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the demilitarized zone
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more bad book news: bonifant books closing
sunday, september 23rd, 2007
one of my favorite used book stores, bonifant books, is closing down soon. bonifant books is the place located on georgia avenue, near university boulevard (near max’s), a few doors down from the jewish bookstore. they’re having a 25% off sale at the moment, and i personally suspect they’ll go lower as they nudge towards their “sometime in october” closing date.
the person i spoke with blamed amazon for their decline. that could be true, i guess. however, i’d also point out that bonifant books never really had the greatest selection ever, nor was their location that good. ultimately, used bookstores will have to do what “new bookstores” did - start offering things other than books, like drinks and merchandise.
posted in media, books | no comments »
sad news: robert jordan passes away
monday, september 17th, 2007
it was something of a shock, i think, given that robert jordan was apparently doing ok as recently as this past sunday, but he has unfortunately passed away. like most people, i only knew him through his wheel of time books - but considering the heart and soul he seemed to pour into them, perhaps that’s something significant.
his brother has confirmed that he’s left his notes and unfinished manuscript of the last book, but it is a sobering thought that he was taken from us before he had a chance to finish it. sometimes, g-d takes us before we’ve had a chance to finish what we want to do. baruch dayan emes.
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maxed out viewing
friday, july 6th, 2007
in a sign that i have become a true intellectual, and that my friends are at least as lame as me, i attended a documentary viewing with follow-on discussion on thursday night at david j’s place. the documentary being viewed was “maxed out”, which also apparently is a book.
i am economist by training, and still do a fair bit of statistical digging at my current job, so i’m naturally a little skeptical when people give me nice, compact answers to problems which appear complex. the movie (and book, from what i understand) had exactly this problem. but, first, some discussion.
the essential point of the movie, from what i could tell, is that the credit card and banking industries like to screw unwary people and take all their money. this is not unlike, say, any other industry, but i think people trust their banks more, for whatever reason. anyways, there was an emphatic harvard prof frequently telling us how the world was going to end, some people down on their luck that bad lending made worse, and even some lovely allegations of “the credit card debt made my loved one {disappear | kill themself}”. oh, and my favorite: some footage of credit-card-debt buyers trying to force people to pay up.
as a documentary, it sucked. there is no nicer way of saying it. it was way too reliant on emotional sob stories (i’m immune to such things, thanks to that lovely economics major), didn’t even attempt to talk about the role of consumers spending their way into debt, and was disturbingly short on real statistical research. that previously-mentioned harvard prof is basically all of their scholarly cover, and she doesn’t even do very good of a job, at that.
as an editorial criticism piece about how evil the “structure” is, it was pretty decent. the executives at the credit card companies clearly have no problems with people spending themselves into eternal debt, some of the stories are indeed outrageous (like the retarded guy, barely able to sign his own name, being considered fit to sign financial documents), and there’s the always-fun jabs at political leaders contradicting themselves (kudos to the movie: it doesn’t fall into partisan politics nearly as much as i thought it would).
but, frankly, the worst part of all of this was that there were no solutions given. the movie was either meant to say “buy the book!” or “ha ha, you’re screwed!”, because that’s all i was able to take away from it. and, unfortunately, according to our host, the book didn’t have any real answers, either. so, great - i should avoid credit card debt. tell me something i didn’t know already.
i don’t have any solutions, either, unfortunately. this is not a problem that a quick round of government regulation is going to fix (and as a libertarian, i’m not so interested in that solution, either). people just need to learn not to live beyond their means, and more importantly, what their actual needs are.
posted in media, movies, books, cultural events | no comments »
busy busy
friday, october 20th, 2006
sorry for the lack of updates - i’ve been busy with critically kosher, high holidays, reading, and my xbox 360. and working, of course.
the easiest thing to start with is my oh-so-precious xbox 360. basically, it’s been enchanted arms and the phantasy star universe beta/demo/stress-test. i’m almost done with enchanted arms, and i’ve found it to be a fun game with a terrible endgame. any game that actively requires you to exploit the casino has some issues, but it’s got a nice variety of gameplay otherwise. psu has been pretty great, too - i’m definitely going to be getting it once i’m done with enchanted arms.
my latest “piece of fancy hardware” purchase was a pair of creative ps2000 speakers. these are, without a doubt, the weirdest looking speakers i’ve ever seen. i’ll let you read the review i linked to see how they work, but from my limited experience, they do a decent job of simulating 5.1 sound (audio position feels right, except when it’s directly behind you, where it’s just a little weak). considering that i don’t have the room for a real 5.1 system, it’s a pretty good deal for the $65 shipped i spent on it. one of the best parts is the integrated dolby digital decoder with optical and composite toslink inputs - the only thing i’ve seen that’s even remotely comparable is the logitech z-5500, and that’s a hundred bucks more. the difference isn’t really all that startling compared to analog, but i’m a sucker for digital inputs (where’s the hdmi cable, microsoft?).
critically kosher went through a two week dry spell, but i’ve tossed out some new content once again. i want to start getting up to baltimore for restaurant reviews, but i’m finding it difficult to even make it up there to see my family, let alone for my hobby. still, i’m doing pretty favorably compared to the kosher blog and koshercritic, which i consider as my two main competitors.
i conducted the synagogue’s kibbud auction (if you don’t know, don’t ask) for the high holidays, and it went “ok”. we raised quite a lot of money, but it was less than an open auction would have raised. i’m going to write up a post-mortem at some point about it, so stay tuned.
finally, reading. i’ve been going back through some of the main story line dragonlance novels, and i’ve been enjoying them immensely. a random person at the friends of the library store in rockville handed me “the stars my destination” and told me it was excellent, so i’ve also been hammering through that. i generally concur with the sentiment.
posted in computer and console games, jewish stuff, media, books | no comments »
ebooks
sunday, august 27th, 2006
as many of you no doubt know, i’m a prolific reader on a scale that needs to be seen to be believed.
on a lark, i picked up a used copy of war of honor, that, miraculously enough, contained the cd-rom that originally came with it. this cd-rom has the baen free library on it - or the contents thereof when the book was first published. it also has the complete honor harrington series on it. what’s best is that there are basically no restrictions on the books - no drm, and the only restriction to redistribution is that it can’t be commercial. fair enough.
i never thought i was an ebook person. i like the feel of a book, the way you can hide under the covers and read it. well, it turns out, you can load it onto your pda or smart phone, and do the same thing. yes, there’s more scrolling and battery to worry about, but you also get a much smaller form factor, too. you also don’t have to risk the book getting lost, or the space constraints involved with carrying books.
suffice it to say that i’m very, very impressed with the concept and the execution. excellent job, baen!
posted in it and general computer stuff, media, books | no comments »
the twelve books of dune
wednesday, january 25th, 2006
i’ve finally finished another long-time goal of mine: reading all 12 books of the dune saga. for the old school among you, you may now be wondering, “i thought there were only 6 books!” let me catch everyone up:
the original dune series consists of the six books written by frank herbert, which i’ll list chronologically: dune, dune messiah, children of dune, god-emperor of dune, heretics of dune, and chapterhouse: dune. these books are indisputable canon for the universe.
the “new” dune series consists of the six books written by brian herbert and kevin anderson: dune: the butlerian jihad, dune: the machine crusade, dune: the battle of corrin, dune: house atreides, dune: house harkonnen, and dune: house corrino. not all fans think these are canonical, and i’m starting to see why.
of the original series, i liked everything but god-emperor of dune and heretics of dune. the constant “let’s bring back duncan idaho” that’s a centerpiece of those books started getting less interesting and more weird after a while, at least for me. as you can imagine, chapterhouse: dune was a pleasant surprise in comparison after that.
the new dune series is much easier reading. unfortunately, it opens giant gaping holes in the plot. why is duncan idaho so special? there’s precisely nothing to indicate he’s any more or less than gurney halleck, who’s a relatively minor player in the original series. the “harkonnen tragedy” is rather forced - and the way that vor utterly turns on abulurd is so out of character that it’s amazing. he also manages to leave out how the bene gesserit forgot all of their super-duper psychic powers that could kill every living thing in a mile radius.
to make matters worse, it opens great big plot spoilers for the ending of chapterhouse: dune. while an intelligent reader might have guessed the honored matres were fleeing something their vaunted sexual prowess couldn’t dominate, and wondered, “might it be the thinking machines?”, yet still be unsure, brian herbert more or less gives us the answer straight out. omnius-earth seeded itself before being nuked, and before corrin was retaken, the remaining two omnius clones sent out an activation signal with the remenants of their memory on it. this is further backed by the theme of “cycles of history” that seems to be completed when the new dune is created.
don’t get me wrong, i didn’t hate the new series. but it does open some valid questions as to whether it’s really canonical…
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digital fortress is utter trite
tuesday, november 1st, 2005
as the title may have tipped you off, i hated dan brown’s novel “digital fortress”. i enjoyed the da vinci code, although i didn’t think it was the best piece of literature in a decade, either.
i would get into a more plot recitation thorough dismembering of the novel, but i just can’t justify wasting more time on his idiocy. suffice it to say the following facts:
1. dan brown wrote a novel called “digital fortress” about nsa cryptologists.
2. dan brown knows _nothing_ about cryptology or nsa, or any combination of the two.
the plot is hackneyed and stereotyped, the twists are stupid, and the subplots totally destroy any shred of dignity the book might have had left. i really cannot convey thoroughly enough just how awful this book is. please do not waste your time or money on this trash. i’ve considered billing him to get back the five hours of my life that i wasted on this book.
your enjoyment of the book might be a little higher if you share dan brown’s utter ignorance as described in fact 2. don’t read this book anyways - why pay to get dumber?
posted in media, books | 4 comments »
in search of shelving
monday, october 24th, 2005
between the holidays, working, and sleeping, i’ve been trying to keep moving with the huge number of books i’ve got. in fact, i even updated my list of “books i want to get”. it got larger, but i’m actually on the tail-end of dragonlance, spelljammer (gotta work up the will to shell out the $30 for book 6), dark sun, and greyhawk. forgotten realms looms large as always (i don’t think i buy at a rate faster than they publish). planescape is on my to-do list - i only have one novel, but only five were ever made. birthright is a nightmare - just finding a reliable novel list is difficult enough.
i keep thinking that i need to start grabbing some of the compilations to free up space - even the hard-covers are smaller than three books in terms of width, which is the kind of space i’m running out of. there are only a moderate amount of books i can do this with, most of which i already own (cleric quintet, chronicles, legends, some of the drizzt series, etc.), and it’s expensive, so i’ve been holding off on it. i’ll probably shell out for the annotated chronicles and legends at some point, though.
i also need a copy of god-emperor of dune. if anyone can find it used for me locally, let me know where. i never buy used off amazon - the shipping costs totally kill any bargains.
one of the interesting problems that’s starting to rear its ugly head is the matter of putting them somewhere. for some reason, our bookshelves are the totally non-standard measurement of 26″ 1/2 x 11″ 3/4 x 5/8″. try as i might, i’ve been totally unable to find anything on the internet that’s similar. this means i have to go to home depot and deal with the idiots there in a quest to get a few boards cut (i’d do it myself, except for the lack of tools and space).
in a fit of self-startership, i actually did go there this morning, there being the home depot in college park. unfortunately, the person who was in charge of the huge saw was _super-busy_, and there was just no way i was going to wait, let alone communicate with him in his awful broken english. after a few hours of nursing my wounds with rome: total war: barbarian invasion, i decided to go to staples, where i had originally bought the bookcases.
naturally, of course, they were totally unwilling to sell me just some boards. “you can buy the whole bookcase!” and put it where? “well, you should contact the manufacturer.” the brand name is “situations”. as far as i can tell, situations is just some generic crap that staples rebrands - ie, situations is an in-house brand. they didn’t even have a manual for me to use to contact them, either. what great service!
anyways, i punched off an email to staples.com, and they actually directed me to the situations web site. we’ll see if they can help me.
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