A Maze of Stars by John Brunner
Jul. 15th, 2025 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicoll
An intelligent ship crisscrosses space-time to track the progress of the colonies it established
A Maze of Stars by John Brunner
james_davis_nicollAn intelligent ship crisscrosses space-time to track the progress of the colonies it established
A Maze of Stars by John Brunner
Report from the Cambridge Cybercrime Conference
Jul. 14th, 2025 06:46 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
bruce_schneier_feedThe Cambridge Cybercrime Conference was held on 23 June. Summaries of the presentations are here.
Why Do I Love Charts? Let Me Count the Ways.
Jul. 14th, 2025 02:14 pmjames_davis_nicoll
Charts hold back chaos, and we should sing their praises!
Why Do I Love Charts? Let Me Count the Ways.
Bundle of Holding: Hearts of Wulin
Jul. 14th, 2025 02:08 pmjames_davis_nicoll
This new Hearts of Wulin Bundle presents Hearts of Wulin, the tabletop roleplaying game of Chinese wuxia action melodrama from Age of Ravens Games.
Bundle of Holding: Hearts of Wulin
Clarke Award Finalists 2005
Jul. 14th, 2025 10:27 amjames_davis_nicoll2005: The Ulster Volunteer Force struggles to grasp the meaning of the term “ceasefire”, Britain is astonished by the unlikely coincidence that every known WWI veteran is over 100 years of age, and in what some experts hope is a sign Britain has begun to emerge from chaos after the retreat of the Roman Empire, Dr Who is revived.
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2005 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Iron Council by China Miéville
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Market Forces by Richard Morgan
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Poll #33355 Clarke Award Finalists 2005
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38
Which 2005 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
View Answers
Iron Council by China Miéville
13 (34.2%)
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
12 (31.6%)
Market Forces by Richard Morgan
6 (15.8%)
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
10 (26.3%)
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
15 (39.5%)
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
12 (31.6%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2005 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Iron Council by China Miéville
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Market Forces by Richard Morgan
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
New Voices: The Campbell Award Nominees (New Voices, volume 1) edited by George R R Martin
Jul. 13th, 2025 08:50 amjames_davis_nicoll
The first in a series of anthologies that assemble stories by Campbell Award (now the Astounding) finalists.
New Voices: The Campbell Award Nominees (New Voices, volume 1) edited by George R R Martin
Huh
Jul. 12th, 2025 12:02 pmjames_davis_nicollThis is probably in no way significant, but it just occurred to me to check to see where WorldCon was the years I was nominated:
2010: Melbourne, Australia
2011: Reno, USA
2019: Dublin, Ireland
2020: Wellington, New Zealand
2024: Glasgow, Scotland
(I was nowhere near the ballot in 2009, Montreal)
At a guess, those are years where vote totals were a bit lower?
( Read more... )
2010: Melbourne, Australia
2011: Reno, USA
2019: Dublin, Ireland
2020: Wellington, New Zealand
2024: Glasgow, Scotland
(I was nowhere near the ballot in 2009, Montreal)
At a guess, those are years where vote totals were a bit lower?
( Read more... )
Books Received, July 5 — July 11
Jul. 12th, 2025 08:47 amjames_davis_nicoll
Four books new to me.Two are SF, one is fantasy, one is a mix of both. I don't see anything unambiguously labelled as series works.
Books Received, July 5 — July 11
Poll #33350 Books Received, July 5 — July 11
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39
Which of these look interesting?
View Answers
Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate by Marisa Churchill (December 2025)
14 (35.9%)
Spread Me by Sarah Gailey (September 2025)
14 (35.9%)
The Forest on the Edge of Time by Jasmin Kirkbride (February 2026)
14 (35.9%)
The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick (February 2026)
18 (46.2%)
Some other option (see comments)
1 (2.6%)
Cats!
31 (79.5%)
Squid Dominated the Oceans in the Late Cretaceous
Jul. 11th, 2025 09:04 pmbruce_schneier_feedNew research:
One reason the early years of squids has been such a mystery is because squids’ lack of hard shells made their fossils hard to come by. Undeterred, the team instead focused on finding ancient squid beaks—hard mouthparts with high fossilization potential that could help the team figure out how squids evolved.
With that in mind, the team developed an advanced fossil discovery technique that completely digitized rocks with all their embedded fossils in complete 3D form. Upon using that technique on Late Cretaceous rocks from Japan, the team identified 1,000 fossilized cephalopod beaks hidden inside the rocks, which included 263 squid specimens and 40 previously unknown squid species.
The team said the number of squid fossils they found vastly outnumbered the number of bony fishes and ammonites, which are extinct shelled relatives of squids that are considered among the most successful swimmers of the Mesozoic era.
“Forty previously unknown squid species.” Wow.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Tradecraft in the Information Age
Jul. 11th, 2025 04:06 pmbruce_schneier_feedLong article on the difficulty (impossibility?) of human spying in the age of ubiquitous digital surveillance.
The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe
Jul. 11th, 2025 09:08 amjames_davis_nicoll
New Dawn requires only that people conform without exception or face memory erasure and worse. Yet, a minority insists on being individuals.
The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Jul. 10th, 2025 08:53 amjames_davis_nicoll
Desperate to pay her brother Jasper's way out of Muhlenberg County, Opal accepts a job at an infamously cursed mansion.
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Using Signal Groups for Activism
Jul. 10th, 2025 11:08 ambruce_schneier_feedGood tutorial by Micah Lee. It includes some nonobvious use cases.
Bundle of Holding: Pyramid 2
Jul. 9th, 2025 03:46 pmjames_davis_nicoll
The latter half of Pyramid's ten-year run, the issues published from November 2013 to December 2018, sixty-two issues in all.
Bundle of Holding: Pyramid 2
Five Books About Aliens Who Are Fed Up With Humans
Jul. 9th, 2025 10:01 amjames_davis_nicoll
Yelling "Get off my lawn!" on an interplanetary scale...
Five Books About Aliens Who Are Fed Up With Humans
Kowloon Generic Romance, volume 1 by Jun Mayuzuki (Translated by Amanda Haley)
Jul. 9th, 2025 08:55 amjames_davis_nicoll
In a city with over a million people per square kilometre, real estate firms will never lack for clients. Good news for the employees of the Wong Loi Realty Company!
Kowloon Generic Romance, volume 1 by Jun Mayuzuki (Translated by Amanda Haley)
Yet Another Strava Privacy Leak
Jul. 9th, 2025 11:05 ambruce_schneier_feedThis time it’s the Swedish prime minister’s bodyguards. (Last year, it was the US Secret Service and Emmanuel Macron’s bodyguards. in 2018, it was secret US military bases.)
This is ridiculous. Why do people continue to make their data public?