The Stochastic Game

Ramblings of General Geekery

More old programming books to be thrown away! “Why Scrum Works” 🤣😅 But hey, at least I read that book. Unlike half of the managers I worked with who *thought* they were doing Scrum but were really just doing performative bullshit.

Agile Project Management with Scrum, by Schwaber
The foreword to the book, "Why Scrum Works"

∞

I recently sorted and threw away a bunch of old programming books… it was a blast from the past, looking at some of those. Like, do you remember when you first learned about C++ RAII or template meta-programming?

Computer Graphics by Foley, van Dam, Feiner, and Hughes. The C++ Programming Language, by Stroustrup.
Code Complete 2 by McConnell Windows PowerShell Cookbook by Holmes. Programming WPF by Sells and Griffiths. Applications = Code + Markup, by Petzold.
Framework Design Guidelines by Cwalina and Abrams The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas
Exceptional C++ Style by Sutter C++ Template Metaprogramming by Abrahams and Gurtovoy C++ Coding Standards by Sutter and Alexandrescu Exceptional C++ by Sutter Modern C++ Design by Alexandrescu More Effective C++ by Meyers Effective C++ by Meyers

∞

Oh hey here are some pictures from a couple months ago when I spent a day in Deep Cove with the fluffy good boy. He is *not* afraid of cliffs, somehow.

The good fluffy boy is standing atop Quarry Rock, overlooking the Indian Arm.
The good fluffy boy is standing atop Quarry Rock, overlooking the Indian Arm.
The good fluffy boy is waiting atop a few stairs on the Quarry Rock trail.
The good fluffy boy is waiting on the Baden Powell trail somewhere above Deep Cove.

∞

Reading Classic RuneQuest: Basic Role-Playing

I’m back to reading the classic RuneQuest 2nd edition boxed set! See the first and second articles in the series if you missed them. Today we are reading the “Basic Role-Playing” booklet, written by Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis, with a couple illustrations by William Church.

This “introductory guide” to fantasy role-playing (FRP) and the Basic Role-Playing system (BRP) is a 16 pages-long booklet that, we are told, presents a “whole game system”. So in theory, you could completely ignore the rules in the bigger RuneQuest book and just play BRP directly from this. The BRP rules differ quite a lot from the RuneQuest rules, in that they’re much simpler, but you can tell they share the same chassis. I wonder how many early 1980s players decided to simplify aspects of RuneQuest by “downgrading” select rules to their BRP equivalent?

Anyway, let’s dive in!

Read more…

∞ in Reading Classics

Most of the time, the good fluffy boy is one colour. But sometimes he’s two colours.

The good fluffy boy is walk through the water near Deep Cove, BC (photos taken a few weeks ago)
The good fluffy boy is rolling around on the sand over his ball.
The good fluffy boy now has a black snout and black paws.

∞

I wanted to grab a digital copy of “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow”, the book on which the new Supergirl movie is mostly based, but apparently my choices are (1) Amazon Kindle DRM or (2) DC digital monthly subscription. Digital comics are fucked and I’m tired.

∞