I've read just about everything by Neal Stephenson. His books are pretty geeky and that's what I like. This one is different in that it is set on another planet, but it's not that alien. Civilisation there has split between the general populace and orders of monk-like 'Avout' who cut themselves off in their 'Concents' (monasteries) for powers of 10 years to study science, philosophy etc, but with little 'modern' technology. Their long-term thinking has chimed with the Long Now Foundation who helped to launch the book.

A couple of family members got new MP3 players for Xmas. They don't need loads of GB of storage and the budget was tight so I picked out the Samsung U4. It offers 2GB of music plus an RDS radio in a very compact unit. A plus point was support for OGG Vorbis. The problems started when I plugged it into my PC to upload some music. It doesn't use the usual UMS storage protocol. I did get a 'USB Imaging Interface' in Konqueror, but it seemed to be read-only. A bit of research revealed that it uses Microsofts MTP instead.

I'm not totally anti-Xmas, but I do feel that it has turned into a commercial event rather than its origins as a mid-winter family festival (I don't go for the Christian aspects). The result is mountains of crap that will end up in land-fill before the next year ends. I've tried to reduce my personal impact by asking for either second-hand/charity gifts or contributions to my guitar amplifier fund. I've also managed to make one present myself. I'll try to do more for next year. My kids will still get a pile of toys, but I would hope that these will get well used. I've tried to get some that use rechargeable batteries as I dislike having to buy lots of disposable ones.

I don't know many professional musicians. I've met a few recently via various on-line communities such as Steve Lawson and Simon Little, but they are probably well below the general public radar. I recently found out that Max Richter, who I knew when I was about 12, is a successful composer and performer. I remember him trying to build a synth from a kit with help from his dad, but didn't get to see it finished. I wonder if anyone else I knew has made it big. If I included friends of friends then I could draw connections to some big names, but I don't think that means too much.

I just realised that I didn't link my review to this event Tue 29 Jul – Steve and Lobelia + Special guests

This is the sort of concert I wanted to host at our place. The sticking point was how to finance it. Somehow we would have to raise enough to pay the musicians and cover their travel expenses, but don't really want to charge friends to come to our house. Enjoy the show. There's a bit of chat that you may want to skip

This site consistently has great current affairs pics from around the world. They are currently showing the best of this year. Beware, some pictures are

The kids are having lots of fun with this. It's a sort of social network, but very safe. You have to collect and build items to rise through the

Shared by steevc Who/what is Summer Glau?

Shared by steevc Someone who cares about his workers. Developers need a good environment

Remember the Bionic Office? Fog Creek moved in there in 2003. After a couple of years we had outgrown the first office so we expanded to take over the whole floor. By the time our lease ran out in 2008 we had about 25 people in a space built for 18 and we knew we had to move. Besides, the grungy midtown location, perfect for startups, was starting to get us down after five years. We had a little bit more money, so we were looking for a place with about twice the space that cost about four times as much.

Shared by steevc I can't remember when I last drew a flow chart