Year 50 Day 13

Me wearing a grey Daring Fireball t-shirt in front of a green curtain suspended from the ceiling of my home office.

Day 13: Giving presentations from home means a convenient green screen is really handy. Turns out that hanging a couple green photo backdrops from a ceiling-mounted flexible curtain track makes for a really simple way to have a green screen that can be pulled out when needed and pushed away when not being used.

📚 Interference by Sue Burke

25/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

As fascinating as the first. Centuries after the events of the first book, another expedition from Earth arrives at Pax. Their ethnocentric assumptions cause enough difficulties, but when another sentience makes itself known, it all gets worse. More really neat explorations of how cultures change and adapt, how those changes influence communication and understanding, the biology of plant life, and alien intelligences. I’m excited to see that a third book should arrive next year.

Me holding Interference

Year 50 Day 10

Me standing on an outside balcony wearing a grey cap, black short-sleeve button-up shirt with thick grey stripes, a black utility kilt, black socks, and black Converse.

Day 10: One definite benefit to working in academia is a more permissive dress code than many corporate jobs allow. And as the temperature approaches 80° F, I’m quite happy to take advantage of that.

📚 Cast No Shadow by James Swallow

24/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Set seven years after the events of Star Trek VI, this does a good job of fleshing out Valeris and exploring the motivations and rationale behind her actions. It also follows up on some of the practical and political fallout for the Klingon empire of the events in the film. Definitely one of the stronger Trek novels I’ve read.

Me holding Cast No Shadow

Year 50 Day 6

Me, slightly smiling, standing in front of a bookcase and wearing a black Back to the Future t-shirt.

Day 6: Definitely feeling better than yesterday. Getting a full night’s sleep helped. As did not having to file a police incident report. (And I know it’s mean to tease, but that’s as much of the story as you’re getting right now.)