RogerBW's Blog

Perl Weekly Challenge 106: Maximum Decimal 31 March 2021 - 1 comment

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved integer differences and decimal expansion. (Note that this is open until 4 April 2021.)

[more]
No More Shopping Days 30 March 2021 - 7 comments

I vaguely wish I'd known that the most recent shopping trip I'd made would be the last one for the moment.

[more]
With a Bare Bodkin, Cyril Hare 28 March 2021

1946 mystery, second in the series centred on Francis Pettigrew, a not-terribly-successful barrister. As the war begins in earnest, Pettigrew is made legal advisor to the Pin Control, the vitally important new government department controlling the production of, and preventing anyone from profiteering on, pins. But murder is never far away.

[more]
Paul Temple and the Alex Affair 27 March 2021

1968 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge: Paul Temple is a professional novelist and amateur sleuth. People are being murdered, and the only clue is the name "Alex" left with the body.

[more]
More pokey pokey 26 March 2021 - 20 comments

Officially last week it was still only possible to book a vaccination if you were over 55. When I'd tried it the week before (giving NHS number and birth date) I was quite properly told to come back later. But…

[more]
The Happy Return, C. S. Forester 25 March 2021 - 3 comments

1937 Napoleonic naval fiction, first written but sixth by internal chronology. Hornblower, commanding the frigate Lydia, is sent to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua to aid a local insurgency against the Spanish.

[more]
Shooting the Rift, Alex Stewart 24 March 2021

2016 SF. Simon Forrester is rather forgotten beside his mother the warship captain and his sister the space marine, even if he is unreasonably good with computers. So he sets off to make his own way…

[more]
Perl Weekly Challenge 105: Name Root 23 March 2021 - 2 comments

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved fractional exponentiation and sweating with the oldies. (Note that this is open until 28 March 2021.)

[more]
Faithless in Death, J. D. Robb 22 March 2021

2021 SF/mystery; sixty-third story or 52nd novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). A sculptor is killed in her studio; it looks as though her lover did it. But there's more to be found behind the obvious case.

[more]
Boardgames in Isolation: March (part 1) 21 March 2021

More boardgames played from home.

[more]
That Implanted Tracking Chip In Full 20 March 2021 - 7 comments

Now that millions of people in the UK have had their first COVID-19 vaccination, our tireless team of imaginary researchers has had plenty of opportunities to examine the tracking chip that is, we are assured by many people with no possible ulterior motive, being implanted with every shot.

[more]
Cold as the Grave, James Oswald 19 March 2021

2019 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, ninth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A girl is found in a forgotten cellar, partly mummified even though she died quite recently. Then another turns up in the same state.

[more]
Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 15 March 2021 18 March 2021

This Meetup-based boardgames group remains on-line for the moment; as usual we got together on Jitsi and then played some games online.

[more]
The Sky Riders, T. C. Bridges 17 March 2021 - 10 comments

1919 boys' adventure. Martin Hamer's airship design is stolen (and covertly constructed), along with the niece of Mortimer Carne, the industrial magnate whom the inventor had hoped to get to build the thing. Clearly the thing to do is build another airship and track him down.

[more]
Perl Weekly Challenge 104: FUSC NIM 16 March 2021 - 1 comment

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved the Stern-Brocot sequence (which Dijkstra named "fusc") and a variant of Nim. (Note that this is open until 21 March 2021.)

[more]
Sixth and a bit 1 Player Guild UK Meet 15 March 2021

The 1 Player Guild is a group of solo game players, communicating through BoardGameGeek. We're, or at least I am, counting all the on-line get-togethers as the "6th", so this was 6b.

With images; cc-by-sa on everything (insofar as I'm even allowed to assert that given that they're screenshots).

[more]
Snapshot, Linda Barnes 14 March 2021

1993 mystery, fifth in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Carlotta's hired by a woman whose daughter died in hospital, to try to get some closure; but soon the key witness dies and the client goes missing.

[more]
I thought they wanted us to get vaccinated. 13 March 2021 - 9 comments

(Guest post from Gus.)

As of this week, I fall into a cohort eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine, one of the few things that makes me feel batter about being fifty-mumble. I like vaccines.

[more]
Getting your podcast onto iTunes and Spotify 12 March 2021 - 2 comments

One of the podcasts I work on has been on iTunes for a while, which was done back when it was easier. Now the other two are as well, and they're all on Spotify too. Here's how to achieve this, from a standing start.

[more]
Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues, Diana Rowland 11 March 2021

2012 urban fantasy, second of its series. Angel Crawford, now a zombie, is finally getting her life sorted out: working at the coroner's, eating spare brains, planning beyond the immediate fun thing. But her life still has ways of getting complicated.

[more]
Perl Weekly Challenge 103: Playing Zodiac 10 March 2021

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved lots of modulus arithmetic. (Note that this is open until 14 March 2021.)

[more]
Migrating a Discourse server 09 March 2021

I recently moved discussion.tekeli.li to a new host. Here's how I did it (with the false starts removed).

[more]
The Ace of Skulls, Chris Wooding 08 March 2021

2013 steampunk fantasy, fourth and last of its series. Civil war has broken out between the Awakener cult and the government, and it's not entirely Captain Frey's fault.

[more]
Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 1 March 2021 07 March 2021

This Meetup-based boardgames group remains on-line for the moment; as usual we got together on Jitsi and then played some games online.

[more]
Designated Targets, John Birmingham 06 March 2021 - 2 comments

2005 alternate-history science fiction war story. The "uptimers" from 2021 are helping their Allied counterparts from 1942, but both sides have future tech and people to exploit.

[more]
Boardgames in Isolation: February (part 2) 05 March 2021 - 2 comments

More boardgames played from home.

[more]
February 2021 Trailers 04 March 2021

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal.)

[more]
Perl Weekly Challenge 102: Rare Hash 03 March 2021 - 1 comment

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved an obscure class of number and a self-consistent string format. (Note that this is open until 7 March 2021.)

[more]
Falling Star, Patricia Moyes 02 March 2021

1964 mystery, fifth in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. When the film's leading man stumbles across the platform and dies under the wheels of an Underground train, it's clearly an accident. But then the continuity girl falls to her death from her flat…

[more]
The SARS-CoV-2 jab malarky 01 March 2021 - 5 comments

(Guest post from Chris.)

The Covid19 vaccine: it's a big deal, right? Right. But the actual vaccination, it turns out, isn't. Perhaps my experience will give anyone anxious about it a reason to worry rather less. If you have had a flu jab, it's very similar.

[more]
Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1