I have read 13 of the books on the list that Clint mentioned. I had begun to write about all the ones which I expected to be there but weren't and then realized I might as well make my own list. So here it is in alphabetical order not in any particular rank. Some entries are actually series.

• 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke (But the sequels get progressively worse.)

• Alice In Wonderland/Alice Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

• Baroque Cycle: Neal Stephenson

• Behold The Man: Michael Moorcock

• Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

• Dictionary Of The Khazars, Milorad Pavic

• Earthsea Trilogy: Ursula Le Guin

• Gloriana or The Unfullfill'd Queen, Michael Moorcock

• Gormenghast Trilogy, Mervyn Peake

• Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke

• Lord Of The Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

• Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs

• Ringworld, Larry Niven

• The Computer Connection, Alfred Bester

• The Dune Encyclopedia, Willis E. McNelly (The real backstory to Dune. Brian Herbert should be fed to Shai-Hulud.)

• The Futurological Congress, Stanislaw Lem

• The Island Of The Day Before: Umberto Eco

• The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein

• Ulysses, James Joyce

All pretty damn geeky I think if not stereotypically so.

Went to see 'Billy and me' on Friday at the CSO. A celebration of Billy Holiday, directed by Terri Lyne Carrington and performed by five fine vocalists: Rita Coolidge, Niki Haris, Joan Osborne, Dianne Reeves and Rokia Traore. A little multimedia-ish with a few short readings, photos and film segments. This part didn't flow all that well as the 'acting MC', Rita Coolidge, completely bombed that part. On the other hand, the vocal performances were all outstanding. We went as we wanted to see Dianne Reeves another time after a truly breathtaking last concert a few years ago, and she did not disappoint. However, the others vocalists were very fine too, and I should check out some of their recordings. Musical arrangements, and performances, were really good. Some pieces were a little 'funked up', in particular I'll be seeing you in a world-music alike flavour with really nice horns (Rob Smith, tp and ts; Tineke Postma, ts and ss) and rhythm section (Paul Bollenback, g; Mitchel Forman, kb; James Genus, b; Munyungo Jacksone, pc) and everything driven by Terri Lyne Carrington at the drums. All in all a very nice concert.

After a not-so-easy ride with James Blackwell, and the last minute surprise of Paul Sladen joining us, we arrived in New York. The sky was dark already. Instead of arriving at 15:00 or so as expected, we arrived at something like 20:00. Behind, we had left great perils like an empty gas tank and finding no gas station, and noticing one tire could use some pumping; evil officials at the US border not liking the fact that it was the first time I entered the country, which involved fingerprints and a smily face at the customs offices after a long wait; a great meal (after a long wait to get served) at probably the best restaurant in the whole State of New York; the three of us becoming terribly sleepy half an hour after resuming the drive, and having to stop for a short nap and stopping for gas once again around 70 miles away from NYC. When we did arrive, we managed to get lost a few times around the city. We crossed four bridges on our way to Brooklyn, which accidentally let me admire the Manhattan skyline by night, and finally, got to Clint's place. When we were parking, I noticed the tire was mostly flat now. Surely not the best way to land in the city. We also found out Clint and the rest had left for dinner after a long wait, as neither they or us expected to arrive so late, and we were way too freaked out with the crazy traffic and finding our way to phone them. After a while, both problems were sorted out; Clint appeared and James was able to leave. James, thanks for all you did! I owe you a big one next time! We spent some time with Clint, dilinger, biella and micah, saw the great view of Manhattan from the roof of his appartment, and eventually went to bed. Apparently, they are taking me to a place called "Dim Sum" for breakfast. I wonder how dilinger's cat tastes.

<p> <a href="http://blogs.gnome.org/view/jamesh/2005/11/02/0">James Henstridge</a> notes that <a href="http://www.progsoc.org/~wildfire/zeroconf/">zeroconf</a> can cause large amounts of network traffic. Yes, that was true back in July. A <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/317655" title="bug 317655: Zeroconf crucifies the network">bug</a> was filed and then fixed within 2 days. </p> <p> This was because I was at <a href="http://www.debconf.org/debconf5/">DebConf</a> and able to see how zeroconf performed in a large environment. Basically there are two tests you do to determine whether an <abbr title="Address Resoultion Protocol">ARP</abbr> packet is destined for you. And at the time, zeroconf, was only doing one of them. </p> <strong>Update: 18:20 AEST</strong> <p> <a href="http://www.davyd.id.au/">Davyd</a> asks why would you use zeroconf over <a href="http://people.redhat.com/dcbw/NetworkManager/">NetworkManager</a>. I haven't been able to put my finger on exactly why, but I feel the design is wrong. </p> <p> I do believe there should be an <em>overall</em> co-ordinating process looking after networking on the user-space side of the fence though. I've been thinking about writing something which would do it too; but I haven't fleshed out my ideas enough to commit my editor to coding. </p> <p> Oh, one bug that NetworkManager does have is that it only allocates <abbr title="Internet Protocol v4 Link-Local">IPv4LL</abbr> addresses when it fails to acquire one from the DHCP server. This is wrong and goes against <a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3927.txt" title="Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses">RFC3927</a>. </p>

What is the world coming to when I feel like I'm the last one that actually discovers some internet fad. e.g. The Numa Numa dance: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=playable%3Atrue+numa&page;=1&lv;=1

James, while I understand your anger, it would seem as though Hetracil isn't a real product, and is just a (fairly elaborate and subtle) hoax. Resources:

• http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/hetracil_anti_effeminate_medication/
• http://homomojo.com/life.php?itemid=432
• If that weren't enough, the whois info for hetracil.com points to J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, the religious figurehead of the Church of the SubGenius. Anyone who doesn't know that organisation's history needs to spend some more time Learning To Love the WikiPedia.

Continuing on the reading binge, I’ve read: The Warren Buffet Way by Robert G. Hagstrom: This book got really repetitive after a while. Warren Buffet is a disciple of Benjamin Graham, the original value investor, who is referred to heavily in all three books. According to Graham, the theories of an efficient market don’t apply very well, and it’s occasionally very easy (especially during a recession) to buy companies (or their stocks) for far less than they’re worth. Buffet simply buys the whole company. The best advice is that “the market is only useful as a reference to see if anyone’s offering to do something foolish”. It’s a theme that’s echoed in all three books. One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch and John Rothchild: Not as good as I’d hoped, but in some ways better, and worth reading. The title comes from the idea that individual investors are actually better placed to take advantage of the market before institutions, since they often have access to information to assess a company with before analysts even take a look at the company. He then follows this up by saying that you should treat it as a tip, and that you should treat all tips the same: as a reason for investigating a particular company. All of the preceeding didn’t impress me much. But he then tells you how he goes about assessing a company, especially reasons why he won’t buy a company, which I found very helpful. The Intelligent Asset Allocator by William J. Bernstein: The best of the three. This book picks up where Random Walk leaves off; that book encourages diversification, while this one shows you how to do it. Also, Random Walk focuses largely on the stock market, whereas this book discusses lots of asset classes and the correlations between them and how to pick a portfolio designed to maximize return while reducing risk. Also he spends a lot of time on specific details about which mutual funds are good for various asset classes, as well as various tips for really squeezing out as much return as possible through thinks like tax-conscious funds.

I'm going to Montreal this weekend. It should be fun. For those curious about my trip through Scotland, I've managed to post half of my ramblings at Cycling Sasquach. Not all of the posts are still on the front page, so what may seem like never ending rants do go on ;)