Not much of a Webpage
I got fed up of my old 1995 Webpage. The fact that most of it was a
decade out of date didn't help. I've thrown most of it away and
kept the bits that might actually link somewhere
useful. However, I've got a bunch of stuff in my public-html
directory, and I'm trying to add links to all that, since Google
loves chiark.
Bikes and other suspiciously outdoor activities
- I did the End to End (Land's End to John O'Groats, the classic
British cycle tour) in September 2004 and here
is a writeup.
- I wrote something in 2004 about what equipment I used when I was commuting
over 100 miles a week by bicycle. It is somewhat outdated now,
of course. I also wrote about dynamo
lighting, but modern LED headlights have made such radical
changes the advice there may be of little use.
- Writeups of various audax rides I have
been on. Audax is long-distance non-competitive endurance cycling.
- Pictures of my 1991ish Orbit light
tourer, which I suppose you would now call an audax bike, and my
1960s? Triumph roadster, which is really a
rebadged Raleigh.
- A guide to punting. Punts are the
flat-bottomed boats that are used recreationally in Cambridge
(and Oxford). Propelling them is a bit tricky.
Boardgames and roleplaying games
Videogames
- Roguelikes
- Why writing a NetHack bot is
impossible, or at any rate much harder than the Angband
Borg or Rog-o-matic. I was wrong about it being impossible, it
seems; the TAEB bot makes much more progress than I
expected. I'm wrong about lots of things, though; in 1993 I
thought the Web would never amount to much.
- The NetHack Object Identification
spoiler, a guide to identifying objects in the classic
roguelike NetHack, and a short cribsheet for item prices and
types.
- Spell failure chance analysis for
NetHack 3.4.3.
- Should one quaff from fountains
in NetHack?
- The 2005 NetHack tournament,
back when I still played regularly.
- Why I am not an Angband player, except
that these days I am. I think the 3.x versions of Angband have
improved the game enormously, obviating many of my gripes.
- In 2010 I entertained the idea of writing a roguelike,
Montresor. I've done little with it since, but have some screenshots anyway.
- Roguelike Defence, a writeup of an idea I
had. I realise that in free games development, other people's
ideas are about as welcome as horse dung, but there it is,
anyway.
- Everything else
- Our tactics manual for Starship
Artemis, a multiplayer co-operative game where the players
are put in the role of officers on a space-opera starship
bridge.
- A postmortem for City of
Heroes which I wrote shortly after the game was shut down
by NCsoft at the end of December 2012. Don't forget; never
give NCsoft a penny.
- Why I don't use Steam.
- A guide I wrote to difficult
missions in GTA: San Andreas.
- An incomplete guide to difficult missions
in X-Wing.
- My Doom level, WOODHAL2, written
in 1994 back when Doom editing was in its infancy. It's not
very good, but it was included in the 1994
tune-up exercise where old levels were re-edited for
modern tastes; to my knowledge, I was the only original editor
to participate in the thread. I also started a sequel to
WOODHALL, CTHEMPLE, which I never
finished, but one or two bits - particularly where one first
sees the entrance to the ruined temple - I'm rather pleased
with. Last but not
least is ROCKET.WAD, for
four-player deathmatch on E2M8; I invented the rocket arena
(as I'm sure did lots of other people, independently). Don't
play it with nomonsters, let Simon the Cyberdemon join in the
fun; and don't play with a modern client that allows vertical
aiming - rockets stay in the plane of the players, but a
direct hit is necessary if someone isn't near a wall.
Odds and Ends
Pictures of me:
- In the cab of No. 4489 Dominion of
Canada, and on a trip to York with
No. 70013 Oliver Cromwell.
- On a work trip to Denmark.
- Having beer for breakfast, although in one case
I have just been riding a bicycle all night so have an
excuse.
- With a recently broken jaw. These ones aren't
very nice.
- On the World Naked Bike Ride in 2008, 2010, and 2013. Obviously, these
pictures are not work-safe, because there are naked people
in them.
Contacting me
My email address is damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk.