Madeleine L’Engle, 1918-2007

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When I think back on it, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time probably was the one book the set me on this life-long path of loving speculative fiction. Even if I didn’t call it that at the time. She and H.G. Wells. And from my love of sci-fi and fantasy came my love of computers and gaming, both of which very strongly shaped the path my life has taken.

Madeleine L’Engle died this week, of natural causes. She was 88. Her books will live on, hopefully forever.

Her website holds a list of her books.

CNN reports on her death. A good read for the impatient and the curious.

The NY Times reports on her life in Madeleine L’Engle, Children’s Writer, Is Dead. This is a much better read for anyone who loved her books.

Vudu – digitally download movies

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There’s a new product called Vudu hitting the market soon. It’s a $400 box that has 5000 ‘movie stubs’ pre-loaded onto it. You hook it to the net (a wired connection is suggested) and, pick your movie and either rent ($2-$4) or buy ($15-20) it. The ‘stub’ will start playing immediately with the rest of the movie downloading in the background, hopefully faster than you’re watching. If you choose the rental option you have 24 hours to watch your film after you’ve paid.

The movies aren’t high def, but the unit is supposed to upscale if you have an HDTV. It is capable of high def movies but they’re still negotiating the rights and expect to ‘turn on’ this feature in the near future. However, the unit has a puny 250 gig hard drive. How many high def movies are going to fit on that? There’s a USB port that’ll eventually let you add an external drive, but that’s going to add to the cost of ownership.

You need a cable modem or better to use it. DSL isn’t fast enough, they say. And remember, they suggest a wired connection, so get ready to run ethernet to the living room…

NY Times article with all the details

The rig uses peer-to-peer with other Vudu users. NY Times seems to consider this to be a “cool feature” but to me it’s a drawback. I don’t need my ISP barking at me because I’m uploading huge files to random strangers. And I know when I use bittorrent (at least) it sucks down every byte of bandwidth. Heaven forbid the (internet) phone should ring because I can’t use Vonage and do a P2P bittorrent transfer at the same time.

NY Times seems really bullish on this product. Me, I’m not seeing it. $400 to pay full price for movies that I could play on any of my existing DVD players? Granted you don’t have to go to the store…but that’s not enough of a boon to offset the drawbacks, at least to me.

How about for you?

Robotic restaurant or mass delusion?

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So, one of the latest internet viral video phenoms is of some restaurant in Germany where “the staff has been replaced by robots.” I keep seeing this same YouTube clip pop up over and over. Well I’ll post it here, and you tell me what you see:

OK, I’ll grant you that you order by touch screen rather than talking to a waiter, but that isn’t exactly new (nor is it preferred, at least by me). And then the food runners put your meal on a little cart and slide it down a ramp to your table. At which point you and the rest of your part open up the carriers and peer at each others’ food and decide who gets what. Unusual, sure. But how the heck are people seeing this as, to quote Gizmodo “a new restaurant […] staffed entirely by robots.” (It isn’t just Gizmodo, the story is everywhere from Sci-Fi.Com to BotJunkie.)

By the way, if you want to follow the story back to its original source (which I always recommend…we bloggers are such parasites, feeding off of each other and hard-working writers):
World’s First Automated Restaurant Opens In Germany

Dead Witch Walking

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Dead Witch WalkingEver gotten into that awkward situation where a friend lends you a book and urges you to read it, and you look at the cover with dismay, just *knowing* you’re going to hate it but not wanting to be rude? Yeah, that’s how Kim Harrison’s Dead Witch Walking ended up on my Now Reading list.

And guess what? The old saw is true. You *can’t* judge a book by its cover, because this one turned out to be quite an enjoyable read. Great literature? No, but not everything has to be, does it? Harrison mixes two parts fantasy with 1 part detective fiction here, adds in a dash of alternate history, and the result is just good fun.

Rachel Morgan is a witch in a world very similar to ours, except in her world, a bio-engineered plague wiped out a good chunk of humanity. When it did, the vampires, werewolves, witches, pixies and fairies (Inderlanders, they call themselves) came through unscathed. Seems they’ve always been here, hiding in plain sight often enough, but they’ve kept a very low profile. When the plague (or The Turn, as they call it) hit and the humans were all sick or dying, the Inderlanders stepped forward and kept society from falling apart. That was 40 or so years ago. Humanity has rebounded, and now humans and Inderlanders co-exist uneasily. (That, at least, is how I understand things…future volumes may correct me.)

When it comes to law enforcement, there are two parallel branches: the FIB takes care of human crime, and the IS takes care of Inderlander activities. Rachel is a ‘runner’ for the IS. She tracks down Inderlanders that are breaking various laws, such as vampires feeding on unwilling snacks, or witches using black magic. Her boss and she don’t exactly see eye to eye, though, and he’s been feeding her crap cases for so long that she finally up and quits, in spite of the fact that she has a contract. Much to her surprise, several of her co-workers join her in leaving the IS. Even more surprising, her ex-boss puts out a contract on her, and now she’s under siege by all manner of Inderlander assassination squads.

Her only hope is to set up a sting operation to take down a rich and powerful figure who she suspects is a Brimstone dealer. If she can hand this guy to the authorities she’ll have enough clout to buy off the contract on her.

Trust me…it all works when you’re reading it!! I’m leaving out a lot of the fun stuff for fear of spoilers.

And it turns out this is one of those cast of character driven books. The plot is fun and interesting, sure, but the characters, and their interactions, are what keeps you turning pages as often as not. I’m having to sit on my hands in order to not expound on that, but let’s just say Rachel ends up with quite a diverse team of friends helping her out.

Again, not great literature and it isn’t going to change your worldview on anything. But its a fun read about characters that you’ll come to care about. Harrison has written a bunch of books in this world and I look forward to re-visiting it again in the future. 3.5/5 amulets. 🙂

Build a display out of Brix

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Check out this crazy concept cellphone system called Brix. It’s a phone with one side as a screen, with no bezel. You can ‘stack’ several of the things side by side to create a larger screen. It’s not clear to me if this is just a fun idea or if the intent is to actually manufacture the system.

More details at Yanko Design: Two Brix Are Better Than One

And at SciFi.Com: Brix modular cell phone can expand into a large-screen display

Sony’s Connect music service going bye-bye

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This came in the email today:

—————————————
August 30, 2007

Subject: Future of CONNECT Music Service

To Our Valued Sony CONNECT Music Customers:

Today Sony announced its intent to move to a Windows Media Technology platform for Walkman® products in the United States, Canada and Europe. We strongly believe that the decision to embrace a more open platform for these devices will enable us to provide you with a better overall experience. As a result of this change, we will be phasing out the CONNECT™ Music Service based on Sony’s ATRAC audio format in North America and Europe. Specific timing will vary by region depending on market demand, but will not be before March 2008.

We are fully committed to helping you through this important transition away from the CONNECT Music Service and providing you with the best possible guidance on how to successfully transfer your music library to an MP3 or Windows Media-compatible format, should you wish to do so. We recommend that you use any outstanding promotional codes, account credits or gift certificates available in your music account prior to March 2008, but even after the store closes you will continue to be able to play, manage, and transfer the music in your SonicStage library and on your existing ATRAC devices. If you obtain a new device, all of Sony’s new Walkman music and video players will support MP3 or Windows Media Audio format.

In the coming months we will keep you informed of the status of the CONNECT Music Service phase out in your region. Periodic updates will be posted on the CONNECT music store and on the Sony Electronics customer service site, http://esupport.sony.com/EN/news/article215.

Please note that the CONNECT e-book service for the Reader in the U.S. will not be affected.

Thank you for your business and for your continued support as we work to complete this transition with as little disruption to you as possible.

Sincerely,

Sony CONNECT Music Team
—————————————

For more information, check out this faq.

First Google Video, then Urge, now this? How many other services with no customers must die before this madness ends!!?? 🙂

Physics bedazzlement

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Two Slits Are Better Than One is a fascinating article about the double-slit experiment, and how light can behave like a wave and a particle at the same time, how observing an experiment can change the results, and all kinds of other quantum physics magicalness.

I don’t claim to understand it all, but it just sends my mind spinning off into crazy directions when I read stuff like this.

Feld Thoughts – The Montana Future

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Brad Feld at Feld Thoughts – The Montana Future has up an interesting post on what he (and presumably others? I’ve never heard the term before) calls “The Montana Future”: the idea that we can live anywhere and still do our jobs, thanks to the internet.

Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone, but 99% of the work I do, I can do from my home office, which could be anywhere. Most of my work is for people and places near by, but that’s mostly due to networking and habit. I guess in a way I backed into this “Montana Future” without really realizing I was doing it. Mr. Feld’s post served as a great reminder of how fortunate I am to have this opportunity.

Let’s go phishing!

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For the few of you who may not know, ‘phishing’ is a process that unscrupulous folks use to try to trick you out of your personal information. Most often, it arrives in the form on an email that appears to be from your bank, or Paypal, or some other online service. The email will ask you to click a link and update your account information. The trick is that you’re not really going to end up on the real site, but rather on a look alike, and the criminals will be collecting all the information you ‘update.’

That’s the quick and dirty on phishing, anyway…

So how good are you at detecting a phishing attempt? Take this quiz and find out!

Me? I got 8 out of 10, but kinda sorta should’ve gotten 9 out of 10. One of them was so obvious that I thought it was a trick question, and given that it was a quiz and not my real data at stake, I didn’t research it. Yeah, I know… excuses, excuses… 🙂