Magnus somno

I some­how nev­er got to read­ing any of Ray­mond Chan­dler when I was younger. I sup­pose it’s too much pulp for High School Eng­lish. I…

I’m still a fan

I’m still a fan.

Of the three Vinge nov­els I’ve read, I think this is my third favorite, which of course sounds as though it was dis­ap­point­ing. It was not. With intrigu­ing ideas, well-thought-out sce­nar­ios, mul­ti­di­men­sion­al char­ac­ters and keen pac­ing, I’d rec­om­mend The Peace War to any­one I liked. 

Yet, some of the themes were cer­tain­ly famil­iar, the char­ac­ters were per­haps not all as fleshed out as they could have been, and nowhere did the clever ideas make my mind reel from forced par­a­digm shift the way that A Fire Upon The Deep or A Deep­ness in The Sky did.

The importance of being wild

This is a high­ly enter­tain­ing, if breezy, col­lec­tion of anec­dotes that amounts to a teary-eyed bit of hero wor­ship. Hayes loves his superla­tives and never…

There’s Still No Silver Bullet

I read this in hopes that it would mag­i­cal­ly make me a bet­ter devel­op­er, but alas, there is no sil­ver bullet.

The arti­cles were inter­est­ing and some of the mate­r­i­al is applic­a­ble to the kind of work I do, but most of the book real­ly is aimed at plan­ners of large-scale projects involv­ing thou­sands of pro­gram­mers. «Scal­ing down» to mod­u­lar 10-per­son teams does­n’t help when you’re push­ing to get a third part-timer on your team.

Quality Reading

What I am is a heretic who’s recant­ed, and there­by in every­one’s eyes saved his soul. Every­one’s eyes but one, who knows deep down inside…

Biker undercover

The com­bi­na­tion seemed per­fect for me: a true-crime sto­ry about an agent infil­trat­ing a motor­cy­cle gang. This kept my atten­tion well, and for good reason.…

Book #13 This Year

A delight­ful mem­oir with abun­dant dos­es of his­tor­i­cal tid­bits about motor­cy­cling. Yeah, I know. I’m div­ing in, and even when I’m not on the bike now I’m read­ing about rid­ing. Well, so be it. Next on my read­ing list is Zen and the Art of Motor­cy­cle Main­te­nance which I read a long long time ago, and Hel­l’s Angels. But I might fin­ish up some of my oth­er books first.

What sci-fi oughtta be

I tried to describe what I liked about this book by telling my father, «it’s con­fus­ing.» I’m not sure that I made any sense then,…