The flooded dragon podcast planet of Freon
A year after having it loaned to me, I have finally picked up and read “Eldest” by Christopher Paolini. This book is the sequel to “Eragon”, which I found to be enjoyable, if lacking in originality. “Eldest” is more of the same; I’d suggest it to any reader I know, with the caveat that they shouldn’t expect anything mind-blowing. The writing is good, and the characters are interesting, which is more than many fantasy books can claim.
Still, one day I want to read a high fantasy novel where the elves are short-lived and highly industrial, if not technological. Perhaps the ancient lost civilization that left behind all the ruins and dungeons could be one of humans, or lizard men, or Things We Barely Understand instead of the freakin’ elves again. And hey, how about hippie, type B dwarves that live simple lives of farming and woodcarving? You get my drift, here?
We lived through Ernesto – our house was never in danger, though I did lose power halfway through my morning webcomic troll. Driving to work was a dumb idea – two different blocks were flooded, and when the tires stop making the “zzziiiisssshhh” noise and begin making the “blubble-blurble-splep-blobble” noise, the water’s too deep – but dumb luck saved me, and the drive home was a little better. The yard looks a bit battered, though.
The International Astronomers Union voted last week that Pluto isn’t a full planet, but a “dwarf planet”. They did this in part because Pluto’s moon, Charon, is almost the same size as Pluto and might have deserved planet status; and a more distant body in our solar system, “2003 UB313”, is even larger and might have been awarded the same privileges. “2003 UB313” has been nicknamed “Xena” by its discoverer, and no stuffy astronomers’ group is going to sit still for “Planet Xena”. (The nickname is unofficial, but may well stick.) (And yes, Xena has a satellite… Gabrielle.)
Pluto, Charon, Xena, and the asteroid Ceres all qualify for “dwarf planet” status under the IAU’s new rules. I say Pluto still deserves the love, and we all know what’s a planet and what’s an asteroid, whatever they say. Manned mission to Planet Xena!
Podcast recommendations of the day: Taverncast, for WoW players; not only is the material useful and interesting, but it’s presented in a very light-hearted, entertaining manner by the hosts. Also, Geek Counterpoint, for those with a science bent; much drier in tone, but still well-presented and interesting – my interest was caught by the episode on inflatable spacecraft. Seriously.
The Hyundai is very mad at me right now. The dash clock and stereo are cutting out intermittently (and separately), the a/c has stopped working (and with it, my defogger, which has made driving in the rain interesting), and my temperature gauge is running high. Given how much of the car is factory-sealed, that may mean a trip to the dealership. 🙁
I may finally attend a NekoCon this year, given that it’s right on my doorstep and all. Thinking about it.
Radio over Wires
I’m very addicted to podcasts now: working through the backlog of the cool ones I’ve found is really helping me get through my work day.
It’s all the fault of the Fragile Gravity podcast at http://unseenllc.com/feed/glidepath.xml – of course I’d want to hear what kittykatya and impink were up to.
Then, as I realized that one show per week or so wasn’t going to feed my addiction properly, I stumbled upon World of Warcast – a fun, casual hour of lvl 40s and 50s talking and goofing off about Blizzard’s little life-sucker.
A link from an astronomy website drew me to Slacker Astronomy, where you don’t have to be a hardcore space geek, but you do have to have a goofy sense of humor.
And now, well, I’m hooked. The iTunes music store offers hundreds of free podcasts, ranging from language lessons in Japanese to video podcasts of French Maids explaining XML coding. You don’t have to have iTunes or even an MP3 player – there’s lots of software which’ll let you subscribe and listen from your desktop machine.
So that’s the morning post; I need to finish loading Steve Jackson Games’ new Fnordcast onto the iPod and leave for work…
Space Thoughts
Ahh… a nice road-ragey morning. Rather than rant about it, though, I’m going to let it wash right over me.
After months of procrastination, I have cleaned up my office. There’s a four-foot-square floor-to-ceiling stack of boxed books and models in one corner, but at least I can use the rest of the space now. I look forward to getting a real computer desk to replace the wheeled cart I’m using at the moment.
Jo and her son Danny and I watched “Cosmic Voyage” last night, which was a updated version of the classic “Powers of 10” educational film plus some material on the ongoing history of the universe. It was narrated by Morgan Freeman, so you couldn’t go wrong. We were discussing the ‘life on other planets’ issue – with a hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone, it would be amazing if the intelligent life thing had only worked out one single time – and I brought up an article of faith on my part: cool science-fiction movies aside, any race which manages to reach the stars will have matured far beyond the desire to invade us, mutilate our cows, make circles in our fields, and probe our lower GI tracts. Jo pointed out quite correctly that we were close to reaching the stars, on a universal timescale, and we hadn’t matured to that level yet; my heartfelt response was that if the human race doesn’t put its house in order really damn soon, travelling to the stars will be quite the moot point.
I really could have sworn I had a lot more to talk about this morning. Maybe it was mostly the road-rage. Oh, well – if anything comes back to me, it’s not like I won’t be in front of a keyboard all day.
Borgus Reviews of Literature
Finally caught up on my reading this weeked… finished re-reading “The Barsoom Project”, read “Idoru” and “Snow Crash”, and checked out some half-remembered passages in “1984”.
“Barsoom Project” is one of my favorite books – it’s set at a Disneyish corporation that runs incredibly realistic Live-Action Role Playing games in a pair of titanic Star Trek-style holodecks. (Paid for by the movie they’ll edit out of the footage, the home game cassettes, and the novels and tie-ins.) It’s three stories at once – you want to find out how the LARP will work out, who commited the act of industrial espionage that drove one of the last group of players insane, and what the game controllers will do when that player inexplicably pops up again in this run-through of the LARP.
“Idoru” is the sixth William Gibson book I’ve read, and the third in a row that I just didn’t like. In “Difference Engine”, “Virtual Light”, and “Idoru”, he writes of helpless characters who mostly stand around open-mouthed as the book happens around them. It’s kind of dull, and uninteresting… you finish the book thinking, “what was that about, and why would I care?” It’s a darn shame, ’cause “Neuromancer” was so good.
“Snow Crash”, on the other hand, more than made up for that. Excellent humor, interesting characters who matter greatly to the plot, intelligent writing, and intriguing speculation about the fragmentation of human language. I just told a friend that the story “begins with a guy who delivers pizza for the Mafia, and ends with a futuristic Ted Turner’s attempts to enslave the population of the world”. If this is the quality of the author’s work, then I am absolutely picking up “Cryptonomicon” as my friends have been advising me.
Finally, after looking at the portions of “1984” where George Orwell (as Emmanuel Goldstein) describes the method by which the Party came to power and maintains it, I have arrived at the uneasy conclusion that the world is still traveling smoothly in that direction, just a lot of years behind schedule. However, I can’t think of a dang thing I can do about it, so I’m not going to stay up nights worrying about it.
Oh yeah, and I finally beat a sub-boss in the fifth act of Diablo 2 that has been giving me serious trouble on “Nightmare” difficulty. So that’s good.
Left the geeks alone in the lab again, huh?
Looks like some folks are doing early warp dynamics studies on the upgraded Constitution-class vessels…
You can check out the results at the University of Queensland’s Laser Diagnostics site.
The Vulcan databases have no such record…
Woohoo! I’m in the top 15 members of the SETI @ VTSFFC project!
If I’m the first to find E.T., I’ll introduce him to all of you. 🙂
“I just love scanning for lifeforms!”
All right! I’ve made it into the top 20 members of the SETI @ VTSFFC project! (Okay, so there are only 26 members in the first place… but I’m making progress!)
