BlogRolling

I've been making some long overdue repairs to my Blogroll, adding folks who link to me, and weeding out some feed of less interest or relevance. If you look on the sidebar you will actually see 4 blogrolls - I've built up so many that I needed to organize them a bit. There are loosely organized groups for Battletech, Related math, Friends and interesting stuff, and Game Design. If you want a link let me know, especially if you link to me already and I missed it (I'm sure there are a few).

New Years Blogolutions

IT has been a pretty good year, all in all. I didn't accomplish all I wanted - I only wrote 61 posts (not counting this), which is considerably less than the 149 I wrote in 2009, but many of those went into depth or required considerable research and preparation. That is also 61 posts while contending with a super-busy year at work and home, so I shouldn't complain. I have also made some new friends, which is always good.

StatCounter tells me I've had 25,381 page loads, 17,168 unique visitors, 14,364 first time visitors, and 2,804 returning visitors in 2010. This is actually down somewhat from 2009, but I've been less active, and 2009 included the remains of massive traffic spike I got from the Blog-of-Note in December 2008. Google stats tell me I now have over 200 RSS subscribers - Thanks everybody!

(and the ball drops - 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5* - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - Happy New Year!)
(* about this point I jump up to kiss my wife and nearly knock over my painting tray in the process. If what you do on New Years Eve is a preview of what you will do in the New Year, then apparently I'm going to be spending a lot of time kissing my wife and cleaning up disasters. Could be worse!)

What I hope to do in 2011:

I think I've got one or two more good Lanchester's Laws posts in me, which ought to really nail that topic down. I might even use some historical data and do some of my own modeling, which would be good for a whole new series. I have a nagging doubt about the existing Lanchester's models - I think there may be something fundamentally wrong about the existing historical analyses, and I want to take my own poke at the problem. I'm probably wrong, but doing my own research on this idea could be fun.

The Lanchester posts have helped me see how point system can be built, and I've already written bit of this, but I want to consolidate this into a few concise posts detailing what I know about how it should work, and what parts are still open questions. This has been one of my long term goals, but now that I am finally within reach it is opening up new questions, so the quest will continue.

I want to write games. I have that grand idea in my head of writing my master game that combined every idea I have ever had (and that's a lot) into a single game, and I just know that's a bad idea. I need to write some smaller games and practice expressing these ideas in a form that others can try.

I really really need to get back to my painting again. When time is short my painting tends to fall by the wayside. Having a wet palette helps though, and I've got space clear in the basement for what is supposed to be our painting studio.

I need ... to get to bed! Goodnight and Happy New Year. Keep those dice rolling!

Dan

Banner Day

I spent a few hours today pushing pixels around for my new banner - enough time that I figured it was worth a post in itself. Here it is ...

My new banner in all it's glory. 

It's not quite right yet - as you can see up top, some of the best bits are covered up by my title text. I'll see about fixing that later.

Yellow Jacket working image

All the parts of this image are on separate layers in Paint.Net so that sort of change won't be too hard to do. 


Here are the working images, and the original images (pretty sure I found the right ones).

A not-quite-final ...

Yellow Jacket original image

... and the original.

Guillotine original image

All the mini images were put through the "Ink Drawing" filter in PDN to give them a more stylized look.





A final layer below.

Two minis on one layer

Spider original image
 (photo by Sam "Wasp" Snell)

Spider working image

The original "Jumping Spider" photo was given a perspective rotation using GIMP. The original was too small without resizing, and this me stretch the top and shrink the bottom, getting the whole effect in the picture. The jump-jet splash looks a bit flattened those, maybe I can tweak that too.

Vindicator final image.

The Vindy is the only one where I couldn't find the original image. I obviously took the photo, and this mini does feature here, but I guess I never posted any other photos of it. I might have over-done the Ink Drawing tool here, and I need to clean up the edges, which look messy in the final banner.

Hex grid original image

I tried rotating some images of a hex grid, but I found a Hex Grid renderer for GIMP that worked better. I made a REALLY big grid, gave it a perspective rotation, then cropped out the over-stretched parts. GIMP is a good tool, and I'm glad this gave me a chance to start using it.

Random Walks

The random walks image is derived from the same spreadsheet I used for my Monopoly post way back when. This image is a just a screencap from Excel. The random walks were in my original banner too, but with the addition of the hex grid I cut down to just four lines, and made them heavier. Here is the old banner for comparison (below).

Dice Original image (photo by Maximaximax)

These dice are the only part of the banner I didn't create myself - Thank You WikiMedia! I might take a stab at photographing some of my own dice if I get ambitious, but these will do nicely for now.

Finally, thanks to Steve and PiP for prodding me in the comments to get this done. It good when friend bug you to do stuff. :-)

How awful is it?

I'm trying out the new Blogger template design tool. Unfortunately that means scrapping the entire scheme from the old blog and starting over. It's a bit of a mess yet, but I think it might be a bit easier to read now, at least to my middle-aged eyes. There is work yet to be done; I need to redo the banner, and the sidebar gadgets are a complete mess. If it doesn't work out, I can still got back to the old template. All comments appreciated.

--- Dan

What Next?

I'm kicking around some ideas of what to write about next, and I thought I might ask my readers what seems interesting. Here is a partial list:

1. Stochastic Duels: This series is stalled, but not forgotten. This will get done eventually because it is part of my "master plan". 
2. Fair Dice. There was a spurt of interest in this following Kit's post at the Scrapyard Armory, but I had some other ideas I still want to follow up on. These include measuring a set of dice to see how regular the casting is (I found my calipers!), and some more mathematical results about fair dice I could describe.
3. A series on basic strategic choice in war games, tentatively titled "Toy Soldiers". And by basic I mean starting with the most trivial situation possible and working up to some common choices in games.
4. A better Battle Value for Battletech. I've been working up to this one for a long while, and I still don't have all the pieces I need to do this right. However, doing it wrong might still be interesting. What I have in minds would also be applicable to a lot of other games too. This would be even better if I could do a little programming work to calculate the value first.
   
5. Painting Miniatures, which would require me to get off my butt and start painting!
6. There is no idea #6.
   
7. Designing Games: I simply ran out of time for the Game Design Concepts class over the summer, but I'd like to get back to it at my own speed. I have a growing list of game ideas, and with a little effort, any of these might be fair material for posts.
8. Lanchester's Laws, something else I keep threatening to write about, also part of my master plan. Hmmm ...
   
9. I read this post about Chaos theory, and it made me wonder if that might be worked into a game somehow.
   
10. I've got a stack of old notes I started writing before I was blogging too. I should scan through those for more ideas.
    

That's enough. Suggestions and requests are always welcome.

Dice Poll Results

The poll about my dice is now closed, and although the results are nothing spectacular, I'm still happy with them. Not a lot of people came here just because of the dice, but some did, and that is fine. It might have been more helpful to me if I'd put up the poll right after ORIGINS, and I'm guessing there are more people that simply missed the poll.

One thing that is pretty clear is that people like these dice, and it has been a successful promotion of my blog. It has also raised awareness among the Battletech community, which is an important part of my target audience.

I'm getting requests for more dice from people I know handing them out to other gaming groups, so I know the word is still getting around. This cost me $200, but it has done what it was supposed to do, and it been nice to have something I can give out that gamers appreciate. I would do it again, and my supply is running low, so I'll likely need more for next summer.

Year One

One year ago today I published my first post on this blog. Today I'm going back through the past year and meta-blogging about my favorite posts.

September -

Lucky Dice versus the Water Test

My first post other than just "hello world". Rereading this, I didn't explain things very well, and I think I have improved in that aspect. More recently there was a better version of this Fair Dice test at The Scrapyard Armory.

October -

If Battletech were a Card Game

Here I first described the connection between Battletech and cribbage - most wargames and cribbage actually.

Not a favorite: Tater Titan!, a knock-off post which continues to gather many hits from Google image search. Go figure.


November -

Anatomy of a Black Hawk H - Part III

I love painting, I only wish I had more time for it. This mini is still waiting to be finished.

December -

The Mathematics of ... Candyland???

I thought this was a decent post. I put it up and went out shopping with my wife. When I got back home I noticed new several comments, and my web hits were exploding. Hello Blogs-of-Note. That was really big break, and roughly half the people who follow this blog signed-up shortly after this. I still get web traffic from Blogs-of-Note every day.


January -

Graph Paper Race

Encouraged by the attention I got from Blogs-of-Note, I wrote seven Math-in-Games posts, of which Graph Paper Race was (and still is) the most popular.




February -

Game Theory Week: Intro

My first attempt at a series of post all on one topic and all in one week. I discovered that series like this need a lot of work up front, and it helps to have a rich reserve of sources to call on. My other series (still in progress) are requiring me to create most of the material myself, and it's much harder.

March -

Battletech - One Versus All

Not my best month, because my life was very busy and my Dad was very ill. I had fun with this post though.


April -

Business Cards for a Games Blog

A good idea more than a good post. My Dad passed away a few days after I put this up, so April was a rough time for me. I've come to realize that I was writing in part as a release from the stress of worrying about his illness. Fortunately that is not the only reason that I write/blog; and this project has taken on a life of its own. I really think Dad would have gotten a kick out of this though, and I wish I could show him.

May -

The Origin of Battletech

Not a flashy post, but I like it because the history of games is interesting. This reminds me - it's time to follow up with John Curry and see if his new book is out yet.


June -

ORIGINS 2009: Day 3 - More Than Just Fun & Games

ORIGINS was definitely the June highlight, and this particular event really made the Con, the month, and maybe my year (still working on that bit).

July -

The Battletech Reader

July was a good month for me, with more ideas than I could write down coming out of my experience at ORIGINS. This particular post represents a different kind of success though, because it has lead to an ongoing connection with Steven Satak, and his creativity has spurred my own. Blogging is not just about writing to attract attention to yourself and speaking blindly to an unseen audience, it's about finding this kind of connection with other people that creates a conversation. Steven isn't the only one who deserves this credit (that will require another post), but serves as a good example of what I was looking for when I got into blogging. Thanks Steve!

August -

Playing Fair with the Chi-Square Test of Homogeneity

As I write this it was still August a week ago, so it seems a bit silly to "look back". This post brings things full circle though; I started and ended writing about fairness of dice, and that seems fitting somehow.

Next up: YEAR TWO

Pole Dancing

With a title like that, this will probably be my most popular post ever! :-)

As many of you have noticed already, I have a pole poll up inquiring try to determine if people have found my blog because of my custom GBR dice, which I ordered from Chessex as sort of a business card to help advertise this blog. These dice have certainly been popular, between friends and two conventions most of the 400 I ordered have been given out already. I don't know that a lot of new readers have come here as a result, but I will be happy with even a modest response. Those dice are out there now, and a lot more people will see them as time goes on.
So if you haven't yet, please respond to my poll not pole! in the right sidebar. Note that you can vote for more than one item, so check all that apply.

I should mention that my friend Tom of PhotonCutter Studios handed out dice for me at GENCON, and I thank him for that. I'll thank him better soon by posting about his expanding product line.

I see a number of people are already indicating they "want dice". I'm not opposed to ordering more if I need to. Hopefully the opportunity will come to give good homes.

Also, my thanks to Saxywolf for giving me the idea for this pole poll.

Finally, if you have read this far and are disappointed not to find scantily clad women performing acrobatic contortions on polls poles, then this is what you want (a little NSFW, but not very)

Bloggers Beware Patternspace.net

I just received the following email message, and a little searching reveals it is likely a SPAMMER. (caution: righteously angry blogger at that link)

Greetings,
My name is Harrison Barrow and I represent an online gaming website.
Currently, I am doing promotional work, and as such, I am very interested
in the prospect of placing a link onto Giant Battling Robots. Let me know
if this sounds appealing to you. I would be more than willing to
compensate you for your time. If you have any questions, please don't
hesitate to ask. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Best,
Harrison

The answer though, is "no". I don't want to advertise for anything other than my own efforts and those of the friends and game companies I have some connection with. Thank you.

[UPDATE - April 21, 2010]
Commenter SpastikMooss Has provided some of the basic information I was looking for; that Patternspace seems to be a legitimate advertiser, and they run adds for online poker. I withdraw my accusations that they are affiliated with canned meat products.

Under Construction

Pardon the dust, I'm trying out a new template. Comments and criticisms appreciated!

So far, so good. My blogroll even transferred over, which I did not expect. I need to rearrange my gadgets more to my liking.

I can see I'm going to have to do something about my banner, the old one is too small for this layout.

I bumped up the font size. I don't know if anyone else has trouble with small text, but I do, and I have to read it, so bigger it gets. Unfortunately, this may play hell with the layout of my older posts. Please email me about any old post where the formatting has clearly gone south.

Adjusted the color scheme. Maybe not for the better, but it is a bit more themed than it was before. I'll try it ... YIPES! The bottom bar text is now the same color as the blog title (thank you Rounders template. I like safety yellow, but that is a bit much. I guess I'll have to dive into the template HTML and see if I can swap color there.

I'm noticing rather slow loading times tonight. Is this loading slowly for anyone else?

I started fiddling around in Paint.net to create a new banner. Here is what I have so far.


Credit where credit is due: To create this three column layout I followed an excellent tutorial from:

The Blogger Guide
[Blogger Tips, Tutorials & Consultancy]
Web: http://bguide.blogspot.com/

The instruction here were to add a third left-side column to my old Rounders layout, but they were clear enough that I managed to switch it to two right-side columns with no difficulty. (But I backed everything up first, just in case).
I have been meaning to add a third column for some time to make better use of screen space. Two right-side columns let me put more information "up top" where people can see it, but people with smaller monitors can still read the main text without side scrolling.

Anniversary

How well does my wife know me, to give me oversized rubber bouncy dice as an anniversary gift?

No post tomorrow. :-)

(The juggling balls I bought for myself)

Critical Mass of Ideas

What's the opposite of writer's block? It's one thing to be stuck with no ideas to write about, but is it possible to have too many ideas? That seems to be the situation I find myself in. So what's a blogger to do, except maybe write about it. Here's a summary of what's been going through my head lately, all of which I hope to come back to and write about when I can.

• I have been trading comments with Steven Satak about some material from the TRO project. I think it's going to be really good.
• (ai-yi-yi ... I'd better make shorter comments or I won't even be able to finish this post about having too much to write about.)
• Lunch and conversation with Ken Burnside of Ad Astra Games has helped me focus my thoughts on some problems I was already working on, specifically how to value the offensive capability of weapons in a games. This lead to discussion of ...
• ... Lanchester's Laws (something I keep meaning to write about), a formulation of the relative advantage of numerical superiority in combat ...
• ... and a how it applies to the advantage of longer range individual combat. My intuition tells me this ought to be the same sort of relationship, but I'm trying to work through the math to verify this, and ...
• ... this ties in nicely with what I've already been working on for the mathematics of Battletech.
  
• My efforts in the Game Design Concepts class have been lacking recently. This has been a rich learning experience for me, and I need to make a serious effort to get caught up.
• A game idea I've been kicking around for a while is starting to gel. It's high time for me to put together a prototype of this fast-paced air combat game, tentatively titled JINK!
• My project with Tom of PhotonCutter Studios is coming along nicely. The guys in my Battletech group like the prototype I brought in last night, and there are indications it could be popular with a lot of serious miniatures gamers.
• I got some comments about mt Crazy Climber game I wrote and blogged about for the Game Design Concepts class. Someone might actually give it a try! As a budding game designer, this sort of feedback is an incredibly inspiring experience. Saxywolf: If you are reading this, I haven't forgotten. I hope to repost a revised set of rules as soon as I get the time (but time is in short supply).
• Finally, there are a few more ideas that came out of my time at ORIGINS that I haven't written about yet.
  

Time for work. If there are any of these topics you want to see sooner than later, let me know.

Introducing PhotonCutter Studios

My friend Tom is starting a business doing custom acrylic design:

PhotonCutter Studios

including flight bases and 3D forms for air and space combat games. My intent with this post is to help boost him off to a good start.



Ad Astra ORIGINS Gamemaster Mark Seifert Painted these SITS ship miniatures.











These bases are design to work with Ad Astra angle adapters to supports miniatures at any angle of roll, pitch, or yaw (a full three axes of rotation).











My thanks to Ken Burnside of Ad Astra Games for providing the Squadron Strike and AV:T demo minis used in these photos.













Some minis for
Attack Vector: Tactical -->







I will be occasionsally featuring Tom's products on this blog, and I must admit to some selfish reasons for this; I'm working with Tom to produce one of my own ideas for Battletech miniatures. More news on that soon I hope.

[Update: Credit where credit is due - Ken informs me the angle adapters are manufactured by Ninja Magic.]

[Update 2: The PhotonCutter Studios web site is up.]