Croquet

Intro

Basic croquet rules, as played by a bunch of uncultured Northerners. Northern-monkey terminology is in “quotes”:

There are two teams, ideally with the same number of people on each.

There are six hoops (“goals”), arranged in a 3×2 grid (central hoops are closer to each other compared to other pairs):

 ╭───╮                                  ╭───╮
 │ 2 │                                  │ 3 │
                   ╭───╮
                   │ 6 │



                     ↑




                   ╭───╮
                   │ 5 │
 ╭───╮                                  ╭───╮
 │ 1 │                                  │ 4 │

There’s also a peg in between the middle hoops.

Each team has one ball. This definitely is not how croquet is supposed to be played, but it makes things more fun and is also your only option if you have less than three balls available. Each team also has a mallet (“hammer-shaped thing”).

How to play (kinda)

Each team takes it in turn to hit their ball *once* with the mallet. Like in Pool. Also like in Pool, you get an extra shot if you score. “scoring” happens when you knock your team’s ball through the next goal. And if you do that, you get an (one) extra shot.

At this point, I should mention the actual flow we play:
One team (“us guys”) starts at hoop #1 and goes 1-2-3-4-5-6.
The other team (“you fat wasters”) either do the same which makes things more fun when you involve croqueting/roqueting (see below), but which is also not correct according to “the actual rules”. If you’re bothered about such things, then the other team goes 3-4-1-2-6-5, so basically the same pattern as the first team but rotated by π radians.

The objective is to go through your sequence of hoops TWICE (note: not quite correct, the order for the second time is slightly different according to “the actual rules”), then to hit the weird little peg that’s in the middle.

So each team is trying to score 12 goals hoops, then hit the middle peg to win. This also isn’t correct according to “the actual rules”, as there’s some point-scoring system involved too, but keeping track of points is difficult after 38 pints of stella so we apply some “UX design” to “the actual rules”.

Where it gets fun/daft/pretentious

This brings me onto the croqueting and roqueting crap. This is where the game sounds kind of pretentious and silly if you use “the actual names” for things. If on your turn, your ball hits the enemy’s your opponent’s ball, then it has made roquet on that ball and that ball is now fucked croqueted, and you get an extra hit. This extra hit is a croquet stroke and you start it by first moving your ball so that it’s touching the ball that you croqueted. Then you hit. If in this extra stroke, you hit and move the roqueted ball and do so without violating any of “the actual rules” then you get an extra hit.

Extra hits don’t accumulate though. If you hit the croqueted ball and also put yours through a hoop, then you only get one extra hit not two. If you roquet (“hit”) the other team (“enemy”)’s ball and also put yours through a hoop then you only get one extra stroke (but still get an extra one if you move the croqueted ball on your next stroke).

If you knock the other team (“fat bastard”)’s ball through a hoop then even if yours goes through, you don’t get an extra turn and instead they get a point (which doesn’t matter since we don’t do the “points” thing). You can substitute this “point” by requiring the fouling team to get in another round of stella.

And that, fellow monkeys, is not actually how you play croquet.

Also, if you go past a “goal” then you can’t just go through it in the opposite direction. You have to go behind it again and go through it in the “correct” direction, otherwise Zalgo will rise through the center and o̰̤̮̱̲h̖ ̻͞m̗̗̼͍̜̗̼y̫̜̪̰͔̣ ̷̰̝̦̙̘g͎͟o̜̝̗̪̼̹d̵̲͚̜̙ i̫̣̮̫͕̞t̩͓̹̖̹̤̰̼ ̡̪̭̗̼̭͠b̴̟͇͡u̮͇͎͔̺r̲͉n̰̼̱̻s̸̵̤̫̯̘̰̰͇ͅ ͈͘i̴̢͚̺̱̫̳͕͈ͅt͏̰͚͇̦͎͚̭̮̥ ̧҉̯̪̣̮b̨͖̯͔̼͔̤̺̝̭u̧̲̗͓͖̝͉͓͓r̗͙̬̟̺̫͓̟̼n̳̯͟͜ͅs̼̹ ͙͕̦̮̱̻m̧̬̺̲͍̹a̛̯̮̫͡k̝̠͈̕e͓͇̼̹̘̫̻ ̹̞̩i҉̧͙͔͖͟t͞҉͙̲͈̰͓͈̬̕ ̛̼͈̞s̘̠̱͎̠̀t̖̤͕͚̹͖́͠o͕̼̖͉̻͔̕ͅp҉̷͓͇͎ ̵̲̻͉̤̩̳̩̹͢i̷̗̪̪̣͕̬͇̳̻͎͚͔̩͎̯͡ ͏̦̳͔̞́͢c̴̵̟͓̱̣̻͖͉̪̭ͅà̴̳̟͔͚̺̩̩̖̯̰͔̖͟͟ͅͅn̵̴̨̥̫͉̗̤͓̙̻͕̠͚͔͟ṭ̹̱̺̭̪͢ ̛̮̣̳̦̭̞̼̺̀͜ţ̶͇̜̭͉̫̫̲̣́ͅa̷̫̣͍̺̫̟͍̦͇̤̳̕͡͠͠k̸̡̩̼͈͇̕e̸̘̝̻̯͉̟̰̙͎͇̕͟ ͏̶̡̥͇̝̬̦̱̭͔̞̙͍̟̳́i̧̛̜͎͈͇̕͘͢t̷͚̖͇̫͉͎̲̼̭̪̕͞ ̢̱͍̲͙͙̪̤̻̲͎̞͙̳̣͟a͏̴̢̟͚͇̠͙̫̹̰̬͕͖̗ǹ̷̸͕̼͓͖̳͇̗̠̫̜͢͞ͅy̴̡̡҉̼̦͔̪̦ ̷̨̢̡͇͚͕̭̮͡m̵̼͉͎̘͎̤̯̖͔͘ò̸̝͙̹͖̮̲͍͙̲̜̜͎̘̬̯̫͝r̢̛̻̹̘̪̩̼̘̮̟̯͘͜͢é̖̟̝͚͚̟͉͍̲͇͓̫͈̞̝͢͡

Knock 5 hours off Windows 7 boot time with this simple trick

Windows 7 boot time: five hours to five minutes in five steps

This is a blatant troll post, if you’re here via LinkedIn then you may wish to skip reading it 😉

The problem

I got a new laptop.  It came with Windows 7 pre-installed.  I hadn’t used Windows for a decade, with the exception of an old XP installation I keep around for running Adobe Illustrator and COD4:Modern Warfare.  I decided to give Windows 7 a try.

First two days with Windows 7

Day 1: It’s sluggish and the UX is a decade behind the times, but otherwise it seems ok.  Boot time was around a minute which is pretty poor for a clean system with no user meddling yet, but not terrible.  After a while, some dialog popped up telling me to reboot the computer.  This was annoying, but it gave me the option to postpone it for a few hours (note: postpone permanently would have been a better option).

Day 2: Turn it on in the morning to check a bus schedule, and I get this:

Windows 7 boot time hell

I hadn’t told it to update, and since I had tethered it via a 4G connection the day before, I was wondering how much of my data allowance it had burnt up downloading updates.

Linux systems* typically update when you tell them to and they install the updates in the background rather than hitting the user with this denial-of-service attach.  They don’t constantly pester you to restart the computer, nor do they also don’t forcefully restart the computer while you’re making a coffee, causing data loss.

* Excluding Ubuntu which may auto-update in the background.  Still, Ubuntu won’t hit you with DOS attacks or data loss as part of its update mechanism.

I’m a bit perplexed as to why Microsoft have decided that by design, their operating system should hit their users with denial of service attacks and potential data loss.

A few hours later when I got back home, it was still “configuring Windows”.  After quite a while, it rebooted.  Then I was greeted with this:

speedup-b

Another reboot followed, then more updating/configuring.  I don’t know how long this would have taken to finish, as I decided that I’d had enough of this proprietary crap… I powered the laptop off and removed Windows, then installed Arch and Ubuntu onto BTRFS with a shared home folder and automatic daily snapshot backups.

The solution

Use Linux instead?

Troll face

This Microsoft-originating denial of service attack also happened to another computer shortly afterwards.  The best solution for a home user is probably to just disable Windows Updates completely.  Sure you don’t receive security updates from Microsoft, but you also no longer get peroidically attacked by Microsoft either.  Accepting a low risk of being attacked in exchange for getting rid of a certain risk of being attacked.

This five-step process is quicker to do than the typical Windows 7 boot time, with or without Microsoft’s malicious updater enabled…

1. Start → Run (or Super+R hotkey)

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2. “services.msc”

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3. Find “Windows Updates” (or “Automatic Updates” on Windows XP)

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Double-click to open properties (or right-click, properties)

4. Disable the service

speedup-5

One would think that we could just mark it as “manual”, that way it will run only when we manually check for updates, but not when we’re on a mobile connection or when we’re streaming/gaming…  But as expected, Microsoft software does not do as it is told.  Leave it as manual and it will still occasionally burn bandwidth and pester you to reboot – but you won’t be able to manually check for updates as it will complain that the service isn’t started.

5. Stop the service

speedup-6

Hooray, that’s the biggest security vulnerability in Windows 7 (besides the OS itself) patched up 😀 And the Windows 7 boot time drops from five hours to five minutes 😀

But I can’t / don’t want to disable Windows Updates

Then instead find a similarly-minded friend…  You can play Hacky Racers with your windows 7 boot times!  Who’s machine will boot up first?  Extra ten points if it doesn’t do any reboots in the process!

Dual-core Sandy i5 with SSD (left) vs. Quad-core Haswell i7 with spinning metal (right)  Left won by ten minutes and two less reboots.

Snowman

Add a bouncing snowman to your page simply by cloning the stylesheet at github.com/battlesnake/snowman or by including the following tag:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://hackology.co.uk/snowman/snowman.css">

A snowman is added to any element with the class “snowman”. The element is fixed to the bottom of its parent, so they work best when snowman is applied to direct descendants of the body element.

Why not also try my pointless fish.js script?