Made by Mikal – Page 49

Buying Time

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 9, 2010
Post category:Book

This book isn't Haldeman's best work (checkout The Forever War, The Forever Peace, or Marsbound for examples of his really good stuff). I found the characters largely unsympathetic, and the plot quite slow. The book is also odd in that it was written in 1989, but is full of stuff you'd expect to see from a Heinlein novel like The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress -- global conspiracies, Russian space colonies with vigilante law, that sort of thing. Interestingly, the plot twist is much more smoothly done than many other Haldeman novels, which is nice.

A Hymn Before Battle

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 7, 2010
Post category:Book

This is an interesting book in that it lays down a reasonably believable scenario and then doesn't really resolve it. Its obviously setting up for a series, and while the local micro plot is resolved, there is clearly a larger story arc that wants telling here. The book isn't happy or uplifting, it is downright depressing in places. Regardless, I still finding myself hanging out for the next one in the series. [isbn: 0671318411]

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 3, 2010
Post category:Book

I sympathize with the other LibraryThing reviewer who had trouble finding characters to like in this novel. This book isn't very long, but took me ages to read because the main character is so whiney. The whole story seems to revolve around how he's never happy, and that didn't work for me. I think the underlying ideas are interesting, but I just hated Julius so much that I didn't enjoy the book. There is an interesting reference to Snow Crash on page 97 though. [award: nominee nebula 2004] [isbn: 076530953x]

Why Can’t Elephants Jump?

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 2, 2010
Post category:Book

This is another fun book from New Scientist's Last Word column and I enjoyed it. A good read, and I actually learnt some stuff (some of it possibly true) along the way.

Books read in November 2010

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 2, 2010
Post category:Book

Breakfast of Champions Old Man's War The Ghost Brigades The Last Colony Ender's Game Snow Crash The Sagan Diary Zoe's Tale Broken Angels

Multiple file support with scp

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 29, 2010
Post category:Python

Paramiko doesn't provide a scp implementation, so I've been using my own for a while. http://blogs.sun.com/janp/entry/how_the_scp_protocol_works (link now unfortunately dead) provides good documentation about the scp protocol, but it missed out on one detail I needed -- how to send more than one file in a given session. In the end I implemented a simple scp logger to see what the protocol was doing during the copying of files. My logger said this: >>> New command invocation: /usr/bin/scp -d -t /tmp O: \0 I: C0644 21 a\n O: \0 I: file a file a file a\n\0 O: \0 I: C0644 21 b\n O: \0 I: file b file b file b\n\0 O: \0 >>>stdin closed >>> stdout closed >>> stderr closed It turns out its important to wait for those zeros by the way. So, here's my implementation of the protocol to send more than one file. Turning this into paramiko code is left as an exercise for the reader. #!/usr/bin/python import fcntl import os import select import string import subprocess import sys import traceback def printable(s): out = '' for c in s: if c == '\n': out += '\\n' elif c in string.printable: out += c else: out…

Broken Angels

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 27, 2010
Post category:Book

This book is very different from Altered Carbon, as noted by many other online reviews. I found it very slow going, for a few reasons: it is quite long; it is very different from Altered Carbon in a way that almost feel like a bait and switch (Altered Carbon is a film noir detective novel, this is a hard core combat book with an alien influence); and Morgan has an annoying habit of providing emphasis with. periods. in the middle. of sentences which makes his work sometimes hard to parse. Overall and ok book and I like the alien stuff, but not what I was expecting and not as good as Altered Carbon. [isbn: 9780575081253;0575081252]

The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 26, 2010
Post category:Book

This is an omnibus edition, containing: The Stainless Steel Rat, The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge, and The Stainless Steel Rats Revenge. [isbn: 0425095312]

Zoe’s Tale

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 19, 2010
Post category:Book

This is a retelling of the events of The Last Colony from the perspective of Zoe, the teenaged adopted daughter of the colony leaders. The story makes the teenaged female narrator quite believable, although that is a little annoying at times. There is a lot of introductory material, and then a relatively rapid wrap up of the story line, which is common across all of the Old Ma's War books that I have read. Overall I enjoyed this book, but not as much as Old Man's War or The Ghost Brigades. [isbn: 0765356198] [awards: nominee hugo 2009]

The Sagan Diary

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 18, 2010
Post category:Book

I think I'd be a little bit peeved if I'd paid the recommended retail for this book, because its a 100 page book (in an unusually large font), and they want $45 for it. Sure its a limited edition, but that's a lot of money for what is basically a short story. I paid $18, and I still think that's a lot of money for this much book. This book is a series of reflections on the life of Jane Sagan. These are beautiful, but if you're expecting a book in the same vein as the rest of the Old Man's War books you'll be disappointed. [isbn: 9781596061033;1596061030]