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.