Isn’t this a strange looking creature? Flat-Faced Fish: First in Family? You can just make out one if its “leg-like pectoral fins.”
Insert obligatory “mysteries of the deep” quote here. But seriously it is pretty astonishing that we’re still discovering new species when we think we have the world all figured out.
This week the fantasy podcast Podcastle (from the same folks who bring you Escape Pod and PsuedoPod) launched. The first story was Peter Beagle’s Come Lady Death and it was marvelously read by Paul Jenkins of The Rev Up Review podcast.
The story was wonderful, and narration superb. A strong, STRONG launch for the newest member of the Escape Artists family of podcasts. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for next week!
Technorati Tags: escape artists, podcastle, podcasts
My stereo receiver is older than a lot of the people reading this blog, so I’ve been starting to thing about replacing it (right after I hit the lottery). Electronic House has a nice article up about Choosing a Home Theater Receiver.
(Disclosure: I work for the company that publishes Electronic House.)
I often rant (ironically enough) about the blogosphere and what an awful place it can be when it comes to propogating (sometimes harmful) rumors. Usually because everyone copies other blogs (yup, myself included).
But here’s some good news. Wal-Mart: Brain-damaged former employee can keep money If you hadn’t read this story, some poor woman who worked at Wal-Mart and paid for their health & disability plan was in a bad car accident that left her brain damaged. Thanks to her Wal-Mart disability program her health care was being paid for. But the woman and her husband sued the trucking company that hit her, and won $1 million US, of which they got $417,000 (pause for ranting about how much lawyers and the legal system took). Wal-Mart turned around and sued the couple for $470,000 to recoup her healthcare costs. Apparently in the fine print of the Wal-Mart health care policy it says you have to turn over any lawsuit settlement to Wal-Mart.
Anyway you can read the details in the story. The good news is, after CNN ran the story, the blogosphere went wild with vitriol towards Wal-Mart, including calling for boycotts. Yes, everything Wal-Mart did was legal, but it still stank of corporate greed. Faced with this, Wal-Mart did the smart thing and relented, and dropped the lawsuit.
One moral of the story would be to read the fine print on the healthcare package your employee offers, but really, what good does that do? It isn’t like most of us have an alternative. Paying for healthcare out-of-pocket is beyond the means of many of us, and I’m sure particularly so of those who work for Wal-Mart wages.
But the better moral is that the blogosphere has a voice, and it can be used for good. Let’s hope we see more of that, and less petty squabbling and ugly rumor-mongering.
KQED has a new video series called Quest. The first episode is about Humboldt Squid and how they’re proliferating along the west coast of the Americas. Pretty interesting stuff.
Here’s an embed but you might want to head to the site for a larger version.
First a reminder. I liked Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass well enough, and really enjoyed the next book, The Subtle Knife. I was excited to see how Pullman would finish things up in The Amber Spyglass
And the answer is…he doesn’t. Not really. Imagine The Lord of the Rings being written such that when Sam and Frodo finally get into Mordor, they find a “Crack of Doom Disposal Service” and hand The Ring over to it, and the rest of the book is about their friendship and no further word is ever heard of Sauron. Our last view of Minis Tirith is of the two armies coming together for a final clash, and never again do we visit that scene.
That’s how The Amber Spyglass works. I’m going to include some spoilers in this review, which I don’t normally do, but I can only hope that no one makes the mistake of getting involved with this series anyway. You’ve been warned, and ultimately there is nothing to spoil because the series has no real ending.
As the book begins we have Lyra and Will still traveling together. Remember that Lyra has been tagged as the next Eve, and there’s some huge prophesy about her that she’ll influence the next age of life on the myriad worlds. The church is determined to kill her so that she can never make some grand decision that she must make. Mary, from Will’s world, has been set up as the Serpent who will tempt Lyra/Eve from some new paradise. And oh yes, Asriel is making war on god/The Authority and means to kill him/it.
The first half of the book slowly builds to a huge climax, as you’d expect it to. This part felt slow but that was ok since we’re working towards the big payoff. And then in the midst of a climactic battle god dies, his first Lt. (who has really been running the show) is cast down. And suddenly the focus shifts to Lyra and Will and their discovering their hormones as they suddenly fall in love.
And that’s the rest of the book. Lyra & Will in discovering first love in some strangely vapid Disney-esque way. The church’s assassin makes a brief appearance but is taken out via a deux ex machina re-appearance of the angel Balthamos (spelling?). Neither Lyra nor Will are ever aware of these events. The two of them are with Mary, but all she really does is give them some food. She certainly doesn’t tempt them into doing anything. And in the end, well, nothing. The book ends with the two children going home, and that’s about that. The prophesy? Who knows? False, I guess. Unless it alluded to letting the ghosts out of the land of the dead, but really Will did that. And in the end, the angels repair the universe after Will gives them a quick “How-To” on window closing.
It was the most amazing let-down that I can remember ever reading; so much so that I found myself actually angry with the author. I mean, how do you manage to turn the death of god into a non-event? Or maybe that was his point, as an atheist…his way of illustrating that god doesn’t matter?
Maybe he wanted it to be a four book series and in condensing it he cut out a lot of the other happenings? I just don’t know. What I do know is that it was a terrible “ending” and I can’t stress enough that it makes the trilogy not worth reading. Which is a shame, because I was pretty excited at the end of The Subtle Knife.
A huge let down. Give this trilogy a pass.
Suddenly this is a food & drink blog. Random.
But Wired has a “How-To” on making your own flavored vodka (starting with plain vodka…this isn’t a distilling operation). I’m not a huge vodka drinker but this sounds like fun.
Had a craving for some Honey Dew Donuts iced mocha today, but when I opened my wallet a few moths flew out and that was it. So I took a shot at making my own and it came out ok. Wanted to capture the “recipe” because I have a mind like a sieve and if I try to do this again I’ll forget.
1) Made coffee in the french press. 4 scoops of fairly generic Folgers ground coffee.
2) 2 packets of Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate hot cocoa mix
3) 4 tablespoons of sugar
4) 12 oz boiling water
5) ~10 ice cubes
Combined hot cocoa mix, sugar and hot water in a pitcher while the coffee brewed. Got that all dissolved, then added the coffee. Mixed it up and added the iced cubes (just to jumpstart the cooling process). The coffee was made strong so that the iced cubes wouldn’t weaken things too much.
After a couple hours in the fridge, serve it over ice and add a couple ounces of milk to each glass.
Results:
It’s decent, but I think the coffee could be stronger and/or more of it compared to the other ingredients.
Via Boing Boing…
I don’t often talk about gaming here, but I might start coming back to it since my other site (Jaded’s Pub) is awfully quiet these days.
Normally I’m an MMO junkie but every so often I burn out on the endlessness of those games and need to take up something more finite. Lately I’ve been doing just that with Jeanne d’Arc on the PSP.
Last fall I splurged and bought the PSP-2000 (or PSP Lite) and it’s made the PSP more enjoyable to use. First it’s lighter, for standard handheld gaming. But curiously enough, I really like the TV-out feature. I know the whole idea of TV-out on a handheld seems silly to a lot of people, but there are times when my eyes are just too strained to peer at the PSP screen, and blowing things up to TV-size means I can continue to play in comfort.
Anyway back to the game. The genre here is turn-based strategy-rpg, a la Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s a genre I’ve always loved and as I get older I find I enjoy turn-based gaming more and more and action gaming less and less. The game follows, very loosely, the story of Joan of Arc…if France had been over-run by beastmen and wizards at the time.
There’s nothing really revolutionary here. Jeanne has a band of companions that keeps growing and growing, although battles are generally limited to 6 individuals at the max. You earn gold and skills during fights, and can spend the gold at shops to buy better arms and armor. Skills get equipped on your characters and offer either passive buffs or spells/actions that require Magic Points. After each battle, non-combatants get some exp too, so they don’t fall too far behind in levels.
I’m taking my time, trying to keep everyone leveled up. I don’t think this is really necessary, but the game is fun and relaxing and I’m in no hurry for it to be over. At any point you can backtrack and enter a “Free Combat” zone to get more experience, gold and skills, so I don’t have to worry about ending up gimped at the end of the game.
I can’t say the challenge level is very high, but my play-style has some impact on that, too. If I were pushing always-onward and never doing the Free Combats, I’m sure things would be more difficult. I have had a few tense battles and certain game mechanics (several of the characters can transform into uber-soldiers for a few turns) can really change the tide of battle drastically if used correctly, adding more fun to the game.
Granted I haven’t finished it, but I’m pretty confident giving Jeanne d’Arc a thumbs up. It’s been out for quite a while and has a metacritic rating of 87, so I’m not sticking my next out by saying its a decent game.