Grimwood

A couple weeks ago I finished my latest book, but never got around to writing about it. The book, is the sequel to NeoAddix, which I reviewed previously.
Both books are out of print novels by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. I really enjoy his writing. His mash up of pop culture, cyberpunk, and alternate history is interesting. After reading all four novels, they fit together much better. For example, the protaganist in the first novel is also a key player in the third novel. I read the third novel first and some of the nuances or her role were lost on me. Knowing the backstory makes things clearer and more cohesive.
In order, the books are NeoAddix, Lucifer’s Dragon, Remix, and Redrobe.
Lucifer’s Dragon – Jon Courtenay Grimwood
In the third novel in Grimwood’s alternate future. Two stories are told, the founding of New Venice and the subsequent revolution over a hundred years later. A bit confusing until you get the characters under control in your mind, the story drifts from past to present to cyberspace easily.
The author takes a look at the changes to world power as technology advances to the point where anyone, with enough money, can defend themselves against the ‘old powers’ of the world. The story examines the founding of a new country as a result of the technological shift. The fate of the same country undergoing revolution later as technology shifts yet again is clear warning as to the fate of governments that try to defend against the old enemy and not look at the new ones.
The idea of a data haven is a little tired in the world of cyberpunk, but it suffices as a plot device in this novel. We have data havens today but they appear to be exceedingly dull places. My thoughts tend toward the hot, rogue places being those areas where genetic engineering takes place. When genetic engineering arrives, people are going to want it, regardless of what the law says. Illegality + technology = money + drama.
If you are interested in the cyberpunk genre, you won’t be disappointed by these books.

Downtime

Today is Mother’s Day, and per Michele’s wish, we are having a quiet morning.
Yesterday, I had a little free time and tried out my new raviloi maker gear.


I made raviolis, spagetti, and some fettucine. Michele will have some pasta to cook for the girls this week.
Next week is E3. I’ll be going on Friday. I look forward to E3 every year and am a bit disappointed that my brother Matt can’t make it. He just started a new job and can’t get away.
E3 portends to be drama filled with the hype over Half-life 2 and Doom ]|[ on display on the show floor. I don’t think I’ll take the laptop to blog from the floor, it’s just too hectic. The camera will be snapping and I’ll post them next weekend.

Gwar

Instead of watching Friends last night, I went to see Gwar. I tried and tried to get someone to go with me, but I couldn’t scare up a brave enough soul to attend with me. No matter. You only live once, so I went alone. I met some guys in line and soon enough, we were drinking Crown Royal out of a bottle on the sidewalk while we waited to buy tickets.


Gwar hit the stage and said, “We are in town for two reasons, to play heavy metal and split some fucking skulls!” And with that, they began to rock.

It’s hard to see since I was taking photos with my cameraphone. When I got closer to the stage, the shoving was so much I couldn’t hold the cameraphone steady.
Everyone in the Gwar show is in costume and the stage performance is amazing. During the show, they killed Mike Tyson, Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, and the Pope on stage, covering the crowd in fake blood and other fluids. A large part of the show is the near continuous stream of colored liquid that Gwar sprays on the crowd. There are cannons of multi-color liquids sprayed on the crowd. Last night, the spray was reaching the balcony at the Whisky.
It may not seem like it makes a lot of sense, but once you go to a Gwar show, you understand. During the show, the crowd is united. We are in the thrall of Gwar. Arms raised in the air, mosh pit running, color everywhere, it is magnificent. Gwar takes control of the crowd and for the duration we are all mad for more blood, more killing, and digusting deaths on stage.
I couldn’t stay till the end of the show, but I left happy.
A good time was had by all.
Here’s what I looked like when I got home:

If Gwar comes to your town, you MUST GO SEE THEM.

Box of Coffee

Many of you that visit Starbucks regularly have seen the Coffee Traveler, or as I refer to it, the Box of Coffee.
Last week, at the office, I wanted some coffee. So I walked down the first floor where we have a Starbucks in the building. I ordered a “Box of Coffee, please”. The Starbucks people did a double take and said, “Seriously?” I confirmed I wanted a box and they brewed it up. The coffee cost $12.


You get a lot for your $12. In addition to the 96 oz. of coffee, you get a QUART of half and half, a stack of cups, and as many sweetener packets you can carry. What are people doing with quarts of half and half, I can’t imagine.
The 96 oz. ( aka 3 quarts or 2.8 liters) of coffee is supposed to be split into twelve 8 oz. cups of coffee. Now a quart of half and half is 32 oz. Split that twelve ways and you get 2 2/3 oz. (better known as a 1/3 cup) per cup of coffee. Now, are people really dumping 1/3 cup of half and half into their coffee? I think their hearts would clench up from the fat entering their arteries in that amount.
Really now people, you gotta cut back on the dairy fats. Are you doing something else with the half and half I don’t know about? Is there some secret Starbucks cereal dispenser somewhere that gives you something to do with a quart of fatty milk?
Cream issues aside, the box worked well and I gave out plenty of coffee to everyone I saw.

I took the box home to examine it in more detail. The cardboard box obviously came apart in some fashion.

I opened it up and saw that the Box of Coffee was actually the Mylar Bag of Coffee.

Unfurled, the bag seemed quite large. I thought it could hold more than the three quarts of coffee it held in the box.

I filled the bag with water until it was full. The bag holds a LOT Of water.

I got out a measuring cup and started pouring out the water. Amazingly, the bag will hold six quarts. SIX quarts.
Now you can use this bag several ways. Obivously, you can fill the bag with clean water and use the box as a simple water carrier for travel. Or you can put the water into the box and put it into the freezer. The bag has plenty of room for the water to expand as it freezes. Take the box with you outdoors where you need cold water, like the kid’s soccer games, and viola! Cold water!
Even just leaving a box of water in the trunk would be useful for things like washing hands or washing the bird poop off you new car’s paint.
Perhaps it would be most fun for parties where you could put mixed drinks in the box and the host could walk around pouring drinks to the guests. I’m thinking frozen daquiris and margaritas would be tasty. The possibilities are endless.
So get your thinking caps on folks. Those Boxes of Coffee should never be thrown away, they are too valuable!

Smoke Rub

Yesterday, I decided to smoke a brisket for dinner. Looking in the fridge, I realized that I had to make more rub. A Dry Rub, or simply a Rub, is the spice mixture you can use to flavor meat when you smoke or grill it. Many people use sauces and marinades, but I prefer a dry rub.

Here is the recipe I use:

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons red pepper
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground celery seed
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

This is based on the recipe that Martin gave me. I made a few changes. Martin’s recipe called for ground celery, which is nearly impossible to find, so I switched it to celery seed. I added cayenne pepper for a little extra zang and mustard for fuller flavor.


In the picture you can see the old rub in a jar with holes punched in the top so it can be used as a shaker. On the left is a coffee grinder that I use to grind the spices. I grind the crushed red pepper and the celery seed in it. In the bowl are all the ingredients mixed together. I toss in the leftover old rub as well.


Here’s the brisket. Note the rub shaker is full and ready for action.


“Cover liberally in rub” are the instructions and as you can see, I follow instructions. The brisket was then tossed into the smoker for about 9 hours. Low, slow heat does the trick.

5ives

Today in #joiito I was challenged to write a 5ives, a list of five things. Here’s what I wrote:
Five translations of Wifespeak
1) No = Yes
2) Are you busy? = I have something for you do.
3) You don’t have to get me anything for [holiday]. = Prove your love by disobeying me.
4) No, nothing’s wrong. = I’m pissed.
5) What do you want for dinner? = I want to go out for dinner.

Real Social Software

In the blogosphere these days there’s lots of chatter about social software. No disrespect to the big thinkers in the area, but IMHO, it’s mainly recycling the same thoughts on weblogs, search engines and linking. Plenty of good stuff to think about, but there’s a lot of navel gazing going on as well.
Well, I tell you, I’ve found some real social software that achieves some elusive goals that other forms simply don’t do well.
The software is called Xfire. At first glance, Xfire appears to be a simple instant messaging program, but it is much more than that. Xfire is focused on people that play video games and is all about allowing gamers to meet up in-game and make new gaming friends.
Let’s take a look.


Here you see a typical IM screen, but notice that I can see that Travis is playing Battlefield Vietnam, a first person shooter video game. The Xfire client montiors the computer and keeps track of what Travis is doing. This is an important point, and we’ll come back to it later.

Here’s where things get good. I expand out the info on Travis and I can see exactly what server he’s on. Xfire has grabbed this info on his computer and fed it to me, his friend. All I have to do to join in in the game is hit the Join button. Xfire launches the game on my computer and automagically feeds the server info from Travis computer into mine and within a few seconds…

I’m with Travis in the game.
To gamers, this is revolutionary. In the past, we had to coordinate in voice chat, IRC, message boards to meet up in the game. The desks of serious gamers are often cluttered with scraps of paper with IP addresses of which the only purpose is to join the right server.
With Xfire, a clan or guild member only needs to go online and join his or her friends with literally the click of a button.

But it doesn’t stop there. Even if my friends are offline, I can see what Friends of my Friends are doing. My god, it’s like FOAF, but actually useful! This is an actual demonstration of where personal linkages can be of direct benefit to an individual.

Xfire also tracks gameplay to create profile of what games I have been playing so others can see what kind of gamer I am. If a friend of a friend see’s me online and checks out my profiel that can see if we play similar games and to what degree. Rather than me entering what my gaming interests are, Xfire tracks it automatically.
Now, if you are not a gamer, you may be thinking, “Big effing deal, I’m not a gamer.” Ah, but here’s where the beauty of Xfire is truly found.
In other social software, the software does what the user tells it to do and usually creates a profile about what a person says about themself. Xfire takes this to the next level. It creates a profile about a user actually does, and allows others to see it.
Imagine if you will, running a piece of software that watched what you did online. It could tell where you spent your time online and what you were connected to currently. If you were in an IRC channel, it could point your friends to the IRC channel. If you were posting a lot on a specific message board or wiki, it could tell your friends that’s what you’d been up to recently.
It’s reasonable to concieve of software could track where you had commented on blogs and keep a record for you or let others see you comments on other blogs. Matt Haughey’s Posted Elsewhere could be automated rather than hand crafted.
Yes, there’s privacy and control issues. Sure, I don’t want people knowing how much time I spend at porn sites either. But those are all solvable problems. The Orku-tribe-sters have been examing those issues ad naseum.
The possibilities go on and on if you start thinking about having an intelligent agent that keeps track of your net wanderings. Xfire is the first of a new breed of social software. A breed where the burden of work is removed from human and placed in the hands of the software, allowing the human to focus on the fun and interesting things.
So there you have it, real social software in the form of automated agents. It’s the future boys & girls and it’s going to kick ass.

I got hacked

I got an email today from Cruft reader Kevin informing that the Indie 103.1 forum had been hacked.
Sure enough, I took a look and saw that it had been hacked and this was the message.


I guess he showed me and the forum about a radio station who is really in charge. I wouldn’t have minded much if he had just changed the frontpage with his message, but he messed up the entire forum and I had to delete it.
The forum is reinstalled with the latest version of software and should not be exploitable in the same way.
So, feel free to enjoy the newly reinstalled Indie 103.1 FM forums.

LA Radio takes another hit

This morning I was driving to work and flipping through my presets. When I got to button two, Arrow 93.1, I heard talking. Huh? 93.1 is the rock station that plays music 24/7 and doesn’t go for the talk stuff. While not a big classic rock fan, I do like having a station where music plays songs I know.
Sure enough, 93.1 has a new wacky morning funnyman, Johnny B. Fromt he looks of it, we are going to be stuck with this comedy jokester for a while. God damn, what is it with the morning show trend. I count my blessings that Indie 103.1 has still resisted the trend to host their music in the morning.
I’ve resisted the idea of satellite radio for a while, but it almost looks inevitable when you find it hard to find music on FM radio. Adding yet another monthly charge to the budget is unappealing, but if the trend toward talk continues, it may be my only asylum.
For those of you that simply must know, my radio presets are:
1) 89.3 – KPCC
2) 93.1 – Arrow
3) 97.1 – KLSX
4) 103.1 – Indie 103.1
5) 106.7 – KROQ