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The Long View 2008-01-31: Protean Robotics; Deposit insurance & Health Insurance; The Resurrection of McCain

The Disney adaption of Big Hero 6 [Amazon link] did in fact feature protean microbots, but also did not use that term. There is a bit of meat here on John J. Reilly’s idea for turning American healthcare into a public utility. Not a right, but a public good.

The Long View: Novelty

John J. Reilly had quite an interest in the works of John Crowley. I’ve never read anything by him, but this review of four short stories titled Novelty [Amazon link] almost tempts me. Crowley reminds me a lot of Tim Powers, but with greater literary pretensions, which is why

Linkfest 2020-11-13: Friday the Thirteenth Edition

Naive Modeling In this post from John D Cook on creating models that miss the point references a classic example of an attempt to optimize the wrong thing, the amount of metal used in a can. Letter from a cat food company to a math professor explaining why they don&

The Legacy of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic comes out tomorrow on Kindle

I reviewed the first book in the Saga of the Iron Dragon series, The Dream of the Iron Dragon, in January of 2018. Book 4 is coming out tomorrow, The Legacy of the Iron Dragon [Amazon link]. If you like hard scifi, alternative history, or Vikings, why don’t you

The Long View 2008-01-30: ESB Anomaly; New Candidates; A.D. 2424; Mole Rats; Convergent Evolution

John J. Reilly had something of a horrified fascination with naked mole rats. He also brings up here his review of Simon Conway Morris’ Life’s Solution, which I still find an interesting idea, but one that is probably dismissed more than it should be just because it is looking

Janissaries: Clan and Crown by Jerry Pournelle and Roland Green Book Review

Janissaries: Clan and Crown [Amazon link] is the second installment in Jerry Pournelle’s long-running Janissaries series. Jerry was solo author on the first one, but this volume was co-authored with Roland Green, who somehow didn’t rate a mention on the cover in 1982. Jerry made sure he was

Books 1-3 of the Dragonback series by Timothy Zahn are on sale today

The first three volumes of Tim Zahn’s Dragonback series are on sale at Amazon today for $3.99, a good price for three enjoyable books. This particular series is targeted at young adults, but I prefer the older term juveniles. Here is what Jerry Pournelle had to say in