stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Books read in June 2009

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:07:00 GMT

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The Wild Palms Hotel

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:25:00 GMT

When leaving the US, I stayed in the Wild Palms Hotel. I selected it for three reasons: I'd stayed there before; it is part of the Joie De Vivre chain which I have had good experiences with before; and it was very cheap on Expedia ($77 compared to an average rate in the area of about $150). I learnt some interesting things I thought I'd share:

The hotel is ok, just make sure you get an upstairs room. I was woken by mating elephants at 5am two days running because the floors are so thin. Be the mating elephant, not the victim of it! Once I moved to an upstairs room this probably went away.
The executive rooms aren't worth it. I got moved into one of these because of the noise problems. Its advantages was it was away form the road, had a bathrobe (really), and a LCD TV. I don't watch TV much, so the extra cost if I was paying isn't worth it.
The cleaning service kept "short sheeting" the bed. By short sheeting I mean pulled the sheets up to make the top of the bed look impressive, but leaving the bottom couple of inches of the mattress uncovered. Lots of hotels do this, and I find it crazily annoying.
The air conditioner was insanely loud. It was 38 when I was staying there, and every time the air conditioner kicked in I would be woken up by it.
Its a lot further south than I realized. It took about 20 minutes to get to work if you took El Camino. Depending on traffic its probably much faster to go all the way to the 101 and then take that. The Lawrence Expressway looks like the best way to get to the 101 from the hotel.

So, overall this hotel was "ok", apart from some minor annoyances. I'll keep staying there so long as they're cheap. If they're not running a special, then you're much better off staying further north.

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Bolos 4: Last Stand

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:27:00 GMT

ISBN: 0671877607
Baen (1997), Mass Market Paperback, 432 pages
LibraryThing

This book continues on from many of the previous short stories, which is a nice touch. It also starts to fill in some of the historical gaps between the collapse of US society (night of the trolls), to the Concordiat Empire, to the Melconian wars. I found one story in this book pretty hard to read, but that's mainly because its about a small child risking death from basically crazies. That story was good, just a bit close to the bone for me. I liked this book, which isn't a surprise because I have liked all the others as well.

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Bolos 3: The Triumphant

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:49:00 GMT

ISBN: 067187683X
LibraryThing

This book is a little different from Bolos 1 and Bolos 2 in that it is several short novels instead of a collection of short stories. On the other hand, they're very good short novels, and I quite liked Nike's character. I'm glad I read this book.

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The Book of General Ignorance

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:45:00 GMT

ISBN: 0307394913
Harmony (2007), Hardcover, 288 pages
LibraryThing

I seem to be on a bit of a trivia book kick, which is at least partially motivated by getting through all my Christmas presents so I can pack them into a box and move to a different country. This book was written as part of the production of the very excellent BBC quiz show Quite Interesting and is quite a contrast from the extremely average Why Do Men Have Nipples that I just finished reading. This book feels well researched, and is on par with Why Don't Penguin's Feet Freeze, although the style is quite different (the New Scientist book offers multiple answers for each question, and is written by real scientists in the fields discussed, this book flows as one manuscript). I suspect it helps here to have seen the quiz show, because many of the other reviews I have seen online complain about the style of the book, which reads in much the same manner as Stephen Fry's commentary during the program. If you're familiar with the format, then the book flows quite nicely (whereas if you haven't, you might end up why the book jumps around so much). I really liked this book.

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Why do men have nipples?

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:57:00 GMT

ISBN: 1400082315
Three Rivers Press (2005), Edition: 1, Paperback, 224 pages
LibraryThing

This book is pretty light weight. The font is big, and there is lots of "chrome" on the pages, which conspire to make a book which would probably be only 100 pages in a normal font more like 200 pages. The book also suffers from trying a little too hard to be funny, with numerous interruptions for the authors to tell you how terribly clever they are. Its annoying quite quickly. The answers also aren't as detailed and believable as those found to similar questions in "Why don't penguin's feet freeze? (and 114 other questions)", the New Scientist book I just finished reading. I'd say go with the New Scientist book if you're buying something, but read this if you're given it.

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Isaac Asimov's Robot City: Robots and Aliens: Alliance

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:34:00 GMT

ISBN: 0441731309
Ace (1990), Paperback
LibraryThing

Given how disappointed I have been in other books in this series, I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The style is very readable, and the content is interesting. The plot seems more nuanced than some o f the others in the series, and the characters aren't as one dimensional either. This isn't the best book I have ever read, but it was surprisingly solid, especially given some of the poor ground work it h ad to deal with.

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Why don't penguin's feet freeze? (and 114 other questions)

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:46:00 GMT

ISBN: 1416541462
Free Press (2007), Paperback, 224 pages
LibraryThing

This book was really fun. Its a collection of 115 questions sent into New Scientist magazine, and the answers provided by other readers. Sometimes the answers and sarcastic or funny, and sometimes they are incredibly detailed. I found this book really interesting to read, and I certainly picked up some trivial to annoy my wife along the way. Excellent.

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Bolos 2: The Unconquerable

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:06:00 GMT

ISBN: 0671876295
Baen (1994), Mass Market Paperback, 288 pages
LibraryThing

This is another collection of short stories involving Laumer's Bolo artificially intelligent super tanks. None of these stories are written by Laumer, but they are written by some very good SF authors. I enjoyed the collection, although I do think Honor of the Regiment was marginally better.

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Books read in May2009

Sat, 30 May 2009 22:23:00 GMT

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Bolos 1: Honor of the Regiment

Sat, 30 May 2009 22:18:00 GMT

ISBN: 0671721844
Baen (1993), Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
LibraryThing

I'm quite partial to the idea of artificially intelligent super tanks. I think they'd simplify my social life quite a lot, for example. I'm also partial to short story collections, and this book is both of those. The short stories are written by some excellent authors as well, which certainly helps. This book continues on from The Compleat Bolo, although Laumer didn't write any of the stories in this book. The stories follow two main patterns -- long retired tanks which the locals don't trust until they save the day; and stories about active combat. I guess that means you have to like war stories for these to work for you -- the stories are quite similar to David Drake's in that regard. Excellent, quick read.

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A Time of Omens

Fri, 29 May 2009 21:08:00 GMT

ISBN: 0553290118
Spectra (1993), Mass Market Paperback, 432 pages
LibraryThing

This is the sixth book in the not-very-finished Deverry celtic fantasy series. This one is pretty good, especially because it has several subplots, which makes it feel more like a few shorter books in one volume. That means you don't lose your place in a 400 page story line as you go along. I'm a fan of the intermingled plot lines style (Tom Clancy does it quite well too), and it works well in this book. This book follows a subset of the usual characters, although some of the older ones have moved on, so to speak.

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Taking over a launch pad project

Wed, 27 May 2009 07:35:00 GMT

A while ago Thomas Mashos registered a launch pad project for MythNetTV (here for those that care). Launch pad annoys me quite a bit, although thats probably because I'm failing to understand how to use it in some way. So, perhaps people have guidance for me. Some questions:

How do I take over ownership of the project?
How do I mark bugs as resolved / fixed / finalized? They just seem to hang around in "fix committed".
How do I delete a blueprint that someone submitted that isn't going to get implemented?
Given I wrote all the code, and fixed all the bugs, how come someone who writes a two paragraph blueprint that is never going to get implemented gets more Karma than me? Not that I think the Karma system really matters, but it does seem ridiculous.
How do I tell launchpad the code is stored in an external SVN repository?

Here's hoping someone can make launch pad less annoying for me.

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Galactic Dreams

Fri, 22 May 2009 08:52:00 GMT

ISBN: 0812550587
Tor Books (1995), Mass Market Paperback, 222 pages
LibraryThing

This is a relatively short collection of Harry Harrison short stories. They are:

I always do what Teddy says: what happens when we abdicate teaching our youngsters moral values to machine, and then don't test that the machine is working correctly? A short story about unit testing?
Space rats of the CCC: this story is just silly. Its a little bit like Bill the Galactic Hero in style, but also a little bit annoying. It didn't really work for me.
Down to earth: I'm sure I've read this basic plot line about a billion times, for example Hawk Among the Sparrows being just one example. This one didn't even have a good twist at the end.
A criminal act: Harrison feels strongly about population grow (see also Make Room, Make Room!). Its pretty obvious in this story, although its not as preachy as Make Room, Make Room.
Famous first words: I actually really liked this one.
The Pad - a story of the day after the day after tomorrow: seducing women is hard work for billionaires, apparently.
If: a pretty standard "don't alter the time lines" tale, with a small if predictable twist.
Mute Milton: what important discoveries have been lost through the ages through racism or accident?
Simulated trainer: this is an interesting story -- I quite like the concept, and the execution is more believable than most Harrison stories.
At last, the true story of Frankenstein: this is a good story too, with a nice twist at the end.
The robot who wanted to know: a pretty classic robot story, which could just as easily fit in an Asimov collection as a Harrison collection. I'm quite partial to robot stories, and I enjoyed it.
Bill the Galactic Hero's happy holiday: I've previous complained about the overall style of the Bill the Galactic Hero series. I think it works better as a short story than a novel, because the level of annoyance it develops in the reader is smaller. This was actually better than the novel length Bill stories that I've read so far.

Overall, a solid collection, but not startlingly good.

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Deathworld Three

Tue, 19 May 2009 21:39:00 GMT

ISBN: 0722144180
LibraryThing

I thought this one didn't sound as good as the others, but I was wrong. Its quite different from the other two in its setting, but its still the same romping Harrison style that I like. A little bit unlikely, quite sweeping in scope, and interesting. I liked it.

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Dragonquest

Sun, 17 May 2009 18:58:00 GMT

ISBN: 0345284259
Del Rey (1979), Mass Market Paperback
LibraryThing

This is the sequel to Dragonflight. To be honest, I think Dragonflight is a better book, although this one is by no means bad. I suspect part of my problem with this book is that I found Kylara insanely annoying (which I was meant to). Every time her character popped up it made the book hard to read until she went away again. This is a good interesting book, and I'm looking forward to the later books in the series when you find out more about the settlement of Pern.

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Early Father's day

Sat, 16 May 2009 18:21:00 GMT

The kids aren't going to be in the same country as me for US father's day (I get two this year!), so they gave me my present early. I now have a complete set of UK police riot armor -- the helmet, shield, and leg protectors. This has already come in handy whilst parenting hyperactive children. I wonder if its legal for me to own such things in Australia?

Digging a bit further, it appears:

Possessing soft body armor (for example ballistic Kevlar) is illegal in the ACT except for those employed by licensed security organizations -- PROHIBITED WEAPONS REGULATION 1997, section 12.

In fact, the Commonwealth customs regulations mostly seem concerned with the possession or import of armor intended to stop bullets -- CUSTOMS (PROHIBITED IMPORTS) AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 2005 (NO. 4) (SLI NO 249 OF 2005)

I can't see any mention of riot armor (which wouldn't stop a bullet) though, nor a reference to militaria, apart from militaria fairs needing a permit. I wonder if anyone else has thoughts on this?

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CCD Barcode Scanner

Thu, 14 May 2009 21:46:00 GMT

I just picked up a CCD barcode scanner cheaply on eBay. The plan is to use it to bulk enter a bunch of books into my book database. Many US books don't have bookland barcodes, but instead have something which looks like this:

So, the barcode has no problems with the big barcode on the left, however it doesn't recognize the little barcode on the right. So, does anyone know what format that little barcode is in? What mode do I need to put my barcode scanner into to get both barcodes read, either at the same time or individually?

Update: once again the Intern has earn his Intern-chow (or whatever it is he eats when he's allowed out of his cage). The deal was I needed to scan the magic "make all possible barcode types work kthxbye" barcode in the book of exactly 1 billion configuration barcodes. It all works well now. I wont mention the Intern's name, because I want to hire him and need more security through obscurity in my life.

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LinkedIn and Facebook

Tue, 12 May 2009 19:48:00 GMT

I just went through and dealt with my huge (some from 2006!) backlog of LinkedIn and Facebook invites. I'm terrible with names, so if I mis-rejected someone I apologize. I'm also trying to keep FB and LinkedIn separate -- LinkedIn is for people I know professionally, and Facebook is for people I don't mind telling about my hat collection.

I am sure you found this post enthralling. That is all.

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Dragonflight

Mon, 11 May 2009 21:02:00 GMT

ISBN: 0345335465
Ballantine Books (1986), Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
LibraryThing

This is the first book in the Dragons of Pern series, which I read a small part of as a child. Given that they're still being written, its not surprising that I'm pretty out of date on this series. This book is excellent for a few reasons -- the idea is unique and well implemented; its an amazing mix of fantasy with science fiction style justifications for the way things are; and its well written. The underlying premise is that a planet named Pern as a nearly neighbor on an eccentric orbit. When that neighbor comes near to Pern, spores from the other planet try to land on Pern. These spores breed by eating organic life, so they need to be neutralized or life on Pern will cease. There are however a few patches I had to re-read to make full sense of. I really liked this book.

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