Snow Crash

I just finished reading Neal Stephenson's excellent Snow Crash . It is a really fun book, and it is not your typical plot driven novel. Indeed, the main character's name is Hiro Protagonist. The plot mainly serves as a mechanism for the author to create scenarios that allow him to expound on topics like human languages, and the potential for language-based viruses. You gotta love a book where the main character is both a master hacker and a pizza delivery man for the Mafia.

My next fiction read will be Stranger in a Strange Land , by Heinlein. I've really liked the other Heinlein I've read (particularly The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers), and I've been meaning to read this for a long time. My next non-fiction read will be Peopleware , which I ordered yesterday.

Eclipse 3.0 M2

The second milestone on the road toward Eclipse 3.0 has been released . Here's the list of new and noteworthy features . Release early, release often.

Birthday

I turn 21 tomorrow. Should I go bar hopping and get liquored up? That's not something I'd normally do, but everyone I talk to says, "C'mon, you have to do it, you only turn 21 once!" Let me know what I should do in the comments.

ITMS Ideas

My latest experience with the iTunes Music Store, and the buzz surrounding Buy.com's imminent launch of a competing service , got me thinking about the problems with ITMS. It's a great store, to be sure. Being able to browse by category with 30 second full-quality previews is awesome. However, there seems to be a core flaw with the ITMS experience: shopping at the iTunes Music Store is like shopping in a store with no other people.

As you browse ITMS, there is no indication that other people are also shopping in the store. About the only network effect is the "Listeners who bought this also bought" section. Apple really needs to be careful or Amazon will eat their lunch with reviews, comments, wishlists (!), and other advanced collaboration features. Jason tipped me off to the huge potential of a wishlist feature. Wouldn't it be great if you could create a list of songs you wanted to buy, and other people could purchase songs from your list for you? At 99 cents a pop, I'm sure a lot of people would have fun purchasing songs for others to thank them, or just to send them a greeting.

I'm sure the bright minds at Apple are aware of these issues, I just hope they are correcting them quickly enough to beat the Amazon juggernaut and other online music store wannabes.

Danny's BBQ

Last Friday I went to lunch at a very interesting restaurant: Danny's BBQ. For those who don't know, I am always searching for new and exciting cuisine. My favorite restaurants are the ones with no ambience, just really good food. Danny's BBQ is such a place.

The first thing that you will notice about Danny's BBQ is the line. When I got there, the line probably had 50 people in it, and from what I'm told, this is normal for weekday lunch at Danny's. When you get to the front of the line, you order your meal, which will probably consist of a plate of the meat of your choosing and two sides. I got the chopped pork plate, fries, and baked beans. The meat does not come with any sauce, instead each table has bottles filled with two varieties of sauce: hot and spicy, and mild and sweet. Both sauces are really good, and the meat is lean and tasty.

Eating at Danny's is definitely a cultural experience. There's nothing like Danny's in Cleveland. So, for any of you in the Triangle, I highly recommend that you visit Danny's BBQ.

Fallacious Arguments

Don Lindsay: A List of Fallacious Arguments

Great for linking to during those Usenet and mailing list flamewars.

Durian

I have never eaten a durian . I want to eat a durian . Someone please tell where I can buy a durian .

Dido

I bought my fourth track from the iTunes Music Store yesterday. Apple's New Music Tuesdays email alerted me to the exclusive prerelease of Dido's new single White Flag. I first heard Dido a few years ago when she was sampled for the song Stan on The Marshall Mathers LP. I liked what I heard, so I picked up her album No Angel (also available from the iTunes Music Store). I love Dido's hypnotic voice. Many of her songs also have a nice, subtle techno vibe. So, if you haven't heard of Dido before, get over to the iTunes Music Store and listen to White Flag .

(For those of you who don't know, Dido was queen of Carthage in Roman mythology.)

Peloton

I've been tracking the Tour de France since its start this weekend. I tend to like small, not widely televised sports, and this is no exception. BBC Sport has the best coverage I've found. In the US, OLN provides coverage from 8-11pm each night, so I turn it on when I've got a moment.

Other small sports I enjoy watching: Curling, Biathlon, and the Field portion of Track and Field (yes, I like watching the Olympics).

Advance Wars 2

As I was wandering through Best Buy on Saturday evening, I saw something that got me excited (no, not a poster for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle). Advance Wars 2 is out! Advance Wars is a phenomenal turn based strategy game, released around the time that Gameboy Advance came out. It encapsulates everything I like about Nintendo's games and the Gameboy Advance platform: it's simple, but not simplistic, it focuses on gameplay, and its production values are incredibly high. If you haven't played Advance Wars, run, don't walk to the local electronics store, and get yourself a copy.

I haven't actually played Advance Wars 2 yet, but all indications are that it lives up to its name. IGN gives it a 9.0 , and Gamespot gives it a 9.1 .

BZFlag and Tetrinet

While I was over at Joel and Bean's this weekend, we played some old school multiplayer computer games: BZFlag and Tetrinet . If you haven't tried these games, then I highly recommend them to you. Good, clean, free fun.

BZFlag is a 3D game that was orginally written for Silicon Graphics machines. I imagine the graphics must have been wicked at the time it came out. Now the graphics aren't so impressive, but it's still a really fun tank game.

Tetrinet is multiplayer Tetris. Up to 6 people can play at a time. There are special items that you can get by clearing lines. Some of the items are damaging items that can be used on your opponents, other items help you by clearing lines.

O'Reilly Safari

CWRU now has a subscription to O'Reilly's Safari! This is great!

Infornography

The Lure of Data: Is It Addictive? [New York Times]

This is a very interesting article. I think there may really be something to this; I'd love to research it further for a psychology class. Of course, it's easy to read an article like this and interpret it in a way that fits you (just as you are more likely to imagine having flu-like symptoms if the local media report that there has been an outbreak of SARS), but I wonder if I suffer from this "addiction". (I doubt it is a true addiction, any more than eating high-fat foods is an addiction.) The pervaisive availability of technology has definitely shortened my attention span; if I am coding and get stuck on a problem, it is difficult to resist the urge to just check my email or catch up on my RSS subscriptions.

If nothing else, this article has made me think about my relationship to technology. I really need to work on increasing my attention span and improving my ability to Just Say No to technological distractions.

T1, T2, T3

Prior to this weekend, I had never seen any of the Terminator movies. At the end of the weekend, I will have seen all three. Joel and Bean wanted to go see T3, so we decided to prep by watching T1 and T2. Thursday night we watched T1, last night we watched T2, and today we are going to go see a matinee of T3. Even though I had never seen T2 before, the trailer must have made an impact on me, because I vividly remembered Arnold cocking that shotgun with one hand while riding a motorcycle. Now, that's badass.

After the movie, I think we're going to head over to Chapel Hill for dinner at 35 Chinese .