RogerBW's Blog

Audacious, Mike Shepherd 30 June 2020

2007 military SF, fifth of the Kris Longknife books. Kris is sent to show the royal flag on a minor diplomatic mission to one of Earth's first colonies.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 66: dividing and factorising 29 June 2020 - 2 comments

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved dividing without dividing, and making a test of factors.

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In Your Dreams, Tom Holt 28 June 2020 - 2 comments

2004 comic fantasy, second in the J. W. Wells series. Paul Carpenter continues to blunder his way through magical hazards.

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Surviving the Hot 27 June 2020

I do not get on well with hot weather.

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Bitter Angels, C L Anderson 26 June 2020

2009 science fiction. The Erasmus system is run on debt-slavery, water monopoly, and a panopticon, but it seems they're going to launch a war against Earth. So Earth's government sends a team of Guardians to work out what's happening, and stop it. Of course it's not as simple as that.

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Boardgames in Isolation: June (part 1) 25 June 2020

More boardgames played from home.

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L.E.L., Lucasta Miller 24 June 2020

2019 non-fiction, examining the life and work of Letitia Landon.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 65: summing digits and finding palindromes 23 June 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved generating large numbers and splitting strings into palindromes.

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The Age of Wonder, Richard Holmes 22 June 2020

2008 non-fiction, an informal history of English science in the age of Joseph Banks, William Herschel and Humphry Davy.

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First steps in PETG 21 June 2020

I've been trying out a new material in my 3D printer.

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Cold in the Earth, Ann Granger 20 June 2020

1992 mystery; third of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. A digger breaking ground for a new housing development turns up a recently-buried body. Meredith, house-sitting for a friend, inevitably gets involved.

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Masks Latest 19 June 2020

Some personal behaviour seems to have improved since last time. (But I'm only taking one sample every two weeks…)

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Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 15 June 2020 18 June 2020

This Meetup-based boardgames group has moved on-line for the moment; we got together on Jitsi and then played some games on BoardGameArena.

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An Oblique Approach, David Drake and Eric Flint 17 June 2020

1998 alternate-history war story, first of six books. In 528 AD, the young Byzantine general Belisarius is given a message from the, or a, future: a powerful enemy is rising in India, and will subjugate the world with massive armies and devastating weapons if not prevented. And he's the man to prevent it.

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Apps that have lasted 16 June 2020 - 5 comments

A friend is experimenting with LineageOS, and it's about two years since I started to use it, so I thought I'd review the apps that I'm still running frequently.

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A Merciful Truth, Kendra Elliot 15 June 2020

2017 romantic mystery, second in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. Someone's been starting fires in the small Oregon town where Mercy grew up and is now trying to rebuild bridges with her family; when the police who turn up in response to the fires start getting shot, the FBI gets involved and puts her on the case.

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Birthday Boardgaming 14 June 2020

This was not a One Player Guild meeting, but it involved several of the same people, getting together virtually for a birthday celebration with boardgames rather than in the pub in Silverstone.

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These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer 13 June 2020

1926 romance. The evil Duke of Avon, walking through Paris, finds an urchin fleeing from a beating and buys him as a page. But, being who he is, he has plans within plans.

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Clarkesworld 165, June 2020 12 June 2020

Clarkesworld is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Neil Clarke.

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Stay, Nicola Griffith 11 June 2020

1999 lesbian noir crime; second in Griffith's series about Aud Torvingen. Still shattered by grief from the loss of her true love, Aud reluctantly goes to New York to look for the missing girlfriend of an old friend.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 64: summing paths and breaking words 10 June 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved searching for paths through a grid and breaking a word into tokens.

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Last First Snow, Max Gladstone 09 June 2020

2015 fantasy. In the city of Dresediel Lex, the run-down area down by the docks is to be redeveloped, and everyone will make a lot of money. Except for the locals, but who cares about them?

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More Shopping 08 June 2020 - 8 comments

Things are mostly as they were last time in the shops; a bit better, a bit worse.

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Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 1 June 2020 07 June 2020 - 1 comment

This Meetup-based boardgames group has moved on-line for the moment; we got together on Jitsi and then played some games on BoardGameArena.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 63: last words and string rotation 06 June 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved finding the last matching word in a string and permuting a string.

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Die Easy, Zoë Sharp 05 June 2020

2012 thriller, tenth in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and currently private bodyguard. Charlie's on a new assignment, guarding an old client while he goes on a fundraising trip for a friend's charity. But she's not sure she can trust either her partner or her fellow bodyguards… Spoilers for earlier books in the series.

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Decision fatigue and reading order 04 June 2020 - 2 comments

I noticed recently that I've got a lot of incomplete series on my reading list, and decided to do something about that.

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Boardgames in Isolation: May (part 2) 03 June 2020

More boardgames played from home.

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SSL certificates! How do they work? 02 June 2020 - 1 comment

An SSL certificate expired.

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May 2020 Trailers 01 June 2020 - 2 comments

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them; things seem to have got started again, though there are more TV series trailers in the mix than usual. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: When you've got these kinds of sums involved in creating another two hours of entertainment for Western teenagers, I feel it crosses the line from being merely distasteful to being wrong.)

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