Reviews

There are 143 posts filed in Reviews (this is page 13 of 15).

The World Without Us

I’m in the middle of a captivating (and a bit overdue, according to the Wake library) book called The World Without Us by Alex Weisman. Weisman takes a look at how the things we take for granted in modern life would fare if we suddenly up and simply vanished. Its a thought-provoking premise.
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Make room for the Rooma

While the day had its challenges – we all had cabin fever, Kelly and Hallie on the mend from colds/flu – there were some highlights. We made a fresh loaf of bread this morning and then went to Durant Nature Park to shake the cabin fever stuff. The kids rode their bikes to and from the park and we hiked all the way around the lower lake, marveling at the telephone pole-sized tree trunks the beavers have been sawing through.

I was also thrilled when the Fedex guy brought us our newest addition to the family: a Roomba Discovery. A coworker had alerted me to reconditioned Roombas being sold on Woot that afternoon, so I jumped on it. A hundred bucks plus shipping later and it arrived – quickly, I might add.
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Pandora threatens my wallet

Have I mentioned how much I like Pandora? I’ll be working away and listening to my R.E.M. Channel (and Cake Channel, and many others) when some amazing song will begin playing and I’ll drop whatever I’m doing to see whose song it is so I can go out and buy it. So far, Pandora’s turned me on to Muse, The Killers, Kings of Leon, We Are Scientists, The Shins, Jude, Miracle Legion, Sam Prekop, The Redwalls, Pete Yorn, Bishop Allen, Broadcast Debut, Keane, The La’s, Pernice Brothers, and Kashmir, to name a few. Out of those I like The La’s, Pernice Brothers, Keane, and Kashmir the best, I think.

In short, I am hopelessly, irresistibly hooked on Pandora. Its introduced me to more music in two weeks than the month I’ve had Sirius radio, or the years I’ve listened to WKNC, or anything else I can think of, for that matter. I feel compelled to buy music again – something that I more or less swore off a while ago as a waste of my money. I actually feel hip again, believe it or not.

Pandora’s gotten me excited about music again. I’m loving it, baby!

Heroin Diaries

On a tip from my buddy Chris, I checked out Nikki Sixx’s book The Heroin Diaries. Its a walk through one of the darkest periods in the life of the Motley Crue bassist. In the mid-80’s when Motley Crue was topping the charts, Sixx was secretly wrestling with the demons of heroin addiction. Though its not a pretty picture, it is compelling reading. I’m amazed Sixx had the presence of mind to keep a diary when he was so strung out.
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Pandora

Santa brought me a Sirius satellite radio kit for my car. While I’m enjoying the tunes, I’m finding that I already own most of them. Also, working from home the way I do, I am not in the car all that much to enjoy my music.
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Stellarium

I was poking around my Mac tonight when I remembered I once downloaded Stellarium, the GPL star chart. “Awesome” is the only way to describe Stellarium. It draws the night sky as seen from anywhere in the world. You can instantly find any object in the sky. It can even point a motorized telescope. I hope to take it in the back yard at night and get better acquainted with the night sky.

Also check out Celestia, another GPL space viewer, only Celestia lets you fly through space to visit an object up close and personal.

Hard to believe software like this is freely available. It is, though, thanks to the GPL.

Dual-homed home

For those of you who were waiting with baited breath to know how my AT&T FastAccess DSL was working for me (you remember, the $10/month plan?), I have been slack in updating you.

In short, it works great. Not fast enough to replace my cable modem, however, not with 768Kbps down and 128Kbps up. It wasn’t more than an hour or two before Kelly was complaining about the slow connection.
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