32/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
On a stopover at Earth, Miles’ double life as Lord Vorkosigan and Admiral Naismith finally comes to a head. More of the clever mix of military SF, politics, and quirky characters that continue to make this series such fun.
Year 50 Day 364
Day 364: I got a surprise piece of cake from a coworker today!
Year 50 Day 363
Day 363: A little drizzly this morning, but still got my morning mile in, and got another mile in during the afternoon as well.
New Page: Link Recommendations
I’ve just added a new Link Recommendations page, inspired by @lori@hackers.town’s post:
…search is irreparably broken. Finding solid information about a topic is harder and harder. I think the only way we can fix this is to go back to relying on human curation.
The Yahoo model (not unique to Yahoo, but it’s a relatable example for people my age) was having a directory of websites based on topics. You go to the anime section, you get links to various anime websites. There wasn’t an infinite slop of fake blog results.
…my proposal was, and still is, simple. Do you have a personal website? Or just anywhere you can share some links? Make a page full of links to resources for things you care about. […] Then link to other people’s lists of links. […] Make a giant interconnected web of resources and get the word out in spaces you’re in for those topics that you’ve got a wealth of information gathered, and encourage others to do the same.
I’ve just started, so it’s far from finished (and as is often the case with these things, “finished” isn’t exactly a state ever likely to be reached), but it’s a start!
Year 50 Day 362
Day 362: A nice slow day of shopping, laundry, reading, and spending some time working with my music library. In the hopes of being invited back to DJ for Norwescon again next year, over the coming year I’m going to slowly go through my music library, removing the stuff I know I won’t play when DJing elsewhere and making sure that the tracks that stay on my laptop are processed and prepped. A recent update to djay Pro added variable beat grids (so that tracks where the BPM shifts during the song can still have accurate beat matching), and while most tracks are spot-on in the automatic analysis, a little time spent fine-tuning the outliers will make things much easier down the road.
📚 Star Trek III Short Stories by William Rotsler
31/2024 – ⭐️⭐️
A collection of six middling short stories. Four are set between the end of TWoK and the main action of TSfS, the final two are set at indeterminate times (Admiral Kirk is in command, Spock is alive). As with the other Rotsler Trek books I’ve found, not really worth searching out unless you’re a collector.
Year 50 Day 361
Day 361: This morning we stopped by the local library’s book sale, and both picked up a good sized stack. Less than $20 for a shopping bag of books is a pretty good deal!
Year 50 Day 360
Day 360: The sun came out right at the end of the day today. Pretty soon it’ll be warm enough to have lunch out on the balcony!
📚 Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold
30/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Collects three in-universe novellas with a bit of a framing story. Of the three, the third was the best, then the first, and the last was the weakest. Admittedly, that analysis is definitely affected by modern biases; the middle story’s approach to going beyond the gender binary, while likely progressive at the time, is very dated by today’s standards, and there’s a consensual intimate relationship that involves a somewhat eyebrow-raising age issue. That said, all three are still enjoyable additions to the Vorkosigan saga.
Year 50 Day 359
Day 359: Somehow got confused when making our nightly mugs of tea, and made myself a mug of my wife’s Mint Medley. Unfortunately, I don’t like mint. Not sure how I managed this, but I won’t make this mistake again.