And on boot, I'm left with a blinking cursor on a blank screen. I assume things work if you've installed Plymouth.

It's easy enough to fix once you understand the problem -- edit /etc/default/grub to remove "quiet splash" from the default boot options and update-grub.

But all of the games are Windows-only, so this would still be of limited interest to everyone else, but superhero Jimmy Maher, the Digital Antiquarian, has arranged with the author to provide the TADS game file to anyone offering proof they bought it. Yay!

I don't think I've ever worked so hard for $10.

I don't think I've ever worked so hard for $10.

Early impressions -- the text quality is noticeably better than my Nook (the Nook Wifi a.k.a. Nook Classic). There's less glare in bright light. Page turns are faster. It's substantially lighter, but also flimsy feeling, like the smallest lateral force would snap it. Then again, the Nook has a glass screen and the iRiver doesn't, and between that and its lightness, my guess is that the iRiver's more likely to survive falls.

What I like least is its Google Books-centric-ness. It repeatedly asks me if I want to turn off airplane mode to sync with Google Books. (No, I don't. That would be why you stay in airplane mode.)

But for $50 I still think it's a pretty good deal.

Now if only I had more time right now for reading...

Gamers Realm 2001-06-29 to 2003-07-18
Gaming Report 2003-07-21 to 2006-08-03
Indie Press Revolution 2008-09-08 to 2010-03-10 (not all on one page -- you'll have to browse a bit)

But Johansen had not given out yet. Knowing that the Thing could surely overtake the Alert until steam was fully up, he resolved on a desperate chance; and, setting the engine for full speed, ran lightning-like on deck and reversed the wheel. There was a mighty eddying and foaming in the noisome brine, and as the steam mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean froth like the stern of a daemon galleon. The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but Johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that the chronicler could not put on paper. For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where--God in heaven!--the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.

But what's our only source for this? The journal of a freighter's sole survivor, who describes his shipmates having gone mad before dying, at the same time (unbeknownst to him) artists and sensitives were having disturbing dreams all around the world.

R'lyeh never rose. Johansen and his shipmates never encountered Cthulhu.

They were just above R'lyeh while Cthulhu stirred in his slumber. Already disturbed by having been attacked by the Alert, losing the Emma, and having killed the crew of the Alert, the proximity was enough to cause the waking visions that inspired several of them to step out onto a R'lyeh that wasn't there, that caused Johansen to imagine a Cthulhu that could be shattered by a steamboat. By whatever combination of mental fortitude and good luck, Johansen had a vision that didn't inspire him to bring about his own death, and he wasn't wholly shattered by the event.

The stars just weren't right. When they are, a steamboat's not going to help us.

What's cuter than two baby raccoons in a hammock? Seven baby raccoons in a hammock.

Thor's original origin had him as a Captain Marvel analog -- Don Blake, a surgeon, stumbles upon a magic walking-stick that transforms him into Thor (while itself transforming into Thor's hammer.) As the series progressed, and he interacted with Asgard, this began to seem even goofier -- how could they accept this ordinary human as Thor?

A later writer did an admirable job of retconning this. Don Blake wasn't an ordinary human. Odin had magically transformed Thor into Don Blake, along with false memories and a false history, in order to teach Thor a lesson in humility. The walking-stick hadn't been sitting there for centuries for anyone to find; it had always been Odin's intent that Blake would come to it.

Thor: the Mighty Avenger retains a little bit of that retcon, but ditches Don Blake entirely. Thor is on Earth, confused and not understanding why or how he got here. As the series progresses, he learns from other Asgardians that Odin has sent him to Earth to learn humility after he committed some terrible transgression, but they won't tell him what it was. Odin has forbidden it to be mentioned, and threatened to curse anyone who did.

And I'm sad that we'll never know what, either, because the book was cancelled after 8 issues. It's just the sort of comics reconstruction I'd like to see more of.

The Occupiers would ultimately engage in dangerous activities like eating pizza in front of a UC Berkeley building.

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

Continue reading...

The book is sheer fun. If I have one complaint, it's that it starts with the conceit that it's a hard-boiled detective story set in this world, but concludes as a superhero action story; I'd have liked to see the hard-boiled finale.

So, resuming now, any neglect of my blog isn't technical in nature.