Adam Knight

Software & Stories

Article

Absolution Gap

Finally pushed through to the end of Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds after putting it down twice over the past decade. As a conclusion to the original Revelation Space trilogy, it’s an … ending. Worth going through because the first 95% is standard RS-level fun (at least on Akarat). A solid 4/5 for the first 47/50 chapters.

If you want the ending to be satisfying—or the Epilogue to make sense—have Inhibitor Phase on the ready to start right after (so I’m told). Also, the Galactic North collection of short stories apparently has a lot of the missing bits/context that build out the world before this. Perhaps the proper reading order is: Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Galactic North, Absolution Gap, Inhibitor Phase. With Chasm City appropriate anywhere after Revelation Space for the world-building of Yellowstone.

Tags
#books
#reviews

Quotation

www.wired.com/2014/10/restoring-habitat

Yet for all the precedents it set and its significance in gaming history, Habitat is largely unknown beyond hardcore fans. And among those who know about it, few have played it. Handy wanted to change that.

“Videogame history is nothing if not preserved in a playable form,” he said. “Without being able to play a game, one cannot appreciate it fully. Imagine walking through an art gallery with the lights turned off.”

Handy wanted to turn the lights on.

Tags
#gaming

Quotation

blog.bimajority.org/2014/09/05/the-network-nightmare-that-ate-my-week

I used Ubuntu as an example, but it is hardly the worst offender. We have seen Windows machines with more than 300 IPv6 addresses — which, recall, means that every 150 seconds they will be transmitting 30 multicast packets per second which have to be flooded through the network.

Article

Unified Internet Presence

It used to be, back in the days of white-on-black email and newsgroups, that you were able to keep a copy of everything you did on the Internet. Well, mainly it was because you did two or three things and they all required specific client software that had the option of keeping copies of your contributions, but there it was, you could do it. I, for instance, have a majority of my email back to 1996 — that includes mail from Compuserve, AOL, Eudora, Claris Emailer, Outlook Express, and now Apple Mail. My newsgroup client keeps copies of all my sent messages as well, still. That’s another old, large archive.

Tags
#ideas