Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘Profusion’ Category

With help and prompting from Anke, I've made our IRC channels private so we don't get any more botlike people (or personlike bots) coming in, saying "/me *" and then disappearing.

They didn't really bother me, but hey, if I can spend minimal effort removing a negligible annoyance, why not?

For those who don't know, the Profusion channel is on irc.starchat.net, channel #proelium (for legacy reasons). I also maintain #profusion on the same server. Drop in. It's not members only.

Turns out you can't create multiple accounts on a Drupal site using the same OpenID identity (including if you stay logged in to your OpenID provider while trying to create/log into another account).

This is a Good Thing for Pro 2.0. We'll be enforcing the "one account, many character sub-accounts" model. You won't need separate accounts¹, and they won't be allowed.

This isn't how it's done among the old Viners who liked to pretend to be different people, but we're more about openness (no secret admin accounts, for example) and ownership of our own work – which is why our copyright rules are as they are. I try to keep those values in mind when making decisions.

¹ This software limitation does mean that I can't easily create a separate superuser account, as would be recommended practice, but I'm used to using messageboard software with the same limitation…

• Wow, science: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8297467.stm I thought every schoolchild knew the Romanovs had haemophilia! Ra ra Rasputin. #
• Damn, Obama, don't you dare peak too early now. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8298580.stm #
• Graze are trying to win me over with pecans and honey cashews. Bam, headshot. #
• UK fruit and nut lovers, try http://www.graze.com – natural food to your desk. Use this code to get a free box: MDNP1VFL – please RT! #
• Wondering "Has this section already been reviewed, or did I just code it incredibly well in the first place?" From clues, I think latter… #
• Cannot stop listening to http://bit.ly/Xgqx6 – which is particularly stupid because I should be heading home. (wakawaka) #
• I've been saying to the cat things like "Well, you've had a good innings". You should see the look of terror on its stupid face. #

New character. Like her?

• #vss Mags sheathed her rapier and mopped her brow. Her groaning opponent staggered off. He'd hoped her offer of a workout was a euphemism… #
• #vss The perfect marriage. They never spoke; Mags led his troops; he entertained her mother. She'd met his lover. He didn't know about hers. #
• #vss Mags was a mediocre Rockaferry player, but did all right provided she could play as White. Or cheat while her opponent bought drinks. #
• #vss Her cackling laugh earned her the sobriquet 'The Magpie Countess'. Mags obliged by dressing in black and white and laughing often. #

Three new shortish updates since last post. I'm going for little and often so I don't lose the momentum.

In this update:

• The perennial disorganisation of genius!
• Find out what Mistake considers important enough to swear on!
• And, lots of lovely murder!

"And don't try telling me she's suddenly discovered her maternal side, 'cause she hasn't got one."

OMG, the drama reaches lava pitch!

Letters page of Life academic journal, issue 134 [PDF]

A little background material for Profusion. >:)

(SPOT THE SUITOV!)

The 'short' story Roofrats, which I've been writing with Anke, is completed as of a few minutes ago. *does the dance* So I need to write a cleaner summary for the wiki page.

Conclusion: Nico and Weft make an oddly fascinating double act. But if they ever really get to talking, one suspects there will be bitchfights…

We didn't really get into the 'gang war' plot very much; it ended up being a kind of backdrop. Still, it all helped me flesh out Offwhite City and its attitude towards its penal colonies.

Yavu and Nico may return in the sequel, but we don't have concrete plans for that yet.

Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend after all; I'd forgotten until this morning (yay Outlook reminders!) that I'd agreed to help out with DrupalCampUK.

That also answers any questions I might've had about what to do this evening. That's right: get my V6 on and then see if I can get NodeProfile to do what I need it to… namely provide 'child profiles' for main profiles, call them 'character' and 'author' if you will, effectively allowing the author to post in-character. (You see? Everything I do, I do it for you…)

Am now itching for one of these. And a netbook to use it on. I do rather like being technology-lite, being naturally inclined to hold out until direct neural interfaces are available, but the drawbacks of being disconnected from the mothercloudwebnet in the meantime are starting to outweigh the benefits of not being mugged.

What's Weft saying? Suggestions for caption, please.

*readers should not infer from the word "competition" that there will be any 'prizes' beyond the awesome honour of seeing this heartbreakingly awesome work of ART

(First more-than-quarter-assed attempt at a Shade dragon in a SMALL variant of its polar, pedestrian form. Despite being huge, armoured monsters, they're about the only thing alive that can sneak up on a Weft. This is because they are epic.)

Just getting that title pun out of the way so I don't have to use it anywhere else in my writings.

As I understand it, it's normal for creators to be pleased when their creations cause reactions in onlookers. I think that's meant to apply to negative reactions too, sometimes. It certainly does for me in this case.

I was talking to Vespy this morning before leaving for work, and mentioned in passing one of the worlds I built for our little interplanetary ding-dong known as the Twine Wars. The world is called Instar and it's… I suppose you'd call it on the unusual side for generic fantasy, despite being populated by humanoids with pretty few differences from your generic sapiens. They're not especially nice humanoids, but then, humanoids tend not to be, so this is all within the bounds of sensibility.

Anyhoo, I believe the term Ves used to describe lovely little hemispherical Instar was "fucked-up", and in response to further questioning from a fascinated writer he said its inhabitants, and I'm paraphrasing, creep him out. I was kind of surprised, especially as they're somewhat caricatures of a type of animal he likes, but I suppose it's not too surprising on the whole. Ves comes across as a pretty honourable, easy-going and sane sort of chap, while Instarrians, well, produced Weft. (Who is not a typical Instarrian, but rather an extreme worst case scenario.)

I'm rather delighted by this reaction. As long as everyone doesn't feel that way and avoid interacting with them, because then I'll just be sad that the silly-billies are all missing the joke. (Because joke it is. Right now the thing I find funniest is that my ethics force me to view Instar as the good guys for being neutral.)

"Frerene is not a chick," said Suitov icily.

The continuing adventures of Dork Boy and Poochy

A happy little tale about monks and collapsed buildings. Contains injury.

Gentle feedback welcomed as ever.

edit:
"evil" –Kat
"dark" –Jenny
"Love it" –Vespers
"badass kitty" –Anke
"tasty goodness" –Ree
Thanks guys, I really appreciate it.

Hey! Ha ha!

Look what voodoo-vibe posted! (Apologies to AW who'll see this twice…)

HA HA HA HA HA.

Frerene was the only woman in the world.

The continuing adventures of Dork Boy and Panty.

I'd written half a post, sat on it for getting on for a week, and finally decided I should post it rather than waiting for the rest to occur. I still don't know where I'm going to finish this.

Would someone be kind enough to rescue Sylvie from Weft? ;)

In other words, don't make me shove Basaltine in his sheep outfit again.

edit, 7th am: Alternatively, save Weft from his own stupid mouth.

If you're a Wikipedia editor (or a member of other Wikimedia projects) and have a preference on GFDL vs Creative Commons as applied to Wikimedia content, please go and vote on their proposed licensing change. (Note that you'll need to accept cookies, and it may take a little while to redirect you to the secure vote.)

Personally I'm strongly in favour, both being very keen on Creative Commons and instinctively disliking and distrusting the use of the GFDL for anything other than its original intended application (software documentation). I have never understood how to use a GFDL-licensed photo, for example, and many such exist on Wikimedia Commons. (I take the only honourable course, which is not to use them.)

Note that the Creative Commons licence in question is CC-BY-SA, so still a copyleft ('viral') licence. They have good pages explaining everything, which I recommend you read before voting.

I have conflicting feelings on copyleft licences. For example, I've been cautious and banned the use of anything virally licensed at Pro, other than usage that unequivocally comes under fair dealing law in the UK, because we can't and won't comply with the requirement that we release all our stuff under the same licence. Our copyright, simplistically worded as it is (which is actually for legal protection, because I'm not a lawyer and you can get into all sorts of not-so-hilarious scrapes if you try to write like one), isn't compatible with copyleft.

But aside from the occasional headache copyleft stuff causes me, I'm keen on the principle of anyone licensing their things as freely as they feel is appropriate and I don't consider the licence restrictions unfair. People don't have to let you use their stuff at all and if they let you do so with provisos, that's generous. You don't like, don't use!

"Do you know any… tricks? Besides sitting up and offering a paw?"

"Yeah, loads," said Mistake. "Well, some. Well, one. Well… look, I'm a really fast learner when I want to be, right?"

Some dark-lords-in-training just can't seem to catch a break.