Some Random Thoughts Tonight

[teyrnon]

• It was easier to figure out where to market written work back when I actually had contact with people in the local publishing concerns. Granted I was writing for smallish circulation magazines under various pseudonyms and sometimes with no byline at all but atleast I was getting words in print out there in the world. I miss those days.


• There's very little on television I find interesting enough to watch on television this season. I'm really thinking it's time to finally drop the dish. Lending further impetus to that I recently received a postcard from my dish provider informing that they'll be phasing out my receiver early next year and I need to acquire new equipment from them. My current receiver/dvr unit is the same one I got when the dish was installed in the summer of 2004. It's wonder the thing still functions at all now that I think about it.


• I still prefer LiveJournal and Twitter to Facebook. One day I need to sit down and figure out what it is about Facebook that gives me such a case of the willies.


• I've been thinking about replacing the home server machine with a Raspberry Pi.


• Recently I've noticed an increased freuqnecy in incidents of clonus. Had one earlier this evening and didn't notice until the tremors got really bad. The affected leg still feels rather sore as I write this.


• While Guardians of the Galaxy was a fun movie I really would like to see more space opera epics. Seems like we haven't had a really noteworthy one in far too many years.


• Speaking of space opera. Does anyone have any recommendations for space opera that isn't heavily on the mil-SF side of the spectrum? If never I read another four pages of gushing adoration for chemically propelled projectile weapons it'll be too soon. Are 20th century slugthrowers really the apex of handheld ranged weapons for the next fifty centuries?

Comments

[sdaemon.livejournal.com]

I stopped paying for TV back in 2000/2001, whenever they canceled Farscape. Netflix, I find worth paying for. At least with Netflix I can sift through the cruft and just find things I actually want to watch. There's also still a decent amount of stuff available for free over the air or on various provider websites. I use a Raspberry Pi with RaspBMC as a media box and it can get a lot of free streams. I am setting up another RPi as a dedicated ham radio station, and I'll be setting up a third as a general purpose server on my home network. You have to be a bit careful with network load on the RPi... I don't think it would make a very good NAS, for example. But web/dns server? Or project mysql/postgres server? Sure! Plus they're just fun to play with and don't use much power.

I'm with you on the LJ > Twitter > FB. Sadly, FB is where most of the activity is.

GotG was fun, and I'll happily go see a sequel. It also was pretty light on exposition, and I'd like something a little meatier.

I can't recommend any better movies, but have you read any of the Iain M. Banks stuff? His Culture series is supposed to be great. I haven't read that yet, but I have read his _Algebraist_ standalone novel, and found it to be quite good. Would suggest it as a good modern SF novel with lots of well thought out history of the universe and very alien races.

Sorry about the health stuffs :( My own isn't great. I seem to be developing a heavy susceptibility to horrible sinus infections, one of the common complaints in people with my kidney condition. And my kidneys, well... they're screaming at me pretty much every day now. A few more years before surgery... maybe by then they can just grow me a new one.