Self-inflicted Illiteracy

I haven't been reading for a few weeks, which is usually a sign that the book I'm reading hasn't hooked me. I think I've officially lost interest in Anita Blake. Reading the first book of a series is already tough - lots of world and character building. It was the authors first published book (almost 20 years ago), and I'd just come off of The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, which was superbly written. 

I'm going to move on to something else. The premise was interesting on some level, so I'll probably try again when I'm in a scenario where I'll be reading for several hours at a time and can get past the initial issues. Possibilities include the third Bourne book, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, or Academ's Fury (Codex Alera Book 2). Maybe none of those. I'll decide next time I grab the Kindle.

Speaking of Kindles, I've been looking for a Large-format ebook reader. I'm keen to retire a lot of my dead-tree technical manuals and the 6" Kindle is just a bit too small. Unfortunately, the 9.7" Kindle DX is still super expensive (£240-ish excluding shipping and import duty) to the point where spending £399 on an iPad 2 would be a better idea. Kindle Fire is only an inch bigger, US only, and not as good as e-Ink. 

The Kindle DX is pretty much the ideal, but the new Kindles have lowered the price I'm prepared to pay.  Compared to physical books, the weight and size consistency of holding an e-Ink device can't be matched. The only reason I was still buying dead-tree books was that they looked good on the shelf. But that was only true when I still had shelf space.

In the end I surprised myself and bought an iPad 2 rather than the expected Kindle DX. After spending some time thinking about the issue and hearing some other opinions, I realised that the Kindle is going to suck for actually finding anything. It is bad enough when it happens accidentally (ie. when the Kindle crashes), so I imagine doing it regularly on-purpose is going to be painful. When referring to or reading reference material and technical manuals, you tend not to read linearly - eg. cover to cover - at least after the first time.

Super Reality Ethical Skyrim

As I expected, Deus Ex: Human Revolution got put on hold. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been occupying the bulk of my downtime over the past few weeks. According to my save file I've been playing for a little over 100 hours, but I don't believe that (It's plausible it has been open for 100+ hours, but I haven't been actively playing it for all of those).

When our schedules have allowed, I have been playing a bit of Saints Row The Third in Co-op mode with a friend. Which is more fun that it has any right to be. Proof that sometimes, letting the player do whatever they want pays off big time. Only complaint is finding and killing Professor Genki in the world has unbalanced our levelling.

My coop buddy pointed out "Hey, that's Professor Genki - Hah! and he's got a rocket launcher! Isn't that cool!", but was waiting in the car he'd just had delivered. I ran over to kill the Prof (I was grinding the mascots challenge at the time) and commented that he was pretty damn tough. A mission later I was wondering why the hell my roughly $60,000 had become over $360,000. So after some research I found that apparently there is a 1 in 100 chance that Professor Genki will spawn, he's tough, and will usually drop between $100-300k. 

With no means of giving money to your co-op partner (I would have preferred to give him half), that meant I was able to dump a bunch of money into my unlocks that my buddy wasn't able to do. He was obviously (and justifiably) pissed off because he pointed Professor Genki out to me and I felt like a bit of a jerk for having got the kill. It's still fun, but that almost derailed it. At least our Respect level is still the same, so I don't have acess to anything that he couldn't buy given the funds.

Networking Better Than Expected

I have no right being as excited as I am on this topic. I'll just post this here so hopefully I'll stop re-explaining myself to my flatmate and he can regain some sanity (Sorry Paul!).

I rewired the internet/networking here over the weekend. Pretty happy with the new setup as I can fully take advantage of my multi-IP address VDSL2 package now. The rewiring required a second GigE Switch and some additional network cards. I've got the VDSL2 router going to a switch in the office. That switch is handling all the public addressing, so the VPN Server and a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router (via its WAN port) will be attached to that with a public IP address assigned to each.

The VPN Server and WRT54GL are connected to a second switch along with all the other non-public computers. The second switch constitutes the private network. The WRT54GL provides DHCP and internet access to the private network (as well as wireless access to the private network). Obviously, I'm a complete nerd to be excited about all this, but the internet has usually involved hacking around with firmwares and double-NAT configuration to get everything online.

The new setup is working well for gaming too, with games reporting an open NAT making gaming a more pleasant experience. The double-NAT usually caused issues with UPNP. As an added bonus, I could even set up a wireless network that doesn't have access to the private network. The VDSL2 router can provide internet access directly on the VDSL2 routers assigned IP address via either direct connection to the public switch or the VDSL2 routers wireless-N network (if you're in range). The prior setup would have given any guests full private network access (obviously excluding VPN) when all they would need is internet.

The VDSL2 router required some custom routing and firewall setup that was provided by my ISP (after about a month of back-and-forth via email), but it all went very smoothly once I actually got around to taking everything down for configuration and rewiring. The new connection speed is 40Mbit/2Mbit which is about as fast as we can get on the Isle of Man at the moment without going with a super expensive business connection. I'm also apparently super close to the exchange, so I'm getting pretty much all of that speed.

Uncharted-ed

Heh. Pro-tip. Don't have your email filter renewal notices from your domain registrar so that they skip your inbox. It's pretty embarrassing to find out your renewal lapsed by asking someone to sign into your site only to see a holding page with top search results, all because you didn't see the message. Whoops. Lesson learned. I don't even know why the filter was set to skip the inbox, it should have just labelled the email for me. Not smart in any case.

I had been planning on starting to talk more openly about what my games company is working on, but some things have happened recently that have made things a bit uncertain, and I'd like to have resolved those before I start committing to things publicly. Rather annoying really. In any case, the plan is to try and be more open with what we're working on going forward. Secrecy is a tough habit to shake, especially when it's been the norm for the bulk of your career. Expect that to change going forward.

Anita Blake is proving to be a bit of a hard slog. It's the first book in the series, so it's doing a lot of world building. Reading this coming straight off The Wise Mans Fear is akin to eating dessert before your vegetables in terms of quality. But I think I can see enough interest to take me to the end, and I'm starting to feel intrigue setting in. I'm always terrible with books that don't grab me in the first chapter. It's something I have been actively pushing myself to overcome in the past few years, as it's meant I've stopped early on books that were otherwise entertaining. You can tell I'm having trouble with this one given how long I've been reading it. I would have finished most books by now.

I finished Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception over the weekend. Incredibly entertaining. It's one of those games I enjoy watching just as much as I enjoy playing it. The story was fantastic. Felt like a good close to the trilogy. I'm ambivalent as to whether I'd like to see more. On one hand, I love the characters and am keen to see what they get up to next, but on the other hand, the rule of three's states that sometimes Crystal Skulls happens (although, I didn't totally dislike that either). I guess we'll see what Naughty Dog can come up with next. In any case, I felt comfortable with putting the series to bed there if they decide that's enough.

Currently playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution (which I took a break from to play U3). It's been entertaining, but I probably picked a dumb combination of achievements to strive for on my first play-through. I'm trying to get the Pacifist and No Alarms achievements at the same time, which I'm finding at odds with each other and my desire to unlock more of the story. Repeating sections again and again becomes old rather quickly. I think I'm coming towards the end of the game in any case. My backlog of games isn't getting any smaller, so I really need to wrap this one up soon so I can move on.

Multiplayer game-of-choice has been Gears of War 3. Having a blast, although I'm pretty early in the progression. I've only made it to Level 15 if I remember correctly. Horde mode is great. Beast mode is probably my second favourite. I spent a brief amount of time playing Battlefield 3 (on the PC), which seems like it could be a lot of fun. But I haven't had the time I could dedicate to it. Gears has been a lot more conducive to quick jump-in jump-out sessions. I'd need to spend some time learning the maps/guns/modes on Battlefield 3 to feel like I'm not running around lost. The few minutes I spent seemed pretty cool though.

Wise Man's Fear

I finally finished up The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Long book, but thoroughly enjoyable. Actually, that feels like it sells it short. I thought it was amazing. I'm now totally ready for the next one. Not quite sure what I'm reading next, I need to check my backlog. Might try the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.

First Post

After a bit of a hiatus, I've decided I might attempt regular blogging again. My original plan had been to move my previous Movable Type blog over to Wordpress (due to the lackluster plugin ecosystem on MT), but gave that up in favour of setting something up under Google App Engine, mostly to test the waters in terms of working with and developing for that platform.

I spent about half a day playing with the various blog engines that have already been built for GAE, until I realised that, while all of them were unobtrusive enough that I could extend them myself without too many problems, I simply didn't have the time. There are enough projects on my plate without adding frivolous ones which ultimately don't have any real value beyond being "interesting". I'll test the waters with a real project instead.

So I scrapped that idea and set up a new blog on Blogger. I'll move my domain over to here soon and then my only excuse for no updates will be not allocating any time to do it (read: laziness).

Update: Heh. "a bit of a hiatus" is apparently an understatement. My last blog post was September 10th 2010. o_O