Goodbye Blogger

I've made the transition to wordpress on my own host and domain.

When you get the chance it'd be awesome if you could update your links to http://blog.ferrouswheel.info/

Thanks everyone (Theveryone - I've been watching too much "Look Around You").

Frabtabulous greetings 2007

I spent the entry of 2007 at Destination: Decadance. It was a big ol' dance party in Wellington with two zones. I indulged in substances I hadn't had before, resulting in me being a bundle of love and happiness and dancing till sweat poured out of my face.

One of the best NYEs in some time (I think I'm getting bored of alcohol).

Briefly my goals this year are:

Become an optimist even if my brain chemicals tell me otherwise.
Finish my PhD.
Get regular DJ gig in a club.
Moderate the drinking.
Cut down on the fatty foods.
Gym every weekday morning, run every evening.

Sucks to be in Australia

It is now illegal for you guys to hyperlink to copyrighted material.

Also of note: "EFA also points out that singing "Happy Birthday" in public would be a criminal offence, as it would be an unauthorised performance of a copyright song. Likewise, using your mobile phone to record a public performance for your own use would also be illegal."

So I shant be singing anyone happy birthday in Australia (yeah right).

OpenMoko

A standards compliant linux smartphone - the Neo1973 - is based on the completely open OpenMoko platform.



Further press available at Wired and Cellphone Beat.

Dimensional craziness

This is a pretty awesome description of all the dimensions up until the 10th.

The tenth dimension - it's a micro-site for a book and in flash but it is worth it!

(thanks to notnotabouthim for the link)

Movable furniture

Now if only it was remote controlled.

Crank and The Departed

A week ago, in a fit of escapism, I went to see two movies in a row: Crank and The Departed. Which I will review very briefly...

The Departed

This follows two undercover agents, Matt Daemon (bad guy playing good) and Leonardo de Caprio (good guy playing bad). It's pretty awesome, and quite brutal. A longish movie, but definitely worth it.

Crank

Crank was a lot more light hearted. Still violent and actiony, but not quite so serious. Right at the start, the main character is been poisoned with a slow acting drug that will eventually kill him. The only thing that delays this is adrenaline which keeps his heart pumping. This results in him running around killing people with the goal of finding his poisoner, ingesting many drugs to keep him going and having sex in front of a crowd with his girlfriend ('cause otherwide he'll die ya know).

ROFL best joke ever!

Man, this is great, almost like the alphabet vs. justice: the best blond joke ever

Neverwinter Nights 2 re-assessment

I still hold that NWN2 was a bad release, and had many bugs, not least of which was being unable to install the game! However, I managed to get around that by getting a registry file from a NWN2 forum member, which let me then run the update program, which as it turns it fixes alot of the bugs, including being unable to save ones game!

Below are the entries for my x64 install. For 32 bit windows, you'll have to alter the Program File paths and remove the \Wow6432Node from the registry paths. You'll also need to find the GUID that windows is using for NWN2 (you might not have to, but I did it just to be sure). Find the NWN2 GUID from the uninstall entry (search reg for neverwinter or something related), as this somehow WAS succesfully entered into the registry.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Obsidian\NWN 2\Neverwinter]
"Installing Name"="Neverwinter Nights 2"
"Location"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Atari\\Neverwinter Nights 2"
"Version"="1.00"
"GUID"="{F20C1251-1D0A-4944-B2AE-678581B33B19}"
"LastInstalledVersion"=dword:00000001
"Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Atari\\Neverwinter Nights 2"
"StartMenu"="C:\\Documents and Settings\\All Users.WINDOWS\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Atari\\Neverwinter Nights 2"
"Language"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Obsidian\NWN 2\Neverwinter\NWUpdate]
"Ping Timeout"="1000"
"Debug"="0"
"Internet Connect"="0"
"RebootMessageCount"=dword:00000002
"Window Position"="203,147"
"Window Size"="618,447"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Obsidian\NWN 2\Neverwinter\SecuROM]
"ADMIN_RIGHTS"="No administrator rights. Please logon as an administrator."
"ANALYSIS_DISCLAIMER"="Dear Software User,



This test program has been developed with your personal interest in mind to check for possible hardware and/or software incompatibility on your PC. To shorten the analysis time, system information is collected (similar to the Microsoft's msinfo32.exe program).Data will be compared with our knowledge base to discover hardware/software conflicts. Submitting the log file is totally voluntary. The collected data is for evaluation purposes only and is not used in any other manner.



Your Support Team



Do you want to start?"
"ANALYSIS_DONE"="The Information was successfully collected and stored to the following file



\"%FILE%\"



Please contact Customer Support for forwarding instructions."
"AUTH_TIMEOUT"="Unable to authenticate original disc within time limit."
"NO_DISC"="Please insert the Neverwinter Nights 2 Play disc."
"NO_DRIVE"="No CD/DVD-ROM drive found."
"TITLEBAR"="Neverwinter Nights 2"
"WRONG_DISC"="Please insert the Neverwinter Nights 2 Play disc."


Diaspora - Greg Egan

Diaspora is probably the hardest Scifi novel I've ever read. Not that it was overly difficult to read, even when it is dealing with sub-atomic physics and theoretical higher dimensional physics. It was hard, as in dealing with scientific theories and having a pretty strong grounding in existing particle physics (at least at the time of the book being written - 1998).

The book starts with the birth of a child, a child that has been purposefully altered randomly to investigate the parameters of consciousness, but not a child in the flesh. You see, in this future, the vast majority of citizens live in one of many polises. These are smallish, nanotech computing environments that, through extensive sensor networks, create a virtual solar system. In essence, most people are uploaded into computing substrate. There are still fleshers though (citizens who have chosen to stay in biological forms, however altered through genetic manipulation they may be), as well as the Gleisner's who exist in robotic bodies.

The basic story goes that a nearby gamma ray burst makes all citizens realise their mortality, and the mortality of their civilization despite their relatively advanced technology. This prompts a diaspora, where copies of the polises are sent in numerous directions through space, in search of alternative systems to live in, and hopefully for answers as well.

The book was enjoyable, but at points the high dimensional physics got a bit hard to understand late at night, and could lead to some weird-ass dreams if you read it just before sleeping. Plus, if you get tired of the physics and put the book down half way through a theory, then trying to pick up from where you left off is frustrating.

Glad I read it though, 3/5 gamma ray bursts.