Time to say goodbye to the old year and hello to the new, I guess. I’ve never been big on writing recaps of the past year or resolutions for the new, so I’ll leave that to others more inclined. Instead, I’ll wish for a 2006 better for us all. See you next year!
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Doug
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Doug
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user demiller on 2005-12-31
- The End of Evangelion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia –
Wikipedia article on the final movie of the Evangelion sagaTagged as: anime art evangelion movie - Anime-Jukebox | Evangelion –
mp3’s of music from the Evangelion series and moviesTagged as: anime art evangelion mp3 music - Ikari Gendo’s Ultimate EVA Frequently Asked Questions - FAQs –
FAQ for the Anime Neon Genesis EvangelionTagged as: anime art evangelion movie reference
- The End of Evangelion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia –
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Doug
“The Algebraist” (Iain M. Banks)??The Algebraist?? is a departure from the Culture universe of Banks’ earlier SF works, taking place in the a universe ruled by a galaxy-spanning government known as the “Mercatoria.” Two of the things that differentiate the Mercatoria from the Culture are the far more hierarchical nature of the Mercatoria (and it’s attendant abuses of power) and that humans are not the dominant species in the Mercatorial system. These differences, combined with the multi-billion year backstory of the galaxy, the focus on planetary environments as story locales versus the more common space habitats of the Culture novels, and the over-riding presence of the aliens known as “Dwellers” make for a very different reading experience for those familiar with Banks’ earlier work.
Other reviews and the dust-jacket of the book hint that much of this book is dedicated to social commentary. Banks’ work is largely an exercise in social commentary, though his SF works generally don’t approach it with quite the sledgehammer he does in ??The Algebraist.?? While the scenes of interaction between the main character and the Dwellers are entertaining, over all I found the pace plodding and the book overall difficult to really get into. If you simply have to read everything Iain Banks produces out of a sense of completness ??The Algebraist?? may be for you, but I didn’t feel it compared well with some of his earlier work, most particularly classics like “??Use of Weapons??”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=ws%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26creative=165953%26path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%253fASIN=185723135X%2526tag=ws%2526lcode=xm2%2526cID=2025%2526ccmID=165953%2526location=/o/ASIN/185723135X%25253FSubscriptionId=02ZH6J1W0649DTNS6002 or “??Look to Windward??.”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=ws%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26creative=165953%26path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%253fASIN=0743421922%2526tag=ws%2526lcode=xm2%2526cID=2025%2526ccmID=165953%2526location=/o/ASIN/0743421922%25253FSubscriptionId=02ZH6J1W0649DTNS6002
Technorati Tags: iain+banks, review, science+fiction
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Doug
“A Million Open Doors (Giraut)” (John Barnes)??A Million Open Doors?? is the first of a couple of books and a few short stories set in this universe. It’s essentially a story that sets the stage for later work by introducing us to the 1000 Cultures, but more deeply is a coming of age story for the main character, Giraut. Giraut is the product of a fringe culture based on a romantic (and chauvinistic) idealization of European Mediterranean culture, where technology allows for an extended adolescence. As a result of a love affair gone bad Giraut volunteers to become part of the first embassy from his world to another recently recontacted world of the 1000 Cultures, a world that could not be more different from his own. The remainder of the novel follows Giraut as his exposure to this culture causes him to re-evaluate many of his deeply held, but previously unquestioned beliefs, while he and his colleagues simultaneously become catalysts for revolution against an oppressive regime.
If you’re a Heinlein fan, I recommend you check out the work of John Barnes. In many ways the ??Giraut?? stories read like Heinlein’s work updated for today’s sensibilities. Much of Barnes’ prose seems like it could very well have been written by Heinlein himself. An enjoyable read, with a good balance of character development and action.
Technorati Tags: john+barnes, review, science+fiction
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Doug
Via Ken Macleod:
bq. A few weeks ago, we were told that Israeli forces had been ordered to be ready by the end of March 2006 for an attack on Iran. Yesterday, it was reported that Israeli chief of staff General Dan Halutz had insisted that no such attack was necessary in the short term; that the time for Israel to worry about Iranian nuclear weapons was if and when Iran actually had any; and that by then, perhaps five years from now, more powers than Israel would have an interest in deterring any aggressive use of nuclear weapons by Iran.
bq. Today, UPI reports that some mainstream German media have backed up an earlier Turkish media claim that top US officials have been trying to get Ankara and other allies and clients on board for ‘a possible military strike against suspected nuclear sites in Iran in the New Year’. Kurt Nimmo (via Gary Leupp, who has more) highlights the negligible impact of the Turkish story in the US.
bq. For some months now Jorge Hirsch, a nuclear physicist, has been warning that a US attack on Iran is imminent. The attack would be mainly from the air, with some involvement of special forces and local proxies on the ground. It would include the use of at least tactical nuclear weapons. Hirsch argues that such a use of nukes is a major object of the exercise: to demonstrate US willingness to pre-emptively go nuclear, and thus put beyond doubt its nuclear credibility.
Go, right now, and read the rest. Ken’s source makes a credible argument, given the recent behavior of the Bush administration, that our political leaders are at least considering this course of action. I suspect the worse their domestic situation becomes, and the worse things get in Iraq, the more likely this becomes.
I do *not* want to believe that _any_ U.S. President would consider this course of action. Unfortunately, this administration routinely is found out to have done things that I would have said no administration would do, even as recently as six months ago. The very fact that these actions can seem likely to reasonable people when considering the Bush administration is ample reason to begin acting now to remove these people from power over the course of the next two elections - and hope like hell that we aren’t too late.
Technorati Tags: bush, iran, nuclear+weapons, strategy
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Doug
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user demiller on 2005-12-30
- macosxhints - 10.4: Use Preview to view formatted man pages –
A pretty handy way to display man pages in Preview.app, useful particularly for printing. Tagged as: OSX Unix mac tips
- macosxhints - 10.4: Use Preview to view formatted man pages –
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Doug
EFF and Sony BMG Reach Preliminary Settlement on rootkit:
bq. “Sony agreed to stop production of these flawed and ineffective DRM technologies,” noted EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. “We hope that other record labels will learn from Sony’s hard experience and focus more on the carrot of quality music and less on the stick of copy protection.”
bq. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined in this preliminary settlement agreement with Sony BMG this week to settle several class action lawsuits filed due to Sony’s use of flawed and overreaching computer program in millions of music CDs sold to the public. The proposed terms of settlement have been presented to the court for preliminary approval and will likely be considered in a hearing set for January 6, 2005 in federal court in New York City.
It’ll be nice if the recording and movie industries learn from this. In light of things like “this”:http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051230-5871.html I think it unlikely, again until there is a generational change in leadership. In any case, it looks like Sony got some sort of spanking, at least.
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Doug
US probes eavesdropping leak (Reuters):
bq. Reuters - The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine who disclosed a secret NSA eavesdropping operation approved by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks, officials said on Friday.
Right, so Bush launches an investigation to see who ratted him out, but we haven’t managed to get serious yet about “investigating him”:http://aclu.org/safefree/spying/23271res20051229.html for treating the Constitution like a piece of toilet paper. This investigation is about getting revenge on whoever felt that the Press and public should know about Bush’s lies, and nothing else.
*Update:* Some more from “American Samizdat:”:http://amsam.org/2005/12/escalating-secrecy-wars-punish-leakers.html Now we have CIA agents advocating sending the jackboots to kick down journalist’s doors. So much for freedom of the press…
Remember, this is all designed to _save us_ from those awful, horrible terrorists who, as I recall, “hate us for our freedoms.” Obviously, the solution being pursued by the Bush administration and law enforcement in general is to eliminate those freedoms, so the terrorists no longer have any reason to hate us.
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Doug
Daily Kos picks up a great post concerning the Democrats growing a spine:
bq. The reason people think this is because we are constantly calculating whether our principles are politically sellable (and we do it in front of god and everybody.) We’ve been having this little public encounter session for well over 20 years now and it’s added up to a conclusion that we don’t actually believe in anything at all.
bq. A party that is described as fumbling, confused and scared is unlikely to win elections even if they endorse the wholesale round-up of hippies and the nuking of Mecca. People will listen to us if we can first convince them that we know who we are and what we believe in.
bq. I’m of the mind to adopt “give me liberty or give me death” as my personal motto. If I have to kowtow to a bunch of childish Republican panic artists who have deluded themselves into believing that fighting radical Islam requires turning America into a police state, then it’s just not worth it.
Bang on. If the Democrats want to regain some power and their place as an actual opposition party of the Left, we’re going to have to start hearing more along these lines from the DNC leadership. As the Daily Kos folks observe, chasing polls makes the Democrats look unprincipled - and is completely the wrong way to go about things. Stop chasing, and start trying to change opinion. Show some leadership. Grow a fucking spine, okay?
Technorati Tags: democrats, political+party, public+opinion, strategy
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Doug
Dave Winer revisits the RSS aggregator:
bq. Dave Winer helped invent weblogs and RSS feeds. Now, in the wake of his release of a cross-platform OPML editor tool earlier in 2005, he is working on a new RSS aggregator called newsRiver. This could be worth watching!
Or not. I won’t dispute that Winer has made a few contributions to the web. Unfortunately, the utility of every single one of these has been destroyed by his monstrous ego. I now make it a hard and fast rule not to use any software where the developer’s ego and paranoia actually interfere with my use of the program. No thanks, I think I’ll avoid whatever His Holiness deigns to produce for us mere mortals this time.
Technorati Tags: dave+winer, ego, rss
