So I’m reading more Jack Vance now, another in the Cugel’s saga portion of the Dying Earth books, and I’m still really enjoying it. I had been intending to type up a little exerpt from the books so folks could get a sense of it for themselves. Fortunately someone over on rpg.net has done it for me. To wit:

Faucelme returned, shaking his head in puzzlement. He seated himself in his chair and resumed his reading. Cugel came up behind him, looped the rope around his chest, again and again, and it seemed as if the rope would never exhaust the coil. Faucelme was presently trussed up in a cocoon of rope.

At last Cugel revealed himself. Faucelme looked him up and down, in curiosity rather than rancor, then asked: “May I inquire the reason for this visit?”

“It is simple stark fear,” said Cugel. “I dare not pass the night out of doors, so I have come to your house for shelter.”

“And the ropes?” Faucelme looked down at the web of strands which bound him into the chair.

“I would not care to offend you with the explanation,” said Cugel.

“Would the explanation offend me more than the ropes?”

Cugel frowned and tapped his chin. “Your question is more profound than it might seem, and verges into the ancient analyses of the Ideal versus the Real.”

Faucelme sighed. “Tonight I have no zest for philosophy. You may answer my question in terms which proximate the Real.”

“In all candour, I have forgotten the question,” said Cugel.

Funny stuff. The entire series is written this way – if the above segment appeals to you I highly recommend the books, see my earlier post for a link and whatnot.

So I noticed that Megamek was updated today. It’s a cool open source project to allow the playing of the game battletech online. Battletech is a turn-based strategy ‘boardgame’ that’s been around for ages and which has seen numerous computer games released based on its gameplay. I love projects like this, and this one is particularly well done. The problem? My friends are all lamers when it comes to online gaming, my success rate playing with friends online comes close to zero. So, who’s going to step up and let me kick their arse in Megamek? It plays on all platforms so you have no excuse 😉

Several of you have asked me about this so…here’s the deal. Ever discover some super cool file on the net, the next greatest thing, a demo of a game, preview of a movie, excerpt of some funny ad everyone is talking about, and you can’t get it because everyone and their uncle is all trying to download it from some overwhelmed server at the same time as you are? Or even worse, find yourself in the 4 hour waiting list at fileplanet waiting for your turn to grab the file, which invariably you miss because you walk away from the computer shortly before your turn in the que comes up?

Enter BitTorrent. Problem solved. BitTorrent is at its best serving up files ‘au courant;’ whatever it is everyone is trying to get at the moment, the hottest demos, movie clips etc etc, BitTorrent most likely has and there’s no need to wait in line, and there’s no speed limits beyond what your own connection can handle. How does it do that? It makes all of us responsible for sharing the file with each other. Every person who is downloading the file is simultaneously sharing the parts of the file they’ve already gotten with others who are also trying to get the file. The more popular something is, the faster you can get your hands on it. It works great!

To get it going, grab the software from the site linked above and install it. Next time you see a link to a torrent file, click on it and it will invoke the BitTorrent app, which will ask you where you want to store the file. Tell it, and the download will start. Within a few minutes it will ramp up to saturate your download link, assuming it’s a popular file you’re after.

You can also go grab a copy of TorrentSpy – if you grab that, you can drag saved torrent files onto it and it will tell you tons of info about the file, most importantly how many people are currently grabbing it. Comes in handy if you’re not sure whether to bother grabbing something or not.

So where do you find torrents? I’ll post more about this in the coming weeks. Basically anything popular ends up getting turned into a torrent, but there’s not a single source of info on where to grab them. All kinds of cool stuff shows up too, like the previous night’s tv shows, concerts, radio broadcasts, all kinds of great stuff. For now, just watch for the links in the discussions that surround any particular file, like inside slashdot discussions or on usenet.

One last thing – the success of BitTorrent depends on a great degree to the willinness of all of us to leave the window open after the file downloads – let it run for a while, give back to the community which just gave to you. Don’t be a dick! Do you like waiting for a file on fileplanet for 3 hours? If not, dont be an ass, keep the window open so others have a chance to get the file, and so places like fileplanet are no longer the central source we all have to rely on to get our mods, patches, demos and so on.

Douglas Adams, the witty author of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and other books, once authored a Dr. Who screenplay. The BBC recently produced it as a series of online flash files, a sort of slightly animated graphic novel with voiceovers. If you’re a fan of Dr. Who, it’s definitely worth a look.

Have you seen the new Matrix yet? I have, I loved it. But I left the theater scratching my head trying to parse everything Neo and The Architect said to each other. Fortunately I found a transcript with commentary that sheds light on the whole thing.

warning – this link has serious spoilers. Don’t visit it if you have not yet seen the movie or if you’ve seen it but would rather puzzle it all out on your own.

I’ve been reading like a fiend. I’m not sure why I am burying my nose in the books now more than I have been for the last several months. I think at least in part it’s due to the fact that the hockey playoffs and NBA playoffs are on, and I tend to put them on at night and then watch the game while reading. It’s funny, I can sense from the tone of the commentator’s voices when I need to look up to catch the big plays. Anyway I’ve read quite a few books. In no particular order:
Continue reading →

Ha. Don’t I wish. Actually I’m broke, and Nick is coming up for the long holiday weekend. Last time he came up I told him I would score an X-Box and we would play through Halo the next time he was up here, so now I’m selling off some PS2 games on ebay to fund the purchase. Great games, you know you want these games, go make your bids now while you still have a chance to score them.

…or anyone else looking for a slightly used couch bed. It’s a metal frame futon couch that converts down into a bed. There are no obvious physical defects on it. Lisa (ex girlfriend from several months back) needed to get it out of her garage and so it ended up in mine. I don’t want it and it seems a shame to cart it off to the dump, but that’s where it’s going if no one lays claim to it. Speak up or forever hold your peace.

Normally I just IM folks when I see deals like this, but this one is hot enough to mention to everyone: Compgeeks has a great firewire dual 3.5″ external enclosure on sale for $49.99, no rebate crap and reasonable (~$6 for me) shipping. I have this unit, paid almost $100 for it a few months ago, and couldn’t be happier with it. Just fyi in case you’re in the market for drive space. Firewire is often a better solution than native ide storage because of its portability and its low demand on the system bus. Get em while the price is hot as they say 😉

This one is mostly for Kirsten. She noticed a picture of the Yarmouth Mill on the local public access cable channel and asked about it. I happened to be out on my bike a few weeks ago exploring and found a wonderful overlook of the mill. I’ve mentioned before how lucky I feel to live in such a beautiful place. Here’s another example 😉

As an aside, the mill was almost my first office when I moved up to Maine 10 years ago. We were scouting locations, we needed warehouse space and the mill was one of the options. We ended up concluding the cielings were too low and there were too many support columns breaking up the space to make it a practical location. To this day part of me regrets not having gone with the mill though. The company went under after like 10 months anyway so what matter if we picked an impractical office location ;-0