EFF event details and my picture with Cory

Follow up to this post: http://www.111minnagallery.com/2009/03/eff/

I had a great evening at the EFF fundraiser. BART made it easy to get there on time, and both the EFF staffers and I were glad about my donation to their cause. Minna gallery filled up slowly, but by the time Charlie Jane Anders started reading, seats were long gone and many were on their feet.


It may have been Senior Staff Attourney Fred Von Lohman who introduced the authors. (That's right! The Fred Von Lohman).


Going first, Charlie Jane Anders read an interesting story of a girl researching her biological father on the internet, and left it with a cliffhanger (i.e. - plz buy the book), but I spent too much time being disturbed by the broad shoulders, large adams apple, and deep voice this lady had. I guess I should be more open. This is SF after all.

Analee Newitz was less complicated and read a more playful story, and I considered picking up a book. My reading list is long, though, and I have yet to do so.


The third reader, Rudy Rucker, started by taking a pic of the audience, then starting an audio recording to blog later. You get bonus points if you can find me in the audience.


Rudy went on to tell a story that made me keep checking my watch. It was a monotonous delivery of an oddball fantasy of a postal worker in a weird living dreamscape. He got some laughs out of the audience, but it was lost on me.


Finally Cory Doctorow read from Little Brother, and made some noise. He selected a passage depicting civil unrest, and was animated & engaging in his delivery.


Afterwards, I took a pic with Cory.


I was interested by the different texts the authors used to read from: Charlie had a bunch of wrinkled printed 8.5x11 sheets. Analee used an ultra-thin notebook (macbook air). Rudy used a bound prinout. Cory brought a published hardcover.

It was a fun night, but after an early day at work in Hayward, a jobsite walk in Santa Cruz, a night in San Francisco and a long BART ride home, I was pretty beat. It was worth it to get Little Brother signed by Cory, though.

Amy Poehler fail: Parks n Rec is just The Office

It's bad enough that "The Office" is copying "The Office" (USA version vs. UK version), but we really don't need a third copy of the same show. It's too bad, because Amy Poehler was pretty funny on SNL. The Washington Post elaborates, if you want more detail.

GRRM's Song of Ice & Fire coming to HBO

George R.R. Martin blogged today that filming of A Game of Thrones starts in October for an HBO series based on the Song of Ice & Fire series. woot.

I wonder how many episodes they'll film before Eddard Stark is seperated from his ... well, no spoilers.

(for more Stark family artwork, plus Sam Tarly, Winterfell & the Wall, see the gallery at http://guillemhp.com/?page_id=118).

What I'm Playing Now: Braid

I picked up Braid for the PC on greenhouse after a long wait (Xbox release was months ago). The art is wonderful, the sound is great, and the time-manipulating game mechanic is brilliant.

While souljaboy's review is all wrong, it's pretty funny:
davidhellman.net/blog/souljaboy-on-braid/

...and the artist's blog is pretty entertaining as well:
davidhellman.net/blog/the-art-of-braid-index/

L4D Survival Mode: Graphs!

They know what I like at Valve: L4D, graphs.

Today at the official L4D blog, they cover the new survival mode (released late April 09) and then address my first question graphically: how do you create the smooth linear increase in difficulty necessary to make survival mode work? Since survival mode teams are scored by the time they survive, scores will be useless if difficulty increase isn't smooth ... and making it smooth can be hard when the addition of 1 extra special infected (and certainly 1 extra tank) creates a big spike in the difficulty for the team, especially during a horde or in combination with other specials.

They explain how they did it at the blog, and they post this snazzy graph. I can't wait for it to release. I can quit playing payload maps and braid and go back to left4dead .

At the 14 minute mark, they are spanwning tanks & hordes every 15 seconds, and specials practically constantly. Wow. I think I heard the valve team never lived past nine minutes. I wonder if I can find a crew to get beyond 5. I need some L4D regulars to game with.

Big world, little girl

I like these pictures where my tiny daughter appears to get lost in a big landscape as she goes adventurously exploring. Click for high-resolution version.

What I'm Reading Now: All The Kings Men

I keep trying to read books at random, not judging by genre, author, description. It's helped me find gems I otherwise wouldn't. This book, unfortunately, is really boring me. Maybe it gets better after 1st 5%.

Skye & Drew in the big city

We took the kids to San Francisco last weekend, mostly so Drew could ride on BART (he's into trains right now). Pics below:

The BART ride was a hit with the boy, as expected.



Skye is always generous with the kisses:




It was hilarious watching Drew try to stay awake for the long train ride home.