Friday, March 27, 2009

Thursday, March 26, 2009

2008 Books in Review

Books read in 2008:

Stephen King - Dark Tower Book I: The Gunslinger
This series has been around for a while so I decided to sink my teeth into it. It's sort of a post-apocalyptic / western / sci-fi / adventure / fantasy. It somehow reminds me of the Trigun anime. It's not like most of King's other novels. I enjoyed it well enough to read the next in the series. (4/5)

Stephen King - Dark Tower Book II: The Drawing of the Three
Book two isn't quite as exciting to read, but it definitely takes another big step into the weird with some time travel thrown in. Still a fun read. (3.5/5)

William Gibson - Pattern Recognition
This was a fun book about a person who is attuned to memes and is tasked with tracking down an Anonymous who is posting videos online. A fun and interesting read tracking the main character around the globe, but I wasn't very satisfied with the ending. (4/5)

Brandon Sanderson - Elantris
How often can you find a fantasy that is good AND fits in one reasonable sized novel? Not too often, but here is a great example of an interesting story woven and completed in six hundred and some odd pages. Check it out while you're waiting for the end to Wheel of Time. (4.5/5)

Nick Sagan - Idlewild
Carl Sagan's son wrote this novel about kids living in a virtual reality training school and their struggles against the system and the machine. It was fun to read, but do yourself a favor and read Ender's Game instead. :) (3.5/5)

China Mieville - Iron Council
I really like China Mieville's world and people. They're so interesting and colorful you can't help but want to turn the page. The plot of this one is a bit odd (a group of vagabonds hijack a train and build and remove the tracks as they go to escape civilization... and then return) and the ending is a bit depressing, but that's par for the course. If you liked Perdido Street Station (a better book, and one you should read first), then check this out.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Aimee Mullins: Super-Power Legs

Aimee Mullins has an amazing story about how her prosthetic legs maker her not disabled but super-abled. Below is her talk from the TED conference.

High Quality VHS Capture on a Budget in 2020 - Part I: Choosing a VCR

Introduction I recently inherited a few dozen family videos on VHS and VHS-C going back to the early 1980's. Along with this haul came a...