Ecliptic Rift

NeuroGEN has announced that they will sponsor a third Inventors Summit, this time focused on AI and information system security:

You, your corporation, or a collaboration of your peers are tasked with creating an artificial intelligence capable of analyzing and exploiting the weaknesses of a digital corporate network for sabotage, information extraction, and data alteration. The capabilities of your program will be tested through a series of five separate challenges of increasing difficulty, and will be scored based on the speed and rate of success.

NeuroGEN has designed a corporate imitation network as a testing ground for these programs, designed to emulate many systems commonly found amongst the corporations and governments of New Eden. However, the firewalls and protection software have been designed in-house, and are expected to exceed the security standards employed by major military agencies and financial institutions.

I will definitely participate in this competition. Despite the controversy regarding the sponsoring corporation’s possible connections to the Sansha Nation, I don’t necessarily believe that my participation strengthens them. Perhaps it might give them a little more publicity, but the benefits to the rest of us outweigh that.

That is, why the hell not? This beats throwing away thousands of lives to see who has the bigger battleship, or whatever happens in those big fleet fights. And maybe I can get a little more publicity out of it myself.

I’ve gotten started already. Time to get back into the systems lab.

With great pride and anticipation, I’d like to point my readers toward the new Copernicus Coalition. From our coordinator (for lack of a better word), Rettic:

The Copernicus Coalition is a network of independent pilots and small corporations working to make low-sec livable for the common player. Joining the Coalition grants you access to an in-game channel and an online forum where we share intelligence and resources, request help when in need, plan operations, share teachings and learnings and general musings about EVE. We are not a formal Alliance, yet, because we are committed to remaining fully casual as an organization, and equal as pilots. There is no hierarchy. There are no formal commitments or required ops. No obligations, just good company.

This started when I talked to Rettic several months ago about an idea for an unofficial network for solo pilots, since several of us flew in the same general area of space at the time (e.g. Metropolis / Sinq Liaison lowsec). No intent to place real obligations upon anyone, but we just wanted a way to share information on exploration, industry, and related topics for the area. We could perhaps collaborate on operations once in a while. But while anybody can have an idea, Rettic has done tremendous work to get things going. This week marks the public launch, but we’ve actually had this going for a bit, working out the details and forming initial bonds with other friends like Jorshan and Mark726, not to mention Denovin Zyrinax and Nocipe. Others have started the process for themselves and their corporations, but I’ll have more good things to say about that once they’ve committed.

So if you have an interest in living in lowsec or NPC nullsec, want to stay fairly independent, and don’t intend to pirate¹, then give us a look. We’d love to have more friends.

1: What happens in nullsec stays in nullsec.

After weeks of discussions (sorry Milo!), I’ve joined Anshar Incorporated. Casiella will move to the background for now, focusing on planetary management and trading, etc., plus providing fodder for fiction. In her stead, I intend to focus more on combat via another character I’ve brought back, Joron Darkdust. I played a version of this character in Star Wars Galaxies for years (to the extent that friends of mine still call me “Joron”), and I really liked him for roleplay and such. I may start an alternate blog just for journaling his adventures, but I’d rather not host yet another WP blog. Either I’ll use WP 3.0′s multisite features or I’ll find another free blog host, not necessarily using WordPress since I won’t need all the stuff to support my general blogging. (Suggestions welcome!)

So now I’ve moved out to the ass-end of Amarr space and I’ve started building up the wallet. I don’t want to twink too much, so I prefer him to earn his own ISK via the usual methods in lowsec (ratting, anomalies, etc.) and perhaps a bit of salvaging in mission hubs.

I look forward to seeing the other side of things: combat and actual criminal activity of various sorts (not necessarily pure piracy). We’ve got some excellent campaign plans and I really like where we’ve started to head with the corp. I’ll talk more about those things after Milo announces them and when appropriate, rather than upstage my CEO or compromise operational security…

The space nuns make me feel bad.

Then I went to write my own bit for the prompt on Monday evening after getting home from work. And when I went to link to the post, I couldn’t find it. Odd, since I remembered writing and scheduling it. I went back and looked, and sure enough, I hadn’t hit all the right buttons in WordPress. I’d scheduled it, then saved it as a draft again.

So, mea culpa. My fault. I’m a dunce. You’re right, I’m wrong. You’re good, I’m bad. You’re smart, I’m dumb.

Seriously, I’m very sorry about that. I really feel bad about not coming through for the folks who look forward to it every week. I promise to treat this with more diligence and effort.

I’ve admired what Suddenly Ninjas does for a long time, even if I don’t fuel my ships with tears like they do. So I read with great interest the recent news that Velocity Prime has stepped down as CEO in favor of Aiden Mourn, a well-known blogger and cool guy.

Props to Aiden, and I look forward to seeing how the Ninjas grow and evolve in the future.

I’ve rejoined New Eden Research after building up Mundilfari Station in Vorsk, so if anyone needs highly-available research facilities of any sort, we can help. Corporations can join NER (including subsidiary corporations) and use the material research labs for 15k ISK/hour, or production efficiency labs for free. Copying and invention will require other arrangements. Send me a message and we can work them out.

Putting up a large tower, lots of labs, and requisite defense in case of war took a good bit of time and ISK. Fortunately, my trading efforts keep paying off well, and I have a good system in Heimatar so that I don’t have to spend too much time on it. Once NER gets going, I expect that the tower will at least pay for its own fuel costs. As an added benefit, I have copy slots available for my own use at all times, and all the research (including invention) goes a lot faster. Dedicated facilities really make a difference.

I also did a bit more exploration, primarily clearing out a few facilities hidden in cosmic anomalies near Vorsk as well as poking at some Angel Cartel datacenters and such. That actually reminds me, I need to jump back down to Curse so that I can visit with my research staff in the Cartel labs and keep our arrangements down there going. I know I have something of an inconsistent arrangement, so I’ll need to address that soon. Maybe.

Silver Night has graciously decided to sponsor an EVE fiction contest:

Just write a short piece of Eve fiction. The contest will run 3 weeks from the time of this post. Submit your story in this thread (Either the story itself or a link to it). Winners will be picked by me at the end of the submission period.

He has several other requirements, including that the story not center on a capsuleer. First prize? A faction battleship with a 300m ISK fitting stipend… and the runner-up prizes look nearly as good. But beware that he has high standards. Check out his Syndicate Files story (written with Ciarente Roth) for what I mean.

As a side note, you still have time (but not much!) to get into Evemonkey’s February contest, with a Dramiel prize up for grabs.

I got confirmation of great news this weekend: New Eden Research has returned. Essentially, corporations can join the alliance to use research labs with much better availability. However, due to CONCORD regulations, alliance members can only use material and productivity research labs (not copying or invention).

I do like to think that this new, resurgent NER will fare better than the previous incarnation. We’ll see.

I recently (okay, three weeks ago) appeared on Missions Collide Episode 9, which you can now download. We talk about some UI stuff, EVE news and tips relating to carebears, leadership skills, and lots of other interesting bits. Somehow we went to a full 84 minutes, which in retrospect probably came out a bit longer than healthy for hosts or listeners. But please go listen, and keep pestering Boris Hotch to come back. If you have any other feedback, we’d love to hear it.

It’s done. I’ve closed the Back Alley Trading Company and set up in Ecliptic Rift again. I’ve opened another office and this week should see me starting to get my operations moving.

Watch this space…