Digital Alterity

I can’t just play games. As much as I love chaos, I love full and complete understanding of the math behind systems even more. I end up thinking like a powergamer most of the time just because of my incessant drive to break whatever game I happen to be playing. I don’t like challenges except insofar as I like absolutely destroying them with creative thinking and/or logical deduction. Games like Trouble or Sorry have absolutely no appeal to me. Games like Final Fantasy Tactics or Neverwinter Nights can take over my life.

The current object of my obsession is the Marvel Trading Card Game for the PSP and, more generally, the entire Upperdeck VS System. After getting my ass kicked repeatedly by computer opponents, my geek pride was bruised. I started digging deep into strategies of powergamers in a quest to find the distribution of character cards to plot twist cards and nearly got overwhelmed by the sheer variety of decks and strategies possible in the game. What I needed was a way to quickly try out scenarios, so that I could see the difference in the overall curve that adding or subtracting a card would cause.

I reached for Excel. I understand that, as a Unix geek, I should probably be whipping up a script in Perl or Ruby or something, but honestly, Excel is my happy place when it comes to quickly banging out mathematical formulas. In fact, when I’m needing to work out an algorithm for heavy calculations, I’ll usually work out the math in Excel before I start coding in the appropriate language. I did some research into the calculations I would need to work out for the problem at hand and found out that I was looking at a hypergeometric distribution. Conveniently, Excel has a function just for this sort of thing. To calculate out the probability that I’ll draw the card I need on an appropriate turn, I just do something like this:

=1-(HYPGEOMDIST(0,6,6,60))

In essence, I’m calculating out the probability that I won’t draw a certain card and just subtracting that from 1 to find out the probability that I will draw at least one of that card. In the above formula:

• 0 is specifying that the number of cards that I want to test for. (Remember that I’ll just be subtracting this probability from one so that I’ll get the opposite probability.)
• The first 6 is the number of cards I have drawn at this point. Since I’m calculating out round 1 without taking a mulligan, I will have only drawn 6 cards by this turn. If I invoked the mulligan rule, I will have drawn 10.
• The second 6 is number of a certain type of card that I have in the deck. (In this case, 6 2-drops.)
• 60 is the number of cards in my deck.

I basically set up a grid of these calculations, allowing me to calculate the following probabilities:

With this distribution, I have about a 75-80% chance of hitting each of my appropriate drops (with the exception of usually worthless 1-drops). That’s a chance I can definitely live with. I’m not adding in any 8-drops because I fully expect games to be over before turn 8. My final deck will consist of 36 character cards, 4 locations, and 20 plot twists. Now, I’ll have to see how playing such a deck shakes out, but math tells me that it would have to be more successful that my current decks (which hover at around 50-60% rates).

See what I mean? I did all this for a game that I’m playing for fun. And the part that will seem truly odd to some of you out there is that these calculations are a major part of the fun for me. If I can’t ponder questions like this, then I’m much less likely to be interested in a game.

Now I’ve just got to win enough games so that I can afford to buy enough cards to fill out this distribution…Then comes the fun of real world playtesting!

Technorati Tags: VS Card System, Marvel Trading Card, PSP, Video Games, Math, Geek

I really don’t use my Powerbook as a laptop anymore. It’s a bit too big to lug it around in a messenger bag on a daily basis, and since the Airport antenna went wonky, it’s something of a pain to futz around with a PCMCIA wireless card. Daily use of my computer has involved typing on a wireless keyboard and mouse with the laptop itself sitting motionless on my desk. Unfortunately, my Powerbook is ill designed for the task. The 15-inch screen is hard to see when I’ve got my keyboard and mouse in the right position, leading me to sort of hunch over the desk. The fact that I’ve not caused myself serious back trauma is almost certainly due to my secret mutant healing factor.

I’ve been talking about getting a large LCD monitor ever since I used my laptop with an external 20-inch LCD at my old programming gig. The computer just seems to work better somehow when it’s used that way. The extra screen real estate makes for less context switching which means less memory thrashing. Also, I do far less scrolling. Unfortunately, actually buying said monitor has always been on the lowest rung of the priority ladder. After all, my computer worked “just fine”. Nonetheless, my computer is a bit long in the tooth, and Allyson and I had a discussion on Saturday about how the best course of action might be to go ahead and get my LCD monitor so that when we decide to replace my computer, we won’t have that expense at the same time.

Over the weekend, Allyson and I went shopping around for Christmas and ended up looking around Best Buy. We saw a Samsung 245BW 24-inch LCD monitor for a decent price, and we filed that away for future action before going on about our day. When we made our way home, I started researching the reviews of the monitor we saw, did some price checking, and figured out that I had found the monitor I wanted. We drove out to get Allyson some cheesecake and we brought my new monitor home as well.

I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating to say that my computer feels like a new machine because of the screen. I can comfortably read PDFs and electronic comics seating a generous distance from the monitor with no need to hunch. I can access all of my Windows without having to invoke Expose or Cmd-Tab. Color fidelity is amazing, leading me to spend less time trying to use my color blind eyes to sort out contrast levels. Most of all, though, my computer is fun to sit in front of again. That, in turn, makes me more productive.

I’ve really got to adjust to all the screen real estate though. I’ll have to completely change the way I work because I’ve spent so many years compensating for a relatively small amount of screen space.

Moral of the story: My new monitor rocks.

• The X-Men. A few months ago, I started picking up all of Marvel’s X-Books as an experiment. I’ve never been much of an X-Men fan, and other than Joss Whedon’s current Astonishing run and Morrison’s New X-Men run, I had never really gotten into the mutant side of comics. After becoming acclimated to the fictional history via Wikipedia and The Uncanny X-Cast, I’ve really started enjoying myself. This month, I’ve switched to mail-order comics through DCBS, so I’ve been dying to read the next few chapters of Messiah CompleX, the first X-Men line-wide crossover in years.
• Golf. Every few years, I get an urge to take up golf. In middle school, my uncle gave me an old set of clubs that were rotting away in his garage, and I dutifully thwacked little white balls around random grassy fields near my house. In high school, I nearly joined the golf team but opted for a bench-warming basketball career instead. Since getting my Xbox 360 back from Microsoft, I’ve been obsessed with Tiger Woods 2007 again. Today, I bought a copy of Golf for Dummies and even got a quote for lessons with the local PGA professional. I think this is some sort of bizarre call of the wild that white men all experience at some point in their lives.
• Of Montreal. Borders had a crazy sale last week where they sold all of their CDs at 40% off. Allyson and I picked up The Sunlandic Twins and Then Who Will Protect Big Oil, and they’ve basically become the soundtrack of our lives since. I can’t get enough.
• My brand new PSP. I’ve been ripping shows from my DVDs and watching them at lunch. I’ve been playing X-Men Legends II at every opportunity. I even gave the new Warhammer demo a try (and loved the holy shit out of it). I’ve got a metal hard-shell case for it, so that I can always just have it hanging out in my purse.
• Thor, Norse god of thunder. If you’re not reading Marvel’s latest Thor series, you’re missing out on some great comics. They’re just as good as the stories JMS was doing early on in his Amazing Spider-Man run. In just four issues, JMS has been exploring the role of godhood in contemporary humanity’s crises and pondering the role of belief in existence itself.

On Thursday night, I got a notice from UPS that they had tried to deliver my Xbox 360 to me. This sort of thing happens every time I get a shipment from UPS. For whatever reason, UPS doesn’t like dropping things off at our apartment office even when they try to deliver during office hours. Taking charge of the situation, I called the automated line and had my package held for pickup. I do this every time I get a package. On the best days, I just show up right after work the next day and pick up my package.

Yesterday was not one of the best days.

After waiting in line long enough to evolve mutant powers, I found out that my package hadn’t actually been held. Instead, it was out on the truck for delivery again. When the guy at the service center did some digging in the details, he saw that I had requested my package to be held on Thursday night, but no one actually took the package off the truck. Sadly, this is not the first time this has happened to me at the Gainesville service center. I made arrangements to come back out to the UPS center in the middle of nowhere after eight o’clock, so that I could pick up my Xbox once the driver returned for the day. In the end, I got my Xbox, and it worked beautifully. I didn’t even mind the hassle overly much.

You see, I got a PSP last night.

I told Allyson that I wanted a PSP for Christmas this year, and being the iconoclastic bastards that you all know and love, we decided to just go ahead and get our Christmas presents for each other when our salary bonuses came in. I bought a “piano black” PSP with a 1 GB memory stick, Justice League Heroes, and X-Men Legends II. I haven’t done much with it besides browse a web site and play the games for a few minutes, but I’m already blown away by the size and quality of the screen. I can’t wait to throw some episodes of Buffy and Kids in the Hall on it.

So the lesson I take from all this is that frustration with UPS can be dealt with quite effectively with new technology purchases.

There’s no way around it. Read More Comics in Brandon, Florida, is awesome beyond words. This store has given me a reason to be happy that my in-laws live in Brandon because, if they didn’t, I would never have found this store. I first set foot in Read More Comics because I was being forced to go to Brandon on Free Comic Book Day. Rather than miss out on some free comics, I hopped online and found the best rated store in the area. The store was well-run with knowledgeable staff. Every employee was friendly to every customer. They had computer printouts to set up pull lists, and they gave a 25% discount on trades/hard covers every single day they were open.

But wait…there’s more. You see, every time I walk into the store, I find something that has been virtually impossible for me to find in a brick-and-mortar store(1) in my area. Last time, it was some back issues of Grant Morrison’s current Batman run. This time, it was the only New Avengers issue that I don’t have in some fashion, New Avengers Annual #1. I have come to rely on trips to Brandon to fill in hard-to-find gaps.

If you live in the Tampa area and you’re not getting your comics at Read More Comics, drop in and set up a pull list. You’ll be glad that you did.

Technorati Tags: Comics, Stores, LCS, Read More Comics, Brandon, Florida

Footnotes

1. I think we all understand that virtually anything can be found on the Internet if you’re willing to pay a premium and have it shipped to you.

In looking at the mirror just now, I realized that my haircut is almost exactly the haircut that Bagley-drawn Peter Parker in Ultimate Spider-Man has.

I’m not quite sure what to do with that information.

I sat down yesterday and read Mighty Avengers #1-5 all at once, and it was a great read. I wasn’t sure going into MA how I was going to like it because, as a kid, I was never an Avengers fan. From the outset, this team felt more like a traditional Avengers team to me, and my interest in the Avengers started with the New Avengers.

Things I love about the series…

1. Ms. Marvel. Marvel has been pushing her as the next big hero in the MU since House of M, and for my money, it’s working. My next IST order is going to have the first trade of her solo series on it.
2. The character relationships. The heroes play off of each other well. Their personalities and powers complement well.
3. The leadership tension. Carol is officially the leader, but Tony is one of the founding Avengers and the head of SHIELD. Wasp has led the Avengers before. Black Widow really knew how to take charge on the helicarrier. Who will really be in charge of the Mighty Avengers? Will they routinely question orders? Interesting dynamics here.
4. The Sentry’s real chance. He feels like he fits in here better than he ever did in the old team. He is right in the thick of things and really has a chance to take off as a character.

Once the book gets back on schedule, I think I’m really going to enjoy the interplay between New Avengers and Mighty Avengers.

Technorati Tags: Avengers, New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Comics

I had just finished reading my comics for the week, and Mighty Avengers #5 had me in the mood for some Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the 360. When I loaded up my Avengers team save file, I decided that I was going to switch out Hawkeye for Ms. Marvel, but as I flipped on the character screen, the system crashed.

Now this isn’t really that unusual. My Xbox 360 has been routinely choking on Oblivion for weeks now. I turned it off, and expected to be greeted by a happier Xbox when I flipped it back on. Frozen load screen. Controller not being recognized. Red ring of death with a missing light in the upper-right quadrant. Massive hardware failure.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

I spent the rest of the night in a daze. My Xbox. Was. Broken. For the first time in nearly a year, I couldn’t play Marvel Ultimate Alliance. This was (and perhaps is) more than I could handle.

Thankfully, Microsoft has extended the Xbox 360 warranty for three years because of the high rate of red ring of death failures. So I should get a new Xbox for free, but that will probably take a week or so. In the interim, I hardly know what to do with myself.

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, Red Ring of Death

At exactly what point in our history did it become kosher to print a story with a headline that centers around an unconfirmed allegation? The last presidential election was particularly full of such nonsense. Now, I’m no journalist, but it seems to me that if you don’t have any corroborating facts or confirmation from a second independent source, there’s no story. Merely publishing what one partisan accuses other partisan cheapens the press and merely makes them the conduit for elementary school “he-said-she-said” arguments.

Valid Headlines (With Independent Validation of Facts)

• Councilman Bratwurst Accepts Controversial Donation
• Anomalies Found In Candidate’s War Record
• Republicans Vote Down Medicare Bill

He-Said-She-Said Headlines

• Councilman Keilbasa Accuses Bratwurst Of Accepting Dirty Money
• Veterans Group Alleges War Record Cover-Up
• President Tunahead: Republicans ‘Hate Poor People’

If you can’t find independent confirmation, then your source is either a partisan, a crank, or both.

Technorati Tags: Media, Press, Journalism

Allyson and I have finally joined the cult of Wii. We picked up the Wii on something of a calculated whim over the weekend. After my haircut on Sunday, I said, “Why don’t we see if Toys R Us has any Wiis?”

I say this about every Sunday, you see, as kind of a joke. One day, I was thinking about getting one, and there was this weird line at Toys R Us over an hour before they opened. Almost all of the people in line resembled underground mole people. We left to go to the bookstore for an hour and came back in time for the store to open. When the doors opened people went insane, literally running for the counter. Ever since this day, I’ve said that I won’t buy a Wii until I can just randomly walk in and buy one off the shelf.

So yesterday, we walked in to Toys R Us, and Allyson said, “There they are!”
“Well, I was totally unprepared for that.”
“Are you getting one?”
“I don’t know. Can I?”
“I figured we would get one eventually.”

So we got a Wii and Wii Play so that we could have a second controller.

Want to add me as a friend? My friend code is:

2286 5358 1143 6398

Just throw your friend code in the comments or shoot me an email.

Technorati Tags: Wii, Friend Code, Nintendo