The author bills this as the last Takeshi Kovacs novel (kindle edition). At this point, I think I know what to expect from a Takeshi Kovacs novel: lots of sex and violence, mixed in with philosophy, serendipity, and perhaps an examination of character. It's a potent, powerful mix, but when one learns to expect a hit, the hit is perhaps lessened.
Nevertheless, Richard Morgan's style is irresistible --- the prose in this novel flows like a fast moving river, carrying you along. In this novel, Kovacs is caught up in a Yakuza plot on his home-world of Harlan's World, where he is carrying out a vendetta against some religionists. When his planned re-sleeving falls through, he ends up falling in with a Decom squad --- a squad of quasi-military folks whose job it is to de-commission some self-aware robots in an area known as the Uncleared.
Things take a turn for the strange when the leader of the unit, Sylvie Oshima, starts claiming to be Quellist Falconer, the revolutionary leader whose philosophical quotes adorn the start of many a chapter of the Kovacs novels thus far. On top of that, we learn that the first family of Harlan's World has sleeved an earlier version of Kovacs (illegally, of course) to hunt him down, so now Takeshi has to take on the toughest opponent yet --- himself.
In many ways, this is a novel for fans --- we get to meet many of the characters only mentioned in previous novels, and in some ways, we get to see the wish-fulfillment of both Kovacs and fans. The ending, however, is just a bit Deus-Ex-Machinas for me. Rather than being something that the reader could have figured out (and I admit that I was never patient enough to try to do so), the ending feels like it was placed there by the author without any clue as to what had happened. I felt slightly cheated.
Nevertheless, it's a good read, and I certainly got value for money. Perhaps Morgan is the rightful heir to Ian Fleming's legacy --- but in any case, he is still a far better writer than Fleming was. Recommended, but only if you also enjoyed the other two Kovacs novels.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Ebersberg/Salzburg/Traunstein Tour

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Salzburg Trip |
It was a 3 day weekend in Bavaria, so I took the opportunity to do a longer, multi-day. I packed my saddlebag with the usual touring equipment, and met with Chris Brown at 9am to catch the train to Ebersberg to start. The train to Ebersberg took 45 minutes, so it was 10:15 by the time we got started. I discovered that unless you get your waypoints absolutely correct on Garmin's Mapsource program, the GPS unit's routing algorithm differs from what runs on your PC, which results in discrepancy between what you see on the computer screen and what finally shows up on the GPS unit.
No matter, I picked a direction and immediately started riding. It didn't take long, however, for me to hear a rubbing noise coming from the tire. I stopped to check, and discovered that it was indeed the fender rubbing against the tire --- the right rear screw holding the fender to the eyelet had fallen off. I cannibalized an unused screw and all was well, but it wasn't an auspicious start to the tour. Since I no longer trusted the GPS, I got out a map sheet I had torn out of the Deutschland Atlas the night before. After conferring with a local, we headed towards Jacobneuharting and Roti am Inn. The day was beautiful and warming quickly, and we climbed and descended from one river valley to another.
The GPS unit finally kicked in at some point and routed us towards the Inn river crossing. There was a strong north east wind blowing, but it didn't bother us very much --- at the bottom of the river valleys, we were shielded from the wind, and we were heading south-east anyway, which meant that half the wind vector was helping us.
We headed across the Inn river, and saw on our left hand side the Mozart bike trail, which looped around the greater Salzburg area. It wasn't heading where we wanted to go, however, so we stayed on the busy highway and turned off within 2km towards Berg and Vogtareuth, where we found some of the nicest riding we had seen so far. From there, we headed towards Sochtenau and Bad Endorth via the narrowest roads I could spot by eye and on the map, and eventually ended up having lunch between the Hartsee and the Langenburnge See in a restaurant/bier-garten by the side of the road. There was only one busy highway there, so after lunch we followed it until Weisham where a right turn brought us finally to Breitbrunn and our first look at the Chimsee.
Just before Mitterndorf we headed onto the bike path for a while (which was dirt), but discovered quickly that the path was literally too buggy to ride on --- you couldn't even open your mouth or an insect would get in. Poor Chris swallowed an insect this way. "Tasty," he said. So we got back onto the road and rode around to Seebuck, where the views got much better. Once there, we found n unpaved bike path along the estuary towards Chieming. This one wasn't as buggy, and we happily rode along it, enjoying the shade, the views out to our right (no car driver would ever see this view), and the large number of cyclists out enjoying the day.
At Chieming, we stopped for ice-cream, and stared at the private beach in wonder --- it looked idyllic, but neither of us were willing to pay the entry fee just to get a photo, so I leaned over the fence and shot a few pictures. Once we left the Chiemsee, the traffic picked up, especially towards the freeway, but so did our tail wind. We zipped along past the freeway, towards Grassau, but once over the freeway the road narrowed and the traffic got annoying. As we rode over the Ache river, I noticed a bike path along it and pulled over.
A close examination of the map showed that the river led directly to Marquartstein, where we had reservations for the night, so we abandoned the pavement once again and rode up the river on the glorious bike path. It was a beautiful bike path, with wide vistas of mountain views, and a relatively good surface. Near Grassau, we got diverted off the bike path because of construction, and didn't bother getting on again because we were so close and i didn't want to miss a turn into the Hotel.
I needn't have worried, since the hotel's location was pretty obvious, but when I got in, the hotel didn't have a record of my reservation. That being the case, I got out my blackberry and showed the owner the record of my reservation. He apologized and gave us an apartment suite --- the largest hotel room I'd seen for a while, for the sae price (69 Euros for both of us, including breakfast). We both delighted at this stroke of luck, and promptly took showers to wash off the road grime before heading into town for dinner, where prices were much lower than I'd gotten used to in Munich. Chris was surprised that we stopped so early (5pm), but I noted that he was plenty tired even so. In fact, he was so tired he turned in at 8:30pm. I read for a bit more before going to bed at 10:00pm.
We both got up around 6:30am, and after a shower and a brief discussion of what was to come today, we headed down and found a fabulous breakfast. The PrinzRegent Hotel definitely has my endorsement --- Chris was on his first overnight bike tour and commented at the favorable price --- I pointed out that we had deliberately stayed off the beaten path to get these prices.
We headed up the mountain towards Riet im Winkl. Along the way in Oberwassen, I noticed a sign for the Achetal bike loop. We got off the road to have a look see, but the loop was exceedingly short and we didn't save any time because of it, though we did have a nice diversion because of it. Back on the main road, the hill started going up, and finally we crested Maserer-Pass at 793m. This was Chris' first mountain pass, so we stopped for a photo before descending into Entfelden, where we turned off onto the Deustche Alpenstrasse. The traffic here was very annoying, so I was glad to find the Mozart bike path here did indeed go where we were going. The dirt path was a little looser than usual, and my rear wheel spun here and there, but it was quite manageable on 25mm tires. I wasn't willing to put up with dirt on a descent, however, so once the road leveled out, we abandoned the otherwise scenic Mozart path for the main road, which wound around the Weitsee, Mittersee, and Lodensee here, making for a gorgeous ride.
It was a short descent into the junction, where we turned away from Ruhpolding and started the climbg towards the Zwingsee. Here the traffic dropped and the scenery started to look really good. We rolled around for a bit and then hit the sudden, steep descent where we turned towards Bad Reichenhall. The traffic picked up, and I decided that German engineering for fast roads does not a good cycle road make. We tooled along, using bike paths whenever possible but staying on the road where not. While German drivers are generally competent, there's still something harrowing about a big bus over taking you with 12 inches to spare. I was glad when the road started descending steeply and I could take the lane, since I was going as fast as or faster than the cars. The roads were engineered such that even I had not used my brakes at all on any of the descents in the Deutsche Alpenstrasse.
In Bad Reichenhall, Chris decided that it being mother's day, he should go see his mom, so we ate a quick lunch, and said farewell to each other. At this point, the GPS kicked in, and I followed the directions into Salzburg, where I passed the airport (which looked like a great airport to ride into or out of) before finding my way near the university and finally across the Inn river once again. As before, I spotted a bike path and ignored the GPS to follow it out of Salzburg. This one was paved, and being along the Inn river, was flat and crowded with Sunday cyclists. I played "dodge em" for a bit but once out of the city proper, the bike path quickly emptied and I could tool along until I hit Bergheim, where the GPS once again beeped at me to exit the bike path. Seeing that I was but 20km away from Seeham, I acquiesced and to my delight found that I was out into the small country roads that I so loved.
My delight was further compounded when I discovered that the route took me steeply up into the woods, where it was shaded and the climbing was steep enough for me to switch to the inner chain ring. I rode up into Voggenberg, Trainting, and other towns with such names, and soon realized that I was following the ridge-line. I guess I deliberately put in way points to stay off the big roads, and this was paying off. Seeing the icons of cyclists along the way made me realize that this was a major cycling recreational area. The wind had picked up at this point, so it was slow going even up the hill, though the wind also meant that I never overheated. Neither words nor pictures can overstate how pretty this area was --- the last time I saw something this pretty was in the Lakes District in England, during our 2006 Coast to Coast walk.
Just as I was tiring, the GPS guided me down a steep hill and I was in Seeham, where a quick jog along the main road followed by a steep climb led me to Hotel Walkner, where I did not even have to introduce myself to the receptionist/waitress before she greeted me by name, being the only Asian person showing up that day. She showed me to my room, and the Englishman drinking a beer at the bar showed me where to stash my bike. I then ordered an ice-cream (well, they didn't have any, but they gave me a cake with ice cream over it), then took a shower. The pool was too cold to swim, so I read for a bit before having dinner.
At dinner, the hotel manager made a point of coming up to greet me, and had something sent to me from the kitchen as a greeting. The Salzburg snitzel was also excellent, as was the asparagus minestrone soup. I was impressed by the whole lot. As other guests filed in, I greeted Peter, the English lorry driver, and got him to recommend a few places to go, since he holiday'd in the region quite a bit. I then spotted 3 other cyclists who'd come in a bit after I did, and inquired as to where they came from. It turned out that they had ridden in that day from Salzburg, and were on the EuroPro self-guided tour --- they were handed route sheets, their luggage got ferried between stops, and their hotels were pre-booked. They had a GPS unit with them, so I gave them a card so they could e-mail me their GPS logs when they were done.
I woke up the next morning hungry, and headed down to eat as much as I could. I then grabbed an apple, paid my bills (45 Euros for the room and breakfast --- no complaints from me, given the service they provided), and headed out and around the lake before heading north to Berndorf where I would start my return towards Trauntstein, where I could catch a train back to Munich. I had prepared a different route earlier that would have me circumnavigate more of the Austrian lakes (and seeing as they were very pretty), but that would have taken me through Salzburg again, and I decided there that two Salzburg traversals in one trip was one two many. Besides, I had laundry to do, and it would be nice to get some rest.
The ride to Oberndorf was pretty and as scenic as the day before, and I once again took advantage of a high ridge road. Past Oberndorf, I was impressed by how my GPS unit had picked a route that other cyclists had also picked. Hoping to pick up more rural roads, I turned off the main road at the sign pointing towards Strass, and soon found myself lost in the twisty curves, relyng on my GPS to guide me. At some point, it became too much trouble to get out a map, so I just followed the GPS along the Waginger See and over the bridge separating the eastern end of the lake from the western end of the lake. The unit gave me a nice route to follow but as is wont to do too often, dumped me onto a main road 10km away from Traunstein. Fortunately, I spied a bike route sign and quickly left the main road, where the traffic while not too annoying was not what I wanted.
The bike route returned me to the main road about 3km from Traunstein, and there I gave in and followed the GPS's directions, which led me to the train station at 1:10pm, where I had enough time to buy train tickets and eat an ice cream before the train arrived.
All in all, the trip was 273km with 280km with 2705m of climb. There was only one mechanical (loose fender bolt), and the weather was perfect in every way. I can't wait to explore more of the lakes area of Austria.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Goethe Institute 2 week Superintensive German class
I spent the last two weeks at the SuperIntensive German course at the Goethe Institute. I figured that the start of a new work assignment is the best time to take the class, since I would then get to use my new found language skills (if I acquired any), for the rest of my stay.
The class is conducted in 10 days, from 8:30 to 5:00pm every day, in 4 sessions of 1.5 hours each, and a 1.5 hour lunch break. It is a full immersion class, where the instructors speak to you completely in German from day 1, and my class at least, had only 3 students per instructor, so the instruction was really really personal. In fact, the instructors take a survey at the start asking you what you want to know, and everything you need will be covered, up to a point.
The point, unfortunately, is that German is a difficult language, structurally speaking. No lesser a man than Mark Twain himself has written a treatise on how difficult the language is to learn. (The article is a lot more funny when you've burnt 40 hours attempting to learn the language) Of course, there are benefits to learning German --- you don't have to remember as much vocabulary because there are a lot of similar words to English.
My goals were very simple: to be able to do simple tasks (get a hotel room, ask for directions), and to be able to listen in on colleague's conversations, as well as make myself understood. I'm afraid I wasn't terribly successful at the first, and my German accent is apparently thick enough that I'm going to have to carry a dictionary so I can point at a word in frustration if I can't pronounce it well.
This is indeed the biggest fault of the Goethe Institute: it does not have a language lab. It has a media center, but to get rid of strong and heavy accents like the one I have, you'd have to have a real language lab --- one that records your attempts to say a word, plays it back to you along with the correct enunciation, and thereby provides you proper feedback to modulate your voice. As evidence of this, I used a language lab as part of my Japanese class at Berkeley 15 years ago, and I enunciate Japanese perfectly --- I might not know much Japanese, but my pronunciation is so good that people assume I know more than I do.
As it is, I can understand about one quarter of typical spoken German, and I can read the train site now without much trouble. I no longer need an English menu at a restaurant, and I can count. This is pretty good progress for 2 weeks, so I'm pretty satisfied. Obviously, at 38, I'm no longer young and find it tough to learn new languages.
All in all, if you had to learn German in a hurry, this is probably a good way to go. If you have a month, the institute also has month long classes that aren't as intensive, which is probably a good thing --- you have more time to absorb what you're being taught, and it isn't as all consuming. But then you'd have to take a month. If you have that much time, then perhaps enrolling at UC Berkeley or some institute of higher learning where you have access to a language lab would give you better results. But then you need at least a quarter or so and the results might not be so immediate and personally tailored.
The class is conducted in 10 days, from 8:30 to 5:00pm every day, in 4 sessions of 1.5 hours each, and a 1.5 hour lunch break. It is a full immersion class, where the instructors speak to you completely in German from day 1, and my class at least, had only 3 students per instructor, so the instruction was really really personal. In fact, the instructors take a survey at the start asking you what you want to know, and everything you need will be covered, up to a point.
The point, unfortunately, is that German is a difficult language, structurally speaking. No lesser a man than Mark Twain himself has written a treatise on how difficult the language is to learn. (The article is a lot more funny when you've burnt 40 hours attempting to learn the language) Of course, there are benefits to learning German --- you don't have to remember as much vocabulary because there are a lot of similar words to English.
My goals were very simple: to be able to do simple tasks (get a hotel room, ask for directions), and to be able to listen in on colleague's conversations, as well as make myself understood. I'm afraid I wasn't terribly successful at the first, and my German accent is apparently thick enough that I'm going to have to carry a dictionary so I can point at a word in frustration if I can't pronounce it well.
This is indeed the biggest fault of the Goethe Institute: it does not have a language lab. It has a media center, but to get rid of strong and heavy accents like the one I have, you'd have to have a real language lab --- one that records your attempts to say a word, plays it back to you along with the correct enunciation, and thereby provides you proper feedback to modulate your voice. As evidence of this, I used a language lab as part of my Japanese class at Berkeley 15 years ago, and I enunciate Japanese perfectly --- I might not know much Japanese, but my pronunciation is so good that people assume I know more than I do.
As it is, I can understand about one quarter of typical spoken German, and I can read the train site now without much trouble. I no longer need an English menu at a restaurant, and I can count. This is pretty good progress for 2 weeks, so I'm pretty satisfied. Obviously, at 38, I'm no longer young and find it tough to learn new languages.
All in all, if you had to learn German in a hurry, this is probably a good way to go. If you have a month, the institute also has month long classes that aren't as intensive, which is probably a good thing --- you have more time to absorb what you're being taught, and it isn't as all consuming. But then you'd have to take a month. If you have that much time, then perhaps enrolling at UC Berkeley or some institute of higher learning where you have access to a language lab would give you better results. But then you need at least a quarter or so and the results might not be so immediate and personally tailored.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Iron Man Movie Review
So, it might show up once in a while on these blogs, but me and my brothers are all pretty big comic books fans. It might not show up as the majority of the reviews, but its definitely a guilty pleasure, and in terms of pages read, probably almost equals the amount of pages read from real books.
Suffice it to say that we have a very very good background when it comes to comic books and their super heroes. The past few super hero movies though, have been a bit of a disappointment, Spiderman 3, X-men 3, Superman....I won't even mention Fantastic Four 2. With that pedigree, all from the last year or so, I wouldn't blame anyone if they chose to skip Iron Man. I mean, one of the middle known super heroes, and not particularly the most beloved.
Well, I just finished watching it, and its probably one of the best super hero movies out there. Its up on par with X-man 1, Batman Begins, and Spidey 2 or 1.
First of all, the casting is amazing. Robert Downey Jr as Tony Starks. The real life embodiment of Tony Starks (minus the mechanical genius), playing himself is nothing but sheer genius. He gets the character down to a T. Gwyneth Paltrow as a supped up Pepper Potts was nothing short of amazing as well.
As the rest of the characters are fairly bit players, I won't mention them, but suffice it to say that they're fairly good in their bit parts.
Secondly, the dialogue is incredible. Beyond casting the characters well, they wrote lines that are realistic, witty, funny, and something that just fits the movie perfectly. Its irreverent when it needs to be, its witty when it needs to be, and its completely relevant when its necessary. Never have I enjoyed a super hero movie from beginning to end and looked more forward to the interaction between characters more so than the action.
Thirdly, the movie is very very well updated and the plot is mostly believable (80% or so) =). No longer is Starks a prisoner of war in Vietnam, but a prisoner of war in Afghanistan...Pepper Potts is no longer just in the background, but shows up in the foreground with lines and roles that are every bit as powerful as the titular charcter's repulsors.
I won't go into the plot here, you can google it if you want to, and there's really nothing to spoil, but I'll still leave that as an excercise for the readers.
The action is there, and its great, and its perfect, but in the end, I think whats incredible about the movie is how well its packaged together. The dialogue, the casting, the action, the CG....I guess having good directors do make a difference huh, Marvel? =) Its also surprising seeing as how its only John Favreau's (click for an article on him directing Iron Man) 4th directed movie. I'll be watching out for more of this works from now on.
In other words, highly recommended, definitely at the matinee price, and probably even at full price. It didn't get a 94% at Rotten Tomatoes for nothing!
Suffice it to say that we have a very very good background when it comes to comic books and their super heroes. The past few super hero movies though, have been a bit of a disappointment, Spiderman 3, X-men 3, Superman....I won't even mention Fantastic Four 2. With that pedigree, all from the last year or so, I wouldn't blame anyone if they chose to skip Iron Man. I mean, one of the middle known super heroes, and not particularly the most beloved.
Well, I just finished watching it, and its probably one of the best super hero movies out there. Its up on par with X-man 1, Batman Begins, and Spidey 2 or 1.
First of all, the casting is amazing. Robert Downey Jr as Tony Starks. The real life embodiment of Tony Starks (minus the mechanical genius), playing himself is nothing but sheer genius. He gets the character down to a T. Gwyneth Paltrow as a supped up Pepper Potts was nothing short of amazing as well.
As the rest of the characters are fairly bit players, I won't mention them, but suffice it to say that they're fairly good in their bit parts.
Secondly, the dialogue is incredible. Beyond casting the characters well, they wrote lines that are realistic, witty, funny, and something that just fits the movie perfectly. Its irreverent when it needs to be, its witty when it needs to be, and its completely relevant when its necessary. Never have I enjoyed a super hero movie from beginning to end and looked more forward to the interaction between characters more so than the action.
Thirdly, the movie is very very well updated and the plot is mostly believable (80% or so) =). No longer is Starks a prisoner of war in Vietnam, but a prisoner of war in Afghanistan...Pepper Potts is no longer just in the background, but shows up in the foreground with lines and roles that are every bit as powerful as the titular charcter's repulsors.
I won't go into the plot here, you can google it if you want to, and there's really nothing to spoil, but I'll still leave that as an excercise for the readers.
The action is there, and its great, and its perfect, but in the end, I think whats incredible about the movie is how well its packaged together. The dialogue, the casting, the action, the CG....I guess having good directors do make a difference huh, Marvel? =) Its also surprising seeing as how its only John Favreau's (click for an article on him directing Iron Man) 4th directed movie. I'll be watching out for more of this works from now on.
In other words, highly recommended, definitely at the matinee price, and probably even at full price. It didn't get a 94% at Rotten Tomatoes for nothing!
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Review: Rolling Thunder
Once upon a time, John Varley was a serious adult science fiction writer. His novels, such as Steel Beach and The Gaen Trilogy won awards, and were well written, intelligent, and dealt with interesting issues such as the role of computers, gender, and what would happen to humanity if the earth were to become uninhabitable.
I was thus puzzled when his latest novels were all Juvenile Science Fiction (also known as Young Adult Science Fiction --- YASF). But yesterday, John Scalzi explained it to me --- Young Adult fiction outsells adult fiction two to one, so adult science fiction has lost another writer because of the need to pay the mortgage. (Piers Anthony and Roger Zelazny both succumbed to this)
Now I have no problems with YASF if it's high quality. For instance, I'm a big fan of Buffy, and that's nothing if not YASF. I want to see good exploration of themes, intelligent character development, and perhaps, a little bit of science would be nice.
Rolling Thunder (kindle edition) has none of these. The main character, Podkayne, is a bit of a spoiled brat who has everything fall into her lap. She's the grand child of some very important people, and hence gets a plum assignment to Europa for her military as a singer. She then gets involved in a major disaster on Europa where some mysterious monolith type objects decide to take off from the planetoid. The resultant disaster means that she has to use bubble technology to put herself into stasis. She is rescued 10 years later, and one of her songs has made her rich and famous, and then the story then becomes that of her encounter with Jubal (who appeared in the prior "thunder" books), her marriage, and her celebrity life.
The book doesn't even have a useful resolution --- we never find out what the Europan creatures are, and we don't find out where the final spaceship (the namesake of the book) ends up and what happens to the remnants of Earth's population. Varley clearly expects us to buy the sequel and is definitely milking this for all that it's worth. Not recommended. If you want to help put Varley's kids through college, just write him a check directly and save yourself some valuable time.
I was thus puzzled when his latest novels were all Juvenile Science Fiction (also known as Young Adult Science Fiction --- YASF). But yesterday, John Scalzi explained it to me --- Young Adult fiction outsells adult fiction two to one, so adult science fiction has lost another writer because of the need to pay the mortgage. (Piers Anthony and Roger Zelazny both succumbed to this)
Now I have no problems with YASF if it's high quality. For instance, I'm a big fan of Buffy, and that's nothing if not YASF. I want to see good exploration of themes, intelligent character development, and perhaps, a little bit of science would be nice.
Rolling Thunder (kindle edition) has none of these. The main character, Podkayne, is a bit of a spoiled brat who has everything fall into her lap. She's the grand child of some very important people, and hence gets a plum assignment to Europa for her military as a singer. She then gets involved in a major disaster on Europa where some mysterious monolith type objects decide to take off from the planetoid. The resultant disaster means that she has to use bubble technology to put herself into stasis. She is rescued 10 years later, and one of her songs has made her rich and famous, and then the story then becomes that of her encounter with Jubal (who appeared in the prior "thunder" books), her marriage, and her celebrity life.
The book doesn't even have a useful resolution --- we never find out what the Europan creatures are, and we don't find out where the final spaceship (the namesake of the book) ends up and what happens to the remnants of Earth's population. Varley clearly expects us to buy the sequel and is definitely milking this for all that it's worth. Not recommended. If you want to help put Varley's kids through college, just write him a check directly and save yourself some valuable time.
Another Bavarian Ride

The forecast today was for 20 degrees C, so I left all my rain gear in my hotel room and headed out at 8:50am to meet Chris Brown at 12 Dienerstrasse for our ride. Chris had just picked up his bike shorts the day before, and was nattily dressed in a plaid shirt with mountain bike shorts. He picked up a couple of bottles of water and then we headed to the S-Bahn to pick up the train to Holzkirchen. While waiting for the train I realized that I had left my camera also in the hotel room, but didn't want to pay the 40 minute penalty to go get it, so I decided I would just enjoy the scenery instead.
We arrived in Holzkirchen around 10:00, and after making our preparations immediately headed out to the roads that I had ridden just a couple of weeks before. My goal wasn't to reprise that ride, but to head further East to see if I could find more climbing. Nevertheless, the ride south through Wangau had impressed me so much at that time that I opted to reuse some of the roads. I had created the route on Tuesday, so at this point only had a vague recollection of it. Once again, the beauty of the Bavarian foothills impressed me --- the San Francisco Bay Area has more climbing in less distance, but this area in Spring, at least, kicks butt in the "beauty per mile" division. You get lonely single lane roads, tree lined roads, cute little Bavarian villages where on Sundays folks still wear lederhosen, and then forests, streams, and all the alpine beauty thereof. Ahead of us we could see the snow capped peaks of the German alpine range, mighty and tall.
Of course, having a GPS-navigation device is of no use if you aren't paying attention. At some point I took a wrong turn and ended up on the main road near Ostin. Rather than make a U-turn and retrace our route, I spotted a bike path and headed for it. Since Chris was on a hybrid, the fact that the path was dirt didn't bother him. We followed signs towards the Schliersee, and soon headed into the forest where for the first time since I visited Germany I had to shift down into my 24x34 to climb a steep section. Chris with the stock gearing on his Google bike wasn't as happy, but he was keeping up fine most of the time, so waiting was at a minimum.
As we zipped around the West side of the Schliersee, we hit asphalt, and found a bike path running along a river. It was gorgeous and pretty, and there was even a Biergarten, but suspecting that there was a climb ahead I neglected to tell Chris about it and plowed on ahead. We climbed rapidly up into the Schliersee Berge, and soon enough, the road turned into dirt as we wove around towards Sch-Neuhaus. Bavarian forests have different colors than what I'm used to, and the dirt is mostly well graded, easily ridden on 25mm tires. It is quite steep though, and I had to spend a lot more time in the 24x34. We soon stopped for a quick lunch of a sandwich for me, and an apple for Chris, who was beginning to wonder what he was getting into.
Nevertheless, we pushed on, and eventually, the dirt road descended into a steep drop (steep enough that my brakes started fading despite the cool weather) and dumped us out onto the main road heading into Aurach. The road gave us gorgeous views into the surrounding mountains, but after an hour and a half of not having any traffic, even German drivers got on my nerves. We turned off towards Fischbachau but I spied a sign towards a cafe into Krugmach. I asked Chris if he wanted to head there and he did, so we took a detour and stopped at the cafe where Chris ordered 2 Radlers, since he wanted me to try it.
I tried it --- Radler is a mix of lemonade/sprite and beer, and it doesn't taste half bad, but after about a quarter of a liter felt the world tilt a bit (all that riding effectively gave me an empty stomach), which told me that I probably had had enough. Chris had had enough of riding as well, so he said he would ride over to Bayrischzell and pick up a train bach to Munich, since we had another 50km to go to get to Holzkirchen. We wished each other well, and I headed back towards Fischbachau, since according to my Kummerly+Frey map the next section would be scenic. Well, it was scenic, but there was so much traffic that I didn't appreciate it ntil I got off the main road into a side street, and then I was overwhelmed!
Meadows teemed with wildflowers surrounded me, and little strands of trees stood like islands in the waves of greenery. The weather was cool but not cold, just enough to keep me from sweating, and there was a gentle tailwind pushing me North. If there's anything on Earth closer to cycling paradise I don't know what it is, but this was pretty close. I swooped along on empty, deserted roads, flew along ridges, dived into valleys with sufficient momentum to carry me up shaded climbs alongside rivers. I swept along farms where cows with cowbells tinkled and jingled and stared at me.
By and by, I made it over to Seehamer See, where I bought an ice cream, having run out of other food a long time ago. The water was calm and peaceful, with canoes and walkers a plenty. From Seeham, I rode North towards Sonderliching along a ride, and from there, descended into the town of Valley towards Holzkirchen. Here to my delight I saw a sign for 20% grade, and the descent was definitely steep enough for it! The climb up the other side was also the steepest asphalt I encountered to date, and I had to drop into my 24x34 once again for it. Sure, it wasn't very long, but I think I will come back soon enough to check it out again.
After that, a few more turns brought me into Holzkirchen at 4:15, where I only had a 5 minute wait before the train brought me back into Munich. Not bad for 91km and 1354m of climbing. This was a great ride!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Review: Broken Angels
If Altered Carbon was Richard Morgan's take on Philip Marlowe and Chandler's novels, then Broken Angels (kindle edition) was his take on Aliens. On second thought, it's a combination of the first two Alien movies.
In this novel, we explore the nature of Morgan's setting for the Takeshi Kovacs novels. It turns out that almost all the technology advances we're seeing in the novels is a result of a legacy left behind by a long dead Martian civilization. The details are not revealed, but apparently these were winged creatures who lived in cities only out of necessity, and had technology that humans still did not comprehend.
Our protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, is caught up in a war, complete with the war-weariness and a desire to get out when he is approached by a young man selling that war remedy, the get-rich-quick scheme. The scheme involved recovering a Martian artifact whose implications would shatter the world humans have built. Kovacs, despite his Envoy training, gives in to his desire to get out of the war by any means necessary, and throws his lot in with the scheme. He first breaks out an archaeologist analogue from a concentration scheme (the first broken Angel), brokers a deal with one of the corporations responsible for the war, and then helps put together an expedition consisting of special operations personnel.
Of course, things are not what they seem on the surface, and by the end of the novel, we've seen multiple betrayals, intuitive detective work by Kovacs, plenty of sex and violence (much more of the latter than the former), and a number of loose ends tied up, with Kovacs getting his wish to leave the war. The violence is explicit --- if any parents were concerned about their kids' exposure to violence in video games, I think they need to keep their kids away from this novel --- Morgan's control over his sentences are such that the violence, when it happens, is just as shocking as it would be in any visual media.
There are plenty of scenes in this novel that are beautiful and well done, such as the visit to the soul market, where dead soldiers and their encapsulated souls can be bought by the pound. Then there's the sense of wonder when Kovacs and his team enters the Alien artifact. Make no mistake of it --- Morgan is as good a writer as any. My complaint here is that while there was a sense of redemption in Altered Carbon, there's no such thing in Broken Angels. But that's perhaps in character with the bleak nature of the novel. If you have the stomach, Broken Angels is definitely worth the read.
In any case, Morgan has me hooked. I bought the next book in the series, Woken Furies.
In this novel, we explore the nature of Morgan's setting for the Takeshi Kovacs novels. It turns out that almost all the technology advances we're seeing in the novels is a result of a legacy left behind by a long dead Martian civilization. The details are not revealed, but apparently these were winged creatures who lived in cities only out of necessity, and had technology that humans still did not comprehend.
Our protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, is caught up in a war, complete with the war-weariness and a desire to get out when he is approached by a young man selling that war remedy, the get-rich-quick scheme. The scheme involved recovering a Martian artifact whose implications would shatter the world humans have built. Kovacs, despite his Envoy training, gives in to his desire to get out of the war by any means necessary, and throws his lot in with the scheme. He first breaks out an archaeologist analogue from a concentration scheme (the first broken Angel), brokers a deal with one of the corporations responsible for the war, and then helps put together an expedition consisting of special operations personnel.
Of course, things are not what they seem on the surface, and by the end of the novel, we've seen multiple betrayals, intuitive detective work by Kovacs, plenty of sex and violence (much more of the latter than the former), and a number of loose ends tied up, with Kovacs getting his wish to leave the war. The violence is explicit --- if any parents were concerned about their kids' exposure to violence in video games, I think they need to keep their kids away from this novel --- Morgan's control over his sentences are such that the violence, when it happens, is just as shocking as it would be in any visual media.
There are plenty of scenes in this novel that are beautiful and well done, such as the visit to the soul market, where dead soldiers and their encapsulated souls can be bought by the pound. Then there's the sense of wonder when Kovacs and his team enters the Alien artifact. Make no mistake of it --- Morgan is as good a writer as any. My complaint here is that while there was a sense of redemption in Altered Carbon, there's no such thing in Broken Angels. But that's perhaps in character with the bleak nature of the novel. If you have the stomach, Broken Angels is definitely worth the read.
In any case, Morgan has me hooked. I bought the next book in the series, Woken Furies.
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Sunday, April 27, 2008
Garmisch Partenkirchen to Bad Tolz
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Garmisch to Bad Tolz |
GPS Log here.
This morning, I got up extra early and headed out to the train station. Hoping to catch the 8:34 train, I barreled along in the morning with no traffic whatsoever on the road --- a cyclist truly owns the city this early in the morning! In fact, I got there so fast that I made the 8:11am train by running through the station (which gave me knee a bit of a twinge), which already had two cyclists aboard.
The ride to Garmisch was scenic, and I shot a few pictures through an open window. Getting off the train, I turned on the GPS and set my route. When I set my route two days ago, I didn't have any elevation information whatsoever --- my concern was to simply find the most out of the way road that I could. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that I immediately started climbing in Garmisch Parternkirchen and it was a significant grade, causing me to shift to my 39x34 and stand up in parts. The road was lonely, rought, single track, and every bit as scenic as I had hoped for, mountains looming up behind and to the right of me.
Someone at the office had persuaded me to head towards Mittenwald, and after a little bit of paradise, I ended up on the main road towards Mittenwald, using some side roads, bike paths, and a few isolated roads, which it being Sunday, had a lot of Sunday drivers. I entered Mittenwald to find the road strewn with horse poop. It turned out that Mittenwald was having a parade --- horses and horse carriages took up the whole road, including an escort. I overtook the lot, and snapped a few pictures that didn't turn out, and missed a turn. Since I was doing a loop around the Mittenwald valley, I considered skipping the loop, but then spied my designated route winding around the mountain --- well, that clinched it --- I wasn't going to let a chance to do more climbing bypass me!
I pulled a U-turn, looped back and overtook the parade again, and started riding up along side the mountain into the Leutasch valley, which at 1000 meters actually had snow still. I was very sad when the road leveled out, because I then had to face a 10kph headwind. All things considered it was very light, but still very annoying. I pushed on for the better part of an hour against this wind, all the while enjoying the lovely scene around me --- mountain meadows, snow capped peaks and all that. This was what I took the train all the way out here to see, and I was not disappointed!
Finally, just when I had had about enough, the road finally turned up hill and away from the wind, and I found myself switch-backing once before cresting the summit of the pass into the Scharnitz valley. A left turn and I had a long fast descent, this time with a tail wind! The road surface was good and the corners were gentle so I did not touch my brakes at all until I rolled onto the main road just outside Scharnitz and had to deal with an inordinate amount of traffic.
Back into Mittenwald, I navigated through town and decided it was time to eat lunch. I wolfed down a sandwich, washed down with water, and then discovered that my GPS unit had decided to take a break as well. I reset the unit, but decided to take a path that I had spied on my earlier entry into Mittenwald, and ignored the belated bleepings of my GPS navigator as it realized that I was not behaving like it wanted me too. I was glad I ignored it, however, as the bike path I found climbed and climbed and granted me a lovely view of the surroundings, including the Barmsee, before descending into Krun. From Krun and Wallgau it was a gentle ride along a river towards the Walchensee, where I made a right onto the toll road, which did not charge for bicycles.
The Walchensee was big and lovely, and I stopped several times to take pictures of this peaceful looking lake. Past the lake, the road became a gentle descent that was unfortunately right into a headwind --- fortunately, I was well fueled before I headed into the Lenggries Valley, where the side roads I had chosen worked very well. Once into Bad Tolz, I decided that I would have some ice cream, so I rode down town and had one. Alas, that caused me to miss the train by about 5 minutes. I should have immediately then ridden over to Wolfrathausen, but I mistakenly thought there was a train every 30 minutes. Not to matter, for I met a number of German mountain bikers and had a good conversation while waiting for the train.
What a lovely day: 111km, 1067m of climbing.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Review: Altered Carbon
One of the unforeseen consequences of having a Kindle as my reading instrument is that I end up finding new authors that I some how missed over the last few years just because I stumble over them in the Kindle store.
There are easy ways to describe Richard K. Morgan's first novel (kindle edition). A blithe and sound-bite description would be Raymond Chandler for the Grand-Theft Auto crowd. But that's probably quite unfair --- while there is sex and violence galore in this novel, it also manages to deal with interesting issues: what if we could separate mind from body? What if we could treat bodies just the way we treat clothing, considering them sleeves. What does that do to the human condition?
For one thing, wealthy people would never die --- they would always find a new body to inhabit. For another, if your mind could easily wear another body just by being downloaded into it, you could split yourself into copies and be in two places at once. That sounds kinda confusing and possibly illegal, and in Morgan's world, it is.
Morgan's protagonist Takeshi Kovacs is an Envoy, a super-soldier, trained as the ultimate guerrilla fighter, capable of downloading into a new body without repurcussions, and capable of assimilating into the local population, picking up nuances, blending in, and learning his way about. That makes him an ideal detective or commando. After being blown to bits in the opening sequence of the novel, Kovacs is brought back into a new body by a wealthy man to investigate his own murder --- done under strange circumstances and written off by the police as suicide.
Unknown to Kovacs (at least at the beginning) is that his body comes with a few surprises, and he is soon pursued by assassins, beautiful women, the police, and alternatively threatened, kidnapped, and beaten like just like any Chandler protagonist. Morgan has at least taken Chandler's advice to heart: If in doubt, have a man walk through the door with a gun. On the other hand, Kovacs isn't Chandler's hero either --- he definitely isn't a good enough man for every world, and is in fact, more than a little mean. By almost any definition he is in fact psychopathic --- this novel isn't for the weak of stomach (though perhaps, it's less objectionable than Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory).
The plot is big, complicated, and convoluted. Nearly everyone commits criminal acts, and Kovacs definitely thinks that the ends justifies the means, and near the end the hero's armor isn't just tarnished, it's positively rusted out. But lest you think that this book is one big James Bond explosion-filled blockbuster (which I'm sure the movie version would be), there are lots of little tidbits scattered throughout that mark this as more than just a slaughter-fest. For example:
As a child I'd believed there was an essential person, a sort of core personality around which the surface factors could evolve and change without damaging the integrity of who you were. Later, I started to see that this was an error of perception caused by the metaphors we were used to framing ourselves in. What we thought of as personality was no more than the passing shape of one of the waves in front of me.
All in all, this book occupied me for several days, reading breathlessly, yet at times exhausted by a long section that seemed merciless. Yet even at the end of it all, with the loose ends tied up and the anti-hero relinquished, I find myself wanting to run to the Kindle store and buy the next Takeshi Kovacs novel (or rather, the kindle edition). Recommended for those with the stomachs to handle it.
There are easy ways to describe Richard K. Morgan's first novel (kindle edition). A blithe and sound-bite description would be Raymond Chandler for the Grand-Theft Auto crowd. But that's probably quite unfair --- while there is sex and violence galore in this novel, it also manages to deal with interesting issues: what if we could separate mind from body? What if we could treat bodies just the way we treat clothing, considering them sleeves. What does that do to the human condition?
For one thing, wealthy people would never die --- they would always find a new body to inhabit. For another, if your mind could easily wear another body just by being downloaded into it, you could split yourself into copies and be in two places at once. That sounds kinda confusing and possibly illegal, and in Morgan's world, it is.
Morgan's protagonist Takeshi Kovacs is an Envoy, a super-soldier, trained as the ultimate guerrilla fighter, capable of downloading into a new body without repurcussions, and capable of assimilating into the local population, picking up nuances, blending in, and learning his way about. That makes him an ideal detective or commando. After being blown to bits in the opening sequence of the novel, Kovacs is brought back into a new body by a wealthy man to investigate his own murder --- done under strange circumstances and written off by the police as suicide.
Unknown to Kovacs (at least at the beginning) is that his body comes with a few surprises, and he is soon pursued by assassins, beautiful women, the police, and alternatively threatened, kidnapped, and beaten like just like any Chandler protagonist. Morgan has at least taken Chandler's advice to heart: If in doubt, have a man walk through the door with a gun. On the other hand, Kovacs isn't Chandler's hero either --- he definitely isn't a good enough man for every world, and is in fact, more than a little mean. By almost any definition he is in fact psychopathic --- this novel isn't for the weak of stomach (though perhaps, it's less objectionable than Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory).
The plot is big, complicated, and convoluted. Nearly everyone commits criminal acts, and Kovacs definitely thinks that the ends justifies the means, and near the end the hero's armor isn't just tarnished, it's positively rusted out. But lest you think that this book is one big James Bond explosion-filled blockbuster (which I'm sure the movie version would be), there are lots of little tidbits scattered throughout that mark this as more than just a slaughter-fest. For example:
As a child I'd believed there was an essential person, a sort of core personality around which the surface factors could evolve and change without damaging the integrity of who you were. Later, I started to see that this was an error of perception caused by the metaphors we were used to framing ourselves in. What we thought of as personality was no more than the passing shape of one of the waves in front of me.
All in all, this book occupied me for several days, reading breathlessly, yet at times exhausted by a long section that seemed merciless. Yet even at the end of it all, with the loose ends tied up and the anti-hero relinquished, I find myself wanting to run to the Kindle store and buy the next Takeshi Kovacs novel (or rather, the kindle edition). Recommended for those with the stomachs to handle it.
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Thursday, April 24, 2008
More YouTube Loving
Found some more old songs courtesy of Youtube.
First up is Subaru...its a song that actually sounds a lot older than it is. Its really only about 28 years old (1980), but could easily pass for something a lot older.
What is interesting about this song is that its covered by quite a few Chinese versions....some versions here (Michael Kwan version), and here (Teresa Teng version). Incidentally, Michael Kwan's probably most famous for this song.
The singer/composer apparently also considered Leslie Cheung to be a good friend and wrote quite a few of his songs...like this one.
Another oldie but goodie...its a song that's quite famous all over the globe, but just recently discovered for myself.
Unbelievably, I found this song while just trolling through YouTube...the story behind it is fairly amazing, the only Japanese song to hit #1 in all of America's Billboard history (did it in 1963). It might be the only foreign language song to hit #1 in all of the US's billboard history, but I'm not 100% sure of that.
There's enough covers of this that I won't bother going through it all, but suffice to say that those who think the tune is familiar, might just check out the English covers.
I've espoused before how much I love YouTube..well, here's another ode. =)
First up is Subaru...its a song that actually sounds a lot older than it is. Its really only about 28 years old (1980), but could easily pass for something a lot older.
What is interesting about this song is that its covered by quite a few Chinese versions....some versions here (Michael Kwan version), and here (Teresa Teng version). Incidentally, Michael Kwan's probably most famous for this song.
The singer/composer apparently also considered Leslie Cheung to be a good friend and wrote quite a few of his songs...like this one.
Another oldie but goodie...its a song that's quite famous all over the globe, but just recently discovered for myself.
Unbelievably, I found this song while just trolling through YouTube...the story behind it is fairly amazing, the only Japanese song to hit #1 in all of America's Billboard history (did it in 1963). It might be the only foreign language song to hit #1 in all of the US's billboard history, but I'm not 100% sure of that.
There's enough covers of this that I won't bother going through it all, but suffice to say that those who think the tune is familiar, might just check out the English covers.
I've espoused before how much I love YouTube..well, here's another ode. =)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The Council Wars
So along with the Kindle comes the ability to read all the ebooks at the Bean Free Library (linked in the title). Just simply download the prc/MobiBook format, and boom, you're good to go.
So one of the series that I started out, courtesy of my brother who preloaded the Kindle I got with a bunch of books is the Council Wars...The Council Wars consists of 4 books starting with There will Be Dragons.
The premise is fairly decent, in the far future, there's this utopia where no one is wanting of anything and everyone can get what they want, within reason. Most diseases are cured, and everyone can turn into anything they want (fish, mermaids, though some races are restricted, like elves or dragons).
Then there's a difference of opinion at the top level of the folks who control the all encompassing, all powerful computer called Mother, and all of a sudden the world is plunged into the middle ages.
Its a bit of a weird setup, and even more of a weird "fall"...it seems more of an excuse for the author to write modern military fiction with a medieval slant. The protagonists for example know all about the wars of the past, and leverage that to their best advantage, they use modern military training techniques and modern military tactics but are forced to use medieval technology.
Overall the story reads quite well, and if you're interested in military matters at all, its quite a treat, but you'll have to ignore quite a bit of problems with the premise.
Primarily, my biggest beef is how 13 people can decide the fate of the rest of the world in this utopia...and that it hasn't happened for a few hundred years prior. Given that it only took 6 people to plunge the world into the dark ages, it seems rather silly that it hasn't happened before, or that the original programmers of Mother would do something silly like this. =)
So read the books and series for what it is, which is modern military tactics with a medieval slant. The later series just gets into the various aerial and naval warfare and the author uses his imagination to imagine stuff like Dragon Carriers (instead of aircraft carriers), and there's even some amount of space combat in the last book.
The other somewhat annoying thing is how the author loves to take swipes at liberals and the left wing side of the country. Given the author's military history, it perhaps might not be surprising, but its still somewhat annoying. The series also suffers from the invincible heroes, there's never a doubt who's going to survive at the end of the book, and that the enemies will commit some sort of idiotic mistakes...in a way, its like reading a Tom Clancy novel.
I give this some slight recommendations as its entertaining, but you really have to turn your brain off. Its the literary equivalent of pop music. =)
So one of the series that I started out, courtesy of my brother who preloaded the Kindle I got with a bunch of books is the Council Wars...The Council Wars consists of 4 books starting with There will Be Dragons.
The premise is fairly decent, in the far future, there's this utopia where no one is wanting of anything and everyone can get what they want, within reason. Most diseases are cured, and everyone can turn into anything they want (fish, mermaids, though some races are restricted, like elves or dragons).
Then there's a difference of opinion at the top level of the folks who control the all encompassing, all powerful computer called Mother, and all of a sudden the world is plunged into the middle ages.
Its a bit of a weird setup, and even more of a weird "fall"...it seems more of an excuse for the author to write modern military fiction with a medieval slant. The protagonists for example know all about the wars of the past, and leverage that to their best advantage, they use modern military training techniques and modern military tactics but are forced to use medieval technology.
Overall the story reads quite well, and if you're interested in military matters at all, its quite a treat, but you'll have to ignore quite a bit of problems with the premise.
Primarily, my biggest beef is how 13 people can decide the fate of the rest of the world in this utopia...and that it hasn't happened for a few hundred years prior. Given that it only took 6 people to plunge the world into the dark ages, it seems rather silly that it hasn't happened before, or that the original programmers of Mother would do something silly like this. =)
So read the books and series for what it is, which is modern military tactics with a medieval slant. The later series just gets into the various aerial and naval warfare and the author uses his imagination to imagine stuff like Dragon Carriers (instead of aircraft carriers), and there's even some amount of space combat in the last book.
The other somewhat annoying thing is how the author loves to take swipes at liberals and the left wing side of the country. Given the author's military history, it perhaps might not be surprising, but its still somewhat annoying. The series also suffers from the invincible heroes, there's never a doubt who's going to survive at the end of the book, and that the enemies will commit some sort of idiotic mistakes...in a way, its like reading a Tom Clancy novel.
I give this some slight recommendations as its entertaining, but you really have to turn your brain off. Its the literary equivalent of pop music. =)
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Amazon Kindle back in stock
I guess Amazon's fixed their production problems, because they've taken care of a whole month worth of backlog, and now can ship new orders immediately. My "long term" report is that it's a great product, given the teething issues, and I've done way more reading than I would have without the Kindle. It's now the one thing I will carry in my backpack or my saddlebag whenever I go out --- much more so than my ipod. Both my brothers now have one as well, sharing an Amazon.com account, so whenever one brother buys a book, all the others get it as well. I don't usually like being an early adopter for a product (I wasn't an ipod early adopter, and I still don't have HDTV, or surround sound, etc), but this is definitely one that I'm a fan of.
Judging by the responses to this thread, most of the early buyers are older (35 and above), which explains why even though the fashionistas and the techno-literate have disdained it, it still was sold out for 3 or 4 months after launch. I doubt if it'll be as popular as the ipod, but perhaps as prices come down, it will be more and more widely seen.
Judging by the responses to this thread, most of the early buyers are older (35 and above), which explains why even though the fashionistas and the techno-literate have disdained it, it still was sold out for 3 or 4 months after launch. I doubt if it'll be as popular as the ipod, but perhaps as prices come down, it will be more and more widely seen.
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toys
Monday, April 21, 2008
Review: The Salmon of Doubt
Somehow, I missed The Salmon of Doubt(Kindle Edtion) when it first came out a few years after Douglas Adam's death, but while browsing through the Kindle store, I saw it and couldn't resist the Kindle price.
I actually met Douglas Adams (thanks to Brian Moriarty) back when I worked for Mpath Interactive. He was frequently invited to Mpath's developer conferences, and always gave the same talk --- the one about the cookies.
More than half the book is articles published in magazines previously --- for instance, he wrote several MacUser columns, including a very prescient one about power wall-warts which really should all be standardized. Other articles included a comparison survey between an underwater diver towing device and a manta ray ride (with a typically Adamsian punch-line), his appreciation of Richard Dawkins, and several interviews, in mostly chronological order. These articles all had wit, intelligence, and are well-written, as you might expect from Adams.
The last third of the book is the unfinished novel, The Salmon of Doubt. When I say unfinished, I really do mean unfinished. Not only does the book stop as though the author dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of it, but the plot threads are disconnected, with no sense that they even all belong in the same novel. To be honest, I'm afraid Adams lost me as part of his audience with his later work (past Last Chance To See, which was also one of Adams' own favorites), so another Dirk Gently novel wouldn't have appealed to me anyway.
For the price I paid though, the collection of articles and interviews granted me fresh insight into Adam's character, and sadly, many of his complaints about technology are still valid today. The nature of this book is such that it's very easy to read in little spurts, such as when sitting in a train or waiting for one. It probably wouldn't do so well for a long sit down. Recommended, but pay for a used copy if you don't own a Kindle.
I actually met Douglas Adams (thanks to Brian Moriarty) back when I worked for Mpath Interactive. He was frequently invited to Mpath's developer conferences, and always gave the same talk --- the one about the cookies.
More than half the book is articles published in magazines previously --- for instance, he wrote several MacUser columns, including a very prescient one about power wall-warts which really should all be standardized. Other articles included a comparison survey between an underwater diver towing device and a manta ray ride (with a typically Adamsian punch-line), his appreciation of Richard Dawkins, and several interviews, in mostly chronological order. These articles all had wit, intelligence, and are well-written, as you might expect from Adams.
The last third of the book is the unfinished novel, The Salmon of Doubt. When I say unfinished, I really do mean unfinished. Not only does the book stop as though the author dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of it, but the plot threads are disconnected, with no sense that they even all belong in the same novel. To be honest, I'm afraid Adams lost me as part of his audience with his later work (past Last Chance To See, which was also one of Adams' own favorites), so another Dirk Gently novel wouldn't have appealed to me anyway.
For the price I paid though, the collection of articles and interviews granted me fresh insight into Adam's character, and sadly, many of his complaints about technology are still valid today. The nature of this book is such that it's very easy to read in little spurts, such as when sitting in a train or waiting for one. It probably wouldn't do so well for a long sit down. Recommended, but pay for a used copy if you don't own a Kindle.
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Sunday, April 20, 2008
Day riding in the Bavarian Foothills
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Holzkirche |
The weather forecast was for beautiful, 60 degree weather today, so I went into the office yesterday and mapped out a route on Garmin's Mapsource software. This morning, I got onto the 9:00am train (note to self: the 8:40 train does not go all the way to the end of the line), and went to Holzkirchen to start my ride. The weather was cool, but warmed up quickly as I headed up one hill after another. The small roads I had picked the day before proved to be very very conducive to cycling --- winding around and up and down hill and dale, with many a descent lined with beautiful trees.
Soon, I reached Tegernsee, a lake with plenty of development along its side. I stopped briefly for some pictures but pushed on. At this point, I quickly became a fan of GPS navigation --- while I had laid out a route the day before, I found that I could deviate from the route however I liked, and let the navigation system compensate and get me back on track. So whenever I saw something on the ground (including dirt roads, or bike paths), I could choose to explore, confident that I would find my way back on track somehow.
Nothing I rode today was steep --- I never dropped into my granny, though I did go into the 34t sprocket a couple of times. Yet I still got up to about 900m or so, whereupon I saw snow on the ground as I rode by. Perhaps it's a good thing I didn't try for anything higher. I rode past the Austrian border, and then headed for the Achensee, which didn't look like anything interesting from afar, but was quite beautiful up close (see pictures).
After a quick lunch, I saw that there was an official bike path that would take me all the way to Wolfrathausen if I wanted, but since I was relatively high, I eschewed the bike path for a proper road descent. At the bottom when the road levelled out, however, I quickly discovered that the bike path was preferable --- car traffic was fast and there were a lot of Sunday drivers.
From Bad Tolz, I took a series of small roads which were delightful, and provided more steep climbing that the brief visit to the Alpine lakes I had seen. As I got close to Wolfrathausen, traffic picked up and soon I was on the bike path again, getting to the train station 5 minutes before the train left. The ride was 63 miles but less than 2500' of climbing. I'm going to have to find more climbing to do, but as a starter, this ride has me satisfied that my choice of location wasn't a mistake, at least from the cycling point of view.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Review: Crystal Rain
There was a time known as The Golden Age of Science Fiction, when men were real men, women were real women, and furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were really furry.
Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain is a shining example of why the Golden Age of Science Fiction is over. Yes, all the trappings of science fiction are there: the airships, the steam punk type warfare, even the boat that converts (however laboriously) into an snow-going vessel. The protagonist is someone who's lost his memory, but has amazing powers. The world even remembers that humans did not evolve on the planet they are on, but came from some mythical place called Earth.
The writing is readable, but not great. After all, real men do not indulge in developing characters, or even in having emotions. Every character is entirely wooden, but of course our heroes are ridiculously competent. I kept reading in hopes of a payoff, but never found it. While this book wasn't a total waste of Kindle storage, it was pretty close to a waste of my time. I will avoid books by this author in the future.
Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain is a shining example of why the Golden Age of Science Fiction is over. Yes, all the trappings of science fiction are there: the airships, the steam punk type warfare, even the boat that converts (however laboriously) into an snow-going vessel. The protagonist is someone who's lost his memory, but has amazing powers. The world even remembers that humans did not evolve on the planet they are on, but came from some mythical place called Earth.
The writing is readable, but not great. After all, real men do not indulge in developing characters, or even in having emotions. Every character is entirely wooden, but of course our heroes are ridiculously competent. I kept reading in hopes of a payoff, but never found it. While this book wasn't a total waste of Kindle storage, it was pretty close to a waste of my time. I will avoid books by this author in the future.
Review: Bringing Down The House
Bringing Down The House(Kindle Edition) is the story of 6 MIT students (or in some cases, MIT drop-outs) who used their knowledge of statistics, team work, and chutzpah to milk Las Vegas for money in the 1990s through the game of black jack. A short excerpt from the book can be found here.
This book is compelling reading --- Ben Mezrich has a talent for keeping you at the edge of your seat, moving the narrative along at a good clip. It also helps that the subject matter is fascinating --- not only is it fun to see smart geeks do in the Casinos, but the exposure to the seamy side of Sin City in the game of high rollers is just as much fun. The explanation of tiers of players (and how the casino decides who to bestow all those VIP treatments on) is entertaining.
The plot is perhaps inevitable --- eventually the Las Vegas casinos do catch up to our heroes, and the scene becomes ugly. But in the mean time, you get a lot of fun. The book even ends with a semi-technical appendix by Kevin Lewis on the background behind card counting. It's by no means technical enough --- I guess he didn't want to reveal too many of his tricks. All in all, a good read, and I'm sure it'll be better than the movie that it's based on (which will come out later this year). Recommended as an ideal airplane book.
This book is compelling reading --- Ben Mezrich has a talent for keeping you at the edge of your seat, moving the narrative along at a good clip. It also helps that the subject matter is fascinating --- not only is it fun to see smart geeks do in the Casinos, but the exposure to the seamy side of Sin City in the game of high rollers is just as much fun. The explanation of tiers of players (and how the casino decides who to bestow all those VIP treatments on) is entertaining.
The plot is perhaps inevitable --- eventually the Las Vegas casinos do catch up to our heroes, and the scene becomes ugly. But in the mean time, you get a lot of fun. The book even ends with a semi-technical appendix by Kevin Lewis on the background behind card counting. It's by no means technical enough --- I guess he didn't want to reveal too many of his tricks. All in all, a good read, and I'm sure it'll be better than the movie that it's based on (which will come out later this year). Recommended as an ideal airplane book.
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Munich
I landed in Munich in the middle of a lightning storm, 2 hours late due to Lufthansa having mechanicals earlier in the day. Fortunately, all my luggage arrived, and my bike was intact, though the Bagman support had come loose, no doubt from the rough handling that rendered the bike box pretty much dead. I was hoping to salvage that box for use on the return trip, but it looked like that was not to be.
My Taxi Service guy was waiting for me with a "Mrs Piaw Na" sign. I was still male, but fortunately, he believed me when I identified myself, and proceeded to help me and my cart over to his Taxi. The rain started coming down as we loaded my bike and luggage into his station wagon, but we were on our way without getting too wet.
The driver was surprised to see a bike (despite my reporting on the form that I had a bike with me), but he was competent and drove on the highway at a good clip. In fact, at one point a flash that was not lightning came from one of the overpassing structures, and he identified it as a speed-trap camera.
By the time we arrived at the Hotel, it was 9:15pm. Seeing the rain, my driver then gave me an umbrella he happened to have in the trunk. I checked into my hotel room, which ended up being no larger than a walk-in closet with a bathroom and "kitchen" so small that while cooking was possible, cleaning up afterwards was not. Todd met me at the hotel soon thereafter, and we went out to a restaurant. Germany had passed a law recently that made smoking illegal in restaurants, and I was very pleased with it.
By the time dinner was over, it was past 11:30pm. Todd gave me a quick tour of the office, we made arrangements to meet the next day, and I went to bed a little past midnight after taking some melatonin, hoping that my jet-lag would be mild.
(By the way, because my writing will be several days late at best, the best way to check up on me is via my friend feed)
My Taxi Service guy was waiting for me with a "Mrs Piaw Na" sign. I was still male, but fortunately, he believed me when I identified myself, and proceeded to help me and my cart over to his Taxi. The rain started coming down as we loaded my bike and luggage into his station wagon, but we were on our way without getting too wet.
The driver was surprised to see a bike (despite my reporting on the form that I had a bike with me), but he was competent and drove on the highway at a good clip. In fact, at one point a flash that was not lightning came from one of the overpassing structures, and he identified it as a speed-trap camera.
By the time we arrived at the Hotel, it was 9:15pm. Seeing the rain, my driver then gave me an umbrella he happened to have in the trunk. I checked into my hotel room, which ended up being no larger than a walk-in closet with a bathroom and "kitchen" so small that while cooking was possible, cleaning up afterwards was not. Todd met me at the hotel soon thereafter, and we went out to a restaurant. Germany had passed a law recently that made smoking illegal in restaurants, and I was very pleased with it.
By the time dinner was over, it was past 11:30pm. Todd gave me a quick tour of the office, we made arrangements to meet the next day, and I went to bed a little past midnight after taking some melatonin, hoping that my jet-lag would be mild.
(By the way, because my writing will be several days late at best, the best way to check up on me is via my friend feed)
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Review: Spin Control
The nice thing about discovering Chris Moriarty so late was that I got to read Spin Control (Kindle edition) immediately after Spin State, while the characters and the Universe were still fresh in my mind.
Rather than the single protagonist featured in Spin State, Spin Control features multiple protagonists, starting with a construct from one of the Syndicates, Arkady. Since all constructs created by a syndicate effectively have the same DNA, it is surprises Arkady when he discovers that his cohort on a terraforming mission turns out to be a bit of a maverick, having stretched the limits of normalcy for his gene-line. He even takes on an individual name: Arkasha, which is not at all normal for a Syndicate construct. We learn a bit more about background behind Syndicate constructs, including the brutal nature of their upbringing --- where creches are regularly culled to eliminate abnormality.
Catherine Li and her AI lover Cohen returns in this novel, which is set 3 years or so after the events in Spin State. Moriarty wisely avoids the happily-ever-after syndrome for this couple, and it is quite clear that she herself is far from attached to this character, as we see them from Arkady's point of view.
What happened was that during a routine terra-forming run, Arkasha's team discover what they think is a bio-terror weapon of interest to Earth's political entities, including at this point, the Palestinian and Israeli authorities (that the two factions are still at war in the year 5700 or so indicates Moriarty's fundamental pessimism about the nature of the politics in place). Cohen has ties to Israel, and is brought in to assist with the bidding between the factions (the fundamentalist American government also gets involved).
The science fiction themes this time include terraforming, entomology and complexity theory. The genre themes include espionage and tradecraft, the perpetual war between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the role of increasing automation in war. There's also a reference to Ender's Game, in naming an army of AI-shunted soldiers Enderbots.
While the plot makes more sense this time, the story is a lot less compelling, largely because the major viewpoint character, Arkady, is so innocent that any increased knowledge overwhelms any character development in place for him. In fact, even as he learns who to trust and who not to trust, it seems as though his realizations always come a little too late. Other characters such as Catherine Li and Cohen, unfortunately come across this novel as cardboard cut outs. Not quitefleshed out. Compared to its predecessor, Spin Control is definitely the lesser novel. Nevertheless, it was a good, compelling read --- I shall look forward to Moriarty's next novel, Ghost Spin.
Rather than the single protagonist featured in Spin State, Spin Control features multiple protagonists, starting with a construct from one of the Syndicates, Arkady. Since all constructs created by a syndicate effectively have the same DNA, it is surprises Arkady when he discovers that his cohort on a terraforming mission turns out to be a bit of a maverick, having stretched the limits of normalcy for his gene-line. He even takes on an individual name: Arkasha, which is not at all normal for a Syndicate construct. We learn a bit more about background behind Syndicate constructs, including the brutal nature of their upbringing --- where creches are regularly culled to eliminate abnormality.
Catherine Li and her AI lover Cohen returns in this novel, which is set 3 years or so after the events in Spin State. Moriarty wisely avoids the happily-ever-after syndrome for this couple, and it is quite clear that she herself is far from attached to this character, as we see them from Arkady's point of view.
What happened was that during a routine terra-forming run, Arkasha's team discover what they think is a bio-terror weapon of interest to Earth's political entities, including at this point, the Palestinian and Israeli authorities (that the two factions are still at war in the year 5700 or so indicates Moriarty's fundamental pessimism about the nature of the politics in place). Cohen has ties to Israel, and is brought in to assist with the bidding between the factions (the fundamentalist American government also gets involved).
The science fiction themes this time include terraforming, entomology and complexity theory. The genre themes include espionage and tradecraft, the perpetual war between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the role of increasing automation in war. There's also a reference to Ender's Game, in naming an army of AI-shunted soldiers Enderbots.
While the plot makes more sense this time, the story is a lot less compelling, largely because the major viewpoint character, Arkady, is so innocent that any increased knowledge overwhelms any character development in place for him. In fact, even as he learns who to trust and who not to trust, it seems as though his realizations always come a little too late. Other characters such as Catherine Li and Cohen, unfortunately come across this novel as cardboard cut outs. Not quitefleshed out. Compared to its predecessor, Spin Control is definitely the lesser novel. Nevertheless, it was a good, compelling read --- I shall look forward to Moriarty's next novel, Ghost Spin.
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Sunday, April 13, 2008
First Ride in Munich
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Munich |
For a change, Lufthansa did not damage or lose my bike (given that it was a direct flight, losing the bike would have taken some effort). My visit to a local bike shop was disappointing --- the floor pump they had that could do Presta valves didn't even have a gauge. Even my Topeak Road Morph looked better.
This morning, I went for an easy spin along the Isar river. It was kinda flat, but with enough dirt to keep things interesting. I eventually ended up in a park with dirt roads, and followed the road all the way to the end, carried my bike over some stiles and started riding. Of course, it turned out to be a Motorway! I got honked at a few times before I found an exit and zipped back down. At that point, I followed the crowds of cyclists back home. Lesson: just because there's a stile that can be hopped doesn't mean you should do so.
My chain is squeaking a bit, so I guess I'm going to have to go back to that bike shop and buy some expensive European lubricant.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Review: Spin State
As a rule, hard science fiction novels have extremely poor character development and uninteresting characters with lots of exposition, while softer fiction frequently has good characters, but usually has scientific plot holes you can drive a starship through.
Chris Moriarty's debut novel Spin State (dead-tree version, Physical Review. She even provides comments on what general introductions to quantum mechanics you might want to read before delving into those pieces.
With that sort of hard science credentials, one might expect her characters to be no more than wooden, two dimensional pieces, but delightfully, that is not true. Sure enough, the book starts with an action sequence, a preamble to introduce you to the universe and the lead characters, and to provide motivation for the main character (Major Catherine Li). After an operation that went down the tubes, Catherine is provided a chance to redeem herself by investigating the murder of a famous scientist who was conducting experiments of strategic importance.
Catherine Li is the kind of character that traditionally belongs to the macho male hero category --- stubborn, unable to face her own emotions and her past actions, and prone to trying to settle things by fighting rather than by thinking. Yet her motivations and character is so well drawn that interactions such as the following amused me:
“Two-thirds of the gross national product of France, to be precise.” Li choked on her wine. “For a piece of jewelry? That’s ridiculous!” “Mmm.” Cohen looked amused. “I seem to recall you spending a good six months’ pay on a certain original-issue hand-rebuilt Beretta, O Parsimonious One. What did you call it? Sweet?” “That’s different,” Li protested. “Professional equipment.” He puffed on his cigar, grinning. “Well, just think of diamond necklaces as professional equipment for queens.”
And amidst all this character development and exposition of quantum mechanics, the author manages to squeeze in a pretty good depiction of the mining environment into the novel, evoking Charles Dickens, or even How Green Was My Valley, which still somehow never made me feel as grimy or dirty as Spin State managed.
The slow, gradual build up gives Moriarty time to work through several themes --- FTL travel through quantum teleportation, the nature of emergent intelligence (she's clearly read Minsky!), and the implications of genetically designed sapients. The book's ending is one long action sequence, and quite well written, but the aftermath feels a little rushed. And for someone willing to put her protagonist through hell, the consequences feel just a little bit too easy on Major Catherine Li. Moriarty might not have wanted a total downer for the story.
Lest you think the book is too serious, there is a bit of humor sprinkled around, just enough to give me a smile, even in the middle of an otherwise tense sequence:
“Yeah, yeah. And if wishes were horses . . .” “. . . horses wouldn’t be extinct!”
In conclusion, I think this is the best novel I've read so far all year, even taking into account The Atrocity Archives, which I love dearly. Archives succeeds because of its many in-jokes and references, but you can clearly see the author's manipulations of its characters and protagonists. Spin State succeeds because the author manages to keep everything in control: character, plot, exposition, and story. Highly recommended at the Kindle price, and worth paying for the dead tree version even if you don't have a Kindle. In fact, I've already bought the Kindle edition of the second Moriarty book, Spin Control, and I'll look for more Moriarty books in the future.
Chris Moriarty's debut novel Spin State (dead-tree version, Physical Review. She even provides comments on what general introductions to quantum mechanics you might want to read before delving into those pieces.
With that sort of hard science credentials, one might expect her characters to be no more than wooden, two dimensional pieces, but delightfully, that is not true. Sure enough, the book starts with an action sequence, a preamble to introduce you to the universe and the lead characters, and to provide motivation for the main character (Major Catherine Li). After an operation that went down the tubes, Catherine is provided a chance to redeem herself by investigating the murder of a famous scientist who was conducting experiments of strategic importance.
Catherine Li is the kind of character that traditionally belongs to the macho male hero category --- stubborn, unable to face her own emotions and her past actions, and prone to trying to settle things by fighting rather than by thinking. Yet her motivations and character is so well drawn that interactions such as the following amused me:
“Two-thirds of the gross national product of France, to be precise.” Li choked on her wine. “For a piece of jewelry? That’s ridiculous!” “Mmm.” Cohen looked amused. “I seem to recall you spending a good six months’ pay on a certain original-issue hand-rebuilt Beretta, O Parsimonious One. What did you call it? Sweet?” “That’s different,” Li protested. “Professional equipment.” He puffed on his cigar, grinning. “Well, just think of diamond necklaces as professional equipment for queens.”
And amidst all this character development and exposition of quantum mechanics, the author manages to squeeze in a pretty good depiction of the mining environment into the novel, evoking Charles Dickens, or even How Green Was My Valley, which still somehow never made me feel as grimy or dirty as Spin State managed.
The slow, gradual build up gives Moriarty time to work through several themes --- FTL travel through quantum teleportation, the nature of emergent intelligence (she's clearly read Minsky!), and the implications of genetically designed sapients. The book's ending is one long action sequence, and quite well written, but the aftermath feels a little rushed. And for someone willing to put her protagonist through hell, the consequences feel just a little bit too easy on Major Catherine Li. Moriarty might not have wanted a total downer for the story.
Lest you think the book is too serious, there is a bit of humor sprinkled around, just enough to give me a smile, even in the middle of an otherwise tense sequence:
“Yeah, yeah. And if wishes were horses . . .” “. . . horses wouldn’t be extinct!”
In conclusion, I think this is the best novel I've read so far all year, even taking into account The Atrocity Archives, which I love dearly. Archives succeeds because of its many in-jokes and references, but you can clearly see the author's manipulations of its characters and protagonists. Spin State succeeds because the author manages to keep everything in control: character, plot, exposition, and story. Highly recommended at the Kindle price, and worth paying for the dead tree version even if you don't have a Kindle. In fact, I've already bought the Kindle edition of the second Moriarty book, Spin Control, and I'll look for more Moriarty books in the future.
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