93: Our Voluminous Chef

Sorry I missed last week. BSDCan ate me alive, but I escaped before I got digested. Here’s a bit from a Rats’ Man’s Lackey tale appearing in Twisted Presents.

The kitchens were spacious, from the days when the manor would have a dozen family members and a staff of thirty, with fancy copper-bottomed pots hanging from ceiling racks and a big central island topped in pricey red-veined white granite. Basil and oregano and garlic saturated the air, some from the indoor herb garden, others from hanging bundles, laced through with cinnamon and peppermint. Most of the windows showed the sprawling back yard and the surrounding Georgian forest beneath pregnant gray clouds, but the one on the left still insisted it was midsummer. Our voluminous chef, Sardines, stood in front of a six foot tall steaming chemical processing plant disguised as a coffee maker, meticulously measuring grounds into a pull-out wire basket. He claimed to have hand-built the monstrosity.

I let him ease the basket in place before saying “Hi, Sardines. What’s with the peppermint?”

You can open your Twisted Present on Kickstarter in July.

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BSDCan Gifts

This was my last year as BSDCan chair. The committee worked hard make the con happen. That’s not to my credit, though I am slightly proud of myself in selecting as potential members “people likely to complete tasks” and persuading them to volunteer. I am notably proud of arranging matters so that Kristof Provost felt compelled to scream my name in rage during the closing auction. I’d link to the video, but the sound of everyone else laughing drowns him out. KP is no Bob Beck.

But this post isn’t about that.

Two people gave me gifts. Gifts that I had no idea existed.

From Patrick McEvoy, assistant con chair, video lead, and next year’s con chair: a Laserblast alien figurine. If you’ve read the book, this closely resembles Bert.

Tiny? Yes. Silly? Absolutely? Surprisingly motivational? Yep! I’ve added Bert to my Inspirational Triptych, to remind myself that anything goes. (For the youthful, the others are Rosebud the basselope, Bullwinkle’s Fearless Leader, and the Big Man himself, Cthulhu.) I have no idea where my ideas come from, but these are my literary moral compass. I guess it’s a quadtych now?

The second gift was presented a little more publicly, at the very end of the closing session (video). Warner Losh commissioned my portrait from Frank Pryor. Warner didn’t merely hand him a photo of me to work from. Pryor went through my publicly available media and assembled a complete inventory of my public persona.

Beaver Tails? What do Beaver Tails have to do with anything? There’s a photo from a BSDCan maybe ten, eleven years ago where about twenty of us converged on the Ottawa Beaver Tail hut for deep-fried sweet bread covered in Nutella or peanut butter and chocolate or cinnamon sugar or any other decadence you can imagine. (It’s basically an Instant Diabetes Kit, and it’s fantastic.)

Warner liked the look so much, he even made me a one-of-a-kind T-shirt.

In keeping with BSDCan tradition of course, immediately after this unique T-shirt was presented to me, they proceeded to auction off three more just like it.

I am left with one question, though. You see, right when I was starting to write $ git commit murder Warner joked that he wished someone would write fanfiction about him. That gave me a name, although I changed it slightly to maintain plausible deniability for when in case the real Warner gets killed at a Unix con. (If you’ve ever met Warner, you’d understand this is a legitimate risk.) I am wondering how he knew about the tombstone, though? I mean, mine has an ending date on it, but still, it’s a stunningly good guess.

92: Contradict My Lived Experience

I’m recording this week at BSDCan. While I got away from the power drill, I fear there’s noise from the highway. Sorry. Here’s a bit from the new Networking for System Administrators.

Without tcpdump, I would have had to open a trouble ticket with the network team. They would have told me that they were allowing SSH traffic between these two hosts. They might have fired up their own packet sniffer so they could watch me replicate the problem. They would have informed me that my server was rejecting the connection. That would contradict my live92d experience of being currently logged into this host via SSH, and would therefore be suspect. What do we do with suspicious information? We experience emotional distress and push back. In this case, the network people would be correct and me pushing back would have imposed my emotional distress on them. Working for a living is bad enough without someone looking dumb and everyone’s feelings getting unnecessarily hurt. Use tcpdump. Even if you still have to ask the network team for help, there’s a world of difference between “you have to be blocking my traffic because it isn’t working” and “I am utterly stumped, any suggestions?” Don’t destroy trust; build it.

The new edition will hit Kickstarter in September.

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May’s Mandriarchal Sausage

This post went to Patronizers at the beginning of April, and to the public at the beginning of May. Yes, I know, everyone already patronizes me, but if you want me to pay attention sign up here.

As expected, the economy is in an unforced crash. Yippee! Buckle in folks, it’s gonna be a wild ride. I wish to thank all of y’all for backing me. Those folks who signed up to See the Sausage Being Made for $12 a year add up. The whole Patronizer thing often makes me feel like the founder of the world’s most useless cult, but you do keep the bank from taking the house and I am grateful.

I spent some time this month going through my bills. We’ve had the same cable company for almost twenty years and two different houses. (No TV, just a bit pipe.) Every few years, I’d get a letter that they were upgrading my plan. Fine. I gave them a call and told them to cut my bill or lose me. They cut the bill and upgraded my service again. I really need to put “negotiate with cable company” on my calendar for every two years.

Next up: the cell phone. We had Sprint because it worked here, which means we became T-Mobile, which means our bill had gone up. Probably switching to Consumer Cellular. It’s time to stretch those dollars!

Happier news: all active Tilted Windmill Press titles are in Bookvault, which means I will be able to sell them from my bookstore. Yay! I have a box of 21 proofs coming. If they are okay I’ll get them in the store.

I’m already offering the FreeBSD Storage Bundle in print at $24 off. I’m afraid to look at what I’ll have to charge for The Full Michael in print, but it’ll happen.

Okay, fine. Let me build a spreadsheet and add it up.

34 print books, $785. If I give a 20% discount that makes it $628. Call it $629.99. Nobody’s that insane, but if I don’t offer it one of you is gonna ask me why not. Plus, being able to offer it all feels correct. Like the bookstore is truly complete. You want it, I can send it!

Why do a 20% discount? When you buy direct from me, I don’t have to pay a bookstore or a distributor. 20% splits the difference with the reader, which seems fair. I do have paperwork and financial overhead on direct sales, though, so I’m compromising by offering the split on larger orders. Larger orders also save on shipping. Eventually I want to say “buy 4 or more get 20% off” but I implement only one headache at a time.

Sadly no, I can’t include No Starch titles. They are not print-on-demand. I would have to touch them and compute shipping. Not happening.

The question I’m still struggling with is the default format. I have to choose either “print/epub bundle” or “just epub.” Yes, people can change it with the “Format” drop-down. But defaults do impact people. Is it more ethical to set it to the less expensive option? How many people won’t see the “Format” option?

Clearly I need to pivot to “just give me all your money and I’ll decide what you get,” sigh.

I discovered a complication on direct print sales to Europe, though. The printer does not include commercial invoices. Bookvault does not know how much I charged you, or if I charged VAT. You can download an invoice with your order. I had one European customer who had trouble with this, but other Europeans say that’s fairly standard. I need to go through the print store and add that warning to every print version.

The good news is, I have the hard part of the networking book done. Sort of. I sent the TLS chapter to Bob Beck for review, and it went horribly wrong. The good news is, I get to do some new sysadmin stuff and set up QUIC on my web site. Then I get to do some netflow analysis and see how much of the traffic is QUIC versus everything else. Good fun times, for a strange value of good and stranger value of fun.

The good news is, the second half of the rest of N4SA2e requires very little in the way of updates. Some of the warnings need to be louder, but traceroute hasn’t changed, nor netcat.

Laserblasted is due back from copyedit on 15 May, and I’m wondering: if I can crank hard for two weeks, can I finish this draft and get it to tech review by then? I don’t know, but it’s a worthy goal. If nothing else, I’ll have two weeks of cramming on it.

Speaking of Laserblasted: as an experiment, it’ll be exclusive to my store for a few weeks before I release it on other bookstores. It’s a weird book so it’s not a real test of windowing, but I’ve heard from a few folks who missed the Kickstarter and maybe I’ll scoop them up that way.

Laserblasted also taught me a lesson. I had so much fun ranting about the film that I forgot to describe what the book is. Or: I spent so much time saying what it isn’t that I forgot to say what it is.

Meaning that I broke my own rule, and didn’t write the jacket copy before writing the book.

I still am struggling with the jacket copy. I might just steal my pal ZZ Claybourne’s description:

“What would happen if Gomer Pyle got turned into a scathing indictment of the military patriarchal industrial complex but with way more aliens and laser-inflicted explosions than the sitcom managed to achieve? Starring Brad Pitt as Gomer, directed by Sam Raimi.”

I’m scathing? When did this happen?

Er, uh–yeah. I meant to write that. What that says. I planned that. Yep.

Now to get back cover text that means that.

Maybe I’ll just put that on the back.

I really do need to get a Prohibition Orcs Christmas story written for my Christmas collection. Ideally I’ll launch the Twisted Presents Kickstarter on 25 July and be ready to fulfill immediately upon payment, so I can do the N4SA2e Kickstarter right after. Wait–does that work? Let’s sketch this out.

Let’s be pessimistic and say I finish end of May. I want a month for tech review, which means end of June.

I’ll have Laserblasted proofs ready and hard copies ordered before BSDCan, and order the books for delivery when I get home. Fulfill that by the end of June, no problem.

The copyeditor will have N4SA2e in July. She’s usually about six weeks on a tech book. I haven’t checked with her, of course, and she might blow up my entire schedule.

So if I launch Twisted Presents on 21 July and let it run for two weeks, it ends 4 August. I order books 5 August. Yes, I don’t have the money yet, but I’m assuming Kickstarter coughs up the dough on 18 August, like they do. I can ship them that week. It’s only a handful of copies, it’ll only take a day.

So I get the N4SA2e copyedits about 15 August and spend about a week doing corrections and laying out the print and indexing, all that crap. Launch that Kickstarter early September, let it run for three weeks. (Tech book campaigns should run longer than fiction ones.)

Now to work backwards.

Launching Twisted Presents on 21 July means I must have a print proof in hand by that date. I’ll need everything finalized by 7 July. I need the final manuscript end of June. Most of this book was previously published, but the orc tale needs copyediting and everything needs a final proofreading. I might have to use an alternate editor for that, someone less expensive at speed. That’ll take a couple weeks at best, which brings us up to the end of BSDCan. I’m not working on books during BSDCan. The book must go to copyedit by 9 June.

I need a few first readers to read the orc story. That takes two weeks.

I must have a completed orc story by 26 May. Achievable.

Except I’m cramming to finish N4SA2e by then.

Have I ever mentioned that I’m terrible at scheduling?

All of this is built on the very slender reed of finishing N4SA2e by the end of May. Which means I get QUIC on my web server.

I think I better go get to work.

91: Vice Without a Biological Limit

Networking for Systems Administrators is out for tech review, so I’m working on my forthcoming Christmas collection. Here’s a snippet from Twisted Presents.

Money is the one vice without a biological limit. We can gorge on food and wine until we puke, and the feast ends. Do enough drugs and you die. Despite what teenagers think, you can’t have sex twenty-four seven. Vices are self-correcting.

But if you’re greedy enough, you can pile up money forever.

And you can teach your children that your vice is their birthright.

The only reason I don’t say “eat the rich” is because toxic metals accumulate at the top of the food chain.

But even among the rich, there’s some I hate more than others. Until today, “people who scam charities” weren’t even on the list. I mean, the biggest charities in the world spend eighty percent of their donations on administration. They’re just another face for the oligarchy.
But a meager fraction of charities do charitable work.

There are wholesome people who honestly want to help others, and invest their time and effort and meager income towards that.

Some of those handle large amounts of money, and spend that money on their cause.

But every dollar spent helping the helpless isn’t invested in cybersecurity.

If you have the skills, and totally lack decency, these charities are easy targets.

Twisted Presents will be coming to Kickstarter in July, so I can get it to you well before Christmas. For twelve days, of course.

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Buy Your Paperbacks Directly From Me

All Tilted Windmill Press titles are now available directly from me in paperback and ebook at https://tiltedwindmillpress.com. All paperback purchases include the ebook. You’ll get the ebook immediately1, and the print will arrive in a week or so.

Books will be printed in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. This reduces both shipping costs and environmental impact. Books aren’t exactly green, but local printing makes them less brown. (Are ebooks greener? That’s a great argument over a drink.)

I am excited beyond words. I have been working towards this ever since my first book came out in 1992.

Benefits to you? Those bundles I offer, like the FreeBSD Storage Mastery bundle? There’s now a discount print version. That ridiculous The Full Michael bundle that includes everything I’ve indie published? You can now buy the whole thing in paperback.

Do I expect anyone to drop $624 on a stack of books? No. But I am delighted to have that degree of control.

Books from No Starch Press (Absolute FreeBSD, Absolute OpenBSD, and Network Flow Analysis) are not included. Sorry. I don’t have the access to ship those touch-free on demand. The ILUVMICHAEL coupon code still gets you 30% off at their site and gives me a couple bucks extra, though!

Completing this was a huge amount of work, but the publishing industry is doing its best to eat writers alive. The only way to survive is disintermediation.

I haven’t made hardcovers available yet. Hardcover sales are minuscule next to paperbacks. Some books present challenges, and I’m not sure selling them direct is worth it. I’m doing the easy hardcovers first in the hope that inspiration strikes.

Future books will be released in on my site a month before they’re available at retailers. If they’re trying to eat my career, I see no reason to prioritize them.

90: Demands a Little Madness

Now that Laserblasted is available in my store, here’s one final snippet from that book.

For all you might hear about stories of weapons haunted by previous owners, there aren’t that many actual legends. The modern archetype would be the Elric saga, overflowing with “I’m suddenly strong and my body’s acting weird and I keep breaking things please help me oops I’m doomed so I’m taking all of you with me.” There’s no better metaphor for a young boy transitioning to adulthood. Stormbringer isn’t exactly haunted, only ravenous for everything it can devour—again, like teenage boys. The Norse legend of Tyrfing teaches the essential lesson of “if you’re going to kidnap me and make me forge a mighty magic blade for you, you better expect that magic to fuck you up something fierce.” Master Japanese swordsmith Muramasa was rumored to pass his blood thirst and madness into his blades. Even unenchanted swords made by mentally healthy swordsmiths are viciously dangerous. Merely training with live steel, especially before antibiotics, demands a little madness.

If you buy the print from me you get the ebook free. Or you can wait a month to get either version from other, lesser bookstores.

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“Networking for System Administrators” sponsorships closing and schedule.

Yesterday I finished a raw draft of the new Networking for System Administrators. It’s not ready for technical review yet; the engine has all the pieces, but there are loose bolts everywhere and a couple of the belts are repurposed nylons. I’ll get it out for tech review this weekend.

On 1 June 2025, I close sponsorships. If you want to sponsor it, this week is your last chance. I promised to do a challenge coin for print sponsors and Patronizers so I will, but the next one probably won’t. I’ll happily absorb $10 per sponsor to do something daft, but not the $25 the US’ Wheel of Tariffs threatens. (Regardless of your politics, unpredictability is death to business.)

The tentative schedule for N4SA2e is:

  • June: Technical Review
  • July-August: Copyedit
  • September: Kickstarter
  • October: ship sponsor and Patronizer copies, both print and ebook exclusive to tiltedwindmillpress.com
  • November: standard retail release

The print version will come in a special backer-exclusive edition available only to print sponsors, Patronizers, and Kickstarter backers. (Kickstarter backers can’t get the challenge coin; that’s exclusive to early backers.) I can’t say it’ll be as daft as Ruin Your Mail By Running It Yourself or the Networknomicon, but it will exist.

Then again, I always think my special editions are lame. You can make your own opinion.

89: Cheap Cat5 Cable

I’m grinding on the new Networking for System Administrators so here’s a chunk.

Ultimately, the Internet is a bunch of routers, switches, firewalls (however you define them), and other devices that connect a tangle of cables. Once a client request traverses the local WiFi connection, it travels through a bunch of wires and devices until they reach your server. Ultimately, every Internet node is connected by wire that can be traced from the local café to downtown, where it joins a bigger cable that goes across the country, perhaps joining a huge cable that runs under an ocean or three to reach another continent. That huge cable gets broken up into finer and finer wires until it finally reaches the cheap CAT5 that connects the server to the patch panel. Some parts of this link might run over satellite connections or carrier pigeons or who-knows-what. Every one of these components is fragile.

It’s a miracle the Internet works. At all.

When I finish this draft and get the book to tech review, sponsorships will close. If you want your name in the book or the challenge coin, grab it now. And when the Laserblasted print arrives in my store, I’ll be reading one last tibdit from it. If you prefer ebook you can get it now.

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“Networking for System Administrators” restructuring

No, not the book this time. The product. Previously you picked a format, print or ebook. If you sponsored for print, Woocommerce used your address to calculate shipping. Cool. It took me a couple iterations to get that working, but it’s the way the rest of the world works.

Then I added print books via BookVault.

Turns out that Woocommerce does not like multiple shipping systems. It says it’s fine. It is not. After months of fighting with this, I realized that my attachment to sponsor shipping autocalculation was causing pain. I have restructured the product so that you choose a destination and pay accordingly.

The total price has not changed. The list price is now shipping-inclusive to avoid Woo’s clunky shipping system, that’s all. While sponsorship is an especially terrible deal for my Australian backers, it is no more terrible than before.

I’m still pushing to get the first draft of this book finished by the end of the month.

Also: attachment is the source of all pain. Well, that and blunt instruments. Those hurt, too.