Binary Organism

A new laptop arrived with my name all over it a few months back. A particularly nerdy laptop – Alienware M11x. What can I say – I’ve always wanted to own an Alienware.

The let down? I’m running Windows 7. This was a big change for me – I’ve always run Windows at home and at my previous job but for the majority of my work with other *nix hosts I’ve used Ubuntu. I always liked the native terminal and ability to customise almost anything.

I always hate buying a pre-built system as they love to RAM so much stuff on the OEM install. Dell used to be the biggest offender – this time round it was alright. There were a few things on there.. McAfee/Backup agent that I dropped immediately but otherwise I’ve stayed with the original OEM install (this is the first time I haven’t done a fresh install).

Immediately the cut from Ubuntu to Windows had me missing a few of the basics that I had come to use. My biggest gripe was loss of ‘focus on mouse’ for windows management. There is an option in Windows 7 to enable “Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse” which I tested out. This has to be one of the most annoying implementation I had seen. When you hover on a window it activates (which is great) but then it brings that window to the front. Annoying. I like to have windows overlapping and be able to type in multiple windows without losing my main window focus in the foreground. I pushed on and found there is a registry hack to achieve this:

First; Open regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit UserPreferenceMask value to be 9F 3E 07 80 12 00 00 00

Then; In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit ActiveWndTrkTimeout, change ‘Base’ to Decimal and put in 150 as the ‘Value Data’
This value is time in milliseconds that it takes for the focus to change to the new window.

Lastly; Log off and log back in.

This sorted my focus problems and made it pretty much usable for work again.

Another point of pain was the lack of virtual desktops – pretty much tying me to having all my applications open and crowding my single desktop. I looked at a few apps that provided ‘virtual desktops’ for windows. Some were good but I struggled to find one that easily provided the features I wanted;
- Multiple Desktops
- Ability to drag between the desktops
- Ability to preview the virtual desktops from taskbar
Found a decent opensource project – http://windowspager.sourceforge.net/ which solved all my requirements. Check it out as the site has a decent demo if you need some better window management.

Otherwise – all is good in the world of Windows now. Its a massive improvement on previous versions and its nice to have things ‘just work’ like flash in Chrome. Once you’ve got all your nice apps on – Thunderbird, Chrome, Putty etc its pretty much usable. Also, the battery management is perfect.

Perfectly timed with the return of the site is the start of Movember. Movember is based around raising awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and depression in men.

I’ve decided to my small part by signing up for a bit of growth – here is my mospace if you feel so inclined to donate.

I usually struggle to come up with a style so this year thought I would take some inspiration from some stache lads. First up was Ewan McGregor – the man knows how to grow a mo:

But I felt it was a bit too … classic? I’ve been watching Deadwood from season 1 and figured I could try to pull off a Bullock:

Funny though, cause if you look at the real ‘Seth Bullock I’ve got no hope….

That thing is gruesome.

Soooo. Had some problems for a while there. The site wasn’t generating php content correctly and instead was passing the raw wordpress code to users hitting the front page. The most annoying part was over 3 days over troubleshooting I fixed it at some point but Chrome kept serving me a locally cached version that was broken – essentially I kept trying to fix something that wasn’t broke.

As part of the return I’ve migrated to a new host! Huzzah! We are now located in Freemont, CA in the US of A. Site response is a little snappier and generally cleaner.

Will get some more content coming up shortly to celebrate the return!

In a previous post I discussed my acquired stack of books – here. I then posted a little recap on all the books and my general thoughts.

Much to my excitement the stack has returned!

What do we have this time round:
Neal Asher – Gridlinked
Douglas Adams – Holistic Detective Agency
Isaac Asimov – The Caves of Steel
Alastair Reynolds – Revelation Space
Isaac Asimov – Robots and Empire
Orson Scott Card – Enders Game
Tim Severin – Odinns Child

Ended up buying almost all of these from Ampersand on Oxford St in Sydney (except Revelation Space). Decent prices and a good selection of Science Fiction books. I’ve got my eye on a number of others in store that I’ll head back to pick up next time.

While I was in Kinokuniya attempting to find the new Peter Hamilton (disappointed once again) one of the staff recommended Alastair Reynolds – hence why I bought Revelation Space. Another book also took my eye:

I haven’t looked in to it at all but its on the list.

Ahhh yes – another gap. I believe in some cultures a blog with healthy gaps in it is seen as good luck. Which culture? I can’t recall right now.

I’ve had a somewhat entertaining few weeks. Plenty of goings ons. But I shall not bore you with details and instead – I will share with you the brighter moments. Hence forward is a picture break down of my life (obviously not the entire thing… just last few weeks):

I ravaged a cartridge from the labeler at our data center. How I managed this – I shall never know. I have submitted a training request for “Labeling”.

All lies. I was so excited when I found this – Cinnamon soda! Awesome. Just like the Big Red gum?? Nope, its just straight fire engine/creaming soda. In my excitement I missed the “Red Soda” label. Pfft.

I was then swiftly excited at the prospect of finding the pop tart motherland. I didn’t even know there were 27 flavours! There are now. I dutifully bought a box for $7.95 promising not to eat only them. I proceeded to have pop tarts for breakfast the next five days. God the things are good toasted with a cold glass of milk. Would I feed them to my kids? Heck no! (Ok maybe once.)

Then to cap the week off – while I was walking around a book store I stumbled upon these puppies. Its like Lego for people with a degree or something. Magical! Or more – removes the magic of Lego! WHERE HAS THE MAGIC GONE!

Pretty much wraps up some random photos from my life and phone!

*** Photos do not represent in any way a linear time line. The memory works how the memory works and I’m pretty sure the images were in alphabetical order.

I have been distracted! But look – here is something cool…

If I had an iPad I would cover it with this:

You can buy them! For a lot of money.

A few posts back there is a image of my bedside stack of used books. I come with good news. It is almost at a close.

How did it go? A little something like this:

Vagabond – as always, fantastic. Cornwell provides a good alternative to my SciFi grind and always manages to captivate my imagination. I thought we might be steering a little close to religion with the ‘Holy Grail’ theme but I was surprised at the delivery. Great in short. If you enjoy this – you will love “Azincourt”.

Foundation – ahhh Asimov. How old you are! I love reading a classic Asimov SciFi. The language is so different and the themes… dated. I always find it interesting to see how we have developed since his age. If only he could see us now. Decent read – interesting use of time (presented on a massive scale). Good intro to the ‘foundation’ series and I think I’ll hunt down the rest. Short and sweet so perfect little pickup.

Judas Unchained – Hardcore. SciFi. Its why I love you Hamilton. This turned out to be a 1300 behemoth (more pages than ‘Cryptonomicon’ but content not as dense{read confusing}). I keep coming back to Hamilton because the universe he presents does nothing but interest me. Immortality. Technology. Sentient Machines. Sex. Oh and action. Plenty of action here – good follow up to Pandoras Star and closes off the series. Recommended to all who like a bit of space opera.

Knife Of Never Letting go – I promoted this in the stack and read it here because I needed a SciFi go between. Hamilton to Banks would blow my fragile little mind. Hrmmmm what to say here – let me start with “Its a teenagers book”. I didn’t know this. Now you do, you are warned. Its clearly marketed towards them and at times I wanted to stop reading because of this (Mum told me to throw it out but I wanted to persist – just like a whingy teenager). I’m glad I read it to the end as it matured significantly in the last 50 odd pages… almost bare-able. Will I read the next? Maybe. I’m interested in where the plot will go but didn’t enjoy the writing style.

Excession – Read this before ‘Use Of Weapons’ as it was written first (thats how I am!). I had only read later Banks (Matter and Algebrist – both I enjoyed). Decent reading an early culture novel and a lot of content covered. The exploration of sentient tech always grabs my attention and the comedy Banks ties in is refreshing. High on my list of SciFi reads.

I had intended to read Heaven’s Net is Wide here… turns out it isn’t book two of the Otori Clan tales. Alas, it is a prequel. So I couldn’t touch it (prequels are for reading AFTER the other books…. it makes sense in my mind – ok, I read following the timeline they were written). This meant one thing though….

Use of Weapons – Oh god. A Banks back up. One straight after the other. At first I thought this was a bad call. Banks is sometimes a bit tough on my head. I really enjoyed Excession though so I thought I would just follow it up. I am about mid way through this one and so far it is rather enjoyable. Presented in a very different manner to Excession – a bit of time jumping… but the SciFi themes are there. Work in progress so I can’t comment on the finished product.

Pretty much burnt through the stack in the order they presented. A lot of train time has given me a lot of reading.

Imminent visit to second hand book store detected.

That is a real picture. I kid you not. I am not ‘joshing’.

This my friends – is the end of history. Another link I’ve sat on for a few months and only now getting round to share.

Presentation is everything they say.

Only 12 bottles have been made and each comes with its own certificate and is presented in a stuffed stoat or grey squirrel. The striking packaging was created by a very talented taxidermist and all the animals used were road kill. This release is a limited run of 11 bottles, 7 stoats and 4 grey squirrels. Each ones comes with its own certificate of authenticity.

Don’t feel bad – its roadkill. A 55% beer. Poison I say. Apart from the obvious attraction of the bottle – the name “The End Of History” is almost as alluring.

The End of History: The name derives from the famous work of philosopher Francis Fukuyama, this is to beer what democracy is to history. Fukuyama defined history as the evolution of the political system and traced this through the ages until we got the Western Democratic paradigm. For Fukuyama this was the end point of man’s political evolution and consequently the end of history. The beer is the last high abv beer we are going to brew, the end point of our research into how far the can push the boundaries of extreme brewing, the end of beer.

The Brewdog guys seem to have this down to somewhat of an art – for me, its less about the final beer product and more about the naming scheme. How can you go wrong with a beer titled “Tactical Nuclear Penguin” – 32% if you were wondering.

A standard schooner at 5% is enough for my taste buds – I imagine a penguin named after a weapon of mass destruction would not be my friend. I would have to mount a somewhat large scale war to reclaim my liver and determine there are no more WMDs located within.

Ah yes – Science Fiction. How I pine for your sweet embrace.

I kicked up this post a while back – 2 months maybe – when I finished the last book in the ‘Jump 225′ trilogy. The intention was to provide a lengthy and insightful review of the three books and how the trilogy came together. That fell apart and I didn’t write anything. Let me try to put something together now while I sit at the data center waiting.

Funnily enough, I came upon this trilogy via a post on io9 celebrating the best new-release Sci-Fi. It was rather odd though as the third book ‘GeoSynchron’ was hailed as one of the best/brightest entries. My interest was piqued. Even more so when many referred to the series as a “Neuromancer” hybrid. My eyes lit up. A friend attempted to crush my hopes and dreams pointing out it was written by a ‘web developer’ and therefore was tainted. Bah! Professional racism!

Alas, me being me I couldn’t simply buy and read book 3. I needed the foundation.. the back story… to be able to fully immerse myself in the characters. I did what any normal person would do and scoured the intertubes for the cheapest version of ‘Infoquake’ available. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be – even amazon was waiting on a reprint. Low and behold I found a copy of book 1 ‘Infoquake’ and immediately ordered it. Fast forward 2 months (and I had to force the company to pony up!)

InfoQuake was an interesting book in my list of SciFi reads. Intriguing to say the least. Centered largely around corporate espionage and financial procurement you follow Natch (yes, that is his name, I kid you not) a self proclaimed ‘entrepreneur’. InfoQuake does a pretty decent job of setting the scene for the trilogy. Deep insight is provided on the culture of the universe and explanations of the certain themes and undercurrents…. the essential premise is self gain and improvement through systems run on OCHREs (Nano bots anyone?). Developers sell products to interface with users to provide a number of improvements on the human form – zoom functions, eye color changes etc. This was pretty cool and I liked the setup of ‘fiefcorps’ (companies) Vs single developers. InfoQuake also introduces the core characters and dabs a little on their past. I wasn’t really feeling InfoQuake but persisted for the holy grail of GeoSynchron (… or so I thought it would be?) Anyway. The story wrapped up with… what I guess some would call a cliff hanger but I wasn’t really longing for the next installment.

MultiReal.. its name is derived from the main program of the trilogy (quick digression – ‘The Jump 225 trilogy’… not much of the Jump Version 225 program in this….. a few mentions here and there but I was expecting a greater focus) and pretty much picks up where InfoQuake leaves off. Memory is a bit hazy here but the basic premise extends and new plot shards are created. A few new characters are introduced and you get more of a sense of how the ‘council’ works. Deceptions are introduced. Ploys developed. A lot of talking. Yea… there is a lot of talking. Metaphysical kinda stuff. I really struggled at first to get my head around the applications of ‘MultiReal’ but by the end of this book I think I was on the same page as the author (HA! Page.. Pun. See cause its a book right?).

Should it take me two books to understand the core premise of where a trilogy is headed? I’d hope not.

Wrapped up MultiReal and arrived at the grand daddy – GeoSynchron. I had high hopes – I mean.. this was the reason I had read the first two books. The further in I delved the more involved I was. GeoSyncron really is the best of the three – pity you have to read the first two to really understand the core of what is going on (this ain’t some stand alone read here folks). There is a lot more of everything in the third installment. More action. More themes. More talking. I also felt it was much better laid out and the plot more defined. Slowly I was wondering – er.. 100 pages left. Where are we going? How will this wrap up? It manages to. Not a massive ending – interesting. Plays on a pretty interesting concept but my mind wasn’t blown. I think I had a single point of confusion that caused me to read a few paragraphs over.

I don’t read authors notes. I tend to steer clear. I don’t want to know anything about the person who is stoking my imagination… it always tends to back fire. If I am reading a Bernard Cornwell I might read his historical notes… just to give me an insight of where he used creative license. But SciFi – its all creative. So I don’t want to hear which characters are based on real people or whether the author cried while writing the last page.

BUT.

I did read the authors note after GeoSynchron. Maybe because I was slightly confused. Maybe because I did want to know where this stuff came from. I must admit – it was pretty intriguing. Edelman had some pretty interesting comments and I was impressed in how he evolved the story from MultiReal to GeoSyncron. There were some rather interesting remarks on his past as well. If you read the trilogy – get in there and read this as well.

Essentially, if you have spare time and don’t mind science fiction that makes you think – give it a chance. Push through InfoQuake and MultiReal isn’t bad. Make it past MultiReal and GeoSyncron is bit of a pay off. It felt good to close of this rather obscure trilogy.

Another notch on the bed head. (Thats what the notches are for right?)

On my recent foray to Middle Earth (New Zealand) – I managed to attain a number of second hand books. Note: Don’t buy books abroad; they are heavy. This compacted a visit I paid to Surry Hills Market in Sydney and I built a formidable foe as my bedside stack:

Consisting of: Bernard Cornwell ‘Vagabond’; Isaac Asimov ‘Foundation’; Peter F Hamilton ‘Judas Unchained’; Iain M Banks ‘Use of Weapons’; Iain M Banks ‘Excession’; Patrick Ness ‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ and Lian Hearn ‘Heaven’s Net is Wide’.

Since this photo I have finished ‘Vagabond’ and started on ‘Foundation’. I primarily took the photo to share the spoils of my trip to NZ with a close friend Bruce and to see if he had any insight for the order of reading that was to occur. Bruce came back pretty quick with “Let’s see FIFO or LIFO?” which gave me a good chuckle but is a horrific computer geek reference – just how I like them (feel free to read more!) The insight Bruce finally gave was to read the Asimov next – which I have dutifully started and so far enjoy.

What next? I think it will have to be ‘Judas Unchained’ as the first book ‘Pandoras Star’ left me hanging for more.

While on the subject of Bruce (Is he even a subject?) he sent over a link to ‘SF Masterworks‘. While I haven’t read a great many of these (read: none?) OK no wait. 1 book ‘Day of the Triffids‘ which I really enjoyed when I was young.

So many books. Such little time.