User talk:Aichon

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Aichon

ˈīˌkän :Talk

Please be aware of the following guidelines before posting here.

• New conversations should be started at the bottom using a level two header (e.g. ==Header==).
• I like to keep conversations wherever they start, but if a conversation ends up here, I will keep it here.
• I will format comments for stylistic reasons, delete comments for whatever reason, and generally do anything else within reason.

Thanks. —Aichon—

Archives: 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | To do

Barrista Feedback

Hello again. I tried Barrista but isn't working properly. I thought that the others scripts/extensions could be messing with it, so I disabled them all but with no luck. Here's a screencapture. I'm using Firefox 3.0.15 with latest Greasemonkey. Regards.--telepibe 03:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

How very odd, but you're completely correct...it does the same thing in my copy of Firefox. Thanks for letting me know. I hadn't yet tested it in Firefox, just because it and Safari usually render things similarly and I wasn't calling this a full release yet, but obviously they didn't render the same this time. Not quite sure what to make of that. I'll look into it when I get a chance, but I'm not sure what the issue is or how much work it'll take to fix. Thanks again for cluing me in. Hopefully I'll get that cleaned up so the Firefox folks can use it. —Aichon— 05:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I've given Barrista a try and it seems to work fine in Opera 10. Chief Seagull (talk) 09:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. From what I saw, it mostly works in Chrome as well, though I had to make a few modifications. I've been keeping this message here all this time, rather than archiving it, because I still plan to go back and fix it for Firefox one of these days. Just haven't gotten around to it yet. Once I make the Firefox fixes, I'll roll them in with my Chrome fixes, and will hopefully have v1.0 ready then. —Aichon— 15:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Feeding Groan (from Fighting the AP War)

Surely worth a mention?

Also your numbers on FAK searching look a bit odd. Is it based of unpowered hospital?

--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 11:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

*cough* I just typed this thing up in one sitting without really going back through and checking it for completeness...wasn't exactly expecting commentary just yet. But yeah, FG probably does deserve a mention. I was planning to do an inventory of the skills to see which I had missed before I posted it, but hadn't gotten around to it yet, since it's not really that close to done yet.

As for the search rates, I got the FAK search number from here, which, in looking at it again, has slightly better odds than I stated. It should be 7 AP to locate a FAK, based on that, rather than 8 AP like I said. Do you have different numbers from those somewhere? If not, I'll correct it accordingly (really, all of my numbers are gonna need to be checked again, since I rearranged sections at one point and may have misplaced a few things). —Aichon— 12:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Springtime I'm going to donate for a bunch of characters and as such have spare ap's to redo search rates, an article I want to do on spawning criteria and some other stuff. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 12:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd have redone the search rate articles myself by now (one of them still has Drug Stores listed as a good source of FAKs!), but, well, it all kinda seems meaningless once you find out about Groove Theory and realize that it actually works. After that, it's pretty hard to conduct fair searches, since you can see where the grooves are and either end up clicking to meet them or not meet them, either of which biases the results. Talk about massive sampling bias. —Aichon— 13:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thats why Im getting some throwaway characters I don't care about. I can click search completely at random that way. Never going to use the stuff anyway. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 13:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

But "how can it truly be random?", is what I'm getting at, rather than that you'd be wasting perfectly good chances to get useful items. If you click at regular intervals, you'll suffer from sample bias. If you click as often as the page loads, same problem. The best I can think of is to generate a series of pseudo-random numbers in advance and then click at the times designated by them. Or, perhaps better, generate pseudo-random numbers in the range of, say, 10-100, then treat those as the deltas between adjacent clicks. It'd be awfully wearisome though. —Aichon— 13:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

True, but having 3 or 4 characters clicking search every day for a week should give a quite impressive sample size of, what? 1400 searches?--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 14:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, 1400 searches, roughly...with sample bias. :P

For instance, imagine that you wanted to determine how much of the road was depressed in a series of ruts by walking down it and seeing how many ruts you stepped in. The ruts aren't random: they're equally spaced apart. It doesn't matter where you start on the road, because if you maintain a constant stride once you start, the number of ruts you'll hit is already predetermined, so there's no point in even conducting the test at all. The only way you can change it is by changing the length of your stride, but then you'd be changing your test in response to the results you're getting, which would taint the results.

The unfortunate truth is that your stride length and starting position effectively determines the success rate you'll have, making the experiment moot. If your stride length matches the distance between the ruts, and you're already in a rut, you'll have a 100% rate. If your stride length is the same but you're not in a rut, you'll have a 0% rate. If your stride is 1/3 that of the distance between ruts, you might have a 33% rate. None of those provides an accurate indication of the true frequency of ruts, however, because the frequency of ruts can't be 0%, 33%, and 100% simultaneously, yet all three of the tests would seem valid at first glance.

Hence my assertion that the only effective way to determine the rate of success is to create a randomized stride length that is non-uniform and does not react in response to the results you're getting. It has to be a set of strides that are determined before starting the test, or else you'll either taint the test by changing your stride or will end up with sampling bias by not changing it.

Alternatively, you could conduct two sets of tests. If you use Groove Theory, you could determine the breakdown of items within a given structure, since only the chance of finding any item is affected by Groove Theory, rather than the chance of finding a specific item. After that, you could try to determine the likelihood of finding any item. —Aichon— 16:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I think I could rig up a bot that searches for the groove and then tries to stay in it so as to collect as many items as possible and figure out the breakdown, though I'm not sure how I'd get it to output the results...hmm... —Aichon— 16:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I wansn't going to click at a certain frequency, just random clicking every couple of seconds, as the mood took me. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 17:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

But...but...sampling taint. And stuff. I'm rambling since I've been awake for far too long. It's Thursday now, right? —Aichon— 17:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

How do!

Hi Aichon. Yep, my main character's in MOB so I update the map whenever I can. I have an alt in Judgewood Vector Control (Doctor Parrot) so that's the SoC connection. Chief Seagull talk 09:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, that makes sense then. It just seemed like I was bumping into you in more and more places, so I figured it was high-time to say hello and figure out who this individual was. Did you just start playing the game late last year, or have you been around for awhile? —Aichon— 14:34, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Nah, I'm a latecomer - 19th September to be exact. Chief Seagull talk 14:41, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Sweet! Another newbie, like myself. Always fun to find others that are new to the game as well. Well, since I've already bumped into you with my zombie and survivor, we just need to get you a PKer that bumps into mine, and we'll have the trifecta. And if you have a Dual Nature character laying around that wants to have fun with another one, I'd be game for that too, though my DN tends to just roam alone. —Aichon— 01:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Righty-ho, I'll just add those characters into my contacts lists and see if I run into them. My UD profiles are on my userpage. My DN's in Milltown right now and he's had a busy day - he's been zombified and revved in the space of a few hours. Chief Seagull talk 15:12, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

That’s a shame...my DN was down in Miltown just two days ago, but has since headed back north since she was looking to do some good while she's alive. Might need to head back down your way... —Aichon— 19:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

My DN's chilling in Joachim Mall stocking up on ammo. I'll probably head up NE afterwards - it's too quiet in this corner of town. Chief Seagull talk 10:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

So nice of your zombie to say hello :) Chief Seagull talk 10:22, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I just couldn't resist. Plus, you've been a MAJOR help on the Locator recently. I just haven't had as much time for it these last few weeks, so when I saw you, I was like "?! :D", if that makes any sense. —Aichon— 17:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

From RSoM

Can't say I like it either. CITIZEN VI 03:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Just now saw this over there. Yeah...definitely not a fan of the new color scheme, so this seemed like the easiest approach. —Aichon— 08:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

From Demo6

Aichon, this is hella sexy. O_O CITIZEN VI 03:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I gotta admit, I had kinda forgotten about that page since I've been so busy recently. When I saw that "Demo6" had a comment from you, I was like, "which demo is that one again?" And now I know why you were looking for me in IRC. I was actually near my computer, but was working on some other stuff, so I wasn't responding to the pings I was getting for a few hours there.

Anyway, it ended up being a chance for me to fool around with rounded corners and shadows to see what I could do in an hour or two, since I hadn't done anything extensively with them before. It was a bit of a test case, and I like some things about it but don't like others. It'll probably serve as a point of reference for future designs I decide to go with later, but I won't be using it as it is now, since it doesn't sit right with me for some reason. I'm certainly no artist, and it definitely shows in work like that. I am a code monkey though, which also shows... —Aichon— 08:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the reason I was looking for you on IRC is that I want to implement your brilliant PK template as soon as possible, but before doing that I want to discuss a few changes I had in mind for aesthetic or other reasons. CITIZEN VI 17:01, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, well then...OFF TO IRC! —Aichon— 20:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Wiki Guru Wanted

Let's say I have two templates, A and B. Both have three variables. Is there a way to have Template A call in the same variable that has been entered for Template B? I swear there is, but my brain isn't working right now. --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 13:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite following, I'm afraid, so I'll try to cover all the bases. If template A is included in template B, then I don't see how it can be done, since the variables would be "invisible" to (i.e. worked into the content of template B) template A by the time it saw B. If template B is including template A, then it should be possible (e.g. example). If neither is included in the other, then I don't see how it can be done easily. Hit me up on IRC sometime and we can discuss the specifics of your case to see what may or may not be possible, since it's a bit hard to work in the theoretical like this without a solid example of what you're trying to achieve. —Aichon— 21:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Example District Page

Okay, so here is our example page already in the main namespace. Less work than I thought, although it is far from aesthetically pleasing. Had to create Template:District for the sidebar and will have to make a minimap for each district, but otherwise it pretty much handles itself. I also created a page for the district barricade plan linked right to the page, and that's pretty much good to go aside from coding up a boilerplate template for that and adding a variable to the suburb boilerplate to link to the district one. Thoughts? --Maverick ^{Talk - OBR 404} 12:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the TRPs are definitely an issue, as you said on the page. As for general thoughts, I think I'd suggest borrowing a bit more from the suburbs and changing or adding a few things. A few quick examples:

• The "X's location in Malton" minimap on the right side of the suburb page would be nice for districts, but would have to be modified to work.
• The EMR and Mast Status boxes need some aesthetic work, since they're not all the same size and are more difficult to read than the suburb ones. I'd suggest pulling them out of boxes like you have them on the district page, and instead make them resemble the suburb ones more (you also need the header for the EMRs and the Edit EMR links). Also, the suburb name should be near each of those, since otherwise there's no way to tell which correspond to which unless you have them memorized.
• I'd borrow the "Key Buildings in X" from the suburb page. It could probably replace the TRP list, even.

I'll take another look at it later, but those are the things that pop out to me at the moment. —Aichon— 18:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Midianian's UD Map Links Script

Hi there. I was going to ask Midianian, but it seems you're in charge of his scripts for now, so I thought I should ask you instead. Anyway, his UD Map Links Script had a link to the RedRum map which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be working any longer. I edited the script to link to the CDF map instead, but wanted to get your okay before posting it to the External Links page. If you'd like to check out the script, you can find it here. Please let me know if it's okay and if you don't mind me putting it on the wiki. Thanks! --Lucy Daniels 03:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

:D I have no issues with you posting something you've worked on or edited at all! The more people we have scripting up userscripts, the better it is in my book, plus, that script is released under the GPL, so you can modify and release it as you want. I've definitely been dragging my heels on updating that script, even though I've known it's been in need of an update for about a month now, so the fact that someone finally took it upon themselves doesn't surprise me one bit.

Anyway, when I just tried out your script, it didn't seem to do anything for me in GreaseKit with Safari, which is somewhat unusual. It looks like you might have edited an earlier version of the script, since the latest version I had from Midianian was 1.3, not 1.2, which might explain why it didn't work, since his 1.3 update added compatibility for some of the other browsers, such as the one I use. Since the fix is pretty straightforward, I did go ahead and update my version of the script (which was based on Midianian's 1.3 and had a tweak or two that made it play nice with other userscripts), which you can find here.

I don't want to discourage you in the least with this, so I would definitely encourage you to post your version of the script (or any other edits or modifications of the scripts I have here, for that matter) so that you can get your name out there and can start tweaking it to meet your needs. In this case though, I hope you won't mind if I simply update my version of the script since it already does some other stuff. Again, I don't want to step on your toes, but your comment kinda gave me the kick in the butt I needed to update my version. —Aichon— 04:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Looking Good

Just wanted to say your userpage looks awesome. Great design and all that. For some strange reason it also makes me think of Assassins Creed. --Thadeous Oakley 21:49, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! And I can see why you'd think that, since the colors do kinda match the costume and advertising design with AC2, from what I've seen (the colors were actually more meant to be an homage to my alma mater). Truth be told though, I actually developed most of this design about a year or two ago for a blog I have, but I never used it with that blog and left the design only half-finished. When I was looking for ideas for a new look and feel here, I glanced through old designs I had for various things, saw this half-finished one, and figured I'd tweak it to work here. I definitely like the way it came out, though I'm still tinkering a bit. —Aichon— 22:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeh for sure. Fucking sweet ass userpage design. You and ddr are such minimalists. It kinda makes me sick but it also kinda makes me happy. Good luck with your sysop bid!--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 09:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Sick? Because it's so good or because it's so little? And thanks! Guess I finally get to have that vouch from you. :P —Aichon— 20:24, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I can only worry so much about Judas

Fallout 1 and 2 were fundamental in establishing and fortifying my appreciation of RPGs, I hope you enjoy them. Let me know what you think once you get into 'em. I haven't touched the new one, my 360 and a TV were fed to my guns after a summer of sloth.

I just need to play around with how and what I can do with the wiki a bit before I'll have any specific questions for you, it's been a while since I've done(attempted)anything resembling coding. I've just been cuttin', pastin' and fiddlin'. I screwed around with a signature for a bit this evening and I'm pretty sure there's alot of superfluous stuff going on in there... Thanks for the response, and putting your time into this whole UD thing! Have fun Sysopping! --MikhailKalashnikov ^{разговор} 06:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at your signature, since it seemed to be slightly broken (e.g. the timestamps weren't showing up on the same line as the signature itself). I went ahead and cleaned up your code a bit, and also fixed a few things that weren't quite correct here. I'm not sure what you were trying to do with the code that was "EVIL?", so I cut it out, but otherwise it should basically be the same as before. If you like the changes, you can copy it over to your signature, and if there are things that need tweaking, let me know and I can modify it a bit. —Aichon— 20:16, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again, I'm starting to learn, that signature I had was a cut and paste hack-job. I just need to put some time in. Take it easy. MikhailKalashnikov ^{разговор}02:18, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Most of this wiki is a cut and paste hack-job... 02:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Ironically, it was your signature, Mis, that was copy/pasted, from what I saw. And no problem, Mikhail. Let me know if you run into any problems with it, and I'll be happy to lend a hand, but I hope that the new code is a bit simpler to modify whenever you feel a need to change it. —Aichon— 02:28, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

And mine started life as a bastardised version of VI's. Also, you. You code nice. You seem to have good aesthetics. DG nao. pwease. 02:33, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, not sure what help you're looking for at DG. I see a few spelling errors and the like (e.g. "in to" should be "in order to"; "eidt" should be "edit", etc.).

I also notice that you mention -moz-border-radius, but that only works with Firefox, and not with Chrome or Safari, since the two of them use -webkit-border-radius, and neither -moz- or -webkit- is future proof, since the web standard is just border-radius, and will be used at some point in the future by all of the browsers. In order to get around the problem, I developed a template that automatically spits out all three versions. To use it, you'd just say {{xbrowsercss|border-radius: 5px}} and it would spit out border-radius: 5px; -webkit-border-radius: 5px; -moz-border-radius: 5px; automatically. It works great for shadows and a few other CSS3 elements that are like this as well.

There are also quite a few ways you can simplify it to the end-user. For instance, I have a map that I used to track my movements around the city (part of its code is designed specifically for use on my PK characters), and if you check its use on my Characters page, you'll see that it doesn't require much code at all to use. It could also be trivially changed in order to allow things such as widths and additional colors be added in. While having them build a map that is similar to the MOBLocator isn't a bad thing by any means, it does mean a lot more code that they're exposed to, which can confuse a lot of people, even after all the simplification you've already offered. That said, I'm not sure of too many ways to improve it, and I see your guide offering value already. —Aichon— 03:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The browser-specific thing I did not know. I'll have to sit and fix that. And that map of yours is very nice, but I like the 100+ lines of code, as it gives a way of pinpointing patterns a bit easier (for things like malls over two rows), plus the editing of individual squares easily. Basically what I need to know most is "is this useful?" and "what else do I need?". But thanks for the corners thing, I'd never have known that otherwise. 03:16, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding my map, it's only a hair over 100 lines (though the lines are VERY long :P). What I meant to illustrate with it though, was that you could make a versatile template that would allow for pretty much any type of use. In my case, the way I actually use it means that I need to use very little code, since I've hidden away all the hard parts in that template itself.

I'd say it's definitely useful to wikinewbs and people that are uncomfortable setting up their own maps, which is to say, most people. It gives them a place to start and a framework to build on, which is definitely nice. It might not be a bad idea to provide them with a "library" (in the programming sense) of templates that they can use in various places. You could categorize the templates into things such as building styles or colors, giving them a quick companion reference for finding out what they should type in if they want one square to look like a fire station or a fire department, without having to go to the bother of figuring it out themselves. A link to the help section over tables might not hurt either, since it'd give them additional info over the syntax of what they're doing. —Aichon— 03:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm on it. Cheers, buddy. 03:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Permission

Hello Aichon. I'm relatively new to this website, in the sense of owning in account on it. However, while browsing the community discussion boards, I saw a message you posted and upon checking your user page out, I fell in love with your page setup. I've been having...difficulties setting up a respectable layout for my own user page so I was wondering if I could "paraphrase" the layout of your user page? It wouldn't be a word-for-word copy, the majority of the text would be different, the templates would be different, my own info would be used, and I'll be using the colors that the university I currently go to employs.

I just wanted to ask your permission to use the basis of your user page layout, before I went and copypasta'd it into my own. I greatly respect all you've done for this website, on Urban Dead, as well as in the real world. I just like to be polite and courteous to people I respect on the internet, after all, they too are real people with real personalities and minds.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to reading your reply. --TheBardofAwesome 06:55, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I've seen you around the wiki already, since you've been posting on a few people's talk pages who I watch on a daily basis. :)

As for the request...how to put it? I had typed up this massively long reply, but I've tried to cut it back quite a bit. First, technically speaking, you are (almost always) permitted to borrow anything you want from anyone on the wiki, and no one can stop you from doing that normally. Second, personally speaking, this design of mine is less than a week old, so I'm still very emotionally attached to it, given the amount of work that went into conceptualizing it. Third, for technological reasons I'll discuss in a sec, I think it would be best if you tried to make your own design and merely copied bits from mine, rather than trying to duplicate a large portion of it.

To be clear, I'm okay with you borrowing from my design, but I would like to offer a few ideas for what I would consider to be "cool" or "uncool" when you borrow, but again, I can't stop you from copying it wholesale if you suddenly got the urge to do so.

1. The big one is that I'd like there to be enough of a difference so that when someone views our pages, they have no moment of confusion for whose they are looking at.
2. I'd really prefer that your text be all original, but if you can point me to some specific text that you think is useful to you, I'm game for discussing it.
3. I was going for the big name at the top to be a signature item of my userspace. If you borrow that element, could you make it look different (maybe a script font)?

As for the rest, change it around a bit so that it doesn't feel like my userpsace and I should be cool with it. Changing the color scheme, especially some of the grays, around would go a long way to making it feel less like me and more like you.

As for that technological issue I mentioned, I'm not sure if you're aware of just how many templates I actually use on my pages, and I'm not talking about those obvious ones on my main page. For instance, the thing with my name at the top is a template, as are the guideline box and archive box at the top of this page, a lot of the links I use and the maps I have around. All of those are in my namespace, not the public space, and I change them regularly to meet my changing needs. If you just copy/pasted my code, you'd include my templates too, which would likely break your pages later when I change them. To get around it, you'd have to copy all of my personal templates and create pages for all of them as well, and then you'd need to edit them to make them match the look and feel of your userspace. To give you an idea of just how many pages and templates you'd be dealing with, check here.

So, again, I'm okay with you borrowing from my design, so long as you stick to the three things I said earlier, but I also wanted to make sure you were clear about the technical hurdles involved (copy/pasting won't be sufficient to duplicate my design safely). If you want, I'd be happy to consult with you and help you adapt my design or elements of my design to your own userspace. —Aichon— 09:53, 11 March 2010 (UTC)