2010: Odyssey Two

This is a classic, and I figured it was a good year to read it. I also read 2001: A Space Odyssey in 2001. This book has been out for nearly 30 years, so I don't feel bad about the spoilers below.
I really enjoyed this, and I wasn't expecting to. I think it is actually some of his better work. It starts off with a bit of politics, of course US vs Russians which is obviously wrong for the set year, but hey, who knew? However, the Chinese are involved and showing both the other superpowers how to get things done. And that is right on the money. The politics doesn't drag it down though (unlike the film) and in fact it is pretty positive in that respect.
Early on in the mission, they discover aliens living in the seas of Europa. That is cool. They are more dumb creatures than stereotypical intelligent humanoids, and the encounter is strangely compelling and well done.
Then the Russian ship with the Americans finally makes it to Jupiter orbit to recover Discovery (from 2001) and investigate the monolith. They are disappointed with not finding anything useful. Then the real fun begins. Bowman returns and appears to Floyd to tell the crew to get go home early as something wonderful is about to happen. And then the monolith goes all exponential on them, converts Jupiter's atmosphere into a more dense material, and causes it to ignite in fusion producing a second star in the solar system. That is cool.
And then there is a pleasing epilogue where the aliens of Europa have evolved and are sentient, and are protected from the nasty humans by monolith death rays. Or something. Cool!
All good fun.

Renaming blog tags

How to rename a blog tag across a bunch of posts, all at once.
Tops.

Eclipse Phase

Rich ran a game of Eclipse Phase for us the other night, and it was excellent. It really was a breath of frsh role playing. We weren't too concerned about the rules, and they seemed pretty mechanics light anyway, which was fine with us.
I played a swarmanoid, which is a collection of very small robotic components driven by my uploaded intelligence. I specialised in hacking, and enjoyed hacking the ship we were on to open and close airlocks to let my friends in and out of a ship under attack by a nano-cloud-virus-thing. Cool!

Nova War

I just finished reading Nova War by Gary Gibson.
This continues the story of Dakota from Stealing Light. In that book I was pleased at the strong ending, noting that the end of Against Gravity sucked a little. Unfortunately, the end of this book was also very flat, but it is clearly a lead in to the third in the series, which I have high hopes for. When Gibson is writing well, it's really really good, and chunks of this book go there. I get the feeling though that this book and the next should really be just one novel. Sometimes writers get screwed by the publishers like that.
Anyway, there was plenty of big action, but I'm going to hold off on a final decision until I've read Empire of Light.

This is Not a Game

I recently finished reading This is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams.
This was a really good read, blending a few of my favourite subjects. Dagmar is an alternate reality game designer, and this book follows her story as she builds up the game and garners more and more participants to the action. Obviously with this sort of story, the line between what is real and a game becomes blurred, but the story is so much more than that. There's some really cool software involved!
This isn't set too far in the future, in fact, could be set within a few years, which makes it just a little scary. The action is well paced and the characters are really interesting.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Freeman Dyson on Global Warming

I've just found a very interesting lecture by the legendary physicist Freeman Dyson.
There is a video here, and some of the text here.
My favourite contribution from Dyson is of course the Dyson Sphere.
Anyway, in this lecture from 2005, he is reminding us that heretics in science are important and that we shouldn't always blindly believe the common popular view. He goes on to try to put the problems of global warming into some perspective to try to pull us away from the current popular hysteria in the media. It really is worth a read.
(thanks to Neal Asher who linked this recently)

Help!

Ubuntu won't boot after I upgraded it to 10.10.
If you know anything about this and can help me, here's the support link.
Arrrrgh!

Transition

I just finished reading Transition, but Iain Banks.
It's a little bit different this one, not his usual SF style, and probably why the M is missing from his name. Transition is a lot more fantasy, set in a Multiverse where it is possible for individuals, who are Aware and have access to the drug Septum, to flit between parallel universes. Each parallel universe can be anything up to very slightly different to radically, but plausibly different, but still restricted to the Earth, or whatever it's called locally, and however the continents and nations happen to have formed.
The story is quite complex and involves many different characters, each developing in separate chapters and at least in the beginning seemingly independent. It was challenging trying to work out how they would relate, and who you should identify with, but in the end all pans out satisfactorily.
Lots of murder, assassination, torture, and sex, so that was fun.
Interesting.

Flash Fiction: The Handshake

I'm pleased to announce I've had a work of flash fiction published at AntipodeanSF, The Handshake.
I hope you like it, I put it together and submitted it on a whim. Even though it is very short (max 500 words) I enjoyed writing it and the process of submitting it was interesting in itself, there was even some editing involved. A new experience!

[update: updated the link to point to the archive]

PaizoConOz Day 4

Day 4 started well. Had breakfast, stored bags, went to the Con. Then we spent the next 9 hours playing a two part Pathfinder session run by Seb, and thoroughly enjoyed it. During this time it became apparent that the Virgin Blue Fiasco was firmly in place, and trips home were looking unlikely.
We decided to turn up to the airport anyway, as we couldn't find out on phone or internet what the situation was, so hired a large taxi for the nine of us, and off we went. Well, it should have been that easy, but first we had to get the motel to get our bags, the taxi driver went the wrong way and then we got stuck going round the one way system, but finally made it to the motel to get the bags, however it would have been quicker to walk.
We piled all the bags into the taxi, and after some negotiation with the driver on the best way to go, eventually turned up to chaos of Brisbane Domestic. Bit of a nightmare, but it seemed our flight was going out on time. Could we be that lucky? Not entirely. Before we find outo about the flights, we realise we have an extra bag with us from the motel that no one will lay claim to. Oh Bugger. I had a brief conversation with manager that didn't go so well, and told him we'd call back after we checked in with a plan.
As Rich turns up to the counter to represent the group, he's told there are only four seats left. "You have got to be shitting me" was my response. Not cancelled, not delayed, no all or nothing, but a cutoff right down the middle of the group.
As gamers say "Never split the party."
We split the party. There was very kind agreement that those with work tomorrow (surprisingly few) should take the seats. And I have to thank those again that stayed behind. Rich, Al, Phil, and more - thanks very much.
As you may imagine, the stray bag was returned with those staying an extra night.
And now we can confirm the existence of the PaizoConOz Exit Curse, given last years trip to the airport was also a complete nightmare. Worryingly, the power of the curse seems to be getting exponentially worse every year, this year affecting thousands of people.

PaizoConOz Day 3

Gah. 15 hours D&D straight. So very tired. Good day though.
--
Sent from my mobile device

PaizoConOz Day 2

Two sessions today, both with my 5th level Inquisitor. Awesome, though
both tough. Hoping to use a new wand of web tomorrow. 3 sessions, 14
hours tomorrow. Cruisy night tonight, curry and wine, whisky now.
--
Sent from my mobile device

Day 1. PaizoConOz

Day 1 PaizoConOz.
Cruised into Brisbane about 4.
Went for a curry, then into game at 7pm. All the games were low level
so grabbed a 1st level pregen and straight into it. Now off to the pub.
--
Sent from my mobile device

Blake's 7

Just finished watching the final of Blake's 7. Wow - I totally wasn't expecting that. I'd heard it was a good ending, but no one spoiled it for me, which is pretty amazing since this first aired in 1981.
If you want to know what I'm talking about, go here. This wiki article later claims this final episode as an "unresolved cliffhanger". I can't think of anything unresolved here. It is OVER.
I really enjoyed it anyway.
I think one of my favourite episodes was S4E10 - "Gold". This is the only episode in which Servelan gets one over the crew, and it's a double whammy as well, with the reveal only happening in the last minute. While the rest of the crew are devastated, Avon gets this massive grin on his face, and laughs maniacally until the credits roll. It's just beautiful. He really is quite unhinged by the end of series 4, and by far my favourite character.

First eBook finished

Just finished reading my first eBook, Zendegi, on the Kindle app on iPad.
I was expecting it to be a little tiring reading on the iPad, but it wasn't my eyes that gave me any problems. The iPad screen is totally fine for reading in my opinion. I'm not even sure I would find e-ink that much better now. I found that once I adjusted the brightness of iPad to suit the conditions, it was great. Kindle has an extra slider for in-app brightness control as well, which is handy.

No, the biggest issue I had was the weight of the iPad, it's 600g or so, and you need two hands to hold it, so I guess it is like reading a decent sized hardback. If you are holding it up in front of you, it can get tiring. However, if you have it resting on your lap, or a pillow on your lap, it is actually more comfortable because turning pages takes only the slightest, smallest thumb jab, or swipe, rather than the wristy physical page turn of a real book.
I was using the Kindle app rather than iBooks, because iBooks has zero content in Aus, and the Kindle app is really nice as well. Touch a word, and you get instant in-page dictionary lookup, and if it is not a dictionary word, there is a link to Google to start a more detailed hunt for meaning. The page turning animation is not as cute, but I think that might get tiring after a few hundred pages, and the Kindle slide is really good.
One difficulty I had was that you don't have an immediate sense of what page you are up to, and in fact the pages aren't even numbered, because it depends on what size font you use. Instead, you can get a percentage done in the menu mode, but a tap away. It just feels a bit wrong not knowing how thick the book, or how many pages you have read.
The other thing I will miss is that now I can't display a physical reminder of the read on a bookshelf in the lounge room. Maybe I could make a cardboard box of the right dimensions and print out the cover and spine to paste on it.
Given it is cheaper, and in many ways better, I don't think I'll be going back to physical books unless there are supply issues, but that seems to be getting better all the time.

Zendegi

I just finished reading Zendegi by Greg Egan.
Zendegi is a very believable near term future novel. It spans 2012 to 2030 or so and covers the rise of intelligent software based on scans of human brains. Much of it is set in the online virtual gaming environment, Zendegi, which drives the development of intelligent software. Quite plausible, and really gives you something to think about in terms of the transition of clever software to possibly sentient software. Having a gaming environment drive the requirement is pretty obvious as gaming has been a major driving force in software and required hardware since inception.
Much less of the hard core physics from Egan in this book, and generally it is much more accessible. It is also quite interesting from a current events view as well as it is mostly set in Iran, and covers changes in Iran and its politics over the period.
Very interesting, but ends a bit flat, although full of possibility.

The Greatest Show on Earth

I just finished reading The Greatest Show on Earth, by Richard Dawkins.This is Dawkins latest book in which he outlines the evidence for evolution. When you hear this, you might think that
a) Hasn't he done this before? and
b) Surely this is a done deal, why is he banging on about it?
To answer a), previously he has outlined the how of evolution (Climbing Mount Improbable), why evolution is a better fit to explain history than God (The Blind Watchmaker), and some books about how genes work (The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype) but this one goes through the existing evidence for evolution being actually true, whereas in the other books it is taken as an assumption.
To answer b), and he covers this in depth, that in particular in the USA, around 40% of people don't believe in evolution at all, and even in many other Western countries it can be around 20%. That is unnerving.
So if you are interested in how we know that evolution actually occurred, this book takes you through in usual Dawkins glorious detail what the evidence actually is, and that it doesn't all hinge on a few fossils. I was quite interested to go through the whole Missing Link counter argument and see that there just aren't any, and that we actually have a really good fossil-record coverage.
Some of the arguments against the Intelligent Design theory are quite amusing. I was fascinated to learn about a particular laryngeal nerve (brain to larynx) that in all mammals, runs from the brain, wraps round near the heart and goes back up the neck to the larynx. There's a good evolutionary explanation for why this is so, but if you attributed it to a designer, it would be more a case of Unbelieveably Stupid Design. Think Giraffe.
Then there is the decade long experiment showing some bacteria actually evolving, showing them becoming more efficient at consuming glucose, and even evolving the ability to consume a citrate for energy in restricted resource conditions. Amazing stuff.
I'll admit that I did speed read and skip over some sections, because he's really preaching to the converted, but to get into actual detail about things like the above, and radioactive clocks, carbon dating etc was really interesting.

Improving drainage

We have an open water drain that runs under the house, and as a result the garage and rumpus room can get quite damp and musty as the ventilation isn't very good. To rectify this, step one was to fix the open drain by replacing the old loose terracotta drain segments with 10cm Ag pipe, then covering the lot with a ton of blue metal. My poor programmers hands suffered, but I felt good about it afterwards.
Pictures!

 

Orbus

I just finished reading Orbus, by Neal Asher.
Orbus is the third Spatterjay novel, although none if this takes place on that planet. Orbus is an Old Captain, a long time infectee of the Spatterjay virus, which turns biological creatures into super tough, effectively immortal creatures. The longer you have been infected, the tougher you are, and Orbus has been infected for a very long time. He has to be careful around normal people, shaking hands alone is fraught with danger.
But then, there's also a Prador, Vrell who was more recently infected by the virus, but Prador are inherently tough, being huge alien crab-like creatures.
The story takes us quickly into the no-mans land between the Human Polity and the Prador Kingdom, where the warships of each side are not permitted, and the rest of the novel is one long violent spatterfest. Brilliant, and thoroughly enjoyable violence, mostly involving the spattering of giant crabs, but the Polity war-drone Sniper also takes a massive beating.
New technology originating from the Jain, and further fleshing out of Prador politics and history adds interest and deeper flavour than the spatterfest would suggest, and the pace of events leaves you constantly turning pages.
This is now my favourite Spatterjay novel, even over the excellent The Skinner.

Blogging Less

You may have noticed. I've been writing here less. I blame my slate. I just spend much less time in front of the PC now. Hopefully, as I'm getting used to having it, I'll feel less like I want to use it all the time, and more like it's just available whenever I need. If that makes sense. The games are such massive time wasters, but I think at some point the novelty will wear off and I'll go back to more constructive things. I should look more into Cocoa Touch, and perhaps write something for the iPad, but then no idea has particularly inspired me yet.

iPad Review

I've now spent a week with my 64Gb WiFi iPad. I'm just going to cover here what I think is important, so if you want more information there are plenty of detailed reviews around.

Standout:
Casual browsing of the web on this device from the couch is simply awesome. The finger navigation is so natural, fluid and much more relaxed than mouse usage and clicking. The screen in general really is gorgeous.

Good:
Playing free and very inexpensive games that rely on touch and accelerometer use is great fun. It's a whole new experience that is so different from a DS Lite or a PS3 or a PC. This will probably wear off, but it's novel and just plain fun.
The typing in landscape mode is really quite good, but I'm still getting used to the autocorrect and prediction. You really have to look at the keys though because there is no feedback for what you are pressing. I wouldn't want to type a long blog post on it yet but maybe after more practice it will be ok. It's really good for short messages. Facebook is brilliant on this device and I don't think it even needs an App. Reading news is great, especially via the new "The Australian" app, which is excellent. The AirVideo app is brilliant, because it streams DivX and Xvid video from my PC into the iPad, and can also convert and add to iTunes for loading in iPad format. Battery life is closer to a phone than a laptop which is excellent. I use the iPad stand from Apple to browse news while eating breakfast. That's sweet.

Bad:
While I love the look and feel of the brushed aluminium back, it scratches really easily. I've put an Invisible Shield on it today to protect it. This should also help with grip, as it is a little slippery, and you do NOT want this to slide off your lap onto the floor. Ever. Safari just isn't as customisable as Firefox, and I miss that, especially not being able to block ads. The App Store is bloody slow. Apple needs to boost their servers. It's bad in iTunes, it's bad on iPad. Also, iTunes on PC is unintuitive, slow and hangs. It needs a complete rewrite.

Yet to see:
The glass screen seems really robust, and some reviews have shown it is actually hard to scratch, so I may hold off putting the Invisible shield on the front, until I see what the shield surface is like on the back after a week.
I'm yet to see what the long term reading of iBooks is like. The text seems perfectly fine to me, good, high resolution, and the screen brightness is nicely adjustable to conditions. I'm yet to see if my eyes suffer after reading for 90 minutes. Be good to see actual recent books for sale in iBooks too.

Android 2.2

Looks like Android 2.2 (FroYo, for Frozen Yoghurt) is looking really good. Not only is there a massive increase in speed, but this is the clincher for me: it can provide a Wi-Fi hotspot. On Friday, I should get a Wi-Fi only iPad, and didn't bother getting 3G because I just wouldn't use it often enough to justify the extra cost, and then having to pay for an extra data contract. No. However, if my next phone is Android 2.2 capable, I can just tether it to the phone's connection via Wi-Fi. That's just friggin awesome.
Today Dad showed me his brand new HTC Desire and damn, it's sweet. With FroYo, I could easily be swayed in this direction for the next phone. For now though, my Nokia E61 struggles on. Maybe it will throw a rod or something soon...

Day of the Triffids

Just read Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, and even read a print from 1960 complete with pages falling out.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Written in the 1951, it hasn't really aged. The only thing that dates it is the very reserved English prose and conversation, which you really don't find in more modern novels. Given the situation, some of the good British stiff upper lip is almost amusing.
I found it interesting that the Triffids really aren't the centrepiece of the novel, and really, could have been replaced with something else, and have had the same effect. The main concept of the novel is that all but a very small proportion of the population of the world go blind one night, whilst watching strange green lights in the sky, possibly some sort of comet. The novel is really about how those remaining deal with the situation, and struggle to survive amidst lack of power and food etc, but also the political and ideological struggles and conflict as they come to terms with how best to move on and try to survive as a species.
Much of it was really quite disturbing, with wide spread suicide, murder, plague, and generally everything going to hell. Then of course, you throw Triffids into the mix, and it really spices things up. Triffids are plants that can uproot and walk around, but also have a deadly stinger on the end of a long lash sprouting from their tops. Not so bad if you can see them coming, but then they also become a much larger menace as they are free to multiply, and humans are not.
Well worth the read.

T-Hub Thumping.

I've been having a look at the Telstra T-Hub as a friend of mine mentioned it. It is essentially a touch screen phone base station, but it communicates over wifi with your network. Actually, it has to use wifi, there's no hard line connection and it only works with a Telstra HomeLine or broadband connection. It doesn't use VOIP, which I find really weird, but clearly Telstra are trying to get people back onto its copper lines. That's not going to work. Copper lines are dead except for DSL, and with any luck a fibre network will get rid of those.
The actual device looks like a half decent touch screen, the same as the Tabbee, only Telstra have crippled it. OK, it does web surfing via Opera, and does Youtube and a few other tricks. It's $300 and you have to use a Telstra connection. Vomit. Get a cheaper broadband connection with a wifi router, use VOIP and get a decent tablet.

Portal is teh Awesome.

Portal is teh awesome. And now it's free. So download before it's too late. I just played the first 18 levels or so. Brilliant.

iPad AU Bend Over Pricing Factor: Zero.

Excellent. Thanks Apple. Recently I suggested $AUD 895 a zero Bend Over Factor for the 64Gb iPad in Australia. It will be $879. It's actually lower than my estimate, but I was being conservative on the shipping front, so if I had chosen $23 for shipping, I would have had it spot on.
I guess I'll be pre-ordering tomorrow then.

[update - done. 64Gb wifi iPad in the pipeline]

[update - 3 days later, looks like the first batch are gone. Next ship date is June7. This report seems wrong as my details show it is still due to arrive on May 28]

Prepare for the flip.

We're going to see some big changes in the way we use computers in the next few years. Most consumers, when not at work, just aren't going to need full desktop workstations like we do now. I'm including Mac, Windows, and Linux here, desktop, mouse driven workstations. The vast majority of stuff we do while not working, at home, is consuming content with occasional writing, tweeting, email etc. Yes, there are always going to be people at home who want to produce more, either writing, programming, video, whatever, but not most.
Replacing the desktop for consumption will be touch based mobile devices. Phones and tablets. Mouse based operating systems just don't work well in this environment. Operating systems designed from the ground up for this purpose are going to drive this. We've seen the iPhone prove this, and iPad is pushing it further. Android can compete, and in the next couple of years we'll see others try, including Microsoft's Phone 7 OS, and the competition will really make mobile computing explode. I suspect the heyday of laptops and netbooks is gone too.
Content producers, workers, are going to be using desktop workstations for a while yet. You just need a bigger surface, better multitasking and more input richness than a mobile device can provide. Personally, I think Windows 7 is really good in this space, but that's a religious war for another day.
Still, this is bad news for Microsoft and Intel, unless they can move in this direction faster. Microsoft may be able to follow Apple with Phone 7, but they are three years behind at least, with another six months until anything happens. Intel just don't have anything decent for mobiles, ARM has it all over them.
It's going to be all Apple and Google in a few short years. Let's see what HP can do with Palm and WebOS.

[Update - some iPad experience showing exactly this]
[Update - TechCrunch calling it the Third Wave, this site agrees with the threat to Windows]

Shadow of the Scorpion

Just finished reading Neal Asher's Shadow of the Scorpion.
An excellent insight to, and deepening of Asher's main Polity character, Ian Cormac. This is a twinned and then intertwining tale of Cormac of him at age 8 or so, and as a young man just having joined ECS, Earth Central Security. Everyone's parents shape their lives, and in Cormac's case, probably more than usual in a sense.
I particularly enjoyed seeing how a young, little trained Cormac gets out of some fairly bleak situations as we see how he starts to develop into the character we love in the other Cormac novels. Damn, he's one hard bastard when he needs to be, but we also see him suffering, and wondering about his hardness too.
Gore. Classic Asheresque gore. Unrelenting violence. Destruction. CTD explosions. Finishing with a fantastically gruesome death of the baddie. What's not to like?

Upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx

I upgraded my Ubuntu domain server to Lucid Lynx. The upgrade went fine, and there are lots of little incremental improvements, which is great. What isn't great is samba not starting properly when the machine boots. I've found some references to this. Hopefully there will be a bugfix coming. Annoying.

How to fix Windows XP after using McAfee

McAfee borked your computer?

Install Free AVG. McAfee has been rubbish for a long time. I've personally seen it let through some nasty malware recently.
First, you'll need to fix your PC though.

Dragon Coast: light vs dark

Dragon Coast continued last night, and we started with a long discussion on mechanics of light (Pathfinder RPG rules). Some of the interactions between light and darkness spells aren't particularly well explained, but we came to an agreement on the topic before starting the session. Which was lucky, because the characters were affected by magical darkness for most of it. Well, not that lucky, as none of them actually used any significant light spells to counter it, so we didn't need our revised light/dark interaction mechanics.
Generally darkness spell effects are pretty weird, and even using the usual "it's just magic" explanation, it's hard to relate these to the real world. I think we agreed at one point that darkness spells used some sort of anti-photons to produce their effects. We shied away from the whole anti-photon hits a photon interaction discussion. In the end, it's just game mechanics, and doesn't matter.
Rule clarifications are:

• dark/light spell effects suppress any light/dark spells of lower levels in their area of effect
• dark/light spell effects and light/dark spell effects of the same level suppress eachother in their overlapping areas of effect, leaving any lower level and natural light or darkness spell effects in effect.
• dark/light spells can be used to counter or dispell light/dark spells of equal or lower level at time of casting.

Also

• standard ride checks apply when using a Phantom Steed (spell) except for "Control Mount in battle" as it wouldn't get spooked by battle, and "Fight with a combat-trained mount" as it isn't combat trained.

Also,  First Character Death. Thanks Taedor.

Flash Fiction: Colourblind

Pick of the month : Colourblind byDr. Michael Schaper.

Dragon Coast campaign restarts

The Dragon Coast campaign I'm running restarted on Tuesday night. The session notes are up. We're still missing a character, but hopefully he'll start this week.
Naturally the first encounter was complex and difficult to manage, but we seemed to get through it smoothly enough, with the PCs kicking ass.

iPad Shenanigans

Damn it. Delayed again. Resetting the clock.
Q and Data have one already.
Details May 10.

Singularity's Ring

I just finished reading Singularity's Ring by Paul Melko.
This is Melko's first novel and it's a very good read. The central character is a pod of five people semi-joined in their consciousness. As the individuals are engineered for their abilities, it makes it important to the story that they are quite different with varied abilities. This is reminicent of a D&D game where you have to carefully balance a party to be equipped to deal with anything existence can throw at you, and certainly produces good character separation and definition.
There were some really good new ideas in the novel, I enjoyed the use of the Singularity in the novel, although it was really just used to form the environment/world rather than affecting the plot. The way that pans out is cool, but I won't spoil it, although I thought it was predictable.

iPad AU Bend Over Pricing Factor

Apple has to release pricing for the iPad in AU soon. I'm guessing this friday or soon afterwards. The big question is "What will the Bend Over Pricing Factor be?". Looking at the $USD 700 iPad, converted to AU is around $AUD 780, add GST to AUD $856, add some token bulk shipping cost, and lets call $AUD 895 a zero Bend Over Factor. I reckon the BOF could be as high as 30%, which would be $AUD 1160 or so. If the BOF is significant, I'll just look into getting a friend in the US to send me one. Come on Apple, don't make us bend over.

Caprica: It's not over yet

Rumours are swirling of the Great Cancelling of Caprica. But it's not true. No. It can't be.

Ubuntu DNS super slow

Problem finally fixed! This has been annoying the hell out of me for weeks.
It turns out the problem was with my
/etc/nsswitch.conf
file, which had the following entry
hosts: files wins dns
and I changed it to
hosts: files dns

That is, Ubuntu was trying to resolve hostnames using a WINS server before trying DNS. I don't even have a WINS server, so obviously this causing massive delays in resolving any name, making web browsing interminable.


Fixed.

Flash Fiction: The Cats

My pick of the month. The Cats, by Julie Cohen Wornan.
Good stuff.

7 TeV Day

March 30 is 7 TeV day.
It seems a very complex process getting LHC set up just right, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are some delays, but it should be damn exciting for those involved. Of course, the LHC is rated up to 14 TeV collisions, but they are restricting themselves to half for this year to make sure they get some results without things going boom again.
Get the daily inside news here. It's pretty terse though.

More campaign work

Tired now. I've spent all evening spending a load of gold pieces on equipment and magic items for the "bad guys" of my Dragon Coast campaign. The Magic Item Compendium is great. I've even written flavour text for the meeting of each "bad guy". We hope to start playing this in a few weeks, so I've still got a little time to sort out the first few sections of the adventure to be ready for play. It's getting there, I still need to sort out a few encounters, and place loot. Damn high level adventures are a lot of work. Next time I think I'll just buy one.

iPad late April

News in. Gotta wait until late April for the iPad in Australia. *sigh*
Adjusting countdown.

Recent Gaming

Wow. We just finished Call of Cthulhu, Horror on the Orient Express. The end was seriously hard, but as a group we ultimately triumphed. My character, an accountant (heh) was decapitated with about an hour of play left. Then I took over another character, who died even more horribly right at the end. Much enjoyed - thanks to Andrew! However, now I'll have to cancel the order of the t-shirt "I survived Horror on the Orient Express". I could just change it to "I died horribly in ....".
I'm also still working up the high level enemy NPCs for the Dragon Coast campaign which I hope to start in about 6 weeks time. I spent two hours tonight just allocating spells for them. Very Nasty.

Nineteen Eighty Four

Just finished reading this definitive Orwellian nightmare.
Not really science fiction, but geopolitical futurist. Even though it was written in the late 1940s about 1984, it hasn't dated much as the focus is on extreme politics and sociology. It's a very dark, dystopian window into a place where a single party rules totally. The Party defines reality, and moulds it to suit it's own purpose, which is power for the sake of power without the possibility of being toppled.
I thoroughly enjoyed the read. The political details were interesting, the dystopian abuses of humanity made me grimace, and the doublethink concept mindbending but delightful.
You must read it.
Wiki with spoilers here.

Gamer

I just yawned my way through Gamer.
Based on the premise "Gee, what if the characters you played in a game were actual people", this film doesn't get any deeper than you think. A shallow, obvious, boring film. Lots of graphic bloody violence, and not enough sex. Hell, if you're going to make a film rated R for violence, you might as well throw in some sex as well, especially given the topic.
This film had barely enough content for a short story, let alone a feature film. I put this film in the same category as Death Race, which was suprisingly better than it sounds and had some tension and drama. Both these films use the concept of criminals giving themselves for entertainment fresh meat for their freedom, which is pretty silly stuff, and unless you build a decent story on top of that, you just end up watching it with one questioning eyebrow permanently raised.
The funniest part of Gamer is when one controller refers to the human body parts he's just splattered as giblets. If you never played Doom or Quake, you'd have missed it. You're right though, it's not that funny.
Don't Bother.

Objective C

I've been reading a document written to help C++ programmers learn Objective C. If you are in my situation where you know C++, but Objective C seems completely unreadable, then I suggest you read it too. It's very good and hits on all the main points you need to know.
Objective C isn't actually a very large language, being a strict superset of C, but has some very nice features. The main difference is that instead of calling methods on objects, you send messages to them instead. So in effect, if an object doesn't implement the method you want to call, then you get an exception, rather than a crash in C++ (after convincing the C++ compiler to let you do it...).
Classes are also treated as objects, so you can query classes for properties and so on. All in all, this makes for a more object oriented language, although presumably wouldn't have the efficiency of code written in C++ or C. The Objective C memory model seems pleasant to get along with, and then you could just rely on a garbage collector as well if you don't even want to think about it.
Now, to actually try some exanples using it.

Story from Cian: The Boys

Once there was two boys, Cian and Owen. They had a big job list:

• build a robot pig
• go hunting
• kill ants
• watch youtube

They built a robot pig which was three feet tall and four feet wide.
Then they killed three ducks, one deer, and four chickens. After than, they got out the poison and sprayed like maniacs.
Finally, they watched youtube for an hour.

Dragon Coast: Book VI

I'm still pushing through some details on the D&D adventure I'll soon run. It's been interesting using the new Pathfinder rules for generating NPCs. The new rulebook has a good section on this and the new skill rules make skills easy to assign. I'm trying to do as much pre-rendering of details and stats as I can to make the adventure run as smoothly as possible. It will already be hard to run as the characters are at levels 13-14, and you tend to get serious "level loading" delays as opponent NPCs put their own plans into action and react to events. Damn it's a lot of work though, not sure if I'll be bothered to go the full adventure creation route again.
Hopefully it will be fun. The game site is here.

Google Buzz. No thanks.

I accepted all the Google Buzz process and gave it a whirl and posted something trivial. And when that post hit my email, I wasn't happy. I don't want crap on email, I use Facebook a lot and it doesn't send me any crap, because I can turn it all off. Also I realised I suddenly had a public searchable profile attached to my gmail account. I think I'd prefer to keep my email off web searches for now.
Plenty of backlash in the media too, and how to be free of it. I'e turned it off.
Also, I like Facebook. It's getting some maturity, Buzz just seems like a toy version of the real thing and the possible security and privacy leaks are a concern.
MySpace? What's that?

[Update 17th Feb] Told you so.

Upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala

I just upgraded my home server from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10, Karmic Koala.
No problems. Looks better. Windows 7 domain works fine. All good.

End of Dollhouse

I saw the last two episodes of Dollhouse last night. Awesome. I really enjoyed it, but it was pretty clear he could have used a whole other series to finish it up. The last episode is brilliant, with some more great acting from Victor/Tony.
If you haven't seen any Dollhouse, I recommend watching some of series 1, and most of series 2. Really, about 20-25 episiodes tops will do it for you and be well worth your effort.

Flash Fiction: Surprise Attack

Good job David Scholes for Surprise Attack. I like it.

iPad. Past the hype and cynicism.

It's now a week since the iPad was announced and anyone interested is now aware of its shortcomings. Here's my take on the downsides.

• Not 16:9: To get widescreen you have to make it wider or thinner. Thinner just seems silly because you are giving up screen space just to get an aspect ratio. Wider and it starts to get unweildy I would guess, and people are already complaining that it is too big. Pretend it is widescreen with some bonus screen top and bottom.
• Video output not HD: Who is going to connect it to a video source as the monitor? That's crazy. It does 720p in local video so who cares?
• No GPS: OK, this would be nice if I was going to use the 3G data on the move. I'm going to be using this mostly at my home on wifi, or friends' homes on wifi, so *shrug*.
• No USB ports. USB would be useful for a bunch of stuff. Not a huge deal though.
• No in-facing camera. This would be good for video VOIP. But I'm just not that into video VOIP, and it's available on my desktop.
• Bezel too big: Don't know. Have to see how it feels using it. You need some bezel to hold it without affecting the input. I'm guessing it's probably ok.
• No multitasking. This sucks. I'm hoping an OS upgrade will improve this in the future.
• Touch keyboard sucks: Again, have to see how it feels. Doesn't look too bad. Can be improved later because it is software.
• No HDMI out: For what? Plugging into a telly to watch video? That's what my media player is for. Duh.
• The name iPad: Agreed. Prefer iSlate. I'll call it "my slate".
• Closed App Ecosystem: Tradeoff between platform security and openess. I'm probably not as bothered as I should be. Apple not approving apps they just don't like, or competes with them really does suck.
• No In-browser Flash: Big debate. Apple say it's because it's buggy and drains the power. There's a large element of truth to that. I don't want my iPad crashing because of some banner ad. But then, the kids won't be able to play those flash games without it. Oh, wait. That's also good. I don't visit sites that use Flash for navigation. They suck anyway. There is an app for YouTube, so video is no problem.
• No iBooks in Australia: Sounds like this is "well on the way". It's just licencing.

Oooh! News on an iPad Nano. Heh.
Someone else thinks iPad will crush the expensive eReaders.

Caprica

The new BSG spinoff series Caprica has started.
I just watched the pilot double episode and it's looking good. It's set on Caprica, about 60 years before the Cylons blew it all to hell.
If you liked BSG watch it, otherwise, probably don't bother.

New metal foam

Oooh! This metal foam has the strongest strength to density ratio yet, and "It can compress up to 80% of its original size under loading and still retain its original shape". Cool. Useful. Hmmm.

Moon Landing Cancelled.

Good. Personally I think we're better investing time and money into the ISS, encouraging commercial spaceflight, and other orbital capital like fuel depots. What about spun gravity in earth orbit? That's going to be way more comfortable than being on the moon in one sixth gravity. OK, you need a large diameter for the centrifuge, but the spokes don't have to be traversable to keep the cost down.

Line War

Just finished reading Line War by Neal Asher.
This is the fifth Ian Cormac novel, and really felt like a series conclusion. Its scope is massive, galaxy affecting, and its repercussions fleshed out without remorse. It's no secret than in this novel, millions and millions of people and sentient AI die, and many die gruesomely, graphically depicted. It's a great read, well written and well paced with plenty of large scale events throughout the novel. I particularly enjoyed the creation and deployment of the largest, most destructive weapon ever devised, outside of intentionally caused supernovae. It builds on the work in Prador Moon in this respect, another Asher novel I really, really enjoyed.
I also thought the development of Cormac in this novel was really cool. He was a lot more cynical and paranoid, and seemed quite pissed off much of the time. Of course, he has been through a lot in the series, so his character changes make perfect sense. Again, repercussions of this, relentlessly pushed to the end.
The end is completely satisfying. Many novels attempting such large scale really peter out at the end, but not this one. Asher spends a lot of time going over the events in glorious detail, from large explosions to the tiny communications between entities. Most of the hanging threads from the series are well tied up with explanations detailed. In particular, the Dragon character is really opened up.
Excellent.

Fusion steps forward

Dr Glenzer of the National Ignition Facility (Nif) in the US thinks they can get a fusion ignition happening this year. They are using 192 lasers to heat a fusion ready pellet of fuel to the point of fusion. They've just passed an important step and got the supplied energy up to 669 kiloJoules, and he suggests all they need is 1200  kiloJoules.
More here.

Apple iPad

Damn, I'm excited about the iPad.
A while ago, my son said to me that he wanted to live in the future, and I told him I always thought that as well, and then I told him that for me, 2010 was always the future when I was growing up. He was kind of awe-struck by that, because he figured I was living my dream. Well, ok, we know it doesn't work like that, but then, this morning seeing the iPad, I kind of feel a bit like that. This is an amazing device.
I really enjoy my Nokia E61i. It can do a lot of the things an iPhone can, but just not as well, and without a touch interface. It's a pre-iPhone device, and hence is practically irrelevant. The iPhone really started the touch computing revolution, and showed us how much better interfaces can be.
The iPad goes further. It's not just that it's bigger, because really, that's all it is; it's big enough to enable a much wider, richer experience through a more capable interface. Suddenly it's possible to type reasonably, see entire web pages, get decent video, comfortably read a book, as well as all the amazing accelerometer features, like games and interface enhancements.
See some photos here, and here.
Here's a really interesting article about how it will change things.
I'd hate to be selling an eBook reader that cost more than $200, when you can buy this for $500. I think the iPad will really bring out eBooks and cement the ePub format for a long time. eBooks are going to be the big change this year outside of this awesome piece of mobile computing.
I'll be lining up for the Wi-Fi only version because I really wouldn't use a 3G connection much, and I don't want to wait the extra time for it. Start the 60 day counter now.

Dragon Coast: Book VI

My D&D campaign adventure is coming along. I've been filling the geography with nasties from Pathfinder Bestiary, Monster Manuals I-IV, and other tomes like Fiend Folio and Libris Mortis. It is set in the Forgotten Realms, specifically Cormyr as far as the characters know, but of course can lead them anywhere. I've just set up a campaign page at Obsidian Portal, so when the adventure starts, it can be tracked there.
Hopefully I can keep the players' disbelief suspended during the game, enough anyway to enjoy some hack, slash, burn, loot, and pillage action. The adventure is all newly created, so it's been a big challenge so far, and will continue to be until the PCs either finish, or die trying.
Andrew is still running us through Horror on the Orient Express, and we probably have 4 or more sessions left, sounds like. Last session was particularly gruesome. I can't even tell you. Nightmares.

Still waiting for the iSlate

The comics are getting on to it now. Here. Here.
5 days.
And this. Ha!
More rumours.

Dollhouse S2E6: Not Lame

That was a really cool episode. It features a new character, Bennet (who was also in the previous episode, also good) played by Summer Glau. Summer plays her usual style character, psychologically unstable, plain weird and a geek. Brilliant. The play between the two alpha geeks, Tophur and Bennet is really good. Also brilliant is that the doll Victor is imprinted with Topher, and he interacts with the real Topher all through the episode. Hilarious!

V: The Series: Lame

*sigh*
I really wanted it to be as good as I remembered the original V: The Series. But it isn't. It's just lame. It's all really very pretty, nice effects, and everyone is gorgeous, but it's shallow, and unimaginative. It's just boring.
I had a good feeling about it too, after BSG was such a great series, doing things differently from it's original series, yet keeping its flavour. But they're completely different, obviously.
*sigh*

The Earth is plunging toward the Sun!

At least this theory suggests it might be.
In short, the Sun is collecting dark matter on its journey through space, increasing its apparent mass, thus slowly shrinking Earth's orbit. Apparently, this should cause the semi-major axis of Earth's orbit to increase, which we can measure, and is only out by a factor of 2 or so from the observed.
Hmmm.

Apple iSlate

12 days to go. Can you feel it?
News.
Recent.
Wrong.
Feel the buzz.

It's good to be a software engineer

It's officially good to be a software engineer. Low physical activity and stress levels. Mostly, I personally think it's interesting because everything keeps changing. Boredom is the worst.

Matter

I just finished reading Matter. No reading-matter jokes please.
There was quite a large fantasy element to this, as much of the plot revolves around a civilisation barely into gunpowder and steam engine technology, and then only because they've been fed it by a more advanced race. I don't mind that, fantasy-in-SF was used to great effect in Implied Spaces, but I felt it made much of this novel a little on the slow side. On the upside, this also forced the fleshing out of the different levels of Involved civilisations in the Culture universe, in fact showcasing one of each of four distinct levels of races of sentients, each one a mentor for the race below, with the Culture obviously on top.
This book introduced the shell-world concept, which is essentially a constructed planet formed of many concentric shells, although existing in more spacial dimensions than normal space. Each shell level can hold a whole different race and environment tailored for them. A very cool and brilliantly detailed technology.
The ending was a little rushed, I felt. I think it would have been good to have focussed more on events in the second half of the novel than the low-tech political shenanigans in the first half.
Still, a good read. Iain M. Banks rarely disappoints.