I got my second COVID-19 vaccine booster today. I didn't get this second booster as soon as it was available; I waited a bit. UCSF medical smartie Bob Wachter advised older folks to get their se...
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(For folks who are trying to gauge vaccine side effect trends: My arm was a little hurty yesterday near the infection site. Today I feel fine.) ...
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Current post shot #2 status: Bracing myself for side effects and/or superpowers. ...
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Book Report: The Quantum Thief
Yes it's been a few weeks since my most recent Book Report. I've been busy. Also, my shelf of New Yorkers filled up. I keep around old issues of the New Yorker to read on occasions it doesn't make se...
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Home internet is out. Phone wifi tethering not working. Guess I will sit and fill in crossword puzzles with a pencil like a caveman. ...
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Book Report: A Fighting Chance
It's an autobiography by politician Elizabeth Warren. Before she w19as a politician, she was an academic. She studied bankruptcy. When she started, there was received wisdom around bankruptcy: people...
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Book Report: The Mongoliad Book Two
Several characters flung across Eurasia. I wonder the authors are going to tie up all the loose ends. ...
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Book Report: Slayground, Plunder Squad, Butcher's Moon
It's action novels in which Parker the ruthless amoral thief. He is pursued into an amusement park that's shut down for the winter. And then a lot of ruthless people die. He gets involved with an art...
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Book Report: Railsea
Post-apocalyptic Mevillean steampunk fantasy. Fun little read. ...
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Book Report: Leaving Cheyenne
Three characters with intertwined fates grow old on ranch land in Texas. It starts in the early 20th century and makes it to mid-century and life gets easier but it never really gets easy. ...
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Book Report: Distrust that Particular Flavor
It's a book of articles by William Gibson; quick essays, book reviews, book introductions. There are some fun ones, there are some clunkers. If you think you'd like a book of Gibson articles, you're ...
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Book Report: The Mongoliad, Book One
Book Two of the Mongoliad ships today so here's a report on, uhm, Book One. I'm a professional technical writer, but I did a stint with some instructional designers. Thus, I was forced to confront t...
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Book Report: Low Life
Many quick snippets about New York's criminals and underclass. It was kinda fun, but a few days after reading it, I remember almost nothing. I could say that was a metaphor for New York itself, alway...
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Book Report: Taking People With You
It's a management book. It was written by a guy who worked at Pepsi, so you probably don't want his advice about what things are worth doing; he chose to sell sugar water instead of change the world....
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Comic Report: The New York Four
It's a soap opera of young lady university students making their way in NYC. One of the protagonists prefers to interact with the world through her phone instead of face-to-face. People give her a ha...
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Comic Report: Cages
This comic is famous and arty and not my thing. The characters are artistic types; they feel trapped, they must make art to be free... Wow, deep themes. I definitely felt like a philistine for not en...
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Book Report: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1969
Half the fun of the League of Extraordinary Gentlement comics is spotting the references. Just about everyone in these comics is a character from some other work of fiction. Apparently, I don't know ...
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Book Report: Zero Day
Happy USA Buy Nothing Day 2011, aka #OCCUPYXMAS. To celebrate, here's a report on a book I'm glad I checked out from the library: Zero Day. Maybe it's not quite accurate to say "I'm glad I checked o...
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Comic Report: "Dark Horse Presents", "Noir"
Dark Horse Presents, a periodic comic anthology, re-arose a few months back. It's good stuff. It was good before, and it's good now. There's a variety, so it's not all good. You and I probably wouldn...
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Book Report: Nerds 2.01
Back in 1998, some PBS folks made a TV documentary about the internet, "Nerds 2.01". TV isn't a great medium for this stuff—humming computers don't make great television. So there's footage of....
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Book Report: Wireless
It's a book of short fiction by Charlie Stross. Oh man, if I wasn't bored by C'thulhu stories, then there's a story in here I would have liked and I might have liked the Laundry story... Or if I lik...
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Book Report: The Planets
Wow, DASH was a lot of fun. I'm so glad I volunteered; I met some cool people. I learned that I've been doing this geocaching thing all wrong (which I kinda suspected already). But I'm too tired to w...
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Book Report: The Big Oyster
It's kind of a history of the oyster. It's kind of a history of shellfishing in New York City harbor. Once there were oysters. Then they were overfished. Then they were cultivated. Then water poll...
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Link: Plain ol' Tasha
Tasha draws a comic. It's pretty good. She was inspired by Jim's Journal, and that inspiration shows. You might think I'd link to a good comic to recommend it. But I never got around to it. Yest...
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Book Report: Station
This comic book is a murder mystery set on the International Space Station. It was OK. Maybe if I were more of a space-nerd, I would have liked how the story brought in well-researched bits of ISS l...
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Book Report: The Ipcress File
I came up with an idea for a board-game like computer game. The board was going to be a map of the city. And there were these bits of secret info to move across the city. You control some agents t...
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Book Report: Cosmonaut Keep
There's a parallel story; humanity's learning the secret of a light-speed interstellar starship drive; humanity's rediscovery of same, hundreds of years later. There is politics, humor, ... I dunno,...
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Puzzlehunts are Everywhere: At least one Burninator Reported as OK (albeit Tired)
Save the Burninators It looks like they're OK. Tell the rescue party to stand down.Labels: ok, puzzlehunts...
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Site: Seattle Travelog #13
The exciting news lately is that I've had free time and I've been keeping solid food down. Thus, I've finally put together travel notes from my recent Seattle trip. There are some notes from MS Puz...
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Book Report: The Undercover Economist
It's another book explaining economics to the masses. Why did I start reading this? I should have known better. I've read too many popular-economics books lately. I stopped reading this one part...
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Book Report: Houdini the Handcuff King
I was going to start this off with a cute paragraph about how I'm "handcuffed" to Debian Sarge (an old version of the OS) on my main home computer because I only have dialup access, my dialup provide...
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Book Report: Disgrace
This past weekend I spent plenty of time in the company of BATH folks doing secret things. Normally I'd be bouncing up and down and eager to tell you about what happened, but... Actually, even if I ...
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Puzzle Hunts are Everywhere, Even Oklahoma
Oklahoma has it going on. I'm not just talking about Martin Gardner. A Treasure's Trove: A Fairy Tale About Real Treasure For Parents And Children Of All Ages is an illustrated children's book wri...
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Book Review: Copies in Seconds
It's a history of the invention of Xerography. Eh, it was okay.Labels: book, ok...
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Book Report: A Walk In the Woods
Bill Bryson confirms that hiking is difficult. This book was OK. Tags: book | Appalachian Trail |Labels: book, ok, pedestrian...
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Book Report: Epitaph in Rust
This is an old novella by Tim Powers. I liked it. It recently showed up in a two-novella conglomeration with The Skies Discrowned. I'd already read that novella, and hadn't liked it. So it was a ...
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Book Report: A Rabbit in the Air
David Garnett wrote this book, A Rabbit in the Air, about his experience learning to fly. This book was published in 1932. He calls airfields "aerodromes". He provides cockpit drawings. He provides ...
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Book Report: The Legend of Grimjack, Volume One
I have been hearing about this comic book for years. It, along with "Sam & Max", were the great comics which I'd never be able to read because their rights were tangled up in legal limbo. One v...
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