Ken Newquist's Blog at Lafayette College
The problem with Siri is that she’s just too … friendly. GLaDOS (of Portal 2 fame), with her constant barrage of sarcasm and derision, would mix things up nicely. Of course, she’d also try to kill you, but hey, all great advances in technology come with a few drawbacks.
I’ve posted some thoughts on IE9 and HTML5 to the ITS Blog.
The 13th novel in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Mautrin series finds the pair on a diplomatic mission to the far side of the world, where they hope to outmaneuver a French envoy hoping to secure alliances with one of the island nations. It doesn’t have any of O’Brian’s signature gun fights, but it does see a reversal … Read more
Leviathan Wakes is an interplanetary space opera reminiscent of Joss Whedon’s Firefly. Although its set entirely within the confines of our solar system — there’s no zipping between star systems — the book still manages to get in some great starship combat. Combined with fun, fast dialogue, the book reminded me strongly of Joss Wheadon’s … Read more
The New Space Opera 2 is written by the current generation of SF writers, including Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi, John Barnes, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Mike Resnick. There are 19 stories in all. The first volume read more like The New Transhumanism than the New Space Opera, focusing on how humanity morphs itself in the future, rather than tales … Read more
Jack McDevitt’s The Engines of God is a novel of interstellar archeology. Earth has been devastated by global warming, and our exploration of the galaxy has only turned up a handful of “garden worlds” — planets comparable to Earth — that we can settle. We’ve also found ancient alien relics scattered around the galaxy, as … Read more
This is a video test of a m4v file exported using the “Share” feature in iMovie and played back using PowerPress. Note: this is basically an mp4 video file with a different extension. So why does the other file not work?
Video playback using PowerPress to play back an mp4 file.
A gallery of book covers from my summer reading list for 2011.
