"The presentation here is extremely well done, with a polished interface, nice 2D graphics, and included historical notes for each period."

January (12):

In A Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson
  An excellent trip through Australia.

The Smoke Ring - Larry Niven
  Good sequel to The Integral Trees.

Airframe - Michael Crichton
  Good book with lots of information about the aircraft manufacturing industry as well as media relations. This book wasn't written yet when I went through my Michael Crichton phase. He continues to be an excellent author.

City of Glass - Douglas Coupland
  A short picture-book exploring Vancouver. It was good to read as part of my continuing introduction to the city.

The Practice Effect - David Brin
  Excellent sci-fi/fantasy book. I'm going to check out more stuff by Brin, it's the first thing I've read of his.

The Flight of the Horse - Larry Niven
  A book containing 3 novellas. I liked the last 2 better then the first. Overall it was good, but not Niven's best stuff.

Timeline - Michael Crichton
  Excellent book about medieval life with some quantum mechanics thrown in. If you've never gone through a Crichton phase I urge you to do so. He's a consistently wonderful author.

The Legacy of Heorot - Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes
  Excellent book about humanity's first interstellar colony and their (eventually disastrous) interaction with the alien ecology.

The New Hugo Winners, Volume IV
  A mixed collection of award winning short-stories and novellas. My favorites were 'Beggars in Spain' by Nancy Kress (apparently later expended into a series of novels) and 'A Walk In The Sun' by Geoffrey Landis.

Scatterbrain - Larry Niven
  A collection of stories, novel excerpts and essays from Niven later works. Like the title suggests it jumps all over the place.

Orphans of the Sky - Robert A Heinlein
  An excellent tale of the aftermath of a colonization ship that underwent a disastrous mutiny. After a few generations the populace has lost the understanding of their original purpose and reverted to a religion focused semi-rural way of life.

Tomorrow Happens - David Brin
  An interesting collection of stories and essays, mostly looking into possibilities for humanity's future.  

February (3):

Sundiver - David Brin
  An OK sci-fi book. The sequel won a bunch of awards, so I'm looking forward to that. I didn't find this too captivating though.

Flatlander - Larry Niven
  An excellent collection of stories about Gil "the arm" set in a futuristic human society. This is superb Niven stuff, with great characters, plots (detective mystery style), and intelligent thoughts on where our society is headed. Highly recommended.

The Magic Goes Away - Larry Niven
  Good collection of short fantasy stories set in our world in the far past, when magic still exists. Wizards have been using up all the mana, though, and the earth is running out. It's a great setting, and I've read some other previous stories by Niven set in this world.

March, April (0)

May (2):

Paths Not Taken - Simon R. Green
  An interesting fantasy novel. The world it's set in has some cool features, and the writer wraps a humorous and captivating story. I feel that this kind of totally magical fantasy doesn't hold up all that well when compared to hard sci-fi though. The main character can basically pull out his awesome powers in different ways whenever he needs some help, and while there are some limitations to it the author can ignore them when he wants. Still a good book though.

The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
  An excellent novel about a boy's growing up and a fantastic trip in a lifeboat after being shipwrecked. Has some interesting zoological content. Highly recommended.

June (2):

Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth - Simon R. Green
  A follow-up to "Paths Not Taken" and it packs pretty much the same punch. Cool world and characters, but the ending was a let down.

The Man Who Sold the Moon - Robert A. Heinlein
  A good set of short stories (that all flow together in the world he builds) from Heinlein. It's a small book, and it's worth reading. However, it doesn't come close to Heinlein's best work IMHO.

July (1):

The Green Hills of Earth - Robert A. Heinlein
  A decent set of short stories from Heinlein. Some are better then others. On the whole not as good as the above book.

August (0)

September (1):

Mount Appetite - Bill Gaston
  A great collection of short stories, with the central theme of desire, need, hunger for something in life.

October, November (0)

December (1):

Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein
  Absolutely awesome book. Tells the tale of a human raised by martians who returns to Earth and human society, but without all the pre-conceived notions that every other human grows up with. I first read this book when I was a teenager. It was one of my all-time favorite books then, and it still is now.]]> http://vorg.ca/2268-2006-Book-Review dustin 2006 books review 2007-01-08T03:56:47-05:00 http://vorg.ca/2268-2006-Book-Review#replies http://vorg.ca/2258-2006-Year-in-Review January 7th, 2006. The start of the year was filled with finding a place to live and getting myself set up here. I was working on American History Lux at the time, but it got pushed aside a bit as I explored Vancouver. It's a pretty vibrant city (moreso then some people here think), and I partook in Moose Camp (and was captured on GETV b-roll), a meeting of the pillow fight club, some sessions of Manhunt, and the critical mass bike parade. All that and more in the first months of the year.

April saw the release of American History Lux, with related marketing activities following. I also made it out to Whistler for a few late ski days. Vancouver hosted some bubble love, and I got one of my photos from it published on Boing Boing. During the summer I took a trip down to the Casuality Seattle Conference, and after that to Montreal for Nikki and Robb's wedding (plus additional debauchery).

Work on Lux Delux continued in spurts throughout the year. The plugins were put on better display, divided into categories, and better Map of the Week awards were added. Lux was released in retail stores in Germany (looks like I forgot to post about that), and got an interface re-design. I started a 2006 in review page on the Sillysoft Wiki that lists the exact dates of various 2006 happenings in Luxtopia.

Vancouver continued to entertain me, with the improv festival, the illuminares lantern festival, the BarCamp unconference, and more. I finally got around to making myself a new pair of devil sticks. In September I moved to a new downtown apartment, and it's a keeper.

October hosted the third annual Luxtoberfest Contest and Celebration. It was the biggest and best yet, and I don't know how we can top it next year. Afterwards I got myself set up with a new MacBook Pro as my main computer. Sillysoft popped out a little Devil's Brigade Lux game, commissioned by some TV people. I set up the fast news website Hot Grog on a lark - I plan to do some more with it in the future.

Ancient Empires Lux was being worked on throughout the last half on the year, and was released in December. Shortly after that I took off for a family holiday down to Central America, and then Christmas in Toronto. I came back to Vancouver for New Year's, and that's the end of 2006. It was a good year. I started settling into Vancouver, did some traveling, and kept up the growth of Sillysoft. Now on to 2007!]]> http://vorg.ca/2258-2006-Year-in-Review dustin dustin Sillysoft Lux Vancouver 2006 review 2007-01-01T23:32:58-05:00 http://vorg.ca/2258-2006-Year-in-Review#replies http://vorg.ca/2202-ReviewMe---a-blog-review-marketplace ReviewMe is a new site that is trying to setup a marketplace where bloggers can offer to write honest reviews in exchange for money. The money comes from companies or individuals who want to get reviews. I think it's an interesting idea. Getting reviews can be tough sometimes, so having a straight up chance to buy an honest one can be a good deal. I'm testing out the system with Lux Delux, having just put in a review request for a blog that looked interesting.

ReviewMe is also spicing things up with an initial pool of $25,000 that they are paying out to bloggers to review the service itself. That's what this post is: a sponsored post from ReviewMe. I will apparently get payed $30 in exchange for this review of their system. The pay-out is dependent on each individual blog's traffic standings (as best as ReviewMe can estimate them at least). The only imposition on the review is that it must be at least 200 words long, and it has to state that it is sponsored.

I had a bit of trouble signing up initially, but once inside their system is pretty good. They got some good early buzz, and there's a variety of interesting blogs that have signed up in their system. I'm awaiting the results of buying my review before making further judgement.]]> http://vorg.ca/2202-ReviewMe---a-blog-review-marketplace dustin blog review business marketing 2006-11-17T06:07:01-05:00 http://vorg.ca/2202-ReviewMe---a-blog-review-marketplace#replies http://vorg.ca/2070-Quick-movie-reviews Little Miss Sunshine is an absolutely hilarious movie. You should go and see it, you'll like it. I give it 10/10.

Cars (by Pixar) is a very nice movie. Funny and colorful. I give it 8/10.

Superman Returns was OK, but nothing special. I give it 5/10.]]> http://vorg.ca/2070-Quick-movie-reviews dustin movies review 2006-08-07T05:57:31-04:00 http://vorg.ca/2070-Quick-movie-reviews#replies