As if I don't have enough to read...

As if I don't have enough to read...based off of this list, "The Twenty Science Fiction Novels that Will Change Your Life" from io9...I just order a bunch of books off of Paperbackswap:

 - The Bohr Maker, by Linda Nagata
 - The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
 - Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
 - Newton's Wake, by Ken MacLeod

However, my next book, which I've been meaning to read for ages, i'll be tackling A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge.

In case anyone was wondering.

RobotRadio shouts out the one like the Dj Don Featherstone

Clam...pants...CLAMpants...Clampants? That is indeed a weird nickname.

...completely unbeknownst to the one like me until a year later. Thanks to the one like the Rotorglow.

Relatedly, "the one like the so and so" makes it sound like it isn't actually so and so, but some other person who is like him.

The Diplo Show I Missed...

...snff...sigh.



Just came across dsanders' photoset:  2008.02.23 DIPLO @ Great Scott - Allston,MA.  I'm just going to say it looked like a lousy time...and that procrastinating until tix were sold out was the real way to have a good time.  Yeah.

I *heart* Universe Today

Universe Today » Aliens Might Be Moving Stars to Communicate With Us

...an example of a reason why I love reading Universe Today.  The posts and the comments oftentimes form a mind-bending experience.

(Universe Today is also responsible for one of my favorite podcasts, AstronomyCast)

Leopard I tanks on Vliehors Vlieland

Cruising through my Flickr stats...one thing led to another and I found myself at Dirk Bruin's amazing photoset,  Leopard I tanks on Vliehors Vlieland.

"Leopard I Main Battle Tanks as targets at the Cavalerie Schiet Kamp tank gunnery range on Vlieland."

This is part of a collection of 9 other sets of amazingly surreal battle/practice wreckage.  I wish I knew more about the back-story (a quick search turns up not a whole lot), but blasted, rusted hulks of tanks slowly being engulfed by mud and the sea is good enough for me.

(A) Good Podcast (2/21/08 - 2/22/08)

A vacation-shortened week...

• Tobias Wolff's "Bullet In The Brain" (mp3) read by T. Coraghessan Boyle on the New Yorker's fiction podcast - such a great story. "He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else."  (Read the story as a PDF)

Texas Miles

While mom and dad loafed around San Antonio, Miles had a great time with grandma and grandpa.  More pictures and tales coming shortly...

Good Podcasts (2/11/08 - 2/15/08)

• David Brin's "The Crystal Spheres" - (mp3) - A reading (from StarShipSofa) of Brin's 1985 Hugo Award Winning short story. Pretty awesome (ignoring the otherwise-great narrator's "female character voice.")
• Bill Buxton (Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research) on Jon Udell's Interviews with Innovators (mp3) - Buxton discusses the concepts and thinking behind his book, Sketching User Experience.  Great stuff here, from "radical obviousness" to the struggle to attack design with the right fidelity of tools (my arguments for nimble deliverables [sketches] versus monolithic solutions [visio, photoshop]).  I'm on board.
  

It's Time To Bring Democracy To Saturn's Moons!

"According to new Cassini data, Saturns largest moon, Titan, has "hundreds" times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the liquid fossil fuel deposits on Earth. This is impressive as Titan's 5150 km diameter is only about 50% larger than Earth's Moon and only a little larger than the planet Mercury. Titan's hydrocarbons cycle into the atmosphere, fall as rain and collect in lakes creating massive lakes and dunes."

(via Universe Today)

Time to begin "Operation Tartarus Eagle-Storm!"

millas y sonrisas

Jeff: His quest for the perfect coffee bean is both his passion and his curse.

My Horse and Me

I recently had a GameStop gift card bestowed upon me...and thus am thinking of getting a new game for the Wii.  I've been looking to get Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, but I'll admit to being pretty clueless about any new super-awesome games that may be out there (such as My Horse and Me, but that might be too violent).  If anyone has any super-awesome game suggestions (fun, easy on the time commitment, maybe Final-Fantasy-ish, maybe multi-player), i'd love to hear them...!

Good Podcasts (2/4/08 - 2/8/08)

• WPR's To The Best Of Our Knowledge - To Sprawl or Not To Sprawl (real, mp3) - "Subdivisions. Industrial Parks. Strip Malls. Gridlock. Sprawl is socially unequal, environmentally irresponsible, and aesthetically ugly. Right? In this hour of To the Best Of Our Knowledge, we'll look at the costs and – YES – the benefits of suburban sprawl. Because maybe, just maybe, sprawl is a good thing."  A distressing listen as I wade through traffic in on my morning commute.  Interestingly, it is claimed that the entire population of the United States could fit in the space of Wyoming at average suburban density...can that be true?
  
• Paul Saffo @ The Long Now Foundation - "Embracing Uncertainty - the secret to effective forecasting" (mp3) - "Rule:  Look for indicators - things that don't fit...Rule:  Look back twice as far...Rule:  Cherish failure...Rule: Be indifferent...Rule:  Assume you are wrong...Rule:  Embrace uncertainty."  I think this is my first brush with Saffo's work...and he seems like a prolific, fascinating thinker...one i'll be following.
• Tim Kasser - "A revolution of values: Psychological research on materialism and its alternatives" (mp3) - "Consumer society encourages people to take on materialistic values, but the empirical research shows that doing so is associated with lower personal well-being, less positive social behaviour, and more ecologically damaging lifestyles. Kasser will review this literature as well as studies demonstrating how policies that support people's 'intrinsic' values can enhance well-being and promote environmental sustainability."  One (of many) interesting (if weird and hyperbolized) points Kasser raises:  in our strictly GDP-based measure of "wellness," it is "better" for someone to lease a car, drive to a pub, get drunk, crash on the way home, killing someone (which forces a family to spend money on funeral services, caskets, etc)...than it is for someone to walk to a pub and walk home.
  

Wiley - Wearing My Rolex

Via Prancehall...

Go and get your bassface

If you haven't, go and listen to Benga's Essential Mix.

Or, download it from all over the internets (a, b, c, etc).

Be sure to check Benga's remix of Faithless' "Insomnia."  Whoa.

Winter Donut Advisory

Tim: I might eat a donut
Tim: might
Tim: haven't decided yet
Kat: great
Kat: just keep me updated
Tim: chances are I will
Kat: national donut service gives it 80% probability
Kat: Winter Donut Advisory for middlesex county
Tim: It will make for a delicious morning commute