Monthly Archives: September 2004

Deep-sea fishing, with the prow of a cruise ship. Ouch!

This was mentioned on Slashdot, but it’s worth a read anyway; Clay Shirky on the Semantic Web. I’ve always been suspicious of the usefulness of Prolog (I’ve seen it used once in my career, as a disassembler-parser generator. Then again, … Continue reading →

I walked into our office here at home to get a screwdriver or something for one of the many little tasks I’ve been doing lately, and as I was passing the door a mountain lion growled in my right ear. … Continue reading →

(Get in bed, start to surf / write) (Cat sits on chest. “Meow?” Translation: Why are you paying attention to that thing when you can be scratching my ears?) What the world needs is a transparent cat… [Typed with great … Continue reading →

Melinda Varian has a very interesting site, including stuff about IBM’s VM systems, including the Personal/370. Also, some travel. It’s interesting to study these systems, because of how lean and mean they are. Screwed up by modern architecture measures, and … Continue reading →

Some observations, after being a parent for nearly a week. A lot of these are readily applicable to other aspects of life than being a parent (well, using the sleep option at work is probably bad…). 1) Finish small tasks … Continue reading →

The November issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine is a double issue with at least three of my favorite authors (Kage Baker with another Company short story, Charles Stross with another piece of Accelerando, and Michael Swanick with a really … Continue reading →

The Quantum Sleeper is a “bed safe” — a gizmo that folds up into a safe room whilst you do the sleep-of-the-just thing. I suppose that you anchor the thing down really well (or your would-be foiled kidnappers could just … Continue reading →

What can you say about the English and food? Various sightings of culinary (or just food) oddities.

Decent SF books in the near future – November 2004: Gene Wolfe, The Wizard; Stephen Gould, Reflex; Charles Stross, The Family Trade December 2004: Kage Baker, The Life of the World to Come May 2005: Robert Charles Wilson, Spin June … Continue reading →