cyberspacial musings
bits about the real and virtual worlds

At a recent trip to Manila, I was able to tour a Gawad Kalinga (www.gk1world.org) community built on a landfill. This is one of my favorite photos from the trip.
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Seems like we’ve been here before.  NPR has published a list of their top 100 SF and Fantasy books, reprinted here with the one’s I’ve read marked with a “+” (46 total, although I suspect I read a couple of others and just can’t remember).  How many have you read?

+  1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
+  2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
+  3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
+  4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
   5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
+  6. 1984, by George Orwell
+  7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
+  8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
+  9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
+  10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
   11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
   12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
+  13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
+  14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
+  15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
+  16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
+  17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
   18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
+  19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
   20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
+  21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
   22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
   23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
+  24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
+  25. The Stand, by Stephen King
+  26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
+  27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
+  28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
   29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
   30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
+  31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
   32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
+  33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
+  34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
   35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
   36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
+  37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
+  38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
+  39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
   40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
   41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
   42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
   43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
+  44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
+  45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
+  46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
+  47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
   48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
+  49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
+  50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
   51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
   52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
+  53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
   54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
   55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
+  56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
   57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
+  58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
   59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
   60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
+  61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
   62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
   63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
   64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
   65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
   66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
+  67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
   68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
   69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
   70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
   71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
   72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
   73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
   74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
+  75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
+  76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
   77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
+  78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
+  79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
   80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
   81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
   82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
   83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
+  84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
   85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
   86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
   87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
   88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
   89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
   90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
+  91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
   92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
   93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
+  94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
   95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
+  96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
   97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
   98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
   99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
   100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

I had no idea that I was such an early adopter of LinkedIn.  Talk about being the first to venture across a desert …

I’m very encouraged by the latest Netflix news.  In short, Neflix is going to start providing exclusive original programming, starting with “House of Cards”, starring Kevin Spacey (good actor!).  I think this is a great move for the content industry — it puts Netflix squarely in the same place that HBO, Showtime and other premium networks are in without the burden of actually having to deal with the cable companies.  If this goes well, look for further disintermediation of the cable companies — HBO and Showtime will want to sell their programming directly over the Internet as well.  This will help commoditize the cable operators, which is why it was so important that Comcast move out of that business by buying NBC.  We’re watching the transformation of these industries and it’s pretty exciting. 

I’ve been waiting for this.  Need I say more?

I just installed WordPress for WP7 & I’m impressed with its clean, simple, & pretty interface. Nice to know that I can blog from anywhere :-)

A joke from a friend:

I don’t want to leave the drummers out in the cold …

This can be told in anyone of a number of politically incorrect settings, but let’s go with white settlers crossing the plains into hostile Indian territory. They know they’re being followed and feel it’s only time before they’ll be attacked.

One night they make camp and realize that from a distanced they are surrounded by hostile natives. Suddenly they hear the sound of war drums coming from the surrounding natives. One settler turns to the other and says, "I sure don’t like the sound of those drums!"

From a distance in the Indian camp comes the reply "…It’s not our regular drummer…"

A couple of years ago, I converted all of my old VHS-C tapes to DVD — 24 DVDs in all.  Now I’m starting stage 2 of the process of converting all of my video tapes — the miniDV collection.  Estimated storage required for raw video capture is 300 GB.  Today the approximate cost per GB is 8.21 cents (about $25 for this project).  3 years ago (where the collection ends), the cost was about 3 times higher.  While still practical to do 3 years ago, it amazes me to think about how much storage costs have dropped.  When I first bought the mini DV camera (1999), the cost of per GB was around $16 — putting the total cost of this project at about $4800.  This site has a great history of the cost of storage.

I just read this blog post about stand-up and walking desks and realized that I hadn’t posted a picture of my home stand-up desk.  I needed something less complicated at home so I purchased a bit of Ikea furniture to raise the monitors and used the original desk shelf to raise the keyboard.  Worked like a charm.

This is by far the best piece of postal mail I’ve received in a long time.  The letter has a Tanzanian stamp with a Dar Es Salaam postmark.  And apparently it also has Charles Taylor’s trust and confidence in me.