Just a few thoughts I had on Brandon Sanderson's overarching universe.
Yeah, one of these posts.
Well I read Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker yesterday, and really enjoyed it (well of course, I read it in one day. lol). He has the knack of drawing you in and not letting you put the book down, quite amazing. I also watched Exit Through The Gift Shop - the Banksy film, and Only Yesterday - another Studio Ghibli film, over the weekend. I should probably list what I got for Christmas:
I got a book, t-shirt (the 'meh' one) and demotivation calendar off Meesha, and about £200 from relatives. Other than that I spent the weekend with my mothers family, and spoke at length (both Skype and gTalk) with Meesha. Twas a rather magical Christmas all in all. Oh, and we ate (and are still eating) plenty :D
Other stuff I've been upto? Well I've been at uni pretty solidly, since I'm really trying to apply myself this year to salvage as good a degree as possible. I've been working one day a week since the start of term (and worked the start of last week too), and enjoyed that, finishing up the Sonar, doing some C# and messing with Android etc. Now I'm on holiday I've going to keep the maths we did last term fresh for my exams, which means practising/revising, and also I have to write a File System for my Operating Systems course.
This is a rather late response to suvudu’s al’Thor vs Lannister, arguing why Rand couldn’t have lost due to the lack of the One Power in the fight area.
First for a clarification: The Dark One (Shai’tan) is bad. And I mean REAL BAD; bad to the (metaphorical and metaphysical) bone! He’s also ‘outside’ the pattern! He’s everywhere, but yet nowhere. And have you heard? He doesnt like Rand, and he especially doesnt like Rand’s boss. In fact, he hates Big Boss Man: the Creator sooo much that they duel periodically over and over again, with mr C’s main weapon being none other than our boy Rand.
Now, heres where it gets interesting. I’m pretty sure ol’ Grim would get pretty pissed if someone other than He got to smote Rand into noncreation, and probably wouldnt look so kindly on some gud-fr-nufink randommer (Lannister) humiliating Rand before his time…
Now, as we know, Rand somehow ran out of OP, presumably it only appears abundantly on Rands planets, pooling small elsewhere in the universe. Mr C needs a stern talking too, making it so easy for Darky to get the possible upper hand. But the dark side of the force also has its own supply of ‘magic’, from non other than Mr ‘T himself, coming from DO directly.
“‘tis potent dope” - Darkfriend Informant
And as we all saw in TGS, big dawg DO is a tempter, so maybe he would, you know, nudge nudge wink wink. Yeahhhh thats right, you get me! Let Rand ……..Kick…..Ass…….. just this once, just so DO can lose once again at Tarmon Gai’don.
Then again, maybe our man Shai’tan would just laugh cruelly at the irony of Rand dying at the hands of a mere mortal, AND a Hero for the Good/Light…before destroying all of Creation in one fell swoop.
Its been a while, hasnt it…
And many a thing hath ‘gone down’ hehe.
For one, I got a job, spent two months walking to work through the English countryside and creating a Sonar program in C#.
After which I spent around a month doing very little, apart from screwing with my server so now it doth-not work.
And for most of that month (from the weekend that I finished work to about 2 weeks ago) my internet was down/flakey as hell. On the Saturday after I finished work, our phoneline got struck by lightning. Our phoneline magically gained a massive dose of intermittent static. It took 5 phone calls to my ISP, 3 of their technicians and 2 BT technicians to fix it. Eventually they replaced the ancient wiring between our house and the pole, and after that it was pretty much clean.
Whilst I was with no nets, I read a selection of books, including Alastair Reynolds’ epic in Relevation Space, and then the Old Kingdom trilogy by Garth Nix which I thoughtfully enjoyed. I then headed for the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, reading the last book, Brsinger, for the first time.
After getting back web-side I caught up with my feeds, which were OVER 9000!…only kidding, though they were probably close to 5k, with at least 2k of which being tech-news. And over 300 were comics, which was great, I laughed for a prolonged period
I also re-discovered Dragonmount and their spam boards, upon which I met some great people. Upon one of which this post was inspired and is dedicated to. Her nickname is Meesh, and her caricature a squirrel. She spammed with me, and I spammed with her. (Now I know what your thinking…but alas! Twas not so! :D )
We added each other upon MSN and became avid chatterers, both major WoT fanatics (obviously) and also great fans of fantasy fiction in general. Her in love, and in a LDR, me in not very much at all. She a fresh(wo)man starting courses in many interesting subjects, me a computer-science and maths second-year. Her interested in psychoanalysis, me in need of a shrink ( :P ). So yeah, we have been talking quite a bit for about a month and a bit.
Then she comes on today and starts saying stuff like “you’re awesome” and “its been great” and I am like…”shıt, she thinks I fancy her, or I am being overbearing or something”. It turns out that would have been a simpler situation, and at least one I would have experience in dealing with. Lets just say she has now got me blocked pending a time upon which she stops considering me a threat upon her welfare. That sounds so bad, but dont worry, it was I that suggested it. I cant help but feel responsible in part to this, due to my over-enthusiastic (maybe??) complementation of her…Ahh well, I am happy to wait as long as she isnt unhappy :)
To anyone who wants to photocopy, bind, and give a copy of the book to their loved one — more power to them,” he said. “He/She will likely be disappointed that you’re so cheap, though.
Randal Moneroe - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/business/media/20link.html?_r=1
An XKCD book!!! AWESOME!!!! :O
So, went to my old YO’s end of year concert a while back. Before hand me and my dad went and got a drink. He actually went into a pub and asked for a cup of tea… I know, crazy aint he :D. Then after we left (twas quite loud in the Brewery’s garden, a dance festival or something, far too many weirdly clad school girls running round like they have just been fed a large number of blue smarties. So, yeah. After that we went and read out books (me; Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton and my dad; the new Anthony Bevor book) on a bench. Whilst I was reading, a couple of old orchestra buddies appear, taking a casual stroll, so I went and chatted to them for a while. Then they left to get changed, so I read again, hehe. Anyway, TO THE CONCERT!!!.
First half wasnt that good: Canzon XVII by Gabrielli was pretty good but had a really clichéd ending. The Arvo Part piece was a tad thin, though that might have been the effect. The Anton Webern pieces just sounded like he was trying to hard, though I probably wasnt listening well enough. It seems the orchestra liked it though, so I guess it grows on you. And the final piece of the first half: Variants on a Shaker Melody, was far too long, playing that melody into the ground, theres some far better bits of Appalachian Springs too :(.
Then the break came, and I was sat on my own through most of it (my dad was a steward so was doing shiz). I found my old buddies just as the second half was about to start, so :(. BUT I did meet up with a dude-trumpeter by the name of Simon. He was quite a dude, until a certain miss A, who I was devoted to, fell out with him. So now, even though they have mended their bridges, I still feel negative towards him :(. But I digress, we grouped together and sat near the front, had some quick lols and then the second half started rolling.
And my, how it rolled. Started with a brassy piece by Purcell (as its his birth anniversary) which was enjoyable. Then, THEN!, it started rolling a-proper. Matt Bell (one of the dudes I met up with before the concert), the lead cellist, had composed a piece for the orchestra and it was AWESOME!!!! Oh it were perfection :). Superb. Then came some crazy Aufbruch by Detlev Glanert, which was a bit odd, but still rather good. And they finished off with the Invernal Dnase, Berceuse and Finale from Stravinsky’s Firebird. What an awesome second half that was.
Then came the afterparty. No, I am serious…they had an afterparty, and it was moderately fun. I caught up with a bunch of awesome musicians who I am proud to call my friend. Alas, it came to an end, my bro wanted to escape (being an antisocial teenage git) and my dad probably wanted to go home. As it happened, miss A was also leaving at the same time (coincidence ;) w00t). So, she and I both waved good bye, and she hugged everyone. I spontaneously picky-uppy-spinny-roundy hugged her, and it was successful, apart from the exit, which would have been ever so slightly more awesome if I had sunk to one knee and produced a bouquet of flowers. Cause I am like that :D.
Man, it was a wonderful evening :D
This book is great. Its an ‘autobiography’ of Luke Rhinehart, a psychoanalyst who is kinda bored of life, his job and everything else. He confesses having a patient that rapes and murders children early on in the book. Then he proceeds to allow his choices to be decided by the roll of dice. He ‘rapes’ his friends wife and then starts having an affair with her. He starts assigning his patient/clients some odd and hilarious tasks. Thats as far as I have got, but its awesome still :D
Yeah, the internet has gotten seriously boring for me…kinda. Twitter has stopped being so awesome, and I have no real sites to visit. I still track changes on SC4D but thats really out of habit rather than enjoyment.
I started reading Saga of the 7 Suns again (after a restbite period over the holidays) and was amazed at what I had forgotten. SPOILERS:
I read most of book 2 this week, and am now a good part way through book 3 :D
I also found git-php and “branched” it, taking the main file decompression bits from it, as I couldnt work out how to do it without the removal of the first two “characters” from the filecontents. I also think I might use a git-php thing to power ClassyCMS: Each document/page/thing is stored in xml file, but instead of having the hash the name of the file, just contain the whole thing in a —bare git repo. might work nicely :D
I arived at s5x18 this morning :D. The previous episodes were a good double parter. “introduced” Anubis. He sounds scary XD
I finished Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Was a nice, happy ending, SNOWLOCK! SNOWLOCK! SNOWLOCK!. He got crowned and married to the princess, met up with the Dragon and reunion-ized. Lots of people fell. I like how Joshua didnt die, Simon was actually quite royal, and loads of other stuff.
I started Saga of the Seven Suns (by Kevin J Anderson) again, and am enjoying it. The bus is a great pace to read.
Right, so…. I am watching Stargate SG1…
nothing wrong with that is there?
well I started last saturday (28th Feb, as I have said somewhere). Now I am 4 episodes into season 5. That is 92 episodes, or rougly 250000 seconds of it. Just under 3 full (24 hour) days. And that is discounting most weekdays 9-5 as I have uni. I am roughly 40+% the way through (or more accurately 43.2%)
Pretty bad aint it :D
In other news, I have nerly finished Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Its getting good, the alies are attacking Asu’a with the three swords in the same area. everything seems to be going “swimmingly” HAH
A good TED video from Fluid@MIT on HCI in the real world, interesting stuff, standing ovation ;).
