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Thursday 21 December 2006

Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven

Definitely a good book, though it starts out rather slowly. It doesn't really pick up until the Pak Protectors are mentioned and Louis Wu realizes that they built the Ringworld and humanity are descendants of normal Pak colonists on Earth millions of years ago whose Protectors died off.

Because it took so long to get to that point and thus to find the Ringworld control centre, the actual fixing of the Ringworld's orbit seems a little too pat and deus ex machina to me.

I give it 3.5 out of 5.

Wednesday 13 December 2006

Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin

This is a book that I have had on my bookshelf for decades, but I have never gone back and re-read it like I have so many other books in my personal library. So a couple of days decided that now was the time. Unfortunately, it just wasn't as good as I remembered.

Yes, I know that this book and its two sequels were written for as younger age group, but so were the Harry Potter novels, and those are awesome. So Ged meets this one dragon and uses his magic to sail around the islands of Earthsea, but beyond that there isn't much more than narrative. It gets rather boring, actually. Even the encounter with the shadow creature was anti-climactic.

I give it a measly 1 star out of 5.

Thursday 7 December 2006

Hunh? Wha's wrong with the intarweb?

This past week, on and off, I've noticed somebody hammering at my wi-fi trying to get acess. And it's not like they are trying anything overly intelligent to get in, just request after request after request for a DHCP address. Now I have things limited to a handful of specific MAC addresses so they aren't getting in, so I'm not terribly worried about them stealing my bandwidth. But then I remembered this website: Upside-Down-Ternet

So, I thought, why don't I try to do that to them, too? Then all I have to do is figure out who in my apartment building is trying to get free high-speed intenet access. :-)

Friday 1 December 2006

How cool was I? Ummm...

This is only really interesting if you're sufficiently over age 18. Go to Pop Culture Madness: Pop Music and select the year you turned 18. Take the first 50 songs and paste them into a word processor, then mark up each song as follows:

  • If you liked it, make it bold
  • If you disliked it, make it striked out
  • If you neither liked it nor hated it it, make it italicized
  • If you don't remember it, leave it alone

Well, I turned 18 in 1988, so here is my list:

  1. What A Wonderful World* - Louis Armstrong
  2. It Takes Two - Rob Base & E-Z Rock
  3. Da Butt - EU
  4. Hot Hot Hot - Buster Poindexter
  5. I'll Always Love You - Taylor Dayne
  6. Man In The Mirror - Michael Jackson
  7. Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns N Roses
  8. Red Red Wine - UB40
  9. Just Got Paid - Johnny Kemp
  10. Don't Worry, Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin
  11. Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard
  12. Every Rose Has Its Thorn - Poison
  13. Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N Roses
  14. Paradise - Sade
  15. The Flame - Cheap Trick
  16. 1 2 3 - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
  17. Kokomo - Beach Boys
  18. Need You Tonight - INXS
  19. Pump Up The Volume - M/A/R/R/S
  20. Roll With It - Steve Winwood
  21. Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird (Medley) - Will To Power
  22. Power Of Love - Laura Branigan
  23. Push It - Salt N Pepa
  24. One More Try - George Michael
  25. Can't Stay Away From You - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
  26. Wild, Wild West - Kool Moe Dee
  27. One Moment In Time - Whitney Houston
  28. Hot Hot Hot!!! - The Cure
  29. The Promise - When In Rome
  30. The Way You Make Me Feel - Micheal Jackson
  31. Chains Of Love - Erasure
  32. What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy) - Information Society
  33. Honestly - Stryper
  34. Don't Be Cruel - Bobby Brown
  35. Bad Medicine - Bon Jovi
  36. Strangelove - Depeche Mode
  37. Nothin' But A Good Time - Poison
  38. Angel - Aerosmith
  39. Candle In The Wind - Elton John
  40. Forever Young - Alphaville
  41. Pink Cadillac - Natalie Cole
  42. Always On My Mind - Pet Shop Boys
  43. Tall Cool One - Robert Plant
  44. Forever Young - Rod Stewart
  45. Beds Are Burning - Midnight Oil
  46. Tomorrow People - Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers
  47. I Know You're Out There Somewhere - Moody Blues
  48. Just Like Heaven - The Cure
  49. Wild Wild West - The Escape Club
  50. In God's Country - U2

So how cool were you?