james_angove

The previous entry

2008-10-26T21:02:03Z

While not obvious, it was written under a state of fairly rambling distress, and contained some thoughts that were not expressed in the manner I might have chosen under more perfect circumstances. Accordingly, I've yanked it, although I retain the text and it may resurface in a more refined form (If this sounds like a non apology apology, that is because it is not an apology of any kind. One may be forth coming; I need to think on the subject).

That said, I really am curious if people read my occasional (And rising volume, no less) of comment. No criticism is implied; I just really want to know, properly inept science survey like (Its like Republican science only more pointless but less reprehensible!) Perhaps one of those poll things.

Attention people of San Francisco

2007-09-07T22:07:08Z

Do any of you ever see Liz Hopkins around? I don't want to talk to her, see her or really interact with her in any way, but from time to time, I get curious what's happened to her.

Who wants a copy of _Soon I will be Invicible_

2007-06-15T19:31:48Z

For reasons of dumb, I have two copies of _Soon I Will Be Invincible_, which is more than I need.

As _Soon I Will Be Invincible_ is quite excellent, and as I am feeling generous, I'm prepared to ship, to the person who says the nicest thing about me between now and 6pm CT today, a copy of this excellent novel. (Shipping will be standard US whatever it is, but I'll ship to where ever in the wide world you might be). If you know someone who knows me well enough to say something nice that isn't clearly made up and who'd like a copy of this novel, feel free to let them know.

(And it really is amazingly good; the first novel in several years I've been genuinely depressed to reach the end of just because I wanted more).

Carlos Yu will lose his mind

2007-05-25T17:18:20Z

Okay, mostly it will just confirm his worst suspicions about the interaction between SF and conservatives.

ETA!

FUCK! Wrong link.

http://armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/casual_fridays_3.html

Is the correct link. In my campaign to convince people I'm a moron, I also emailed it to Carlos. Shit.

Hey. I'm going to London.

2007-02-27T18:46:43Z

Which should be fun. March 11 through the 23rd, flying back the afternoon of the 24th.

Its work, but I should have some time to sight see (evenings, and one weekend). So what sh-0uld I do? I'm especially concerned about the 11th. I'm going to be pretty burnt, but my flight lands at 07:55 GMT I've a huge incentive not to go passing out. However shall I occupy my time?

Thoughts?

Happy Birthday, me

2007-01-16T04:52:57Z

(And to Aubry, although I don't think she reads this).

So it is my 30th birthday. (Sort of. I was born at around 1723 PST, but I'm opening the scotch now).

Surprisingly good year, after a brutal start. I've changed jobs twice, but the new one seems a winner (and, finally, I'm no longer making embarrassingly less than I made at 22). Mauna continues to like me and we continue to do well, I think. I can't tell for sure, never previously having had a healthy relationship for any span of time, but no one is yelling at me and I don't feel like dieing in a horrible accident would be the soft option, so I'm going to mark that as a win as I sail into the uncharted waters of functionality. I like my apartment, and I'm not freezing to death.

Mauna took me for dinner Saturday. It was nice, although not nearly as good as the meal we had in San Francisco. Its amazing how much a difference service makes, when you're going to spend too much on a meal (also: I'm pretty sure we spent more here than there, although I wasn't allowed to see the check this time). Sunday was dinner with her parents. I'm pretty sure her mother doesn't like me, based on the assault she launched on my decision not to drive (and not with standing the fact that I'm actually climbing down from that position, although I'm still damn opposed to living any place that would require me to have a car. I've come to terms with the fact that it would be nice to rent one from time to time). It was wierd, but I managed to to say anything exceptionally stupid.

Tomorrow I'll be going out for drinks with a few people. Nothing to fancy, it being a school night, but I felt something should be done. Its depressing to realize that I only know like, four people in Chicago well enough to ask them for a drink, but still. Its something.

And, in nerd news, I got a Palm Treo 700p, complete with broadband wireless internet. This thing kinda rules, frankly, although it cost a mint. It'll be worth it though, provided they don't change the pricing structure, just to consolidate all my communications charges onto a single bill and device.

Speaking of which, I don't suppose anyone has any thoughts/advice on making it work (as a phone) overseas? Specifically, in London. The new job will be shipping me over for two weeks in early feb. and it'd be nice to be able to phone home.

REMINDER: I will be in SF Oct 13-15

2006-10-09T17:46:22Z

Thats this coming friday through this coming sunday. So if you wanna do something, that's the time.

A shot in the dark: Keyboard/touchpad question.

2006-09-15T19:46:36Z

Does anyone know of any way to turn of my fucking touch pad when I'm typing? A second, almost as good option would be to turn of the touchpad when the mouse is plugged in (which is almost always)? I'm on a Dell Precision M90 and I need answers for either Ubuntu or XP. Suggestions that I get a Mac will be answered in the only appropriate manner.

In a related note (and I know for sure no-one will have an answer for this one, but what the hell): does anyone have recommendations for a not completely half-assed crimping tool that won't cost an arm and a leg? Because the tool I've been using at work frankly sucks, but I'm cheep and just bought an expensive plane ticket.

Question about Canada (and/or the UK).

2006-08-30T01:36:58Z

How are the candidates for parliamentary elections chosen? Are they selected by some form of primary, or does the party just pick someone?

james_angove @ 2006-08-14T08:09:00

2006-08-14T13:10:03Z

Got at b3co.com!

Its missing Portland, OR however.

Slightly creepy cultural artifacts.

2006-05-22T23:02:57Z

Proof that there is no position so creepy that someone won't argue in favor of it. In public.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:North_American_Man/Boy_Love_Association

What's rent doing in SF these days?

2006-01-17T23:26:42Z

I'm just musing, probably not that seriously. But winters get me down, and damn its flat. (Plus, I just spent an increasingly maudlin hour with the California Coast Line project)

Anyway, I have a vague sense that rents in SF are down from what they were. To baseline it: When I had the place at 47th Balboa, I was paying $1695 for around 650sq feet. (By contrast, I've got closer it 1000 sq feet now -with heat, which isn't a big deal back west - and a DW for $845, a good but far from spectacular deal). Anyway, I'm just trying to get a feel for whats reasonable for a 1 bedroom in the City these days).

Just musing.

Carlos Yu would love this.

2006-01-11T20:21:09Z

Look here:

http://www.kith.org/journals/jed/2006/01/09/3317.html

Okay, its a pretty standard essay on genre conventions and idiot plotting. Now look at the comments, specifically the first comment by one "Tempest"

Okay then.

I like fall

2005-11-15T22:11:11Z

(Pictures)

Edited:

Okay. There would have been pictures. A couple of nice ones, looking out my office, toward the lake. Except I evidently don't know how.

How?

It doesn't matter it its an imperialist war.

2005-11-12T08:41:23Z

I was reading a speech by John McCain[1][2], and about a third of the way through I was struck powerfully by a thought: It doesn't matter what the war is or was, if it was imperialism or elaborate and stupid point making or a giant clam. Its going to leave behind a post imperial mess. The best outcome for Iraq is that Iraq gets to be the Philippines of the middle east-- that's the good outcome.

In the worst case, it gets to be Thailand.

Or Vietnam.[3]

[1] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-11_11_05_SJM.html
[2] I have complex feelings about McCain. But still, its what I was reading.
[3] And no, its not Vietnam yet. Were still a decade short and an order of magnitude less bad than Vietnam, I think.

From an exchange I just had with a co-worker.

2005-11-08T21:38:11Z

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about some real time.

That's it, Salon.com has jumped the shark.

2005-10-20T05:52:42Z

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/10/20/soldier/index_np.html

Have they never met a dumb-ass idea they haven't swallowed whole?

GDP of cities?

2005-09-30T15:24:45Z

Does anyone know of a way to get (or statisics to generate) a kind of GDP value for cities? MSAs would be okay, although for my purposes, I'd rather have straight up city limits stats. I want to be able to make a pass at answering the question, are cites that don't suck (SF, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, etc) better or worse investments of resources than those that do (San Jose, LA, Atlanta, etc).

Thanks.

It gets increasingly weird

2005-09-04T20:17:46Z

To be called Jim, the older I get. I haven't called myself Jim in years, but for a long time I still thought of myself that way, and after that, I could still see it as my name. Now, its started to just sound odd.

So hey, I got laid off again

2005-06-06T19:15:00Z

Actually last friday. Believe it or not, I was shocked. The offical cause was my lack of billable hours; my sense has been that I've mostly been given bullshit.

Ugh. I really have never failed to see that coming before. Now, off to be humiliated in the unemployment line.

Best 8 ScF Novels, 1980-89

2005-06-02T23:45:57Z

To understand this posting, first look here: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/4319323afef36e81 (Andrew Wheeler, editor at the Science Fiction Book Club, explains why someone would want to make a list of the top 8, and why he wants to see them)

I wound up making two lists.

> It's that time of year again -- the time when I pick the collective
> brain of RASFW, and then mostly do the books I already thought I
> wanted to do.

I've been waiting for the 80's for years. Finally, a decade in which I've
read enough to participate. I'm trying to suppress my urge to use this as
an excuse to try and bully you into printing lamentably out of work books,
but I'm not sure how succesful I'll be. Also, I don't like much fantasy,
which shows.

1) Neuromancer. Yes, its overrated. But its also hugely influential, and
however you feel about cyberpunk, you've got to include some. That means
either Gibson or Sterling. Schismatrix is a better book, but its not
nearly as representative of the sub-genre. I suppose one could go with
_Islands in the Net_ _The Artifical Kid_, but _Neuromancer_ is better
remembered, and I have more affection for it. (On the downside, its not
just in print, its hugely in print. Giving it yet another edition seems
unjust).

2) _The Dragon Never Sleeps_. Because its out of print, and we love it.
It prefigures the Big Ass Space Opera of the ninties very nicely, and its a
damn good book besides. Also, we will like totally be your best friend
foreva.

3) _Angel Station_. Another sentimental choice. Nothing else seems to
work, so I now advocate beating people over the head with WJW until they
give in and start buying his books. (I'm thinking "copies of the works of
WJW" and "metaphorically beat" here, but if anyone thinks it will help, I'm
prepared to pick the man himself up and start using him as a club. I'd
have to work out for a while first, but I'll do it). _Angel Station_ is
the result of a coin toss, and has the advantage of not getting in a turf
war with _Neuromancer_. But in one wanted, one could dump _Neuromancer_
and replace it with _Hardwired_ or _Voice of the Wirlwind_. Or keep _Angel
Station_ and replace _Neuromancer_ with _Web Of Angels_ (this paragraph
having a heavenly, intersessional theme). In fact, do that. That would be
better.

4) _Startide Rising_ or _The Uplift War_. Probably Brin's best work, and
free of the blooming obsessions that run through his other work.[1] I like
the _Uplift War_ better, for what its worth.

5) _The Rosinante Trilogy_. Actually, its kinda hard to make a good case
for these. I don't like them as much as James does (ironically, I think
they're too short for the amount of plot they contain) but they are awfully
good all the same and well thought out besides.

6) Some C. J. Cherryh. Its either _Cyteen_ or _Downbelow Station_, and the
only way to solve it is with a steel cage deathmatch between the advocates
of one or the other. I'd go with _Downbelow Station_ because it has more
spaceships, and I like spaceships.

7) I feel strongly some MilSF needs to be on an 80s list. Almost none of
it has held up well though (that is, most of it was crap, but I hadn't
quite hit puberty. Its still mostly crap, and I can now tell). I like _A
Small Colonial War_ by Robert Frezza a great deal, but I'm one of perhaps
five people who do. You can't justify it on this list, at any rate. Maybe
some David Drake? Who else was writing for Baen in the mid-late 80s?
(Actually, that's not really fair to the Baen of the 80s, which put out a
great deal of inovative stuff. Or at least, stuff you could tell apart at
a glance)

8) Arggg! This is Hard. _Consider Phelbas_ came out in what, 86? Screw
it. How about _Winter Queen_ by Joan D. Vinge. Another good book,
although I'd like to put everything somewhat neatly into a slot as
"represents movement or trend [foo] and I'm having a hard time doing that
for this. There is undoubtely a fantasy that belongs here, but damnit, the
80s my childhood, and should by god be full of rocketship and space
empires.

[1] Although Brin seems to have reached an accord of some sort with the
Eater. You can easily tell what he's concerned with, but he mostly manages
to avoid the hectoring "Hey you kids today" tone of so many other writers
who at one time did not suck.

After writing that, I responded to a post by Charlie Stross, which led me to revise an couple of decisions. That post follows :

Well, shit. I see that not only was _The Snow Queen_ not from the 80s, it
was an actual selection from the 70s. Goddamnit.

That's okay. Futher on further thought, I see that I'm less happy than I
once was. I revise, I revise:

1) _Voice of the Wirlwind_, Walter Jon Williams. _Hardwired_ is in
someways a better choice, being somewhat more pure an example of the
cyberpunk form, but I like VotW a bit better.

2) _The Dragon Never Sleeps_, Glen Cook. One of his fantasy's (_The Tower
of Fear_, maybe) might in someways be a better choice. I think leaving
Cook off the list altogether would be an huge oversite though. But I mean
it: _tDNS_ and we will all totally be your best friends foreva and make
you friendship bracelets, and dude, I'll like totally do your homework for
a year.

3) _Schismatrix_, Bruce Sterling: Ahead of its time, brilliant, yada, yada.

4) _The Uplift War_, David Brin

5) _The Rosinante Trilogy_, Alexis A. Gilliland

6) _Downbelow Station_, C. J. Cherryh

7) I am totally unhappy with any of the MilSF published in the 80's that
I can think of. So, as a place holder, one of the Hammers Slammers books
from David Drake. Shit. No, I'm going to have to go with fucking
Stirling: _Marching Through Georgia_. All the things I like least in
modern SF, in one seminal little package. I feel dirty now. I'd so much
rather have _A Small Colonial War_, which has the virtue of being, you
know, good, but on terms of niche filling and part of a movement, its _MtG_
all the way. A crap novel to represent a sub-genre that took a long hard
look and not sucking, and bravely ran away. Fitting, I suppose.

8) _Use of Weapons_, Iain M. Banks. First of the British renaissance.
Hugely good. First published in early 1990, so an alternative[1], I'd go
with... What the hell went wrong in the 80's anyway? _Eon_, by Greg Bear,
because it is now a cold war nostalga trip, and because I feel (and will
not going spoiling the feeling with actual research) that Its A Really Big
Thing! was one the the big tropes of the 80s.

[1]One could use _The Player of Games_ but I think it would be a better
choice to save Banks for the 90s and keep UoW. Its just too great a book
to pass up.

~~~~~~
Okay, so that's my list. I've still got some problems with it; for one thing, its disturbingly sparse on the girls, which is unfortunate -- it makes the lists scarily fifties esque, and that makes me unhappy. Part of this is a function of my being bound and fucking determined to put both _The Dragon Never Sleeps_ and at least one book by Walter Jon Williams on the list. Plus, apparently the 80s kinda blew. I don't know what the other part is.

Plus I'm still unhappy with my MilSF entry, but I don't know what I can replace it with. I think I've make my feelings on modern MilSF clear, but you can't argue that its a major (in the US, probably the major) force in modern ScF, and it really took off in 80s; it would be dishonest to leave it out.

I think I'm going to lose my job.

2005-05-19T19:39:22Z

As some of you may know, I'm afraid of dogs. That is, I am run screaming across a pond full of raw sewage terrified of dogs, to a such a degree that I have manipulated my entire life around the goal of never having to get withing a street width of a dog, and done so with a fair degree of sucess.

However, on the 12th of June, I'm supposed to go out to a vetrinary hospital to do install and migration work. A large hospital, where the large staff brings their dogs to work, so that they can roam the halls at will.

There is no way I can do this. So I'm fucked.

Suggest something to read. Please.

2005-05-19T01:26:06Z

I have nothing to read.

Well, no, that's not true. I have nothing that I want to read. I have a whole room full of stuff that refuses to appeal to me.

So ideally, I'd like something in print, because I want to go to Borders and pick it up tomorrow so that I can have something to read on my travels. I'm a style junky more than a plot junky; I can enjoy a dull story well told far more than a would be gripping story told badly. I'd like something upbeat throughout, for preference, and ideally with a nice bit of distance from my life -- I'm gunning for purest escapism here.

Thank you for your support.

Oh, and

2005-05-10T02:24:39Z

Evidently:

I am:

David Brin

Bestselling producer of impossible-to-put-down epic adventures in a far-flung future.

Which science fiction writer are you?

I'm not sure quite how I feel about that. I do tend to more for than against the positions he takes in his deranged essays, so I guess I can live with this.

About the new Dr. Who

2005-05-10T02:17:09Z

I like it, for the curious.

But I've noticed something I think is odd: They've not left earth at all yet. Three episodes in present day London, 1 in the far future, one in the deep future, one in the very near future, and two in the past.

I'm not any kind of Doctor Who fanatic, so I've seen far from every story, but isn't that a tad odd? Didn't classic Who fequently take place off earth?