As is plain to see I haven't blogged in a while. These days I mostly tweet. I have no idea if I will ever blog on this site again, but it likely won't be soon.

I finally read the third novel in the uplift novels by David Brin (I reviewed the second novel last year). I liked this one much more than the last one. I even liked it more than Sundiver which I thought was a pretty decent book.

The only disappointing thing is that there is no resolution to the events that occurred in Startide Rising. The events from that book aren't ignored, in fact the implications of those events weighs heavily in the motivation for various important elements in this book. I'm just impatient.

This book, unlike the last book, makes me want to read the rest of the Uplift books.

About a month or so ago I finished reading Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. I haven't read many Clarke novels but I think his Rendezvous With Rama novel is one of the best sci-fi books I have ever read. Having said that, I did not particularly like Childhood's End. A number of the story threads are seemingly forgotten for lengthy stretches (although a number of them do come back at the end of the story). And the conclusion to the story I found depressing. Perhaps it was meant to be depressing, but I don't believe that to be the case.

Hopefully I won't be giving too much away by saying that one of the main themes of the book, in fact what I took to be the primary theme, is one of 'transcendent evolution'. If the evolutionary path described in the book is supposed to be transcendent or uplifting I have to say I want off that train right now. I simply cannot believe that the loss of individuality and an ultimate merging with a galactic supermind is a promising path for humanity.

In a nutshell I found the narrative disjoint and the main theme to be ridiculous.

As promised I have a review of The Definitive Guide To Catalyst.

I was somewhat disappointed with the book. It is poorly organized. There isn't a coherent example taken to completion through the book. And, while it may be definitive, it is certainly not comprehensive. Having said all that I found it easier than the on-line manual to get through.

The organization is poor. The book appears to be gaining steam when it suddenly takes a detour to discuss deployment. The next chapter then seems to pick up where the earlier chapter left off. I can fathom no reason why it was done this way.

Certain topics are given the hand waving treatment. A chapter, presumably about extending Catalyst, discusses Actions in one paragraph. Its key bit seems to be that the reader should look at Catalyst::Action::REST for a good example of an Action. No doubt good advice, but I don't need to buy a book to tell me that.

Someone on the perl.org blogs asked about the book just the other day. I agree with the second commenter, Michael J, on every point.

This is the only modern book about Catalyst. It is far from perfect, but I still have to recommend it. It supplements some items that aren't covered well in the on-line docs. You won't learn everything and you'll likely still be confused about certain things when you're finished reading it. But it's all there is and it really is better than nothing.

Connie Willis has written some very entertaining books. Her most recent two books, Blackout and All Clear, are two of her best. I really enjoyed reading them.

Continuing in the time traveling historians universe we follow several of said historians to England during World War II. Much of the action takes place during The Blitz as the protagonists increasingly appear to be trapped in the past. The story is mostly set in London, but there are plenty of other locales, including Bletchley Park (and a short encounter with Alan Turing).

Highly recommended.

Macroscope, as best I can tell, is the only science fiction book by Piers Anthony. He seems to mostly be known for fantasy. I had heard his name but had never read any of his books.

I was underwhelmed by the book. I thought some of the reveals were too obvious and others too dull. I will say that most of the characters were interesting and I didn't think any of them got the shaft by the narrative. Overall I simply did not enjoy reading this novel.

I won't elaborately summarize the novel as I dislike that when I read other reviews. It is, loosely, about a group of four (no, five) characters and their search through the galaxy for the source of a mysterious signal. All this occurs in the early 1980's (the book was published in 1970). The title refers to an alien technology that allows one to view far distant objects or societies through an device dubbed a macroscope.

I wouldn't actively attempt to keep someone from reading this book, but I can't recommend it.

Being a believer and booster of sabermetrics I read with great interest an article about efficient running of the bases. I'd like to see some real world experiments performed to test this out.

So my favorite baseball team won the American League pennant last night. The Texas Rangers started off as the new Washington Senators in 1961. Ten years later the franchise moved to Arlington, Texas and were renamed the Texas Rangers. During that (nearly) 50 year period the franchise had never won a post season series. That has all changed this year. Not only did the Rangers win a post season series, they have now won two post season series. They finally defeated the New York Yankees in a post season series. They won their first home game in a post season series. And now they are going to the World Series.

When I was 3-4 years old my family lived in Houston, Texas. Before I started kindergarten we moved to Tucson, Arizona. Tucson had an interesting connection to Houston as Tucson, at that time, had the Tucson Toros which was the triple A affiliate of the Houston Astros. Up until 1988 Houston was the only city I had lived in that had a major league ballclub. Naturally I latched on to them as my baseball team. Even after my family moved to the Dallas area in 1988 I continued to be a big Astros fan. However, slowly, I started to become a Rangers fan. By the early 90's I was completely converted. Despite having not lived in the Dallas area for more than 10 years (except for one brief period of 9 months in 2005) I have continued to follow the Rangers. For years now I have subscribed to MLB Gameday Audio which is a service that provides the local radio feed for your team via the internet. While at work I listen to the games. So many years of mediocrity. The Rangers were never the worst in the league, and they were never counted among the best.

Last night made that investment of time meaningful. They have won the American League pennant and will be playing in the World Series.

I read about this book on an Amazon blog. I don't recall which one. It sounded interesting so I decided to take a chance. It was not a complete disappointment, but also not a pleasant surprise.

The Fireson brothers (popularly known as the Firefly brothers) are 30's era bank robbers. They discover they cannot be (permanently) killed. Several times during the novel they are seemingly dispatched only to 'wake up' in the morgue or in the back of a car. Over time their wounds miraculously heal. The Fireson's have no explanation for their ability.

The book uses the magical element as a hook, but the story is more about middle America during the Great Depression. This seems like an interesting, if not original, idea. The writing is a distraction as purple prose is scattered throughout the novel.

Overall I would say it is not worth the time to read.

A few weeks ago I finished reading a recent Vernor Vinge book named Rainbows End. While not quite as satisfying as A Fire Upon the Deep or A Deepness In the Sky it is an excellent read. Vinge has quickly become a favorite of mine.

The book covers a number of interesting topics from ubiquitous computing and augmented reality to the trade-offs we make for safety versus freedom. While some things are familiar it is all still very different.

There are quite a few story threads and not all of them are tied up at the end. This is fine as the environment that Vinge creates is very compelling and most of the characters are interesting. This book is certainly worth your time.

Somehow I have made it to my 36th birthday.

Startide Rising is a book by David Brin. I've read a few of Brin's works. Namely I have read Sundiver and Kiln People. I enjoyed both of those books, but I had a very hard time getting into Startide Rising. Why? I think, at its core, I don't buy the premise, or can't imagine it. I think I lack the imagination to buy into the idea that people and dolphins (and chimpanzees!) will be working together as equals. The dolphins can speak English and can move about in harnesses that have arms and legs. I tried to imagine this but I never quite bought it. I didn't believe what I was seeing in my mind!

This was actually the second time I have attempted to read this book. The first time I got about 20 or 30 pages in and gave up. This time I was able to finish and there were certainly very enjoyable parts of the book. I just can't recommend the book as a whole.

My phone was automatically updated to 2.2 a few weeks ago. I'm just now discovering what new features are available. So far the one that I know I will use the most is tethering. The even better news is that it is a snap to use with Ubuntu Linux.

I use GNOME which comes as standard with Ubuntu. Part of GNOME is the Network Manager. Simply connect your phone to the USB port on your laptop or desktop, turn on USB Tethering, and network manager does the rest. You should now see a special device show up in network manager. Make sure it is selected and you can immediately start using your phone as a gateway to the internet.

Sequoia National Park has some very large trees. It has what is supposed to be the largest living thing in the General Sherman tree. And it is very large. It's not the tallest, it's not the widest, but, by volume, it is the largest living thing on earth.

This park was also crowded, but it did not seem quite as crowded as Yosemite. Some of the places I visited are the Crystal Cave, Moro Rock, Crescent Meadow, and some other things.

This park is about a 2-3 hour drive from Yosemite and definitely worth it. I just wish I had had time to go to King's Canyon which is attached to Sequoia.

During my time in Yosemite I stayed at the Yosemite Lodge. The first night I was in one of the more expensive rooms and the following two nights in a cheaper room. They both seemed fine to me. Reservations typically need to be made at least a year in advance.

The first thing I noticed about Yosemite is that it is very crowded. Tons of cars. The second thing I noticed is that there are a lot of foreign tourists. Especially from Germany and France (but I also heard quite a few Italians, English, etc...). Granted we went in August and August is a big vacation month pretty much everywhere. So if you go some other time there may be fewer people. A surprise to me is that the park is open year round. One thing I would highly recommend is that you use the shuttles when you are on the valley floor. So much better than driving.

We didn't have a great deal of time and so had little time for lengthy hikes. We instead concentrated on seeing as much as possible in the time we had. We went to Glacier Point, Bridalveil Falls, and pretty much all of the other major sites. This takes a good day and a half and you'll get plenty of small, easy hikes in. If you have more time there are lots of longer, more difficult hikes.