Daily Reflections

Today's book selection.

2008-10-13T19:53:00Z

A Night in the Lonesome October by the late Roger Zelazny and illustrated by Gahan Wilson. Out of print, but a fun read to distract you a bit from the political season.

The story is told by Snuff, the watchdog of Jack. They are a part of a group of people, and their familiars, who gather when a full moon occurs on October 31. They are from two opposing sides, Openers and Closers, who will battle it out under the full moon.

The location, London. The time, the Victorian era. In addition to Jack and his hound, there is Mad Jill (a witch) and her black cat, the Doctor and his Monster, the Count and his bat, a mad Russian Monk and his snake, and a few more just to keep things interesting.

Watching over the whole thing is the Great Detective and his stout companion.

A fun read that help get you in the mood for Halloween.

Crunchy good Steampunk

2008-09-26T15:34:33Z

Your result for The Steampunk Archetype Test...

The Aetherist Bodger

9 Swashbuckling Engineer, 38 Crazy Clockwork Tinkerer, 40 Charming Noble, 8 Roguish Pirate, 0 Mechanical Fian and 42 Aetherist Bodger!

The aether carries the information, the aether is information. You are one of the few who know the ins and outs of Aether Terminals. You can access information across the Aethersphere, tapping into the Aetherpipes of anyone you want and stealing the information stored in their datatanks. Some think of you as a myth, a legend created to scare people. You are no myth or legend, you are quite real and you are currently reading the Queen’s AetherMissives.

Take The Steampunk Archetype Test at HelloQuizzy

Deliciously bad

2008-08-17T03:23:40Z

A few years ago I was in London and visited the Tower Bridge. They had a display about a movie that did some filming recently involving the Tower Bridge.

The movie was the live action version of the old puppet show "Thunderbirds."

I finally watched it, and I have to tell you it was deliciously bad. Over acted, sets & props right out of the old 1960's show. Clearly they had a lot more fun making it than I did watching it. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

One part that was done with tongue firmly in cheek camp was Lady P and Parker. Rolls Royce didn't want to be involved in the film, so the car was a six wheeled, pink Ford Thunderbird triphian.

Oh, I've seen worse, but then as a long time B movie fan, that isn't saying much. The cast and crew, including director Jonathan Frakes, clearly wanted to pay homage to the original series.
It was done with campy love and it showed.

PSA from an old guy

2008-08-13T22:02:53Z

For those of you too young to remember that whole Cold War thing, here is a Public Service Announcement concerning the Olympics:

It is pretty much expected that the Communist countries will cheat early and often.

We now return you to what ever reality you were comfortably enjoying.

building up a little good karma

2008-08-04T20:07:24Z

Out shopping yesterday, and I grabbed an empty cart in the parking to use.

It wasn't quite empty. The last user had left a bottle of single malt scotch in it.

I took the bottle, still in the box, to the liquor store in the plaza and gave the bottle to the clerk.

She said that she knew who had bought that bottle.

So, whoever you are, you're welcome.

Ya, I don't drink much at all any more, but I do like single malt scotch.

A possible first.

2008-08-02T20:49:00Z

I quoted Malcolm X in a tech blog.

Movie previews.

2008-08-01T13:55:59Z

I've seen a couple of movies in the theater lately (Hellboy II, Dark Knight), but it is the previews I want to talk about.

First, a couple of remakes.

Death Race 2000 spawns Death Race. This 1975 Roger Corman classic starring David Carridine and Sylvester Stallone is being redone with Jason Statham (of Transporter) fame as the star driver.
This actually looks pretty good.

On the other hand, Keenu Reeves has been tapped to play Michael Rennie's role in the SciFi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. This looks pretty awful.

7 Galleons

2008-07-31T18:23:45Z

I got my 7 galleon pin in the mail today from the New England Red Cross blood services.
That is just for the blood I've given them over the years. I started when I was 17 in New York State, and have donated to various hospital groups that have held drives at various places I've worked here in the Commonwealth as well. I stopped counting years ago at 8 galleons, so this was a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure if this total includes my platelet donations.

They were asking for a double red cell donation a couple of weeks ago. I should call up and make an appointment for it.

Trying new things

2008-07-08T15:26:41Z

I've been using LJ, Blogger and Flickr for quite a while. I was using blogger before Google bought it and Flickr before Yahoo gobbled it up.

Well, I'm a long time geek, so I'm trying new stuff. I've started a tech blog on Wordpress and posting photos at Smugmug.

PDAs, Smart phones and the ubiquitous Internet

2008-07-07T19:13:24Z

I started out as a Day Planner user. I went digital with my first PDA, a HP 200LX palm top. I switched to Palm OS devices when I started working at 3Com. That was just after 3Com purchased Palm's parent company and all the geeks there had one.

For a straight PDA, you can't beat a Palm OS device, IMNSHO, of course. The interface is clean, easy to use, and has a large pool of third party apps to support it. I never liked all the overhead of the various revs of the Windows CE OS. I don't want to send time figuring out out how to use my PDA, I just want to use it.

I'm currently using a Palm LifeDrive, which is a spectacular PDA. It has a big crisp screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, SD support, a three Gig microdrive and it can handle MS Office files. I also have a folding keyboard that uses the IR interface. A good road warrior feature, since it makes it usable on a plane. The keyboard is larger than an Acer EEE PC sports, so I can do some serious writing on it if need be. On the downside, Palm has discontinued the LifeDrive and is focusing on their Smart Phone line instead of dedicated PDA devices.

One of the best features of Palm OS devices is the PC interface. The Palm desktop app is much, much better than Outlook for contact management (again, IMNSHO), Calendar management, Task Management, and...well you get the idea. It it also very easy to load files onto the LifeDrive (including word docs, PDF files, and photos). I added another Gig of storage to it by adding a one Gig SD card. Given that the prices for larger SD cards is dropping, that is an easy way to add storage.

The Palm LifeDrive is also an excellent ebook platform. The screen is easy to read and the 3 Gig internal drive holds a lot of books. I currently have about 40 loaded. I use the Mobipocket reader most of the time. The Mobipocket format is what Amazon uses on the Kindle, with their encryption. If you have an Amazon Kindle, it reads unencrypted Mobipocket formated files just fine.

A few months ago I broke down and bought an Apple iPhone. I wanted the ubiquitous Internet access, and I liked the big screen and sharp graphics. As a web browser and light email client, it really performs well. As a phone, not so well. For a straight up phone, I prefer the Motorola Razr it replaced. The one key feature I really miss. Voice dialing. In particular, voice dialing from a Bluetooth headset.

Another thing the iPhone is not, is a PDA. No categories for the contact list, no desktop support for the notes feature, no external keyboard support (not even an Apple Bluetooth keyboard), and no external memory support (the SD slot on the LifeDrive for example).

Yes, there will be the new Palm OS and third party app support in late July 08, but even the new hardware lacks one one key feature, external memory support. It seems Apple is dead set against putting a SD slot in their phone. I can see why. A quick search on Amazon shows an eight Gig SD memory card selling for $25. That is a bit less than the $100 difference between an 8 Gig and a 16Gig iPhone. It also allows a way to move data, and perhaps applications, on and off the phone that isn't controlled by Apple.

Which brings us to the G-Phone, which is any phone running Google's Android OS. Those won't be available until Q408, and won't be as slick as an Apple iPhone. It will, however, not be a locked down platform like the Apple phone. My prediction is by Q409, with a year of an active and enthusiastic developer base, the competition between the Google G-Phone and the Apple iPhone will be much more pronounced.

Also posted at Urbin Technology.

Honor Harrington Hardcovers

2008-07-02T17:55:53Z

I just donated 5 of them to my local library for their summer book sale.
I have the whole set in etext and a shortage of bookshelf space.

I kept the paperbacks. Those have the original cover art, including the "gloved one" cover that David Weber hated so much. They take up less shelf space too.

Recent reads

2008-06-19T00:21:18Z

I've gotten some good reading in recently. Two by S.M. Stirling, In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, the sequel to The Sky People , and The Sunrise Lands.
The Sunrise Lands is part of his “Change” series, which is a spin off of his Island in the Sea of Time series. It was a fun read. It read quickly and had good action scenes. A touch of science fiction, with a short scene of inter dimensional shifts. The other two are good old fashioned space adventure. The first takes place on a Venus with dinosaurs, saber toothed cats, Neanderthals and beautiful native tribal princesses. The other takes place on a Mars that John Carter and Kickaha would be comfortable in.

William Gibson's Spook Country was good, not as good as Pattern Recognition , but a fun read.

David Weber’s Off Armageddon Reef was a long read, but actually surprisingly good.
His books tend to be very long, often with long sections could be cut with no loss to the story.
This one has them too, but not as many. At one point, Weber details each Priest interacting with each kingdom’s rulers. He made sure that you knew he has detailed out every branch of each organization of the church, including the colors of their robes and the symbols denoting their rank. It ends with a big wet navy, age of sail, sea battle.

Tom Kratman's latest, Caliphate is a frightening view of a possible future. It was also a very good adventure read. My favorite of his so far. Ok, I really liked Yellow Eyes too, but that has the added feature of being in John Ringo’s Legacy of the Aldenata universe, which I really like.

Caliphate is probably going to get a boost in sales because of its mention on Instapundit.

I also just finished Claws that Catch, by John Ringo and Travis Taylor. I bought the E-Arc straight from Baen. Good Space Opera.

Nerd fashion question

2008-06-17T21:16:09Z

Will an EEE PC fit in a cargo pocket?

Left coasting

2008-06-03T06:43:41Z

I'm in Brentwood (East Bay, not LA) for a few days.

Question

2008-05-05T13:57:55Z

What is there to do if you're in Lund, Sweden for a few days?

W00t!

2008-04-30T13:07:16Z

I got an A in Business Analysis for Technical Managers! That's a 4 credit MBA course at WPI.

Stirling had fun with this one...

2008-03-30T14:13:30Z

I'm reading In The Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling.

It's full of hat tipping references to various pop culture references. In the chapters I read last night, you had sand pirates with eye patches (including one who said his parents wanted him to be a pediatrician), feral airship engines that go "puckapuckapucka" (close enough to tapocketa for me), and rodents of unusual size. There are also references to Indiana Jones and Star Trek. There is a hat tip to Kwai Chang Caine, as well as Butch and Sundance.

It's a fun adventure story. John Carter and Kickaha would be right at home in this setting.

Good Audio Theater!

2008-03-19T00:26:16Z

I just finished listening to the first three episodes of Black Jack Justice by Decoder Ring Theatre. I had downloaded them from Podiobooks.

Good hardboiled detective action with a dash of humor.

My next book buy

2008-03-11T16:00:04Z

S.M. Stirling's Court of the Crimson Kings is hitting the shelves next week.
I really enjoyed the first book in this series, The Sky People, so I'll be picking this one up in hardcover.

Thanks for the good times...

2008-03-08T14:38:00Z

Role Playing Games have been a favorite hobby of mine for the past thirty years.

Gary Gygax, one of the men who made that hobby possible, passed away recently.
He will be missed.

Penny Arcade managed a mostly tasteful tribute.

I like to think he would have appreciated the joke.

John Barrowman interview

2008-02-29T01:45:21Z

John "Captain Jack Harkness" Barrowman of Doctor Who/Torchwood gives a serious interview.
He discusses his sexuality, his partner, his family and his religion.
He sounds like he is well grounded and very comfortable with who he is and is having a blast in his career.

Ok, I admit it.

2008-02-25T01:21:28Z

I'm watching the Oscar Red Carpet show and now I understand why they haven't had Regis host it for the past 30 years.

WPI MBA Photo Shoot

2008-02-22T03:22:07Z

WPI MBA Photo Shoot, originally uploaded by Eclipse Pics (∆ncient).

WPI was rated the #1 part time MBA program in the Northeast by Business Week. So the Graduate Department of Management gathered some of the professors and students together for a photo op.

We were lured with t-shirts and pizza.

Kim Possible Hanging

2008-02-15T03:22:41Z

Kim Possible Hanging, originally uploaded by Eclipse Pics (∆ncient).

The most popular photo, by number of views, in my flickr stream.
It has about 5000 more views than number 2.

Catching up...

2008-02-11T16:58:56Z

I'm pretty much over that nasty flu bug that is making its unwelcome way though the Northeast.
Back in grad school, taking a four credit course in Cost Accounting. That will keep me pretty busy.

A couple of quick reviews. HBO's Rome series. Excellent stuff. Well made, well acted and pretty historically accurate in the big picture. Brilliant set work and the Legion battle scenes were really good.

De-Lovely, a Cole Porter bio pic. Wow. Great acting, and amazing soundtrack. Certainly much better than the old 1946 film "Night and Day" with Cary Grant.

Now to get my Traveller PBEM game back on track.