tcpip | Computing, Socialising, RPG Review 18

First two days of the past week were spent teaching HPC and Linux to various graduates and post-docs. These courses are always quite exhausting to conduct, but the feedback and demand is always good, so we've moved to a bimonthly schedule. Preparations for the New Zealand tour in a week's time (MC-ing at Multicore World, speaking at a University of Otago). This Tuesday will meet with Greg Wilson, author of Beautiful Code. Apropos all this, I have written down some brief thoughts about listening and meeting Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Yesterday consisted on another excellent day of Cheese Quest with

ser_pounce and

hathhalla, which included Bleu de Bresse, Roquefort, Boursin, and to be very plain, Jarslberg (I brought a goat ricotta which, whilst not part of the sketch, with nevertheless quite nice). Afterwards played Sunda to Sahul, Timeline, Guillotine, and a couple of rounds of Munchkin. Afterwards went to dinner with

doomydoombear, whom we haven't seen for forever and a day, so that was absolutely delightful.

The eighteenth issue of RPG Review has been released, a special edition on the Cthulhu mythos. I think I contributed just under half the content this time, which is a horrible situation to be in for the editor of a fanzine (although not uncommon). The issue includes system reviews (Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Cthulhu D20), setting reviews (Dark Ages, Dreamlands, Delta Green, Cthulhupunk), alternate settings (Metropolis), designer's notes for EPOCH, and excellent investigative theory article, movie reviews etc. I've also released that most of the major contributors are on livejournal, but in honour of the semi-anonymous system I won't mention them "by name". My editorial engages in a little bit of pop psychoanalysis, suggesting that perhaps Lovecraft's monsters were, in part, a project of his own racism.