Stuff I've read lately

"The Reenchantment of Nature" (Alister McGrath) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Stuff I've read lately

"The Best of the Best" (ed. Gardner Dozois) - A collection of science fiction stories from 1981 to 2002. I was surprised that several of them were not very good. It is unclear whether the selection criteria is "this is representative of the year", rather than "this is a pleasure to read". I was also surprised that two of the stories were very similar (life in a virtual world).

Stuff I've read lately

"Guards! Guards!" (Terry Pratchett)(audio) - I hadn't realized Discworld did not have dragons. A lot of characterization of the night watch, which I don't recall before.

Stuff I've read lately

"J is for Judgment" (Sue Grafton)(audio) - Meh. Kinsey did manage to avoid killing anybody this time. The ex-cop red herring totally fooled me. I figured he had to be the murderer. The jilted girlfriend didn't seem capable of it.

Stuff I've read lately

"Valkyrie" (Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager)(audio) - This is (somewhat) about the attempt to kill Hitler by German army officers. Most of the story is about Boeselager's experience in the war (the book is short, and the war frames the events).

The interesting points:

1. Initial thoughts came from Hitler's mismanagement of the war
2. Discovery of atrocities by the SS added fuel
3. There was no attempt until summer 1943
4. Matters were complicated by the realization that Himmler also needed to be killed, and a total coup arranged to prevent further Nazi dictatorship

There is a nice bit near the end, when the Russians are driving west. While retreating, they meet British troops. After surrendering (gladly), they tell the British about the Russians. The British offer to let them help fight the Russians. Boeselager says, (something to the effect of) "I prefer not to".

Stuff I've read lately

"Black Bodies and Quantum Cats" (Jennifer Ouellette) - I was disappointed by this book. Popularizing advanced physics is hard, and Ouellette does a good job of making it accessible to the layman. That said, I was looking for more technical details, at least some of the problems driving solutions. The metaphors were well chosen (I think I learned more about modern culture than physics), but metaphors can only go so far.

Stuff I've read lately

"Finding Darwin's God" (Kenneth Miller) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

"The Last Centurion" (John Ringo) - Only Ringo could make a disaster which eliminates 50% of the world population funny. It's basically a fantasy scenario where liberal ideas and policies selectively kill themselves off, leaving conservatives to rule the world. I expected more action scenes. He probably needed to leave out one scenario and go into more detail in the remainder.

Stuff I've read lately

"The January Dancer" (Michael Flynn) - I am really enjoying Flynn. This story was really well done. In this universe, FTL is done via regions of space with higher local c (to enter the "Electric Avenue"). The main problem I saw is that Flynn required ships to approach local c to enter these regions. The ending was a little anticlimactic, but understandable for a short book (350 pages). I'm not going to encourage 800 page monstrosities.

Stuff I've read lately

"I is for Innocent" (Sue Grafton)(audio) - Grafton didn't have me fooled. Well, I was fooled for a little while. Going in, I knew the obviously guilty guy had to be guilty (despite the title). But, near the end, it looked like he really was innocent (the most suspicious guy haven't picked up some hapless mook for obvious en-murder-ation).

Of course, the obviously guilty guy really was guilty. The suspicious guy was just suspicious.

Body count: we had:

1. the original murderee
2. the detective who Kinsey replaces
3. hapless mook on the night of the main murder
4. main bad guy (courtesy Kinsey, of course)

Stuff I've read lately

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (Seth Grahame Smith)(audio) - It's funny, the book is actually listed as "by Jane Austen and Seth Smith". It's really a good idea; take an old stuffy book and add in a bunch of scenes with zombies.

A similar book was Philip Jose Farmer's "The Other Log of Phileas Fogg" (based on "Around the World in 80 Days"). In that book, Farmer created a whole story in between the breaks in the original.

Here, Smith took the original text, then made slight changes. It actually had me going for a while. I considered going through the original to find the differences (did Wickham really get crippled?). Then I realized, wait "Pride and Prejudice" was one of the worst books I ever had to read! (The worst being "The Illustrated Man" and second worst being "Where the Red Fern Grows")

Sadly, the book did need more zombies. It is a hard trade off - keeping the original text, and adding enough zombies to make it interesting.

I almost want to grab the text for "Old Man and the Sea" and make "Old Man and the Sea and Zombies" (Zombie fish? Drowned?).

Software Updates

A NewStars update!

Surprise, surprise, the first executable didn't work (at all). The second executable mostly worked, the third executable should work (haven't heard any complaints!)

Each executable is about 3 MB, which takes several minutes to upload (no FIOS for me right now).

But, there is a way to update a Starkit piecemeal! Just make a list of files to check for updates, then foreach s in that list:

if {[file exists $s]} {
file rename -force $s [file join $starkit::topdir $s]
}

So, I can update one file and just drop it in the runtime directory, and it will slurp it into the archive.

Of course, Windows becomes extremely angry if you try and update an exe while it is running!

This is going to require me to drop from a Starpack back to a Starkit and ship Tclkit. I'll also need a batch file to couple everything together.

Irritating, but worth it to reduce update sizes.

Stuff I've read lately

"The Wreck of the River of Stars" (Michael Flynn) - The first book I read by Flynn ("Fallen Angels") left me full of meh.

It was a strange set of circumstances that led me back to Flynn.

Imonk had a post about aliens and Christianity (what with all the talk r.e. Gliese 581g). There, someone had a comment about dogheads, and linked to Flynn's blog. His blog interested me enough to try another of his books.

"Wreck" is a tragedy. It seems like a lot of current SF is depressing, Wreck still manages to be enjoyable.

The story entails the series of accidents which lead to the loss of the River of Stars (a hybrid magsail/fusion torch ship headed into Jupiter). It is very much like the old story of the man who sells his watch to buy a braid for his wife's hair - while the wife sells her hair to buy a new band for the watch.

Many people think SF is all about technology and science. Really, it is about people. The science and far future settings allow the author to strip away the conventions that the reader is accustomed to and reveal aspects of raw human nature.

Flynn excels at this. The wreck is due to the conflicts of human nature; the science behind the events are secondary. The ruined careers, the last chance for glory, the longing for the good old days, interpersonal squabbles, simple hatred and jealousy.

A sad story, but well done.

I particularly like Flynn's snarky comments:
Twenty-four DeCant (to the sail master): "Then, if you're staying... I'm staying."
Captain Gorgas: "We don't seem to have gotten this 'abandon ship' thing quite right."

Titanic

I have almost finished "The Wreck of the River of Stars". It got me thinking a lot about the Titanic (which I'm sure was the parallel the author had in mind).

As I remember it, there were a number of factors involved, any one of which might have reduced the magnitude of the disaster:

1. Ice cube tray effect - the bulkheads should have run higher, but were shortened for aesthetic effect
2. Running too fast (trying to break a speed record)
3. Reversing engines (their rudder design worked better in forward)
4. Poor utilization of lifeboats
5. Poor communication with other ships

Of course, Wikipedia is the wet blanket on many of these ideas:

1. "The height of the bulkhead deck above the water line in flooded condition was well above the requirements"
2. "Captain Smith to increase speed in order to make an early landfall... There is little evidence for this having happened"
3. "The Olympic using the same semi-oval shaped rudder as Titanic's was able to turn in a virtual moment's notice"
4. "The White Star Line actually exceeded the regulations by including four more collapsible lifeboats" (although regulations were out of date). Lifeboats were not intended for carrying everyone at once, but for ferrying to a rescue ship (so 1/3 capacity means three round trips).
   
5. "The closest ship to respond was Cunard Line's Carpathia 58 miles (93 km) away, which could arrive in an estimated four hours—too late to rescue all of Titanic's passengers"

Ahh, well.

Stuff I've read lately

"H is for Homicide" (Sue Grafton)(audio) - I was surprised. Kinsey actually managed to get through the book without plugging anyone. It was a close thing; she had her chance but preferred not to, apparently. It was interesting to hear all the details for auto insurance fraud. Seems like more work than regular work.

Stuff I've read lately

"Quantum Generations" (Helge Kragh) - This is a history of physics in the 20th century. It covers quite a lot of territory, and attempts to give a little taste of everything. This means there is a lot of material that isn't as interesting as other parts (but everyone should find something interesting).

I particularly liked learning more about some of the personalities behind the discoveries (especially people I didn't know much about like Dirac). Also, I like hearing about what problems people were trying to solve when they made a discovery (like how investigations into blackbody radiation led to quantum physics).

Stuff I've read lately

"U is for Undertow" (Sue Grafton)(audio) - Here we are some twenty books in, and only a few left (unless she is going to go Excel on us "AA is for Aardvark", "AB is for Abbey Someone - Abbey Normal", through "BB is for BB Gun").

Grafton is definitely getting better at creating a real mystery (if that's what these books are for). We had several suspects, and it all started to come together slowly. You eventually figure out who done it, but not why or exactly how. Until it all makes sense and the book is over.

I must complain about the "undertow". Yes, there was a mention of it (the hapless mook's mother died in an undertow). Still, pretty weak.

A Starkit of Stars

I just sent out the first user-ready version of NewStars!

The main concern I had with using Tcl was that when it came time to distribute, every player would need to install Tcl.

However, there is a handy technology called "Star kit" (or in this case, "Star Package").

There are three components:

1. Tclkit
2. Starkit
3. Star package

Tclkit is the program that does all the work. It is a single file Tcl/Tk interpreter.

A "Star kit" is a single file archive (like a jar) which contains all the Tcl files and DLL's needed, in whatever directory structure you like.

The Star package is a star kit, with tclkit wrapped in with self-extraction and execution.

I had used Freewrap before (which is another single file Tcl interpreter), but couldn't make it work.

Tclkit is very easy.

Starting from the base stars.tcl (in a scratch area):

sdx wrap stars.tcl
This creates a skeleton kit, with just the main script.

sdx unwrap stars.kit
Expand the kit virtual directory structure into a real directory structure - which we are going to populate and experiment with.

tclkit stars.vfs/main.tcl
Try and run from the real directory structure (for testing)

sdx wrap stars.kit
All done, make the kit (can test the kit with tclkit stars.kit).

sdx wrap stars -runtime tclkit
Bundle Tclkit into the Stars star kit, making a star package - which is executable on its own.

Mail out the executable!

Stuff I've read lately

"Bloom" (Wil McCarthy) - McCarthy is fast becoming my favorite current SF writer. I need to check the library for more of his work.

Bloom is a near future universe dominated by grey goo. Survivors are in two groups: one in the Belt, and one at Jupiter.

The story follows a reporter aboard an Immunity (who are charged with fighting goo invasions) ship. Their mission is to deploy sensors on Mars and Earth (both covered in goo).

McCarthy does a good job with characterization, and tension (some survivors believe the goo to be sentient).

The major technology is called "ladder down". It is basically alchemy, allowing the conversion of matter to energy (iron being the cusp of the reaction). Minerals are valued based on reaction products, making uranium the most valuable.

Stuff I've read lately

"T is for Trespass" (Sue Grafton)(audio) - Trespass was probably chosen because it sounds better than "T is for Torn-off arm". Best to let her have it, not wise to upset Kinsey.

Slope

(continuing my review of Facebook games, particularly the phenomenon of "open ended" games)

Most people think of games in terms of winning and losing. Even the longest games, like Axis and Allies or the Russian Campaign, eventually end. There are objectives along the way, by which one can measure progress.

In an open ended game, these objectives are illusory. People might complain about some group receiving a special item, or even getting it first.

However, in the long run this is irrelevant.

The most important aspect of an open ended game is your "slope". Slope is the rate of change.

As long as your slope is higher than your opponents, you will eventually get ahead (there is no winning or losing, only ahead or behind). If your slope is lower, even if you are currently ahead, you will (eventually) always be behind.

Even special items have only temporary value. Inflation will eventually degrade them. As long as your slope of acquiring new items is good, you will have new and better items.