Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 22

New Prohibition Orcs tale: Yellow-Eyed War

“Yellow-Eyed War” is available at my ebookstore.

Orcish Childhood: Not For The Weak

Oscar-Tai has counted to one thousand and fifty. He knew the Alphabet Chant, the Pledge of Allegiance, and can form each of the Twenty-Six Letters. He expected to take labor hauling cargo with his father, but instead humans offered to teach him and his brother to read. But Oscar has never seen a war like reading school. Desks built to fit orcs. One failure and the human teacher expels you. And how did that lone ...

60 Seconds of WIP, 29 June 2023

Hey, I recorded one minute of a work-in-progress for two weeks in a row! Imagine that. Maybe it will become a regular feature.

This snippet is from a new Prohibition Orcs tale, called Yellow-Eyed War. It’ll be available on my ebookstore soon.

https://mwl.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/60SW-2023-06-29.mp4
I know folks click onto these posts, but I’m curious if y’all actually watch the video or scroll past. Should I bother doing more?

Rat Pancakes

We had pancakes for dinner last night, with a side of baked bacon. When one cooks, good manners dictate you make enough for everyone in the house.

On a related note, the rats can be bribed to go home.

https://mwl.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/pancakes.mp4
Okay, mostly bribed.

“Run Your Own Mail Server” technology stack

I’ve churned through much of the general stuff about email, and am about to dive into specific configurations and examples. In some ways, the protocol background is the hardest part of any book. Orienting the reader to understand the configuration examples and make their own decisions is a pain–though front-loading the hard stuff simplifies writing the rest of the book.

But this means I need to make final decisions on the book’s technology stack.

Postfix (backed with MariaDB) and Dovecot are abs...

Sixty Seconds of WIP, 21 June 2023

Welcome to a new intermittent feature, to be posted whenever it amuses me to do so. Here’s me, reading sixty seconds of the current work-in-progress. In this case, it’s Run Your Own Mail Server.

https://mwl.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/60SW-2023-06-21.mp4

You should blame Allan Jude for this terrible idea. I know I do.

I considered posting these on Tiktok like the cool kids do, but you can’t complete signing up for an account in a web browser so that’s a hard no without a disposable tablet.

“Treat The Rats” updated

My ebookstore has an item where folks can buy our rats treats and supplies. A few folks wanted to know how the money would be spent, so I’ve added options where you can buy specific items.

I decided to not include the $300 “Whole Roast Pig” item, because while a video of Croghan doing his magnificent “Alien chestburster” imitation would be adorable, some of you maniacs would actually get together and buy one. Besides, I firmly believe that nobody should eat anything bigger than their own head.

“New products RSS Feed” on my ebookstore

Today, in “minor tasks completed:” The front page of tiltedwindmillpress.com now has a link to get notifications of new products via RSS. This will show you everything. Sponsorships. Tech books. Short stories. If I must destroy and recreate a product, it’ll appear. When I release something new that requires me to destroy and recreate a bundle, like adding a title to Total Mastery, you’ll see the new bundle.

But it’s a guaranteed way to not miss anything. On your own head be it.

You can subscribe...

Tomorrow night: mug.org talk on OpenBSD Filesystems

I’ll be doing my talk about OpenBSD filesystems tomorrow night, for mug.org‘s online meeting.

I expect this will be the last time I give this talk, but MUG does a decent job of recording so you can catch it later on YouTube or wherever. But if you show up in person, you can ask inconvenient questions like “when are you going to learn to write?” or “have you considered truck driving school?”

Organized Freebies

It’s taken a while, but I finally have all (I think) of my (supposed-to-be) free stuff organized (ish) on a single page.

I use freebies the same way Costco does, in the hope that you’ll try a taste and return for more. You can get a few free titles from my e-bookstore or other, lesser retailers. If you sign up for my nonfiction mailing list, I’ll offer you a free copy of Tarsnap Mastery. The fiction list gets you seven free stories over six weeks. The email marketers call that an “onboarding seq...

May’s Moderate Sausage

Each month, I write a blog post for my Patronizers. I want to say it provides unique insight into my process and business, but “See the Sausage Being Made” has turned into more of a monthly summary combined with my usual on-brand ranting. With my Patronizers’ kind permission, a month after they see the posts I’ll be sharing them here. If you find this of any interest, please check out my Patronizer benefits.

Greetings and felicitations to my esteemed Patronizers.

Been working solely on “Run Your...