another fun night of Java… I managed to finally make the server parse client input, looking for a "d" that has int’s in front of, and behind, it. so you can chat regularly, then type "1d20" and it’ll roll, then send the result.

This thing i scraped off the internet, out of the box, is pretty much a piece of shit, unless you want to see how client/server connections get basically made. The gui is super-lame, and the server throws exceptions in an endless loop if any client disconnects without typing "quit". also, you have to click "send" rather than hit enter in the chat window.

But i actually care less about all that, than I do learning how to program java. i want to make it just have graphics of dice, and when you click & drag them into the "box", they will go "Ka-lunk ka-lunk" and show the numbers. I’ve got ideas in mind for the droid app.

 

BEWARE!

Check your Cell Phone Bill for frivolous charges with this listed as a service. Here’s the full story:

My wife received a text message on her phone. It was written in typical text fashion; broken, abbreviated words; random strings of codes. But one part stood out; at the end, it said “Txt STOP 2 un subscribe” or something like that. Thinking that she was doing the right thing, she replied “STOP”. My guess is that this is a thinly veiled way to scam people. My guess is that had she ignored the text, it would have been fine. But she replied.

The result? On this month’s phone bill, WAY at the bottom, in the “Full Bill” view, you know- the pseudo-paper one that most people may not look at, was the following charge:

Besthoroscopesonline

DottedLineMedia For assistance contact: 1-800-331-0500

9.99

There is a web site called whocallsme.com, where you can check phone numbers, and see who it belongs to, and people leave messages about who it was that called them. Clearly, this is a big scam, and probably many different items appear instead of “Besthoroscopesonline”. However, they all seem to come from this phone number, 1-800-331-0500.

Wife asks, “Why don’t the cops get them?” Indeed. Overseas, probably? hard to track down who really runs such an organization.

As you may or may not know, I’m building a replica of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the original Wonders of the Ancient world, in the game Minecraft. Minecraft is a game where you walk around this blocky world, building stuff out of blocks. This has taken a total of probably 30-40 hours so far, and the exterior is mostly done.

The main walls are sandstone. The blue stripes are made of blue wool, which is made by first digging deep mines to find Lapis Lazuli. THen, you hit a sheep with the dye, and he turns blue. then you hit the sheep and he will drop 0-3 blue wool blocks.

It’s important to note that it would have been possible for me to CHEAT and give myself all the sandstone in stacks of 64 to do this. However, I did NOT cheat. Every block was gained through honest mining. …Well, there is ONE caveat: The Glowstone used was harvested WAY before any type of multiverse mod existed. I had to hack together a special “Nether Night”, changing some config files, backing up the server, making everybody stand near me, then shutting down the server and restarting with the new config. We spent a couple days there, then I switched everything back.

About halfway through the construction project, they released an update to the game that allowed deserts to spawn with naturally occurring sandstone. I’m glad they did this. I was getting very tired of digging regular sand, and I figured out that I would need over 250,000 blocks of regular sand to complete the lighthouse! I seriously considered abandoning the project at that point, then they added the sandstone, thank God! Then, as a special bonus, they also added multiple Lapis Lazuli pieces to drop out when you mined a Lapis Lazuli block! That helped greatly as well. However… one thing DID slow me down again; they nerfed the way that digging happened so that a tiny bit of lag occurs right as you’re starting to dig. I had just begun my Speed-Digging technique, which was rendered useless after the multiplayer version no longer worked right with it.

Another help was ScienceNinja, who came and helped me dig out TONS of sand and sandstone. Thanks, SN!!!

This project took several months. I started in November 2010, and ended around April 2011. It’s still not 100% done, either: I need to fine-tune the glass on the floor of the courtyard; the basement floor needs done and then I wanted to add signs everywhere that describe historical facts about the original lighthouse. I’ll probably add all that in later. Maybe some fountains, stuff like that… Anyway, here’s the non-slideshow slideshow.

Phase 1. Construction

Getting There…

Façade done, courtyard still water

Sides done, courtyard still water

courtyard glass area

A much more finished project

 

Here is some of the strip mining areas that gave the sand for it (the pond area above the strip area is part of the “re-naturalization” of the area):

My Band:

Refrigerator Mother.

Download Link: Doctor Eon (mp3).

If you click this link, and it opens in your browser, or in some other program, but you want to save the file to your computer you have to RIGHT-CLICK it, and select “Save Link” or something like that.

Copyright Wayne Byarlay

Lyrics

Hitler found UFO’s down in the hollow earth
This advanced technology tickled him with mirth
Dr. Eon found out about Hitler’s evil plan
Now he’s going down to Antarctica to stop the evil man

Dr. Eon, master of time & space
Dr. Eon, he’s gonna save the human race

The Doctor is a scientist, with psychic powers, too
He knows how to operate a firearm, and the ancient art of Kung Fu
His sidekick Jimmy is always there to help the Doc with his plan
But Jimmy’s not a little boy, he’s a little tiny man

Dr. Eon, master of time & space
Dr. Eon, he’s gonna save the human race

Hitler and his evil clan began to destroy the world
They drove around in their UFO’s, and death from them unfurled
Little Jimmy said, “Gee, Doc E., what the hell we gonna do?”
He said, “Well, Jimmy, I’ve got a plan- we’ll defeat them with this bottle of glue!”
(MacGyver Style.)

Dr. Eon, master of time & space
Dr. Eon, he’s gonna save the human race

Aliens came down from Mars and they were really hot
They said, “Hey, doctor, if ya help us out, we’ll give ya anything we got.”
He said, “Well, ladies, I don’t need much, especially around the crotch
But if you can do Jimmy, I’d really like to watch!”

Dr. Eon, practices celibacy
Dr. Eon, but he can do it vicariously

And the aliens were freaked out, they got their UFO’s back by themselves, and they left Dr. Eon standing there, with Jimmy in his hand

Trivia

I wrote this song while living at 119 West Fowler street in West Lafayette, IN, while attending Purdue as an undergrad. The house we lived in at the time no longer exists; however, I did make a Doom video game map based on the house. The room I was staying in required me to walk through one of my other roommates’ rooms to get to the kitchen & bathroom. Aah, college living. Anyway; the song is sort of based on the campy superhero comics of the late 40′s and early 50′s. I believe Dr. Eon was actually an example character in some role-playing game system; perhaps Steve Jackson’s G.U.R.P.S. game system or something like that. I also heard my first episode of Art Bell during that era, and the people were discussing the hollow earth; some crackpots actually believed that the earth was hollow. AND that Hitler knew this. AND that the only way IN to the hollow earth was through some caves, located in Antartica. AND!!!, that Aliens were housing their spaceships there.

It just kinda wrote itself after that. There were probably chemicals involved.

Anyway… enjoy!

The Craftizens of Pseudopolis have been quite busy.

Macleod’s working on the pyramid:

I’ve been working on my model of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. First pic is from a couple weeks ago… second was taken minutes ago. It’s still not even probably half done; but the north face has been built up the most, for purposes of show and also working out exact details.

and finally, on a side note, this painting showed up:

Do you recognize that guy? MisterBill would!

going to build this

 

like this:

 

and Macleod’s building a Mayan pyramid:

 

I decided to call our world “Pseudopolis”. I finished the skyscraper a long time ago, then I began to implement server mods. First I installed “hmod”, then add-ons for hmod to enhance game play.

We started getting more people on, too. 0CrazyMan has built tons of 0Crazy stuff!

Check out the maps: http://www.tungsai.com/minecraft/map/map.html is a VERY old render with nothing but the skyscraper and the first monster trap.

http://www.tungsai.com/minecraft/map/map.png is more accurate but not as cool…

http://www.tungsai.com/minecraft/map/map2.png nighttime/dusk render.

 

Here’s some screenshots from around the world, and stuff that we’ve built.

 

The Railway Station

This is what it looks like when the server is not done loading level images:

 

A cool waterfall / cliff I found

from another angle

0CrazyMan’s first fort

The railway depot for the fort

THe fort as you’re leaving

Heading into the depot in the city… lots of empty carts, oops!

Load ‘em all up…

The railway station is unfinished…

Here’s the starting point.

OK Here’s Crazy’s main castle & base, with a crazy tall tree that Enyalios is working on…

Another part of Crazy’s castle

…And another

OK That weird beehive thing is Monster Trap 2.0. It works better than monster trap 1.0, but still not that great.

THe Public Greenhouse… it has some name but I forget the name of it.

Macleod’s Keep

..It looks very Frank Lloyd Wright from this angle.

A Rose Garden

The City Clock

Bubba’s “Ye Olde Shoppe”.

Enyalios’ Napping corner. Though, it’s not really in the corner: It’s in the middle of the yard. So I hope you like napping in cow slobber.

The Skyscraper, at night.

CrazyMan’s shop in the yard

THe basement under the skyscraper. It’s unfinished; I plan to make it look like a hotel eventually.

More Glitch….

Crazyman’s castle at night. Impressive!

the server has been updated to the latest version as of today.

Here are some pics of Macleod and I farming some obsidian.