Terrorist Alert - ACT

A shadowy terrorist organisation known only as A.C.T has claimed responsibility for or dismissing England's five top-order batsmen yesterday...

Intelligence officials feel certian this is the notorious Australian Cricket Team, noted for many years of savage, and spectacularly successful attacks on English batsmen. Police urge the public to be vigilant and watch out for suspicious individuals with red balls..

A novel way of catching bird flu..

Although, I wouldn't reccomend it..

Free the teapot twenty-one!

Their only crime that I can see is in being mostly harmless nutters in the wrong part of the world. The civilised thing to do is laugh at them when they fail to win by-elections.

Singularities

I seem to have read quite a few singularity - inspired books recently: well, only two on my account - River of Gods and Singularity Sky. However, they are such different kinds of books it's obvious it's becoming a widely used SF trope. Somewhat like city - smashing atomic-powered weapons were back in the 1930s & 1920s. Perhaps this is a reaction the the scads of SF-as-fantasy and Banksian Space opera we have had in the 1990s and 1980s: a return to SF-as-prophecy. This gives us about 20 years until whatever it is that's going to happen *does* happen. Although it must be said Strong AI has *always* been 20 years in the future...

River Of Gods.

After
the dissapointment of Ares Express, which was less than inventive
return to the fizzingly original world of Desolation Road, I thought
Ian McDonald was a spent force. Of course, I've turned out to be
completely wrong. He solved his creative deficit by changing
cultures. Instead of the Africa-centred Martian, and Chaga stories, he
comes up with a seemingly alien - free tale centred around a
near-future India, splintered into smaller states, and habouring AI's
outlawed by the USA's Hamilton acts, much in the way the US attempts
to outlaw P2P or Strong Cryptography in these present times.

He comes up with a colourful cast of characters from every section of
society: Shiv, a low-life criminal, Shaheen Bador Khan, a civil
servant privy to cabinet decisions, Thomas Lull a self-exiled US
academing, and Nanda, a Krishna Cop, charged with the hunting of rogue
AI's, along with some others. We find, in the end, among other things,
the final resting place of William H Gates, which will be a delicious
twist for those of us who curse the insecure and sometimes buggy
software that his empire foists on us.

Although the wide cast means that it takes time for the story to
get moving, as the characters are introduced at the beginning, one by
one, it pays off because once the story does get moving it's hell of a
ride, and we get to see a complete and vivid picture of an alien, but
very interesting and plausible future society, as a setting for a
story that's a heady brew of SF tropes and themes: Cyberpunk, Hindu
Mythology, First Contact, and straight Thriller.

Musical taste

The last few months have been interesting. I find my musical taste re-evolving in fast - forward time. Initially, I was repelled by the complex acoustics of Miles Davis, and anything more complex than straight 4 beats - to - the bar..but gradually I've been working up the ladder - from that simplicity, to prog rock's frantic beat, to the more gentle melodic-rediscovery of Vivaldis string concertoes...

Now, for some reason I'm hooked on The Church's "Under The Milky Way Tonight"..The only thing I'm sure I can't stand is accordions. And Harmonicas. And Folk Music. Folk Music with harmonicas and mouth organs just sends me running for cover.