Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

1. What did you last read?
The Red Star by Arthur Byron Cover, Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman, 1610 by Mary Gentle

2. What are you reading now?
Clade by Mark Budz, Snare by Katharine Kerr, Natural History by Justina Robson

3. What do you plan to read next?
Famous Monsters by Kim Newman, Finding Helen by Colin Greenland, The Separation by Christopher Priest. Oh, and the rest of the to-be-read bookcase someday....

4. What would you like to read, but don't have?
Accelerando by Charles Stross (finish it Charlie, please!), Joy of Tech by Nitro and Shaggy, Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctrow

5. What would you recommend for others to read?
The Wreck Of The River Of Stars by Michael Flynn. The best SF novel of 2003 by far. Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson. Math can be fun! Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. Space opera rethought and reworked for the modern world. Desolation Road by Ian MacDonald. Mars the way we always dreamed it.

6. What's your favourite book from childhood?
The Mysterious Greatwood Michael Clark. The great lost book of my childhood....

7. What book last made you laugh?
The Second Channel Island Jokebook (though you do have to read it to yourself in as broad a northern parish accent as possible)

8. What book last made you weep?
1610 by Mary Gentle. Some desperately moving scenes.

9. What book last made you angry?
Hard to say. Probably Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Too many cop outs from a set of interesting ideas.

"prolate ambling spintail"

Ah, the delights of dictionary-based message constructors at work...

Is this to be my eventual fate?

...it's the light-emitting transistor.

"Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed the world's first light emitting transistor (LET). The hybrid device is similar to other transitors except that it produces an optical output signal in addition to the usual electrical transistor output."