Stross Equiod: A Rambling review.

Okay I'm amused when a writer who has a series that's basically   HP Lovecraft  Applied Mathematics;  Comp Sci division who devotes much of an entire short story to mocking Lovecraft.

(Not just his purple prose and the man's... issues).

But more taking the piss of the man's creative chops and bemoaning his literary influence (this particular series is first person so it's a bit difficult to separate author from character).

Then I realized that it was tongue-in-cheek.   And that the main character was being a wanker.  The real penny drop came when someone had to explain to him r/K selection theory.

Terminology that said character immediately started using like it was old hat.

Said character then started having his own "apocalyptic journal" get infested with purple prose and tacitly admit that Lovecraft's own narrative was actually correct.

So this is my roundabout way of saying that Stross' Equoid was rather amusing.

Though man...   Stross needs to take a holiday somewhere and get some trigger time to add a touch of verisimilitude to his work.  While it's great that his main character has become less of a "I don't like guns" weenie as he's matured (Yeah Bob, if you're a bloody necromancer working for nasty secret intelligence you don't get to whine about having to use a gun).

And that's not even getting into the...  CisBritish goodthinker politics that seems so quaint when put in well....    Applied Mathematics Lovecraftian Horror.

Book Review over at Erin's

Erin's hosting a review I did of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One.

Go and read.   And then go read her musings on the link between Christmas and zombie movies.

Redshirts and SF Debris...

So I've been watching the scifi reviews on SF Debris

The guy has a good style and an interesting perspective onto the plot, behind the scenes, and symbolism of the various shows.

But I was struck by how got awful the various Star Trek series were. Especially Voyager.

This meshed quite well with Scalzi's latest book: Redshirts.

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Reading the book while watching these reviews, especially Voyager's Latent Image serve as great examples of the creative failures that are technobabble and killing of bit characters for increased drama.

The voyager episode I link is particularly blatant about it, but that vast majority of the episodes all work that way.

And while Scalzi's satire has elements from the whole of the Star Trek franchise (such as being the fleet flagship), scifi geeks should be able to readily recall the Voyager's ship class.

Looking into Sea Org

Here's an interview of Kate Bornstein author of A Queer and Pleasant Danger. Her memoir of the time she spent in Scientology's floating fleet "Sea Org". Though at the time she was a he.

Yes Bornstein has lead a very intersting life. As a check of her others books will tell.

The interview gives a taste of the almost surreal strangeness of the world of Scientology. I've added to to my amazon queue and am curious as to the rest of the story.

What struck me was the "anthropology" of Scientology. As a group they have their own customs, social ques, linguistics, and ethical and moral framework. It's also interesting because it was created within living memory and has shifted noticeably over that period.

It really is a religion as thought up by a Science fiction author that ended up getting enough disciples that he was able to build a fleet populated solely by his own people.

There's also some of the frankly creepy aspects like Operation Snow White, billion year service contracts, and an organized method of shunning and breaking off all contact of any and all apostates.

Compared to stuff like that paying ten thousand dollars to get audited and cleared for super powers, and having a plan of global (multi global) domination seems almost quaint.

Though I would not take Scientology as a joke. Consider what happened to another woman that published a book critical of Scientology.

Via PJM

Rule 34 & The Future of Gun Control

Small world, Roberta X just finished Stross' Rule 34

I did too a couple days ago, and that gave me the push to write my own thoughts on the book.

Roberta: "It's a sort of cyberdectective novel, but very different. And it's set in Scotland, so it might as well be on Ganymede..."

No kidding, the cyber-future version of the Scotland:
* Euro-philic (euros only please),
* Green-lovin'(not a dimplomat? then you can't have a car),
* Security state (the State watches everything you browse do and build can't have you making guns boyo),
* "Responsible" corporatism (Precrime has been brought to the corporate world with auditors pouring over companies that are "irresponsible" with their "corporate personhood". So don't even *think* about "immoral" layoffs or outsourcing. So corporations have to pledge their allegiance to the State? Huh, familiar.),
* Nationalized supermarkets (because they took out nearly every other shop in the nation and were deemed "too big to fail"),
* Totally disamred (having a gun is likened to having child porn)

Yeah, it's pretty alien.


Oh and while they have drug legalization, heroin smuggling is still very proffitable and making your own meth is quite illegal. Maybe the former is a revenuer situation and the latter is a safety situation. Or maybe the State doesn't want you having your own supply of "candy" and wants the State-Owned Tesco your only sorce.

Speaking of that Scotland is independent... sort of, but still depends on England for defense and is subsumed into the Greater European Union. Reading it I got an eerie feeling of those late 80's scifi authors who talked about the USSR.


Reading it, I thought it was an okay book, a bit too "by the numbers" for Stross: too similar to its predecessor "Halting State". Then the ending came and it all clicked. And his choices of narrative strcuture and perspective became abundantly clear. I still think the ending was rushed in execution and rather unpolishsed though, but all in all it was a fun book.


On the other hand, it shows how a hyper gun control state could exist in a world where 3D printers are ubiquitous. For one metal fabrication is a rare thing in that world, two your raw materials are tracked by the goverment (yes plastic pellets are a controled substance), three there's a near constant surveillance state so if you try to use whatever you've fabbed you'll be spotted.


Meanwhile in the US it seems that gun control didn't happen but a 90% top marginal tax rate did. With the expected wealth flight. Amusingly, Stross says that the mass US debt was all due to US imperialism and military spending, and glosses over the debts and resultant taxation European nations would have incurred.

Oh yes, and Scotland still has functional single-payer healthcare. Which is all a piece of the same perspective that felt that all the economic woes were caused purely by greedy irresponsible corporations.

And this really made me chuckle sadly: In one scene two detectives run into a perp on the stairs and they're reduced to trying "good old fisticuffs" against him. Needless to say the perp just womps 'em with a suitcase. That's a pretty good example of how mass disarmament makes bullies into kings.

What makes it more chilling is another character who was afraid of the perp came to one of the cops for protection and stayed with her for a bit. So... if the perp had attacked them... what exactly would the cop have done?

There's also the higher education bubble popping. Where a previously mentioned cop, mid level police inspector, still can't pay off her student loans.

And of course, in the back story there's a paranoid American family that lives out in Nevada on a compound with a bunker. And the father of the family is "a man of faith" with this as his "bible" The End of America: How the Federal Government, the IRS and the Insurance Industry plan to use the UN to Destroy America, and how you can resist.

And that made me really laugh. Given Stross had painted a weakened, impoverished US with hideously high taxes, massive regulation, a fishbowl panopticon. And a Scotland with much the same, save for even more surveillance, no personal car ownership, no guns, company loyalty inspections, and, oh yes, government controlled food distribution.

Yeah... kinda makes a book with a title like that seem pretty sensible.

Still was a fun book, but you may have to put it down every once in a while and shake your head at the dystopia painted within. Not that it's not too far from the current UK.

Lunch and a Book

Today's errands took me to Broadripple and I stopped by Boogie Burger for lunch.

The place is a bit twee (I can only imagine what it was like at it's old location), but the food is quite, quite good. Worth the price (which is quite modest) and the wait (which was short).

Tam is right, the place was full and the burgers are that good.

If you want some burgers, fries, or shakes, that's the place.

While there I read some more of Larry Correia's Hard Magic. I wasn't too keen on Monster Hunter, mostly because I found the characters a bit flat and the villains motivations meh. There was also the tacked on romance that required some headbangingly questionable moves on the part of a woman who just had her soft-of-but-not-yet exboyfriend kidnapped.

However, Hard Magic has deeper characterization overall, and enough gun-porn and historical fanboy squee to make it quite fun to read.

How screwed up is the UK?

Well, even a Knight can't have a sword over there.

Yeah...

Sir Terry Pratchett and a friend made a very impressive sword (scroll down) and now he has to hide it.

Pratchett has stored the sword, which he completed last year, in a secret location, apparently concerned about the authorities taking an interest in it.

He said: "It annoys me that knights aren’t allowed to carry their swords. That would be knife crime."

That's because you're a subject Mr Pratchett. They don't trust you.

But I think he gets that from the second link:

I recognise their tone of voice; it is the headmaster enraged because the fifth form are being cheeky. There is no shame because they know they are right even if, in some cases, they are on the right. Jeers, sneers and smears and, of course, repeatedly, adhominom arguments are all, therefore, fair enough.

In every case there was a chorus that forecast, more or less the end of the world. Well, here we are and if the world is ending it would appear to be for other reasons. People, you and me, are not trusted. The right doesn't like us because we don't do what we're told by our betters, and the left doesn't like us because it secretly thinks we would be on the right given half a chance and a lottery win. And both think we should not make our own decisions, because we might make the wrong ones.

Pratchett's talking about suicide here (something that preys on the mind of a man with a terminal degenerative illness) but it's striking how universal his words are. From a man that wants to be able to kill himself, to a man that wants to be able to defend himself, or have his own money or business.

It all comes down to the State telling you no, "you are not trusted". And thus we have the author who cannot own his own sword and in time (if he lives) will not be trusted with his own money.

Via the Ace of Spades Overnight Thread. Which has quite the British theme tonight.

"Simple" Revolvers and Literate Death

First we've got Tam talking about Revolvers.

Let me tell you something about revolvers: People wax poetic about their ruggedness, reliability and simplicity, but when they call a revolver "simple", it makes me wonder if they've ever had the sideplate off of one. The mechanical ballet going on inside a Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector makes your typical autopistol look like a stone axe by comparison. Further, a revolver demands clearances measured in thousandths at both ends of the cylinder in order for it to turn freely and still function with reliability and accuracy.

It's funny how much of a meme that bit about revolvers being the simple guns is.


Then we've got Joanna with an essay about libraries culling "old books" but it's more than libraries.

My concern about the state of our libraries is not, at its root, for the libraries themselves. It is for what they and their state represent. A well-kept library represents the desire of a community to better itself, to attain knowledge, to learn from the past. The library’s contents show that community’s interests and areas of study. Therefore, culling older materials is an alarming sign, not just because of the loss of available knowledge but because it shows, and I mean this without hyperbole, a point lost on the cosmic scoreboard.

There is a bit of an upside see if you can find it from this bit of the anecdote at the core of the essay.

Recently, I have had quite a few patrons requesting different books such as "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Screwtape Letters" and other classics and I was unable to fulfill their request because libraries either do not have them or are unwilling to loan them out anymore.

Sure libraries have failed in their basic duty, but at least people still want to read those books. That's... something.

And why not here's the decay of basic math, with Tam asking: When did people become unable to make change?

So it goes.

Given these trends I don't think humanity will dived into the Eloi and the Morlocks. No, I think we have the risk of becoming a hybrid. The vapid idle hedonism of the Eli with the angry savagery of the Morlocks.

Guilty Pleasures

John Ringo books have horrible cover art, fairly stock characters, and a pretty basic writing style, but they have very ammusing settings and technologies.

And most importantly the characters despite being stock are enjoyable to read and people you care about and come up with interesting "solutions".

Very pulpy, and a fun way to have your brain go all idle and read about aliens.

A good break from reading various political/historical books, or just blogs, about how we're all doomed.

So far of Ringo's books I've read the Looking Glass series, The Last Centurion, Von Neumann's War, and am reading the March Upcountry series.

I can't speak for the other series he's wrote (or at least cowrote), but those are some plain scifi fun.

I'll go into each in more detail, but I figured something was better than nothing.

More "Cheer"

So at Tam's recommendation, I picked up Dalrymple's Life at the Bottom


It was only now that I got to it in my reading queue. I've just started and it's already a great depression. Dalrymple's thesis is that the West, despite having less poverty in terms of wealth and health among its pour has far greater levels of dysfunction and depravity. And that this is mostly due to the indulgences of the Left intelligentsia in their culture of victimization, identity politics, and general removal of responsibility.

When people are given an inch and told that they are not responsible for their actions they will take advantage of it.


Hmmm.... sounds familiar. I wonder if any other highly liberal places are being subjected to people taking advantage of the leftist system.


Anyway this passage struck me in the Introduction:

A specter is haunting the Western world: the underclass.

This underclass is not poor, at least by the standards that have prevailed through the great majority of human history. It exists, to a varying degree, in all Western societies. Like every other social class, it has benefited enormously from the fast general increase in wealth of the past hundred years. In certain respects indeed, it enjoys amenities and comforts that would have made a Roman emperor, or and absolute monarch gasp, Nor is it politically oppressed: it fears neither to speak its mind nor the midnight knock on the door. Yet its existence is wrenched nonetheless, with a special wretchedness that is peculiarity its own.

Emphasis mine. This book was published in 2001, and that specific bit seems naive today.


Why? Well often it seems that if your house is silently broken into by a gang of armed in the middle of the night it's being done by government agents.

According to surveys of police departments conducted by University of Eastern Kentucky criminologist Peter Kraska, we've seen about a 1,500 percent increase in SWAT deployments in this country since the early 1980s. The vast majority of that increase has been to serve search warrants on people suspected of nonviolent drug crimes. SWAT teams are inherently violent. In some ways they're an infliction of punishment before conviction. This is why they should only be used in situations where the suspect presents an immediate threat to others. In that case, SWAT teams use violence to defuse an already violent situation. When they're used to serve drug warrants for consensual crimes, however, SWAT tactics create violence where no violence was present before.

...

As horrifying as the video from Columbia, Missouri, is, no human beings were killed. The police got the correct address, and they found the man they were looking for. In many other cases, such raids transpire based on little more than a tip from an anonymous or confidential informant.

...

The Columbia raid wasn't even a "no-knock" raid. The police clearly announced themselves before entering. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must knock and announce themselves before entering a home to serve a search warrant. If they want to enter without knocking, they have to show specific evidence that the suspect could be dangerous or is likely to dispose of contraband if police abide by the knock-and-announce rule. As is evident in the Columbia video, from the perspective of the people inside the home that requirement is largely ceremonial. If you were in a backroom of that house, or asleep, it isn't at all difficult to see how you'd have no idea if the armed men in your home were police officers. The first sounds you heard would have been gunfire.

All emphasis added.

Change! So yeah, and it apparently happens 100-150 times every day. But it only happens to the bad guys in the war on drugs, so you don't have to worry. Unless an anonymous or confidential informant fingers you, or the police simply attack the wrong address.

Fun.

And speaking of depressing changes that I learn about via Tam let's end with a link to Mark Steyn using his tricksy math to show that having more babies means having more people, and the implications of such demographic shifts.


This is why I mix up my heavy books with mindless pulpy scifi books.

Review: "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer

Welp this is one of the things I've been wanting to do and have put off.

However, I finally made progress on my library project (another thing I had been dawdling on) and here we go.

This is one of the many books I picked up from Bill Whittle's recomendation list.

"The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer is the story of a French-German who enlists in the wehrmacht and serves in the Eastern Front.

There's some controversy on the historical accuracy of the book. Lazy Wiki link.

But from reading it nothing struck out as false. The story had none of the bravado or "war stories" or Mary Sue nature of a lot of obviously fictional books.

So it could be fake. I don't know.

What I do know is that the book is historically correct on the battles and events, and it gives an amazing feel of the scope, scale, and nature of the Fall part of the "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich".

The Eastern Front doesn't get nearly the coverage of the Western front but it was the dominant part of the European Theater.

If you want a primer on what the mass retreat from the East was like, or how the German war machine was slowly ground down it's recommended.

Something to read.

Via Joanna


Here's an enjoyable little story. Lucky Thirteen by Marko Kloos


My review, but really you should read it first

Very nice work.

Identifiable and steady voice for the narration. Good pacing and strong characterization.

Nice job at building the connection between Halley and Thirteen. A very enjoyable read and one that maintains the suspension of disbelief.

One problem is that it feels like part of a larger work. This is good and bad. It's good that it hints at a larger world and gets the reader into more, but it also feels a bit "lonely".

A bit more rounding out of the world could help. Though that is easy to overdo, and any infodump would detract from the central story.

Which does have a nice timeless nature, another positive.

February BlogMeet at Naked Chopstix

Been a while since I reviewed a sushi place.

Went to Naked Chopstix to meet this shady bunch.

Despite the trendy name and location it's a rather good sushi bar. Good quality selection of fish, fair selection. Okay enough prices. One thing that's nice is that it has a full bar for booze in addition to one for fish. Rather enjoyable place.

Good discussion and much fun by all. Also got one of Tam's free books.

Next, planning to do a little review of my Model Three.

And yes, I have the turtle.

Change... but what kind of Change?

From Jim Gerghty.

So, the recent news out of the Obama camp is that they're planning a huge rally with thousands of people in a stadium, want to create a mandatory youth corps for national service, and are thinking about a big dramatic speech in Berlin.

It's like they're trying to sell copies of Jonah's book or something.

Gerghty has links in his post.

Let's not forget the media that's practically entranced by him, Obama's ill-fated presidential campaign seal, and the legions of cultish fans that love him on a deep emotional level.

I do recommend Jonah Goldberg's book. It's a fair history primer that actually defines what Fascism is. For someone that actually wants more insight into a horrible, totalitarian ideology than using it as an expletive to mock people you don't like.

Personally, I don't think Obama is using Fascist rhetoric, just populist emotional tripe layered with the idea that the state is the beginning and end of all solutions, an that politics is everything.

Let's be totally fair, we don't know what an Obama presidency will be like. That's the magic of Hope-Change. It can be anything you want it to be. Chances are it won't, but it could have been.

So, there is a difference, but the idea of a stadium full of people chanting his name...

If McCain were doing stuff like that, I'd be ill-at ease too.

I wouldn't really get worried until Obama proposes repealing the Twenty-Second Amendment.

Arr! Pirate Economy.

Talking about economics prof Peter Leeson, Joanna Weiss gives a taste of the social experiment that was piracy in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

To Leeson, pirate democracy was an institution born of necessity. In one successful cruise, a pirate could take home what a merchant sailor earned in 50 years. Yet a business enterprise made up of the violent and lawless was clearly problematic: piracy required common action and mutual trust. And pirates couldn't rely on a government to set the rules. Some think that "without government, where would we be?" Leeson says. "But what pirates really show is, no, it's just common sense. You have an incentive to try to create rules to make society get along. And that's just as important to pirates as it is to anybody else."

His book: The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, History's Most Notorious Criminals, won't be out until 2009, but here's some more information on it.

Plus a paper "Pirational Choice: The Economics of Infamous Pirate Practices."

Hat tip: The Volokh Conspiracy

Video Interview with Michael Yon

Here's a short interview with Yon.

Looks like it's sold out at Amazon, but B&N still has it.

Review: Moment of Truth in Iraq

I just read the whole book on 24 hours. It was very gripping and outlines what has happened full of personnel stories and Yon's perspective.

I cannot more strongly recommend that you pick up a copy of this book.

Here's the Amazon page.

The book reinforces how the enemy uses the media as their primary goal
They record (from multiple angles and broadcast what happens, getting footage is more important that winning a fight, as the right footage can have the war lost from within the US.

The book goes into many details about just what the soldiers are doing in Iraq and what their lives are like and some of the things they do.

The Deuce Four used the media and mind games to unravel the enemy. One day the Deuce Four faked an IED attack using an Iraqi Security Force truck as the "target," complete with explosives and flash-bang grenades to simulate the IED. They even simulated evacuating casualties using sand-filled dummies.
The enemy took the bait. Terrorists came out and started with the AK-rifle-monkey-pump, shooting into the truck, their own video crews capturing the moment of glory. That's when the American snipers (Navy SEALs) opened fire and killed the terrorists who were carrying weapons. For obvious reasons the great AK-monkey-pumper smack-down was kept secret for a long time, until, with permission, I published it in the summer of 2005.

Pg 37

Here's a link to that article.

The book does not mince words. It shows how the US screwed things up and how it got the amazing chance to turn things around.

The US for all it's ineptness actually TRIED to help, and our soldiers were much better at killing. While AQ would just kill people for smoking, not growing beards, and mixing cucumbers with tomatoes in the same bag. Meanwhile these 'pious' men would engage in all sorts of drugs, rape, and other debauchery.

Yon goes into depth about how AQ is a cult and a criminal gang and how it works.

Governments that can't take care of sewage loose the people.
Americans are naturally good at counterinsurgency. One might almost say we are good at counterinsurgency, because we are good at removing sewage. We see problems as challenges rather than insurmountable obstacles. It never occurs to us to thick the sewage can't be removed, or wait around for someone else to do it.

Pg 74

When AQ took over an area they couldn't do any services, other than death.

Americans are also good at counterinsurgency because they're good at insurgency. Iraq could be where it is now in 2005 or even 2004. If the Admin didn't screw things up. The Book's first chapters outline exactly what happened, disassembling the Iraq army, De-Bathification, lack of interaction with the populace, very, very poor media relations.

As strange as the analogy is, the chance for things to get better happened because AQ is like underpants gnomes of South Park

1) Kill everyone, preferably US soldiers, but random Muslim civilians if you want, enforce insane "laws" and terrorize everyone
2) ????
3) World domination

So the gommers were able to piss off Iraqis more than the US was, and Pretraus was smart enough to flip them. He did this back in 2004-5 in Mosul, and watched the city he kept stable go insane when he left.

Page 89 talks directly about how AQ had "three queens" on the board, but didn't know what to do with them

Our forces over there are now doing more holding and keeping terrorist from going back, but imagine if you will... what would happen if someone got into office that then "Ended the War."

War is ugly. But if you are going to fight at al, it's important to fight to win. We have created the conditions for peace in Iraq. But out job is not finished. The worst thing that could happen now would be surrendering when victory – real victory, not just empty triumph – is so close.
When our troops start drawing down, as they should when the conditions are favorable, the drawdown must be down methodically, for reasons both strategic and logistic. A hasty withdrawal would only empower our enemies and allow al Qaeda to regenerate. Politics dictates that politicians talk about withdrawal. The truth is right now we need more troops here, so we can get out of these tanks and other armor in Mosul and start walking the streets. The higher truth is that we are so close to winning, winning in the big sense of seeing Iraq be free and democratic, united and at peace (by local standards), that it would be a crime to hold back now. Maybe creating a powerful democracy in the Middle East was a foolish reason to go to war. Maybe it was never the reason we went to war. But it is within our grasp now and nearly all the hardest work has been done.
Whoever becomes our next president in January 2009 must be prepared for an uptick in violence in Iraq shortly after the inauguration. Insurgency is a political war, waged on the news cycle, and our enemies might well try to create an illusion of strength. If the new president is panicked by an illusion and pulls our troops out, we and the Iraqis likely will pay the price for decades, Perhaps generations to come. If we precipitously withdraw our troops, all of the tremendous progress we are seeing will be lost. The region could descend into chaos.

Pg 225. Emphasis added.

There's too much in the book for me to even attempt to summarize, but other things that struck me is the sense that many Americans are under a doom where good news can't get in and their minds are stick in 2005 or how "The military is at war. America is at the mall." Pg 226

Yon also shows how the media is getting better at reporting and being more involved with what is happening over there and having the truth get out, whatever it may be.

One of the saddest things about the Iraq War has been the political polarization back home. There is no doubt that it was an elective war and poorly executed. But some of our own countrymen want to see us lose this war. For may people it seems to be more important that they win the argument than for justice to prevail and Iraq to be free. On the other hand, those who support the war must remember that the critics were often right.
Without the critics we might never have made the great changes of 2007, and the war would be lost today.
...
I wanted out side to win, but knew that neither mindless cheerleading nor mindless pessimism would help.

Pg 226 Emphasis added.

It's hard for me to not quote more, but Yon makes a very powerful and moving argument for what is at stake here. It would be a victory on the "same magnitude as the fall of the Soviet Union." Remember the ramifications of what "Iraq be[ing] free and democratic, united and at peace (by local standards)" would mean for the region and the world. Then add in the effect of having al Qaeda's mass rejection, expulsion, and combat by "the very Muslims they claim to represent."

"And if we lose, Iraq will be the worst foreign policy disaster in our history. Imagine Vietnam, then multiply it by al Qaeda and Iran." Pg226.

This is something to consider when people bleat about pulling out. They are either ignorant to what's going on over there, part of the group that would rather win an argument at the cost of Iraqi lives, or those pandering to the second group.

The war Iraq is an important event, one that is at a great crossroads, and the ignorance of the average American at what is going on over there is shameful. At least this book can serve as a good primer and more importantly help fund Yon so he can continue his independent reporting.

You won't regret reading it.

Odds and Ends

I should probably get into more of the mundane bits in my life.

So far nothing much.

I've found a good place to get some nice oak bookcases set to order.
Now I've got to figure on what couch/bed thing for my spare room. Once I get that part out my spare bedroom / library would be setup more and I can figure out the space for bookcases.

Work is work.

I've really enjoyed cooking with a cast iron pan. THey're harder to manage. Since the handle is all iron too, you can't grab it without a mit or somesuch. You also can't use soap to clean them. They also have to be oiled and seasoned properly to keep the surface finish well.

Now on the upside they provide a very even cooking surface. The material is thick enough and acts like a heatsink to really diffuse the temperature on the inner surface. This sink works in time too, so it has a slower response to temp variations.

They are a much better cooking surface than thin steel pans.

Also from the old gang Blake's got a blod "Prepare to be Underwhelmed."


In my blog news: I should really start using the tags/lables.

And I should get in those book and video game reviews I had been thinking about.

Also I need to write a post explaining the name of this blog. That day I can start using the phrases.

Clarke, Science, and God

Give my "timeliness" I'm sure most of you know Arthur C. Clarke has died.

Despite his long life it's still sad.

Rand has some good thoughts on it.

I can really agree with the sentiment that Clarke's work helped inspire one to go into science and engineering.

He also mentioned CP. Snow's two cultures.

Now I'm going to commit the sin of posting something I got from Wiki without verification

"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?
I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question -- such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? -- not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had."

I like the point here. Well-rounding is key, a scientist or engineer should be able to understand and appreciate the arts, but similarly someone in the humanities should at least have a basic knowledge of science and physical laws.

Rand also cited a very good short story by Clarke "The Star".


It reminds me of one things about God. You can't disprove the existence of an omnipotent being, and what's more worrying is the opposite. If there ever were proof of God... what kind of God would that be?

Bookcases, rotting fish, and good fish.

Some Furniture is hard to find.

I've got a spare bedroom and a mess of books.

Naturally, I thought bookcases and some sort of futon. Make it viable as a guest room and a library.

I'd attach a photo of the room, but right now it's just got a dresser, a chair, and some boxes.

Now bookcases are easy to find... if you want regurgitated fiberboard with a paper printed in the pattern of wood glued on.

That strikes me as a bit... tacky, but maybe it fits my taste in books: engineering texts, aircraft reference books, Terry Pratchett, Clancy, and a mess of other books. No literary greats here, but I would like some nice furniture.

I live in a city of about two million people. There should be some place to get a good bookcase.

Oak is my goal, something with a good stain, or can take one. Another idea is glass. I have a glass-top desk and a glass coffee table for the living room.

I like the hardwood and glass combination, but... a bookcase is load bearing, and I do have heavy texts.

So I'm still looking.

Not the most thrilling thing, but I don't feel the need to prattle on about work. I enjoy my job, so no complaints there.

As for Politics... well... of the people that are left, McCain is about it, as for the democrats... those two are nearly identical on policy, which leaves identity, and they're bashing each other apart.

It's been an "interesting" primary, and will be an "interesting" general election too. This election cycle has been going on and on and on... and the prospect of it narrowing down to some sort of end. Well it's kind of like finally finding that fish that's been rotting in the ductwork.

Speaking on more pleasant fish, Asaka has proven to be an enjoyable establishment and I regularly go.

It's nice that there's rather good sushi available this far inland. I also like that it's not a trendy place. Sushi is still an exotic fad food, and crappy rolls can easily be unloaded onto trendy knobs that don't know any better.


I suppose I can keep more up to date on this. It might give a bit easer way to keep track of things.

Speaking of books, I have found a few good ones and will give some comments on them in a later post.