My shiny new operating system.

Last week I was once again tinkering with my computer (fondly referred to in the Astromen! community as "built from used Ukrainian missile silo parts") and once again I broke my Windows installation. Not surprising considering the programming that goes into that system developed in my home town, and the operations I was performing (trying to hack my cell phone to be open to all networks and downloading pirated video games -- the Pirate Bay AYE!) After some research I have started over and made the switch to Linux, specifically the Ubuntu distribution with a GNOME visual interface. Though a bit difficult at first to get used to, I am very pleased so far. It is immensely more solid programming, completely customizable, every bit of software is free, and has a number of features that make me wonder why I ever was a slave to the dreadful installation wizards or longed for an overpriced hip-kid deck. If I am confused, Linux geeks the world over have posted massive amounts of documentation to be searched through or they will answer your questions within moments. I have not had this much fun with a computer since setting up my Commodore 64. In the last year or so they have improved the cross platform aspects (you can port just about anything now given the right software) and I still have a small Windoze partition for those fun, but buggy Frankenstein programs like Visual Pinball and the fully updated Neverwinter Nights.
Super-User, the command line calls to you _

The NWN2 website is up and running...

Connectivity tests succeed!

After a disheartening hour-long test last night, Scott was able to connect to the board on the first try this evening . I'd figured out what kept us from playing last Sunday. Game on!
We're playing Sunday at 2pm EST.
Make sure you're fully updated in the hakpak department. You'll need the small updates I posted last week and today, which are on the Vault here.

Spore

Here's a link to a walkthrough of the new Metacreation game, "Spore" that looks very ... involved! (watch the whole thing to get an idea of the scope of this game.)

Scientific Heresy...

"Joyce Ann Hafford was thirty-three years old and had always been healthy. She showed no signs of any of the clinical markers associated with AIDS -— her CD4 counts, which measure the lymphocytes that are used to indicate how strong a person's immune system is, and which HIV is believed to slowly corrode, were in the normal range, and she felt fine. In early June 2003, she was enrolled in the trial and on June 18 took her first doses of the drugs. "She felt very sick right away," recalls her older sister, Rubbie King. "Within seventy-two hours, she had a very bad rash, welts all over her face, hands, and arms. That was the first sign that there was a problem. I told her to call her doctor and she did, but they just told her to put hydrocortisone cream on it. I later learned that a rash is a very had sign, but they didn't seem alarmed at all."

Hafford was on the drug regimen for thirty-eight days. "Her health started to deteriorate from the moment she went on the drugs," says King. "She was always in pain, constantly throwing up, and finally she got to the point where all she could do was lie down." The sisters kept the news of Hafford's HIV test and of the trial itself from their mother, and Hafford herself attributed her sickness and nausea to being pregnant. She was a cheerful person, a noncomplainer, and was convinced that she was lucky to have gotten into this trial. "She said to me, `Nell' -that's what she called me-—`I have got to get through this. I can't let my baby get this virus.' I said, `Well, I understand that, but you're awful sick.' But she never expressed any fear because she thought this was going to keep her baby from being HIV positive. She didn't even know she was in trouble.""

Len Lakofka!

FYI: The Len Lakofka of which Mr. Colbert speaks is the greatest AD&D module author of all time. He wrote "The Secret of Bone Hill" and "The Assasin's Knot". And the Sheldamor Valley lies between the Lortmil Mountains and the Crystalmist Mountains in the World of Greyhawk.

A moment of silence...

...for Mem' nock the Drow Assassin (formally known as Bob = 666) who called in sick on Monday to play Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and hasn't bothered to bathe or eat since. Good luck Mem! We're all pulling for you!

Marvel Comics: stealing our language

Marvel Comics is continuing in its bid to steal the word "super-hero" from the public domain and put it in a lock-box to which it will control the key. Marvel and DC comics jointly filed a trademark on the word "super-hero." They use this mark to legally harass indie comic companies that make competing comic books.

Biowar for Dummies

'The real cost of villainy is in overhead. Even with the ready availability of equipment, you still need space, staff, and time. Brent guesses he would need a couple million dollars to whip up a batch of smallpox from scratch. No need for state sponsors or stolen top-secret germ samples. “An advanced grad student could do it,” Brent says. Especially with the help of some high schoolers who actually went to lab classes.'

'It sounds like submicroscopic surgery, but all you do is squirt chemicals into a culture dish and let it all soak overnight.'

Gemäldegalerie

Jason and I went to the Gemäldegalerie yesterday
which has a bunch of "old master paintings" in it.
A lot of mediocre itatlian artists a couple of Vermeers
and their prize of the show. This painting of Dutch
Proverbs by Peiter Breughal. Which was a pretty
cool thing to see. A lot of the figures in it reminded
me of H. Bosch's.

Oh pete, I also found my new character portrait on
the Gemäldegalerie website (image is 256x 400) .
What do you think? (the eyes nailed it for me).




















Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of
Hieronymus Holzschuhers, 1526