Let us pause to remember the fallen

Eight years ago today, on 9/9/99, I sat in line for two hours to get my pre-ordered Sega Dreamcast. I have to say, in retrospect, that this was one of the best game systems I have owned. That night I played Soul Calibur, the best console fighting game ever produced. Other gems were NFL2K, Jet Grind Radio, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Shenmue, and Skies of Arcadia. OMG, I still have House of the Dead 2 (with light gun). My Dreamcast is still hooked to my TV, and I still play some times. I also found a cool community of retro-gaming enthusists over at Racket Boy, check it out sometime.

Some decent fantasy books

So, all of you probably know that most fantasy novels suck. Not "somewhat dissatisfying" but really and truly suck; completely filled with clichés, wooden prose and absurd deus ex machina plot devices. So reading Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind has been a positive pleasure. The only quibble is his insistence at pointing out when the story does not follow the standard hackneyed fantasy path. The story is good, we get that it is atypically thoughtful. Please trust us. It's kind of like a comedian who insists on explaining a joke even after the audience laughs.

Another good book, soon to be a series is The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, the beginning of The Gentleman Bastard series. This, like The Name of the Wind falls into the "young boy struggles through heinous childhood to become a hero" sub-genre of fantasy, but like the above novel doesn't feel like you're walking up the worn steps of fantasy predecessors. Lynch has an evocative urban setting which seems based on Renaissance Italy and bluntly it's a true page burner.

So, if you like fantasy novels, check one of these two out.

Job Loss

So one of the many reasons this blog has lain fallow is my impending job loss. The lab I work at, who I have done some pretty good work for, did not receive either a USDA or a NSF grant renewal. This means that May 25th is my last day in the lab. I have so far applied for 23 jobs at Vanderbilt, gotten 2 phone interviews (for jobs that suck) and two interviews with a nice lab and otherwise bupkis. Outside of Vanderbilt, I have applied for 3 jobs, with no call backs. I have applied for one job in information science and I have an interview tomorrow, but it is much less money than I make now (with less hours).

I have never lost a job before. I have always been a welcome addition, an upgrade over the person I replaced and lamented when gone. This is a brand new feeling, and it kind of hurts. I did an OK job, but the funders didn't like our output. But when it gets right down to it, it's not like I'm any better than anyone else or somehow more deserve a job than some random person down the way.

Sniglet: Hubrisqué

Hubrisqué (def) - the quality of arrogance while doing something sexually titillating.

New Search Engine

I ust found out about this search engine at the very fine website, Search Engine Showdown. The thumbnails of search results is an excellent innovation, but this engine is deep. It has proximity operators, a phonetic finder (operator and operater), supports truncation (Google gave this up) and other advanced functions. It is the only search engine other than google to get me excited in a long time.

"Um, it had a blue cover..."

This was a frustrating question when I worked in a bookstore - the customer only remembered the physical description of the book they wanted. Well, some guy cam up with a way to search books by cover color. You have to input the hex value of the color, a guide to which is here.

Why I do not Play Online Games

So, when I read reviews of video games I often notice a bias towards the online content. When I was considering purchasing a video game for Christmas, I was floored by the negative reviews of Neverwinter Nights II based only on the inadequacies of the online content. I have no interest in making friends over the Internet, I cannot keep friends in real life because I am so busy. I play video games in fits and starts with weeks long gaps in between sessions. I could not possibly care less about the online content of a game and a World of Warcraft subscription strikes me as more pathetic than cable television, which I cut off about three years ago (current savings ~$1,800).

My problem is that immersive, intelligent single player games are a dying breed. Gamers want to talk to each other. Never mind that a significant plurality of gamers are utterly uninteresting and cravenly addicted to the digital teat. I go to video games to tune out. Sometimes I drink beer and game. It's like watching a sitcom. Do I want to interact with someone else just because they think The Tick is funny? No.

This is one of these situations where I have decided I am old. Never mind the way I dress, progressive politics or my affection for Of Montreal, Beulah, and other relatively 'hip' bands. I just don't want to meet people through video games. Let the fogeydom begin.

Vista DRM

So it hasn't been getting much play, but Vista has a tremendous amount of digital rights management built in. However, as seems the case for all codes, the DRM may have already been broken. Years of development, millions of dollars, two weeks of secure intellectual property.