A finger in my I

We start with a simple (!) proposition: Everything is made out of atoms.

Atoms are nothing more and nothing less than the building blocks of everything that surrounds us, from the most magnificent of galactic structures, down to the infinitesimal. Even the energy that powers the universe, whichever form it takes, has atoms in it.

Another simple proposition: Conservation of energy. Thermodynamics, first law. "Conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy (including potential energy) in a closed system remains constant. In other words, energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. In modern physics, all forms of energy exhibit mass and all mass is a form of energy." (thanks Wikipedia).

So, energy can be converted from one form to another, but it remains. Not created nor destroyed.

Therefore it does stand to some sort of poetic reason, let's call it that, that since energy is essentially made out of atoms, and energy remains, even if transformed, then the atoms themselves remain unchanged, and the transformations we observe in the universe around us are simple transformations and transpositions of atoms. And little else.

I'm getting to some sort of point.

When I write a simple little message on my keyboard, say the ubiquitous "Hello World", I put it on an email and send it away, "Hello World" merely become a bunch of bytes, carried away through the wiring/fiber/beamed up and down via satellite. There is one small amount of bytes, which is really nothing but a collection of 1s and 0s, electrical impulses, of a predetermined configuration that is carried and transformed until it reaches its destination. However, what if that collection of bytes does not find a recipient, and remains bouncing around the network? Energy is not destroyed, and neither are the impulses, since they're essentially energy running around the 'net.

So there is some sort of poetic precedent for the existance of an eternal message, codified into 1s and 0s, perennially bouncing around the wires. One particular collection of atoms, unique in all the universe, since matter/atoms cannot be replicated. A message, that despite probably saying the same thing as a million other messages, is unique as far as the building blocks that make it are concerned. A message just like that never existed before since the universe came to be, and another identical collection of atoms will never exist just like it again. It is, for lack of a better word, unique.

This is way lyrical. We know it doesn't work like that, but it does beg the question, doesn't it? What if you could compose a message. A unique message, without match in all the history of the universe, past and future. A message that cannot be replicated in essence. A message that will endure, since energy is not destroyed and that's what it's made of.

From the brain, to the hands, to the keyboard, to the computer… the message is created, its meaning locked, codified and turned into electrical impulses that then dart into a vast planetary network, or even beamed to the entirety of the universe. A single point in time, a single thought and a single message, writhing as energy on the surface of an ever-expanding bubble of EM growing at lightspeed from its origin. For the whole universe the hear, as it moves through its body eternal.
What would that unique message be? What would your unique message be? If you had one thing, one eternal thing to tell the universe, never to be replicated again and enduring until it all turns to lead… what would you say?

Mine would say "I love my Carrie", and despite being something so domestic and mundane compared to the physics of eternal messages, somehow I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Nice.

So here's the story, condensed. I go to Spain, I take a nice picture while in Manresa. I go back home, and years later end up here in the U.S. One day Carrie goes through my pictures and finds the one, scans it and uploads it to Flickr. A guy that helps with the Wikipedia in Catalán sees the picture, likes it, and asks for a share license to use it in their article about Manresa.

And, lo and behold. It's the second one down, captioned "La Seu des del carrer Bastardes". One day I might make a living out of this photography deal. Until then, just glee.

Here's a linky to a higher-res version of the pic. Not too shabby for a crappy 35mm Holidaysnapomatic P&C and a crappy scanner.

So, the good news first: Heroes of Might and Magic V is really quite good, and from what little time I could spend with it, I really like it.

It's a bit weird (good weird), because on one hand thankfully it does feel like a nice throwback to previous good HOMM titles like II and III. The mechanics that make a game a HOMM game are there, and they're virtually untouched. And on the other hand, since it's made by those crazy communists at Nival Interactive it has a certain, lingering taste to some of their other nice titles like Silent Storm and Etherlords. Which is always nice to have.

So there was a nice collusion of old things there, which managed to create a very nice new thing. It makes sense in my head, like most things in the world.

I haven't played much of it all. Why? Read on. But the thing is that this feels like a severe and crystalline cleansing mouthwash from the aberration that was HOMM IV. And that's so good I could cry. I suppose if the mapping community can get behind this one like they did for HOMM III, and the map editor permits, we should see the life of the game extended dramatically.

My only sort-of-complaint is that it does not have a random map/scenario generator. Not a sandbox mode like RRT2. I mean just a random map generator. That would've been great, given the relative lack of "skirmish" maps the game comes with (only 5 or 6 I think).

Plus, it looks the bomb bizomb.

Now why, you may ask, have I not spent as much time with as I would've liked? Three Four letters that should be in every PC gamer's lexicon by now. And they're dreaded. B-S-O-D. Apparently there's an issue, a known issue, that predominantly appears on Radeon cards where the game just happily and contundently destroys the space-time continuum, and the resulting hyperdimensional vortex locks your computer. A hard reset is the only choice. And of course this appears randomly.

However… since it's video related, I've been mucking around a bit and found out thanks to angry forum postings and some trial and error, that if you dive into the .inis and make sure the config tells it to start in windowed mode at 800×600, the sessions last longer. It doesn't eliminate the problem, mind you. But you don't get dumped every 3-5 minutes. Cutting edge technology + rushed release = Cubits of fun!

Anyway, I've read the issue has been identified and should be resolved in an upcoming patcharoo. So we'll see.

By Crom, I hate technology sometimes.

We've been having a recurring problem here at the Marcone compound for well over a year now. Or should I say, two problems, kinda related.

It all started when popular pressure on the streets had mounted so much against my administration that I was forced to make concessions, and one of them was to build Carrie her own computer. Which I did, happily. Vox populi, vox dei, after all. The first issue came when it was time for her to get connected to teh intarweb (and that's not a typo, it's her preferred spelling as of late). It was time to build a small home network, and share the digital manna coming out of Comcast's heavenly pipe. At the time the simplest solution was to just run the appropiate length of Cat5, and get an el cheapo switch/router to get the sharing going.

That router turned out to be a Linksys BEFSR41. Router with 4-port switch. Peachy. It worked well for a while. Our network had no problems. However, as the router was compliant with the ISO Cheapass standard, it began to fail whenever it had to deal with a significant number of concurrent connections.

And by 'concurrent connections' I mean Bittorrent. Every time I fired a .torrent for my important and legal business stuff, the router crapped out. Quit. Gone and down for the count. I was forced to unplug the cable modem itself, let it chill, and plug it again. Not even resetting the router would bring it back. No sir. The whole connection had to be killed. This went on for a long time, and it got to be so bad that I was pretty much forced to find an alternate way of acquiring my important and very legal files.

At any rate, at some point after months of dealing with this, I got a new router. A D-Link DI-604, which apparently was marginally more respectable and didn't have many problems with Bittorrent. Or should I say, didn't have many problems with concurrent connections, because it still crapped out in the same way, except it didn't like UPnP. I tried everything with this one.

Limited concurrent connections to something ridiculously low, like 20 or so: Still crapped out
Disabled DHT in uTorrent to eliminate overhead: Still crapped out
Enabled packet encryption in case the ISP was doing packet shaping: Still crapped out
Disabled UPnP both in the client and in the router: Still crapped out

Le sigh. I think at this point I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and build up a cheap $100-$150 Linux box with two NICs just to act as a router. But I don't want to do that, damn it. Last thing I want is yet another box lying around, turned on all day.

Oh, I almost forgot the second problem. Our cable modem seems to be about to kick the bucket as well. I'm pretty sure there's some kind of loose connection or jack somewhere inside, because if you move it, or even if you pick it up to move it, all sync with the rest of the world goes to hell. Been telling the light of my life to call Comcast and see about having them check the cabling, or just giving us a new unit, but we're still here after two months of requests. We'll see. But that adds to the problem.

So, yeah. Bad. My only comfort is that at least all this is wired. I can't imagine the headaches I'd be having if I had to deal with all this plus all the common wireless issues people have. But that's grain from another sack.

Better late than never, as they say.

In any case, yes, this is my new blog. Yay. Throw confetti or something. All that is well and good, however it would be for nothing if we don't come up with some rules from the beginning. Lest this blog whithers and dies like most of my previous online endeavours. Yes, I am inconstant, but that doesn't take from the fact that I'm really not that interesting, and many times the hard truth is that I don't have much of value to say.

So let me begin by stating that I am not Carrie. A very profound and almost Cartesian statement. Hurting in its simplicity, and blinding in its obviousness. Yet it would serve you, dear reader, to understand what this blog won't be. Go ahead, click on the link to her blog on the side and take a look. I'll see you tomorrow. Her blog is a verbose celebration of the ephemeral. A veritable Bacchanalia of the mostly forgettable. And that is just fine. It exists as it is, and it makes her happy. In fact I think her blog is the longest thing she has committed to, after our marriage. And a happy Carrie = a happy Julian.

But I'm not like that. I don't archive the transitory for posterity, because… well, that would defeat the purpose of something being transitory, wouldn't it? So you won't really see posts here saying what I ate last night (unless it was truly spectacular. Like a pizza). And there won't be any entries explaining in detail whatever minute thing happens in my life, or links to the thousand-and-one Arabian nights of quizzes, tests and surveys that tell you how much of Darth Vader is really in you.

No sir.

All that doesn't mean this will be boring. It just means that I have standards. Hell, I'll even post in Spanish every now and then, just to throw people off like that. Because no jail can hold me or something.

Well, that's about it for now. Can't think of anything else, because both of my sons are making a scandal. Catch you later.

–J.