Nobody, and I mean nobody, seems able to remember my domain name. I don’t see what the problem is, but I’m so immersed in net culture I guess it just comes easier to me. So….I need to get a domain name. What do you folks think of:

obbie-chops.com [from infamous story when I was but a lad]
the-dave-cave.com [from when I had the coolest rec-room on the east coast, in a basement. Ok, I’m exagerating maybe a little. But it was cool!]

Those are my two leading candidates. Do you have a clever suggestion of your own? You can look it up to see if it’s available here:

swhois.com

Silicon solar cells have been making steady performance gains for the roughly 20 years I’ve been paying attention. I first got interested during the oil crisis in the 70’s and have paid at least passing attention to them ever since. To this day the issue that keeps them from achieving mainstream usage is that they are more expensive than the power they generate in all but the sunniest of climes, and even there it’s more like a break-even at best proposition.

It’s looking hopeful that things are about to take a really positrive turn. Scientists recently made some advances in material sciences that should lead to solar cells at least twice as effective at converting sunlight into electricity. The remaining key issue is how much will they cost to manufacture – if they can maintain current cost levels or even reduce them, this is extremely positive news. Who knows, we might all have a solar cell roof in 10 years of this all pans out.

Keep your fingers crossed.

You know, if it wasn’t for the boxing on Saturday nights I think I would have cancelled my HBO by now. I catch the first run movies before they show up on Saturday nights, and since the last new episode of Larry David ran I haven’t been watching their Sunday night lineup. I don’t care for Six Feet Under and everything else has been re-runs. But last Saturday the new season of The Wire began and I was solidly reminded of why I like HBO so much. The Wire’s new season has started out just as good as the first season – on location shooting, excellent acting from a large cast, and absolutely first rate writing. This is tv for adults, none of this brain dead lowest common denominator pap they spew out on the regular broadcast networks. The first season must be out on DVD by now; if you never caught it it’s well worth checking out. It’s a self contained season as well – there’s a story arc that completes by the end of the season.

Anyway if you do have HBO, no excuses, check out The Wire, if you like intelligent drama you’ll almost definitely enjoy it.

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.