Folder delivery:

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17882995    1913 /dev/null
12268067     810 spam
 2217635     641 lists/void
 2406290     526 lists/baltwash-burning
 2414109     446 lists/otakon-staff
 2676164     428 lists/bugtraq
  383989     391 cronjobs
 1317429     370 lists/mutt-users
 1469172     334 lists/burningass
 4234167     228 /home/phil/mail/inbox

High cronjob count was because of a couple of power outages that left some hosts running, but without nameservice.  Thus, the uptimes project client that runs every eight minutes left error messages complaining about not being able to resolve hostnames.

spam: 
Cnt: 2536
Max: 46.1
Avg: 14.0206230283912
Dev: 6.2294772771236

Zodiac is one of Neal Stephenson’s earlier books, and it shows.  A lot of the writing style that went into Snow Crash is there, but it’s rougher.  It’s hard to pick out specific examples, but the whole book didn’t feel to me that it flowed as well as it ought to have.  On the other hand, the story was a decent one, and had several nice moments of chemistry geekiness that reminded me of the mathematically-geeky side trips in Cryptonomicon.

Surprisingly (at least to me), I liked the ending.  I haven’t really been happy with the endings of Stephenson’s more recent books; I prefer something with a sense of closure.  All three of his books that I’ve read (Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon) had endings that felt unfinished.  (Note that I don’t mind endings that deliberately leave things open-ended, but I do like to feel that the main story has been resolved.)  Regardless, Zodiac’s ending did have closure, and I was happy with that.

So, it’s a decent read, especially if you like Neal Stephenson’s writing, but not really something I’d recommend going out of your way for.

I’ve just discovered listsofbests.com.  It’s a website with lists of books, movies, and music that various people have deemed to be really good at some point or other.  Mostly, I’m interested in the list of Hugo Award winners.  It’s been a goal of mine for some time to read every work that has won a Hugo, and this site will allow me to keep better track of where I am with respect to that goal.  I’m not doing too poorly; I’ve read 29 of the currently 51 books on the list.  So, here’re my lists:

• Hugos
• Nebulas
• Phobos Entertainment’s “100 Science Fiction Books You Just Have to Read”

Not for nothing did A Fire upon the Deep take home a Hugo.  There are just so many things about it that are good.  The universe within which the story takes place is carefully crafted and very interestingly conceived.  Several alien races are presented, two of them in detail, one of which (the Tines) had been very elaborately created.  The story is huge and compelling, while the writing draws you onward.  And the Usenet-like communications setup is an interesting concept.

Probably one of the things that stands out the most in this book is the structure of the Tines.  Vinge does a good job of explaining by showing, and the details of the race were enough to make my head hurt as I imagined their ramifications.

The writing was well-paced.  It’s a long book, and some parts felt slow-moving compared to others, but they were never uninteresting.  During the more active parts, especially the climax of the book (and the other climax right before it) I was so immersed in it that I couldn’t stop reading.  And the image at the end was echoingly haunting.

Simply put, buy this book.  It’s eminently worth it.

Slashdot seems to have a review of a recently-released special edition of the book.  It has notes by Vinge and those who helped him with his book and is apparently only available in electronic format.  If I had a working PDA, I’d consider getting it, since the annotations would be very interesting to read, but I’d much prefer a more open format (mostly so I could read it with Weasel Reader).

Wow.  Grandia II is now probably one of my favorite video games.

Let’s see… It’s a console (Dreamcast) role playing game, one of my most-preferred genres.  While the gameplay is rather overly linear, the battle system is at least interesting, and the characters and plot development are both excellent.

Linear gameplay, yes.  There’s pretty much none of the wandering off to do side quests that other console RPGs have, nor is there much real exploring to do.  You’ll see pretty much everything in the game because you have to go through it to progress.  There are branchings in the paths available, but almost without fail, one branch is a dead end resulting in some treasure while the other proceeds onward.

I won’t describe the battle system; there are certainly enough other places that do.  Suffice it to say that it has an interesting design that I found useful and reasonably fun, both of which are important in a console RPG.

Ah, the characters.  Ryudo is the main character, and he’s got an attitude.  He’s not shy about letting people know exactly what he thinks, and he generally put things in amusing (if not necessarily so to the recipient) ways.  I’ve a host of screenshots of amusing dialog, including stuff like, “Well, I guess you’d better get back to praying with yourself,” and, “I’m sorry.  Were you waiting for me to give a damn?” Many of the other central characters are equally good.  Milennia is a very fun (and cute) embodiment of evil; Elena is probably the blandest, though still likeable; and Mareg’s blending of rough demeanor with verbose eloquence is usually interesting.  The only one I didn’t really like was Roan, mostly because I found him rather annoying.

There is also a host of minor characters, most of which you don’t even have to interact with (villagers, onlookers, etc.)  Nevertheless, the game designers wrote several different dialogues for each one.  Unlike many console RPGs I’ve played, it takes a number of conversations with someone before you’ve exhausted their dialog, and this is true for everyone you meet in the game.

And the plot.  I’ll try not to spoil anything until I get below the spoiler barrier.  The initial presentation seems simple enough: ages ago, there was a battle between Darkness and Light.  Light won, but only sealed away the Darkness.  Now the Darkness is gathering again, and the heroes must gather the power of the Light to stop it.  (Even if Ryudo despises the church and is only doing it because they’re paying him a lot.)  As things progress, however, the plot takes a number of rather unexpected twists, some of them rather unconventional for a console RPG.  I played through the last eight or so hours of the game continually expecting that I was just about to the end.

All in all, a very worthwhile game, and one I am immensely glad to have played.

Spoilers

Stuff I really enjoyed from the plot:

Roan leaving the party!  Yeah!  Wasn’t so happy I had to take him back, especially after losing Mareg.

Though i was impressed that the game designers went and killed him off.  Many games wouldn’t do something like that.

The whole Elena/Millenia/Ryudo thing, with Ryudo realizing he really loved both of them.

At the end of the game, getting to fight the last battles with Ryudo, Elena, and Millenia.

The size of the Granasaber.  “How’re we gonna carry that?”

How they ended up carrying it.

“Yes, Granas lost that battle.  He’s dead.”

While I can’t say I liked it, really, the amazing degree to which the game designers were able to lay on the depression.  Someone asking Elena what to do and Elena replying that she prayed to a deaf god.  Seeing someone that had been slain by the Knights of Granas with a letter in his hand saying how he’d just managed to quit drinking and could see his son again.  Many other things along those same lines.

Ryudo doing the whole introspection thing to try and master the Horns … and losing.  For a short while, I really thought I answered wrong and would have to see the world destroyed as we lost to Valmar.

Elena sprouting wings and, with Millenia, accompanying Ryudo to the planet’s surface.

Millenia as a schoolteacher.  Yeah, she’s a game character, but in that outfit, I thought she was quite cute.

A bunch of other things that I can’t remember right now.