Porcupine Days

Three favorites

itlandm — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 11:06:50 GMT

My favorite MMORPG: City of Heroes. I played it from the closed beta till it closed last night.
My favorite character: Sun's Bright Hand, fire tanker. "To defeat the men of Darkness with the Light."
My favorite song: "The end of the world", by Angela. (Quote translated from Japanese.)

It's a happy New Year!

itlandm — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:03:16 GMT

Well, it certainly is so far. I woke up after 9 hours still wearing my shirt from yesterday. And I was in my bed, so that is good.

Had two gigabytes download quota left on my tablet last evening and nothing good to download. #zerothworldproblems

"What do you need, my Thane?"

itlandm — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:04:12 GMT

So my latest character finally gets around to buying the house in Whiterun, Breezehome or some such. That is the first time I have done that. In order to get to buy it I had to follow the steps of the main quest so far as to the first dragon. My current character is not exactly combat-oriented, so mostly left the hard work to Irileth and the guards, not that anyone noticed, them all being awed by what happened after it died. So I still became Thane of Whiterun and was assigned Lydia as my personal housecarl. I had already teamed up with Uthgerd though, who is quite competent, I have to say, so beside chatting a few words with Lydia near the exit from the Jarl's hall, I pretty much forgot about her. I set off to the Embershard mine south of Riverwood to get some iron ore, and brought along Uthgerd to clear out the bandits. It was night when I came back to Whiterun, said goodbye to Uthgerd and locked myself into my new home for the first time. I looked around. Nice enough place. It even had a loft. I went upstairs ... and jumped when a voice behind me said "Honor to you, my Thane." I whirled around, and there was Lydia, walking right past me and throwing open the doors to the bedroom (with a double bed), saying: "What do you need, my Thane?" and walking in there ahead of me.

I'll probably never know for sure exactly how scripted that was.

Reverting

itlandm — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:15:51 GMT

My paid account is expiring. I think it is fair to let it do so, since I rarely post here. I kind of sympathize with LJ as they become victims of political attacks, but on the other hand I have liked them less and less for every passing year since the original team sold out. There is something sneaky and underhanded about this service that just disgusts me. I stuck with it because it was the only place you could write more than 140 characters and have a good chance of being read. Now there is Google+, and while I don't support their War on Nyms, they are at least treating me like an adult.

So, not quite disappearing yet, but kind of slowly fading I guess.

My tweets

itlandm — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:15:59 GMT

Wed, 05:23: RT @Inspire_Us: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. -Marianne Willi ...

My tweets

itlandm — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:00:56 GMT

Mon, 13:29: RT @DalaiLama: If you use violence, you may get temporary satisfaction. But the nature of violence is unpredictable – it gives rise to u ...

My tweets

itlandm — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 03:03:06 GMT

Mon, 06:06: RT @DalaiLama: All good qualities must be sown and cultivated. We can’t expect to change overnight from an ordinary person into one with ...
Mon, 13:29: RT @DalaiLama: If you use violence, you may get temporary satisfaction. But the nature of violence is unpredictable – it gives rise to u ...

My tweets

itlandm — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:15:41 GMT

Fri, 04:56: RT @InspireBookClub: No man can be called friendless who has God & the companionship of good books. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My tweets

itlandm — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:00:56 GMT

Thu, 05:07: RT @WomenOfHistory: No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you. -Althea Gibson

Temperature absurdity

itlandm — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 18:27:59 GMT

This past winter, a temperature of 24 degrees Celsius was just warm enough to not feel uncomfortable in thick socks, thick trousers, thick shirt and thick pullover.

Now in summer, 23 degrees Celsius feels just cool enough to not feel uncomfortable in thin socks and boxers.

That's just not right, no matter how you look at it. I could translate these numbers into Fahrenheit but that would not really change the logic. And no, I am not burning much more calories, because my pulse is within the same range.

My tweets

itlandm — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 12:15:40 GMT

Sat, 06:40: I stocked up on Kindle books before the sales tax set in here. I am not opposed to tax, but I am even less opposed to good books.

My tweets

itlandm — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:15:48 GMT

Thu, 06:07: RT @RyuhoOkawa: Let us rejoice for what is small. Let our hearts be moved by the little things.

Glucose - breakfast of champions

itlandm — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:02:40 GMT

At the clinic. I just drank a couple glasses of glucose solution - hopefully that was what it was, it tasted sweet at least so I guess they picked the right bottle. The nurse was a boy looking like a high school kid, perhaps they have work training or something? Or neoteny is marching on. In any case, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence when health personnel look like they are 16. Life is not an anime.

Posted via LjBeetle

My tweets

itlandm — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:00:48 GMT

Sat, 18:35: Loving mankind is easy, it is loving the individuals in it that is hard.

Best phrase seen this week:

itlandm — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 13:12:12 GMT

"I'm going to grow old and die with you if it's the last thing I do!"
(From the online comic "Marry Me".)

Origin / EA Downloads

itlandm — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:39:27 GMT

I am pleasantly surprised (which admittedly does not take a lot when it comes to Electronic Arts). Downloading the two older expansion packs for Sims 3 was ridiculously cheap - in fact, even cheaper than advertised on their website. And I get to install them 5 times, more if I uninstall. Installation is slow but automatic. (I resent not being able to choose which disk to install to, but it does not actually matter with small stuff like this.) For the people who just want to have fun, it seems very close to perfect. Buy online, go make your favorite dinner and press play when you return. It seems unlikely, but EA may have done something right. True gamers will probably resent the idiotproofing, even more so than I, but I am not sure that is where the money is anymore.

"Are there wild dogs bearing down on you?"

itlandm — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:59:30 GMT

You save like 0.1 seconds writing “u” instead of “you” at the cost of making yourself look like an absolute idiot. Is there any reason you’re trying to shave off this time? Are there wild dogs bearing down on you as you write why we need another look at Obama’s birth certificate? If so, run from the wild dogs and write your comment later. Your whole sentence shouldn’t scream, “I’m a useless idiot with nothing important to say.” You should never write like that unless you actually are a cat expressing your desire for a cheeseburger.

Frank J. Fleming, Tips for Not Appearing Crazy on the Internet.

reimbursement-based medicine

itlandm — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 11:43:02 GMT

We used high-tech, state-of-the-art measures to prove the power of simple, low-tech, and low-cost interventions. We showed that comprehensive lifestyle changes may stop or even reverse the progression of coronary heart disease, prostate cancer, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, hypercholesterolemia, and other chronic conditions that account for at least 75% of the $2.1 trillion in health care costs.

I thought that when we published our findings in the leading medical journals that this would change medical practice. In retrospect, that was a little naïve; good science is important but not sufficient to change medical practice. Despite the talk about evidence-based medicine, we really live in an era of what I call "reimbursement-based medicine"--it's all about the Benjamins.
-Dr. Dean Ornish, in Huffington Post.

Immunity to distance: 10%

itlandm — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 11:22:04 GMT

OK, this is getting ridiculous. See, a week and a half ago I decided to walk for an hour every day when feasible, or half an hour if not. It has been feasible almost every day so far. But the last couple days I seem to have leveled up or something. Both yesterday and today I had to walk noticeably longer to get a full hour, especially today. I usually take the route I have used most Saturdays since I moved here, to the grocery shop and back. But now after 20 minutes I pass the gas station that used to be my 25 minute marker. Which means unless the road has shrunk, I am walking considerably faster. (The stiffness in my legs each day certainly agrees with this.) Yet when I return after an hour, I have used 10% fewer calories than I used to spend on my Saturdaily walks.

In other words, after a week and a half I move 20% faster but use 10% less energy - not on the same distance but the same TIME spent at the faster pace. I seem to be developing immunity to distance. At the current trend, I will be able to teleport to the shop and back around the time my lease runs out... 0_0

Well, obviously not. Life is not a superhero game. Or that's what I've been told. I suspect random variations in metabolism or something.

Kindle for PC installer - registration timed out (solved)

itlandm — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 18:16:16 GMT

Evidently Amazon has served a defective installer for the last few months, but someone has thoughtfully kept the old one and made it available.
I had this problem and the old installer fixed it (on my Win 7 PC).
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=704lvnd5gd9s14ssbdpi6lqq83&topic=50810.msg982185#msg982185
This is a link to a post about the problem and its solution, not a direct download. Download link is in the post though.

Blowing off Steam

itlandm — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:49:47 GMT

After I installed Windows anew, I am not installing the Steam network (or Impulse either) until I actually need them.
I have a feeling that could be a while.

Posted via LjBeetle

Well, that wasn't so bad.

itlandm — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:12:19 GMT

I have to say, for an operating system that is not Linux, this Windows 7 is not bad at all.

(Actually I have seen it before on a subnotebook, but only briefly, before I installed Ubuntu. It is kind of weird to see it on my big machine. I have to stop and think: How do I do this? But it works. For now at least, TERRA is finally stable again. And it works at the speed of SSD.)

I give up.

itlandm — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:09:47 GMT

Now downloading Windows 7. (Legally, I presume, unless Microsoft redirected me to a pirate site.) I still wonder if I ever got the CD for WinXP for that machine, but at least it had Genuine Windows XP. I thought I was smart, buying one of the last XP machines (after they were getting rare), and compared to Vista I was right. But for the last couple years every new piece of hardware and software has been made for Win7, and backward compatibility has crumbled.

I managed to install the XP from another machine's CD on the SSD, and it works fine. But only for 30 days. And there is the whole matter of XP doing unspeakable things to Solid-state Storage Devices. So it is this or buying another computer.

Weak, legs

itlandm — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:29:01 GMT

One would expect that if you walk fast for an hour one day, and for an hour the next, you would not get stiff the third day suddenly.
Well, let's see what happens tomorrow. Off I go.

My tweets

itlandm — Fri, 27 May 2011 14:38:25 GMT

Fri, 05:34: I am grateful to be alive. Next, to make others grateful that I am alive.