Random trivial WoW news…

by on August 16, 2005 at 10:44 am
Posted In: MMO

As of… two days ago now, my main character in WoW got his goat.

Since this is my first MMORPG, the acquisition of a distinctive and expensive item is kind of a rite of passage. Kind of an odd one. I didn’t think of it as that important as other than a status symbol (especially since as a hunter, I’ve been going faster than the normal game running speed for a while), but dang if the game doesn’t feel a bit different now.

It’s also a notch on the post as Dunain grows towards the game limit of Level 60. Considering the distractions of all the other characters I’d like to spend time with, his just-minted level 44 is miraculous.

Edit: proper portrait…. ^_^

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Historical (or alternate-history) novels I’ve read and liked:

by on August 13, 2005 at 3:45 pm
Posted In: Books

This is salvaged from an ages old forum post. Reading and history are a couple of my main hobbies, so I naturally have an interest in books that talk about history. This is a list of books that are at least generally pretty good that deal with history.

Sumeria: (sorta)

Between the Rivers by Harry Turtledove

A fun look at how humans get out from under the thumbs of their patron gods in a mesopotamia-ish setting.

Second Intermediate Period Egypt

The Shepherd Kings by Judith Tarr

A novel of the fall of the Hyksos, with horse-worshiping thrown in.

Ancient Greece

The King Must Die by Mary Renault
The Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault

While Mary Renault’s other books haven’t done much for me, this pair on Theseus really caught at my imagination.

New Kingdom Egypt

King and Goddess by Judith Tarr
Lord of Two Lands by Judith Tarr

Judith Tarr’s fascination with Ancient Egypt shows with four novels (including the Akenaten-as-Moses Pillar of Fire) covering different parts of its history. She has a good grasp of the culture, and more difficultly, the religion, which shapes these two wonderfully.

Roman Republic

The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
The Grass Crown by Colleen McCullough
Fortune’s Favorites by Colleen McCullogh
Ceasar’s Women by Colleen McCullough
Ceasar by Colleen McCullogh
The October Horse by Colleen McCullogh

The first book in the series is by far the strongest, being meant to stand on its own, and having a much more solid plot thereby. They are certainly good (as nearly everything here is) at getting the feel of the time and place through. Coming in second is the final book, which covers from the siege of Alexandria to the first stage of the civil war following Caesar’s assassination.

Roman Empire

I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Claudius the God by Robert Graves

‘Nuff said.

Island of Ghosts by Gillian Bradshaw

An extremely well-written tale of Sarmartian troops who have been pressed into Roman service in Britannia.

The Shadow of Arrarat by Thomas Harlan
The Gate of Fire by Thomas Harlan
The Storm of Heaven by Thomas Harlan
The Dark Lord by Thomas Harlan

An alternate-history fantasy set in the early 7th century where the Western Empire has survived through the power of an ‘Oath’ that keeps change from happening. As a whole these are the weakest books here, but the first book is the best and worthwhile just for worldbuilding ideas, with a well-written large battle towards the end.

Post-Roman

Sheba by Walter S. Crane IV

A well-told fantasy story in three graphic novels of what happens to the gods when the human world moves on, set during the Muslim conquest of Egypt.

The Eagle’s Daughter by Judith Tarr

I’m surprised how often Judith Tarr gets overlooked. She’s (one of) the finest historical novelists currently writing. This one deals with Otto I-III and the birth of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Norman Conquest

Sherwood by Parke Godwin

A very well done Robin Hood story set against the Norman Conquest of England, instead of the more typical John/Richard era (a habit started by Ivanhoe).

The Crusades

A Wind in Cairo by Judith Tarr

A fun historical-fantasy set in Egypt right after Saladin takes control.

Alamut by Judith Tarr
The Dagger and the Cross by Judith Tarr

A pair of well-written historical-fantasies. The first one deals with Saladin when he tried to take on the Assasins, and the second deals with the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The Isle of Glass by Judith Tarr
The Golden Horn by Judith Tarr
The Hounds of God by Judith Tarr

A trilogy that the previous pair are a prequel to set at the time of the Fourth Crusade.

Norman England

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

Two types of history: the first historical novel.

Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson

The story of Robin Hood (in the more familiar King Richard period) from the viewpoint of Maid Marian

The American Civil War

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

A very good novel of Gettysburg, upon which the movie Gettysburg was based.

World War II

The Proteus Operation by James P. Hogan

A well done WWII time-travel story.

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Wiki Humor

by on August 9, 2005 at 10:38 am
Posted In: Life

One of the little hobbies that I indulge in a bit is contributing to Wikipedia (Geekopedia).

Anyway, I just came across this humor page with a plan to stop vandalism on the WikiMedia projects.

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Three news items…

by on August 5, 2005 at 10:19 am
Posted In: News

A few things I’ve found worthy of pondering in the last couple of days:

Apple has a new two-button (or really more) mouse. I can only say it’s about time. One problem I have with Macs in general, is that while Apple is happy to innovate and do new things, they are loathe to imitate the successes of other companies. It’s very nice to be cool and different, but a computer is a machine, and practicalities must be paid attention to.

Of course, Apple does do its best to do everyone one better with the scroll ball and the touch-sensor buttons. The last seems technically interesting, as I’d think you could technically split up the area into any number of ‘buttons’ you wanted. The former probably won’t matter much to a lot of users, but should be very handy in graphics applications.

Unfortunately, they stuck with the bar-o-soap design. This is slightly more ergonomic than sticking your hand in a blender….

Apple has sent out developer boxes for the new Intel-based Macs. Apple originally promised that while they would not be trying to keep people from installing Windows or Linux on the machines they produced, they would keep people from running OS X on machines other than their’s. I thought that would be a pretty tall order….

However, it turns out that Apple is using a new style of security chip on the motherboard. The OS will refuse to install if it is not detected. Chips like this have been popular with manufacturers like Intel for some years, but are constantly rejected by informed users (i.e., the fanatics who follow the release of every new chipset and motherboard…) who don’t like the possibilities for tracing particular machines. So now Apple has them pissed off about going along with Intel. I can’t say I blame them.

It should be noted that this chip is not unique to Apple; Intel is already using it. I might presume there is some difference enabled so that the Intel-OS X won’t install on just any machine with a TPM chip. But I wonder if would be possible for someone to hack around that, or otherwise work around it (like how a $20 I/O card could be turned into a $100 RAID-controller by soldering on a 5¢ resistor). This would be far too much work to actually effect the market in any real way, but might still raise the hackles of the hardware-jealous god of Apple.

SquareEnix is considering going multi-platform. They have traditionally stuck with whatever console has the majority of the market (although, one could accuse them of a certain amount of king-making). The president of the company started by pointing out that the Xbox has been a lot more successful in the US than in Japan, and then pointed out that the numbers look like the Xbox and PlayStation2 are currently selling in equal numbers here.

He then hypothesized that the next generation consoles could easily: a) split the world into different regions of who is on top, or b) split into a dominant ‘high-end console’ and a dominant ‘low-end console’.

I’ve wondered for some time if Microsoft might manage ‘a’ for a while. It’s obvious they’ve targeted themselves at the market they know, and are more-or-less showing the flag in Japan. I can’t see Sony or Microsoft settling for a (b) result, they’ll battle each other for total marketshare with prices, features and games all the way down. Maybe Wata knows more about Nintendo’s plans for the Revolution than he can tell…

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Slow Reading (Review)….

by on August 3, 2005 at 7:06 pm
Posted In: Books

I’ve just finished off A Clash of Kings, the second volume of George R. R. Martin’s sprawling fantasy series. I’ve got some thoughts on the books, so click on the link to see them:

They’ve been very popular, and I’d say deservedly so, but there is the fact that it shouldn’t take me five months to finish two books.

Admittedly there was a couple weeks where I was worn-down and busy enough that I basically didn’t read at all. And they are big books. But really…!

Were they bad books? No. Martin’s writing is quite good, I like his characters, I have a couple of nagging problems with the setting, but I like what he’s doing with it.

I just couldn’t motivate myself to read more than a minimal amount in either book, except for a few occasions where I gulped down a several chapters at once.

A Game of Thrones presents a fairly typical medieval fantasy setting. The background history is nice with a long-established dynasty having been overthrown about a generation ago, and the kingdom plunged into civil war over problems with the succession (a popular reason for wars in the actual middle ages). The politics are well done, I can believe the intrigue, and it’s handled well (I get tired of webs within webs within webs pretty fast; a good thing I’m not involved in court politics). The war quickly turns into four separate factions, with a permanent breakup of the kingdom likely. There’s also a mysterious (and magical) menace starting to move in frozen lands to the north, and the last survivor of the previous dynasty plotting her return to power.

So, lot of things going on, all powered by good characters and — individually — handled well from a plot point of view.

The problem is that there’s so many disconnected plots going around that the books never gel as a whole, and therefore don’t hold my attention. The beginning of the first book more-or-less makes it look like it’ll be the story of the Starks of Winterfell in these troubled times (and they are focused on them more than anything else), and if the books as a whole stuck with them and one of the major plotlines, I’d be very happy. As it is, it’s too unfocused, with too many disconnected plot fragments not really impacting each other for me to really get into.

Thanks to a very nice coworker, I’ve got a copy of the new Harry Potter book. So I’m eagerly diving into that. After that, I’m not sure what I’ll read, I’m kinda low on new things, and I’ve gone through some of my more favorite books lately….

‘Tis a puzzlement.

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