We are all just a web comic

Published on July 4, 2009 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Well, some of us.

If you don’t like LoTR (or even recognise the acronym (SHAME!)) and/or you don’t roleplay, you may find this webcomic mildly (or less) amusing.

If you, like me, do these things compulsively, you will probably, like me, find that you’re in the freaking comic!

DM of the Rings XLVIII: Dwarven Diplomacy

Seriously, I’m only part way through it, and it’s fantastic: I LOL helplessly at least once at nearly every strip. Not only is it chock-full of disturbingly true portrayals of roleplayers (and roleplaying games) being foolish, it also features some completely marvellous hand-picked frames from the Peter Jackson LoTR movies. Who knew that there were so many smug sh*t-eating sneers, smirks and leers to be had form the core characters in those movies? So much gurning too!

References to Star Wars, Monty Python, WoW, Lovecraft and even Nethack abound. It is gloriously nerdy. And the editorial comments! OMG!

I don’t usually post just to spruik a link, but this was simply too good to pass up.

Poing

Published on May 13, 2009 in internet and review. 2 Comments

I haven’t raved about Sluggy for eons, and I’m not going to today.

Oasis versus Bunbun, at last!

Just gotta say:

Sluggy Freelance, deeply gratifying readers since 1997

Don’t Panic

Published on April 27, 2009 in politics and sarcasm. 6 Comments

A cheerful, and not-at-all anxious or paranoid post, from a Thorne who would never drink too much coffee on a Monday morning…

Don’t Google swine flu. Don’t think about Australia/NZ customs.

They're everywhere

Don’t go reading upsetting articles about the likelihood of fresh terrorism.

Don’t look too closely at current economic trends, things must be turning around.

After all, it’s not like economic downturn will have any impact on Peak Oil, or Peak Food.

If you’re reading about Global Warming, don’t read anything that talks about Tipping Points.

Worried about Civil Liberties? Don’t be, this is 2009: We all know better than to foster Police States.

…no links today, because there’s nothing to link to. Move along citizen.

Whatever you do, pay no attention to the sarcasm tag to the right. No! I told you not to do that! Stop it! Stop it at once!

Trouble has moved

Published on March 14, 2009 in Uncategorized. 3 Comments

trouble.net.au used to live at Serverpronto: a place where it had a whole very crappy PC to itself, and lots of cheap bandwidth. This had a few problems:

  • Serverpronto make no pretense at customer service. Don’t try to call them, and don’t expect the bills they charge to make any sense.
  • Serverpronto’s policies and price mean their server farms tend to harbour trouble-makers. Some of these people don’t make good neighbours to share a LAN with.
  • Serverpronto are based in Florida, which is how they make their bandwidth so cheap. I am based in Australia, conservatively some 200-odd milliseconds away.
  • Finally, being in Florida, Serverpronto like their customers to pay in US dollars. Being Australian, I like to pay for things in Australian dollars. The relationship between our dollar and theirs hasn’t been so great lately, and I prefer my budget to be predictable.

So, as of last night, Trouble has moved to a new place: It is now a ‘virtual’ server sharing a big robust physical server with six other virtual servers. The physical server is managed for me by Labyrinth, a Western Australian company who have, so far, displayed completely brilliant levels of customer service.

Along with the move, I have upgraded a bunch of things, and cleaned up a lot of semi-working crap. You’ll notice for example that the gallery is gone. If you have a Trouble account, you will also notice that the available range of admin tools (click “admin” on the main page) has been expanded somewhat.

As always, if anything here is busted, please let me know.

p.s. Yes, I know about that annoying stray grey button in the side-bar. I’m working on it. :)

What?

Published on February 26, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Quickly, this is a post about what I’m doing, and what I’m not.It largely avoid the question ‘Why?’ since that would be a long, boring self-involved blather.Thorne is:

  • Back in Melbourne.
  • Building a New Trouble, in Australia, very slowly.
  • Stressing more than is necessary about everything.
  • Following Pah’s rather nifty Slow Review of Watchmen (the comic). I would dearly like to respond to every part of it, but time and anxiety continue to conspire to render me dumb.
  • Presently waiting for a busted UDF DVD image to copy itself to disk on a clunky old server because it refuses to mount from the disc (if this means nothing to you, I envy you).

Thorne is not:

  • Going home early, or even on time tonight, again, despite coming in early with that express intent.
  • Sleeping enough.
  • Making measurable headway on personal projects like making stuff or losing wieght or getting out of debt.
  • Posting on this blog much. Sorry folks! I’ll be back here one day.

Trains, buses and automobiles

Published on December 31, 2008 in bored, lca09 and whine. 4 Comments

So here’s the problem:

Starting point: In Springvale, on Sunday afternoon.

Destination: At Linux Conf 09 in Hobart, on Monday morning.

Solution #1:V-Line Bombardier Train

  1. Travel with E to Ballarat on Sunday night (desirable; I am addicted to E).
  2. Catch the 5:33am train to Southern Cross station, in Melbourne.
  3. Catch the 7:00am Skybus to Melbourne Airport.
  4. Allow the recommended hour for domestic check-in and boarding.
  5. Catch my booked 8:25am flight to Hobart.

Win: More E + Train==comfy.
Fail: 5:33am is a deeply disturbing time of morning.

Solution #2:An airport shuttle bus

  1. Travel with E to Ballarat on Sunday night.
  2. Catch the 5:50am airport bus from Ballarat.
  3. Allow almost the recommended hour for domestic check-in and boarding.
  4. Catch my booked 8:25am flight to Hobart.

Win: More E + less steps (and less connections) + 5:50am > 5:33am
Fail: 5:50am is still less than wholesome.

Solution #3:A Taxi

  1. Stay in Springvale on Sunday afternoon.
  2. Get an expense-claim-able Taxi to the airport at about 6am.
  3. Don’t get caught in Melbourne’s unpredictable roadwork spaghetti.
  4. Hopefully allow the recommended hour for domestic check-in and boarding.
  5. Catch my booked 8:25am flight to Hobart.

Win: Invisible Win.
Fail: Less E.

What to do? In all likelihood, sleep will be the first victim. It usually is.

Boredom makes for strange blog posts…

So much for the ferry!

Published on December 23, 2008 in lca09 and work. 2 Comments

Well, now I look foolish!

The Spirit of Tasmania goes to Devonport, not Hobart, and Google Maps tells me it’s a four hour drive (or ride) from one to the other. Our bike is a 250cc single-cylinder bike, a type colloquially known as a thumper. The name is due to the vibration inherent in one quarter-litre cylinder banging up and down right under your groin… I was sore enough after a two hour ride from Springvale to Ballarat on the weekend. Four hours across the spine of Tasmania, while doubtless stunningly beautiful, does not sound butt-feasible.

So I will catch de plane, like a normal business zombie, and make use of free shuttle services wherever possible.

Going to Linux Conf Australia 2009!

Published on December 23, 2008 in lca09 and work. 0 Comments

My employer have graciously agreed to send me to Linux Conference again in January 2009. This year it’s in Hobart, so with any luck I will be catching up with an old friend.

This will be my first time travelling to Tasmania, and I am hoping to take the ferry (they have a special on), so that I can take the motorbike.

It looks to me like the global economic downturn is biting this year: the registration status page says that only 43% of tickets have sold, where in recent years the conference was typically completely sold out by early December. That’s with Google subsidising tickets for women to encourage at least trace amounts of gender equality.

Only one person I know well is going.

Strange Aeons

Published on December 9, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Coming soon to a cinema near you, from the pen of Neil Gaiman, directed by Guillermo del Toro, Elder, the tale of a little town named Arkham.

Elder, the movie

*sigh*

I just made that up then, sadly. But think about it, seriously, can you imagine? If anyone could provide gaslight, tentacles and madness, surely it would be these two…

Collective responsibility

Published on December 4, 2008 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Just read this on BoingBoing, and was nauseated, horrified.

“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” co-worker Jimmy Overby, 43, told the Daily News. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me.”

Also, inspired, in an angry sort of way:

The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led. – Poe

Poe is not the only person who refers to mobs as an individual. Nobody is confused if I refer to ‘the mob’ as an entity. So, if mob behaviour leads to damage, injury or death, why not change and try the mob as a single individual?

i.e. If John Farkhwitt  is caught on camera, jostling for position at the edge of a mob which tears the doors off a Walmart and crushes a hapless door-guy to death, then he can be charged with manslaughter, and so can everyone else present!

This might seem harsh, but only if it were retroactive: If Mr Farkhwitt knows that becoming part of a mob makes him liable for the actions of people he may never meet, on the far side of the throng, maybe he wouldn’t be so keen to jostle for position in the first place.

Obviously this needs a little fine-tuning; we don’t want to impact freedom of association, or the right to peaceful protest.

If you disagree with this idea, please try to suggest an alternative: If the guilty party in this story is the crowd, and not just the individuals in it who passed over the shop assistant, how else could they be held accountable as a group, for killing a man? If you don’t think the group are to blame, who is and why?