A New Penguin, CCNA2, Ars Magica, Socialising, Dunedin

[tcpip]

So I finally ditched Mandrake and played around with a couple of distros for server-level fun. OpenSolaris was even installed at one stage, albeit briefly. FreeBSD, the preferred option, didn't want to install and I'm not man enough to fight it. Finally settled on Fedora. Then began the tiresome process of getting Python, Zope and Plone up and going. They don't talk to each other very well at all. If PHPWebsite was fully standards compliant I wouldn't bother with this nonsense.

Last week I passed the CCNA semester 2 theory exam. It was held out-of-sync because myself and the other student (yes, the class has had a 80%+ drop-out rate) were having problems with the prac test, so the instructor put that off until this week and sprung the exam on us instead. I rather suspect that if I actually had the opportunity to study for it I would have done better than the 77% that I received. It's good enough for now.

Gaming this past week has only consisted of Ars Magica. The Storyguide has placed us on the Calf of Man, a desolate windswept place far from civilization. My character, as a Greek scholar, is already beginning to feel exiled. I am increasingly of the opinion that the setting - minus the inter-House politics - is magnificant and the system is both flawed and incomplete.

In a fairly social week, I started with hasimir's gathering at the Gin Palace. There was fine conversation and some amusement at the fact that everyone present had an el-jay account. Later, an end-of-year gathering for the Henry George Foundation, with an excellent speech by Bob Knowles. Finally, went to caseopaya's end of year work function and had a very enjoyable time.

Have been reading books on network games and decided that would be a great profession; I would get to combine all my interests into one. Planning to go to the Dunedin Linux Conf in January. I have a mad dream of a dozen people taking over a disused warehouse in Dunedin and turning it into an IT centre of great repute. But who would join me in such a venture at the end of the earth?

Comments

[nightcity.livejournal.com]

But who would join me in such a venture at the end of the earth?

Those with an appreciation for ridiculously cheap real estate?

And it's the quality of the virtual estate that'd matter most on a venture like that :]

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

One of the great things about Dunedin is that population is falling and the buildings were made when it was richer and bigger. So you get great real estate and the work would provide great virtual estate.

The ultimate agenda is to live in Dunedin, design a historical fantasy version of World of Warcraft and do something interesting with the politics of the land.

[cheshirenoir.livejournal.com]

I've been enjoying Ubuntu recently. A wonderfully simple distro, which behaves very well. I have heard it described as "Linux for your Grandmother" as it's that simple to use and set up.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like Ubuntu a lot.. It's Debian that plays nice and simple... I just couldn't find my bloody install disks!

Ubuntu is most certainly NOT Debian.

[imajica-lj.livejournal.com]

It WAS Debian derived, but to be "Debian" there has to be a an active process where the Canonical people get the opportunity to back port the really great changes they have made BACK into Debian.

This has not occurred, no one is happy about it either.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

One of the problems with python/zope/plone is the latter two are in fairly active development, so there are frequent versioning issues. The debian installs work fairly OK though, don't know whats the issue with Fedora. You can easily end up in dependency hell on any version if you install a few products, which you will, because thats the point. I have a fair bit of plone/zope experience, and the learning curve can be fairly steep, so feel free to bounce me questions.

I'm in the middle of learning how to develop content types using Archetypes/ArchGenXML at the moment.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well I've currently installed...

Python-2.35
Zope-2.8.4 and
Plone-2.1.1

Any other combination seemed to go awol.

I've fixed up the userid and ownership issues (basic installation at /home/user/zope/instance1) but when I runzope I get deprecation warnings and Plone doesn't appear in Zope interface at http://localhost:8080/manage

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you may not have installed all the plone products. Do plone products show up if you in /control_panel/products/ in the zmi?

[tatjna.livejournal.com]

Dunedin isn't the end! There's at least 200km after that. Ever been to Invercargill? ;-)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've had a wee look at Invercargill... There's this attachment I have with the place...

Heh. I should read the userinfo, shouldn't I?

[tatjna.livejournal.com]

And you're still calling Dunedin the end of the earth? Been to Dargaville? That really -is- the, erm... end. In the vulgar sense of the word.

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

But who would join me in such a venture at the end of the earth?

You could twist my arm. We've pondered relocating to NZ more than once :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Wages are lower. Social services are better. Politics is better; much better.

[antayla.livejournal.com]

"I have a mad dream of a dozen people taking over a disused warehouse in Dunedin and turning it into an IT centre of great repute. But who would join me in such a venture at the end of the earth?"

What would you do with your IT centre, host network games?
I've considered moving to NZ in the past, but the immigration standards are higher than that of Oz, and once you get into Oz, you can easily get into NZ.

At this point, moving anywhere would have to provide some benefit greater than the personal network and area knowledge I have based in the Portland, OR area.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd have a side project (see above) on developing a historical fantasy MMORPG.

Apart from that there's a fair few businesses and people in Dunedin. Whilst there is a couple of small computer professional services (e.g., ProSouth) I reckon some higher-end networking services would be interesting.

I like the idea of a massively networked south island ;-)

[imajica-lj.livejournal.com]

> I have a mad dream of a dozen people taking over a disused warehouse in Dunedin and turning it into an IT centre of great repute. But who would join me in such a venture at the end of the earth?

Sold.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I was hoping you'd say something like that.

[zey.livejournal.com]

So I finally ditched Mandrake and played around with a couple of distros for server-level fun.

I was forced to install Novell SuSe a week or two ago. It really confirmed to me that I much prefer Debian systems. Granted, the Debian Stale vs Debian Unstable question gets hairy towards the end of a major revision, but, there's a lot to be said for the known quantity.

OpenSolaris was even installed at one stage

Is that what they're calling Solaris for Intel these days?

Last time I had Solaris for Intel installed, it was a pretty hideous beast with a fairly short hardware compatibility list, (which at the time didn't include the most popular network card on the market).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I was forced to install Novell SuSe a week or two ago.

Apparently that's the recommended distro for my laptop (HP Compaq nx5000); the sound card and the wireless work with it (thanks HP). Problem is recent events in Novell make SUSE's future look a bit dark.

Last time I had Solaris for Intel installed, it was a pretty hideous beast with a fairly short hardware compatibility list, (which at the time didn't include the most popular network card on the market).

I believe that is still the case. I couldn't get a connection up and running either :/

The Java version of KDE looks cute tho'.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The setting is definitely the best bit of Ars Magica. The much praised magic system has its moments, but its really more the magic system concepts than the execution. There are definitely some serious system flaws, I've never liked combat for a start, and its too bookkeeping heavy.

It certainly has some oddities. Magicians can end up caring more about their achievements in down time rather "active" play!

I recommend getting a copy of The Mysteries, if possible, adds to the background significantly (though some aspects of it made it into the core rules in ArsM5. And some of the area books are very well done.

What about the inter-house politics don't you like? One of the nicer facets of the game, I think, especially as it can be quite subtle in ArsM (compared to, say, Mark Rein*splat*Hagens later uses of the concept in the WOD games).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

You are quite right about the magic system. The concept is brilliant, certainly as adaptable as the Hero system in principle, but the actual execution really isn't that good.

The combat system only requires too much bookkeeping insofar that initiative and fatigue rolls are made every round, imo. The optional rule for a separate roll for defense I find speeds up play. Otherwise I found that it was largely a non-issue.

The concept of competing houses was good and they seem fairly well delineated. To be truer to the setting however, I would have preferred a stronger attachement to cultural and religious beliefs - more like competing RuneQuest cults.

[allezbleu.livejournal.com]

el-jay?

more like

el-gay


but thats just me ;)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Heh. More than a handful of left-handed monks and all-rounders present....

[lula-neith.livejournal.com]

Congrats on passing the theory exam. Best wishes on getting into the gaming as a profession. Linux is great, I hear. I like the idea that it's free. Microsoft is evil. Sorry just time to hit the highlights. I'm at work.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Nothing like a broad-ranging brief commentary... Having researched the issue at some length it is reasonable to say that Microsoft does what every other private competitive enterprise does - it pushes the law to the fullest extent to become a private monopoly. There really isn't much of a surprise there.

Whilst I support the Linux ideology (open-source/free software), on a technical level I'd much prefer FreeBSD. Linux is "just fine" as a server-level technology, but if I had the money to throw away, I think I'd lean towards Microsoft's Server 2003 and IIS 6.0 - they actually did a good job with that (hey, it only took them ten years to get NT right!). Most however will respond "too little, too late"