Laptop update

Forgot to say that I got the Macbook Pro back earlier this week and have been using it with one of those silicone keyboard condoms since its return.

So far my impressions are pretty good - my typing speed and accuracy seems no worse than usual, e.g. still crap, it doesn't seem to make pressing on the keys any harder, and it's staying in place without any adhesive etc. Considering it only cost a couple of quid including postage I'm very pleased. No idea how well it will last, of course.

if anyone else in the UK wants to try one, the eBay listing is here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271265787839

While I bought the clear type, you can get them in various colours with the key labels on the plastic. This might be very useful for someone who often needs another language or keyboard layout - I just checked and you can easily get e.g. Russian, Hebrew, Japanese, though some of those are more expensive since they come from other countries. Lighter if not quite as convenient as a plug-in keyboard.

Watch a tortoise for Alan Rickman

Gacked from sbisson

https://youtu.be/HkiMz-e2ZcE

Not embedded because it's a payment per hit advertising thing for charity.

Another RPG bundle offer - Nest of Spies

This is a collection of games etc. about spies and espionage from various companies, with some of the proceeds going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation

http://bundleofholding.com/presents/NestOfSpies

"Nest of Spies" is a new collection of modern spy and espionage RPGs. From cat-and-mouse Le Carre intrigue in Cold War Berlin to high-tech clandestine raids to Bond-style superspy action -- and even to techgnostic magicks against the God-Machine -- this bargain-priced collection is your license to thrill.

We provide each ebook complete in .PDF (Portable Document Format). Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these books have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their ereaders.

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) goes to this offer's designated charity,the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The total retail value of the titles in this offer at launch is US$113. Customers who pay just $9.95 get all four complete games in our Starter Collection (retail value $42) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:

• Classified (Expeditious Retreat Press, retail price $12): Clean your tuxedo and ready your Walther -- this retro-clone (remember Victory Games?) gives the world's most famous British secret agent serious competition.
• Covert Ops (DwD Studios, $10): Secrets, seduction, infiltration, and deception of every kind from classic spies to paramilitary intelligence. Includes the GM Operations Manual and The Usual Suspects, a book of ready-made NPCs.
• Spione (Adept Press, $10): Ron Edward's innovative historical game of Cold War intrigue in Berlin. Build scenes where agents keep losing friends and companions until you come in from the cold. (Previously presented in our April 2015 Indie Spring Festival.)
• Spycraft 2.0 (Crafty Games, $20): The D20 Modern RPG of action-adventure, master villains, vile henchmen, cool gadgets, car chases, and even hacking and brainwashing.

Those who pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $19.95 to start, also get our entire Bonus Collection with eight more titles (retail value $61):

• Demon: The Descent (Onyx Path Publishing, retail price $25): Play the Unchained, fallen angels who defected to humanity and now fight a covert war against the God-Machine and its screaming biomechanical angels.
• Classifed: Operation Rogue Lion (Expeditious Retreat Press, $7): Travel from Zanzibar to Botswana to Macau to solve a little problem involving lots of diamonds.
• Covert Ops: Five Short Assignments (DwD Studios, $14): These Covert Ops supplements present cyberware, new roles and responsibility, and three globe-spanning adventures.
• Spycraft: World On Fire (Crafty Games, $15): A Spycraft 2.0setting where Cold War spy action never ended.

There will be at least one more title added to the bonus collection after launch. As usual the way that this works is that anyone who pays for the bonus collection gets all of the extras too, regardless of when they pay, but the earlier you pay the cheaper it is. All of the books are DRM-free PDFs

I think that most people run occasional games that draw on the espionage themes, even if they're primarily in a different genre; for example, a lot of my Forgotten Futures adventures have used espionage tropes, or involved spy missions of some sort. I also write some fiction with espionage settings, and this could be useful for that, so I'm pretty interested. Having said that, as usual I need to point out that I get this stuff free if I want it, I might not be so interested if I was paying for it so your mileage may vary.