Ability Scores:
Strength-16
Dexterity-17
Constitution-15
Intelligence-16
Wisdom-15
Charisma-15

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Halflings are clever, capable and resourceful survivors. They are notoriously curious and show a daring that many larger people can’t match. They can be lured by wealth but tend to spend rather than hoard. They prefer practical clothing and would rather wear a comfortable shirt than jewelry. Halflings stand about 3 feet tall and commonly live to see 150.

Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

1. I still write music now and then.
2. I have a blue-tip (almost full blue) belt in TKD. I can kick your ass in Korean and English ;).
3. My favorite music has bag-pipes.
4. I’m the founder of the Berkshire Linux Users Group.
5. I live in MA but am still a 3 hour drive from Boston (Mind boggling, isn’t it?).
6. I’ve named all my personal computers after various gods of dischord, chaos, and change: Loki, Pan, Eris, Tyr, Enki, and Coyote.
   All my employer’s servers are named after Final Fantasy summons: Asura, Shiva, Ifrit, Ramuh, Valfor, Phoenix, Firebird, Titan, Hydra (ok not a summon, but it’s really ten machines acting like one, so the name fit), Golem, and Carbunkle.
7. I really love to play Go, even though I’m not that great at it (19 kyu).
   I’m part of the Northern Berkshire Game (Design) Group (link). We play and make up games. It’s cool!
8. Books that have changed me: Recently: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance by Robert Pirsig and Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. When I was a kid: Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini.
9. I work from my home for a bunch of bodybuilders. Sortof ;)
10. I’m working on getting Italian citizenship jure sanguinis. That means because my Great-Grandparents were born there they’ll recognize I’m still Italian (hopefully). I’m waiting on some very slow searches to finish, but then once the paperwork is done I’ll be a Dual Citizen.

The next victims of this malicious meme:

1. Jen - Because I love to share the love
2. Sarah and
3. Rachael - Because even though you’re my sisters, I still don’t know enough about you :)
4. Pip - Because I’ve lost track of him, and want to know what’s up
5. Seth - Because he’s hilarious
6. Jeff - Because I really don’t talk to my friends enough
7. Joe - Did I mention I don’t talk enough?
8. Neal - Because even though I know he won’t do it, I had to try ;)
9. Brannon - Because he never blogs about himself
10. Bryan - Because he seems a likely target for meme crossfire ;)

We’re hiring a car this time around, so hopefully we’ll get to see a bit more of that beautiful country. Does anyone have recommendations on where to visit? While we will be there for 11 days, we don’t want to have to drive too much (we did that in Scotland last year.. no thanks), so we’re sticking to the west.

If you have them, I’d love to hear your Ireland stories! Places to go, things to see, people to meet.. all would be very helpful :).

We’re looking to pick up a new video camera before we leave, and I was wondering if anyone could help with that.

I was thinking a Hard Drive based camera would be nice, as I wouldn’t have to constantly purchase and swap media. I’ve heard some of these store the video in a poorer-quality codec, though. I was initially worried about the space, but at high quality most can fit at least 7 hours of video, and I don’t think we’re such video bugs as to run out of that in 11 days. Who knows, though. That’ll probably come back and bite me ;). I was thinking worst case we could always go to an internet cafe and burn a DVD to free up some space.

As for brand, Sony seems to have good quality. Any ideas here? All input is highly appreciated! Features-wise, I don’t care if it can take stills. We have multiple powerful cameras for that.

The biggest drawback I see to a HDD camcorder is price—most are $200 more than equivalent DVD or tape based models. Is this paying for quality or early adoption?

Wish us a safe trip! I’ll be sure to post here when we have pictures (and video?) up.

Systems administrators certainly don’t need it. Computer operators don’t need it. Even complex fields like security don’t need Computer Science—they need math.

What does a Computer Science degree give you? Primarily you get experience with some language or two that your school has chosen. Often that language is outdated (some schools still teach in Cobol). A good school will most likely train you in Java. Java is good, but what about the new wave of Ruby? How about next week’s language? Really, the targets move so fast, keeping up with them is almost impossible.

So, if anyone has a real use for Computer Science (aside from teaching it), let me know. I’d like to hear of it.

All I had to do was turn on the new machine, turn off the old one, connect a firewire cable—luckily I had one of these laying around, if you don’t have one you’re out a good chunk of change—and turn on the old machine while holding down ‘t’ (for transfer, I assume). The new machine then took control of my old mac, searched through its guts, and pulled over all my files, settings, and applications. It took maybe 2 hours to copy over the whole 60 Gb or so (kinda slow..), but it worked!

When the new Mac was finished, I was presented with my old desktop, everything exactly like it was on my old Mac (except with a higher resolution). The whole process was so painless, in fact, that I felt the tinkerer in me let down, having expected to wrestle with configurations and the like. Really they should add some option in to let the geeks fight at least for a little while with some operating system facade, I needed more of a sense of reward.

Now with my new machine, I know it’s at least twice as fast and significantly more capable, but to me it feels just like the old Mac. I do get Front Row now, though, which is pretty neat. Joost will work now too, as they don’t release binaries for PowerPC chips.

I don’t think I’d ever expect myself to be upset with something being too easy, but there you go. Yay Apple? :)

Wait, what’s The Singularity? From Wikipedia:

The Technological Singularity is the hypothesized creation, usually via AI or brain-computer interfaces, of smarter-than-human entities that rapidly accelerate technological progress.

Most speakers assume the Singularity to include Strong AI (as developed as human intelligence), Nanotechnology (the ability to manipulate atoms and build atomic-scale machines), and often some form of brain-computer interface, allowing regular humans to upload their consciousness into digital (and non-degrading) form. All in all, it’s a major event and one that will change humanity forever. As such it deserves a good deal of thought, and that’s what these people were there to talk about.

For those of you who don’t have the time to watch the talks (and you should, most are only 20 minutes), here’s my (lighthearted) summary of a few:

The Singularity: A Hard or Soft Takeoff?
Ray: Hey there, my book is great! Have you read my book? It’s really awesome. My book talks about all these really cool things. It’s quite convincing. See here I’ll show you some illustrations from my book. Oh by the way, I made a handheld device that reads text for blind people; wanna hear it? here it goes:

Reader: RAY KURZWEIL IS AWESOME. HIS BOOK IS GREAT. HAVE YOU READ IT? HERE’S SOME TEXT.

Ray: Yeah so read my book, not like you really need to because I’ve just presented all the major points. Did I mention my book is cool?

Trying to Muse Rationally about the Singularity Scenario
Doug: Hi, I’m Douglas R. Hofstadter. My name has a middle initial, so I’m more important than everyone else. In fact, I’m so important, I’m the one who organized this whole thing. I’m going to now bitch for 20 minutes about the fact that I organized everything and people screwed it all up last year. I really hope people don’t screw it up again this year, even though I’ve changed the name and everything. I’ve even made blood sacrifices upon the altar of Ray Kurzweil.

Ray’s Reader: ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY AND POWERFUL KURZWEIL.

Doug: So anyway, thinking about this new world of powerful AI and nanotechnology and stuff is really hard. Nobody, even Kurzweil himself can really know what’s going to happen. I even think Ray’s quite off his rocker on some of these things. In any case, I’ve assembled some really smart people to come here and talk about what’s going to happen to us. Listen to them because they’re great. I’m still the greatest though and I get to have my picture at the top of the page.

Filled with a dark humor, this book effectively satirizes the modern office while at the same time introducing a strong element of the bizarre. English geeks will have a field day with all the literary references. Not that you have to be a lit freak to enjoy the book—I’m certainly not one ;). How could you not win with an opening line like this?

One brutally hot Summer’s morning, Paul Trilby—ex-husband, temp typist, cat murderer—slouched sweating in his t-shirt on his way to work, waiting behind the wheel of his car for the longest red light in central Texas.

It’s a quick read, and a welcome break from my more-regular diet of New Yorkers and Funny Times.