Jerry Stratton's Blog, page 41

A Song of Thanksgiving: America, the Beautiful

America, the Beautiful, by Katharine Lee Bates, with melody by Samuel A. Ward.

TRS-80 Color Computer RCHECK+ in Perl

I much prefer to use a modern keyboard and modern windows to type in programs. But Rainbow’s RCHECK+ was too useful to give up. This script will run RCHECK+ on a text file in the macOS Terminal or any Linux/Unix command line.

Computers and Serial Imagery linked on Astounding ASCII Art

“The tradition of serial imagery in painting began with Monet who, being vitally concerned with light, often painted the same object or scene repeatedly under varying light conditions… Since Monet, many painters (mostly abstract) have worked serially. Andy Warhol, with his painted (and printed) series of movie stars, Mona Lisas, soup cans, coke bottles, etc. is the foremost serial artist today.”

ASCII art has always fascinated me. So when I ran across Laurence Press’s article in the old Artist and Computer• collection, it inspired me to write the asciiArt script for 42 Astounding Scripts.

I ended up not using his greyscale palette, however, mainly because it required too much choice for a script. Most of the letters appear multiple times in his palette. That said, it’s not a bad palette. Choosing somewhat randomly from his 8-level list, the palette --palette "#OX*+=- " produces recognizable ASCII art for complex images.

He also suggests inserting “arbitrary material”, which is what I called “sequential” in the book: using a word or phrase for all non-white sections of the image.

He has some very interesting ideas that I did not use for the script, but which you could program in if you wanted, such as randomly adding noise to the non-white or the white sections.

But also interesting is how unsure he is that using computers for art is a worthwhile use of computer time.

It is uncomfortable to be begging for ‘bootleg’ time. The problem is that computer art doesn’t really fit anywhere. Neither computer scientists and computer science departments, nor artists and art departments generally take it seriously enough to underwrite experimentation. Perhaps this is as it should be, or perhaps the quality of our work will win a place for computer generated art, I think that the jury is (justifiably) still out.

I think the jury is in today about whether using computers for artwork is a worthwhile use of computer time. And that’s partly because a few years after he wrote that, he’d have been able to go out to the local Radio Shack and buy a complete computer that could do what he had to use “bootleg time” for in 1975.

A free market in union representation

Every monopoly is said to be special, that this monopoly is necessary. And yet every time, getting rid of the monopoly improves service, quality, and price. There is no reason for unions to be any different.

Part 1: Copyrightability of RPG Stat Blocks linked on Role-playing design notes

“WotC has a history of taking advantage of gamers’ ignorance of contract and intellectual property law and lack of wealth when making similar demands, thus harming the gaming community and industry, so it’s time those issues are addressed.”

It’s been a long time since I wrote my series on gaming copyright and why, and what kind of, open source licenses are useful and what are merely backdoor attempts to bar people from doing what they’re legally entitled to do under copyright law. As I stated regularly, I am not a lawyer, just an interested amateur. Frylock, as his name might suggest to you if you’re up on your Shakespeare, is a lawyer. He’s just started a series on copyrightability in RPGs, specifically stat blocks, at Frylock’s Gaming & Geekery.

His inspiration is very similar to my initial inspiration for writing Gods & Monsters: a threat from Wizards of the Coast. His came directly, however; mine only came obliquely through Ryan Dancey on Usenet. Keep an eye on his series—the first installment is very informative—and keep an eye on whether there’s a legal battle at all, or WotC/Hasbro just ignores him.

Part 1: Copyrightability of RPG Stat Blocks



Part 2: Copyrightability of RPG Abilities and Spells

The way to be a programmer is to program

How do you become a computer programmer?

Editorial linked on Astoundingly useful programming tools

“Editorial is a plain text editor for iPad and iPhone with powerful automation tools and a beautiful inline preview for writing Markdown. You can combine a large selection of simple text processing actions into your very own workflows—all in an intuitive drag’n’drop interface that makes it easy to see what's happening.”

The author of Pythonista also has a text editor on the app store. But Editorial isn’t just a great text editor; it’s also a great way of running scripts on text documents. I use it extensively when writing blog posts, to format my posts, to create lists, and to look up information on the fly on my own web site and others.

The drag-and-drop workflow creator is very powerful, and incorporates many of the features of Pythonista while keeping those features extraordinarily simple to use.

Roast beef for National Sandwich Day

Sandwiches are not made by bread alone. And this roast beef recipe is a very simple way of making meat for your sandwiches.

Artist and Computer linked on Astounding Computer History

“No computer will ever take the place of an artist. But many artists are discovering computers as a medium to create finished pieces of art, while others explore new art forms, using the computer as an idea machine.”

This is the book that inspired me to finally write an ASCII art generator. Artist and Computer• is a fascinating collection of essays by artists from the seventies, just before the onset of the home computer. It contains everything from oscilloscope art to ASCII art, as well as primitive three-dimensional work.

Because it is set before the advent of the home computer, the artists often didn’t own the computer they were using to create their art. Many worked with a programmer. But they all had to have some understanding of programming in order to manage the process.

The artist now goes to an art supply store to purchase a given set of tools, whereas the computer artist can create the tools he will use. This is remarkable and allows for unlimited possibilities in the art to be created. — Ruth Leavitt (Artist and Computer•)

Why is it so difficult to hold schools accountable?

Simulating accountability in education has the same problems as simulating accountability in health care or any other monopoly. Tests and grades and paperwork are never as effective as choice.