Happy New Years.
I was going to post my reading list last night when I found out that I'd deleted my most recent copy. I'll probably update my newest copy and post it, but there won't be comments on the last several books
So yeah. Apple Loses AGAIN. (Still?)
Various family members received itunes gift cards for Christmas.
First, there is now browseable web store. You have to download their bloatware in order to buy things from them. Someone should explain why this is wrong to them with a very heavy club. And very small words.
Second, I went and downloaded their bloatware last night. I clicked the link, it downloaded. I tried to install it this morning and received an error message stating that I have to have windows XP or Vista in order to install this software. I'm running 2000. They have a windows 2000 machine here. I'm not used to xp software not working on 2k. Strikes me that the sort of person who purposefully used an apple product is the sort of person who would be using Windows ME, but there is no ME support at all.
There is a 2k version of the software. It is marginally less bloated than the xp software and reasonably hidden from the download screen. Fucking bloatware. You should not need 50 meg of compressed software to play music and video and *%$# the customer up the @$$ DRM.
All of this hadssel is just so that I can look at the list of things these people are trying to get me to pay them money for... Yeah... Bastards.
Well, after playing around with the Firefox documentation for a while (It could definitely be clearer and more accurate... the settings for Firefox need a more transparent interface. I should be able to extract all of the paths the software uses from within the UI.) I have a portable copy if Firefox. I do wish that the mid level configuration options for Firefox were a little more ignorant user friendly. Someone should slap together a program to clone your Firefox installation to removable media and manage configuration file updates between the original and the clone. (I wrote a triad of batch files to manage the upkeep. One to run Firefox from the thumb drive and then two to update my configuration files. I know I know. Open source, saying "someone should do x" can be answered with "well, why don't you do x?" My answer? I'm not a programmer. I know just enough basic to use qbasic to solve simple math problems. Beyond that I'm still lost. (And as evidenced by my last posted qbasic solution to a problem, I'm not 100 percent on that either. Thanks again silvrayn
But yes, I can now bring my thumb drive with me and have my copy of Firefox to use. This makes me happy. Having a USB 2.0 card for my computer would make me happier than I am now of course... Of course, I don't think that would make the front USB ports 2.0, so it isn't a flawless victory. I'd need a 2.0 compatible hub too.
11:57 PM me so, you should have mom read this and then discuss the issue with you...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/19/spears.pregnant.feedback/index.html
this is cnn.com here ladies and gentlemen...
11:58 PM I weep for the republic
12:02 AM My Brother: agh, stupid dial-up
12:04 AM me: heh
buy yeah, you should really do that
My Brother: just did
12:05 AM me: jeez
really?
My Brother: yeah
we're in the process
me: quick disclaimer, I didn't actually read the article
12:06 AM My Brother: yeah you did, you just didn't know it
the rest of the article says exactly what you got from the title, it's just a tad more surreal
me: oh the url says it all?
My Brother: yeah
" How do you talk to kids about Britney's sister?"
that really sums it up
12:07 AM me: I will get back to you when I'm done trying not to wake matt up with my laughter
12:09 AM My Brother: good luck, you'll need it
though I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry, really
CNN? Really?
12:10 AM me: cnn
My Brother: America's most respectable network is covering the difficulties of talking to your children about the Spears' family lives
me: oh you can do both but the laughter needs to be bitter
their website is
My Brother: and giving tips
12:12 AM me: our national infrastructure's upkeep is done by people who would mostly feel that they benefited from this information, assuming that they ran across it and read it
12:16 AM "This is one of those things that should just not happen. These days, by the age of 16, kids probably know more about sex than their grandparents. ... "
12:17 AM what?
My Brother: lol
12:18 AM me: The average 16 year old's grandparents quite likely grew up in the America that the Kinsey study is about
12:19 AM My Brother: lol
12:21 AM me: mom grew up in an era when mainstreet movie theaters ran x rated films
12:22 AM My Brother: yeah, they might've gotten that bit wrong
me: but apparently somewhere between generation x and generation y, sex outside of marriage was invented
My Brother: indeed
I hung some lights today, put up all of my ornaments ((all 6 of them) then gout out the floral wire and my action figures/minis collection and hung a selection of them from hooks. The minis would have been cooler on a tree though. I set up encounter groupings of minis, and a 2/3d arrangement would have been neat.
Heh, I need a Michaelangelo, a Raphael, and a Casey Jones. Also some more mechs. And maybe a squad of Eldar Harlequins or Tyranids. With a tree, I'd field some iggy foot soldiers and a Leman Russ. Ooh, I also have the new years statue from Reaper and some BGC figures that I could put up if I get them painted before the holiday.
So this day gets better and better...
First I woke up with a deflated bed. Turns out that the plastic has a little bitty hole. I repaired the hole.
Then it was too rainy to make it to the library.
Then I helped some new friends/local game store pack for a move that is going to put them just far enough away that I can't really ever get there this winter.
Then, this evening, the sealant had dried, so I started reinflating my mattress. Split the original hole wide open. My bed had been losing structural integrity anyway, but now it is a plastic choking hazard. Thank goodness for the couches.
The time stamps on many of my chat conversations look like this:
5:20 PM me: hee hee hee
5:21 PM talking about the philosophical positions of strong Cartesian skepticism and there being no free will: "Actually, I take back the statement that nothing useful comes from either position. They can act as specialized plumage in student-philosopher mating rituals, sort of a short hand way of indicating to other young philosophy students which seemingly profound sorts of things you espouse, thus identifying yourself as a potentially suitable mate for like-minded philosophy students."
6:23 PM Eva: snikers
10:01 PM me: I liked it
10:02 PM I imagine a series of articles about the mating habits of the North American Collegiate Philosophers
10:04 PM Eva: heh
that's not research I would want to do
me: rituals
not habits
10:05 PM 'cause yeah
seriously
10:06 PM Eva: still not research I'd want to do :P
me: most coffee shops are non-smoking now
the research is much less dangerous than it used to be
10:07 PM little bit of vics vapor rub on your upper lip...
10:10 PM Eva: snerk
Faith is he belief in something in the absence of evidence.
It is not the belief in something in the face of evidence.
Some people maintain their faith in the face of evidence, but as soon as you have evidence for a proposition, you have moved from the realm of faith to the realm of knowledge.
In the Jeudeo-Christian mythos, Humans have faith in God. Angels have knowledge of God. Angels do not have faith, because they have direct experience of the existence of God.
Ignoring for the moment the Cartesian Skeptic (and really, they suck at parties and complain when you strike them with solid objects, so by all means continue ignoring them after the moment is past), I have faith in any number of things that I have accepted provisionally as true. Should someone demonstrate them to be untrue, I'll probably kick a bit, but I'll eventually switch from having faith that x to having knowledge that not x.
linguistics nerd fight is still going on!
r maybe metaphysics nerd fight
We've got the pair of rabid atheists
the theist scientist
the linguistic prescriptivist
the linguistic descriptivist
the agnostic fact corrector times at least two
three flavors of logician, none of which seem to have studied logic
oh and then there's the guy taking snide rhetorical flourishes at face value to annoy who make snide rhetorical flourishes.
Good times.
So Cold. My own fault, but still...
On the up side I got the hash browns I wanted today, broke down and went to burger king. On the down side? I forgot they used croissants, so I got the wrong sandwich to go with them. And I had some diet coke. This is, by the way, why I am cold. I pretty much don't drink anything without ice any more (except soda from a can.) I had 3 32 oz diet cokes, so I had about 32 oz of ice and 64 oz of cold liquid. Assuming that the Diet Coke is pretty close to plain water.
By the way, the numbers below are approximations and estimates, not the real thing. In other words this is just a back of the envelope calculation based on poor input data.
Let's say that the ice is held at 5 degrees below freezing. No idea if that is correct, but it seems reasonable.
Also, since it was hard ice, the coke wasn't a coke/ice slurry, so we'll say it was 5 degrees above freezing.
Also assume that my body self regulates to 37 degrees.
Specific heat of ice in cal/g is .5, water is 1.0
Latent heat of water is approximately 80 cal/g going from solid to liquid.
32 oz is about 946 ml so I had approximately 1892 grams of diet coke and 851 g of ice (ice is .9 g/ml)
Heating the water to 37 degrees will run about 32 cal per gram or 60,544 cal. Heating the Ice to 0 degrees costs 2.5 cal per gram or 2127.5 cal. melting it at zero costs 80 cal/g or 68080 cal (notice it takes more heat to melt ice without changing the ice's temperature than it does to heat more than twice as much water 32 degrees.) then we have to heat that ice 37 degrees at a cost of 37 cal/gram or 31487 cal. Grand total? about 162,000 calories. (little c)
That is enough to drop a blob of water the mass of an average adult human male 2.3 degrees. Of course I weigh a great deal more than the average adult human male, but it is still quite a hit on my core temperature (and it isn't applied evenly across my body, having originally hit the center bits of my body, thus convincing my body to reduce blood flow to the extremities until the big old chunk of cold is passed. (Notice that unless the ice was extremely cold, the ice's starting temperature was not particularly important. With my assumptions, it comes out to 1.3 percent of the total heat needed to warm it back up. This is way less than the margin of error on my assumptions.)
Long number story short? I'm cold and it is my own damned fool fault.
DDR Remix
Oh jesus, there is a DDR for the WII that involves upper body movement. When will the madness stop?
so today was mostly good bits. not really great bits, but pretty good. Except the fucking hash browns.
I got up this morning and said to myself "Hey self, you want hash browns, specifically little round cakes of fried potato pieces. Go to the store and buy some of them so that you don't go to burger king and buy breakfast there."
Trip to the store was good. I bought several things I needed, and a couple of things that would have been nice a while ago. And the store brand seasoned potato rounds.
All of them were seasoned potato (insert shape) but these? Extra special. Apparently in the the store brand "seasoned" means onion powder. Bastards. I should have spent the 50 cents on the Orieda ones. Bet they didn't have onion powder. Seriously, if we are going to season Michael's breakfast foods with pungent dirt orbs, couldn't we at least use garlic? It tastes better and doesn't make me hate the scent of the inside of my mouth. They tasted, well not all the way to good, but alright. I now have freezer food for the day when I should have gone shopping three days ago.
Should have gone to burger king.
Anywhere But Here
It had dug its way into a dead end, so the author has recently restarted it. About being trapped where you don't want to be. We'll see which of the zany bits get reintroduced. So far death and the demon are back.
Ctrl Alt Delete Possibly the second most popular gaming comic. It has branched out from joke a day, though often still brings the funny.
Home on the Strange A neat geek culture/relationship comic, sadly ending soon.
College Roomies from Hell!!!" One of the first comics I ever read. College Humor, Were Coyotes, Laser Eyes, Violent Girl with Guns, Everything Falls apart. I'm hoping that the current story line resolves soon. </a>
BetaPwned Semi-autobiographical comic. If you like somewhat snarky journal comics...
Afterstrife This is a promising little life adter death comic. I really hope it picks back up soon though.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Joke a day geek/surreal humor. Think XKCD without quite as much geek and not quite as much humor. A lot more of the humor of despair in this one.
PVP Used to be a gaming comic. Did a Dilbert (though it kept more of the funny than Dilbert did.) Now it is a workplace humor comic.
Order of the Stick Best RPG comic I've ever seen. Uses extended stick figures to tell a story set in a D20 fantasy setting. Lots of Rules Humor, Lots of characterization, read one comic off my list and this would be a good choice.
Unshelved Library Workplace Humor. Consistently good, almost always funny.
Something Positive Brutal Transggressive Snarky, hilarious. Read.
Nukees Geek humor set in an Engineering Department at a university. One of the grand old statesmen of the webcomics scene. Still Funny.
Evil Inc. A spin off of one of my favorite dead comics, this one is about a company for and by super villains. Not as good as Greystone Inn, but it is still above average for my list.
Alpha Shade Most excellent artwork. A lot slow to update. Slowly telling a story in two time frames.
Real Life Comics A slice of life autobiographical geek comic. It has been running for a long while and is thus fairly different than it was in the beginning. There was a phase where it diverged completely from the author's life, but it is getting back on track. I likes it alot.
Least I could Do This comic brings the funny a great deal. Which is good, since a lot of it is fairly crude sex humor.
The Whiteboard" Paintball comic. About paintball geeks. Go team.
I'm Blue Hum, this one hasn't updated since September 4th (currently December 2nd). Pretty consistently funny though.
Narbonic This one ended a while ago. Currently the artist is rerunning it with author's comments. The comments do have some spoilers, but you can read the whole archive without comments still. (And it isn't behind a pay wall any more. Major bonus points for that. Pay walls are like micropayments, not useful tools. Either one will generally convince me not to bother with a comic. It is why I don't read Digger.
Schlock Mercenary Best epic SF comic out there. Howard Taylor is making a living of his comic, supporting a fairly large family while doing it (and no pay wall, imagine that.) The artwork improves greatly as time passes. Go read this.
Wapsi Square Supernatural something or another. Worth a read.
Megatokyo It has shifted from the tone of the old days, but I find that it is reliably good, even if the updates are sporadic. This is one of the first 3-4 webcomics I read (CRFH, MT, Exploitation Now, Roomies, half of them are dead comics now. *sigh*)
Questionable Content Near Future Indy Music/Culture Comic with Snarky Barristas and sentient tiny robots.
Malfunction Junction Snarky Funny Autobiographical Comic.
Buck Godot This is my first entry in the Foglio series. If the author's last name doesn't sell it to you, I'm not sure I can either. Read it.
Sluggy Freelance I keep thinking that this one will recapture the magic of the early story lines, but after the "Eternal Stay win the places that nothing happens part one and two" I'm pretty sure I sould just give it up. Read the archive and stop at Timeless Space.
Candi Not as good as Sluggy Freelance was at its height, but better than it is now.
Antihero For Hire Superhero Comic of the toys sort. I started reading this because the author's earlier comic was ending. I think this is a much stronger entry.
Gene Catlow I liked the early bits better than the later bits, but fairly good anthropomorphic comic.
Three Panel Soul The occasionally updated comic from the Mac Hall guys now that Mac Hall is no more.
Friendly Hostility I really liked it better when it was about the parents of the current cast.
Devil's Panties Hee Hee Hee
UC Highschool Relationship Comic gone Supernatural. Better than my recap sounds. Pretty Artwork.
Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic From the view point of the monsters. Frequently NSFW in the way that Disney would do NSFW if Disney did NSFW. Good, though the original viewpoint characters are currently MIA.
A Softer World This is the gentle despair side of the XKCD SMBC ASW scale.
Short Packed Workplace Humor, toy store stuff. A spinoff of It's Walky, which was itself a spinoff of Roomies. Momentum is most of what keeps me reading this one. It is okay, but I want great from the author.
What's New With Phil and Dixie More stuff from the Foglios. That should sell you.
Ozy and Millie A neat kids in school comic. The comic is great, the creator is somewhat of a jerk. (He has a public journal, but has a hissy fit whenever anyone disagrees with him. I mean that's his right (and I wasn't the one disagreeing with him, I just found his attitude offensive) and all, but jeez sounding like the blackhats there.
Erf World This does with the tropes of minis wargames what OOTS does with Fantasy RPGs. Updates are extremely sporadic.
Zortic Funny SF, FTL society with a culture that is based largely on old media broadcasts.
VG Cats Gamer Comic. Very Sporadic Updates.
Apple Geeks Geek comic along the lines of Life of Riley and Exploitation Now (the scope shifts drastically several times.) Updates random.
Goblins A fantasy gamer comic based on an obvious in the setting version of D20 rules. The heroes are a band of Goblins. Very nice comic.
DnDorks Gamer comic mostly from this side of the table. Pretty good, a few hilarious strips.
Cectic Snarky observational comic, sympathetic to the liberal and Atheist side of the debate. I find it funny much more often than not.
Planet Karen A most excellent Journal comic. It does exactly what reading through a person's journal does if the journal is well written. It makes/lets you come to care about the person's successes and failures. Read this. Also? She's British, so for those of us out there who are American, there are the occasional bits of delightful cognitive dissonance.
Fantasy Realms Neat fantasy comic, almost as pretty as Alpha Shade.
Girl Genius This is the Foglios current work. Full of awesome, it was originally a print comic that was slowly sinking due to expenses. They've turned it into a webcomic, their readership has increased, their sales have increased, and there is (as in all good webcomics) no pay wall.
General Protection Fault Was geek office humor, has transformed several times, is currently coming out of one of the slow times.
Girls With Slingshots Two borderline lushes, a fair amount of the funny. A talking Cactus or two.
Penny Arcade The gamer comic. Unafraid to make the joke hang on a 3000 word post, this comic has fun for everyone, assuming you aren't afraid of a little profanity.
Angels 2000 SF Military comic in an all female navy (Plague of some sort wiped out all of the males (sort of silly there, there is always someone immune in a population of 3 + billion.)
XKCD Stickfigure Nerd Comic, references are occasionally a little obscure. Otherwise they are very obscure. Sometimes poignant, usually funny, always full of awesome.
So what comics am I missing these days?
Anyone have essays they like about writing believable female characters, especially for video games, but in any medium would be good?
I was initially asking for a friend, but I'd like a solid list for my own uses too.
*edit*
Let's expand that to writing for people who are "other" to yourself. (Though if you'd mark the female specific ones, that would also be good.)
From 
reannon
001. Real name → Michael
002. Nick name → Nothing that my friends use that isn't a diminuitive of the above... wait, Nate calls me "Pig Fucker" from time to time... He's kind of abusive like that.
003. Status → Single
004. Zodiac sign → Sheep
005. Male or female → Male
006. Elementary → Garth Elementary, Georgetown Kentucky; Capshaw Elementary Cookville Tennesee; OCEMS, Rising Sun Indiana; Pope John Elementary Madison Indiana.
007. Middle School → Shawe Memorial Middle School/High School Madison Indiana
008. High School → Shawe Memorial Middle School/High School Madison Indiana
009. Smart → I like to think so
010. Hair color → Brunette
011. Long or short → Short to Medium.
012. Loud or Quiet → It goes in phases.
013. Sweats or Jeans → Khakis all the time.
014. Phone or Camera → Neither has a great appeal to me, but I own a phone.
015. Health freak → Nope.
016. Drink or Smoke? → Nope. Can't stand smoke, can't taste anything but the alcohol when I drink.
017. Do you have a crush on somebody right now? → Not really. I could without too much effort though.
018. Eat or Drink → Eat.
019. Piercings → None.
020. Tattoos → None
021. Righty or lefty → Left Handed.
FIRSTS :
023. First piercing → None
024. First best friend → Jasmine.
025. First award → Second Place in the 3rd Grade Science Fair.
026. First crush → See above.
027. First pet → Bandit the dog.
028. First big vacation → Florida Every Summer with dad.
030. First big birthday → 5th grade sticks out. The year I bought my first D&D stuff.
CURRENTLY:
049. Eating → 8 hours ago I had some pomegranate seeds. Just got up so no food yet.
050. Drinking → Ice Water again not recently.
052. I'm about to → Start my day.
053. Listening to → My computer fan and my heater's fan.
054. Plans for today → Conquer the world. Or get a job. Either way.
055. Waiting for → What comes.
YOUR FUTURE
058. Want kids? → Yeah.
059. Want to get married? → Some day. Kids seem to be way easier with a spouse, among other things.
060. Careers in mind → Writer/Game Designer/World Saver.
WHICH IS BETTER WITH GIRL/BOY?
068. Lips or eyes → Eyes.
070. Shorter or taller → Both have their attractions.
072. Romantic or spontaneous → Yes.
073. Nice stomach or nice arms → Arms
074. Sensitive or loud → sensitive. though I do like a girl who can make some noise.
075. Hook-up or relationship → Of the two? Relationship
077. Trouble maker or hesitant → troublemaker.
HAVE YOU EVER
079. Drank bubbles → Seriously? Like Bubble Soap? My mommy taught me not to drink soap. Freak.
080. Lost glasses/contacts → Nope.
081. Ran away from home → Nope
084. Broken someone's heart → Nah
085. Been arrested → No.
087. Cried when someone died → yeah
DO YOU BELIEVE IN
089. Yourself → Yeah
090. Miracles → Nah, stocastic events all the way.
091. Love at first sight → Nah, that funny feeling isn't quite love.
092. Heaven → I'd be thrilled if heaven and or hell existed. Though if it is as some folks paint it, I'd have some issues with their creator.
093. Santa Claus → Not currently.
094. Sex on the first date → If that's what you are dating for...
095. Kiss on the first date → *shrugs* sure.
ANSWER TRUTHFULLY
097. Is there one person you want to be with right now → Yeah
098. Are you seriously happy with where you are in life → I could see things being much much better.
099. Do you believe in God → See 92.
There are many ways to summarize a long article. In this case? I think we are well served by 3 words: "Women are crazy."
*Edit 11:39am*
Okay. To clarify, there are women who aren't crazy. That article isn't talking to them. Also, some men are crazy in the same manner as the women outlined above. Remember X are A is not saying Y are not A. (or in the revised case, "there exists a class of X that has property A" does not imply "there does not exist a class of Y that has property A")
So just about everyone knows the half plus seven rule. (Well not everyone, but many people. In short: "Don't date someone less than half your age plus seven years." If you are in the age range where this breaks down mathematically, then you can wait a few years to start dating.)
Well inherent in that rule is this set of equations:
o = older person's age
y = younger person's age
n = number of years until a given match is acceptable
The rule itself*:
.5*o+7=y
The rule from the younger person's view point:
2y-14=o
and how many years it will be before an (o,y) grouping won't be a little creepy anymore:
o-2y+14=n
(for values of y where y<.5o+7) This is what happens when I get bored and I have an equation that models a situation. So any other interesting things you can do with this set of equations that I'm missing? * By rule, of course, I mean guideline *edit* There was an error in equation 2, pointed out to me by Adrienne I fixed it now, the + 14 should have been a - 14.
So, bike troubles. All expected. I am probably 75-100 lbs over my preferred weight and more than that over my by the charts goal weight. With that in mind, the bike I bought was as cheap as I could make it. I expect it to last until I am in much better shape, at which time I will buy a better bike. (Of course, I tend to gain muscle for a long time before I start losing weight, so we'll see.) Well, cheap bike plus lots and lots of me means that the cheap plastic pedals are going to crack and break. I could have just bought replacement metal ones when I bought the bike, but I decided to hold off. The right pedal is now half the device it used to be. Unfortunately it is less than half as functional as it used to be. I'll be replacing it before the plastic falls all the way off. Problem two, the breaks are shot. This was also expected. I tend to do silly things that other Bloomington bikers don't do, like stop at stop signs. Since a fairly large portion of the stop signs hereabouts are at the bottom of hills, this means lots and lots of break wear. Good news? Breaks cost a hair more than intertubes. Bad news? While Target carries bike tubes, it does not carry bike breaks. I'll have to go out to Wal Mart for that one (actually replacement pedals are also not available at Target.)
Know what is almost as annoying as people referring and linking to a locked post in a comment thread? People referring and linking to a locked post in a public post. Urgh. (Yeah, I caught that, I said a link in a comment is more annoying than a link in the primary post. That's because the comment is part of a discussion, and supporting evidence in a discussion should be accessible.)
This is a work in progress. There are at least a few more lines to go, and the framing paragraph from the first instance of this was specific to the application I wrote this for, so I need to come up with a new one of those.
I believe that social justice is important, not just for you and me and our neighbors, but for the whole of humanity.
I believe in progress and that things are, overall, better than they were in the past.
I believe in stewardship, that we owe those who come after us a world at least as glorious as the one we live in today.
I believe that conservation efforts are important, and that they should all be based in sound research, that science should inform policy and that scientists should and can be both activists and objective.
I believe that as important as environmental conservation is for utilitarian reasons, it is also a good in itself, that we protect the animals and plants and ecosystems both for the vast benefits they give us and for their own right to exist.
I believe that we have the right to good clean food and water, and that it is our responsibility to make sure that both of these stay that way.
I believe that food and goods should be produced as close to locally as possible, and that any farmer we buy food from, no matter where, should receive a fair price for the labor of his or her hands.
I believe in sustainable development, not as an industrial catch phrase, but as a way of life.
I believe that where it is viable, mass transit is far superior to personal vehicles, and that it is better to bike than to ride.
I believe that our natural resources are limited and that humanity, as the animal most capable of foresight, does not have to destroy its habitat tomorrow in order to live well today.
I believe that conservation efforts have to work both from the top down and from the bottom up, that any plan without government support is liable to fail, and that any plan that does not engage the individual stakeholders is guaranteed to fail.
I believe that we should own our government, that it should act as a safety net, not a restraint.
I believe that I am better off if my neighbors are taken care of, if they have access to healthcare, education, and access to the necessities of life, and that part of being a member of the national community is making sure that all of my neighbors have a chance to live their lives in freedom, security, and health.
I believe that farmers and workers should be paid a fair wage and should work in conditions that do not pose an undue risk to their health and safety.
I believe that leisure is an important activity, that there is nothing wrong with stopping to enjoy the world around you from time to time.
I believe that the best way to achieve progress is through general education and the availability of information. I believe that the public libraries and the internet are important grounds for the generation of new interests, places that people can go to broaden their horizons and expand their lives.
I believe that the GPL and Creative Commons are the best way to deal with information in a digital era, that the perpetual copyright is an evil that we never bargained for, and that the abolishment of copyright is no solution.
I believe that art, music, sports, languages, and all of the rest are an important part of our children’s education, that we do them no good focusing on a few narrow fields in order to achieve some arbitrary testing goal if they don’t also have all of these things in their lives.
I believe that publicly funded research and art is important.
I believe that research done at the expense of the public should be made readily available to those who paid for it.
I believe that peace should be our goal, that violence and warfare is only justified when protecting your self and others from harm.
I believe that the US has a valid place on the world stage, that we can and should be a great power for good, but that unilateral action and exploitative trade agreements are not in anyone’s best interests.
I believe in planning for today, for tomorrow, for next year, for the next century, and for the distant future.
I believe that, so long as we harm no one else, all of humanity should have the freedom of belief and the freedom of conscience.
I believe that regardless of race, creed, color, or any other method of grouping people, we are all valuable as humans and we all deserve the ability to follow our own path so long as it does no intentional harm.
Most importantly, I believe that there is hope.
The badly overdue 3rd quarter update for my year's reading list. This is, as always, only the books I read that were new to me.
1 A Fistful of Data Stephen Dedman Hurm, well, it is a shadowrun novel that isn’t a direct riff on Gibson. Sadly, I liked the one that was a direct riff on Gibsion much better. The “party” was a little bit off, especially with their focus on non-lethals (the Mercs they were fighting would have cleaned up against the squatters.) Oh well, a fun bit of fluff.
2 The Jennifer Morgue Charles Stross. British intelligence meets lovecraft. This one had fewer laugh out loud bits than the first one (The Atrocity Archives) and the best turns of phrase were all near the end, but this did some really nice riffing on the James Bond themes, though I think that maybe the part where the characters discuss the riffs on the James Bond theme was questionable. (Oh I admit, I’m not familiar enough with JB to have picked out the variations that they talked about, and I suspect that most of the audience wouldn’t be either. That said, it strained the fourth wall to the breaking point.) Still a damned good book, with [DELETED FOR SPOILERIFICNESS]. Also, this wasn’t really the second book I read this year, just the second new book. I reread the Belgariad in-between. Still too few books for Early March of a new year, but better than 2.
3. Childe Morgan Katherine Kurtz. Good. I still wanted a new Kelson book, and the title character reached the venerable age of 4 by the last page, but I liked it better than the first in this set. I really hope that the next one covers his teen years and Brian’s young adulthood. (And the Priest whose name escapes me at the moment’s becoming a priest.) Also, I look greatly forward to watching Nigel grow up in the next book.
4. Time Travellers Pay Only Cash Spider Robinson This is supposed to be a Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon book, except that only half of the book is Callahan’s stories, and a fair chunk of what is left is not even non-Callahan’s stories, but essays. Including one of the pieces that establishes Robinson as Heinlein’s hagiographer, though to be fair, this particular essay was written for the book published as a remembrance of RAH. All in all, I thought this was fairly weak for a CCS book,
5. Gust Front John Ringo Military infatuation SF. Took me long enough to hunt down a copy (especially since it was published. For Free. On the Baen Free Library CDs.
5. When the Devil Dances John Ringo More military infatuation SF. I’m enjoying it, though I suspect that the series won’t end to my satisfaction.
6. Command Decision Elizabeth Moon
7. The Hero John Ringo and Michael Williamson Well, set a thousand years in the future of the setting of five, and I can now say that no, it didn’t though the setting is interesting. On the other hand, a thousand years of research and development ought to have brought them further than it did, especially with tame Postileen to add to the exchange of ideas (and the subjugation of the elf folks due to the fact that they directed the war to leave humanity broken at the end of the war.)
8, Deliverer C.J.Cherryh Well, more of what we expect from Bran and the horse people
9. Prodigal By the person who wrote hammerjack. Liked this one at least as much as the last. Seriously I do read non-military and or non-intelligence agency SF. I swear.
10. St. Patrick’s Gargoyle Katherine Kurtz. Um, I’d been saving this for when I got a strong urge to read more Kurtz. I haven’t read the adept books and really ought to someday, but I’ve been wanting to (do something) (Can’t remember what I was going to say
11. Off Armageddon Reef David Webber. Er, Mr Webber sure likes to rewrite the Hornblower books. This one has sailing ships.
12. Furies of Calderon Jim Butcher I grabbed this one because I wanted to read something by Butcher, but my library only has the 7th Dresden Files book (which I’ve already read.) Good. Very different from his detective novels. But different good, not different what the hell is wrong with you man, the old formula fits your style and this doesn’t!
13. The Android’s Dream John Scalzi. YANJSBTIWWTAL. Detectives, intrigue, shooty bits. Also, a nearly extinct breed of sheep and a would be alien overlord.
14. Storm Front (DF1) Jim Butcher
15. Fool Moon (DF2) Jim Butcher
16. Grave Peril (DF3) Jim Butcher
17. Summer Knight (DF4) Jim Butcher
18. Death Masks (DF5) Jim Butcher
19. Blood Rites (DF 6) Jim Butcher
20. Proven Guilty (DF8) Jim Butcher
21. White Night (DF9) Jim Butcher
22. Restoration of Faith and Something Borrowed (DF 0 and 7.5, short stories) Jim Butcher
So I read these straight through over about 4 days. Way better than the last series of mystery/detective/whatever books I read (Stephanie Plum.) Harry is more competent, way more faithful when he is in a sexual relationship with someone, and just a more interesting person than Stephanie. Also, he suffers real consequences for his actions. A few minor complaints. 1 The Fallen Storyline in book nine was resolved way too quickly for this series’ pace. The gun wasn’t fired in act 3, it was fired right after it was pointed out. Harry needs to hurry up and either give the sword to Murphy or start boinking her (his word) or ideally both. I mean sure Butcher is setting up the whole Arthurian line for her, but enough is enough. Hee book nine of approximately 20+3! Yay!
23 Academ’s Fury Jim Butcher
24 Cursor’s Fury Jim Butcher
I often forgot that I was reading something by the same author as the Dresden Files (I did the same with the Wolf books and A Brother’s Price by Wen Spencer.) I liked both sets muchly.
25 Blood Name Robert Thurston. I read the first book in this set years and years ago. It is battle tech, mostly set before and during the Clan Invasion from the view point of a member of Jade Falcon. Honestly? These books fall prey to the same weakness that a lot of game fiction (and a lot of non-game fiction) do. Books one and two spend way too much time paraphrasing the descriptions of various things from the setting books. (In the case of Battletech Fiction, that goes both ways. Sometimes descriptions from books are co-opted for manuals.) It wasn’t quite as bad as Faith and Fire where the characters were carefully stated to have exactly the load outs that were listed in the codex and much of the description came directly out of the codex’s fluff text.)
26. Falcon Guard Robert Thurston Some of the same problems as the first two, though with less “it came from the rulebook” stuff in it and tighter plotting and writing. Not as good as the later Grey Death Legion stuff or the best of the TSR books, but much better than the first two.
27. Mutineer’s Moon David Webber
28. The Armageddon Inheritance David Webber
29. Heirs of Empire David Webber
These three are a trilogy together. Fun reads... themes that Webber has explored in depth. Glad I read Off Armageddon Reef fist, or it would have felt like more of a rehash than it did. (Webber has no less than 3 distinct settings where characters uplift a society’s weapon making to something just before the Napoleonic Wars. Two of them make an attempt to produce smaller versions of Horatio Hornblower’s style of navy. (The third set? Patience. They are 30,31,32,and 33.) By the way, the black power warfare in this series is actually only book 3. Book two is a hidden invaders story and book 2 is an endless hordes of aliens that must be stopped, but act in particularly silly manners story. Book 3 is the shipwrecked in a world wide theocracy story, one that feels very much like Off Armageddon Reef.)
30 March Upcountry John Ringo and David Webber
31 March to the Sea John Ringo and David Webber
32 March to the Stars John Ringo and David Webber
33 We Few John Ringo and David Webber
Shipwrecked. Endless Combat turns spoiled prince into bloodthirsty killing machine who gets the job done at any cost. 8 months of Endless Combat does the opposite to a number of his body guards. Stone age to early black powder natives and an endless succession of localized uplifting from a pike and shield unit from warriors to arbuquses to rifles and proper cannons as they walk across a continent. Political upheaval and space navies in the last book. Space combat that is remarkably similar to the Harrington books. (no surprise there.) These books probably sparked much of the research that lead to the ones above and Off Armageddon Reef.
34 Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall Bill Willingham et al. This is a prequel to the Fables comics with a framing story set several hundred years earlier and a bunch of sub stories set throughout the history of the fable worlds. It was enough to convince me to add it (the comics) to my “hunt down as soon as you have money again” list.
35 Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. Cory Doctorow See 36 for my hagiography of Cory. This book is an incredibly cool mixture of developing culture and mythmaking. (At least I think the son of the mountain and a washing machine are new bits of myth. It feels like Gaiman’s American Gods mythology but created from whole cloth.) GO check it out from his website (www.craphound.com,) then go buy your own copy.
36 Overclocked Cory Doctorow Hum. Award winning author. Postpost cyberpunk. Cory is an active member of the free as in speech movement, working against people who would prefer all expression to come at the sole control of major media cartels. Open internet, communications systems that aren’t controlled or owned by governments or cartels, a dozen other things. Cory is also a damned good writer from the generation that’s giving us Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, Sarah Monette, and John Scalzi (I know there is some time overlap, and I’m being research lazy). He’s a proponent of creative commons, and before I’d ever picked up any of his books, I’d been reading his work on boingboing. This collection of short stories is, as expected, excellent.
37 Breakfast With the Ones You Love Eliot Fintushel Urban Fantasy. Home made Talmudic space ships. Looks that kill. Teen Angst. Russian Mafia. Boxing. Bringing about the Eschaton. A talking cat. A good deal of fun within these pags.
38. Making Comics Scott McCloud. This is Scott at his best. Witty, excited, full of the promise of the media and new technologies, lucid and coherent, grounded. There are hundreds of how to draw comics books. There are many fewer on the craft and art of all of the other tasks. Only part of a book though. The rest is online, though I haven’t read it. Liked this one almost as much as Understanding Comics.
39. What if the Moon Didn’t Exist? Neilf Comins A double handful of what if scenarios about the formation of the earth and how small (and large) changes would influence the development of life on earth. Pretty good. A couple points here and there that could go either way, but then that is always the danger in speculating about things like changes propagating through deep time.
40. Mystic and Rider Sharon Shinn Fun read. Actually grabbed this one because the cover of the second or possibly third book grabbed my attention. Fantasy novel with a romance sub plot. Hope it stays that way. (I have read too many series like that where they spiraled into Romance Novels with fantasy trappings by the 3rd or 4th books. We’ll see.) The first one is worth a read at least. (The worldbuilding exposition/dialogue thingy at the beginning was a little clumsy, but I don’t think that there is any really good way to do an info dump, and false transparency is apparently in vogue at the present. Personally? I’d prefer narrator asides *coughcoughHeinleincoughcoughLynchcoughc
41. Gradisil Adam Roberts. Not bad, a story of the first three generations of the settlement of near earth space. The only thing that really annoyed me here were the changed spellings for “flavor” in the second two generations. Switching x for z seemed silly, and the k for ck was sometimes misapplied (in one word, can’t remember which, he switched a ck that didn’t make the k sound and left a c that did. The worst of all though was wat for what. At least k for ck replaces essentially the same sound, but wat and what don’t sound alike.
42. Fast Forward Lou Anders (ed) This one was the first of two books of short stories I read with very nice stories from (mostly) the latest two generations of fantasy and science fiction authors. Between them, there was exactly one story I’d read before. This is a novel experience. The SF is strongly tilted toward exploring the noosphere these days. (With Gibson’s next cyber punk being set in the near past, that makes sense) Oh has a story by Elizabeth Bear in it.
43. Fantasy The Best of the Year 2006 Rich Horton (ed) This would be the second, and the source of the story I’d read (by Neil Gaiman.) Another Elizabeth Bear (and one I liked a whole lot. Now I has to buys her New Amsterdam books)
44. The Last Colony John Scalzi The last of the John Perry/Jane Sagan books (or so he claims) Well written, enjoyable conclusion to the set. Wonderfully done, except for the werewolf problem. (They were literary tools first and almost only. Their egress was way too abrupt.) Buy it.
45. Starship: Pirate Mike Resnick Sequel to Starship: Mutany. A decent Caper Story though it is still no Return of Santiago. I’m looking forward to the next one.
46. Yellow Eyes John Ringo and Tom Kratman Not as good as the main line Posteleen books. Not as Bad as Cally’s War or Ghost.
47. The Thirteenth House Sharon Shinn Another novel of the Twelve Houses. The romance plots are still edging too far into the A plot, but this is still no Jean M Auel’s descent into darkness. Still looking forward to more of these. (By the way, apparently each book will have a different main character. Cool device, though we’ll see how it goes with the quieter people. A lot less barely hidden world building.
48. Dark Moon Defender Sharon Shinn More Twelve Houses. Romance plot worked much better as part of the story, didn’t seem to impinge upon the A plot at all. World Building was MUCH better this time. Still want more.
49 Cally’s War John Ringo Ugh, Just Ugh
50 Ghost John Ringo And I thought it couldn’t get any worse. At least this one didn’t steal the rape scene from Friday and use it twice. Of course, it came up with its own rape scenes
51 Spindrift Alan Steel I loved the first book. I didn’t even make it to page 10 of the second. Not probably the book’s fault. I was distracted. This one makes me think I should go back and read Coyote Rising.
52 Harry Potter 7 JK Rowling. Read it a bit before it came out. I did wait for a transcribed copy of the photographed copy. Some good some bad, Snape’s denouement was handled poorly.
53 The Game Inventor’s Guidebook Brian Tinsman Very nice book, if a little short and sparse on details. I want to get a copy.
54 Empire of Ivory Naomi Novik I’ve now read the whole set in print to date. I like. Very tasty
55Ghostmaker Dan Abnett More Gaunt’s Ghosts. This one is a set of vignettes featuring the name characters of the Ghosts. I loved the inquisitor and the eldar chapter.
56 Necropolis Dan Abnett The Ghosts face Chaos while defending one of the hive cities.
57 Alanna: The First Adventure Tamora Pierce This set was nice, but it got stronger as it went. Imagine that? An author hitting her stride as she gets further into a series? Never. There is a 15 years after book I want to read too.
58 In the Hand of the Goddess Tamora Pierce
59 The Woman Who Rides Like a Man Tamora Pierce
60 Lioness Rampant Tamora Pierce
61 Toast Charles Stross A bunch of neat but outdated short stories by Stross.
62 Accidental Goddess Linnea Sinclair For a change of pace, a SF romance.
These next 15 books were read before #53
63. New Amsterdam Elizabeth Bear My second favorite alternate history, and my favorite vampire book. This one would have been the best thing I’d read up to November 2nd of this year if it wasn’t for:
64. Whiskey and Water Elizabeth Bear I loved this book. Better than the first. There is a scene with the Unicorn and one of the Devils near the end. Absolutely lovely. This crossed with some of E. Bear’s online discussion will probably get me to read The Last Unicorn someday.
65. Young Wizards 1. Diane Duane. The first book by her I ever read prolonged my fading interest in Star Trek fiction. Spock’s World was quite possibly the best ST novel out at the time. These books are very good. They even deal with the magic heroes power creep problem that happens in series so often. (Where the scope of the problem has to get bigger each time until you end up yawning at a threat to the planet. Some of the situations the protags deal with, even later in the set, aren’t earth shaking events. Some of them are, and there is power creep, but it isn’t only power creep. There are reasonable events, though some of them are as world shattering for the main characters as the destruction of the world would be. Lookin forward to the next book. I read these back to back to back, so I’m less sure of exactly where each one lets off.
66 Young Wizards 2. Diane Duane.
67 Young Wizards 3. Diane Duane.
68 Young Wizards 4. Diane Duane.
69 Young Wizards 5. Diane Duane.
70 Young Wizards 6. Diane Duane.
71 Young Wizards 7. Diane Duane.
72 Young Wizards 8. Diane Duane.
73. Red Seas Under Red Skies Scott Lynch Scott’s sophomore novel. There were some bits where I felt the pacing was off (too much time before the pretty ships). I missed the lengthy setting vignettes. I loved the Caper. I think I detect some Ffhrad and the Grey Mouser in these two’s attachments to women (not an exact match, but near the end of this book I was feeling it in my bones.) All taken together, I might have liked it as much as the first, but not as consistently.
74. Jade Throne Naomi Novik Really quite splendid books.
75. Black Powder War Naomi Novik Looking forward to book 5.
76 First and Only Dan Abnett The first Gaunt’s Ghosts book. I’m a sucker for SF military company stories. These aren’t the Grey Death Legion, but they are still damned good.
77. Myth Alliances Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye. Not quite as good as the old stuff, but they are starting to get back on track. I really expect to like the next couple as much as the one with the cliff hanger and the dragon.
Internet is down at home. I'm now at the public library. I miss Firefox.Ctrl+f? pops up a damned window instead of searching while I type!No tabs!The address bar as a search thing? Gives me some pos microsoft search thing that is most definately not based on an analysis of usage patterns. If I wanted dumb search I'd have gone to altavista. At least they aren't noticably filtered.Gir!
Baby Toolkit: A Year's Worth of Fun: Giving Kids' Magazines
Baby Toolkit: A Year's Worth of Fun: Giving Kids' Magazines
Depending on the kid and the parents, for about the 12+ crowd, another great set would be F&SF, Analogue, Asimov's, Ellery Quinn's Mystery Magazine, Interzone, etc.
This is one where you'd have to be sure to check with the parents first, since they don't have the same level of content filtering that the ones aimed primarily at kids, though I've reread some of the things I read at 12, and I glossed over the bits that might worry parents.
I for one, wish I had known these magazines existed at that age. The fantasy and SF magazines still have a real sense of wonder about their stories that make them a joy for kids and adults.
posted here first because livejournal has a truly obnoxious password system
With the recent announcement that Dumbledore is gay Rowling has thrown open the doors to a brand new original wave of Harry Potter slash fic. The slash community held its collective breath at the news before they rushed to start working on their new grand masterpieces based on a whole new unexplored field of Harry Potter Fan Fic.
Just a second, my assistant seems to want to show me something.
What?
Wait! The timestamp on that one is before the first book was even...
Oh my GOD ARRGH! The grammarmakes me bleed!
I'm fairly sure that is not physically possible.
I have just been informed that, indeed, there was actually slash fic that assumed that Dumbledore was gay dating before this recent announcement, and all the way back to the origins of HP fan fiction. And GAH! Some of these folks made a horrible mishmash of Rule 35, Harry Potter, and a language not quite completely unlike modern English. Also? they need to buy some anatomy books or something.
From pope_guilty
I run into this review every so often on the net. Fatal: Quite possibly the worst RPG ever. And not funny like Kill Puppies of Satan
Hey Scott, you are mentioned as potential backup to keep the authors from climbing a bell tower with a rifle.
:(
I was reading BoingBoing today when I ran across this.
Ugh. I googled the situation, and she seems to be pulling an Orson Scott Card here. She asked Andrew Burt to contact Cory over this, which got absolutely no results since Burt is in Cory's kill file due to his blackhatish actions. She should have tried to contact Cory herself instead of sending one of the bad guys to do it.
*sigh* I hate it when my heroes fall. Card, Ellison, Bradbury, and now possibly Le Guin.
some people have the oddest questions
this was a question of the D&D website's feature "save my game"
"My games have been bogging down recently due to what I believe is my players’ uncanny ability to focus on the mundane. For example, when I established a base of operations for the group, two hours later they were still arguing over whether to hire skilled or unskilled labor to fix the place up. Another time I designed a goblin mook for an encounter, and made the mistake of naming it. My players kept on slowing down the game to discuss the fate of this obviously important NPC. How do I get them to stop going off into these annoying tangents?"
Dude! If your players spend two hours talking about how to set up their base of operations or use all of their headspace pondering the fate of a throw off NPC? You just won the game. I mean seriously, not only have you won thos round, but you were just handed the lever that is going to let you build the next one with a minimal amount of work from you and a maximal amount of involvement from them.
If they focus so hard on the workers? Time to have a plot involving one of them. Maybe a thief gets the layout of the base from one of the people that they spent so much time worrying about. Maybe they picked the unskilled labor and now the guilds of the city are up in arms that they didn't use guild labor.
As for the goblin? "Hello, My Name is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father: Prepare to Die!"
Any adventure that ends with me having almost all of my prepared materials still unused? It is a win.
Library Trip
Went to the library today. Ugh their classification system is maddening. SF and YA are right next to each other, and a number of books that should be in the SF section are in the YA section. I'd not have a problem with them being in the YA section (mostly the Dresden Files books maybe aren't YA at all. I'm waiting to see if Red Seas Under Red Skies ends up there in a month or three. I mean it is sort of an adventure story) except that other book in the same series are in the SF section. This makes it rather hard to keep track. Also the patrons apparently do a lot of reshelving themselves and it is less than skillful. I'm by no means an obsessive order type. (Perish the though. Ask anyone who knows me. Make sure there is no food or drink in their mouths first though, unless you wish to wear it.) That said, I've been rearranging books to put all of the stuff by a given author adjacent to each other. You know, casually, and I'm not seeking it out, but when I notice, I fix it. (Well and also I've reordered series stuff so that they were in order. Looks like they need a full time person or two to do just those two tasks. I'd be good at it, though I'd probably not actually enjoy it.)
Oh yeah, the whole point of this post.
I grabbed the next several Babylon 5 disks, the next Sarah Monette that I haven't read, an Eberron Hardback, the Ghost in the Shell TPB, Wen Spencer's A brother's Price (I've read it, but I want to see if some of the questions that have been bugging me about it are answered on a more careful reading of the text. Silly genetics/ecology classes.) And I grabbed a starter set of Tamora Pierce books, First Test, Magic Steps, Trickster's Choice, Page, and Alanna The First Adventure. Mostly the first books of a number of series. I've been running into her in various places about live journal, and thought that I ought to try to read a few of her books. It's why I read the E.Bear stuff and the S.Monette stuff. Left over from the previous trips are a bunch of books on board game design, a Michael Stackpole, the Lackey/Guon Wingcommander, and several Warhammer 40k books) Eek, I need to finish writing my brief reviews and post the 3rd quarter list in the next couple of days.
451.5 miles to Rivendell
Miles to go
I mirrored this journal over on blogger back in February,but lacking decent double posting software, I didn't keep up with it. A friend of mine who had thought I'd dropped off the face of the Earth because of that inspired me to update. Instead, I deleted the whole mirror and blogger has a pain in the butt limit on automated posts using the API. It limits you to 50 a day. I have 750 left. Ugh.
Also? I am going to do the miles to Rivendell thing, based on time walking and assuming 20 minutes a mile. Me being me, I already have a spreadsheet to keep track of these things. (I love spreadsheets. I wish I had the stats package one I used in Oregon instead of Excel, but you can't have everything if you are unwilling to pay for or steal it.)
Miles to Rivendell 456.5
SO, WoW has implemented a "fix" to deal with the "problem" of Gold Farmers. They now hold all auctions for an hour to verify that they aren't being done by a gold farmer. Except an hour is the goal. It looks like they are checking all of the auction payments by hand on all of the servers.
My current payment tickets all say that they will be here in 7 hours...
So, the American Catholic bishops have been helping cover up child molesters, they have transfered admitted molesters from one position working with kids to another in a different community. They have have lied and denied things that they knew about until confronted with proof that these things happened and that they knew about them. (Sort of like the blackhats that way.)
Well, the African Catholic Bishops have their own special issues. Yet again, we have an African Catholic Bishop spreading lies and disinformation about HIV and condoms. I'd understand the condom thing on the "any lie is good that is told in the service of God" theory, though a God who would want you to lie about that sort of thing is not worth serving. But the HIV medicine thing? Gah! The Catholic Church was making so much progress before these last few Popes.
heh heh heh
I just got my first Arena token from the Stranglethorn Valley arena. 30 seconds ahead of a scheduled server shutdown. Without having to fight for the chest. (I'm up for unrelated reasons and looked at the clock and decided to try for it.)
So on Boingboing there was a Puzzle from that's how it happened.
The three way pistol duel puzzle
You're a cowboy, and get involved in a three way pistol duel with two other cowboys. You are a poor shot, with an accuracy of only 33%. The other two cowboys shoot with accuracies of 50% and 100%, respectively. The rules of the duel are one shot per cowboy per round. The shooting order is from worst shooter to best shooter, so you get to shoot first, the 50% guy goes second, and the 100% guy goes third, then repeat. If a cowboy is shot he's out for good, and his turn is skipped. Where or who should you shoot first?
My answer/reasoning behind the cut. I think my logic is good so I didn't crunch the numbers, but it wouldn't be hard to do so.
You should shoot the 100 percent guy first. In any longer version of the puzzle, any given position should shoot the highest percentage person who isn't them available.
Let's call our people Alice, Bob, and Carol.
Alice shoots to hit at 33%, Bob at 50%, and Carol is a crack shot at 100%
That means each round runs Alice to Bob to Carol.
In the first round, if Alice shoots and misses, it doesn't matter who she shoots at, but if she shoots at Bob and hits, then Carol only has one possible target, Alice, and Alice dies. If Bob shoots at Alice and hits, then again, Carol's only target is Bob. Carol should, of course, shoot at whoever has the best chance of hitting her each round.
If everyone follows my rule above, then Alice has a 16.5% chance of being killed in the first round. Bob has a 33% chance of being killed in the first round, and Carol has a (I think...) 66 percent chance of being killed in the first round.
What books do you wish had been written by someone else? Books where you fell in love with the characters or the story or the setting, or something, and the author couldn't pull it off?
My big ones are:
The Stephen Donaldson Thomas Covenant books. I love the setting, I love the characters except the protagonists.
John Ringo's Pre-Ghost Work. (Ghost et al. could just go away.)
Eww. He started so strong then went insane. And he stripped the rape scene from Friday out and used it twice in Cally's War. Perhaps the least stolen Heinlein scene ever. For a good reason.
Goodkind's Sword of Truth
Such a strong start, such a miserable everything else.
So a while ago, I bought an electronic copy of Beyond the Infinite. I was just playing all of the music I got at that time, and I realized something. I am almost certain that the track Mars on that disk is straight out of Armitage III. I'm going to have to wait to verify because someone's borrowing my DVD, but I'm 90 percent sure that it is in there. (Not listed on the soundtrack on amazon though.)
Ooh I got a library card at the Bloomington public library! Very happy.
I inaugurated it (have I mentioned how much I love Firefox's spell checker?) by grabbing a very short stack of books. Since it is about a 2 mile walk home, I'll probably seldom get more books than fit in my backpack. Sadly, at least two books weren't the ones I was on in their respective series. On the other hand, two of them were new books by Elizabeth Bear. The first, New Amsterdam, was a good read, though I already knew I liked the characters since one of the sub-stories had previously been published.
It is likely that New Amsterdam would have been the best book of the month for me if I hadn't grabbed her other new book.
Whiskey and Water surpasses Blood and Iron (which I loved a lot) as a work of art. I've heard complaints that these books are very confusing and hard to follow. I didn't think so, but then if you've ever heard me present a non-preprepared explanation of something, you'll know that I think in twisty bits. There is a scene near the end with Lucifer and the unicorn that hits a fair chunk of my oh yes triggers.
Oh yeah, and I grabbed something by Diane Duane. Diane's name is one I've come across a lot in various nodes connected to eBear's blog. It always sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. It turns out that she wrote the Star Trek book that convinced me to keep giving Star Trek books a chance for at least a year after I would have probably quit reading them. She wrote Spock's World, which is possibly the best Star Trek novel ever, and definitely the best one that my 10-13 year old self had ever read.
Well, I've now read the first book in her young wizards books, So You Want to be a Wizard. Again, very cool, and now I am going to find more of her writing.
So, Five days into the WoW trial and I learn that there is a skill point cap and a level cap. The SP cap I found the hard way. The level cap I would have found the next time I tried to level my paladin. This is most distressing, especially since it will probably be a while till I can afford to subscribe to the game. (Also? Since the trial doesn't allow any form of trading with other players, my paladin is very under powered for level 20.)
So far a fun game. When they do things right, there is an epic grandeur to the place. This mostly means when the horizon is constrained. The plains settings are mostly sort of blah, and I would really love to have more natural transitions from zone to zone. Often there is a wavy line where the colors change.
Heh, still unpacking from the move to Bloomington. I came to the realization that I have a bunch of action figures still in the box. This is unacceptable. I don't want to be that guy. The one who collects toys but doesn't play with them because that would kill their resale value. They are toys. It is like Magic the Gathering. Sure, mint copies of the older cards are worth lots of money, but honestly? It was a game, it was meant to be played. Saving toys to never play with is just plain wrong.
So, I saw a truck with a bumper sticker on it that said "Drive it like you stole it."
I suspect this means different things to the owner of the truck and myself.
I bet they mean drive your vehicle hard without worrying about damaging it.
I read it as "obey the traffic laws and keep your speed within 3 mph of the limit so as to not attract the attention of the police to your newly stolen vehicle."
So I just went and looked at a bunch of graphs of the value of the dollar vs other currencies. I should have grabbed the data and played with it. oh well. Mostly? The US Dollar is getting weaker, though the graphs weren't all on the same scale. (We were up vs the Yen, and the HKD has to be notched to our dollar.)
Honestly? What I want is the value of a currency vs the price of a kilo of bread or a liter of milk or some similar measure.
About that last post?
New thought.
Instead of adding the difficulty of needing 2 screens for face to face play, make the controllers have different numbers of contact points. The front one has one fewer pairs than the person in the back (because it is much harder to manipulate things behind your back) I'd say 6 or 7 to 8 or 9
Sex and Video Games (well foreplay and video games at least.)
This looks like it has some potential. Well, the interface looks a little clunky, and I'm not sure that it wouldn't be better to work out a front to front version for symmetrical challange levels (as it is currently, the player in the briefs appears to have some serious advantages. Spreading the contact areas out a little more would help that, but having the player in the bra facing the other way would be a big help. Sensors in the groin area would be a logical extension, and probably more than just six sensors total. Also, while this is a natural set up for rhythm games, I don't think the DDR scroll up the screen method is best here. Give different sensors different functions, match the shoulder ones for the woman to some lower back ones for the man, have those sort of a power maintenance button or score multiplier (so that constant contact is a boon instead of batting at the sensor when it comes up.) Actually all of the sensors should encourage slightly elongated periods of touch instead of the quick batting motions in the first video. Also? the game they demoed appeared to be neither competetive nor cooperative enough. Either you should be able to distract your partner in order to rack up more points, or especially skillful manipulations from person A should set person b up for something special point wise. Possibly different sorts of sensors for different body parts too, though possibly a series of touch mouse touch pad type sensors on a soft backing would be best.
(Actually, the shoulder/lower back sensors should be touch pad like, the butt and breast sensors more based on uniform gentle compression, maybe outer thigh or stomach sensors that are more button like, and maybe a groin sensor too, though I'd have to give that one some thought as to best method of manipulation.
I suspect that you could come up with at least as many distinct games as they did for the Super Scope.
A Miracle of Science
My only serious complaint about this webcomic is that it is over. If I had been diligent about reading all of the comics from the Whiteboard's cameo comics, I'd have caught this one earlier and possibly already bought the first book. (Moving. Can't afford it now. Gladness resides in the fact that it is with a PoD company so they won't sell out their stock.)
Some nice transhumanisim stuff, a neat set of governments, a passel of mad scientists, and possibly a few too many pseudo-pacifists.
Also, there is a scene where a [spoiler] hits on [spoiler] This is wonderful.
Um if the comic is loading slowly go to another tab. You don't want to read the news posts first. They are often spoileriffic. In fact the writer posted that a scene was important, so no news post today before one scene. Sadly that tag needed to go before many scenes in the tow or so weeks after that one too.
Wowness.
Also <3 the ending.
SO yeah, yesterday's thing? Sure it was an N^k solution to the problem, but it took on the order of N^N photons to do it, so for example, a 150 city problem would take more than 10^200 times as many photons as actually exist.
that is 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
(the actual number being about 10^326 or 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?id=140598
I just tossed out my old trumpet. I think I need a fiddle.
(Note, these folks might not have anything.)
Better than I could say it
Taken whole cloth from
In the thread that billowed out of my last post, I was informed that by comparing a woman who gives frequent birth to (in my original wording) an exotic dancer who ejects ping pong balls from her vagina, I was calling both women "whores."
In a response, I said that the exotic dancer was not a prostitute, but a sex worker. I was then told that a comparison between a sexually active women and a sex worker is generally intended as neither neutral nor flattering.
So let's clear up my intentions right here and now, since my rewording of that disgusting term doesn't seem to have made my intentions clear.
First things first. Exotic dancers and/or strippers are not prostitutes, as has been alleged elsewhere. They dance for a living; they display their bodies; they perform the oft-touted "lap dance" for extra cash, and yes, that is supposed to arouse the client. That is each person's choice. This is what feminism is about. And it doesn't make these men and women prostitutes. They are workers in the sex industry.
The men and women who perform in sexually explicit movies are sex workers. Yes, they perform sex for money. It can be all kinds of sex. This is also true of men and women who have pornographic websites and telephone chat lines. (Many of these people work with their partners, by the way.) This is their choice. They are sex workers.
Then there are prostitutes, women and men who sell the act of sex--many kinds of sex, or certain specialties of sex--to those who will pay them.
For those who have not been and are not forced to do this by exploitative others, this is their choice. This is true of other sex workers as well. If they do their work of their own free will, with no one else to force them, then they have the right to do it. They have the right to equal protection under the law. They have the right to medical care and respect as human beings.
THEY HAVE THE RIGHT NOT TO BE CALLED WHORES, SLUTS, SLAGS, SKANKS, HOS, GASHES, SLITS, CUNTS, MEAT.
Do you want to be outraged over the sex trade? Do you want to punish someone and slap them in jail? Round up the pimps who batten on the women and men who don't have the tools to see them coming, who turn them out and control them through violence and drugs. Round up those who turn out children as prostitutes and create sex tours to the countries that give such tourists access to child prostitutes. Round up those who make their money on women, men, and children used violently, against their will. Go after the customers who leave a battered sex worker who refused a service or an instruction to bleed.
I do not believe that sex of any kind between consenting adults is a crime. I believe coercion is. And it makes me angry to hear those in the sex trade treated like dirt by those who don't know them, their lives, and their choices, but who are quite willing to despise them all the same. I know some really decent people who are sex workers. They have the right to pursue their trade and/or avocation without risk, with proper medical care, with legal rights.
Feminists will never be free of the past until we stop turning on our own. ANY of our own.
"Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments."
I think that some of those words don't mean what he thinks they mean.
Part Two: Unblocked!
(03:13:52 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: haye hh ru?
(03:13:57 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: why u r sad
(03:14:05 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: i am in here dont worry
(03:16:09 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com just sent you a Nudge!
(03:20:19 PM) Michael: Er, hello. I'm afraid that your message was missing things. Packet loss? Keyboard Error? Neurological dysfunction? Who knows. No matter, please send again. Maybe this time words will appear on my side of the screen
(03:21:34 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: yeah yeah u r so funny
(03:21:34 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: heeheheeeh
(03:21:56 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: u must be serios oky
(03:23:54 PM) Michael: Well, actually, I don't really follow college sports, and the the Okys aren't particularly popular around these parts.
(03:24:45 PM) Michael: actually, I think that is spelled Okie
(03:25:13 PM) Michael: but again, not really popular in this region so I don't know.
(03:25:18 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: oky is the paricularly piont of my and our life so we r use the oky and think about it oky so whats ur opinion about oky
(03:27:50 PM) Michael: sports fan then?
(03:28:37 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: oky
(03:30:34 PM) Michael: So are you real or are you just a gutted and abused version of Alice?
(03:31:42 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: listen me who u r ?
(03:32:37 PM) Michael: Well, Alice has better grammar and makes more sense, so we can probably scratch that off the list.
(03:33:07 PM) Michael: It is really a shame, the more recent revisions of Alice are quite entertaining.
(03:33:31 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: yas
Rather more nonsensical than last time. That takes talent.
Or a really bad attempt at an Alice type bot.
Rule #1:
If you open this you GOTTA take it. (yeah, right)
Rule # 2:
You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone
messages you and asks
Rule #3:
Only answer True or False to the first set of questions
Q: Kissed someone on your friends list - False
Q: Been arrested?- False
Q: Kissed someone you didn't like? - False
Q: You like someone?- True
Q: Held a snake?- False
Q: Been suspended from school?- False
Q: Sang in the shower?- True
Q: Sat on a roof top?- True
Q: Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on?- True
Q: Broken a bone?- False
Q: Shaved your head?- False
Q: Played a prank on someone?- True
Q: Had/have a gym membership?- True
Q: Made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry?- False
Q: Donated Blood?- False
Q: Had your heart broken?- False
Q: Broken someone's heart?- False
"Who was your last?"
---Last person...
1. You hung out with? Christiane
2. last person you texted? Eva
4. Went to the movies with? Matt
5. Went to the mall with? Matt
6. You talked to on the phone? Mom
7. Made you laugh? Christiane
8. You hugged? Jessica
---Would you rather...
1. Have white bread or wheat? Wheat
2. Be serious or be funny? funny
3. Drink whole or skim milk? Skim
4. Die in a fire or get shot? shot
---Choices---
1. Sun or moon?-- Moon
2. Winter or Fall?-- Fall
3. Left or right?-- left
4. Sunny or rainy? drizzly
5. Hugs or kisses? Hugs
6. Where do you live? Podunk Southern Indiana
7. Rock or Techno? Rock or SOudntrack Techno from 80s anime
8. Do you want to get married? some day
9. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? twirl
10. Do You Cook? Yes, rather well
11. Current mood: happy
In the last 72 hours have you...
1. Kissed someone? Nope
2. Sang? Yes
3. Been hugged? Yes
4. Like someone you can't have? Yeah
Just got back from Jessica and Daniel's wedding. I had a great time at the reception. Best DJ I've ever heard at a dance, so I enjoyed the whole night even though I don't dance. Very little new music, no rap, no crappy midwestern dance songs (like funky chicken dance) Just enough corny stuff that the folks on the floor were having a blast.
Also, the music was, miracle of miracles, not too loud.
Held the reception at the clifty inn.
Jessica and Daniel's friends are my kind of people. Had I known them, it is possible I would have been out there with the interpretive dance folks.
The food was good. DIY salads, choose your own adventure meals (I had the asparagus, the roast potatoes, the to kill for roast beef, and some fish that was quite good.
Got to see some people I seldom see.
Got to see some people I see a little more often but not nearly enough.
Ran out of champaign before I got there.
Had Coke products, specifically Diet Coke.
Also. 4th Garter Belt.
Very awesome party. (If you didn't know all of the above are plusses)
I'm trying to find two Science Fiction short stories. No idea who wrote them, what their names are, or when they were written.
The first is about reality TV, possibly even before MTV's The Real World.
In it 3 men (Artist Athlete and something) go on a series of dates with a young woman on camera. All three of them manage to have sex with her off camera even though they are supposed to be filmed the whole time. She has a secret that they are to be told at the end. All three men fall madly in love with her. Won't give the ending away.
Second concerns a man who is saving a current addict (cyberpunk neurojack type thing) at least partially against her will. He spends days or months staying with her helping her pull her life back together. In the end it turns out that he was there initially to rob her apartment.
Hee hee.
So I need a word for a typo that goes on to influence word choice later. This happens to me a lot.
For example I recently said:
"From my come-lately position, that sounds like the definition of an early 3rd wave feminist."
I accidentally added the an which propagated to the last word, which was supposed to be feminism.
This would have given:
"From my come-lately position, that sounds like the definition of early 3rd wave feminism."
These are importantly different statements.
Yaknow what would have been great?
A forum bot that went about posting on random forums posts of the sort:
OhmyGOD!!! X kills Y by Z on Page N
Where X is a member of a X list of good or bad guy characters from Harry Potter.
Y is a complementary list of characters
Z is a manner of setting acceptable manners of death (no locking them in a dark room so that they are eaten by a Grue.
And N is a number between 1 and 759
so, a big part of why I have qbasic on my computer is that I can use it ot solve simple np complete problems, like this one:
By the way, this comic is from xkcd.com. I suspect that if we know each other in real life, you'd enjoy the comic. The rest of you? I bet you'll enjoy it too.
here's the code:
CLS
ms=4.2
mf=2.15
ff=2.75
ss=3.35
hw=3.55
fs=5.8
d=0
FOR u = 0 to 7
FOR v = 0 to 7
FOR w = 0 to 7
FOR x = 0 to 7
FOR y = 0 to 7
FOR z = 0 to 7
price = z * fs + y * hw + x * ss + w * ff + v * mf + u * ms
IF price = 15.05 THEN PRINT u; v; w; x; y; z
d = d+1
NEXT z
NEXT y
NEXT x
NEXT w
NEXT v
NEXT u
PRINT d
END
So the expected output is:
0 1 0 0 2 1
0 7 0 0 0 0
262114
meaning that the two solutions are
1 mf, 2 hw, and 1 fs
and
7 mf
the actual output is
0 1 0 0 2 1
262114
I've fiddled with the program and I had it display price after each individual set of numbers... the output at 0 7 0 0 0 0?
0 7 0 0 0 0 15.05
The program should identify that as a win. No idea why it isn't.
I want to scream. And learn a new language. And get a different computer.
Edit 11:00 AM 7/10/2007
The talented and lovely
It is also possible that qb dislikes 7. I seem to remember that being a problem years ago for something or another.
I got my own little MSN imbecile today!
Start Chat Log
(02:30:40 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: ;helloo
(02:30:41 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: voic e of th e p eople h ru?
(02:30:41 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: whats u p?
(02:34:26 PM) Michael: er something seems to be wrong with your keyboard
(02:35:15 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: why
(02:35:17 PM) Michael: your space bar is having troubles, and apparently some of your keys register only sporadically.
(02:35:37 PM) Michael: for example "voic e of th e p eople h ru?"
(02:36:45 PM) Michael: see? one word is interrupted by random spaces and then there is a cluster of letters that I'm sure would make sense if all of the keys you hit had registered.
(02:36:53 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: no no its my style
(02:37:29 PM) Michael: oh... that was on purpose?
(02:40:46 PM) Michael: Oh and also? The contraction for it is? Yeah see, that has an apostrophe.
(02:41:16 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: so explain something about u
(02:43:59 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: i am waiting for ur anwer
(02:43:59 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: *answer
(02:44:46 PM) Michael: 21st letter in the modern Latin alphabet, u was introduced to that alphabet in the 16th century. One of five vowels common to the English language, it follows the basic English rules for long and short vowel sounds.
(02:47:48 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: sorry
(02:47:48 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: so u like friendship to me..
(02:49:05 PM) Michael: U, being a letter, has no likes or dislikes, or more accurately, it has no mental states so it can have no desires.
(02:51:35 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com just sent you a Nudge!
(02:51:40 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: please what ut age
(02:51:40 PM) syedzeeshan_301@hotmail.com: please tell
(02:52:52 PM) Michael: well, u was introduced in the 16th century, and we are at the foot of the 21st century, so no more than 500 years and no less than 400 years.
(02:55:05 PM) Michael: ah a brief correction. No more than 507 years and no less than 407 years, this being the two thousand and seventh year Anno Domini
(03:00:07 PM) Message could not be sent because a connection error occurred:
ah a brief correction. No more than 507 years and no less than 407 years, this being the two thousand and seventh year Anno Domini
End Chat Log
And that's a blocked for the win ladies and gentlemen.
I am Homo sapiens sapiens descendant of H. erectus and H. habilis . My people are masters of fire and steel, water and air, of the very energies of the storms themselves. I am heir to two and a half million years of tool users, and more than a million and a half years of weapon makers. Thus I find it ridiculous that you would suggest we use our hands in a fight. When I come for you, I shall come bearing the harnessed fires of Hell itself.
MIddle of the year reading list.
Oops, forgot to post this in April. That's okay though, since I haven't read all that many new books this year.
Also? Firefox's dictionary doesn't recognize okay.
1 A Fistful of Data Stephen Dedman Hurm, well, it is a shadowrun novel that isn’t a direct riff on Gibson. Sadly, I liked the one that was a direct riff on Gibsion much better. The “party” was a little bit off, especially with their focus on non-lethals (the Mercs they were fighting would have cleaned up against the squatters.) Oh well, a fun bit of fluff.
2 The Jennifer Morgue Charles Stross. British intelligence meets lovecraft. This one had fewer laugh out loud bits than the first one (The Atrocity Archives) and the best turns of phrase were all near the end, but this did some really nice riffing on the James Bond themes, though I think that maybe the part where the characters discuss the riffs on the James Bond theme was questionable. (Oh I admit, I’m not familiar enough with JB to have picked out the variations that they talked about, and I suspect that most of the audience wouldn’t be either. That said, it strained the fourth wall to the breaking point.) Still a damned good book, with [DELETED FOR SPOILERIFICNESS]. Also, this wasn’t really the second book I read this year, just the second new book. I reread the Belgariad in-between. Still too few books for Early March of a new year, but better than 2.
3. Childe Morgan Katherine Kurtz. Good. I still wanted a new Kelson book, and the title character reached the venerable age of 4 by the last page, but I liked it better than the first in this set. I really hope that the next one covers his teen years and Brian’s young adulthood. (And the Priest whose name escapes me at the moment’s becoming a priest.) Also, I look greatly forward to watching Nigel grow up in the next book.
4. Time Travellers Pay Only Cash Spider Robinson This is supposed to be a Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon book, except that only half of the book is Callahan’s stories, and a fair chunk of what is left is not even non-Callahan’s stories, but essays. Including one of the pieces that establishes Robinson as Heinlein’s hagiographer, though to be fair, this particular essay was written for the book published as a remembrance of RAH. All in all, I thought this was fairly weak for a CCS book,
5. Gust Front John Ringo Military infatuation SF. Took me long enough to hunt down a copy (especially since it was published. For Free. On the Baen Free Library CDs.
5. When the Devil Dances John Ringo More military infatuation SF. I’m enjoying it, though I suspect that the series won’t end to my satisfaction.
6. Command Decision Elizabeth Moon
7. The Hero John Ringo and Michael Williamson Well, set a thousand years in the future of the setting of five, and I can now say that no, it didn’t though the setting is interesting. On the other hand, a thousand years of research and development ought to have brought them further than it did, especially with tame Postileen to add to the exchange of ideas (and the subjugation of the elf folks due to the fact that they directed the war to leave humanity broken at the end of the war.)
8, Deliverer C.J.Cherryh Well, more of what we expect from Bran and the horse people
9. Prodigal By the person who wrote hammerjack. Liked this one at least as much as the last. Seriously I do read non-military and or non-intelligence agency SF. I swear.
10. St. Patrick’s Gargoyle Katherine Kurtz. Um, I’d been saving this for when I got a strong urge to read more Kurtz. I haven’t read the adept books and really ought to someday, but I’ve been wanting to (do something) (Can’t remember what I was going to say
11. Off Armageddon Reef David Webber. Er, Mr Webber sure likes to rewrite the Hornblower books. This one has sailing ships.
12. Furies of Calderon Jim Butcher I grabbed this one because I wanted to read something by Butcher, but my library only has the 7th Dresden Files book (which I’ve already read.) Good. Very different from his detective novels. But different good, not different what the hell is wrong with you man, the old formula fits your style and this doesn’t!
13. The Android’s Dream John Scalzi. YANJSBTIWWTAL. Detectives, intrigue, shooty bits. Also, a nearly extinct breed of sheep and a would be alien overlord.
14. Storm Front (DF1) Jim Butcher
15. Fool Moon (DF2) Jim Butcher
16. Grave Peril (DF3) Jim Butcher
17. Summer Knight (DF4) Jim Butcher
18. Death Masks (DF5) Jim Butcher
19. Blood Rites (DF 6) Jim Butcher
20. Proven Guilty (DF8) Jim Butcher
21. White Night (DF9) Jim Butcher
22. Restoration of Faith and Something Borrowed (DF 0 and 7.5, short stories) Jim Butcher
So I read these straight through over about 4 days. Way better than the last series of mystery/detective/whatever books I read (Stephanie Plum.) Harry is more competent, way more faithful when he is in a sexual relationship with someone, and just a more interesting person than Stephanie. Also, he suffers real consequences for his actions. A few minor complaints. 1 The Fallen Storyline in book nine was resolved way too quickly for this series’ pace. The gun wasn’t fired in act 3, it was fired right after it was pointed out. Harry needs to hurry up and either give the sword to Murphy or start boinking her (his word) or ideally both. I mean sure Butcher is setting up the whole Arthurian line for her, but enough is enough. Hee book nine of approximately 20+3! Yay!
23 Academ’s Fury Jim Butcher
24 Cursor’s Fury Jim Butcher
I often forgot that I was reading something by the same author as the Dresden Files (I did the same with the Wolf books and A Brother’s Price by Wen Spencer.) I liked both sets muchly.
25 Blood Name Robert Thurston. I read the first book in this set years and years ago. It is battle tech, mostly set before and during the Clan Invasion from the view point of a member of Jade Falcon. Honestly? These books fall prey to the same weakness that a lot of game fiction (and a lot of non-game fiction) do. Books one and two spend way too much time paraphrasing the descriptions of various things from the setting books. (In the case of Battletech Fiction, that goes both ways. Sometimes descriptions from books are co-opted for manuals.) It wasn’t quite as bad as Faith and Fire where the characters were carefully stated to have exactly the load outs that were listed in the codex and much of the description came directly out of the codex’s fluff text.)
26. Falcon Guard Robert Thurston Some of the same problems as the first two, though with less “it came from the rulebook” stuff in it and tighter plotting and writing. Not as good as the later Grey Death Legion stuff or the best of the TSR books, but much better than the first two.
27. Mutineer’s Moon David Webber
28. The Armageddon Inheritance David Webber
29. Heirs of Empire David Webber
These three are a trilogy together. Fun reads... themes that Webber has explored in depth. Glad I read Off Armageddon Reef fist, or it would have felt like more of a rehash than it did. (Webber has no less than 3 distinct settings where characters uplift a society’s weapon making to something just before the Napoleonic Wars. Two of them make an attempt to produce smaller versions of Horatio Hornblower’s style of navy. (The third set? Patience. They are 30,31,32,and 33.) By the way, the black power warfare in this series is actually only book 3. Book two is a hidden invaders story and book 2 is an endless hordes of aliens that must be stopped, but act in particularly silly manners story. Book 3 is the shipwrecked in a world wide theocracy story, one that feels very much like Off Armageddon Reef.)
30 March Upcountry John Ringo and David Webber
31 March to the Sea John Ringo and David Webber
32 March to the Stars John Ringo and David Webber
33 We Few John Ringo and David Webber
Shipwrecked. Endless Combat turns spoiled prince into bloodthirsty killing machine who gets the job done at any cost. 8 months of Endless Combat does the opposite to a number of his body guards. Stone age to early black powder natives and an endless succession of localized uplifting from a pike and shield unit from warriors to arbuquses to rifles and proper cannons as they walk across a continent. Political upheaval and space navies in the last book. Space combat that is remarkably similar to the Harrington books. (no surprise there.) These books probably sparked much of the research that lead to the ones above and Off Armageddon Reef.
34 Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall Bill Willingham et al. This is a prequel to the Fables comics with a framing story set several hundred years earlier and a bunch of sub stories set throughout the history of the fable worlds. It was enough to convince me to add it (the comics) to my “hunt down as soon as you have money again” list.
35 Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. Cory Doctorow See 36 for my hagiography of Cory. This book is an incredibly cool mixture of developing culture and mythmaking. (At least I think the son of the mountain and a washing machine are new bits of myth. It feels like Gaiman’s American Gods mythology but created from whole cloth.) GO check it out from his website (www.craphound.com,) then go buy your own copy.
36 Overclocked Cory Doctorow Hum. Award winning author. Postpost cyberpunk. Cory is an active member of the free as in speech movement, working against people who would prefer all expression to come at the sole control of major media cartels. Open internet, communications systems that aren’t controlled or owned by governments or cartels, a dozen other things. Cory is also a damned good writer from the generation that’s giving us Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, Sarah Monette, and John Scalzi (I know there is some time overlap, and I’m being research lazy). He’s a proponent of creative commons, and before I’d ever picked up any of his books, I’d been reading his work on boingboing. This collection of short stories is, as expected, excellent.
37 Breakfast With the Ones You Love Eliot Fintushel Urban Fantasy. Home made Talmudic space ships. Looks that kill. Teen Angst. Russian Mafia. Boxing. Bringing about the Eschaton. A talking cat. A good deal of fun within these pags.
38. Making Comics Scott McCloud. This is Scott at his best. Witty, excited, full of the promise of the media and new technologies, lucid and coherent, grounded. There are hundreds of how to draw comics books. There are many fewer on the craft and art of all of the other tasks. Only part of a book though. The rest is online, though I haven’t read it. Liked this one almost as much as Understanding Comics.
39. What if the Moon Didn’t Exist? Neilf Comins A double handful of what if scenarios about the formation of the earth and how small (and large) changes would influence the development of life on earth. Pretty good. A couple points here and there that could go either way, but then that is always the danger in speculating about things like changes propagating through deep time.
40. Mystic and Rider Sharon Shinn Fun read. Actually grabbed this one because the cover of the second or possibly third book grabbed my attention. Fantasy novel with a romance sub plot. Hope it stays that way. (I have read too many series like that where they spiraled into Romance Novels with fantasy trappings by the 3rd or 4th books. We’ll see.) The first one is worth a read at least. (The worldbuilding exposition/dialogue thingy at the beginning was a little clumsy, but I don’t think that there is any really good way to do an info dump, and false transparency is apparently in vogue at the present. Personally? I’d prefer narrator asides *coughcoughHeinleincoughcoughLynchcoughcough* Not that anything I’ve ever written with a “here’s how the world works dialogue worked as well as this one.
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