Further to yesterday’s post about the beer fridge thermostat replacement, I’ve been hacking on ethernet support for the controller. This is handy because I’d like to log the temperature and compressor state over the network, because I’m hoping that can be used to make calculations about the thermal mass of the contents of the fridge,…
Beer fridge controller 0.1
On the weekend I picked up a 220 liter beer fridge for $20. Its in really good condition (ignoring some minor rust in the freezer section), and the only real problem with it is that the thermostat doesn’t work leaving the compressor on the whole time. Doug suggested that instead of just buying a new…
Saturn’s Children
I had trouble getting really into this book, although the story was interesting. I guess its mostly the Gibson-esque descriptions of a future world with plenty of assumed knowledge. However, I found the descriptions of the failed Mars missions deeply satisfying, and would love to see those covered in more detail. However, the story gets…
Bolo!
This book is a return to the short story collection style of Bolo book, with all of these short stories being written by David Webber. Unfortunately, most of these stories are not new: “Miles to Go” and “A brief technical history of the Bolo” appeared in Bolos 3: The Triumphant, and “The Traitor” and “A…
Last Human
This is Doug Naylor’s first solo book, after the breakup of his Red Dwarf partnership with Rob Grant. This book deviates pretty wildly from the plot line developed by the TV series, although it does use some of the ideas from the series. Often these ideas are used in such a different way that it…
The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern
I bought and read this book for the short story “the impression”, which is ok but not fantastic. Overall the book isn’t really my thing — its mostly a potted history of Pern and a nearly exhaustive coverage of the various weyrs, holds and craft halls that inhabit the planet. To be honest, I’d rather…
Dragonsdawn
This book was similar to the other McCaffrey books I’ve read in that it felt like it lost its way in the middle for a bit. I’d been looking forward to this book for a while, because I really wanted to see the science fiction aspects of colonizing a new planet and developing a genetically…
Bolo Strike
There is a planet populated by humans which has been isolated for many years. In that time, aliens have come to rule the planet and treat the humans as slaves. Its pretty clear that they need liberating, right? What if you trash the planet in the process? What if they actually have the ability to…
Books read in November 2009
On Cars The Forever War Forever Peace Bolo Rising The Ship Who Sang
The Ship Who Sang
This book is good science fiction, in the sense that it explores something which we are not ready to address as a society — in this case, would profoundly disabled people prefer that we could replace their disabled bodies? What if the replacement wasn’t humanoid? The book is pretty old though, and that shows in…