Walking on the Moon

The other day I got spam mail from Bucky Barnes. As I mentioned, I’ve been a big fan of Brubaker’s Captain America run, so this pleased me much more than the average unsolicited advertisement.

In addition to all getting the topology set up more sanely, I’ve moved the network allocation functions off onto the WRT54GL. Now computers connected to my wireless can continue to access the Internet even if ylum is down or off-line.

Practically speaking, I put the DHCP server and a lightweight DNS server up on the little router. These are actually part of the same program, dnsmasq, that comes with OpenWRT. The result is that even if ylum is sick for days, or I’m fooling with it, laptops and other local machines can still reach the rest of the world. Hmmmm. Might be a good time to invest in some MXes, though…

In any case all of this should be invisible to the outside world, but makes me a little happier.

There’s been a huge amount of hype about Captain America #25, meaning that there has been a mainstream news story about it. Basically Cap gets shot in the issue and appears to be dying as the book closes. Marvel, trying to make a few bucks and generate some kind of Death of Superman hype, issued a press release alerting the world to Cap’s situation. Because there’s nothing else for the news to talk about, Cap’s latest peril got some air time.

As Mike Sterling points out artfully, superheroes often find themselves in dire straits, so I’m not worried about Cap in any long-term sense. Hell, the last page of the comic indicates its the first chapter of a 4-chapter arc. Cap’s too valuable to Marvel thematically and financially to be gone long.

I was afraid this was going to be some arbitrary Civil War crap that would hijack Ed Brubaker’s so-far excellent run on the title. I’m shocked and delighted to find that wasn’t the case. I mean it is a Civil War tie-in, but I didn’t buy Civil War and I enjoyed the story. Come to think of it, I enjoyed the other Brubaker Civil War tie-in with the Winter Soldier.

In fact the point of this whole post is to praise the excellent work that Brubaker and Epting are doing on the title. They’ve got a convincing Red Skull incarnated in a precarious situation (he’s assassinated in the first issue of the Brubaker/Epting run, without benefit of press release) but still going after Captain America with everything he has, a complex tone featuring everything from today’s fears of terrorism to the Cold War to WWII (can’t be Cap without WWII), and a fantastic grasp of Cap’s history. Better than just having a grasp of the history, they’ve got the guts to turn that history on its head in ways that hasn’t been done. Ever.

Throughout it all they’ve really breathed life into these folks. Because of their iconic nature, it’s really difficult to portray these characters as actual people, but Brubaker’s and Epting’s depiction has been sure-footed and revealing. Both the Civil War tie-ins have had moments of genuine resonance for me, and these are the tossed-off tie-ins. The main run has been even more consistently rewarding.

As I say, I was afraid that issue #25 was a stunt and I was going to be so disgusted I’d leave the book. I’m delighted that the creative team is continuing to keep their senses when all about them are losing theirs.

It’s a good book; give it a look.

Apparently Taser, Inc. has made Greg Leyh change the name of my favorite thing.  Behold the Taser Cannon  Lorentz Gun.  It remains the best thing in the world.

I’ve reviewed Rory Stewart’s excellent The Places In Between and started The Weather Makers in Bell, Book, and Candle.

This weekend I finally put the Moon here onto a sound network footing. I pay some phone company for 3 bits of Internet (8 addresses less one for broadcast and one for network number). Until recently my desktop/server has been also doing duty as a router/firewall, meaning I really had 2 2-bit subnets each of 2 addresses.

I actually used more of the address space by doing various bits of network black magic, which I don’t condone.

Last weekend I picked up a WRT54GL wireless router and VLAN switch. I’d burned Linux on a couple of these for work and decided it was a good piece of hardware to help straighten out what I laughingly called my network “architecture.” We won’t go into the 10 Mb/s hub that was still central to the thing.

At any rate, the router came last week and I spent a few hours this week burning OpenWRT onto it and configuring it. Now I have a sane network architecture that has the new router doing:

• Proxy ARP to keep my DSL provider confused
• Firewall
• Single IP address on both sides of the firewall
• ssh access
• and a gratuitous use of cron and ntpclient to keep its date correct

None of that was rocket science, though it was good clean fun. And I’m delighted to have a more orderly and sane network layout that lets me use an extra address and reboot my server without kicking anyone else off the LAN.

I’m so happy with it I decided to share.

I have recently learned that if you type “origin snail mail” into Google, my name is associated with the number one hit.

You may wonder how I’ve come to know such an odd fact. Well, I’ve been contacted by some fellow who is claiming that he came up with the word “before there was an Internet.” In 1990. (I have internet code that’s older than that and I’m no great shakes.)

I’m not worried about this whack-O, of course. I’ll just send him off with a hearty shove. I’m just worried about more in the woodwork.

Sigh.

If anyone out there would like to write a nice long essay on the origin of the phrase “snail mail,” I’d be delighted to Google bomb it for you …

I finished Sharpe’s Rifles, and there’s a review up in Bell Book and Candle.

My review of The Polysyllabic Spree is up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

My review of Team of Rivals is up on BBC.