Friday, April 08, 2022
Saturday, December 15, 2012
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What an exceptional book! I have to agree with others that this (and the 'Quantum Thief' before it) require you to hold on tight and trust the author. But that trust is handsomely rewarded. We are led through some truly dazzling technological marvels, dealt with genuine panache.
For me, what sets this book apart is the feeling that the author really loves his characters. Despite the relentless oddity of their circumstances, I found myself empathizing with each one. This is such a rarity in real, proper, hard SF as to be almost unique.
Finally - where next? If you love this book, you might also like Charles Stross's Accelerando, or John Clute's Appleseed which, of all the SF I have read, is the only book that comes close to it for sheer bonkers technology.
View all my reviews
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Losing a Bike
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Preparing for a century: Week 9 of 16... and why I'll get to week 13 this year
Week 9!
A status report on my drive towards cycling 100 miles in a day. The eagle eyed amongst you wil realise that an awful lot more than 4 weeks have passed since my last posting (on week 5 of 16) and now.I am cycling a lot more than I was. I'm doing 3-4 commutes to work each week, and usually a couple of them are hack home via the hilliest 14 mile ride locally available (over Farley Mount, to Kings Somborne, then over the ridge back to Braishfield and Romsey). I've also done a regular ride each Saturday or Sunday morning, cranking my way up to a 45-mile, brisk ride - out at around 7:30am, and back before 11.
...and so to week 13
A new goal
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Aiming for a Century: Week 5 of 16
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Aiming for a Century: Week 1 of 16
I thought I'd do my mid-life crisis quietly: I've decided to start training for a 'Century' bike ride: one hundred miles in a day. I've done the metric century - 100K, or 61 miles - a fair number of times, and have done 75 by mistake once, but the century eludes me. Some of my cycling buddies can trot off a 100 mile ride without a second thought, but I know for sure that right now I would have very severe trouble.
I'm going to follow a training programme from the rather ancient and now possibly out of print 'Richard's Cycling for Fitness', which has a reasonable graded approach over 16 weeks, which takes me to 29th August. Many cycle training books assume what seems to me an lunatic rate of ramping up the miles. Right now, I'm doing around 70 miles in a week - about half the final weekly target in the last couple of weeks in preparation for the century.
In addition to miles, I need to get my pace up to a solid 15 Mph over the full distance. Once I'm properly back in the saddle, I'm planning on going out with the Sotonia crew on their weekly 40 mile rides.
One tiny difficulty is that officially organised rides in the UK tend to be measured in Kilometres. Audax UK has rides of 150Km (93 Miles - not quite enough) and 200Km (124 Miles - too much!). I'm not going to worry about that too much right now.
Of course, the road to not cycling is paved with good intentions, so you can monitor my actual progress on mapmyride.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
My Musical Mappa Mundi