Realms of the Old School Renaissance -- Session 2
Oscar We started where we left off – sitting in a wagon full of offal, plus a crate of iron ingots marked with the mark of the Silver Citadel. We had just reclaimed it from a band of orcs outside their cave (without actually dealing with the orcs), and then fleeing. The horse was exhausted, as were we, but we chose to press on back to Eastdale. We were delayed by the need to bypass round a field of some reddish flowers.
Realms of the Old School Renaissance -- Session 1
Oscar Ten of us and a rented mule set out to discover what befell a missing caravan. The local church leadership believed the caravan had been raided by orcs. Our task was to find out what happened, recover the cargo if possible, save the men if possible, and destroy whoever was responsible for the attack, presuming there was one.
One night outside of town we found a henge on a hill with wagon tricks leading in, along with a lot of blood.
Legion Season 1
By Matthew Hunter
| Jan 1, 2020
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Review of Legion Season 1.
Komenagen
By Matthew Hunter
| Nov 3, 2019
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The author of The Stars Came Back, a Heinlein-esque young-adult work of science fiction with a heft side dose of life philosophy, has a new book Komenagen in that same universe. The title is based off of the Platean society’s rite of passage into adulthood. If you like Heinleinian juveniles, this will scratch that itch.
Apache HTTPD, Tomcat, mod_jk, and let's encrypt
By Matthew Hunter
| Sep 10, 2019
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So I ran into an interesting problem recently. I run a number of websites with custom software, this blog being one of them. I use Let’s Encrypt to automatically obtain SSL certificates for them, since they are personal sites that don’t do e-commerce and the free cert is fine. They are running on Tomcat, using JSP and servlets, with a database backend, and Apache HTTPD in front handling the SSL part.
Docker and DNS
By Matthew Hunter
| Jun 21, 2019
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Another recently encountered problem: how to make Docker container DNS work when the configured DNS server is blocked.
The answer is simple:
/etc/docker/daemon.json contains the docker daemon configuration, and you can specify additional defaults. In this case, I added my local DNS server first, followed by the Google public DNS server (which I prefer not to use generally, but am OK with a docker container using).
/etc/docker/daemon.json { “dns”: [“192.168.1.1”, “8.
Daredevil Season 3
By Matthew Hunter
| Oct 25, 2018
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Daredevil’s Season 3 on Netflix has a lot to offer, despite some early warning signs suggesting it might be overly political. The overall plotline involves the return of Wilson Fisk (now openly known as the Kingpin), and Daredevil’s attempts to keep him from regaining control of the city’s criminal underworld. We have an excellent guest villain from Daredevil’s rogues’ gallery, and there are many well-done and subtle callbacks to that character’s earlier appearances in all formats.
Iron Fist Season 2
By Matthew Hunter
| Oct 24, 2018
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Season 2 represents a clear improvement over Season 1 of this show in every respect. The dynamic between Danny Rand and Christine (his girlfriend and sidekick) changes significantly for the better, with Christine’s (or rather, the actresses’) noticeably superior martial arts skills getting recognition. Danny’s own moral failings are pointed to and wrestled with. Some problems are recognized as unsolvable, at least by vigilante superheros. Like Season 2 of Luke Cage, there’s some significant moral ambiguity present, but it’s somewhat less drastic.
Luke Cage Season 2
By Matthew Hunter
| Oct 21, 2018
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I don’t have much to say about this one. It was better than the first season, but had too much focus on the criminals. There was significant moral ambiguity, particularly towards the end, which could either be a bad thing or a deliberate storytelling choice that will be redeemed next season. This season, it left a bad taste in my mouth. The cameo appearance by Iron Fist was good, but did not mesh well with Iron Fist Season 2 as a whole.
Run Like Hell
By Matthew Hunter
| Sep 25, 2018
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Elliot Kay’s new book Run Like Hell asks and answers the question: “What is it like to be the monsters when an adventuring party kicks down your front door?”
Although the book is technically game-related literature, it doesn’t have the usual hallmarks of character sheets or explicit rules elements. It’s just set very solidly in the generic fantasy game setting, with the perspective reversed. Gaming fans will have a lot to recognize while finding quite a lot of new and interesting elements from the perspective shift.