Please, please let this not suck.
Oh please.
So far, so good.
]]>
However, I have recently discovered that he surfaced briefly in 2008 - to announce that he'd completed a sequel to Emergence, named Tracking. It was apparently serialized in Analog between July and October of 2008.
But that's the only place it exists.
So I guess I need to start hunting Analog back issues...
]]>
The Problem:
The Blu-ray player, when connected to the Pioneer via HDMI and optical digital audio, won't work in 1080p resolution. When we connected the player (a Sony) it went through a 'quick setup' wizard. At boot and during that process, it was configured for what looked like low res - 480? - while it tried to figure out how to set itself. It reached the 'resolution' phase and announced that it would try to autodetect the proper resolution - and then the picture vanished ('No Signal' on the TV) and the Pioneer amp started flashing the message 'NO SUPPORT' on the amp's frontpanel. After 30 seconds, the picture came back (still low res) and the Blu-ray player asked if we'd seen the test page. We said 'no.' Rinse and repeat; the Blu-ray for some reason kept trying and failing to sync up.
After eventually forcing it to break out of the 'quick start' configuration wizard, we found that it was set to the lowest possible resolution, which did work. So we started trying to manually set it to higher resolutions. Eventually, we determined that while it would display 1080i, any attempt to set the player to 1080p would cause the 'NO SUPPORT' message.
Diagnosis:
This seemed stupid. We were talking about a Pioneer Elite amp, and a Samsung LNT5271f TV - both of which most assuredly would handle 1080p. As a test, I connected the Blu-Ray directly to the TV. It worked fine - so the problem was definitely with the amp. The *other* HDMI devices connected seemed to work fine; the Playstation 3 on another input seemed to work. But the Blu-ray just wouldn't work.
The Solution:
Well, long story short(er). It turns out that the Pioneer lets you manually assign specific video inputs to a particular function - so for example you can select the 'BD' (BluRay Disc) function, and then specify that the amp should switch to 'HDMI-1' and 'Digital Audio-3' (for example) when set to this function. We had done just that, and set it to 'HDMI-1' and 'Digital Audio 3' or some such.
The problem, however, is that although the amp will let you select and use the various video inputs individually, they aren't as independent as you might think. The problem: We had component video cables plugged into 'Component-1' for the cable box - and apparently, that trailing '-1' means that those inputs share some part of the signal path. The fact that component video was plugged into - let's call it Circuit 1, meant that Circuit 1 was limited to the maximum resolution of the component video - which was 1080i.
So we moved the Blu-Ray player to HDMI-4, which had no other devices plugged into that circuit ("-4") and voila, everything worked fine.
Annoying. No mention of this limitation in the manual that I could find, or on the internet. So hope this helps someone.
]]>
Anyway, he's writing a superhero-themed story. It's called Metro City Chronicles, and that link is the first episode. If you ever read Powers, Soon I Will Be Invincible or Who Can Save Us Now? and liked them, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.
]]>
But it's a hell of a piece of writing. Give it a try.
]]>
Depressing &()## game, too.
]]>
She has posted it to tumblr.com (I'm not going to link to it) claiming it as her own work, and has submitted it to NaNoWriMo.
I'm pretty pissed about this, I should say. Time to go learn about DMCA takedown notices.
]]>
]]>
Hm.
]]>
As an aside: if anyone asks me, I shall tell them that Smudge "has stepped out for a bit." God, what a cat.
]]>
]]>
That appears to have 'reset' whatever preference was borked. Now, when I drop stuff on the desktop, it shows up in the next unused slot on the right side, just like it always used to.
Hope that helps some poor soul who is Googling as frantically as I was.
]]>
Who is we?
Everything2 needs you.
We're an online community ancient in internet years (our first decade is coming up in a month or so). We have current members dating back that far. We have newer members. We have content - oh, my lord have we got content. Tons and tons and tons of content.
But we have a problem. Our site was and is devoted to the written word, and as such, it is lacking in some of them there newfangled 'Web 2.0" niceties like images, sound, 'social networking' and the like. We know, we know, but keeping a community up and running on the web with no budget for 10 years has to count for something, right?
Anyway. We still attract new people, who wander by and check us out. But the fact is that most of them kids wants them new features - and few stay long enough to realize the breadth and the depth of the content we offer and the personalities who hang out there, because the wide swathes of text put them off.
If you, however, like to read and/or write online, I'm entreating you to come give us a try at Everything2.com. We won't ask for money. We won't ask for the email addressed of your friends so we can pursue them. Heck, we won't even ask your real name. All we want is a handle, an email address we can use solely for administrative purposes (password verification and recovery) and for you to come talk to us, read stuff, and hopefully write some stuff on E2.
I realize this sounds a bit desperate. And I'm not doing this as an officially sanctioned effort, or as an official designated representative of E2. I'm doing it as a member of a community that I dearly love, and that I want more people to find as fun and engaging as I do.
So, for the final time (promise) I ask: come browse and give us twenty minutes of your time. If you want some suggestions on what to come read to get a sense of the community, read the articles in the section entitled 'Cream of the Cool' and 'Recently Cooled' on the homepage. If you want some of our historical greats, ask me and I'll send you some links.
There is an FAQ for the site, if you want one.
Anyway, that's it. I hope to see some of you there.
Me? Oh. I'm to be found here. I don't advertise my 'real' identity, but I don't go out of my way to hide it either (there's a link to it on this blog's sidebar, f'rinstance).
Thanks for reading.
]]>
Sigh.
Well, there's always Broken Steel!
]]>