Lounge Thread

[Spec8472]

Yeah, t's quiet around here - and unless you're into that sports rubbish - there's not that much to talk about.

So, If you're new here (or even if you're not) - Introduce yourself and say hi. What interests you? Have you read any good books? Anything interesting happening in your area?

I'll go first:

I'm not new, but... I'm Will, and I'm an alchoholic... err, sorry, let me start again. *cough* Yeah, so I'm one the local admins - I live in somewhat sunny Sydney, and do Software Development Stuffs for a little company called Massive (cue laugh track).

Latest book I've read would be Emag of Efil by T.C. Jessup (Aussie/Perth Author). It's actually a review copy - which is somewhat random/new for me.

The simplest way for me to describe it is modern-day Scifi/Fantasy novel with a magical book that's the mutant love-child of The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer and a smart-assed AI, served with a good helping of Descartes and other philiosophers added on for good measure. Sort of, I suck at giving good descriptions of things.

Anyway - I like it - it's not a particularly long read (I read it over two nights) but it had me laughing out loud by the fifth page or so, and kept it up for a good while. It's well worth checking out - but be warned that it's the first in a five book series. You can get it on Amazon through the link above, or through Lulu for the same price in paperback, or as a free download (PDF).

New around here... Umm... I got my home Windows Media Centre and Windows Home Server machines running nicely?

Your turn!

[michaelsuave]

Ok, I'll bite the bait and try and keep the thread on topic... whatever that topic may be. Life has been pretty good for me recently. I'm on a month long vacation since I graduated from law school, here in northern California, in May and took the California bar exam at the end of July. Jamaica was nice, the beaches were nice, the rain was nice, but wasn't used to the humidity. We went to this resort, the grand lido negril http://www.grandlidonegril.com/ and it was our second time going there as we had been there 4 years ago for our honeymoon. However, it wasn't as nice as it had been previously, and my wife didn't feel as safe on the resort as she did last time, what with some of the staff making inappropriate passes at her while I was in the ocean and she was on the beach... not what you expect from a supposedly nice resort. But oh well, going up to British Columbia to go hiking for a week, and then I start back at work in September.

Hmmm, what I've read recently. Well finally had the time to pick up and finish Jim butcher's latest Dresden Files book, which I always enjoy. Picture a humorous detective novel, except the detective is a wizard in Chicago with a sense of humor, and there are mythical fairytale creatures eating the mundane humans of the world. Pretty good book, finished it in a day on the beach. Some 300 + pages if I remember right, and good like the rest of his series.

Other than that, been reading on http://www.storiesonline.net and communicating back and forth with the authors of Sword Saint and De'ja vu Ascendancy a bit.... mostly Shaddoth of Sword Saint, but I keep trying to get more posts from DJVA... just like I try to do with Fel.

On top of all that, I'm currently writing on three book series, but haven't posted anything yet. Looking for an editor still, but don't know if I'll ever share. As I write I learn how time consuming it is, as well as that sometimes your labor of love is personal, and it can be daunting to share. With that said, short plug to fel for his wonderful writing that he shares, and now it is somebody else's turn to write about life.

~Michael

[Wicketklown001]

Other than that, been reading on http://www.storiesonline.net and communicating back and forth with the authors of Sword Saint and De'ja vu Ascendancy a bit.... mostly Shaddoth of Sword Saint, but I keep trying to get more posts from DJVA... just like I try to do with Fel.

That's something of a coincidence...those are exactly the 2 stories I'm currently keeping up with on SoL myself... weird someone else with my eclectic tastes hehe. I'm really like Deja Vu Ascendancy even though it seems to be progressing a bit slow at the moment. Understandable given it's length though and at least I can comfort myself with the knowledge it's a completed story and I don't have to worry about the author abandoning it and leaving me hanging which is a huge plus in my book

edit: it's strange how I can get 10-15 chapters per week of DejaVu Ascendancy and still want more. Guess I'm just greedy lol. 97 chapters down...only 288 more chapters to go (is that a record for longest book? Sure seems like it should be)

[J-Man5]

Ok. Well life for the last 6 months has been hard. Closed my business due to the change in the economy. Went to work for someone else who treats me like I'm generally worthless. But I am being put through VMWare training for VCP this week. So missing my wife. Playing lots of LOTRO Have both of those 2 stories bookmarked for reading in my SOL Library. Am currently reading Phoenix by Steven Brust. Book 5 in the Vlad Taltos series all of which I have read in the last 3 weeks.

Tired of hotel/seminar buffet food and worrying about how much time it's gonna take me to get these extra travel pounds off me when I get home.

Interests: Really having fun with VM computing. Playing with SAN/NAS storage and Cisco networking. Geek question. How many networks can I have with a 192.168.1.x netowork with a mask of 255.255.255.192 ???? Bonus virtual cookies to the first correct answer!

Had some fun this week with seminar and sales promotion items from vendors. Love my flying screaming monkey from Nortel. Everyone should be afraid of the flying screaming monkey. (remember Oz my pretties???!!?!?!?!?!?)

Ok. Enough rambling. back to LOTRO.

J-Man5

[miraborn]

Geek question. How many networks can I have with a 192.168.1.x netowork with a mask of 255.255.255.192 ???? Bonus virtual cookies to the first correct answer!

The answer depends on the configuration of your switches. Since 192.168 is not routable, all traffic will be constrained to the local network.

If your switches do not allow for the "0" network, then you get 2 or 3 networks, otherwise you can utilize the full 4 networks of 62 hosts each.
CIDR notation of 192.168.1.0/26 192.168.1.64/26 192.168.1.128/26 and 192.168.1.192/26

-Miraborn

[alkiera]

I'm really like Deja Vu Ascendancy even though it seems to be progressing a bit slow at the moment. Understandable given it's length though and at least I can comfort myself with the knowledge it's a completed story and I don't have to worry about the author abandoning it and leaving me hanging which is a huge plus in my book

You say it's completed; do you know if it's been on the web elsewhere before? It eerie, as I'm pretty sure I've read some parts of it before quite a while ago, but the chapters were recent posts on that site. Honestly got deja vu while reading it.

The Sword Saint story, though, I'm really enjoying. Thanks for posting links, folks.

[Wicketklown001]

I'm really like Deja Vu Ascendancy even though it seems to be progressing a bit slow at the moment. Understandable given it's length though and at least I can comfort myself with the knowledge it's a completed story and I don't have to worry about the author abandoning it and leaving me hanging which is a huge plus in my book

You say it's completed; do you know if it's been on the web elsewhere before? It eerie, as I'm pretty sure I've read some parts of it before quite a while ago, but the chapters were recent posts on that site. Honestly got deja vu while reading it.

The Sword Saint story, though, I'm really enjoying. Thanks for posting links, folks.

I said it was completed because the author said it was in his blog. I don't believe it's been posted anywhere before though. /shrug here's a cut/paste from the author's page which is where I got most of my information.

Deja Vu Ascendancy is an extraordinarily long story: 385 chapters totaling 3.2 million words; the equivalent of 40 average-length novels. I know its exact length because all the creative writing and one full editing pass have already been completed.

My editors and I are now giving each chapter a final proofread and are releasing the chapters at a rate much faster than is normal for "in progress" serials. We're expecting to submit about 10 chapters per week (most are about 8,500 words).

It's going to take a certain type of person to take on reading such a monster. If you're strange enough, many hours of enjoyment await...

Up to chapter 113 as of tonight and still a lot more (272 chapters left) to come. He did mention in one of his blog posts that if reader interest started dropping (not likely judging from the reactions) he'd just skip editing the rest and dump whatever is left all at once.

The story seems to be slowing down a bit, but I think it'll pick up pace again soonish though.

[gesit]

Yeah, it's only sex now in Deja Vu Ascendancy, hope that, it will change soon
i also am following Lazlo Zalezac stories (magic), and it has great humor
one of his best!!
cheers

ham

[Wicketklown001]

I'm sure the pace of the story will pick up after his next deja vu experience (which I have a feeling will be another merger). I'm curious as to how/why he'll merge again since he said he didn't want to do the suicide merge thing again because it would make all the people in one dimension sad/depressed. I'm guessing one of two things will happen. A: he'll figure out some way to merge without one person dying (doubtful since that would essentially leave 2 super-Marks running around the Universe) B: It'll be completely unintentional, i.e. a tree falls on him during a merger, killing one but leaving the other intact. I suppose there's a 3rd possibility, something happens and he changes his mind about wanting to merge again using the old suicide way. I doubt that will happen but it's possible.

In a recent e-mail exchange with the author he mentioned the current timeline for mergers as :
His deja vu episodes were on:
2003-11-19 Merge #1
2004-06-25 Picture theatre without merge
2005-02-22 Merge #2
2005-04-06 School hallway without merge

The current chapter lists the date as 2005-04-24 so it'll be another month or so before his next deja-vu event. Oddly enough if he merges the next time it'll fit in with the pattern. Merge, no merge, merge, no merge, merge....I wouldn't put it past the author since he seems to enjoy math and patterns and such.

[alkiera]

Got up to 113 last night, and saw the author note at the end about it being completed, and just needing editing. Still don't know why it seems familiar.

If the pattern follows, 3.2 million words, most of which are spoken by Julia. Man, she's wordy. Amusing, though, when she's in control, not so much when she loses it. Mark actually seeming to learn some things(socially), finally... to a certain extent, I had to do the same thing at the begining of the firestaff series, repeat constantly 'He's just a kid' in my head, as he seemed to take forever to get his act as together as it is.

Wicket, I agree with you on the merger; there was a brief mention from the future 'Mark the Deity' that the next merger was coming fairly soon, but I just don't see how, as he doesn't seem to want one, especially doesn't want to kill off copies of himself, due to the pain caused to his families in the remaining 25% of w-space that still has one of him. I think either it's involuntary, or he discovers some novel way around the death thing. I just don't seem him intentionally causing pain to half of the Carol's like his in the universe.

[dellstart]

Thanks for the tips.

I actually registered on that site, but am not sure how to find the novels you have mentioned.Any help would be appreciated.

As anyone who has ever done , the marathon , that is NYC to Sydney, (25 hours plus), you know you have a lot of free time on your hands.So browsing the book shop at JFK , I found this chick flick book called Twilight.It wasn't bad. cute love traingle with a human chick vampire and werewolf.It was no Harry potter, let me tell you , ( no brain strain at all) but it was enough to keep my interest as well. Think they are making a movie out of it.

Was a real pleasure to actually find a cricket section in a book store, and had great fun browsing the life and times of many famous cricketers Dougie walters included.Think you have to be a Aussie or Pom to appreciate that.

[gesit]

Thanks for the tips.

I actually registered on that site, but am not sure how to find the novels you have mentioned.Any help would be appreciated.

As anyone who has ever done , the marathon , that is NYC to Sydney, (25 hours plus), you know you have a lot of free time on your hands.So browsing the book shop at JFK , I found this chick flick book called Twilight.It wasn't bad. cute love traingle with a human chick vampire and werewolf.It was no Harry potter, let me tell you , ( no brain strain at all) but it was enough to keep my interest as well. Think they are making a movie out of it.

Was a real pleasure to actually find a cricket section in a book store, and had great fun browsing the life and times of many famous cricketers Dougie walters included.Think you have to be a Aussie or Pom to appreciate that.

you can try advance search if you know the story name or author, another way is go to authors(second row) and search for the author, i can recommend Lazlo Zalezac; Lazlong; Old 1 Eye; Gina Marie Wylie and there are many more m8
have fun

ham

[alkiera]

Dellstart, just put the title into the quick search window(upper left) when you log in. 'deja vu' gives you the story we've been discussing as the 5th result.

I recommend bookmarking the story's main page, as they want money in order to do things so simple as keeping track of which stories you're reading. Navigation of the site is also lacking, but eh; the stories discussed here are good. The Sword Saint author just finished the first 'book' of the story.

[dellstart]

Thanks folks.

That sword saint was really awesome.stayed up till 4am finishing it off.

[Phantom]

Thanks folks.

That sword saint was really awesome.stayed up till 4am finishing it off.

Ok heres one of my older lists

======== (NSFW) WARNING ======== Not all of the Stories on this list are Non-Erotic
http://forums.sennadar.com/viewtopic.ph ... =210#p7709


I thought I had posted a newer one then that online here some where ...but there are a
Lot of Good storys on there.

Phantom