Rutibex's Page

[rutibex]

How do academics use the internet for historical research?

There is no singular set way in which academics use the internet for historical research.  The methods employed by historians are as varried as the subjects they study.  Digital technology and the internet allow for methods of research that would have been impossible (or very tedious) before.  Vast digitization efforts and OCR automatic transcription technology allow academics to search millions of pages of old micro film for key words, as easily as they could search Wikipedia.  Being able to search through vast amounts of literature on a whim is a new power for academics.  Previously restricted to pre-compiled encyclopedias and indexes, academics can now data mine for key information quickly (saving themselves and grad students a lot of tedious reading).

How do historians teach history using the internet?

From the article about edit wars on Wikipedia, I get the impression that teaching history on the web was an exercise in discovering how history is constructed in the modern world.  Making students participate in Wikipedia, (creating and editing their own articles) gave them an insight into how the rest of the articles on Wikipedia are constructed (and perhaps a bit of insight into how articles in a professional encyclopedia are constructed as well).  This is the true essence of modern history, the vast majority of people that actually engage with history come to Wikipedia first (and often end there).  I would bet a silver dollar the Wikipedia pages written by the students of this class received 100X more views than any academic paper written on the same subject.

What is the connection between the library and the internet?

The modern library is becoming more important that ever before.  Some people lament the end of physical books, but I do not see them going anywhere.  Amazon (the worlds largest retailer) began as an online book seller, and they still deal in huge volumes of print books.  Print books are produced in larger numbers than ever before, there is no death of books trend.  We do however produce a great deal more information now than just books, and libraries are beginning to address this issue.

Digital libraries and archives are being made to preserve the digital records we have in overwhelming abundance.  The internet archive project (for example) attempts to store a complete snapshot of the internet for future generations.  These snap shots are often a bit broken (not all images and code can be archived), and are difficult to index as a whole, but they are an excellent source if you know what you are looking for.  Libraries are also digitizing many of their rare books, to preserve them and make them accessible via Google Books.

Millions of people per year infringe copyright, both for their own entertainment and to express themselves in the new multimedia world.  Is this an effective system?  Do you think major copyright reform will be needed in the future?

[rutibex]

Twitter Assignment response

I found doing this Twitter assignment quite enlightening.  I would like to contrast it with another class I am currently taking Research Capstone, where we are attempting to find out anything we can about Detroit in 1880.  The difference in available information is staggering.  When researching 1880 I am grateful for any scrap of information I can find, if I can locate an average persons date of birth and address I am thrilled.  When writing about 1880 we have to make sweeping generalizations about public opinion based on a few surviving newspaper clips, and maybe a diary or two.  It feels like putting together a puzzle with 3/4 of the pieces missing.

This is not going to be the case for historians looking back on us (assuming all of these electronic records survive).  When searching through Twitter I found that a scarcity of information was not an issue, but the opposite.  There was an overwhelming abundance of information.  Too much to easily process.  The 100 tweets I selected for this assignment came from a single hashtag, over the span of only a few hours in one day.  If I tried to research what was happening everywhere in America at exactly 3:00pm Saturday august 5th 1880 I would hit a brick wall.  The information just is not there, unlike today.  

The issue future historians might have is one of information overload.  The tweets were not the only available resource, they linked off to many other things that may also be available to future historians.  Straining the best information out of this great soup will be a challenge.  But in this mass of information there is also the potential to greatly increase the quality of what we consider "history" going forward. Detailed biographies of important people, and statistics about the little guy will not be enough for future history.  Future historians will have the information available to build detailed biographies of literally everyone, they will know as much (or maybe more) about Joe the Fry cook in 2016 as we know about Hitler today.

[rutibex]

For our Twitter assignment I have chosen to examine May 1st 2012 and the days immediately before and after it.  May 1st was a planned "general strike" organized by the Occupy Wall Street movement.  I specifically looked  at the events taking place in Seattle, as they became violent when a group of "black bloc anarchists" took to the streets and began smashing the windows of banks and setting fires.  

Some people believe (to this day) that the "anarchists" were in fact police agents, acting to discredit the protesters and the Occupy movement.  When examining the tweets of the day many people criticized the violent protestors, but a few actually questioned who they were on the day it was happening. There was quite a bit of organizing for "direct action" and people calling for violence, so it is likely the "black bloc" did in fact contain a good many genuine anarchists (bored disaffected teens), even if there was a police presence.

[rutibex]

I have chosen the Sandwich First Baptist Church (located at 3652 Peter Street) for my portion of our group project (Old Sandwich).  It was constructed in the early 19th century by a group of freed baptist slaves.  It interests me because the information I could find concerning it in official tours and plaques is inconsistent, and I an curious why.

[rutibex]

For my analysis I chose the Wikipedia article concerning the War of 1812.  I assumed this would be a contentious article, and I was correct.  A quick look at the editors shows over 500 pages of edits.  Having looked at a randomized representative sample I found them to mostly be men over 30, a few retirees, and one woman.  This demographic balance seemed consistent with the readings.  Wikipedia is a volunteer community, it is not a surprise that it would be mostly made up of white men 20-60 as that is traditionally the community with a lot of time on their hands to indulge obsessive hobbies.  It is also not a surprise that the article on the war of 1812 is very long and well researched, when this is a topic of great interest to men 20-60.

The War of 1812 article is very contentious, so is meticulously referenced.  It contains over 230 references, all or most linking to respectable academic sources.  I did not check every single one, but I had faith that every single one has been checked when I looked at the chat section.  This is an article that is well watched.

The chat section is a book in and of itself.  Nineteen archives of discussion going back to 2003.  The most popular topic of discussion?  Who won the war of course!  There is even a warning, that further discussion of who won is forbidden without substantial new evidence.  This article is very important to a lot of people, and is rated "high-importance" on both the American and Canadian history importance scale (only moderate on the British scale).  This means many editors on both sides of the "who won" issue edit this article and keep a watchful eye on it for accuracy.

#History397 #UWindsor397

[rutibex]

In an effort to teach myself Stellaris modding I decided to download a few mods and see how they worked (so that I could copy their methodology). Well one or two mods turned into dozens A lot of these Stellaris mods are big "total conversion" packs that change all kinds of basic stuff around. This is no good, because it make the packs incomparable So as my first effort in modding I decided to make them all work together! I has taken me the better part of a day, but I got a stable mega pack that I am quite proud of. The Stellaris engine is very forgiving and modular, so mashing together most of these mod packs wasn't a huge issue. A few features are broken (of course). Multiple authors decided to edit base files, which makes things a lot less compatible. In those cases I went with the most neutral version (to keep the pack clean). Anyway here is my mod pack, StellarisPlus! Is it balanced? No it is not balanced in any way! You can start off on an 9 section Ring World if you want to, or a toxic world, or whatever! The balance will be up to your own discretion Are there bugs? Yeah, I am one man and can not test everything. Working out the bugs will be my next lesson! Here are some of the notable features: StellarisPlus for 1.1.0 http://www.mediafire.com/download/vvjjztdzc8m9btu/StellarisPlus+for+V1.1.0.rar http://i.imgur.com/Vo0cMSw.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/ykaVtni.jpg http://i.imgur.com/nsO73U1.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/PfZO2nt.jpg http://i.imgur.com/OMb9Oxy.jpg -Many new races and factions! +Star Trek +Eve Online +Nazis +Anime +Warhammer 40K +StarCraft +Dune +Robots/Scourge/Unbidden +etc -No new music or interface, everything feels very neutral and similar to vanilla Stellaris -Lots of new technologies! -Many new empire wide and planetary edicts! -Dozens of new buildings! -Hundreds of new flag designs -Colonize Gas Giants! -Dozens of new pre-set starting systems -New species and leader traits (both positive and negative) -Many new galaxy size options -Several pre-set galaxies, including one that is a 1:1 recreation of EVE online (don't bother trying to run this unless you own a super computer ) -Many New events and anomalies -New ship class sizes and components -Various balance tweaks (I am not a sour puss, no nerfs lots of buffs) -Many new war demands, including all of the ones in the 1.2 patch and more! -A wide variety of interesting loading screens -Etc

[rutibex]

Feirmeoir P&P

In other news I finished my Potato famine Agricola-like and it was very well received! Became the toast of the graduate student lounge for a week or so Anyway I put together a P&P package so anyone can make their own "Dollar Store Agricola" aka Feirmeoir Feirmeoir P&P https://www.mediafire.com/?hk9h1snqep8sshd

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175694/feirmeoir

[rutibex]

All of the decks are custom made by me. unlike normal Talisman there is a deck for the outer realm, inner realm, planescape, and dungeon. I picked through adventure cards from all Talisman sets and only included the really cool ones. I included every character class from every published expansion (about 60 total) as well as about 100 spells:

[rutibex]

I used a couple kinds boxes. I cannibalized an old Stratego set for Tai Shogi, and I used the pieces of an old Risk set as the Strength/Craft counters for this Talisman set. I had the old boxes lying around so I used them as the backing for the Talisman Boards (and one cereal box, I think?). All of the cards are just magic cards with slips of paper in them, and the rule book is in one of those folders kids use for school reports:

[rutibex]

The postman just arrived at my door, and he has a package for me! I have been waiting a while for this game, it's value ratios are through the roof (it was on sale too!). I haven't found a game with a higher content density yet, and this box is extremely dense with components. I can already tell I have got my moneys worth:

[rutibex]

Some classic ROM randomizers

Final Fantasy 5: Ancient Cave http://sttb.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fa...anslation_patch Turns FF5 into a randomized dungeon. Unlike all of the other programs here they managed to do it entirely in game, no need for external tools. FF5 lends itself well to being turned into a randomized dungeon, with it's class system. Final Fantasy 6: Beyond Chaos https://github.com/abyssonym/beyondchaos This began as a project to randomize the entire game of FF6 (and it does that quite well). But where this program really shines is in the Kefkas Dungeon mode, where it discards the game and uses all of the map screens to construct an enormous maze/dungon out of the empty maps (save for random encounters of course). This program randomizes everything, items, monsters, characters, spells, magicites, etc. Every monster has different behaviors and stats each game. Each character is different, some can be broken and a few are real flops. Figuring out how to use what the games spits out at you, and your very limited resources (steal everything!) is quite a challenge. Universal Pokemon Randomizer http://pokehacks.dabomstew.com/randomizer/ Does exactly what the name says, takes any pokemon game (Original Gameboy up to 3DS) and spits out an infinite number of variations of that game. You can pick you level of random, so maybe you just want th pokemon to be in different areas. You can go nuts though, and randomize their stats/elements too (making you precious guidebook useless, sorry Pikachu is Fire/Ghost type this game ) Zelda Randomizer https://sites.google.com/site/zeldarandomizer/ Basically takes Zelda 1 NES and turns it into the game they were trying to make in the first place. All of the dungeons have randomized layouts and entrances, and all of the items are in random places. Also, it will alternate the secret spots between quest 1/2 to fuck with you even more. Zelda 2 Randomizer https://bitbucket.org/digshake/z2randomizer/wiki/Home Same idea as the Zelda 1 Randomizer. Shuffles around the over world locations, and the dungeon layouts. I haven't had a chance to try this one personally, it's pretty new. Super Metriod Door Randomizer https://smdoor.codeplex.com/ This one is really awesome It takes every door in Super Metriod and rebinds it to go to a random other room. You can allow back tracking, or go whole hog and generate a game with doors that don't even lead back the way they came! Super Metriod is perfect for something like this, because it requires sequence breaking techniques (like wall jumping and bomb climbing) to get to areas you could normally couldn't.. The items are randomized too of course (except the morph ball and bombs). Super Mario World Randomizer http://authorblues.github.io/smwrandomizer/ Randomizes Super Mario world (obviously). It's not designing any levels or anything, just doing some easy stuff like changing the order of the levels, randomizing the power blocks and swapping the *water level* flag around. Pretty neat!

[rutibex]

RPG Maker MV - Final Fantasy R , a final Fantasy Rogue-like This episode showcase the brand new random map generator plug-in, made by Sanshiro! http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.p... Download Alpha Demo V0.99 Unencrypted Game (feel free to use any of it in your own stuff!): https://www.mediafire.com/?n9k6h20apl... http://rpgmaker.net/games/8399/

[rutibex]

I test out the rogue-like, turn based movement system for my new game, Conquest of the Planes.  It is based on RPG Maker MV and a couple of Yanfly Plug-ins.

[rutibex]

Last Day of the King is an economic and war game, based on the reign and death of Charles I of England.  The purpose of the game is simply to survive, with your crown and head intact, until the year 1650.  Each game year you will be presented with a historical scenario that you must resolve, often with dire consequences. 

It is your job as monarch to deal with these scenarios, as well as foreign relations, royal finances, the management of the church, and the demands of Parliament.  This game is deliberately difficult, in most circumstances you will end up beheaded.  This is intentional, it is to illustrate the difficult situation that Charles I was thrust into.

 In this way it is somewhat sympathetic the Charles.  Charles I was a victim of history and circumstance, a man steeped in tradition who was unable to deal with the massive political, religious, economic, and social changes that were happening around him.  Alternatively the people of England, Ireland, and Scotland were radical.  They craved new political and religious ways, and the old system was not sufficient to provide it for them.  They needed to kill the king, by killing the king they were able to symbolically kill the medieval system and its roadblock to change.

Download http://www.mediafire.com/download/hm48ug3x9mp19yq/Last_Day_of_the_King_v0.9.exe

https://rpgmaker.net/games/8351/

[rutibex]

Final Fantasy R, the ultimate Final Fantasy Rogue-Like!

https://www.mediafire.com/?n9k6h20aplyqg7a

https://rpgmaker.net/games/8399/

[rutibex]

Villager trading? You'll never get anywhere until you start breeding them in large numbers. Powercrystals, MFR needs a block that can sort villagers by their trade! It could be called a "Miniaturized Free Market". The hardest part of villager breeding is finding your initial stock and getting them to their new home. The Gravity Gun and Portal Gun work well in this situation: Once you have them in a high door environment they breed without any food! A nice feature, the cute little children love it here and run around like little scamps. When you find villagers with trades you like you can take them out with the Gravity Gun to be put into more easy access enclosures. When the population gets too large some lava in a select few corners of the enclosure bring down the numbers quickly: Some other farms; Blazes (slightly too small, the Blazes can some times spawn outside ), Creepers, and other generic livestock. Farming is fun!

[rutibex]

I decided to start a new game recently without the use of IC2 or Buildcraft and I have to say it is quite liberating. There are more than enough mods to pick up the slack (and many are superior at this point) and I've found performance is quite a lot better than I am used to even with tons of other mods I no longer need Optifine: I found neat intersection of biomes and built my first shelter into the side of some sort of word gen light house thing: My Ender Pearl farm. Yes those plants produce Ender Pearls they are from the Magical Crops mod and they are awesome: Tinker Table and TF2 Dispenser. Without IC2 the modular Powersuit is the go to power suit (charged with UE basic). The Dispenser repairs anything which is really handy if a little cheaty: A very basic sorting system to store all the bulk material I don't want to deal with in chests. I don't have Factorization installed, those Barrels are from the Barrels Mod and are 100% configurable with 3 tiers of barrel. I have them set to accept 1000 stacks each but you can set it higher. The pipes are RP2 with a Relay to feed them: This is my no frills ore processor. It runs on a Hobbyist Steam Engine with an Aqueous Accumulator underneath. Thermal Expansion machines don't seem to mind the absence of Buildcraft and produce power and run as normal. On top I couldn't put a Hopper so I put RP2 Relay which acts almost exactly the same (with a larger inventory). Furnaces from Better Furnaces. The Diamond ones cooks things faster than electric furnaces from IC2 but are obviously more costly: