Windows Tools (Free):
Truecrypt Version 6.3 (2009/10/21)
Sun VirtualBox Version 3.0.10 (2009/10/29)
FTK Imager Version 2.6.1 (2009/9/23)
Sysinternals Suite (2009/11/3)
7-Zip Version 4.65 (2009/2/3)
Scale2x Version 2.4 (2009/7/8)
Potrace Version 1.8 (2007/5/22)
Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools (2003/4/28)
Wget Version 1.11.4 (2009/4/29)
Windows Tools (Not Free):
EnCase Version 6.14.3 (2009/9/12)
Forensic Toolkit 3.0 (2009/9/23)
Tableau Firmware Update Version 6.50 (2009/9/22)
Tableau Disk Monitor Version 1.2 (2009/7/31)
Linux Tools (Free):
System Rescue CD Version 1.3.1 (2009/10/4)
DEFT Linux Version 4.2.1 (2009/10/20)
dcfldd Version 1.3.4-1 (2006/12/19)
The Sleuth Kit Version 3.0.1 (2009/2/2)
Gnuplot Version 4.2.6 (2009/9/3)
Partimage Version 0.6.8 (2009/9/29)
NTFS-3G Version 2009.4.4 (2009/4/2)
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
All About Ditangquan (地躺拳)
Ditangquan (地躺拳) is a style well-known for its spectacular acrobatics in wushu competitions, and is hardly even seen outside of modern wushu. But where did this athletic, exciting style come from?
Pan Qingfu (潘清福) and then-competitor Zhao Changjun (趙長軍) created the modern ditangquan together after the latter was rejected from the historic "White House Tour" of 1974 because his specialties were the monkey and drunken styles. As they believed that the original ditangquan was already lost, they "built" a new ditangquan using the drunken style as a base. As a result, modern ditangquan appears as something of a demonstration of fantastic acrobatics more than a martial art, and often features movements like the head flip (頭翻), pouncing tiger (撲虎), and tornado kick to fall.
Video of a young Zhao Changjun performing his ditangquan can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzubS_5dJww
In actuality, though, traditional ditangquan has in fact survived, and in various forms in both Taiwan and Mainland China.
In Taiwan, traditional ditangquan has been passed down via several old masters who escaped to the island during war. Of these, the most extensive ditangquan style is the digongquan (地功拳) passed down by Su Kegang (蘇克綱,名克剛,號起三) (1909-) from Qingdao City in Shandong Province, whose lineage is as follows: Li Ermiandazi (李二麵袋子) -> Liu Xiwei (劉希維) -> Su Kegang (蘇克綱).
His extensive digongquan curriculum consists the following:
Single Forms:
Linked Five Palms, with Extra Version and 2-Person Version (連五掌(附‧對打))
Kicking in Eight Directions (踢八方)
White Horse Descends Mountain (白馬下山)
Slippery Cart 1, 2, and 3 (滑車一，二，三段)
Drunken Style (醉拳)
Partner Forms:
Black Tiger Mountain (黑虎山)
Seizing Forgiveness Mountain (奪諒山)
Small Five Hands (小五手)
Hooking Parrying Fist (抅樓拳)
A video of the first form of Su Kegang's digongquan can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmpcuyKJpEI
A more thorough overview of Su Kegang's digongquan can be seen here:
Watching the above videos, one can see extensive hand and leg attacking movements; in fact, the first form has very few acrobatics at all! Later forms do show various acrobatics, however, including the drop-kick from one-handed cartwheel, scissors kick from spin-up, and kicking from arm stand back to standing.
In Mainland China, traditional ditangquan has survived as well; one notable example that has been described in literature is the ditangquan (also called "ground hopping stomping" (地踅卡) or "plum blossom falls to ground" (梅花落地)) as passed down within the Beijing style of chuojiaofanziquan (戳腳翻子拳). This lineage, passed down by Wu Binlou (吳斌樓), includes an extensive ditangquan curriculum in addition to its large chuojiao (戳腳) and fanziquan (翻子拳) curriculum:
Single Forms:
Son and Grandson Cinnabar (子孫丹)
Flying Scissors (飛剪)
Swallow Stuck (燕子卡)
Five Hopping Feet (五踅腳)
Golden Thread Hands (金絲手)
Small Eight Immortals (小八仙)
Drunken Eight Immortals (醉八仙)
Weapon Forms:
Rolling Dragon Saber (滾龍刀)
Ground Prone Whip (地躺鞭)
This style of ditangquan seems to favor some unique movements such as toad jumping (蛤蟆式); as a part of chuojiaofanziquan, it also mixes in the unique kicks of that style as well, such as mandarin duck kicking. The existence of weapon methods in this style is also very interesting.
This style of ditangquan seems to favor some unique movements such as toad jumping (蛤蟆式); as a part of chuojiaofanziquan, it also mixes in the unique kicks of that style as well, such as mandarin duck kicking. The existence of weapon methods in this style is also very interesting.
Monday, August 10, 2009
AD&D Commentary: Magic-user Weapons
Magic-users, or mages (as they were called in 2nd edition), have always been a staple of Dungeons & Dragons, or any other fantasy RPG. Although their selection of spells has changed a bit throughout the editions, I wonder about their weapon selection a bit (from Unearthed Arcana):
Caltrops, daggers, darts, knives, slings, staves
In 3e, wizards were given the following weapons:
Club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, quarterstaff
Unlike clerics or druids, whose limited weapon selection derives from religious views, magic-users have no real reason to avoid weapons like swords, spears, or maces. One reason for limiting their weapons selection might be to limit them to only simple weapons that can be learned easily, but of the weapons listed above, the staff is most definitely not a simple weapon at all, as I have been finding out through personal experience recently!
Any weapon requires some proficiency to be able to use it to kill someone; further, any weapon requires much more proficiency to be able to use it to attack, defend, and parry other weapons skillfully. I would not expect a magic-user to be able to do much with any weapon at the latter level, but some weapons require quite a lot of time to be able to be used at even the former level.
A sword, for example, can be quite heavy, but is rather simple to use in a lethal manner, even for a magic-user (as long as he has the requisite strength to lift it fairly easily). A blunt club is fairly simple to use as well, even though it lacks a blade. However, the long staff is a rather complex weapon that is hard to use in a lethal manner due to its great size and special manner of wielding (i.e. with two hands at different parts of the pole). With skill, the staff can be a very potent weapon, using both ends to attack and defend, by poking, swinging, and blocking; however, without skill, a staff is very hard to use at all.
Thus, although magic-users are often thought of as staff-toting old men, I think that learning to use a staff well would take days and days of training - something that they would probably prefer to spend in the old, musty tower, reading magic tomes.
Perhaps a better list of simple weapons would be:
Caltrops, daggers, darts, sling, crossbow, spear, club, mace, short sword, hand axe, hammer, short bow.
A few heavier weapons are simple as well, and so perhaps a magic-user with STR 13 or more could also use:
Long sword, bastard sword, footman's mace, morningstar, battle axe, staff sling.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with a magic-user using a staff as a walking stick!
Caltrops, daggers, darts, knives, slings, staves
In 3e, wizards were given the following weapons:
Club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, quarterstaff
Unlike clerics or druids, whose limited weapon selection derives from religious views, magic-users have no real reason to avoid weapons like swords, spears, or maces. One reason for limiting their weapons selection might be to limit them to only simple weapons that can be learned easily, but of the weapons listed above, the staff is most definitely not a simple weapon at all, as I have been finding out through personal experience recently!
Any weapon requires some proficiency to be able to use it to kill someone; further, any weapon requires much more proficiency to be able to use it to attack, defend, and parry other weapons skillfully. I would not expect a magic-user to be able to do much with any weapon at the latter level, but some weapons require quite a lot of time to be able to be used at even the former level.
A sword, for example, can be quite heavy, but is rather simple to use in a lethal manner, even for a magic-user (as long as he has the requisite strength to lift it fairly easily). A blunt club is fairly simple to use as well, even though it lacks a blade. However, the long staff is a rather complex weapon that is hard to use in a lethal manner due to its great size and special manner of wielding (i.e. with two hands at different parts of the pole). With skill, the staff can be a very potent weapon, using both ends to attack and defend, by poking, swinging, and blocking; however, without skill, a staff is very hard to use at all.
Thus, although magic-users are often thought of as staff-toting old men, I think that learning to use a staff well would take days and days of training - something that they would probably prefer to spend in the old, musty tower, reading magic tomes.
Perhaps a better list of simple weapons would be:
Caltrops, daggers, darts, sling, crossbow, spear, club, mace, short sword, hand axe, hammer, short bow.
A few heavier weapons are simple as well, and so perhaps a magic-user with STR 13 or more could also use:
Long sword, bastard sword, footman's mace, morningstar, battle axe, staff sling.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with a magic-user using a staff as a walking stick!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Forays Into Other RPG Construction Kits: RPG Tsukuuru 2000
This is a most famous RPG construction kit in the English-speaking world, albeit known with a different name - "RPG Maker 2000." In general, this program is rather easy to use if one is inclined to make a Japanese console RPG-type game, but requires considerable work to change what is there (combat systems, etc.). In terms of community, this program likely has the biggest one - although a lot of art is ripped from Super Famicom games.
Years ago, I used to fiddle around in this program, although I never finished a game! (Ulp!) I do have some screenshots from what I was working on back in those days - basically, I wanted to have Korean-, Chinese-, and German-themed character sets and chip sets and work on a game with various languages and nationalities from there. Some screenshots from said game:
Character sets used sprite sizes of 24 x 36, while chipset tiles were 16 x 16; basically, character set sprite sizes in generally did not fill the entire area, instead using about 16 x 24 or so. Although small, the character sets required 12 frames total, or 3 frames for each direction, so making characters was a somewhat tiresome, if rewarding, task. (In general, the right frames could be flipped and used for the left frames, so in actuality one had to make about 7 frames total.)
In the end, I decided that I preferred the old PC RPGs compared to the old Japanese console RPGs, so I went in another direction (i.e., Dungeon Craft). Still, it was a good system for what it was, with a well-made interface and nice graphics.
Incidentally, many years back I was working on quite an ambitious game with this program, with lots of art (including big, anime-style pictures), but my hard disk basically blew up and I lost it all! Needless to say, that really sucked, and I had instantly lost many hours of work. I do sort of want to "revive" that somehow, but... I would have to redraw everything and all...
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Forays Into Other RPG Construction Kits: Hephaestus
Well, although I am set on making my personal home-baked CRPG using Dungeon Craft, I am not against trying other tools every so often. In the past, I did some fiddling around with the RPG Tsukuuru series (known as "RPG Maker" by the English world, it seems), but I guess that I didn't really like the boring, Dragon Quest-esque combat engine. Ah, well.
Today, I spent a few hours fiddling with a less console-like and more PC-like RPG construction kit, Hephaestus, by Mark Damon Hughes (URL: http://markdamonhughes.com/Hephaestus/index.php). This particular RPG engine requires some programming in Java, but does come with a mapping tool. Luckily for me, Hephaestus seems to use 48 x 48 icons in general, so I tried using my Dungeon Craft art and seeing what I could come up with:
Not so bad, eh? Luckily, it seemed happy with 48 x 48 icons (the sample game uses 48 x 70 for humans), although some conversion was necessary (namely, it uses separate GIF files for each frame (with a particular naming scheme), as opposed to Dungeon Craft's unified PNG files with all frames). Unfortunately, there were a few problems that bugged me:
Today, I spent a few hours fiddling with a less console-like and more PC-like RPG construction kit, Hephaestus, by Mark Damon Hughes (URL: http://markdamonhughes.com/Hephaestus/index.php). This particular RPG engine requires some programming in Java, but does come with a mapping tool. Luckily for me, Hephaestus seems to use 48 x 48 icons in general, so I tried using my Dungeon Craft art and seeing what I could come up with:
Not so bad, eh? Luckily, it seemed happy with 48 x 48 icons (the sample game uses 48 x 70 for humans), although some conversion was necessary (namely, it uses separate GIF files for each frame (with a particular naming scheme), as opposed to Dungeon Craft's unified PNG files with all frames). Unfortunately, there were a few problems that bugged me:
- I was unable to make maps larger than 11 x 11. Strangely, in the Map Editor, even though you can select map sizes larger than 11 x 11, it doesn't seem to let you edit any spaces outside the minimum 11.
- I was unable to set equipment types (i.e., I wanted to have my dagger in the map be a weapon so that Irene could equip it), leaving my poor player unequipped and usually an easy target for the ice troll wandering around there...
For smarter people than me, there is the option of generating maps automatically through Java coding, but that is somewhat abstract and hard for ol' me. As it is, this RPG kit does have good potential, especially for Java-conversant folks, especially if one is into old Rogue- or Ultima-type games. I confess that my ideal is something like an overhead-view Gold Box game, or maybe Ultima VI, or something like the Baldur's Gate series; I guess I never really got into the whole Rogue-like thing.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Deep Dungeon
Although I started off making walls and such mostly for the collaboration module, "The City," these came out fairly well and I have been lately working on using this stuff for my own personal (somewhat vanilla) module, "The Deep Dungeon." So, what is this module about? Surprisingly, a deep dungeon is in the plans for this adventure, although most work thus far has been concentrated on the surface world prior to descending to the depths. My original plan was to have a single complex dungeon, but I am currently thinking of dividing it into several dungeons of different themes... but of course, we will see how things go.
The adventure is basically in my own home-grown version of Greyhawk - because I don't feel like spending the time matching official campaign maps with my own - placed in an as-yet not decided undetailed part of Oerth. Actually, one would probably not notice much "Greyhawk" at all about my module, except from looking at the temples and priests of the world, and maybe the two moons of the sky.
However, the new frames and background are vaguely Greyhawk-themed, if one notices (latest screenshot is above). I also changed the font of the game to Palatino Linotype, one of my personal favorites.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
New Baguazhang (and Xingyiquan) Discussion Board
So, I have started a new baguazhang (and xingyiquan) discussion board over here: http://baguazhang.proboards.com/
There are both English and Japanese sections; perhaps in the future I will add a Chinese section, but my Chinese is not really up to par (not sure if I can manage that). At present, the only members are me, myself, and I, so please go ahead and join! Feel free to be the first poster (there are some events listed, however).
The name of the board is Orthodox Baguazhang Research Society (正宗八卦掌研究社), and I hope it can serve to unite the various branches of orthodox baguazhang so that we can research together. (Orthodox, meaning verifiable lineages from Dong Haichuan - no home-grown bagua, please!)
There are both English and Japanese sections; perhaps in the future I will add a Chinese section, but my Chinese is not really up to par (not sure if I can manage that). At present, the only members are me, myself, and I, so please go ahead and join! Feel free to be the first poster (there are some events listed, however).
The name of the board is Orthodox Baguazhang Research Society (正宗八卦掌研究社), and I hope it can serve to unite the various branches of orthodox baguazhang so that we can research together. (Orthodox, meaning verifiable lineages from Dong Haichuan - no home-grown bagua, please!)
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