This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved (I'm putting it by ones that I lliked enough to re-read ( Read more... )

I normally don't buy hardbacks, but I couldn't pass on Variable Star, the new book by Spider Robinson based upon an unfinished work by Robert Heinlein. It does, amazingly manage to feel like a Heinlein juvenile and a Robinson novel (or, at least, Heinlein juvenile heroes don't normally engage in regular sex and recreational drug use ( Read more... )

I finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman this weekend. It was easily the best book I've read so far this year. It has the same basic premise that Gaiman's American Gods used. I don't think it was as epic in scope or as rich in sub-plots, hidden themes, and brilliant little bits as American Gods, and it certainly wasn't as dark. But it had a good ( Read more... )

A recent conversation turned to the (unfortunate) return of extreme Twiggy-like thinness as the current standard of beauty. Which led to the following conversation...
Me:I never understood what Popeye saw in Olive Oyl.
Lara:Yeah, well Bluto was always after her, too.
Me:No, actually Bluto was a repressed homosexual. He was really just competing ( Read more... )

I just caught part of a special on CNN, called "Broken Government," that cataloged all of the various scandals plaguing the Republican-controlled government, with a scattering of comments about incompetencies in Iraq and pretty much everywhere else, and completed with a garnish of discussion about electronic voting machine fraud ( Read more... )

My company built a robot a few years ago, called CHARLOTTE. I don't remember what the acronym stands for, but it comes from the fact that it looks kind of like a spider in a web. It's basically a box suspended by cables in a large cublicle framework. The cables are attached to motors via pulleys on the framework. The motors are computer controlled ( Read more... )

Got this picture in an email from a co-worker thie Friday. Atlantis rolling out to the launch area in the morning mist.

I got a new MacBook from work, so my wife inherited my old Powerbook. After awhile, she experienced an extreme slowdown in her internet connect. We currently have a router plugged into a cable modem, and a PC and an Airport Express plugged into the router. Both Mac notebooks connect through the Airport ( Read more... )

So, in the past week, I've seen my wife through reconstructive surgery on her ankle, saw the kids start new schools 7th grade and pre-school, respectively), moved all my stuff out of my townhouse, sold said townhouse, dealt with many many urgent matters at work as we head into the end of the old fiscal year and get ready to start the new one, got ( Read more... )

Now that am writing this, I realize that I am creating my first deliberate blog meme. The subject is things that evoke conflicting emotions. Feel free to respond, or expand the questions:

1. Name a musician or musical group that you love. Name a song or album by them that you loathe.Tangerine Dream - Zeit. In general the band does interesting ( Read more... )