Update: It looks like the OBSE team has officially added support for Steam in their latest beta release, so you may want to use that instead of the file linked below.
Gah, I totally had a huge rant going about how pissed I was over OBSE not working with the Steam version of Oblivion. I did a little double-checking just before publishing and, lo and behold, I found this forum post by jmccaskey for Valve:
Here is how you get OBSE working legitimately:
1) Make sure you have received the latest update, we just updated on Steam about 30 minutes ago to make our binary more compatible with OBSE. Restart Steam if you are unsure and you should get updated. If you’ve replaced your binary with some non-Steam version you’ll want to make sure it updates and you are on the new Steam shipped version.
2) Install OBSE into your steamapps\common\oblivion directory as you normally would
2) Get [this file] and extract the obse_loader.exe over the top of the one from the standard OBSE install in your oblivion folder.
3) Run obse_loader.exe and everything should now work (you’ll get passed through the loader first, just hit play).
I’ve contacted the OBSE guys so we can hopefully get our revisions to obse_loader added into the official OBSE package. Until then if you would like the source for the changes for obse_loader to compile yourself email me at jmccaskey at valvesoftware.com.
So, you know, FUCK YES!
Hopefully this post saves someone some time and effort. And, as they say, now for something completely different– a post in that thread that I found particularly humorous:
[...] Cmom, if you are buying the game because of OBSE you are doing it wrong, it’s a hack made not by bethesda, and people are putting to much trust in it. [...] If you don’t like the vanilla game, what’s the point? If you have to mod the game in order to enjoy it, throw it away and buy a game you enjoy out of the box, or else you are just paying to get mad, and that is just stupid
This post is just to let everyone know that my old project, Tumblatr, has been removed. For quite a while now, actually. Seems a lot of visitors are still hitting the site looking for it.
I’d suggest trying engtech’s solution, or if you just want to delete your account, Tumblr has now made that option possible.
I’m a little late in noticing, but it looks like Wizards has officially released the new version of Gatherer. I’m quite pleased with the enhancements they’ve made, even though it’s going to mean some extra work on a project of mine.
Somebody (-bodies, I imagine) really put in some love. The interface is much sleeker now and there’s a myriad of search options and featuers that weren’t there before. I thought about listing some of my favorite changes, but you might as well just check it out for yourself if your into that sorta thing.
I’ve heard of Git before, and even looked into it a bit, but it wasn’t until Atom recently returned form SXSWi that we decided to try and use it for ourselves. Apparently a bunch of respectable geeks there nearly cream themselves if you get them started on the subject.
I don’t know. There’s a lot of sweet-sounding features, but ultimately I ran into a deal-breaker that put me back into the hands of SVN/SVK.
Can I add empty directories?
Currently the design of the git index (staging area) only permits files to be listed, and nobody competent enough to make the change to allow empty directories has cared enough about this situation to remedy it.
Directories are added automatically when adding files inside them. That is, directories never have to be added to the repository, and are not tracked on their own.
You can say “git add <dir>” and it will add files in there.
If you really need a directory to exist in checkouts you should create a file in it. .gitignore works well for this purpose; you can leave it empty, or fill in the names of files you expect to show up in the directory.
This is one of those things where I feel maybe I’m being stupid. Like there’s some l33t developer rule about not having empty directories in your application, and by mentioning something like this I’m exposing my inner noob self. Regardless, I still think this is rather ridiculous.
Atom found a comment somewhere that describes a workaround for this.
Git automatically ignores empty directories. If you want to have a log/ directory, but want to ignore all the files in it, first add log/* in .gitignore, then add an empty .gitignore in the empty directory.
No. No, thank you.
I’ll probably have to give it another try on a new project. Most of my rage comes from the fact that we were moving an existing project over to Git, but it used empty directories. It was very annoying and confusing for a minute there.
Since I got my Chumby when they were first released I’ve been hearing about “Chumby as a service” from the Chumby Industries blog. I had an idea of what they meant by it, but the video they recently posted makes it clear, and it’s kinda cool.
One thing I really like is the device that allows you to see several of your widgets at one time and focus on the one you want to see more of. Although this functionality would be nearly impossible on the standard Chumby device, I often wish it was much easier and quicker to switch from one to another.
The thing I still don’t like, though, is the widgets themselves. I’ve never felt that it made much sense to have a device that is as wide-open as the Chumby, then lock widget development into the realm of Flash. Because of this– and the fact that I have no desire to aquire or learn Flash– I’ve been unable to make my own widgets. This means I’m stuck using ones that have been designed and developed by other people, which I generally find to be lacking for one reason or another. Except for the Kane Approves! widget, which brings me nothing by joy.
I don’t really get why there’s not an embedded Webkit browser system in place. With a system like this, web developers could quickly and easily create new widgets using the HTML, CSS, JavaScript they already know in addition to the erver-side language of their choice.
Generally, I chalk this up to “I have enough stuff to do without messing around with Chumby widgets,” but that only partially works. I’m still left with a Chumby-widget-developer-sized hole in my heart.
Yesterday I found a new Dwarf Fortress tutorial linked to by Penny Arcade. I checked it out and it looks pretty solid, so I’m going to link to it here, since I have some friends that are trying to get into the game.
I do have a couple complaints about the guide, though. It suggests downloading a pre-rolled DF install that comes with a generated world and save games. This is pretty essential in order to follow along with the tutorial, which is fine, but they never do get around to teaching about finding a suitable location or using the embark screen, so you’re pretty much on your own once you start your own fortress and/or world.
My other complaint is that they start you off using a graphics set– and a crappy one in my opinion– immediately. I feel like using the original ASCII set, at least for a bit, is somewhat important, but that’s not the real problem I have. The graphics set they have you using is one, like many others, that replaces important letters, such as ‘O’, with a graphic. This means anytime the letter ‘O’ is used– in text on menus, for example– it’s replaced with whatever image they used instead. I really hate that and much prefer less obtrusive behavior from any set I use. Also, I didn’t see them explain this phenomenon anywhere.
Anyway, for those of you who prefer videos over text and screenshots, there’s an excellent video tutorial series on YouTube by captnduck. It’s a very long series, but it covers everything from the ground up, including world generation and the embark menus.
And last, but certainly not least, the absolute best place for Dwarf Fortress info is their wiki. The only downside to the wiki is that it’s most beneficial if you know what you’re looking for, which can be difficult at first. Follow one of the tutorials above, though, and you should have an idea of where you’re going.