Once again I found myself in a roll best categorized under the heading of “parent” as I strove to figure out how to install a mod on my brother’s game, minecraft. While this is certainly not a particularly novel arrangement as I am sure that numerous people have groped their way through such things before–especially when technology is involved–it was a situation that nearly got the better of my patience.
After completing his homework, Ian came out and found my “hiding” spot, I was out on the deck reading Sweet Thursday by Steinbeck [ref]I’ve been jumping around books a lot recently. Over the past week I’ve read portions of Adventures in Small Town America by Bill Bryson, Demons by Dostoyevsky and Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene in addition to Sweet Thursday. It goes without saying that I haven’t actually finished all these books in this time, rather I’ve found myself growing weary and tired of each of them in turn. Bill Bryson has a very pugnant style, which is why I suspect he has enjoyed such success in his career, but I found it much too contrived and transparent for my tastes. Demons surprised me since I recall Crime and Punishment with great reverence. While I have only read a seventh-part of the novel, I have found it utterly unremarkable. The writing itself is enjoyable, but the content–the politico-social engagements and nuances has worn me out completely. I simply don’t care for the melodrama that has played-out so far. But enough of this, who am I to complain anyway.[/ref]. Ian was most imporing in his attempts to prompt me to attempt the mod-install process with him; and since he has been so diligent with his homework recently I readily accepted.
Considering my long history with computers and programming [ref]Throughout most of my pre/teen years I was very much a nerd and spent all my money and most of my time building and working with computers. Since those days my interests have changed–especially when I realized how quickly technology advances and how poorly my wallet can keep pace– but I truly value my tech-literacy. To this day I can be found programming my own apps, ordering microcontrollers from mouser, and soldering up a storm, but priorities have gotten the best of me and the amount of time I spend on these projects is relatively small. [/ref], you might assume that installing a minecraft mod would be ready work for me, but alas it turned out to be trying. As a compassionate soul I will spare you the details, but let’s just all agree that the online resources on how to install a mod are sketchy, unclear, and generally lacking (at least from reliable sources).
It wasn’t until I finally took a breather and read through this page that I started making some headway.