Thue's blog

I own Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack in the Linux edition from Loki. However, it unfortunately does not seem to run on a modern Linux distribution. So I decided to make a virtual machine image of an old Linux distribution to make it work. That way I will never have to reinstall it, as long as I save the virtualized image. So the procedure is: 1) Download Red Hat 8 (in 2 disks): ftp://ftp.gmd.de/archive.download.redhat.com/redhat/linux/8.0/en/iso/i386/psyche-i386-disc1.iso and ftp://ftp.gmd.de/archive.download.redhat.com/redhat/linux/8.0/en/iso/i386/psyche-i386-disc2.iso . 2) Create a virtual disk image: emu-img create -f qcow2 smac_redhat8.img 5G 3) Optionally install kqemu kernel module to accelerate qemu (Red Hat 8 didn't work with kvm,presumably because my CPU is not known by Red Hat 8). 3) Install Red Hat 8 in virtual image: qemu -cpu pentium2 -hda smac_redhat8.img -m 1024 -soundhw ac97 -cdrom psyche-i386-disc1.iso (You change cdrom in qemu by CTRL-ALT-2 and the...

New books are usually only available in hardcover for about a year. Wikipedia writes that Hardcover books tend to cost more than paperback versions of the book. This is due to price discrimination by booksellers who observe that consumers are willing to pay a premium for hardcover editions over paperbacks beyond the extra costs in materials and production. This bugs me. I think that for most for-fun reading where you aren't taking notes, paperbacks are ergonomically better. So not only do I have to pay more, I am paying more for an inferior product. If they do insist on charging more for new books (fair enough), at least make it an expensive paperback.