The Jennifer Morgue is the second novella in Charlie Stross's Lovecraft-meets-geekery Laundry series; it's more sophisticated than The Atrocity Archives, with a more coherent overarching story, several plot twists, and ambitious attempts to mimic and subvert James Bond tropes ( Read more... )

Cho Chikun is one of the best players in the world, and this book gives a strategic (rather than tactical) understanding of the game: how to determine who is ahead, where each side will seek to grow, and what to do next. After explaining the rudiments of counting territory, estimating territory from thickness and frameworks, and discussing how to ( Read more... )

The Atrocity Archives is Charlie Stross's novel-sized installment of the short stories you can find online (I read Down on the Farm first but you might as well read The Atrocity Archive so you know what's going on). It's sci-fi meets spy thriller meets Lovecraft and computer science/information theory/quantum mechanics, and I enjoyed it a lot ( Read more... )

This is the latest in the list of resurrected franchises, based on a radio show cum TV show that helped make Bruce Lee popular ( Read more... )

I've been playing computer versions of Yomi and Queen's Blade recently. They are both souped-up versions of a core Scissors-Paper-Stone mechanic (just like real-time "strategy" games, lol) and feature anime art ( Read more... )

I saw this in the cinema when it came out 15 years ago (hard to believe); this evening I overheard the movie as I was surfing the net ( Read more... )

It was a melt-in-your-clothes day as we went to the Universal Studios theme park. I skipped the rollercoaster rides but there was enough happening elsewhere; to my relief the accents were generically American ( Read more... )

I was flying recently and got the chance to see a few movies. For the record, Emirates censors movies horrifically: mild expletives are redubbed with ridiculously weak replacements, and written references to sex are pixelated. The 50s still exist in the air above us ( Read more... )

I finally saw the movie and it was pretty good; Haruhi "disappeared" in an unexpected way. I didn't really understand the part about the 365 day modification, but that wasn't too big a deal. The animation was great (though there weren't any flashy scenes), we got to see new sides of the characters, Haruhi was less annoying than in the second season ( Read more... )

There was a recent discussion over whether a brute-force Dominion AI was feasible; the enthusiast claimed that the variety of combos, the random draws, the expanding deck, and the "creative thinking" would make it more difficult than Chess ( Read more... )