Books read in June 2009

• Bolos 2: The Unconquerable
• Why don't penguin's feet freeze? (and 114 other questions)
• Isaac Asimov's Robot City: Robots and Aliens: Alliance
• Why do men have nipples?
• The Book of General Ignorance
• Bolos 3: The Triumphant
• Bolos 4: Last Stand

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Syndicated 2009-07-02 02:07:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

The Wild Palms Hotel

When leaving the US, I stayed in the Wild Palms Hotel. I selected it for three reasons: I'd stayed there before; it is part of the Joie De Vivre chain which I have had good experiences with before; and it was very cheap on Expedia ($77 compared to an average rate in the area of about $150). I learnt some interesting things I thought I'd share:

• The hotel is ok, just make sure you get an upstairs room. I was woken by mating elephants at 5am two days running because the floors are so thin. Be the mating elephant, not the victim of it! Once I moved to an upstairs room this probably went away.
• The executive rooms aren't worth it. I got moved into one of these because of the noise problems. Its advantages was it was away form the road, had a bathrobe (really), and a LCD TV. I don't watch TV much, so the extra cost if I was paying isn't worth it.
• The cleaning service kept "short sheeting" the bed. By short sheeting I mean pulled the sheets up to make the top of the bed look impressive, but leaving the bottom couple of inches of the mattress uncovered. Lots of hotels do this, and I find it crazily annoying.
• The air conditioner was insanely loud. It was 38 when I was staying there, and every time the air conditioner kicked in I would be woken up by it.
• Its a lot further south than I realized. It took about 20 minutes to get to work if you took El Camino. Depending on traffic its probably much faster to go all the way to the 101 and then take that. The Lawrence Expressway looks like the best way to get to the 101 from the hotel.

So, overall this hotel was "ok", apart from some minor annoyances. I'll keep staying there so long as they're cheap. If they're not running a special, then you're much better off staying further north.

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Syndicated 2009-06-30 14:25:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Bolos 4: Last Stand

ISBN: 0671877607 Baen (1997), Mass Market Paperback, 432 pages LibraryThing <script type="text/javascript">GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup('ISBN:0671877607');</script>

This book continues on from many of the previous short stories, which is a nice touch. It also starts to fill in some of the historical gaps between the collapse of US society (night of the trolls), to the Concordiat Empire, to the Melconian wars. I found one story in this book pretty hard to read, but that's mainly because its about a small child risking death from basically crazies. That story was good, just a bit close to the bone for me. I liked this book, which isn't a surprise because I have liked all the others as well. Tags for this post: book() Keith_Laumer()

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Syndicated 2009-06-28 16:27:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Bolos 3: The Triumphant

ISBN: 067187683X LibraryThing <script type="text/javascript">GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup('ISBN:067187683X');</script>

This book is a little different from Bolos 1 and Bolos 2 in that it is several short novels instead of a collection of short stories. On the other hand, they're very good short novels, and I quite liked Nike's character. I'm glad I read this book. Tags for this post: book() Keith_Laumer()

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Syndicated 2009-06-23 20:49:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

The Book of General Ignorance

ISBN: 0307394913 Harmony (2007), Hardcover, 288 pages LibraryThing <script type="text/javascript">GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup('ISBN:0307394913');</script>

I seem to be on a bit of a trivia book kick, which is at least partially motivated by getting through all my Christmas presents so I can pack them into a box and move to a different country. This book was written as part of the production of the very excellent BBC quiz show Quite Interesting and is quite a contrast from the extremely average Why Do Men Have Nipples that I just finished reading. This book feels well researched, and is on par with Why Don't Penguin's Feet Freeze, although the style is quite different (the New Scientist book offers multiple answers for each question, and is written by real scientists in the fields discussed, this book flows as one manuscript). I suspect it helps here to have seen the quiz show, because many of the other reviews I have seen online complain about the style of the book, which reads in much the same manner as Stephen Fry's commentary during the program. If you're familiar with the format, then the book flows quite nicely (whereas if you haven't, you might end up why the book jumps around so much). I really liked this book. Tags for this post: book() John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson()

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Syndicated 2009-06-15 18:45:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)