Eleven Warriors » Know the Enemy: Texas Newspapers & Blogs

As much as I like these LED bulbs – New LED Light Bulbs Can Replace 100W Incandescents » MetaEfficient Reviews. – they are probably going to have to evolve a lot further in physical design before I can adopt them – like these CFL bulbs that look like incandescents – the incandescent shape is going to stay with us forever, just too many fixtures and designs have evolved around it.

• “Vacuum Diagrams”:amazon by Stephen Baxter. A pastiche of short stories, many in classic pulp style, strung together with some connective narrative to make into a somewhat interesting whole.  Diverting but ultimately kind of hollow, the main character is pretty thin.
• “Meat Market”:amazon by Bruce Feldman. Nonfiction, Bruce sits inside the Mississippi team for a year following primarily their recruiting travails under (now former) head coach Ed Orgeron. Life on the margins of bigtime college football is tough for the players and the teams, gives me new appreciation for coaches that are able to lift programs up from the doldrums.
• “Nothing To Lose”:amazon by Lee Child.  Another Reacher tale, this one is one of the weaker in the series, or maybe I am just Reachered out.  This book starts to feel like it is heading toward Stephen King territory with Apocalyptic cults which seem to have possessed whole towns.
• “The Watchman”:amazon by Robert Crais.  A Joe Pike thriller, this one is far more satisfying than the Reacher tale above.  Characters are more human, and thus resolution of plot is far more satisfying.

CrunchGear » Archive » Rogue for iPhone: nerdgasm. Installed.

Late 1982, I am killing myself chasing two degrees at CMU. In the mornings I was at the business school, classmates all wearing power suits and reading the WSJ and the Financial Times during breaks. Afternoons spent in the EE department with classic geeks.

After midnight in some lab deep in the bowels of the EE department, debugging some realtime ASM code for speech processing, and this lank-haired guy next to me asks “Hey, do you know how to kill a 12th-level necromancer?”

That was my intro to Rogue.

• Brett on Stuff » Distilleries of Scotland. A reason to hike Scotland
• WOW – stronger authentication than your bank. What does that say about the world.
• Running DC thru the house. An idea whose time has come again?
• Indie games DB. Often way better than mainstream games
• Guided Bullets. Why not.
• Thingiverse. Kind of an open source design site.
• Denhaus – awesome pet furniture
• Nitrogen-infused golf clubs. Golfers will buy anything.
• Dutch 5 Euro coin. Awesome, wish I could order. Not the first time I have been blocked from ordering a euro product, wish I could sign up for a forwarding PO box in Europe.
• Mini Magnetosphere. Maybe we all need one of these

• Tangle of Wires: Jack o’lanterns in the tree. Does look nice.
• Zoybar. Seems like it might be a nice way to build some sound fx
• Tinker Store. I kind of like the firefly kit
• Prop Documents via Makezine. Nice to spread around possibly
• Extreme foam cutting. Learning how to work with foam is job one for halloween construction
• Vintage poison labels. Very useful for mad scientist labs
• Kurt’s handiwork this year. All his stuff is awesome
• Paintings that watch you. One way to build this.
• Free sound mod software. May be too late on this one

Looking for a place.  Homeaway, VacationRentals, Vacation Rental By Owner, OnlyInLaguna, SBBeachRentals, ParadiseRetreats seem to have bunches of listings.  Lots of overlap, obviously owners crosslist anywhere they can.

* “How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read”:amazon by Pierre Bayard. A great treatise on what the act of reading is really about – how books enter your brain, how they are retained, how they enrich you, how you connect with others about what you’ve read. If you are a thoughtful reader, this is an excellent book.

* “Deal Breaker”:amazon by Harlan Coben. I am not sure what it says about me that I immediately read a formulaic series thriller after the Bayard. But Coben’s books always please. This is the first in his Myron Bolitar series and as good as all the later in the series.

“The Black Prince”:amazon by Iris Murdoch. An aging retiree plans to head to the country to restart his writing career; family and relationships intrude and events spiral out of control. It is not clear what truly happens in the story and what is a fabrication of the narrator and other characters. Quite interesting.

* “Persepolis”:amazon by Marjane Satrapi. A very quick read, graphic novel format. Excellent true tale of growing up in post-revolution Iran, presents a lot of stunningly tough situations but in a way that is readable.

* “Avalanche: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery”:amazon by Patrick McManus. Great yarn about a smalltown sheriff and murder. Great characters throughout, I would happily read more.

Rich, with his reflections on the recent election, has inspired me to share a few of my own personal thoughts.

Like many commentators, I am inspired by the actions of the electorate, overcoming a history of bias and bigotry to overwhelmingly support a minority American. And I found McCain’s concession speech to also be very inspiring, his support of the President-elect and his call to all of us to work together on the challenges ahead was gracious and high-integrity.

I am saddened tho by the passage of gay marriage bans in California, Arizona, and elsewhere. I just don’t understand the bias and hatred that we demonstrate towards a set of our fellow citizens. Allowing loving adults to have the full legal benefits and status of a marriage certainly does nothing to threaten or compromise the quality of my marriage. I hope we continue the dialog on this point as a nation.

Tangle of Wires. – Scott has a blog now. Amazingly great Halloween constructor.

* “Down River”:amazon by John Hart. Wow wow. A real pip of a story. A young man returns to his bucolic hometown after a 5 year disgraced absence, and a whole shitstorm of family dysfunction, unresolved conflict, betrayal, assault, and murder explodes. Fun! * “Forgotten Continent: The Battle For Latin America’s Soul”:amazon by Michael Reid. Like many US citizens, my conception of South American history and politics is basically this: conquered by Spain, freed by Bolivar, a mess of revolutions ever since. That is pretty much what I remember from middle school. This was thus a great book for me, a little long and tough going in parts, but a pretty good walk through of these societies and politics over the last 100 years. Way too much to absorb but a great read.