Over the weekend I finished reading The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson. Fantastic book, albeit one that defied my expectations, and I thought I’d write a short review. I picked this book up because I loved the concept: an alternate history novel that explores the question, what if the Black Death… Continue reading The Years of Rice and Salt
Category: Books
Orion
The February issue of Discover Magazine has an interesting article about Project Orion: a project that was developed during the ’50s and ’60s to build a spaceship that was as big as a skyscraper, weighed eight million pounds, and was propelled by—get this—nuclear bombs. While Discover’s article was good, focusing more on the people and… Continue reading Orion
The Book Barn
I stopped in at The Book Barn in downtown Bend today, looking for a particular book or two, and I have to say, I was a little disappointed. They have a nice space (formerly occupied by the Chelsea Lane wine shop), but it just seemed, I don’t know, sparse. I can’t really quantify it more… Continue reading The Book Barn
I’m Just Here For the Food
I don’t know why exactly, but for some reason I always think in terms of buying and owning a book when I want to read it. And if the money’s not handy (it usually isn’t), I resign myself to possibly getting the book as a gift for my birthday or Christmas. Ironically, I almost never… Continue reading I’m Just Here For the Food
Doctorow on DRM
So, I’m a little behind on this: Cory Doctorow‘s Microsoft Research DRM talk that he presented on June 17 and subsequently made available online for free. Very good. Though I do differ from this opinion he gives on ebooks: Today we hear ebook publishers tell each other and anyone who’ll listen that the barrier to… Continue reading Doctorow on DRM
The Da Vinci Code
Jeez, it looks like I’ve taken a blog sabbatical around here. July must be that kind of month. Anyway… So, probably against my better judgement, I read The Da Vinci Code over the last week. (My parents loaned it to me.) It wasn’t nearly as earth-shattering as some people would have you believe (especially since… Continue reading The Da Vinci Code
Books
My wife finished packing up nearly all the books today, in preparation for the move next month. I only kept a few out, on-hand; in the spirit of useless lists, here’s what’s left on my shelf: Frontier Doctor The Illuminatus! Trilogy The Cluetrain Manifesto Thunder Over the Ochoco: The Gathering Storm How the Mind Works… Continue reading Books
Beer for Dummies
Amusingly, at the library today I picked up Beer for Dummies. Not because I need to learn more about beer (well, not entirely; beer is one of the few topics I have some in-depth knowledge on), but because I like the “Dummies” books and want to see how well the topic of beer is treated.… Continue reading Beer for Dummies
Balance
I found this passage from Frontier Doctor to be particularly interesting: When I came to eastern Oregon in 1905, all of the beautiful pine timber was an open park-like forest, without any underbrush, where game could be seen for a long distance. Each summer there were many forest fires, the vast majority of which were… Continue reading Balance
Chickens and Books
A couple of links I found interesting. First is to All Consuming, “a website that watches weblogs for books that they’re talking about, and displays the most popular ones on an hourly basis.” Kinda cool. The other is to an article on Kuro5hin titled “Raising the Humble Chicken,” which is kind of random but good.… Continue reading Chickens and Books