Biggs' Zone

A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Life Update – WTF Have I Been??!

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On June 13, 2016

In General Cogitation

minion_daveI have suddenly gone silent. It isn’t from a lack of things to say, I have plenty to say. I have plenty to talk about; but sometimes life throws you a curve ball. The wife fell off a ladder a couple of weeks ago. After a couple of doctor’s visits we found out she tore her Lisfranc ligament which meant surgery. She is doing well, but she has to be in a cast for 3+ weeks and on crutches for 6 weeks.

So, since she is practically immobile guess who has to play toddler wrangler 100% of the time now. On top of that, apparently my blog site is classified as “Games” and therefore blocked by the firewall at my new client. So the only time I could write anything is at night, after the kid is in bed and my wife is comfortable but that is also the time when I play games or read to wind down for the day.

I’m sure I will figure something out where I can try to get more blog posts out there during my wife’s recovery; perhaps I can put my iPad to good use in regards to blogging. In the meantime keep your eyes on my Twitter feed or Facebook timeline to see when new posts come out (which means you must be incredibly bored if you are waiting for a post on my blog).

/cheers

/MTFBWY

Happy Towel Day!!!

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On May 25, 2016

In Geek Canon

Happy Towel DayAccording to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost.” What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Today is the day we celebrate the work and life of Douglas Adams. He enriched our lives with Improbability Drives and Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters. Show your appreciation and bring your towel with you everywhere and go to towelday.org to see what events might be going on near you.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Let's Talk A Little Console Today

The MMO Times: Let’s Talk A Little Console Today

By

On May 12, 2016

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Tracer's Firm ButtoxIssue 144: The open beta of Overwatch has captured the attention of hundreds of gamers and thus has been making the usual headlines around the various gaming news media outlets. The superfluity of the news about Overwatch, however, is a pleasant change from the excessive political garbage on television and Facebook. I think that’s why I read more gaming news than actual news; for the most part, its politically agnostic. The Overwatch open beta has wrapped up, which is unfortunate if you haven’t pre-ordered the game. I hope you got a chance to play it and if so, I’d like to hear your thoughts. I will express mine in a separate post.

Be that as it may, this is a post about gaming news and not an editorial. We have a few posts about some console games in this issue (because consoles started it all for most of us). Blizzard titles are the more prolific games mentioned since everyone is talking about Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm and Legion. The Legion posts are more about fun and interesting things that await us in the coming expansion. I know August 30th is still a long way away so these little Legion treats help keep us somewhat satiated. KCGO.

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Happy Star Wars Day!!!

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On May 4, 2016

In Star Wars

yoda_may_4th

The Story Rogue One Will Tell

The Story Rogue One Will Tell (For the Noobs)

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On May 3, 2016

In Geek Canon, Movies, Star Wars

The Story Rogue One Will TellIf you’re a Star Wars troglodyte (aka a Trekkie – j/k Trekkies!), or just a newbie you may have no clue as to the story Rogue One will tell. I’ve also been reading a lot of fan theories trying to connect characters in Rogue One to The Force Awakens. While I admire the hypothesizing, I was never under the impression that there would be a lineage connection between any of the new faces in Rogue One with any character in The Force Awakens. All of these fan theories has given credence to how successful the story is in The Force Awakens. If the movie hadn’t been so cryptic as to the origins of Rey and Snoke, people wouldn’t be trying to find the answers in trailer subtext.

Is Jyn Erso Rey’s mother or Captain Phasma?

Is Snoke in that bacta tank?

The Rogue One creative executive, Pablo Hidalgo, ended all of that speculation with his tweet (as mentioned in this article):

The producers (and Disney) want Rogue One to be a stand alone film with the only common element being that it’s Star Wars (hence “anthology film“). The movie will be the telling of how the rebel spies (as mentioned in the opening crawl of A New Hope) managed to steal the plans to the Death Star. While its true that the movie “is set between Revenge of the Sith and the classic that started it all, 1977’s A New Hope”, its chronologically much closer to A New Hope. In fact my suspicion is that the movie will end with the delivering of said stolen plans to Princess Leia thus triggering the events that unfold in the beginning of A New Hope. Granted I don’t know how much lore already exists surrounding the theft of the Death Star plans but I hope Disney sticks to it if any lore exists (remember they only debunked any lore post-ROTJ). Be that as it may, the unequivocal answer to these questions is “No”. Jyn Erso is not kin to Rey or Phasma. Supreme Leader Snoke is not bobbing around in a bacta tank.

Rogue One will be one of three anthology films Disney plans to release (the other two will be a Han Solo film in 2018 and a Boba Fett film in 2020). I do not expect this film to have the same success as The Force Awakens as I believe all three of these films are simply for the fans (and another profit-generator for Disney, since they love to milk a subculture for every dollar they can). I do plan to see this movie in the theater (because its required to see a Star Wars movie in the theater). The director, Gareth Edwards, doesn’t have a lot of highly successful credentials, with the possible exception of Godzilla (2014) so that could be a red flag but I think it has the potential to be one of those obscure fan favorites (The Ewok Adventures anyone?). Regardless, I’m excited to see it 

/MTFBWY

Home Network

Biggs’ Labs: In Home Network [Complete]

By

On April 28, 2016

In Biggs' Labs, Technology

tosche_title_headerSo here is my original list, slightly updated to reflect all current status:

In Home Network

MythTV – Plex – FreeNAS DVR and Media system (in progress)

Home Automation (up next)

Home Automation – Raspberry Pi integration (up next)

I can finally check something off my list. I was very excited to start plugging in computers and televisions and see it all connect to the Internet. Granted this is only Phase I, which was just wiring the main entertainment and computer area with enough network drops to plug everything in. Phase II will be to run it up to all the bedrooms (but that’s for another time). It’s nice that I don’t have to run a 100 foot network cable across the room so I can plug the XBox into the Internet; now its just a short 4-6 foot cable.

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