Morning Discussion

If you've over-spent this Christmas but still need to arrange presents, decorations and so much more, Hero of Switzerland has collected festive 'Top Tips' from UK magazines, helping you make the holidays go with a bang without hurting your wallet. It's remarkable what one can do with a stack of empty beer cans or lemonade bottles.

Christmas is also a time for telling festive stories and by far the best I've seen so far is The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas.

If you want video games, though, the 'handmade' Flash adventure game The Dream Machine is absolutely delightful. Lovely atmosphere and writing. Of course, I only saw it thanks to the top chaps at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

From The Chatty
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    December 22, 2010 5:01 AM

    [deleted]

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      December 22, 2010 5:01 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 22, 2010 5:01 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 22, 2010 5:03 AM

      You are on top of things!

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        December 22, 2010 5:04 AM

        [deleted]

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        December 22, 2010 5:05 AM

        Eh, I refreshed a couple times and there was nothing! I was going to dieeeeeeeeeee!

        Close enough to first post Eric and no whining today ;)!

        Of course things are kinda broken with the patch...

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        December 22, 2010 5:33 AM

        Unlike Notch OHH SNAP

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      December 22, 2010 5:11 AM

      I think today might be a good day.

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      December 22, 2010 5:18 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 22, 2010 5:47 AM

      Changing my view distance in single player really changes my FPS.

      This is on a ~10 MB save that I started before beta. I'm staring at a wall that's right in front of me, so it's not actually changing my current view at all.

      Tiny: 550+
      Short: 400
      Normal: 200
      Far: 90

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      December 22, 2010 5:59 AM

      Got some weirdness with portals in my single player game.

      I went to the Nether and was messing around, trying to kill things. A ghast shot at me and hit near the portal, and for some reason the portal got deactivated! It's still complete, none of the obsidian blocks got destroyed, so I don't know what happened.

      I died, and went back through the portal in the overworld. It put me in the next closest portal in the Nether (I'd built a few for testing).

      Maybe here's what happened. The ghast 'temporarily' blew up the obsidian, which caused the portal to go away?

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        December 22, 2010 6:02 AM

        Yep, if Ghasts hit the obsidian and stop it making an enclosing ring around the portal, the portal deactivates. It's a good idea to go into the Nether with a little extra obsidian and a striker for this reason.

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        December 22, 2010 6:05 AM

        Wonder if I could just restart it with flint and steel. I forgot about that part of activating portals.

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        December 22, 2010 6:15 AM

        This happened to me as well. I got hit by something (I hadn't seen the ghast yet) then I looked up and the portal was closed. None of the obsidian was missing though... just the shimmering portal part. It's a good point about the flint and steel... I bet that would have done it.

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      December 22, 2010 6:08 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 22, 2010 6:27 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 22, 2010 6:31 AM

      Leaf decay might be good now.

      It goes faster, and not as many saplings drop (there were too many). They also decay when touching other trees.

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      December 22, 2010 6:44 AM

      What do people mean when they say it's a Hamachi server?

      http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1025&t=113456

      I know what Hamachi is (kinda), but not sure how it relates to Minecraft.

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        December 22, 2010 6:49 AM

        [deleted]

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          December 22, 2010 6:54 AM

          I mean... even if you are using your home connection you'd think it would be easier to just foward that port to a server on the inside? Maybe they are just reluctant to give out their public IP to random Internet people? That's actually probably what it comes down to. If that's the case... I really don't blame them.

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          December 22, 2010 7:09 AM

          To this I'll add C) don't know about DNS redirection services like dynDNS

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        December 22, 2010 6:49 AM

        I know what Hamachi is... but I'm not sure why you would need it with Minecraft. Generally you use Hamachi to play games which only have LAN support.. over the Internet. It creates a virtual private network across the internet and allows people to play as if they were all in the same building (on the same network). But... minecraft works over the Internet out of the box.. so... I'm at a loss.

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        December 22, 2010 6:49 AM

        [deleted]

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        December 22, 2010 12:36 PM

        easy alternative to in-game whitelists

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      December 22, 2010 7:00 AM

      Awesome! Looks like everything on our server has been resolved. Clients are connecting and staying connected. Saweet.

      Only bug I've seen so far is the tools don't show durability decay properly. :(

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        December 22, 2010 7:01 AM

        Link? I've been looking for an updated server.

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        December 22, 2010 7:05 AM

        So the bug where you can drop tools to heal them is gone right? We have to manage our tools now?

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          December 22, 2010 7:08 AM

          That was (pretty much) gone in beta.

          There might still be some weird stuff with durability, but for the most part, the repair bug is totally fixed.

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            December 22, 2010 7:13 AM

            Yeah, by moving tools server-side.. they are not tracked by the client anymore. I think the problem before was that the tools 'existed' on the client side in your inventory... and once you dropped them on the ground they went to the server. Somewhere in-between they lost the status of their decay (he probably could have made it so they kept that status.. but he just didn't want to do the work because he knew one day he wanted it to be completely server-side). That might be more information than you wanted.. but that's how I understood it.

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          December 22, 2010 7:37 AM

          Yeah. Tools now have full durability. They just aren't displaying properly. So you might think you have a tool that's at 100% durability and really it's at like 10.

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            December 22, 2010 7:40 AM

            working as intended, now Notch just needs to code it so that when your tool breaks, a diamond shard lodges in your head and instakills you

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      December 22, 2010 7:01 AM

      Hey! You got drama in my Minecraft!

      Hey! You got Minecraft in my Drama!

      Minecraft and Drama... two tastes which taste like lumpy shit together.

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      December 22, 2010 7:30 AM

      themmoproject.sytes.net

      Come join me for some testing/messing around!

      http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1025&t=110985

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        December 22, 2010 7:35 AM

        [deleted]

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        December 22, 2010 7:36 AM

        Was following Eric, but he disconnected.

        It's been running perfectly for me, no Java errors or graphics lag.

        Not sure how many people online, but it looks like 30 or more.

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        December 22, 2010 7:38 AM

        hah when I saw the "75 player slots" I thought fuck, that must be on a beefy server, and I was right:

        This server is currently hosted on a CentOS 5 x64 bit Dedi with 32GB of DDR3 RAM, a Dual Xeon E5620 Quad Core Processor, and 1GB/s dedicated upload/download speed. I have allocated 16GB (the maximum amount) of heap memory for JVM; and also added multiple modifications/optimizations to the Java on the Dedi to make everything run a little more reliably. In addition, in the highly unlikely event that the serer crashes, it is outfitted with an automated restart that detects when the server crashes, and then restarts it. If you want to view all our specs, you can click here: http://gyazo.com/192ecb64e0776a043c81205c86b6eeeb.png

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        December 22, 2010 7:48 AM

        Admin says he's resetting the map in about an hour.

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          December 22, 2010 7:49 AM

          So let's get some iron armor and weapons and go mess around. Eric found a really nice cave, like 5 iron deposits and a bunch of coal.

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            December 22, 2010 8:21 AM

            [deleted]

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              December 22, 2010 8:33 AM

              Did we? I remember we ran one guy out of his (?) base, but don't remember any kills.

              Still, it was fun!

              What bugs did you notice? I'm trying to test stuff. It seemed to run really smoothly, for the most part!

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        December 22, 2010 11:53 AM

        Wow, that is a really nice project. I like the way they are doing it. Good ideas, well thought out and implemented.

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          December 22, 2010 12:18 PM

          Yea it's interesting.

          Get on teamspeak if you can, it's got some active PVP going and we're outnumbered! I died like 5 times heh.

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      December 22, 2010 8:22 AM

      Good news?

      http://notch.tumblr.com/post/2416817644/some-thoughts-about-release-schedule-during-beta

      Here’s an idea!

      * All commit comments are public to everyone. Possibly even tweeted out
      * Everyone who has bought the game can download the latest nightly build. These will almost certainly be quite buggy.
      * Before doing a release, we make a special Release Candidate build. You can download these as well, and they’re supposed to be not buggy. (But they will be. ;))
      * Once the release candidate works fine, it will be released as the new official version. This will probably be once or twice per month.

      Perhaps something like that might work!

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      December 22, 2010 8:32 AM

      LatestChatty for my phone and pad keep crashing!

      Server Status: UPDATED!

      I'll be monitoring in the console most of the day. Understand, I am at work.

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        December 22, 2010 8:35 AM

        Good so far. FPS was low (~10) for a few seconds at first while chunks loaded, but now it's around 200.

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        December 22, 2010 8:46 AM

        [deleted]

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        December 22, 2010 9:48 AM

        Spyrext, want to join m0rfus' server?

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        December 22, 2010 10:39 AM

        Alliances are forming guys. I'm seeing people settle down and working together now. FYI

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        December 22, 2010 12:02 PM

        Server crashed I think.

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          December 22, 2010 12:07 PM

          It got quiet, was odd, saw a bunch of java errors, it's been rebooted.

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            December 22, 2010 12:09 PM

            May have to download new JAR, got funky error again and looks iike it froze.

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              December 22, 2010 12:29 PM

              Nabbed a new JAR, keeping fingers crossed.

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      December 22, 2010 10:07 AM

      Would you guys say SMP is totally playable and working now?

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      December 22, 2010 11:11 AM

      I <3 RogerDandy
      "Derek,
      I love you with all my meat!


      Over n' Out,
      T-Dawg
      "

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      December 22, 2010 11:27 AM

      rama what's our base location on m0rfus' server? I can't find it heh.

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        December 22, 2010 12:13 PM

        800,400 ish.

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          December 22, 2010 12:45 PM

          stop saying shit in public i already SM him!

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            December 22, 2010 1:14 PM

            Bring it on!

            If someone can figure out the comment system well enough to find the thread, then let them attack us. :)

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              December 22, 2010 1:45 PM

              Lol, just remember morfus, and foo are out there!

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        December 22, 2010 1:47 PM

        Can you guys pick up my stuff I dropped and put it in my chest there? I can't get back online right now... and I'm right outside the base.

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          December 22, 2010 1:51 PM

          Yea I put most of it in the chest near the room where you died.

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      December 22, 2010 12:30 PM

      [deleted]

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      December 22, 2010 1:46 PM

      [deleted]

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      December 22, 2010 1:47 PM

      needs more pve servers being up. i don't wanna have to play sp :(

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      December 22, 2010 1:50 PM

      m0rfus: You don't know shackers.
      martin107: What's shackers?

      http://www.shackpics.com/files/RadioShack_1i20h4o1mjakt8gzx9hn.jpg

      Heh.

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      December 22, 2010 2:01 PM

      fixing tree leaves is the best fix since the time he broke and subsequently fixed the skybox. farming wood doesn't make me want to die now

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      December 22, 2010 3:02 PM

      [deleted]

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        December 22, 2010 3:08 PM

        PVE is a joke. So boring.

        Fixed.

        Wait...how about...Minecraft is a joke, so boring.

        Seriously, it is what you make of it. The game mechanics are far from perfect or complete, yet there are enough people playing to make things interesting. Build a "base" near spawn and you won't be bored, heh.

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          December 22, 2010 3:16 PM

          I was disappointed when foo1 was created. I was preparing PT for combat--stocking the towers with the ability to make arrows and putting up iron doors.

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      December 22, 2010 3:19 PM

      [deleted]

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        December 22, 2010 3:46 PM

        The guy who made the BiomeMod hasn't posted on the Minecraft forums since the 18th... So no idea I bet the guy is on vacation.

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          December 22, 2010 3:52 PM

          Yeah, that's a bummer.

          I hope some day Notch can do some things to biomes, so we don't have to worry about the mod. Be hard to match the amount of customization it has, though.

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            December 22, 2010 4:22 PM

            well if Notch adds a proper Modding API updates shouldn't break existing mods!

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          December 22, 2010 11:46 PM

          [deleted]

Hello, Meet Lola