Yesterday I wrote the database schema for the recipe app I’m working on. The files only come inserting recipes; I will add more files as I progress into other parts of the project.
Tables:
A fleet of highly advanced aliens come to earth in peace. They allow the people of earth to mostly continue on the paths they have chosen, with a few exceptions. All war ceases. Scientific inquiry is allowed to flourish with the exception of space travel, religions slowly peter out. After a couple of decades, the human race has mostly been pacified and domesticated. The overlords are essentially benevolent non-dictators and their presence is mostly a positive one. Society seems almost Utopian. And then the damn humans have to go and mess it all up, because people can’t stand Utopian societies. They always go wrong.
Childhood’s End is a really fun book. The alien overlords seem nice and mostly harmless, and even though the plot isn’t exceptionally shocking, it flows at a nice pace and keeps one interested. I like how there was a Trojan giant squid that didn’t really seem to further the plot line at all, and how a Ouija board played a central part in the major turn in the plot. It was good.
This book was my first Arthur C. Clarke, and from it, I would definately read more.
I have recently become interested in viewing some of the original Doctor Who stuff. Some of it is just awful. The Underwater Menace is a perfect example of this. First off, video only exists for the third of the four parts of this story. The other parts are simply black and white photos with descriptive text. The other thing is that the story makes next to no sense. It’s campy, but not awesome. I will not watch it again, but I will pass it on to Courtney to watch.
I spent my weekend doing very domestic and boring things: grocery shopping, laundry, cooking, etc. Alan and I are trying to make a copycat recipe for Tony Roma’s Kickin Shrimp appetizer. We know it has mayo and this awesome Asian sweet chili sauce, but beyond that, we’re still experimenting. Also made a chicken and banana muffins on Saturday, and today chicken noodle soup, and apple crumble.
I am reading my first Arthur C. Clarke book, and so far it’s quite good. Will post a short review when I finish it.
Just finished Ray Bradbury’s classic The Martian Chronicles. It’s a collection of short stories revolving around a general storyline: the early colonization of Mars through the settlement and then eventual desertion of Mars.
Though I found it tough to get through some of the stories, I liked the general storyline, and the stories picked up my interest in the last few stories, where Earth went to war with itself and was destroyed.
This book wasn’t one of my favourites of Bradbury’s. I would recommend someone new to Bradbury’s work to instead pick up Dandelion Wine, or Something Wicked This Way Comes. I think I still like Isaac Asimov more.
Just finished yet another book in my Isaac Asimov collection. Though the story was good and quite compelling, I almost found the Wikipedia article about the book more interesting. It goes into why Asimov wrote the book and some of the details of the science behind the book in better detail. The plot itself is rather simple. As the article states:
The main plotline is a conspiracy by the aliens who inhabit a parallel universe with different physical laws than ours, with the final aim of turning our Sun into a supernova, and collecting the resulting energy for their use.
Which was great. The thing about the book that wasn’t as great was the romantic subplots in part 2 and 3. Parallel universes are great. Odd gelatin-like creatures are great. Love stories on the moon, not so great.
“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain” - Friedrich Schiller
In general, I would recommend this book to the other sci-fi nerds in my life, but definately not as their first Asimov.