Gonzo is a freeware, opensource editor that generated markdown code and shows the html result during typing.

Advantages

• most useful markdown codes supported in the interface
• very simple user interface, codes also reachable with shortcuts (like ctrl+1 for heading 1)
• relatively intelligent: if you press ctrl+2 while a level 2 heading is selected, it does not add an extra code (##) for level 2
• shows wordcount
• multiple open files at the same time is possible (tabbed file interface)
• it generates markdown files that are picked up by Leanpub and produce a nicely formatted ebook.

Limitations

• bulleted lists and numbered lists not supported from the interface
• no support for tables
• no buttons in the interface: all commands can be reached with menu items or shortcuts only
• more complex markdown codes like images and hyperlinks are inserted as a template only; you have to fill in the blanks yourself

What is GeneLab?

You are the master of a tiny universe. You have total control on life and death of a bunch of little creatures.

You start with a universe of 10 organisms. These will develop as you feed or shoot them.

When you “feed” an organism, it will survive and possibly have children. Its survival score will increase to indicate it fits your plan.

When you “kill” an organism, it will be removed from the universe. Each time an organism is killed, a new one is born.

New organisms are born

New organisms are formed this way:

• First, two parents are chosen at random from the gene pool of organisms.
• Then, the parent’s genes are mixed. This process is called “crossover” in genetic terms. A piece of the genetic material of parent 1 is combined with a piece of genetic material of parent 2.
• After the crossover, mutations can occur in the genetic material of the child. This depends on the amount of creativity you allow in your universe. One or a few genes will be changed at random.
• At last, in very rare occasions, strange errors can happen: deletion of a gene, insertion of a gene, or inversion of a string of genes. These new organisms can differ significantly from their parents. Crossover recombines existing genetic material, and mutations cause genetic renewal and genetic drift.

Genelab Manual

Start with a totally new set of organisms. All current organisms die and are replaced by a new universe.

Get an idea for a new organism. Genelab will propose an organism you must try to develop.

Ideas for experiments with Genelab. These experiments help you to discover the idea behind evolutionary theory.

Feed the current organism. Its health score increases and it may give birth to children.

Kill this organism. The organism is removed from the gene pool and replaced by a new one.

Switch to advanced mode. Opens up the second part of the screen.

In advanced mode, you can select organisms, open/save gene pools, export to excel, and change settings (amount of creativity, survival bonus, and the number of organisms to start with).

Where to download GeneLab?

Download Genelab (exe in a zip file, no installation necessary, only the exe is needed)

GeneLab 2.0 is freeware. Download and use at your own risk.

Full manual: http://leanpub.com/genelab

Markdownpad is a freeware text editor that generates markdown code and shows the html result during typing.

 Advantages

Markdownpad as an editor for Leanpub files?

• most useful markdown codes are covered
• preview shows what you probably will get after conversion to an ebook
• no need to know the more complex markdown codes (images and hyperlinks)
• very simple user interface
• It actually works: the file generated leads to a well-formatted Leanpub manuscript, at least in my little test.

Limitations

• does not cover everything: for example, bulleted lists are supported but not numbered lists
• image insertion: not possible to select a file (only relative or absolute hyperlink)
• not “intelligent”: when you twice press H2, the markdown code for H2 (##) is also generated twice
• not possible to link to places in the same document
• not possible to relatively link to places in another document
• no support for tables

Van de vroege jaren tot de rock van de eenentwintigste eeuw, van rock ‘n roll tot punkrock, jazzrock, bluesrock en grunge tot black metal, van illustere bands en groovy zangeressen: ze komen allemaal aan bod in Quiztig met Rock. Veel plezier ermee en laat alsjeblieft via de feedback-knop weten wat je ervan vond!

Download quiztig met rock hier. Gratis e-book in pdf-formaat (1 MB).

Andere uitgaven:

• Quiztig met Lier
• Quiztig met Wijn

Dat verhaaltje gaat zo. We stoppen een kat in een doos samen met een van de kat afgeschermd duivels mechanisme, dat een gifgas vrijgeeft als een meettoestel het radioactieve verval van een deeltje oppikt. Als dat gebeurt, sterft de kat. En nu komt de paradox: volgens de vreemde wetten van de fysica kan het deeltje tegelijk wel en niet vervallen. Dus: de kat kan op een bepaald moment tegelijk dood én leven zijn.

Vervangen we de kat door de drie niet-benoemde burgemeesters, het duivelsmechanisme door een automatische handtekening onder de benoeming van de drie, en de doos door een iets groter exemplaar, en de oplossing voor het politieke probleem is nabij. Elke partij kan dan aan haar achterban uitleggen dat de burgemeesters wél (of net niet) benoemd zijn, en daarin gelijk hebben op de koop toe!

Essentieel aan deze oplossing is wel dat we de doos niet mogen openen, want dan storten de quantumvergelijkingen in elkaar en zien we dat ze ofwel wél ofwel niet benoemd zijn. Dan is namelijk minstens één partij teleurgesteld en het Belgische compromis verbroken.

The game can be played with 3 to 6 players. If you want to play a competitive game, use two teams instead, each with their own deck of cards, and after each round, note points earned for each team.

Material

You need

• a deck of cards (normal playing cards)
• a piece of paper
• a pencil
• these game rules

Game preparation and the first round

Remove the jokers and any other special cards, shuffle the deck of cards and take one card for each player in the team. Put it face up on the table. These are the task cards.
Each player will now decide which cards he will try to score. He can choose to score on 1, 2 or 3 cards. Players tell each other what cards they will try to score this round.
Then hand three cards to each player, face down. These are the scoring cards. From the moment the scoring cards have been handed out, players cannot change their mind about what task cards to score on, neither change the number of task cards to score on.

Every player in turn will now put cards next to the task cards as follows:

• when the player announced one task card to score, he puts all three cards next to this task card.
• when the player announced two task cards to score, he puts two cards next to one of these task cards and the other scoring card next to the other.
• when the player announced three cards to score, he puts one scoring card next to each task card.

Players can see the faces of the scoring cards, so they can make decisions about what combinations would be best.
Also, players cannot give information about their cards or their strategy before it is their turn.

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The round score

After each player has put his cards on the table, the round score is calculated.

• If a task card has a face value between 1 and 5 (included), it needs one card from the same suit next to it to score.
• If a task card has a face value between 6 and 10 (included), it needs two cards from the same suit next to it to score.
• If a task card has a jack, queen or king as value, it needs three cards from the same suit next to it to score.

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After the round

After each round, count the score (one point per task card that can be removed) and remove the task cards and their scoring cards. Put the cards back to the deck, below the cards that were still there, if any.
Note the score and the total number of task cards for that round on paper.

Next, the players can vote whether to increase the number of task cards for the next round, to decrease, or to keep the same number.

Exception: the number of tasks for a given round cannot be below the number of task cards that were kept from the last round. For example, if no point was scored in a round with four task cards, participants cannot decide to decrease the number of task cards to three.

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The next round

The next round starts. Add task cards until the number agreed on is reached. Hand out three cards to each player and repeat the steps above.
Exception: if there are not enough cards in the deck to give every player three cards, hand out two cards (or one, if it is not possible to give each player two). During that round, players can score on only two (or one) cards.
Stop after round 10. Note down the total score and try to improve this score the next game. For the first games, you should be able to score about 7 points per player.

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The link with lean and Kanban

• Task cards are tasks: some are hard, some are easy, all must be done
• Scoring cards are people’s attention and energy
• The rounds are days
• The number of task cards on the table is the WiP limit

I met Alex Otterlei from the Dreamhouse Studio more than 20 years ago. Around that time, I was involved in role playing games. At the RPG shop, I bought a music cassette with fascinating music. Little did I know that the composer was in that same shop that very moment…

Unfortunately, I lost the music (I still have the box though). Three years ago, when chiro Lips organized a summer holiday camp themed “Arthur”, I knew I had to find that music again… It was not very difficult to find Alex on the web. He told me that he would re-release his old work soon. The moment has come: Arthur is available again, either as an MP3 download either at the iTunes store. All info at the Alex Otterlei website.

Contents of the CD

1 - Lady of the Lake

2 - The Coming of Arthur

3 - Hail to the King

4 - Camelot

5 - Merlin

6 - Lancelot’s Arrival

7 - Forbidden Romance

8 - Arthur’s Grief

9 - Riding out for the Holy Grail

10 - The Quest Begins

11 - Dragon’s Breath

12 - Mordred’s Madness

13 - Morgana

14 - The Downfall of Merlin

15 - To the Grailcastle

16 - The Holy Grail

17 - Return to Camelot

18 - Doommarch

19 - Last Battle

20 - Arthur’s Death

21 - Avalon

History of the CD

“Arthur”, composed between 1989 and 1990,  marked the start of Alex Otterlei’s career. Although initially the music was released on cassette (!), the album was received so enthusiastically both by press and audience that a record-deal and a CD-release soon ensued.

Many people throughout the world have been enthralled by “Arthur”, and the album became an instant-classic in the worldwide RPG-community who found the music very fitting during their fantasy-based game sessions.

Composer’s notes on “Arthur”

“From when I was a child, I had always been deeply moved by the legend of Arthur. In fact, anything about knights fascinated me, and the keen observer would find me wandering in the bushes outside our house, wearing full (plastic) armor, trying to spot my imaginary Dragon through correctional glasses. Guess I wasn’t missed in the football team…

At the end of the eighties, my circle of friends mainly consisted out of people who saw themselves as  Knights of the Round Table. Some of them took this so seriously they even came to our weekly gatherings in full (real) armor…”

“Yes, those were the days. After a while however, I detached myself again, feeling the need to do something more constructive than just sit and talk all night about Arthur. And so I set myself a huge task: translate this saga into music. Make your own Arthur.

And although upon looking back now after all these years, I can’t help but noticing the limitations of my musical and technical skills at that early stage, I am still struck by the genuine passion, the raw power and yes, even the magic that composing” Arthur” evoked in me.”

A.O.

Step 1: Download the Enterprise Architect profile “genealogy” here.

Download genealogyprofile here. Unzip the file in a separate folder.

Step 2: Installing the genealogy toolbox

Create a new model in Enterprise Architect called ‘MyFamily’ or something similar.

Then, in the Resources window (“View | Other Project Tools | Resources”), right click on profiles and select “Import profile”.

Import the profile you downloaded and unzipped in the previous step.

If all went well, you now have a toolbox “genealogy” showing up at the bottom of the “more tools” window. Open this toolbox. It has five icons which we will use in the next step.

Step 3: Using the toolbox to develop your family tree

For each family name, we will add a folder to the EA tree so we can group families together. This will become important when we start building the pedigree for our ancestors and relatives too. You’d be surprised how many persons you are related to, even in only the fourth or fifth degree.

Suppose you are Lucas Fields and you are married to Sophie Turner. You have two children, Eric and David. Let’s model that in Enterprise Architect. Add two packages (“Fields” and “Turner”) to the MyFamily model and add a diagram to each one.

Then open the Fields diagram and add yourself to it, by clicking the “male person” icon in the toolbox and clicking on the diagram. Type your name in the dialog window.

Now add your wife, Sophie J Turner, to the diagram. Of course we use the “female person” icon for that. Also add a “relation” and fill in the date of marriage. Click the “RelatedBy” icon, then draw the connection from yourself to the marriage and from Sophie to the marriage.

Now we also add Eric and David. We use the connector “BornFrom” for that: they are born from the relation between you and Sophie, so we will connect them with the marriage.

The result is like the following picture.

Step 4: Time to clean up our model!

• First, we’ll move Sophie to her own package: the Turner package we defined earlier.
• Then, we’ll drag the relationship under Lucas. That way, the first level of the tree contains only persons and it is easier to inspect. Also, we can find the date of marriage for people more easily.

The tree that results from these actions is like the picture below.

Step 5: Some more tips to use the genealogy toolbox

• When a person has an “official” name and a “calling name”, we can put the calling name in the “alias” field. That way, we can switch between the official view and the calling name view at diagram level (right click on the diagram, choose “Properties | Diagram | Use alias if available”)
• When people have children without being married, just leave the date of the marriage empty.
• Add more information about a person in the notes field. Useful information includes birth date, death date, place of living and so on. In the “files” section of the properties window, you can attach links like pictures, birth certificates and more.
• For each person, build a diagram with his or her parents, children and spouse and store it under the person’s name in the tree by dragging it there.
• For each family name, add a diagram with the family name to the package and use it to keep an overview of all persons bearing that family name.
• Use the function “Diagrams only report” to quickly generate an overview of your family.
• Use the function “HTML export” to build a website with the information you collected. Attention: when you want to publish the information, for example on the web, make sure you respect the privacy laws relevant to your country.

For more tricks with Enterprise Architect, consult the book.