I’ve spent much quality time at Starbucks over the past year. I log in using my $10/month Boingo account.
No more.
… the free-for-all begins today. As of this very moment, the next US / Canadian corporately-ran Starbucks that you enter should be offering free one two-click WiFi, meaning that no password is required and no time limits will be set.
Of course, this also means that you’ll never see an open chair in any Starbucks ever again, but hey — that’s why sidewalks were created, right? …
Frank HerbertThe best desert planet sci-fi novel, all would agree is Dune.
Here’s the original series of 6 novels by Frank Herbert, each IMHO weaker and more confusing than the last:
Dune (1965)
Dune Messiah (1969)
Children of Dune (1976)
God Emperor of Dune (1981)
Heretics of Dune (1984)
Chapterhouse Dune (1985)
Much later Frank’s son Brian Herbert and science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson expanded the series, adding many new books. They try to make sense of Frank’s vision.
• Dune: House Atreides (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson)
• Dune: House Harkonnen (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson)
• Dune: House Corrino (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson)
• Paul of Dune (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson)
• Dune (Frank Herbert)
• Dune Messiah (Frank Herbert)
Frank was a genius in conceiving Dune, I concede.
But the son’s books are far better, more accessible, than his Dad’s.
In Dune Messiah, for example, almost nothing happens … aside from a poorly unexplained nuclear explosion that seems to do no damage except render those nearest to it blind. Was Frank a mad genius? … There was something wrong with his brain, I’m thinking.
… Dale Peterson may have finished third in the GOP primary for Alabama Agriculture Commissioner, but he’s not done being a YouTube star. With the race heading to a runoff between Dorman Grace and John McMillan, Peterson has returned to endorse McMillan in a new ad. …
Southwest Airlines announced a fare sale Tuesday to celebrate its 39th birthday.
For travel up to 450 miles, sale fares are $39 one-way. Flights between 451 and 1000 miles are on sale for $79. Fares for flights that are more than 1000 miles are $119.
The world will end not with a bang, but a whimper.
I just finished the audio version of Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel The Road.
It won the the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
… a boy and his father lurch across the cold, wretched, wet, corpse-strewn, ashen landscape of a post-apocalyptic world. The imagery is brutal even by Cormac McCarthy’s high standards for despair. This parable is also trenchant and terrifying, written with stripped-down urgency and fueled by the force of a universal nightmare. “The Road” would be pure misery if not for its stunning, savage beauty.
This is an exquisitely bleak incantation — pure poetic brimstone. …
Highly recommended if you think you have the stomach for it.
Parents of young children may want to pass it by.
I don’t think this book could translate well into a movie. On the other hand, I can’t think of any actor more suited to play the father than Viggo Mortensen.
My brother feels his friend Robert J. Sawyer from Toronto could win another Nebula or Hugo for his WWW trilogy: Wake, Watch, Wonder.
SUPERB.
Thought provoking. Smart. Yet accessible to all ages.
The protagonist is a believable teen girl.
REVIEW by C. Baker:
… WWW: Watch is the second novel of a trilogy about an artificial intelligence, or consciousness that emerges from the World Wide Web.
In the previous novel , WWW: Wake, Catlin Decter, a brilliant 15 year old blind girl is given sight through experimental technology in the form of an implant that interprets visual signals correctly and allows her to see (in her left eye at least). Through this device she discovers a presence in the Web that starts to gain greater and greater cognitive abilities, which grows as the second novel progresses. She dubs it Webmind.
In Watch, we watch as Webmind not only develops cognitive abilities exponentially, but through the help of Catlin begins to develop its sense of ethics and, without being too maudlin, an understanding of “the meaning of life.” This novel is primarily about this development, along with government agencies trying to figure out how to shut Webmind down, fearing it will become so powerful it will destroy mankind. …
Rick McCharles 