Tuesday, January 29. 2013
The Eye of the World (Chapters 29-30) Posted by Ancient of Days
in Wheel of Time Read-Through at
15:36
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These are some great chapters, and I'm glad I get to cover them. I don't know how anyone else is feeling about the series at this point, but I really enjoy the way Jordan is so carefully weaving each character's fate deeper and deeper into the very history of the land they travel across; almost without exception, every event that happens in these chapters has much a much deeper repurcussion later in the series (some of them, over and over again). While a lot of annoying recurring themes get introduced here, I did love Perrin's struggles with the "Way of the Leaf"; this struggle between a loving and pacifist acceptance of fate and the desire to affect one's own destiny is something that resonates VERY strongly for me. Chapter recaps, and some more of my thoughts, below the fold.
Continue reading "The Eye of the World (Chapters 29-30)"
Thursday, January 17. 2013Planned maintenance outage
I just got the following from the Data Center:
Ticket description: Equipment Upgrade Ticket category: Colocation Services As our commitment to keep your services the best possible, we have placed new equipment that will effect your collocation service. We are ready to make the switch over and will need to physically move your colocation cable from the old router to the new one. We will also be moving your ip’s to the new router. Since we are ready, it will include only about 5-15 seconds of downtime. We will be making the move Friday night (1/18/13) starting at 11pm to 1am Saturday morning (1/19/13). If there is a slot in this time frame that would work best for you, please let us know. If we don't hear from you, then we will make the move during that time. Thank you, Dylan Fibernet Data Center Operations Manager Unless I hear from one of you indicating otherwise, I will request they move us as close to the start of that window as possible. Monday, December 31. 2012
WOTR: Getting the Ball Rolling Posted by Ancient of Days
in Wheel of Time Read-Through at
09:57
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Here is my first summary. As you publish your own, please make sure to categorize them under "Wheel of Time Read-Through".
Note that I wrote considerably greater detail than I would expect anyone else to write, because I like to write, and I *really* like to write about WoT. I included a few *tiny* pieces of information that are not directly evident from the novels themselves, but come instead from the many external resources I have collected over the years to help my own understanding and appreciation of this series. I'll start with the tl;dr, which is somewhat closer to what I imagine most of you will be writing, and put the full write-up behind the jump. So, without further ado, I give you The Eye of the World - Prologue through Chapter 6. tl;dr 3000 years ago: A powerful magic user named “Lews Therin Telamon” (or the Dragon) nearly destroyed the world in a fit of madness, and then DID destroy himself, creating a new mountain in the process. Now: The boy Rand al’Thor and his friends Mat and Perrin have been seeing a disturbing image of a rider dressed in black, but it cannot spoil the Bel Tine Festival with a gleeman, regal-looking visitors from beyond the Two Rivers, fireworks, and a peddler bringing news of War, and a man claiming to be the Dragon. However, all these excitements do lose their appeal when Tam and Rand are attacked by Trollocs - monsters directly out of the stories used to scare children. As he tows his wounded and fevered father back to town on a litter, Rand is shocked and dismayed to hear Tam mumble about how he found the freshly-born Rand near the corpse an unknown woman on a field of battle, and brought him home to be raised by Tam and his wife as if it were their own child. Continue reading "WOTR: Getting the Ball Rolling" Monday, December 3. 2012
A War on Two Fronts - The Homestarmy ... Posted by Ancient of Days
in Group Activities at
08:23
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All right, let's do this thing.
First of all, I need to mention that this Saturday is our annual Homestarmy Christmas Party; it will be held at my house, and starts at 7pm. If you're late, that's cool - no pressure from my end. The address is on Facebook - if you think you should have been invited, but were not, let me know and we'll get the address to you. Secondly, with a New Year approaching, it's time to get serious about this "Wheel of Time (Re-)?read" idea. I can't remember who all said they were interested, but I've shared a document with Sideshow, MG, Johnny Elbows, Radar, and my wife. It's a spreadsheet that breaks the books into pieces - if you want to participate, here are my proposed rules (open to friendly amendments): 1) Select the chunk you'd like to read by putting your name in column E; if I have already signed up for one you want, feel free to remove my name and insert your own - I've simply gone through and inserted my own name at a regular interval for now, and I imagine I will be picking up some of the unassigned chunks. 2) By putting your name in column E, you are committing to write a post of at least one paragraph in length summarizing the chunk. Feel free to write more than one paragraph, and feel free to write something more than a summary of the chunk (see below for some ideas); however, you need to at *least* write a one paragraph summary of the chunk. 3) Your summary should be posted here, to this blog, before the date in the corresponding column A; 4) Column D is labelled "Additional Posts"; initially, I have filled these with entries indicating that I will be trying to write a summary of each book sometime during the same week as the post due for that chunk. If there are other correlated posts you'd like to sign up for, feel free to add them where you feel they best fit; if you would like to sign up for one of the volume summaries, please feel free to remove my name from that one and insert your own. Correlated posts are not due on the Tuesday, but it would be nice if you could time any book summaries you sign up for to be published at the very least before Saturday of the week in which we finished that book. If you need some ideas on other things to write about in your post, here are some off the top of my head (I can come up with more if you don't like these, just contact me directly): other books that have a similar feel as the chunk; possible inspirations for the events/content of the chunk; associations to the Campbellian mono-myth (if you don't know what I mean by that, see Joseph Campbell's "The Hero With a Thousand Faces"); things I liked/hated about the chunk; what I wish the author had done *instead*; top ten lists of "Events Thus Far"; predictions on what prophecies/visions/et al. mean. If there's someone who wants to participate in this read-through that I didn't include in the document sharing, please let me know, and I'll share the document to you as well. If I included you, but you don't plan on participating in the posts, please let me know that as well. If there's something in the structure that I've laid out here that you'd like to change/amend, let's discuss it! I don't know about the rest of you, but *I* am excited about this. Tuesday, September 25. 2012
Television, 2012 - Snark Never Dies Posted by Ancient of Days
in TV at
05:53
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I wasn't going to write one of these this year, but Sideshow asked for it, so you all get to suffer - because it's time once again for my annual pre-snark of all the new filth hitting the airwaves this year. Since I'm late getting it out this year, I'm also including a special section called "OK, My Bad", where I retract some of the snark I dished out prior to 2011.
Continue reading "Television, 2012 - Snark Never Dies"
Saturday, July 21. 2012Welcome to 1.6.2
I have just completed the process of upgrading our blog platform to the latest version, Serendipity 1.6.2; it appears to have gone smoothly, but if you see any problems, please let me know and we can roll back.
Sunday, June 10. 2012No Big Surprises There
So, I took this "Political Compass" quiz (thanks to my friend - and fellow Orem-28 County Delegate - John English for linking to it), can't say I was terribly shocked by the result:
They also give what they think some historical figures would have rated on the same quiz: Where do you fall? Friday, May 25. 2012Planned Maintenance Window
A planned maintenance window of service for our UPS and Generator systems has been scheduled for Friday June 1st, 2012 between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.. UPS protected power services to clients should not be impacted. Once the UPS systems have been serviced, power will be switched from utility to generator to insure proper function of transfer switching equipment.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Affected: Power Location Affected: Orem Data Center Type of Event: Planned Wednesday, January 18. 2012
SOPA Blackouts: I know, let's do it ... Posted by Ancient of Days
in Gathering Darkness at
07:08
Comments (2) Trackbacks (0) SOPA Blackouts: I know, let's do it FOR them!
So, some idiot politicians thought "Hey, let's make some crazy-stupid new laws that make the Internet a giant bag of fail!"
Hearing this, the giant brains at certain websites - like, oh, let's say Wikipedia - thought "We'll show them! Let's just make the Internet a giant bag of fail ALL ON OUR OWN! *THAT* will teach them to pass silly laws!" Idiots. Anyway, if you need to access Wikipedia during this outage, drag this Show Wikipedia, Please! link to your bookmarks bar and click on it when you see the Wikipedia "blackout" page. Monday, January 9. 2012
A Picture Worth a Thousand Words ... Posted by Ancient of Days
in Oddities at
19:37
Comment (1) Trackbacks (0) A Picture Worth a Thousand Words (+/- 19)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are a few that I think might be worth more than a thousand - they're swiftly becoming three staples in my list of standard answers to so-called "technical questions."
Continue reading "A Picture Worth a Thousand Words (+/- 19)"
Thursday, December 8. 2011Fiber.net outage
On Wednesday, December 14, 2011 @ 12:00 am, Fibernet will be performing vital maintenance and an upgrade on a router that has an ongoing hardware problem.
We will take this opportunity to upgrade the router with substantially more powerful processors, power and cooling. The affected system include DNS and the Fibernet website. Additionally, some colocation customers may experience downtime if their network connection is directly tied to this router. We expect the maintenance to last less than 30 minutes. Tuesday, November 29. 2011
A Homestarmy Christmas?! Posted by Ancient of Days
in Group Activities at
02:16
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Shall we gather together once again to partake of group-oriented holiday festivities?
Thursday, November 3. 2011Parli Pro
In lieu of this week's "Red, Blue, and Pigskin", I offer all of you my (still in-progress) prezi.com presentation of an Introduction to Parliamentary Procedure, per Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised 10th edition (yes, yes, I know the 11th edition was recently released, but I still haven't certified on the 10th yet!)
If you're interested, you should be able to view it here (warning: requires Flash). If you would like to see it presented live, you are welcome to join our ParliPro group at the Novell Cafeteria on Thursday, November 3rd. This slide will be part of the "Beginner's Course", which starts at 7pm. Tuesday, September 13. 2011Television, 2011
Yep, it's that time of year again - the time when I mount my annual pre-snark of all the new shows starting this year, instead of renewing anything I'd actually like to watch.
Continue reading "Television, 2011"
Friday, September 9. 2011
First Officer's Log: Disaster; but a ... Posted by Ancient of Days
in Group Activities at
03:28
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) First Officer's Log: Disaster; but a glimmer of hope
Union Ship Valiant
First Officer's Log We arrived at the New Earth border just in time to detect, at the very edge of sensor range, the destruction of the Seaward. A New Earth ship (designated 60103682) commanded by the New Earth Interior Minister had attacked and captured its crew and the briefcase containing the documentation against Chancellor Alexander. Continue reading "First Officer's Log: Disaster; but a glimmer of hope" |
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