I find it telling that President Bush is asking both McCain and Obama to Washington to attend White House meetings with Congressional leaders to work on a compromise. Hm…now I could actually understand this if it was mid-November, and he was inviting the President-elect. But one of these two fellows isn’t going to be anything other than a failed candidate in 6 weeks or so. Involving both of them at a high level just moves the politics of the election into a situation that needs to be focused on solving a problem. Regardless of your position on whether or not the candidates should postpone Friday’s debate, this looks to me like a man who just wants out of the spotlight at this point.

I realize Bush is a lame duck at this point, but wow…

Well, I finally broke down this past weekend and downloaded the demo for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and enjoyed it enough that I just picked up the Platinum gamepack from Steam. Sure, it’s a few years old now, but I like buying games that way…for $30, I got Dawn of War and two expansions; enough gameplay for me for probably 6 months of fun. Good deal, IMO.

I’ve always loved the Warhammer 40K universe…the whole dystopian gothic space opera thing is right up my alley. I’ve owned bits and pieces of the rules since the early 90s, and I finally got around to playing tabletop again a little bit over the past couple of years…fun! (I’m an old, old school strategy wargamer, so setting up minatures is old hat).

To me, computers have always had the potential to really take a lot of the drudgery out of wargaming, though…setting up 400 or 500 chits for a Napoleonic wargame can take almost as long as playing. Unfortunately, I think the real-time strategy (RTS) “innovation” had a tendency to replace chit setup pain with a requirement to be fast on the click to play a strategy game…which I don’t like. The newer ones have tweaked that to a certain extent though, with build queues and such, and I’ve been looking forward to playing one of them for awhile. I expect I’ve found the game that will keep me out of WotLK and Warhammer Online this winter…*grin*. Blame Steam for dangling this stuff in front of me!

TIme to get back in the saddle. The past few months have seen me slip out of doing my podcast, then out of writing here on my blog, and even finally out of commenting much even at sites like Friendfeed. I’m hundreds of posts behind in RSS feeds, and I just generally feel a bit overwhelmed by my digital existence…I can’t keep up. I could complain, AGAIN, about everything that’s going on, but I’m not. I’ll just knock things out a day at a time, and get back in the groove. (and that’s the last navel-gazing comment, I SWEAR.)

I wanted to make note of several excellent podcasts I’ve listened to recently:

• Dave Slusher at Dragon*Con: Why podcasting matters
• Reality Break Podcast: Episode 5 – Bruce Sterling
• Fora.tv: A Critical Look at the Presumptive Presidential Nominees
• Yog Radio: Episode #30, Dan Harms Interview

Dave Slusher takes the prize here, being responsible for two of the four (hey, I’m an EGC fanboy, what can I say?). Dave was the facilitator and first speaker at the Dragon*Con Why Podcasting Matters panel, and he set the tone precisely as I thought it should be done. Dave and I are of one mind here…low-to-zero cost distribution has brought us podcasting, and set us free from the requirement of publishing for anything other than the joy of doing it and the ability to connect with other people. Profitability runs a distant second for me here; it totally doesn’t need to be the focus. Dave has made this point well before, and he makes it well here (despite some pushback from the other presenters…Dave can hold his own!). Well worth listening to, and for Bob’s sake, subscribe to Evil Genius Chronicles (Dave’s personal podcast) if you haven’t already!!

Oh, and now, since you’ve got your podcatcher open, subscribe to the Reality Break Podcast as well (that is, if you’re into science fiction). Episode 5 is a great example, with a great guest…Bruce Sterling. Bruce is one of the godfathers of the cyberpunk movement, one of my favorite authors, and an excellent interviewee. This interview is from 1996 (Reality Break was a radio show back in the 90s, and Dave is interleaving new and old interviews to create the podcast), and Dave and Bruce are primarily discussing Holy Fire, Bruce’s newest release at the time. It’s high on my list of Sterling-work, and the interview shows off both Dave’s interviewing style, and Bruce’s philosophy on writing and technology. It’s a winner.

Switching to politics, the Fora.tv panel discussion should go in your queue if you’re looking for a broad discussion of the presidential nominees…both as people and as policy standard-bearers. The panelists range from Democracy Now’s progressive host Amy Goodman to the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart. The discussion ranges far and wide, and presents thoughts and discussion on both of the candidates from many different viewpoints.

One thing to note is that the panel took place on July 1st of this year…I find reviewing work like this from a few months in the future gives me a way to critically evaluate the veracity of various claims. (Among other notable topics was a discussion of potential VP nominees for both parties; it’s worth listening to and thinking about just for that bit).

And finally, if you’re an RPG’er, and in particular a fan of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, you should immediately go check out Yog-Sothoth.com. The site is a treasure trove of info and upcoming events regarding gaming in the Mythos, and the podcast is simply excellent! I really, really enjoyed it…I often have a hard time with group podcasts, but this one was fun, informative, and left me wanting more. And since I came in on episode 30, I’ve got plenty to go back and check out.

We learn by doing: seems obvious, but it apparently isn’t, at least for me.

I need to be reminded once a year or so; I learn best by doing…by trying, accepting my mistakes, and then correcting my efforts. More often than not, my procrastination at tasks like my website, general hackery/development, writing, or even just blogging comes down to a reluctance to just throw something out there and give it a try. (What if it’s not quite right!?) That first bit is seldom perfect, but it gets me started, and it’s a LOT easier to just move along on pure inertia once started.

Lately, I’ve found myself spending far too much time just THINKING about the subjects of blog posts; going over them carefully in my head to make sure I’m covering most of my points before anything ever hits paper (keyboard, whatever). Which…um…then doesn’t happen. This is not conducive to blog throughput. *grin*

But it’s time to retrain myself. I’ve also started carrying a writing journal again (Moleskine, natch), and I’m forcing myself to just pull it out (as I’ve done with the start of this post!) and knock out some paragraphs. Years ago, I found journaling very addictive, so I hope to get that going again. (Sure, I’m editing the hell out of this as I transcribe to my blog, but it gets me moving. It’s all upside!)

The other tweak I’ve finally gotten around to making is an addition my blogging framework to allow me to hide drafts until they’re ready to be published. Yep…I don’t (er, didn’t, until recently) have a way to edit before publishing, except by working on posts somewhere else (I had been using my personal wiki.) So finally, it’s time to fix that and take away a crutch. Amazing how much more I can get accomplished if I can get part of it down permanently!

I briefly flirted with switching out my Django backend for a blogging framework (probably WordPress), but I decided against it. There’s nothing I can’t do in Django, really, and no reason to add additional work (moving all the data) just for the sake of shiny and new. Just took a quick programming session to add the the is_published attribute, and then track down the edge-case references (like the RSS feed). All done, and now I can edit! Yeah, it’s a small victory, but lately, I take what I can get. *grin*

Test post only…flipping all the various bits to (finally!) enable me to edit posts before publishing. Whew!

Move along if you’re looking for anything serious…I’ve been slammed catching up with work after Dragon*Con, and I still have my periodic crying jags over Thomas passing away…but this little video just made me happy. Found on FriendFeed (thanks, felix!), but I’m reposting just to try and get myself back in a bit of a groove. Plus, this little bugger is cute as hell.

It’s been quiet this month on the blog, though I have done some work on the layout. I’m fairly active (in the comments and quick snippets sense) over on FriendFeed, but never fear, I’m not abandoning things here by any means. It’s just almost time for Dragon*Con, and a lot of prep work for that happens around our place in August. Plus, hell…my cat died, and I’m STILL not over that. I completely lost it getting ready for bed just this past Monday. *sigh*

So I’m here, and I’ve got posts queued up. I might have some time tonight and tomorrow as last-minute D*C tasks finish; we’ll have to see. Otherwise, expect many photos and some stories next week!! *grin* I’ll hopefully be seeing some online buddies like Dave Slusher and Derek and Swoopy from the Skepticality podcast at the con, and a good time WILL be had by all.

I know…it’s early; we’re so far less than a day into Olympic coverage. But this is just broken.

I’ve often heard that even as the Internet becomes more of a venue for video of various types, that the last stronghold of broadcast will be live events, and especially sporting events. Because no one wants to see 12-hour old sports results…right? Well, someone should have told NBC.

NBC has the exclusive rights to Olympic coverage in the US, and has decided to ignore the fact that it’s 2008, and just pretend prime-time coverage will still carry the day. Now, it’s worthwhile to note that they drew a tough one here; Beijing is halfway around the world from the United States, and literally 12 timezones from the East Coast. That…well, sucks for NBC. But the solution isn’t to pretend that the Olympics aren’t happening until US prime time! From Day 1, where NBC postponed coverage of the Opening Ceremonies for 12 hours (until prime time), there seems to be a lack of understanding of just how frustrating their coverage choices are making regular people.

But what about Internet coverage? You can watch on the Internet, right? Well…kinda. Maybe. Initially, my tests looked pretty promising, but tonight the feeds have been sparse, and even what’s there is a comedy of “buffer…run for several seconds…buffer”. Net streaming is tough, certainly, but this either should improve quickly, or NBC’s got a fiasco on their hands. (I like the format of the player…but the potential doesn’t make up for the reality of The Fail.). And regardless…NBC has already stated that they won’t preempt any of their primetime coverage with live streams, so many of the premier events aren’t going to be viewable as they occur, at least in the US.

And other countries are no help. The streaming rights are geo-bound in every way imaginable, and I’ve spent hours tonight looking for the correct proxies to get something usable. Little joy. I expect that by the end of the weekend, I’ll have something semi-workable, but this is ridiculous.

It’s so disappointing to see such a lack of vision in 2008. The flat-out refusal to try anything new, simply ignoring the reality of the world today, is befuddling. I’ll be unable to WATCH these events in real-time, but whether NBC likes it or not, we’ll actually know the results. And if I can’t watch live, I may not watch at all. Their refusal to allow large-scale streaming, to not show events as they occur, and to try to pretend that broadcast is still the only option available will only hurt their ratings, IMO.

I heard about Steal This Film II when it was originally released, and I meant to watch it early on…but never got around to it. Shame on me…I recently finished it, and it was outstanding. And I’m even more excited now, b/c I’m in the middle of exploring the raw footage that the film was based on.

Wow…this is truly awesome!! The film was great, but as in the case of every documentary, there’s far more raw footage than made it into the finished work. All this footage is now available for viewing, and it’s an deep, engaging dive into the concepts and questions brought up by the film (copyright, intellectual property, creativity, and the future of distribution, for starters). It gets better…the footage is all under Creative Commons, and most of it is under the Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) license, which allows for derivative reuse. It’s mind-boggling, really.

Some of my favorite thinkers in this space are represented, including Eben Moglen, Yochai Benkler, and Fred von Lohmann (though not limited to them by any means). Regardless of your knowledge level on these topics, there’s probably more than one interview you’ll enjoy and learn from here.

My cat Thomas passed away this morning at about 10:15am, EDT.

I can’t believe he’s gone; I keep looking down at my feet for him, and my ears strain to hear cat noises in the house – noises that are no longer there. He’s been sick for some time, so it wasn’t a surprise; but you never want the day to come, you know?

Every time I think I’m cried out, I discover I’m not…so we’re staying home to cry today. *sigh* He was the sweetest animal I ever knew, and a true friend and companion. I love you, Thomas! Goodbye.