassed into Paladin to get a melee fighter with Diplomacy (NWN-ish for Persuade) as a class skill, and, being lawful good, this class obviously suited me. I don't really like the fragile spellcaster classes. My typical party consisted of Khelgar (replaced with Casavir once I got him), Elanee (who could switch between spellcasting and melee fighting while shapeshifted — the NWN2 druids sure resemple the WoW ones in this respect), and Neeshka — the only ranged attacker I ever used, except for that sequence with Bishop as a mandatory party member — for her ability to open locks, disable traps and tumble. Unfortunately, Neeshka keeps running out of arrows at the worst possible moment, like during boss fights... I have never used Qara and Grobnar so far, and only used Sand and Bishop when they were mandatory party members.

Now, where was I? The party members are stupid. A typical fight in a house often went like this: I stand in front of everyone and try to tank away hits, Neeshka is shooting while standing in a doorway (and still getting hit), not allowing Elanee (standing behind the door) to join the fray, and Casavir and Shandra are nearby but... don't care, unless I manually select them and command them to join the fight. Sometimes they will run from target to target, delivering one blow to each, and sometimes they'll run far ahead after killing everyone in the immediate vicinity. Needless to say, it's irritating.

Luckily, party members with 0 HP don't die for real, only lie on the floor moaning, like they did in KOTOR, and rise after the battle is over. If I ever do a webcomic about NWN2, I'm sooo turning Neeshka's constant deaths into a running gag.

The plot is interesting and somewhat convoluted, but linear. And I mean linear linear. You don't get to choose between planets or something like this. Perhaps the only place where you actually get to choose something is the choice between working for the City Watch or criminals (much resembling the Ithorian vs Czerka choice on Telos), branching the story into two different paths (which soon converge, however, and you become a member of the Neverwinter nobility no matter what). At other times, aside from occasional sidequests, including companion sidequests (this game actually has companion sidequests, unlike TSL), you're rather limited in what you can do.

The most prominent points in the game were, in my opinion, the trial and the Crossroad Keep mini-strategy. Although the trial was actually somewhat of a disappointment. I thought it would be long, and I would have a chance to elaborate on every bit of evidence I gathered with Sand's help. Instead, it jumped straight to questioning witnesses, although this part was entertaining. I'd say the trial, and the preceding evidence-gathering, outshines the Sunry trial from KOTOR by far.

Only later did I read that the trial, despite all the hype, didn't matter that much after all, and the story will continue the same way (resolving the issue in a fight) regardless of whether you're found guilty or innocent. The man behind the man, "you have failed me"... blah blah. Then, I spoiled the surprise by reading the walkthrough and discovering that you're awarded Crossroad Keep after defeating Garius, but there were still three surprises for me: first of all, his death (so anticlimactic! I like it this way!), then the fact that you could make Torio your advisor in the Keep, and the fact that Luskan denied any affiliation. Although, Luskan being Luskan, the latter should have probably been expected.

Managing the keep and searching the world for the right people was perhaps the most exciting part of the game so far. I ran around from location to location... "My very own keep! Woohooo!" Then a couple more surprises: the destruction of the final statue, which I totally didn't see coming, and the way the knighting ceremony was interrupted. I was actually prepared to screenshot everything, anticipating approaching Lord Nasher and kneeling before him... Not in this life.

I haven't played through the rest of Act III yet.

Anyway, some aspects of the game just scream of the good old KOTOR. The inn (Ebon Hawk) and the KOTOR-like dialogues (although most of the dialogues are still NWN1-like) are among the most prominent ones, as well as the influence system from TSL. The dialogues are well-written and the story is promising, despite the occasional cliches (actually, the developers play with them often, twisting the audience's expectations; there are very, very few predictable plot points). The controls I found rather clumsy compared to KOTOR, but nothing I can't live with. After the patch, the only annoyance is the fact that the keyboard keys still rotate the character too quickly. The graphics have much improved, and if KOTOR III were to be made with the NWN2 engine, I'd totally support it. The outdoor areas and the streets of Neverwinter look simply gorgeous at times, prompting me to press PrintScreen every five seconds or so.

I'm running out of time, so I'll just jump to a speedy conclusion: it's worth playing. If you want a KOTOR set in a medieval fantasy land, it's exactly what to look for. The TSL bashers are welcome to see what Obsidian Entertainment is really capable of while not facing ridiculous time constraints; many an unfinished idea from that game found its way into the other one, becoming fleshed-out. This includes influence, Crossroad Keep itself (known as Khoonda in Star Wars), and, from what I heard, the final battle, where mistreated party members will actually defect to the villain — something that was planned for Malachor V, but cut mercilessly.

NWN2 is what TSL could have been, but never became due to executive meddling. It's fun, polished, and challenging.

I finally noticed that WordPress 2.1 was out, and decided to upgrade. It went more smoothly than I expected, I should admit.

22:08, 3 February 2007 Flyingfeline huffed "Forum:What super powers does uncyclopedia give me? cos wikipedia can make me fly" (The ability to have your forum topics suddenly disappear. :D)

20:49, 25 January 2007 Hinoa huffed "Weasellope cult" (Vanity. Nice try, though--I know it's on WP--exact same text, in fact--and I may just go AFD it there too.)

I can't believe it: they actually dared to translate Drawn Together into Russian. Hilarity ensues.

I can only imagine what irreparable damage they will bring to the show, its premise, dialogue, and credibility. Some things are best left untranslated.

It doesn't help that only five of the eight characters have prototypes recognizable to the average Russian audience. Most people won't understand whom Foxxy, Toot and Xandir are supposed to parody. Josie and the Pussycats, as well as Betty Boop, were never broadcast in Russia, to my knowledge; and Zelda is virtually unheard of. Not to mention that, obviously, blaxploitation films are of little interest to non-Statesians.

This can lead to tragicomical situations when parodies are better known than the real thing. Some people have already assumed that Foxxy Love is a parody of Foxxy Cleopatra from the third Austin Powers — ignorant about the fact that the latter is herself a parody, but they happen to be parodies of the same thing with similarly-derived names.

Not to mention that the Russian title of the show has absolutely nothing to do with the English one. Nobody is drawn anywhere together. Instead, they're supposedly madmen behind the glass. Supposedly.

When browsing through pictures I once stumbled upon and saved, I found this. Naturally, when trying to remember where I got it from, I thought of Linux.org.ru and traced the image to a Firefox-related thread. This is not quite Firefox-related, though...

The page this picture was taken from was about the origins of the Linux logo, and it turned out that this cute fox was suggested by Alan Mackey, who has tons of other furry pictures on his website and, predictably, a WikiFur article. It's not all about foxes, but they sure are the most prominent phenotype featured there.

And, actually, I love this one. More than that stupid penguin, at least. (Thankfully, I have yet to see him in Ubuntu.) Imagine what an impact it would have if it actually got approved. "Linux is for furries!"

Having said that, this is certainly close to what I imagine the LucidFox persona like, although not exactly. Still. Glasses, yay. Shirt, double yay.

Thanks to the WordPress OpenID plugin, this site now accepts OpenID registrations. In fact, I consider this the preferred method of registration, to the point that I may even disable conventional registration in the future.

For those who don't know, OpenID is a protocol with a simple premise: "Register once, login anywhere". You're only required to sign up and type your password on one website, which is your identity provider, and then use a URL to login on any OpenID-supporting website without typing the password or even clicking any "Sign up" buttons.

If you have a LiveJournal account, you already have an OpenID account as well (and possibly don't even know it!), of the form your_name.livejournal.com. You can try it — type this string into the text field on the sidebar, press Enter, and agree to trust this site. Voila, you're logged in! You can now click the "Profile" link, customize your screen name (nickname; the internal name used by WordPress looks ugly compared to manual registration, but it's of no concern).

If you don't have an OpenID account, I strongly recommend getting one, it's just as simple as registration on a regular (non-OpenID) website. You choose a login and a password and get an OpenID identity. There are many providers out there, for example, MyOpenID (identity URLs of the form yourname.myopenid.com) and Videntity (yourname.videntity.org) to name just two.

In short, it's really nice technology, easy to use (even if my lousy description doesn't make it seem so), and most importantly, you have a choice, as opposed to relying on Microsoft to control your identity, which was the central premise of the miserable failure that was Microsoft Passport, now known as Windows Live ID and only used by Microsoft itself.

The first time I used "Lucid Fox" together was on my LAN's forum, as a custom user title for my username, Sikon. It was meant to be a reference to my Firefox-tan avatar, which I still use on the Heroes of Might and Magic fansite Celestial Heavens, as well as my obsession with lucid dreams.

Also, I expected at least someone to recognize a reference to Lucius Fox, but apparently the character is surprisingly obscure, despite Batman's popularity (even more so in Russia; he's probably the most well-known superhero there, followed by Spiderman).

"LucidFox" as a name was first used for a WoW character on our unofficial server. Since the official WoW servers don't allow CamelCase names, my character on the official server Darkspear Europe is called Lucidfox. I haven't played for months, though.

• 06:34, 29 December 2006 Spang huffed "Family GAY" (content was: 'a pun on family guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! duh!' (and the only contributor was '69.142.201.104'))
• 22:59, 28 December 2006 Hinoa huffed "Hard gay" (content was: 'HARD GAY HOOOOooOOOooooOOOOOOO is teh best' (and the only contributor was '24.28.234.107')(I'd just as soon not know about your sex life, thanks.))

And reprints from the old Uncyc page where I was collecting these excerpts.

• 11:15, 15 July 2006 Mhaille huffed "Huffer" (content was: 'How can you huff a non-page?' Like this)
• (Deletion log); 04:02 . . Splaka (Talk) (deleted "FUCK HOW DO YOU MAKE LINKS WITH THIS SHIT": I am not gwax - content was: '''See here.''{{NRV|18:34, 10 March 2006 (UTC)}}{{noGwax}}')
• (Deletion log); 16:55 . . MoneySign (Talk) (deleted "About:blank": You can guess what the content was...)
• 10:43, 6 March 2006 MoneySign deleted "You are dieing" (This is not the Game: namespace! Waaaaaah!!)
• 08:26, 6 March 2006 Splaka deleted "Redirect Bug Page" (content was: '#REDIRECT Redirect Bug' (and the only contributor was 'Ka'))
• 08:26, 6 March 2006 Splaka deleted "Redirect Bug" (content was: '#REDIRECT Redirect Bug Page' (and the only contributor was 'Ka'))
• 08:26, 6 March 2006 Splaka deleted "Redirect bug" (content was: '#REDIRECT Redirect Bug Page' (and the only contributor was 'Ka'))
• 14:14, 5 March 2006 Keitei deleted "Diaper change" (content was: 'See: underwear change.' (and the only contributor was '65.31.236.52'))
• 14:14, 5 March 2006 Keitei deleted "Nappie changing" (content was: 'See: diaper change.' (and the only contributor was '65.31.236.52'))
• 14:14, 5 March 2006 Keitei deleted "Underwear change" (content was: 'See: Skidmarks.' (and the only contributor was '65.31.236.52'))