Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Monday, 25 March 2002

# 11:30 PM

I can now speak to my test board. It apparently does not understand hardware flow control. Now I have to rewire my local network so that there's a fast comms channel to download code to it over. (It is theoretically possible to do everything over the serial line, but at 9600 bps I'd never get a test run completed.)

Shweta took my dreamwalking rules, turned around and inflicted them on the hapless PCs in our game. Who have no clue that these things are possible. I should know better than to be so bloody clever.

book reviews

John Varley's Titan: A space expedition comes across a mysterious moon-sized spaceship orbiting Saturn--or at least, they think it's a spaceship. The reader is aware from the beginning, since it says so clearly on the front cover, that the entire ship is one intelligent life-form. Ten points for concept, ten points for thinking through most of the consequences, minus five for unnecessary sex geared to shock readers in 1979. Good book but I am not going to run out and buy the second two-thirds of the trilogy.

Fritz Lieber's Conjure Wife: I'm not going to say a word about the plot, because I want you to read it yourself and have the realization slowly dawn on you, too. Find this book and read it now. (Long out of print, but republished by Tor/Orb in 1999, so it should be findable.)