Once again, the SSH stuff is delayed. What I’ve figured out so far is this:
The Yubikey 4 is too new for the default installed package of GnuPG and underlying libraries that talk to it as an OpenPGP card.
I have tried the default installation on Debian 7, Debian 8, Linux Mint 17, and several others. I need to compile stuff from source to try to make this work.
I have limited time at the moment due to some major in-house projects (honey-do list) over the weekends, and so I will have to try to get the custom compile taken care of a little bit here and a little bit there.
On top of this, one of my bonus children has had issues with the SD card in her handheld game. I tried to donate one of my microSD cards to replace it, but it wasn’t working. I may need to get a friend that has done work on NES type games in the past to take a look at the card slot.
In the process of trying to get the donation card formatted, I think I bricked the new Beaglebone Black Wireless. I need to go through the unbricking process this week. Yay me.
I will try to document what happens, but in light of all of the frustrations from this weekend, I have to apologize for the lack of an actual technical post for today. I will try to post short updates on Twitter throughout the week to keep people in the loop on progress, and hopefully I’ll have things ready to pick back up with the Yubikey SSH client keys discussion NEXT Monday.
This week’s family game time discussion revolves around a set of playing cards that were initially sold via a Kickstarter campaign. The theme of the cards (and the game) helps to teach Permaculture principles, especially tying elements together to form a system. The decks I received each have 66 cards that are already defined elements with pictures, descriptions, and clear markings for how that element may interact with other element cards. Each deck also contains two “blank” cards so that you have the option to fill in your favorite element, (plant, animal, structure, etc) if it’s not already in the deck. Finally, there were four non-playable cards. One is a brief introduction to the deck with a description for basic card interaction. One card is a “Key” card that explains the symbolism on each card for quick look up. The other two cards explain various games that can be played with the cards. Some of the playable cards are “disaster” cards, with a description of how to handle the disaster if one is drawn.
I bought three decks, initially, so I’m not sure what the packaging is like if you order a deck today, but the only complaint I have about these cards is the packaging. The box is structurally okay, but the flaps were held in place by little “dot” stickers that didn’t hold their sticky. This means the flaps come open fairly easily at either end of the box. I played a game of 72 card pick up when I picked up the first deck from the shipping package, because the flap came open and the cards fell out so easily.
The games that are suggested tend to run along the line of matching cards based on their inputs/outputs. I also like the way that you can pull some pairs and set up games of “memory” for younger players. The cards lend themselves to a variety of game types, if you’re tired of the basic games suggested by the creators.
Similarly to the Wildcraft! board game, these cards are educational, the art is well designed, and the games that can be played are fun.
If you’re interested in these, you can pick up your own deck at the Food Forest Card Game website. The site has dates of “2016” on it, so if you want to be sure that things are up to date, try their FaceBook Page or Karl Treen (one of the creators) on Twitter.
Today’s Lab Gear post has been delayed to next week. Hopefully you stick around for this, but I understand if this post turns a lot of people off. Still, I feel strongly enough about this that it needs to be shared.
I have an hour commute to work every day. That means I also have an hour commute home every day. This extra two hours out of my day is often spent chewing on how to deal with work tasks for the week, or what to share on this blog for the week. Today’s drive home was spent fuming, instead.
I will not name the vendor, but we have a product we’ve been wrangled into purchasing due to certain certification requirements we are required to maintain. As such, we went through a small array of vendors for this kind of product, and settled on “The One That May Not Be Named.” All was well and good for the on site product demonstration. We bought the product, and then made arrangements to have professional services on site for installation.
The problem is there were two products purchased. We got two weeks of services. One week was used for the installation of each product. Normally this would not be a problem. In fact, it’s pretty standard practice in the industry to take about that long to get things stood up, configured, and turned over for production. In this case, it was handled poorly.
Over the five day period that the vendor representative was on site, at least four of those were used to do what SHOULD have been done prior to engaging us in person. Architecting the solution.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but it might have only been in the bonus content email my subscribers get. I’ll say it again, just in case.
My job title at a previous company was Unix Systems Engineer/Architect/Admin. Those are three distinct roles, and most people in this field will wear all three hats. An “Admin” deals with day to day mundane configuration tasks, such as user provisioning (add/remove/modify) and configuration file changes to services such as SSH. And “Engineer” deals with break/fix scenarios, troubleshooting, and engaging vendor provided support when necessary. And “Architect” deals with vendors, end users, and other teams to design and provide a solution that meets the end users’ goals.
This particular company, (The Vendor,) dodged almost every attempt at architecting the solution before coming on site. The end result was that by the end of the 5 day on site professional services visit (for BOTH products… happened twice) we ran out of time to finish configuration. Things weren’t working 100% when the services people got on the plane. Emails to keep them engaged were less than helpful, and a lot of our questions were left unanswered.
Then we ran into a lot of technical issues. Again, these issues should have been identified during an ARCHITECTURE pre-on-site-meeting. This project has stagnated several times, sometimes due to internal company politics at a level or three above my head. This means every time I get the green light to go back to installation, I have to refresh myself on what all has been done.
The Vendor has been on site a few times to try to help make things right with us. They see our frustration (as a customer) and I feel that they honestly want to help, but today I just got a bad taste in my mouth about the whole deal. One person responded to an email with “should we get you on the line to purchase more professional services?” as a response to an email I sent regarding one more technical road block I hit.
I was as polite as I could be in my response, though I fear I still came across a bit caustic.
Part of my frustration is this whole deal feels almost like “The Dale.” If you have Netflix streaming, check out the “White Rabbit Project” season 1, episode 4. In it, they talk about a car called “The Dale.” It was the most hyped car the year it was supposed to be released. Only three were produced in the end, and none of them really worked. While this software doesn’t quite meet that bill, the way it was marketed certainly does. Getting it installed using the custom script that the vendor provided works well, when it works, so I can’t do a direct comparison. When it doesn’t work, though… digging into the guts to figure out why quite literally sucks. It sucks my soul and my give a damn, and I’m running really short on both these days.
I have until the end of this month to finish rolling this thing out. I’ll keep rolling with it, and I’ll keep engaging them as best I can, but the damage is done. I’m less likely to tell people how “great” this vendor is if asked, simply because of how the services for standing this thing up were handled. It’s hard to make things right when there’s a missing limb spurting blood in the mix.
If you work for a software vendor, please, please, PLEASE make sure you review how you engage your customers. Learn about their environment. Let them explain to you how things are done “today” so that you can understand how to help them use your product to make those things easier, more efficient, and better in general. Don’t take advantage of them by sending “professional services” to architect the solution when those services really should be focused on just installing/configuring in general. Don’t be “The Vendor.”
I’m sure everyone reading this has played Checkers at least once or twice. It’s a classic game of strategy that doesn’t require as much mental stress as games like Chess. We’re going to cover it today (and this will be a short post) because a Checker set is a very versatile way to pass the time on a rainy day.
The classic game arranges twelve pieces for each color (red vs. black) at opposite sides of the 8×8 board, all on the same color of square (red or black) so that pieces are diagonal. Each player moves diagonally across the board with the option to jump (and remove) the opponents checkers if the space behind that checker is empty. If you get to the opposite side, that checker gets “kinged” and can now move backward as well as forward around the board.
The next most commonly recognized game with this board is “give away.” This is played exactly like the classic game, except that the object is to be the first player to lose all of the pieces. Also, if a jump can be made, it MUST be made, so a player can set up the opponent to force them to take pieces.
A less common game is sometimes called “fox and hounds,” but the locals called it “fox and geese” when I was growing up, even though that’s technically a different kind of board layout, and played slightly differently. One player places four of the same color checker on the row closest to himself (again, all the same color, and moves are diagonal.) The other player places the other colored checker anywhere on the row closest to herself. The four are the “geese” (or “hounds) and the one is the “fox.” There is no jumping allowed, and pieces are not removed. The object for the fox player is to get to the other side. The object for the geese is to corner the fox until it can no longer move, thus preventing it from reaching the other side. The fox moves like a king, any direction diagonally. The geese move like normal checkers, one direction down the board diagonally. This game is not balanced in the favor of the fox. A perfect game can be played if you know the correct pattern for the geese in chasing the fox. Since this is not a “fair” game, I prefer not to play this often unless I’m playing the fox, to let the other side learn how to develop the strategy (what patterns of movement make a perfect game?) I won’t put the solution for the geese in this post, but if someone strongly wishes to see it, I don’t mind sharing privately. You can leave a comment, and I’ll respond to the email address provided with the solution if asked.
Other names for this game include the word “Draughts.” Board sizes and rules vary from country to country, but the general idea is mostly the same. And there are other games that can be played using the standard 8×8 board. You can even easily develop new games and challenges friends and family, such as “treat a piece like a knight from Chess and without hitting the same square twice, hit every square on the board.” Or perhaps, “treat each piece as if it can move like a queen from Chess, and place as many on the board as you can without being captured by any other piece.” It is possible to threaten every square on the board eventually, but it takes some thought. Set aside a 3×3 section and play tic-tac-toe. This last game is trivial to force a tie. Or play “connect four” by placing your pieces along one side of the board, building out from there (as if they were dropped from the opposite side.) Add your own house rules to the basic classic game. Just learn to think outside the box and make things more challenging over time, and you can find enough different variations on this basic game to keep your mind busy while enjoying time with friends or family.
Sorry this was short and sweet, but this has been a rough week. I will (again) try to get the recording done over the weekend for the SSH CA thing that I keep promising. Hopefully I don’t get overwhelmed with honey-do tasks, and can get caught up.
Thanks for reading, and I hope I have inspired some of you to try new things with an old game.
Today we’ll cover a game that is kind of odd, but lots of fun. It’s both a card game, a dice game, and a dominoes game, without the dominoes: ION.
There is another card game by the same name from a different company. That one focuses on building chemical compounds using ionic bonds. It looks like a fun and educational game, but we don’t own that one, yet. That will likely change, and a review will be forthcoming if it does.
This ION game contains cards that are printed with dots, much like dominoes. A certain number of cards are dealt to each player at the beginning of the game, and a card is placed face up in the middle. To play a card, the card being played must have the same dots as either half of the face up card. For example, if the card on the table has 3 dots on top, and 5 on bottom, you would need a card with either 3 dots or 5 dots to play it. This is where the similarity to dominoes ends.
There are also “Joker” and “Double Joker” cards, which act as a wildcard, and can be played at any time. Some of the cards are “action” cards, and do different things depending on the icon. They usually involve punishing other players by either making them draw, preventing them from playing on their next turn, or similar. The objective is to be the first to get rid of all of your cards.
One of the action cards is called a “bomb” and should only be used in “tournament” play (where you are keeping score, not just playing to be the first to lose all cards.) This one “explodes” a player kicking them out of the game.
One of the cards is a “challenge” card. This one forces a roll of the yellow die. There is a gamble involved where the person playing this card gets to pick 2 numbers, and the person being challenged gets to pick 1 out of the remaining numbers. Rolling one of the chosen numbers results in drawing more cards. You take turns rolling until one of you gets it.
Some of the cards actually have “punish” in the name, and those require the player being punished to roll the black die. The number of dots on the roll determine how many cards to draw.
There is a “block” card that can block some things, but not others. Usually this is determined by logic of who goes next, but the “gift” can’t be blocked simply “because it’s rude to decline a gift,” according to the rules.
A two player game removes all “punish previous player” and “tick tack” cards, and players are dealt 9 cards to start. Games with three or more include all cards and players are dealt 7 cards to start.
If you like games similar to UNO, this will probably hold some appeal. It can be fast paced, or in tournament mode, it can take a while to play.
The game hasn’t been on sale at this link since December, but in case it comes back, here’s the Amazon link.
The game website is here, in case it eventually has links to other product providers.
I hope everyone has enjoyed the game review series thus far.
This week we’ll cover a board game that is tons of fun to play, but takes a lot of time. This is a good rainy day family fun day game, so if you’ve never heard of it, read on.
The Settlers of Catan game includes a board that is dynamic. The pieces that make up the board can be put together like a puzzle, but they’re mixable so you can move where each little land plot can be placed. The instructions include a recommended default layout for beginners, and it is highly recommended to follow it, since it gives a good balanced layout of lands around the board.
First you build the outer border (which is supposed to fit together the same way every time, with number tabs/slots that connect.) Then you place hexagonal land pieces inside like a honey comb. Once the whole board is laid out, you place numbered tokens on each land.
A “robber” piece goes on the desert land.
Each player picks a color and takes 5 settlements, 4 cities, and 15 roads. Each player places two settlements and two roads on the board to start. A settlement goes on the corner of one of the hexagonal shaped land pieces, and a road runs long the edge of the hexagonal land piece. Each land that a settlement touches allows that settlement to potentially obtain whatever resource it can produce in a round.
A round begins by rolling the two six sided dice “for production.” The roll applies to all players, not just the person rolling the dice. Whatever number is rolled determines which lands may produce resources that round (based on those numbered tokens that got placed on each land.) Any settlement on the corner of land that produces that round gets a resource card for the resource that particular land produces. Rolling a 7 is special, and we’ll get to it in a bit.
After rolling for resources, the player that rolled the dice may trade resources. There are two kinds of trade. Domestic trade allows the player that rolled the dice to trade with the other players on negotiation terms. The other kind of trade is maritime trade, and allows for “trading” resources without trading with other players. The normal (and worst) maritime trade is a 4:1 ratio. A player may turn in any 4 of one resource card in exchange for one other resource card. If the player has a settlement on the outer edge of the island next to a harbor, the harbor allows for maritime trade, which has more favorable ratios.
Once trading is done, if any, the player that rolled the dice may build. Building costs are dependent upon “building cost cards.” Refer to the card and spend the appropriate number of resources to build a new settlement or road, or to upgrade a settlement to a city. You can’t build a settlement on an unoccupied intersection if any of the adjacent intersections contains a settlement or a city. This means you can’t ever have more than three settlements/cities on one hexagonal land piece. You also have to build the new settlements along one of your existing roads. You can also spend resources to obtain a “knight card” or a “victory point” card.
A special “longest road” and “largest army” card are set aside until someone earns them. To earn the “longest road” card, you need to be the first to build a continuous road of at least 5 individual road pieces. After that, it can be stolen by someone else if they build a road that is longer than yours. The “largest army” card is earned by becoming the first player to earn three knight cards. Anyone earning more knight cards than you will take it, later. Each of these cards is worth two victory points for the holder of the card.
To put a damper on things, there is a robber in the desert. Any time someone rolls a “seven” several things happen. First everyone with seven or more cards must discard half of them (odd numbers rounded down, first.) Next, the player that rolled the seven must move the robber to the number token of a terrain hex, or back to the desert if it’s already on a terrain hex that isn’t desert. Finally, that player is allowed to steal one resource card from one player with a settlement next to that resource hex.
If a player plays a knight card on their turn, they move the robber as if a seven were rolled and attempt to steal a player resource card. The player being robbed places his cards face down and the robbing player picks one at random. If the robbed player has no cards, nothing is stolen.
The first player to reach ten victory points wins. Points aren’t awarded each turn, they are counted based on what the player holds.
Settlement = 1 VP each
City = 2 VP each
Longest Road card = 2 VP
Largest Army card = 2VP
Victory Point card = 1VP
This game is complex, and play time can reach or exceed the time it would take to play a decent game of Monopoly (for comparison.) It does help develop strategic thinking, though, and does so with an excess of fun.
I’m sorry this one ran a bit long, but it is what it is. Thanks for reading!
The Game is available at Amazon, and probably other retail outlets.
I originally planned to cover Settlers of Catan this week, but we didn’t get to play last weekend, so I’m saving it for a later post. Instead, we’re going to cover Mastermind, which is a very fun logic game.
Mastermind
The game plays similarly to Battleship in that there is a “blind” to keep the “guessing” player from seeing the other player’s code, and pegs are used to indicate a guess, and to mark a success or failure.
One player sets a code, flips the blind up so that the other player can’t see the code, then the other player is allowed to see the board. There are 6 different colored large pegs, as well as black and white smaller pegs. The colors are red, blue, green, yellow, white, and black.
The board ten rows across the board that contain four small peg holes at each end of the row, as well as four total large peg holes across the middle of the row. The player doing the guessing has to pick colored pegs to place in the larger peg holes, to indicate that they guess that’s what the code is behind the blind.
The person that set the code then compares the guess against the code and places a white peg for each guessed peg that is a correct color, but in an incorrect location, and a black peg for each guessed peg that is both a correct color and in a correct location into the four smaller peg holes on one side of the row. Once these pegs have been placed, if any, it is the other player’s turn to make a new guess.
If the code is correct, the code maker can flip the blind up to indicate a win.
The other side of the board can be used to mark how many wins each player has had. This makes it possible to extend a “game” by playing multiple matches until one player or the other wins an agreed upon number of matches. It also makes it possible to extend the number of guesses before saying a player “loses” by marking one of these for a full ten rows of guesses before clearing the board to try again (which would also make the game harder, since you lose the history of attempts, doing that.)
Finally, some people raise the difficulty by allowing there to be missing pegs.
Matches are usually fast paced, so this game can take as little as a few minutes to as long as several hours, depending on house rules and how many matches constitute a full “game.”
Mastermind is fun, addictive, and very good at teaching logic for younger players. It is highly recommended.
Before we get to the meat of today’s post, I wanted to let you all know that yesterday my email subscribers received the first weekly email only content. It’s something that was sent directly via my list provider, and is not on the website anywhere. If you aren’t subscribed, you might be missing out. Anyway… onward to today’s post!
Over the holiday season, our household received several new games as gifts. Among them, we got Mastermind (similar to battleship, but not really,) ION (card and dice game,) Settlers of Catan (board game,) and a few video games for the kids. I received the elusive NES Classic gaming console I lamented not being able to purchase on launch day, as well.
All of these games gave me the idea that I should cover some of our collection of physical games (board, card, and dice,) over the next several Fridays. Instead of starting with the ones we received THIS year, I thought I’d start with one that is probably a lot less known. I have a thing for “underdogs,” and this game kind of fits that bill.
Wildcraft! Board View
The game is called “Wildcraft!” and is a cooperative board game. It is designed for 2 to 4 players. Each player uses a token like the ones in the game “Sorry!” to represent their progress along the board path. There are also black and blue coin shaped tokens that are used to represent the “passing of the sun” and “baskets of huckleberries” respectively.
Three decks of cards are used. One deck contains various plants. One deck contains various “trouble” cards. One deck contains a stack of “cooperation” cards. A spinner with 6 possible outcomes is included.
The premise is to leave Grandma’s house, travel the spiraling path up the hill to the huckleberry patch, gather two baskets of huckleberries per player, then return back down the path to Grandma’s house before the sun sets. The path has a couple of spots that let you jump gaps bi-directionally, and a couple that let you jump gaps in one direction only. Each spot on the path represents either a “rest” area, a “moon,” a “trouble spot,” a “harvest spot,” or a “cooperation spot.” Across one side of the board are sections showing the sun passing across the sky.
If you land on a “moon,” you place a black token on the next free “sun movement” spot. This is the only antagonist in the game. If all of those sun progress spots are filled up before the last player makes it back to Grandma’s house, everyone loses. The more players there are, the longer a game takes, but the more likely the team is to lose, as well.
If you land on a “cooperation” block, (represented by a rainbow,) you draw a cooperation card. This card can either be used immediately to pull the person furthest behind up to your position, or it can be saved to aid another player later.
If you land on a “trouble” block, you draw a trouble card. This could be something as simple as just being “Hungry” or it could be that you got poison ivy, for example. The trouble card does nothing to hinder your progress, but “fixing” an ailment lets you move to the next rest spot, so there is incentive to do so.
If you land on a “harvest” block, you draw a plant card. These are the cards that help you fix the ailments from trouble cards. If you have an ailment, and a plant card that fixes it, you discard both, move to the next rest spot available, and end your turn.
Rest blocks do nothing.
The “1” on the spinner also has a rainbow. If you spin a “1” you draw a cooperation card, and the rules for this are the same as if you land on a rainbow spot on the board.
Once a player reaches the berry patch, they stop spinning on their turn, and instead collect huckleberry bucket tokens. After the correct number of berry buckets are gathered (2 per player overall, so 4 if there are 2 players, 8 if there are 4,) the player spins and begins working their way back down the hill. If a player passes someone on their way UP the hill, that player is now able to turn around and start back down.
Wildcraft! – Kids Playing
This game is educational and a TON of fun. Game play can take anywhere from about an hour to several hours, depending on number of players and how many times people hit the “short cuts” in the wrong direction. It’s great for an afternoon of quality time with friends and family.
Happy New Year. I hope your holiday season was pleasant, and full of family, food, and fun. Ours was. The kids are all settling down about now from all of the excitement, and we’re happy to all be together.
Last year was mostly an experiment to see how this site might work. This year is knuckle down time, and I’m hitting the ground running.
The site has had a few changes since last year. I’ve added some new pages, changed the “Recent Posts” link on the right to include the RSS feed link, and categorized things to make them easier to find moving forward. Next Monday will continue the SSH series, picking up where we left off with an introduction to the OpenSSH Certificate Authority.
I will start including a survey every now and then to help me decide on what content to cover next, as well as including some extra content in a news letter format for those folks that have signed up for my mailing list. I’ve left the site RSS feed attached to the mailing list for now, but may change that later. If I do, it’ll be two lists, and people will have the opportunity to adjust their mailing list options to set what feeds they care for most.
I’m going to also be active on three social media platforms. I will probably be primarily active on Twitter, but starting this year, I will be at least sharing my blog content on FaceBook and LinkedIn, as well. Note that there is now a link in the menu on the right, as well as at the bottom of the page for each of these platforms. If you’re on one of those platforms and would like to follow me there, I’d love to have you.
I’ve been working hard to get the pages that are missing added, some existing pages updated, and some new content ready for go-live at the beginning of next year. First post of the new year will be Monday, and will be an explanation of how things will work moving forward. All new pages will go live around the same time.
Thank you for your patience while I got things in order, and took a break for the holiday season, as well. Things should be better moving forward, and I’m ready to hit the ground running in the coming year.
Also, the DSH beta should be ready to go by middle of January. Be looking for it.
Thanks again to everyone who stuck with me on this.
