As I sit here reading the notes from the Future LCAs birds of a feather at LCA2011, I’ve come to the realization that most of the conversation was about the mechanics of what is required for an LCA bid. It can be daunting to know what needs to be done in order to have a…
Author: mikal
The Apocalypse Troll
This is an interesting combination of a first contact story, a combat science fiction story, and a love story. It is very different from the other science fiction I’ve read recently, and I enjoyed it a lot. The book has a good beginning and ending, but is slow in the middle. I’m glad I kept…
LCA 2012: Ballarat
So, a million people have blogged and tweeted about this, so I’m going to keep this short. Congratulations to Ballarat on their winning 2012 bid. They’ve stepped up for what is a massive job, with the added complications of being the first to try something a little new. As a ghost I appreciate them being…
Contact details for the Canberra LCA 2013 bid
Hi. I just wanted to quickly let people know that if they’re interested in being kept informed about the bid for LCA 2013 to be in Canberra, you should subscribe to our mailing list at http://lists.clug.org.au/listinfo/canberra2013. We’ll send regular updates to that list as we hit important deadlines during the bid process. [btags:]
LCA 2013 bid process opens – Canberra at the ready!
For the last several months, a small group of people in Canberra including myself have been preparing a bid for LCA 2013. This is not just to give us more time to make the conference the most awesome, froody LCA you’ve ever been to. No – 2013 is also the centenary of the founding of…
Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency
This book took me a little while to get into. although I am glad I kept at it. Not as good as The Hitchhiker’s Guide, but still worth the time to read. Title: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Author: Douglas Adams Genre: Fiction Publisher: Pan Macmillan Release Date: 1988 Pages: 247 A mixture of science…
Bad Science
I’ve been trying to read one non-fiction book a month recently, and this is the one for January. This book is simply excellent and I’m glad I read it. It is clearly written, entertaining, and easy to understand. Yet it covers complex issues about how mis-reporting of medicine result in people dying. It covers statistical…
Things I’m taking to the Arduino miniconf
I figured I’d go to the Arduino miniconf and help out with the assembly tutorial. That got me thinking about what I should take that’s relatively small, but likely to be helpful. So far I’ve got: My butane soldering iron and solder (I’m not packing butane though, I’ll have to find that up there) De-soldering…
Days of Air and Darkness
Rori and friends are attempting to lift the siege started in Days of Blood and Fire. This book is mostly action without much discussion or character development, which makes it fun to read. The big battle at the end is a bit unusual, because so many die, but I wont say any more because I…
Starbound
This is the newly released sequel for Marsbound which I really liked, so I was excited when this arrived the other day. This book is much like the previous one stylistically, being written as a set of mostly first person diary entries. However, the people writing these entries are older now, and this feels less…