Gonzo Granzeau

This is my list of useful programs I recommend.

Go to https://ninite.com/ and click the following applications, it will help install all of them, all of these are free forever, other than games you pay for on Steam.

• Chrome - My preferred web browser

• Malwarebytes - For single malware scans, NOT their antivirus, which I disable.

• Zoom - Needed for meetings

• Discord - If you're into gaming communities

• Pidgin - If you need jabber for some reason

• 7-zip - To deal with compressed files, like zips and rars.

• VLC - For playing videos

• Winamp -For playing music

• K-Lite Codecs - For playing videos

• CCCP - For playing videos

• Notepad++ - For editing text files

• PuTTY - For ssh

• GIMP - For fancy picture editing

• ShareX - For easy/automated screenshoting

• TeamViewer - For sharing your screen with only people you REALLY trust

• CCleaner - For cleaning up failed installs.

• Foxit Reader - For PDFs

• Steam - For playing games

• KeePass 2 - For password management

Other programs I recommend:

• Google Drive - for office stuff, the ability to share is too easy

• Sophos - my current Antivirus of choice, NEVER have to pay, just use the free version.

• Backblaze - My current backup of choice, costs me like $3 a month?

• Java (Oracle version) - I still use the latest Java version because minecraft reasons

• AnyBurn - For burning music/CDs/bootable drives

• Git - For gitbash, the current preferred unix-style prompt on windows I use

• Streamlabs OBS  - My preferred streaming client

• Plex - For streaming media to your TV

And finally all the dev toolstack I like:

• Kubernetes - My preferred containerization platform, I prefer the opensource version rather than AKS/EKS/Openshift/TKE etc.

• Kubernetes The Hard Way - My preferred method to learn kubernetes.

• k9s - A curses based maintainance platform

• KubeCTX - To switch kubernetes contexts/namespaces, gives you kubectx and kubens

• Kubeps1 - Unix formatted prompt for kubernetes toolkits

• vim - For editing. I'm sorry.

• Chocolatey - For windows based linux-style tools

• WireShark - For sniffing visualization

• TCPDump - For grabbing complete sniffs easily through a curses terminal

• Nagios - For simplified monitoring, connected to alerting

• NagiosGraph - For creating good rrds

• ElasticStack - ELK Stack (Elastic Search, Logstash, Kibana) is my preferred logging server, Kibana is too easy to use.

• Tons of other tools, I guess I should consider writing this more.

In the late 90's, I was working for GameSpy, supporting server lists and the chat system. I was invited to id software by Disruptor to alpha test Quake III Arena. Three actual celebrities were invited, Blue from BluesNews, Scary from Shacknews, and RonSolo, all of who ran large gaming news sites that were popular then. We were there for QuakeCon anyway, but they wanted to see how we did.

They put us and like 4 devs in standard deathmatch, like Disruptor, Tim Willits, and John Cash. I dominated for the first bit because I had the best video card machine, but was also a good rail gunner at the time. Most importantly, they were testing locational damage. So, if you shot a weapon in the head it would do extra damage. Because I was a decent rail gunner, was good at getting up close with a double barrel shotgun, and had been playing a lot of counter strike, I did quite well. They also had this weird red aura that would come from where you were shot, which was super annoying and huge, making it hard to see. I also remember being an annoying kid cause I was still young then, pretty sure I annoyed my IRC friend Disruptor.

Afterwards, Anna Kang and John Cash asked us what we thought of it. I really loved the engine, thought the game play was fun, pointed out that red armor didn't matter when you would head shot people with the rail gun, pointed to other games in the marketplace that did what they did a bit better. Anna seemed extremely appreciative, gave me a keychain that I still have to this day, and that was it, we went back to quakecon. I'm pretty sure they removed locational damage from Q3A because of me, because of that session, I know I annoyed everyone with my railgunning. John Carmack was there, I thanked him for the alpha test, we talked briefly about it because so many people were following him around. The real highlight afterwards was John Cash spotting me at quakecon and running over to me. That was very neat.

Most of this has moved over to https://www.wckg.net/, which is my New player helping site for Eve Online, check it out if you want to try it.

I've been playing Eve Online since 2005.  So as of this writing in 2021, I've been playing 15.5 years.  I have made some life long friends and made some mistakes and had a lot of fun.  My Killboard  reflects this.

While I'm nobody really, I sometimes have some things of note. 

• I'm actually proud of my Presentation on Role Specialization at Eve Vegas 2018 .  (I have started dressing as different characters from The Big Lebowski for eve Vegas, so I'm dressed as The Jesus.)

• I was in the Eve Careers Guide in 2007 as a 'famous cloaking specialist'. 

• As  full Goon director, I put up a station in multiple systems including critical ones like J5A and O2-N.  I was a logi director for Goons for six years, just after the second move to syndicate, and ending with WWB.

• I contributed quite a bit to the start of the TheMittanidotcom/Imperium News site that was the propoganda arm of Goons.   I was streaming regularly for them, would pull 500 people on twitch playing minecraft.

• After leaving goons, Bat Country in Pandemic Legion took me in, and I eventually became their CEO.  We then went to Pandemic Horde as people started getting real lives and Space Engineers/factorio/Tarkov came out. :D

• I run my own eve online overview, which around 7k people use currently.

• I have trained nearly every skill in the game to level 4, was every skill at one point.

• I also participated in multiple wars and have a bunch of minor things I'm proud of.  I was there with Shadoo (NSFW) 

  • I was at B-R5 and FC'd during that day to keep ProGodLegend, the Test CEO, camped in a system so he couldn't help out.

  • I was a prober and cyno during Asakai 

  • I handed out ships after sorting out who could fly what for a drop in D-W dread bomb , though Penif and others did most of the work, I took a lot of unearned credit because I'm obviously a meglomaniac.

  • I was in multiple ships in M2-XFE  and was stuck there a couple months but got out safe.

  • Other stuff I should add here.

  • I've flown with many major FCs.   My subjective current order of best FCs 2021 based on at least two fleets with them: Johnny Trousersnake, Mister Vee, Killah Bee, CeeCee Weebus, Hedliner, Mist Amatin,  Elise Randolph, Shadoo, Lazarus Telraven, Elo Knight, crowtree, Akasha Mayan, Nova Valentis, AlphaStarPilot, Deveron, 0Musky, Vily, Shutupandshave, chossuh, ProGodLegend, Securitas Protector, jacass66, en guarde, Capri Sun KraftFoods, penifSMASH, Reagalan, Gerold Cadelanne, Woodius Miles, Phreeze, poppi starfox, Travis Wells, Tau AD, Wrik Hoover, Adramelech Indra,  Travis Keikira, Jakaja Cain, Asher Elias, Tappits, Ron Mexxico, Grath Telkein, Alcoholic Satan, Jeffraider, Mukkbarovian, Doomchinchilla, Sister Bliss, (around middle of good/bad), apple pear, Sort Dragon, KColor, Avery Lewis, Jay Amazingness, Kendarr, Mactep, John Hartley, Urs Blank, Lucian James, SuperTwinky69, Vince Draken, Fawlty 7, Manfred Sideous, Jin'taan, Makalu Zarya, DBRB (if you discount the fun he has), SirMolle.

    • Ones I missed out on: Pandoralica, Lord Maldoror , Raist Varis,  Chronos VIII, Giselee, Garmon, Evil Thug, Wheniaminspace, Noobman, Kurator, UAxDeath, pk, Seleene, Canaris, Bjornbee, wargod

    • This list favors ones I flew with heavily or had fun with.  Note, some were early in their career, some late in their careers, some at their apex.  The off-brand FCs were often doing pick up fleets or struggling for numbers, so I'd be thrown in at the last minute, and that usually a bad time, so don't judge yourself too harshly.

    • This is searchable on google, so... if I included you, hey, you were pretty good to be remembered!

  • I've gotten a few decent kills.  Like tackling Lussy Lou  while he was streaming.  Or being called a a non-shit pilot by someone flying with xtrasquishy  and he was pretty rage-y afterwards.

I started in Beta actually in 2003.  I played for like three days?  I quit in a rage after I got concorded (killed by NPCs) while belt ratting when my missiles hit an asteroid and injured another player.  I thought it was silly since I had zero warning.  The interface was clunky, but it was 2003, so it was expected.

When I restarted at the end of 2005, I started to run hi sec missions and do some mining.  First minor loss was a navitas doing a courier mission to low sec.  First Vexor was to a belt ratter in low sec.   First Domi loss was to a guy named reaTh in Band of Brothers.  I was struggling with a mission, and a guy in BGG helped me.

My first 'real' corp was BGG.  This was run by a guy named jacass66.  He was my first FC and a great pilot. He taught me a lot.  We put up the O-2 station together.  We lived in Deklein for a long time as a pet for Dusk and Dawn.   Then we went to Outer Ring.  We lived with friends in Alkeraphboia and a Czech corp.   We did level 4 missions for ORE for good LP.   Then he got out of the game, and I waited around 4 years.

During this time, the best kill I've gotten in eve was done solo in a domi against a vaga, before the speed nerfs, and vagas were unkillable.   I was solo on a gate when 2 vagas and a curse attacked my domi.  Halfway through the fight, another friend in a domi came along, and the other vaga attacked him.  I killed the one vaga solo, and the other vaga was taken down by my friends, and the curse ran off.  It was the Band of Brothers pilot, and that BoB pilot had not been killed often, in fact, only 60 times.

After Jacass left eve, I went back to empire and did Level 4 mission running .  I could do AE4 in 45 minutes in a pimped out golem.  It was good isk for the time. :D  Thanks to the guys from eve-survival, it wasn't terrible exciting but good isk.

I was playing Diablo 2: Eastern Sun with the something awful crowd.  One of them was talking to me and said they were in eve too, so  I joined them.

I joined just as they moved back to syndicate after the big betrayal.   They had nothing, couldn't pay for POS stuff, it was a bad time.  We slowly moved up from Syndicate up towards Fade.  Then an alliance let us crash on their couch in Deklein.  By then, I was in the logi group, and made a director to help build a reaction farm.  I ran the reaction farm that sponsored the alliance for 5 months with another guy, Joe.  We eventually took over all of Deklein.  I  also ran 0Tec as well.   Insert history here.  I later I got publicly booted  by Goonwaffe because I thought someone I had seen a dozen times and stayed at my house a couple times had been reading private messages and wasn't a 'friend', but just someone to fuel his towers.  So it is what it is.

I moved over to Bat Country in PL in 2016.   Had a lot of fun there.  Then Hedliner took over and his line about me is in my bio.  He's a great FC, I enjoyed flying with him, but he really hated me.  Which is fine.  I had been dealing with 4 assholes a day in Goons, and now I was dealing with a single asshole who led the alliance.  When Bat Country nominated me CEO, it was clear we had to move.

I ended up getting us into Pandemic Horde in 2019.  It was a good fit for the ex-goon lifestyle.  I have to thank specifically Solock who sold me on this idea and I swear helped me.  I've been there for 2 years now, and really enjoying my time.  I've had two people be a jerk to me here so far, and one got booted and one left.

I will work on expanding on this at some point as more stories occur to me. I should link my friends so they find it when they search for themselves.   But it was a good time.

My name is Gonzo Granzeau aka 'Kismeteer' in a game I play called Eve Online made by CCP.  Eve is a 'sandbox' mmo.  "Kyle T" reached out to me in discord and asked me about what drives these narratives that happen in eve.  I like to tell new players that Eve is 90% boring, 9% okay, 1% pure excitement, because it is a slow moving game.  But nothing matches it when things really kick off.

But there are a couple key features that make Eve different.

• Everyone is in the same world, there are no 'shards', no instances.   This encourages people to build a name for themselves. Other games: Foxhole, Planetside.

• The game can scale to a number of players that is not found in any other game.  CCP holds two world titles for most players (6,557) and largest fight (8,825).  These fights happen organically, without any input from CCP.  It is always unclear if these fights will start, if they will escalate, if they will escalate again, and what happens next.  The only other game that comes close is maybe Planetside 2, which broke 1,283 players, while Eve regularly breaks 2k.

• Around 95% of all things in the game are built, used, and lost by players.  This caused a cyclical loop of activity, where things cause a 'butterfly effect' on every other thing in game.  Other games: Foxhole, Minecraft, Ark, Rust

• There is a concept of risk vs reward that doesn't exist in most other games. By risking more, you have a greater chance of reward.  When you die, you drop everything on you, allowing enemy players to claim those things.  The losses of individual ships can equate to hundreds of man hours of effort.  Other games: Tarkov, Diablo

• Spying is encouraged.  You are allowed to disguise yourself to gain an advantage in the game against other players. Because it is player driven, letting in an enemy can cause you to lose everything.  Other games: Minecraft, Rust

• There are no resets, no do overs, everything that happens is forever in the game.  The only reversals are the game bugging out, and are rarely done.  If someone comes and knocks over your sandcastle, it stays knocked over.  Your hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of spaceships are blown up.   Other games: ???

By combining these 6 aspects, you get a unique game, unmatched in the marketplace.   All the ore mined, to get the minerals, to build the ships,  to be flown by players, to be blown up  by players, all with very little help from CCP NPCs.  This can cause motivated players to pool together to make corporations, to make alliances, to make factions, to make massive groups of 50,000 people all pulling towards the same goal.  It also thrives on the idea of 'asymmetric warfare', where everyone shoots the weakest link to remove it.  People brag about 'wanting small gang' when they actually want is to gank helpless people.  

Let's take a theoretical example.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hmqyejCYU  is a video of the 'butterfly effect' that outlines one of these events. But this might be a more accurate representation.

1. I go out into a belt, mine ore with several friends, using ships and equipment built by players.  One of the players, we'll call AG, decides that he did most of the work and isn't being rewarded enough.

2. We refine that ore to make minerals, often in a player-created citadel, but maybe an NPC owned station.  There is a minor tax associated with that, paid in minerals.

3. We sell some of the minerals to buy other products.  We think of a plan!

4. We buy a Blueprint Original from a CCP NPC, or more likely for a small scale enterprise, a blueprint copy from a player.

5. We use that Blueprint to create a citadel in space, a safe space to dock.

6. During this entire process, AG thinks the citadel should be named after him, and gets mad when we disagree.

7. AG contacts a couple friends outside the group, and asks 'hey can you come reinforce this citadel? I want to see what happens!'

8. We are taken aback, unaware of AG's actions, and mount a defense of this structure after the first cycle.  We contact experienced pvpers, mercenaries, who show up when it's done.

9. However, because AG knows our plans, he contacts the enemies of those experienced PVPers, who will show up to shoot the mercenaries we hired.

10. When the fight kicks off, it's small, a small fleet, maybe bombers.

11. Then a small group of cruisers to shoot the bombers and defend the citadel.  Then a full fleet of HACs show up to shoot the cruisers. 

12. Then a HAW dread.  So dreads are dropped to kill the HAW dread, along with a carrier. 

13. Then supers are dropped.  Then titans are dropped.  Doomsdays are flying across the field.  During the fight, AG renames the citadel 'AG Wins'.

14. At this point, this battle is out of control.  Byigger and bigger ships causes everyone in all of eve to say 'holy crap big fight going on here'.  All of eve escalates, running to that system to do whatever is best for their group, but mostly to shoot spaceships.

15. AG reveals that they should have just named the citadel for him, and uses this to launch his own corporation to fight us.  Some of our friends go with him, but most just hate each other forever for a minor betrayal. :)

16. Hey guys, remember that fight of AG Wins?  That was crazy.  Repeat this story from the POV of 2,000 different players.

17. Or maybe everything just kind of ends at step 8. or 11.  You just don't know where it might spiral into, it's uncertain, and that's the real beauty.

There are similar story lines in CCP's video 'I Was There' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxSyv4LC1c     though the Shadoo version is more accurate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zMKXTJL35g 

Minecraft has a lot of similarities to Eve style.  Everything is player mined and built, you risk your diamond armor to get greater rewards, you can play on very large servers with a couple hundred, and a spy can get access to your cache of diamonds and steal everything.  But it is sharded more than any other game out there, with most playing on 2-4 people together rather than 150 on a daily and constant basis.

Tarkov has the idea of actions having consequences and trusting players who might betray you, but nothing is forever, you can easily change names, and cheating is mainly present in the sense that there are wallhacks and aimbots.  And is limited to around 8 players at most, has frequent wipes due to the problems they're experiencing, and does not have things 'escalate' because everyone starts at once and everything is over in 45 minutes.

Foxhole is maybe one of the closest games, with a much smaller subscriber base of 2k-ish simultaneous versus Eve's peaks of 20k-ish.  It has a player driven economy, has meaningful actions, and has a semi-spying acceptance, though it's being suppressed.  It doesn't have the 'reward' aspect down, and does regular wipes because there is an end game.  You can risk tanks, but the loss of that tank can be replaced in a few hours of work.

Anyway, this is now long enough that I'll just post it as an essay on my website. :)  Let me know what you think.

Yes, I'm addicted to Minesweeper. I know it's lame, but it's so much fun!

I used to play the regular windows version, but that loses variety really quickly. Anyway, a friend bought me a copy cause he knew I enjoyed it so much, and I've been racking up scores quickly. I play between 1 and 7 hours a week. It's a good 'relax' program while checking mail and such. In fact, I enjoy the game so much that I'm going to host some info on the program written by Bojan Urosevic. He wrote a program called Professional Minesweeper (ProfMine) that has alternate layouts. It's a great alternative to the same thing over and over again. I've put the board names at the bottom.

I've been playing this version for around 17 years, hosted the first 'fan' page of it, and think Diamond is still one of the hardest games to play.   It's a good way to shut my analytical brain off and just do something mechanical with it.  After I recently broke a record of mine, I resurrected this page from my old server.

If you would like a reg code, contact Bojan at space-ewe.com

Download it! from http://www.minesweeper.info/

Download from granzeau.com

If you would prefer a more mainstream version, I recommend you try the online version at http://minesweeper.io/.    It is a lot of fun to see how different skill levels translate.