Blogging, Gaming, Work Updates

[tcpip]

Every few months I glance at the LJ/DW calendar and realise that my preferred 'blogging rate of twice a week is neglected, and that certainly has been the case this past month. This sort of journaling is superb for the content-heavy mental organisaton of planning and reflection, an implementation of slow blogging. At the other extreme the Twitter-jitters tends towards immediate and often often unreflective emotional responses although, I acknowledge, that many people treat it as either a public instant messaging service or a bookmarking tool, which is possibly more sensible. Facebook/Google+ isn't really too different due to the sheer volume and the ease of reposting articles, although a review of those in their own right. I want to like Google+, but I don't. I think they have failed at what was best about the original Google, a web implementation the Unix philosophy: This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.

On Sunday played GURPS Middle Earth; our group in now up to eight players with some richness in conversation, even if the particular scenario is getting frustrating with its ambiguity (and that's not on moral level, like Simone de Beauvoir as DM). Thursday night was our regular Masks of Nyarlathotep game. The players are reaching the end of the Egyptian chapter. With some desperate praying on behalf of the hitherto loyal Catholic exorcist, the appearance of a disturbingly attractive and naked Bast, goddess of cats has directed the party towards the cultic ritual beneath the Sphinx. Also during the past week, I've dusted off some notes and started a collection of essays on the design of Mimesis RPG, my own pet (and incomplete project). This entry deals with the dice mechanics of the core resolution system.

The past week at work has witnessed a bit of preparation for my paper at the International Conference on Computational Science, along with the usual tasks. Friday was particularly awesome however, as we hosted a Hackathon. Whilst the turnout was lower than expected we created an environment of pizza and cherry cola, playing Front 242 remixes, all in true cyberpunk style. Most of my time was spent on "Refactoring Fortran Code for Abaqus Finite Element Analysis with the Portable Batch System"; yes that is the title of the relevant 'blog post. At the end of the day the users were very happy indeed. The weird thing about it the experience is that I now want to code more in Fortran, which is clearly all sorts of wrong-fun.

Comments

[shadro]

This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.

I think is what helped spark my plan for how to handle this development project I am starting today.

[tcpip]

*beams*

Very pleased to hear that. If you get a chance, get hold of The Unix Programming Environment. It's old, but still very relevant, easy to read but clever, and really quite enjoyable.

[iris]

I'm still not much for Facebook/etcetera. I may treat comments on DW like talking at times, and that's usually because I don't know what to say about the entry as a whole and maybe only a certain part of it, but.. I don't know. Socializing sites just have never been for me and I've always preferred the DW/LJ style.

[tcpip]

Comments in DW are a conversation, but the pace is different. Facebook (and Youtube even more so) is prone to immediate responses and often can become quite heated as a result, although LJ-dramas obviously existed. But even then it was relatively rare in comparison. A lot has to do with the sheer pace and volume of content I suspect. Which brings me back to that Slow Blogging manifesto; reject the demands of immediacy and treat words with reflection and importance.

[splodgenoodles]

Y'know, one of the things I like about LJ/DW and other blogging platforms is that sense that it's okay to comment on old posts.

They're a resource, you can have ongoing conversations, you can refer back.

[tcpip]

Technically you can with FB and G+ as well, but it's not quite as easy. Even something like the URLs in LJ/DW are more friendly for that sort of thing.

[(Anonymous)]

dreamwidth is beyond me I..I´much admire the writings of Simone de Beauvoir and JPS and the other existentialists but beyond that, I don't mix with our crop up here.There are ,of course ,plenty Catalan separists-but there always was....

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Is this you fluffyblanket?

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Your Masks of Nyarlathotep updates always make me want to start reviewing retro RPG supplements on my 'blog.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Masks is perhaps the classic Call of Cthulhu scenario, full of pulpy goodness and globe-trotting. Horror on The Orient Express is a quite the classic as well. I'm not sure which one to rate higher. For epic campaigns there is also Shadows of Yog-Sothoth which sits on my shelf unread, although I have heard very good things about it as well.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

And I'm pretty sure I just... mentally melded your Horror on the Orient Express together with Masks. I think it's been so long that the modules start blending together into a giant squamous cloud of sanity rolls in my head.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, we have run Masks (1925) as a part II of Horror (1923). Some of them are even the same characters (albeit one was a bit-piece character and two have recovered from a bout of insanity).

Oh, and of course they have the same big bad as well. "He" really does take an interest in humanity.

[elven-ranger.livejournal.com]

I heard that google+ is going down the pan in a few months

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

That would be very interesting, but I can't see it happening. A major shakeup maybe?

The idea of integrating their services into a single account is fine by me. That makes sense. But G+ is far too busy, with it's combined hangouts, news stream, chats etc. Essentially they're trying to copy Facebook and it's not going to work. There already is a Facebook.

Also bundling everything together makes the product slow to a crawl on the older systems (which I prefer).