Testing out T1

So far I've mostly just used the T1 to do the same things I usually do, only faster. I haven't even explored the question of whether there are settings I should change in Firefox or any other Internet programs to make better use of the speed.

In Lusternia, the T1's virtually nil latency means I can do things like hunt or map that I could never do from home. These were things I was particularly limited in since I could do them from work, but only with the specters of split attention and unpredictable interruptions looming over them. One can hunt in familiar and relatively safe areas that way, but it's not easy to explore new areas. Now I've been able to do some hunting from home and even a bit of long-delayed mapping (at least until some jerks interrupted it for no reason, but hey, part of playing Lusternia is dealing with jerks).

Combat was right out from work: you need full concentration, and I can't spend my work time on that, so it's not even something I could work on learning. Now that I have a T1 at home, I can start learning, but it's not something I've started yet -- there's a lot on my plate and that's not on the top of the list. (The dealing with jerks thing comes up here too, even more so; some people seem bent on dragging me into combat immediately, not when I'm ready, regardless of the fact that I've never done anything to them. Then again, these are the same jerks who even did that before, from time to time.)

Lusternia also has a few other topics to get into now, like reviving my aetherspace crew, mapping areas I haven't visited, maybe some of the quests, and perhaps even getting involved in events next time they come up. Right now, the Trials of Ascension are happening, but I'm not getting too involved in those. (Not combat-ready enough to compete, nor to get any support from my communemates if I tried; and I got burned pretty badly after trying very hard last year for nothing.) I might dip my foot in the water but I won't really be trying that hard.

I've gotten into SecondLife just long enough to verify that things work and do so fairly smoothly. Before, SL was painful if you were doing anything, but good enough for sitting around or chatting; however, it gobbled up too much of the monthly bandwidth quota so it had to be contained. Not having to think about that quota is perhaps the biggest relief! That said, I might get back into socializing in SL a bit but I haven't had time to kill doing it yet.

I've done some downloading and it's nice to see that go zippy-fast, but that's not glamorous. However, letting NetFlix Watch It Now on the PS3 pull down TV shows and movies straight to the HDTV is pretty spiffy.

I've also moved my old Wildblue site to a new Google site and redirected my URL (http://www.foobox.com/~hawthorn/) to it, which is the last thing needed before shutting down the Wildblue account.

As time permits, other things I intend to explore include streaming Hulu and YouTube and such to the TV, other online games (like PS3 games, Earth Eternal, and maybe even MMORPGs), voice/video things like Skype and webcams, and I'm not really sure what else.