Roadwolf's Blog

Tags: Hobbies, Trains and Model Railroading, Trainz by Roadwolf
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I have always been a fan of games like Simcity 3000, where you had to micromanage every function of the game in order to really do well.  Sometimes it can be overwhelming, but during those times you can always set some portions to cruise control, and the game handles them for you (although not always in the best manner).

My ideal game is based on a similar style and detail of play as Simcity 3000.  Basically you start off with a whole continent which is dynamically generated.  This continent may or may not contain native settlements which may or may not be already partially developed through the land.

You start at one spot on the shore, and you build a town the same way you would in Simcity 3000.  Within that town you can erect a town hall, which will force a local government to spring up, and you will see borders around your town.

As the town grows it will require various resources, which you will have to develop into the wilderness to find.  Eventually you will have to set up other towns and trading posts out in the wilderness or near resources to provide population to work them.  Local governments can pop up automatically if a town gets large enough without a town hall (but they may be more radical), or you can place new ones by placing a town hall.  Regional and National governments may also come into play as the game expands.

The years go by, and horse trails are upgraded to superhighways.  Eventually forming a nation, or many nations which relies on the resources at hand, to provide for its citizens all over.

No need to worry about taxes, or politics.  If part of the continent divides and becomes its own country, you still build and develop their land.  Its just that now you have to cater to their wishes, and take into account the fact that the resources on the other side of the border are not available anymore.

Political issues are resolved dynamically.  i.e. lets say there is a war going on.  Well  you will be designing the transportation and infrastructure for both sides based on their available resources.  So really you can determine the outcome of the war by designing the means to fight the war.  But you can’t actually fight it.  You can also influence changes and co-operation.  i.e. lets say one country needs a lumber mill, and the neighboring country has one built close to the border.  Well you can hold off on building the second lumber mill and see if the country that needs it, will work out a trade agreement.  Or they may decide to attack the country with the lumber mill to take it for themselves.

However, perhaps if you do not fulfill enough high priority tasks in a time period, a region may choose to fire you as their planner, and it will become AI controlled – and thus you loose points – and potentially loose special buildings that were developed in that region.

Taxes and other items like that will also be dynamically calculated.  You will have income available to you based on which ever territory you are building in.  And those political areas determine their own tax rate, and thus each one calculates how much they wish to spend on development independent of each other.  Of course it might be interesting to allow players to control these functions as well, perhaps in a game of greater difficulty.  It is also conceivable that some enemy regions will take care of their own infrastructure for specific scenarios.

The options of what to build will be fairly similar to Simcity 4.  You will have Residential, Commercial and Industrial.  Then you will have special industrial buildings, like mines, lumber mills, refineries, tanning mill, grain processing center, defense contractors, airports, etc…   You will also have the ability to zone large areas for various natural resource development.  Like Mining, Oil Drilling, Timber, Hunting (Furs), Farming, and even Park / Public Use land.  Logging, Hunting and Farming happen naturally and dynamically on zoned land.  Parks but be approved, but public use is also dynamic.  Mines and large facilities on this type of zoning must be approved.  i.e. you would get a notice while playing, saying “Zora Mining Corp wants to build a mine at this location…  Do you accept?”   If you do, then the area around the mine in a specific distance is dezoned as being available to mine, and zoned specifically for that mine.  Mines will have a life cycle based on the current prices of the items their mining.  The older the mine gets, the greater the price of the raw material must be to justify continuing the mining operation.  If it is too costly to mine it and make a profit, then the mine shuts down.  However if the demand soars and the price of the raw material shoots thru the roof, it can again be reopened and produce if the workforce and resources are still nearby to reopen it.

A big part of this game will be controlling transportation.  Horse trail, canal, wagon trail, truck, train, airplane…  each method will play important parts, and as the game progresses you will have to plan ahead as you build to ensure that adequate transportation is provided.  You must also deal with regional power and gas supplies, however you connect those to local distribution centers which take care of the local grids.

Again, this game will be so detailed that you can literally zoom in and place specific lots for houses in a game world as big as a continent.

Games like Simcity and Transportation Tycoon, Railroad Tycoon, and such were all super popular in the 90′s.  Why?  Because they were detailed and involved heavy micro management.  Sure they were not the flashy graphically realistic games, but they involved you in decisions which felt like they impacted several people.  Lately some companies have tried to release newer updated games, like SimCity Societies.  But they failed.  Why?  Because they decided to put a lot of effort into graphics, and less effort into large scale micro managing.  Cities XL is a fun newer city building game, which has vast stretches of land upon which you can build cities.  But the downfall is that that game has only pre determined maps which are always the same 20 or so maps.

Ideally this game will have completely dynamic maps, perhaps based on terrain layers which are invisible, but use a color code to determine how densely populated various resources are.   You set up a mine here, and it will check to see what the color is in the area and that determines your output.  Perhaps even have 2 or 3 codes for each resource.  1 being amount, 2 being depth, and 3 being purity.

The game shows promise.  I would even think that it has potential to have a military expansion pack which will let you use it like an RTS.   But I think originally the goal should be for city and nation building.  That is what we need.   Not fancy city building games where you build a neighbourhood.  But larger scale games in which gameplay and keeping busy are primary values over graphics.

If anyone does consider making this game, I would like to be involved in the alpha and beta process… and I would like to have a small amount of profit sharing for the sales.

Tags: Computer and Internet Related by Roadwolf
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I must say I am very excited to get into a house of my own soon enough.  I am 29 years old and purchasing a home!  Gotta love that.

I recently purchased a home in the Buffalo suburbs which is quite beautiful.  It is an older century home, on a decent sized property, with a nice big 2 story carriage house out back.  The house is in almost perfect condition.  My home inspector was quite impressed by the place.  There are a few issues, but they are small and can easily be addressed once we move in.

The main floor includes a Morning Room, Living Room, Dining Room, Full Bath, and Kitchen.  The only thing that is really strange is that the bathroom is on the main floor.  We will likely be renovating the bathroom eventually.  Nightbird is claiming the Mourning Room for her office / the bird room.

Otherwise the main floor is almost perfect with a few slight imperfections here and there, like a slightly worn carpet, and mainly paint, fixtures and window treatments.

The second floor is interesting.  It includes a small one bedroom apartment in the front half of the second floor.  The apartment is fairly large, and will easily fetch 400 a month or so, which will help with the payments.

The back half of the second floor is the main units bedrooms, of which there are 3 and a small half bath.  The smallest of these will be used as a guest room, with only a small futon bed for guests.  The largest of the 3 bedrooms at the back, will be used as a master bedroom, and the 3rd bedroom will be used as my office / hamshack.

The basement is rather interesting in that the foundation is cut stone, with molten iron mortar.  There is also a very strange cold cellar, which is hidden away behind a book case.  There is a partially finished area down there, which may be suitable for a hot tub room / sauna.

Off the back of the house is a small enclosed patio.

The second floor of the carriage house will be used for my model train layout.  Not much needs to be done to prep it for the layout.

I am looking forward to having my own place.  I hope it will inspire me to get out more, and be more active.

Tags: General by Roadwolf
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I am quite surprised that so many people seem to be just shrugging off the current situation at Fukushima.  Many major North American news networks are not reporting the issue, or if they are, they are often understating the issue.  How do I know that this event is being understated?  Well I shall explain here in the most basic terms I can think of.

Nuclear Plants often have multipul Reactors.  Each reactor produces heat, which boils water, which then turns into steam which is then used to spin a turbine.  The reactors use a process called Nuclear Fission to produce this heat.  This process creates a lot of radioactivity.  All of this is enclosed within the core which keeps most of the radioactivity inside, and prevents any from leaking out.  This core is contained within a containment enclosure inside the reactor building.

Distilled Water or other cooling liquids are pumped through the reactor core to cool it constantly.  For if the Uranium fuel inside the core gets too hot, it can melt, and fall to the bottom of the core, where it will easily melt through the core, and become very difficult to contain.  It can get so hot that it will turn concrete molten, and will easily find its way outside the plant.

Most nuclear plants use control rods made of carbon which when lowered between the uranium fuel rods will stem the reaction.  But they are unable to stop the reaction completely.

Nuclear power plants there fore must always be supplied power, so that they can operate cooling pumps which will circulate coolant into the reactors to cool them off.  Even if the reactors are shut down.

If the cooling system fails, and the backup system fails, then the core will begin to get very hot.  Chemical reactions inside the core and containment building begin and the water is often boiled off.  Excess hydrogen is often produced which causes a serious explosion – which we have seen at Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Such an explosion in itself is very serious, minus the fact that it is radioactive and part of a bigger problem.  And in both cases workers near or inside the plant died in the explosion.

At this point, there is very little that can be done to avert a total nuclear melt down.  One can park a few fire trucks beside the plant and pour/dump in water, lead, sand and boron, and hope that the reactions subsides with enough boron added.

However once the fuel begins to heat up, and melt – a critical situation is currently underway.  If even a single uranium fuel pellet, which is about the size of a marble, melts and drips to the bottom of the containment core, it could eat its way through the core, and cause a leak of radioactive cooling fluids, which will further cause the core to heat up, and more fuel to melt and drop down.

In otherwords,  loss of cooling systems + time = extreme pressure buildups, extreme heat, and makes it even more difficult to control over time.  Eventually concluding in a complete meltdown.

That being said, in a perfect world, none of this would happen.  GE Designed Fukushimas reactors to be extremely safe.  This event should not of happened if you base your theories on textbook perfect operating condition scenarios.

But right now, Japan is not a perfect world.  In fact it is probably the worst possible situation.  Wide spread utility failures with Gas, Water, Sewer and Power lines all effected.  Telecommunication issues as well.  Infrastructure is severly damaged, and many vehicles and backup generators which were in the wake of the tsunami will no longer operate because of water logged engines – assuming they wern’t damaged in another manner.  Fuel is running low, and in the case of Fukushima, many of its employees have been injured, killed, or exposed to radiation while working to try to fix the problems.  Plus the problems of having to search for survivors of the tsunami, and deal with non power plant related emergencies…   The government / emergency services / army is stretched thin.

Add that with the fact that so far it looks like 4 power plants have cooling system troubles.  Each plant having at least 2 reactors.  And each reactor being as big, if not bigger then the reactor involved at Chernobyl.  Dealing with a single reactor in perfect conditions would likely be a national emergency situation.  So having 4 power plants right now in trouble, is very bad considering that the resources to stabilize a single reactor were not even available.

Yesterdays report from Fukushima indicated that exposure rates outside the plant were at about 620 millirems per hour.  That is still fairly low, seeing as at Chernobyl, readings outside the plant were apparently 10,000 millirems per hour shortly after the explosion.  A fatal dose is about 500 R over 5 hours, or 100,000 millirems per hour.

The annual dose for workers in the nuclear industry is 5,000 millirems.  Which equates to 0.570 millirems per hour.  So yes, something is happening there that is not normal, and not contained.  0.570 millirems per hour is about equal to having a chest x-ray preformed on you every hour.

Will we feel it in the USA / Canada / Europe?  Yes, but the effects will be minimal compared to local contamination.  Airborne fallout can easily reach the western coast, and we may experience radiation that is maybe 2 to 10 times higher then normal.  Will that kill us?  No, it won’t,  it likely wont even cause any harm.  But the possibility does exist that it will increase our chances of getting cancer.  (Note: I lowered my estimation from 5 to 20 to 2 to 10 based on the reports that the other power plants have regained cooling and are now safe, and that things seem to be coming under control).

The fallout from Chernobyl was 100 times less severe then the combined fallout from the atomic bomb testing done from the 50′s through the 1960′s.  But considering that there were 1000 atomic bombs dropped in that time frame worldwide…   That still makes the fallout from Chernobyl worse then a single atomic bomb.  In fact it is about 10 times the fallout of a single atomic bomb.  The current crisis in Japan is looking to be much worse then Chernobyl if they can not restore cooling to all of the effected reactors and reactors continue to explode, or even worse if they catch fire!  Therefore if you consider the nuclear power issues in Japan right now as a single event – this event might create the worse fallout seen to date.

That being said, these reactors do tend to resist fire.  So, the chances that high amounts of radioactive material will be lifted into the air, is less likely if there is no fire.  Plus it is also apparently raining in Japan right now, which will cause much of the airborne particles to fall locally.

Living in Buffalo / Niagara Falls I am used to radioactivity.  The Manhatten project dumped a lot of radioactive waste in this area.  Buffalo Street in Niagara Falls, NY is said to have 50 times normal background radiation if you are standing on the sidewalk.  Apparently the pavement contained radioactive waste.  In Lewiston, NY there is a site which contains areas which are rumored to be 1,000 times normal background radiation.

So no, it will not kill us.  But… Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

I personally purchased some Potassium Iodine pills…  Their good to have around, and just in case things get bad, I will have them.  I do not intend to spread panic.  In fact in the process of writing and doing the research for this post, I myself was relieved at how little fallout we may get.  Up until today however it seems that my guesses about what was going to happen next were fairly accurate, when they were often completely opposite officials statements.  I am happy to hear that things appear to becoming under control, so likely this was all a non issue at this point.

I am still a proponent of nuclear power.  I hope that this doesn’t quench support for new nuclear power projects.  A safe way to build a nuclear power plant is to build a coal (or alternative fuel) power plant right beside it, and allow the coal plant to hook up directly to the nuclear plant to provide cooling and/or power.  And uh,  don’t build power plants in the middle of population centers or near major fault lines.

Tags: General by Roadwolf
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I saw this coming at about 4am, when I heard the NHK English news anchor saying that “All of the regions nuclear power plants are safe, however Fukushima Power Plant has experienced a state of emergency with the cooling system.  The backup diesel generators are all inoperable…” Then she quickly moved onto other news.  Deductive logic and a bit of knowledge about nuclear reactions led me to quickly deduct that this was not good at all, and that it would likely escalate to a more serious situation if they couldn’t get coolant pumps working quickly.

Add the fact that the media was also saying that all the other plants were safe, and this plant had no radiation leaks detected ‘outside’.  The use of the word outside led me to believe that there were leaks inside the plant.  Add the fact that the plant was also suffering from a major fire.  Another telltale sign that things aren’t really going all that well.

Well now it seems that radiation levels outside the plant have jumped up 8 times higher then normal readings.  And the containment pressure has risen 50% higher then normal, which has forced them to vent some radioactive gasses to relieve the pressure.  At the moment, it doesn’t like it will be as bad as Chernobyl, but it will likely be worse then Three Mile Island.  We shall see…

More predictions from experts say that this could turn into a Chernobyl scale event.  And more then one reactor may be involved, not just one!

6:20 PM EST: Main gate reading is now 20 times normal radiation.  Control room is 1000 times normal.

6:30 PM EST: 45,000 People Evacuated around Plant.

6:45 PM EST: Preliminary reports of 15,000 times normal radiation now reported.  Uranium tempature has reached critical levels.  (From the BBC)

6:50 PM EST: Venting still hasn’t happened, as there is no power to open the vents to vent the buildup of gasses.  This is starting to look more like a Chernobyl.

7:01 PM EST: 3 workers confirmed dead at Fukushima.

7:06 PM EST: Evacuation radius raised to 20 km, from the previous 10km.

7:11 PM EST: Five reactors now under Emergency Conditions at both Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants. (http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/asia/live-blog-japan-earthquake#update-10551)

7:31 PM ET:  Venting has apparently begun to prevent an explosion.  Crews rushed in emergency generators, to power the vent systems.  Coolant that the US promised has apparently not been delivered.

3:36: Explosion at Fukushima Daiichi No. 1.  Roof blown off building for Reactor 1.  Containment chamber for reactor appears undamaged.

7:00:  90 people who were exposed to radiation at Fukushima have been taken to the hospital for radiation exposure.

A March 12 explosion at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown.

The key piece of technology in a nuclear reactor is the control rods. Nuclear fuel generates neutrons; controlling the flow and production rate of these neutrons is what generates heat, and from the heat, electricity. Control rods absorb neutrons — the rods slide in and out of the fuel mass to regulate neutron emission, and with it, heat and electricity generation.

A meltdown occurs when the control rods fail to contain the neutron emission and the heat levels inside the reactor thus rise to a point that the fuel itself melts, generally temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing uncontrolled radiation-generating reactions and making approaching the reactor incredibly hazardous. A meltdown does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster. As long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the core breaches but the containment facility built around the core remains intact, the melted fuel can still be dealt with — typically entombed within specialized concrete — but the cost and difficulty of such containment increases exponentially.

(click here to enlarge image)

However, the earthquake in Japan, in addition to damaging the ability of the control rods to regulate the fuel — and the reactor’s coolant system — appears to have damaged the containment facility, and the explosion almost certainly did. There have been reports of “white smoke,” perhaps burning concrete, coming from the scene of the explosion, indicating a containment breach and the almost certain escape of significant amounts of radiation.

At this point, events in Japan bear many similarities to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Reports indicate that up to 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) of the reactor fuel was exposed. The reactor fuel appears to have at least partially melted, and the subsequent explosion has shattered the walls and roof of the containment vessel — and likely the remaining useful parts of the control and coolant systems.

(click here to enlarge image)

And so now the question is simple: Did the floor of the containment vessel crack? If not, the situation can still be salvaged by somehow re-containing the nuclear core. But if the floor has cracked, it is highly likely that the melting fuel will burn through the floor of the containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before but has always been the nightmare scenario for a nuclear power event — in this scenario, containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible.

Radiation exposure for the average individual is 620 millirems per year, split about evenly between manmade and natural sources. The firefighters who served at the Chernobyl plant were exposed to between 80,000 and 1.6 million millirems. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that exposure to 375,000 to 500,000 millirems would be sufficient to cause death within three months for half of those exposed. A 30-kilometer-radius (19 miles) no-go zone remains at Chernobyl to this day. Japan’s troubled reactor site is about 300 kilometers from Tokyo.

The latest report from the damaged power plant indicated that exposure rates outside the plant were at about 620 millirems per hour, though it is not clear whether that report came before or after the reactor’s containment structure exploded.

Thanks to Stratfor.com for some of this article.

7:50 AM:  FLASH: Japan’s nuclear safety agency says Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant No. 3 reactor’s emergency cooling system not functioning (Reuters)

8:00 AM:  Evacuation area possibly spread to 20km, 170,000 people evacuated.

Authors Note:  Please note that despite this, I am still highly in favour of Nuclear Power.  This plant was 40 years old, and from the sounds of things was allowed to operate when it really shouldn’t of been operating.  If they knew they had problems with the backup cooling systems, why were those reactors online?

7:30 AM: Second explosion at the plant rumored.

This image is actually a fake, however it is still fairly accurate. Just ignore the intensity. It will be much less.

7:40 AM: Meltdown may be under way at Fukushima Daiichi’s nuclear power reactor, an official w/ Japan’s safety agency says

7:42 AM: Officials say that current exposure to high levels of radiation at Fukushima may reach upwards of 160.

8:00 AM: Total reactors involved now at 6 (http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-japan-quake-sixth-reactor-20110313,0,3146984.story)

8:30 AM: IEEE describes this event as Worse then Worst.  (http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/japan-nuclear-accident-worse-than-worst-again)

“There is the possibility of an explosion in the third reactor, as in the case of the first reactor,” he said, adding there would be no effect on the health of nearby residents.  – (http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/asia/japans-twin-disasters-march-13-live-blog)

Tags: News by Roadwolf
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I had a good laugh at this one…

It is amazing how some people just can not grasp the concept of metric units….

Roadwolf:  I am wondering why my data speed is so slow?

Agent: Hi Roadwolf, welcome to T-Mobile live Chat. I’m Agent and I will be happy to assist you. Please give me a moment to review your question.
Roadwolf: Yeah I paid the bill over the weekend, and my data speeds are still very slow, a 56k modem would be faster.
Agent: Thank you.
Roadwolf: and i still want to know how i somehow accumulated 55 gigs of data in january… from my calculations its technically impossible.
Agent: It is probably 44 MB. I am looking at your usage now, it will be just a moment.
Agent: I am showing that so far this cycle you have used 191.3635 MB
Roadwolf: since i paid on Sunday I guess right?
Agent: correct. I see you did use 57184 MB last month.
Roadwolf: 57 gigs?
Roadwolf: for February?
Agent: Your speed should have increasing as of today. This is the beginning of a new cycle.
Roadwolf: the guy at the TMobile store told me i used 7 gigs…
Agent: The bill that was processed 02/09/2011 so you haven’t received it yet. It will be available on MyTMobile in about 3 days and then you will receive the statement about 7 days from today.

Completely ignoring the comment about my bill, as I already paid it, I continue…

Roadwolf: I don’t see how its possible to use 57 gigs last month, and 55 gigs in january
Roadwolf: especially since all of last month, my speeds were about equal to a 33k modem.
Roadwolf: since I only use the phone 3 to 6 hours a day, if you do the math, that doesn’t add up.

(7 Gigs is about what I would expect.  If you do the math, it is possible that I could use 22 Gigs of data, but I would have to be using the internet full on all the time during those 6 hours, which I do not).
Roadwolf: tell me I am wrong
Agent: That is not GB it is MB.
Agent: Do you watch a lot of videos. They can use 3 MB per minutes
Roadwolf: Yes, do you understand how that works? 1024 mb = 1 gb
Roadwolf: I can see your extremely helpful, I will be taking this matter to a higher position. thank you for your time, the chat transcript will come in handy

Personally I think that TMobile is adding 50 Gigs of data to my account every month, and forcing my speed down manually.  Last month I noticed 0 days where I had a decent data speed which was faster then a 56k modem.  Every day was super slow, to the point that I gave up trying to use my internet, and relied on other people for internet connections.

More on this as it develops, but for the moment, I wouldn’t be recommending TMobile to anyone looking for a good data plan.

(Note, names and grammar in this transcript were edited.  But otherwise the message remains unchanged).

Footnote: 57184 MB = 55.844375 GB – So while it wasn’t 57 Gigs, it was still close.  I am now unsure if they were talking about January or February.  But to me it sounded like they were referring to February.

Tags: Roadwolf's Rants by Roadwolf
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