Just before I left for Origins, the poster you see off to the right was delivered to my home. It’s an artistically-lettered print of a poem by Neil Gaiman, entitled “Before You Read This.”

It’s a wonderful poem, and I deeply appreciated getting it. But there was no note. I had no idea who sent it.

It took a little while, but I found it was my partner in crime, Kris Johnson. I wanted to thank him publicly for being such a swell guy, and for getting me something because, in his words, “I knew you’d like it.”

The great thing about the poem (which will be framed and placed over my desk in my office), is that it invokes more images than it describes. What I mean is, as you read it, it pulls ideas to the forefront of your mind, and so far, I’ve found that it jumpstarts my creative process. Like a meditation.

If you want to have a little fun, follow the link and read the poem from the end to the beginning. To twist things, read some of the stanzas as “Before You Write This.” It takes on whole new meanings.

Buy one for yourself from the talented Todd Klein.

In this episode of of the podcast, I talk a little bit about coming back from Los Angeles, the state of my various projects, and go into some details about the fiun had at Origins 2009 this year. Also, a bonus rant/ramble about why people like me are the Game Vendors’ Worst Nightmare:

Links for this show:

• Pinax
• Origins 2009
• War, Season 5 of Heaven
• Fluxx and Family Fluxx
• Are You The Traitor?
• Necessary Evil
• The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia

Names dropped: Kris Johnson, Jim Van Verth, Mur Lafferty, Ken Newquist, David Moore, Erin Moore, Natalie Metzger, Andy Steigle, John Cmar, Laura Burns

Download the show here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I’m not sure what to say. Honest.

(photo by Kimyo)

On a recent episode of Podioracket, I made the comment that, if all you know about Evo Terra is from his podcast, you really have no idea who you are dealing with. Evo’s a smart guy and has a brilliant way of cutting to the core of an issue which, I must admit, I envy¹. Check out his recent presentation on Big Numbers for Ignite Phoenix. While the ideas he’s discussing are, at their core, simple math, it’s the perspective he brings to the topic that showcases his skill.

1. I am also jealous of his Wikipedia page.  Don’t you judge me.[back]

To get Tweetdeck running on 64-bit, you’ll need to get the 32-bit compatibility libraries. The easiest way to do that is to do the following:

Download the getlibs-all.deb package. (This seems to move around a bit. If the link is broken, best to search it on Google.) Install it by running:

sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb

If you get a corrupted package (which I did a few times), try another download location. The one I linked to above worked for me.

Next, put these commands in a bash script:

sudo getlibs -l libnss3.so.1d;
sudo getlibs -l libnssutil3.so.1d;
sudo getlibs -l libsmime3.so.1d;
sudo getlibs -l libssl3.so.1d;
sudo getlibs -l libnspr4.so.0d;
sudo getlibs -l libplc4.so.0d;
sudo getlibs -l libplds4.so.0d;
sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so;
sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0;
sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0.1.1

Make it executable, then run it:

chmod +x getlibs.sh; sudo sh getlibs.sh;


Update all the library links¹:

sudo ldconfig

If you don’t already have Adobe AIR installed, go download the file, then execute it:

chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin; sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Finally, go to the Tweetdeck site and click to install Tweetdeck.

Sources: http://blog.ddiction.com/?p=3023, , http://linux.die.net/man/8/ldconfig

1. ldconfig creates the necessary links and cache (for use by the run-time linker, ld.so) to the most recent shared libraries found in the directories specified on the command line, in the file /etc/ld.so.conf, and in the trusted directories (/usr/lib and /lib). ldconfig checks the header and file names of the libraries it encounters when determining which versions should have their links updated. [back]