Friday 1 December 2000

Pic of the day: Yes, it's the now famous path to the Chaos Node, which I have portrayed at various stages of bloom. So, this is how it ends, the flowering. Not very colorful now, eh? Still, there's yet a kind of beauty. Or perhaps it's just in the eyes of the beholder.

Random observations

I am quite tired after the week. Despite this, I wrote a long philosophical entry. I do not feel quite at peace with it, though. So I'll let it lie and hope it improves, or rather that I can improve it. As so often before, it is about the connection between body and soul. If the two stay together for a while longer, I think I shall have it finished. But not today.

***

The big news here in Norway is that the crown prince (the heir to the throne) is finally betrothed. Yes, people have known the girl for a year or so, but now it's for real, with ring and stuff. The radio was just full of it. Well, I wish them God's blessing and what not; but could people turn down the clamor? We heard it all some weeks ago, when they called in the press to basically say that they were going to be engaged sometime, perhaps before christmas, or perhaps not. What next? They going to get a dog, and the nation be put on hold once again?

Let the poor lovers get some peace, OK? I fully agree that the royal family is now more ordinary than many ordinary people; certainly more ordinary than I. There is really no reason for journalists to climb over one another in desperation to get the same comments over and over again.

Well, at least we don't have two competing throne pretenders slugging it out in the Supreme Court. Thank God for small favors.

***

In entirely unrelated news, of course, I am currently reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Mad King, which I find a bit different from his more typical style. The male main character is more realistic, not a primitive superhuman like most of them. There is no science fiction involved at all - it is almost realistic, apart from taking place in a fictional little kingdom somewhere in Europe.

I'd like to see more E-books. (Starting to run out of Burroughs.) I am surprised that the supply is not greater, given the low costs of production and distribution. I am sure a group of dedicated hackers can break the copy protection, but would they do that for less than the most popular books? After all, it's not like you can't sit down and type in the contents of a paper book too, if you're dead set on breaking the copyright. But it's not much of a problem in practice.

This reminds me of the latest development regarding e-mail to my workplace, which is part of the bureaucracy mandated by the many Norwegian laws. After ruminations since April, we have finally got an official e-mail account for our office. However, we are warned by the HQ that we must not open e-mail attachments by clients, because of the risk for virus. Instead we are to write and tell them to send the documents by ordinary mail.

Comments a coworker: "But should we open ordinary mail? There could be mail bombs!" And let me add, I'm sure there are lots of virus on the snail mailed documents too, only they are the sorts that attack people and not machines.

***

A fellow Daggerfall guru has made a very advanced tool, which disassembles quests (one of the basics of the game) and also is supposed to let you compile your own quests. I have tested it for most of the evening, but I did not get it to work properly on the re-assembling part. The resulting files do not work properly. Still, I am impressed by the work this guy must have put into it.

And no, I did not make the game Daggerfall. Really. I'm just one of the people who have played it the most and knows it the best. One of them. This guy is obviously another.

***

The ear zit is still going strong after two weeks. It's still swollen and itchy and surrounded by dried blood and pus. I just thought you needed to know. Good night.