• I kinda feel like we’re just too inured to the modern miracle that is SQLite. That a fully featured relational database supporting much of the SQL standard can be packaged up in less than 1MB of portable code is incredible. And they guarantee to support the current (open, portable) file format until 2050, which is why it is specifically supported by the Library of Congress!

      (https://b-ark.ca/goCIko)
    • Unexpected ipv6 benefit: upgrading Debian testing, NetworkManager package broke (I still don’t know how). Rebooted to a system with no network connectivity. Thanks to a hard wired dock, all I had to do was an “ip set [iface] up” and everything autoconfigured and I could access Google and the Debian package repos (for the curious, I just had to run apt-get install --fix-broken).

      (https://b-ark.ca/O46WOO)
  • Review: Apex

    Review of Apex (The Nexus Trilogy #3.0) by Ramez Naam (9780857664020)★★★

    This is short review of the whole Nexus trilogy by Ramez Naam, though given I didn’t get around to writing notes or reviews for the first two books, these are my reflections after finishing Apex.

    (https://b-ark.ca/KmoWWU)
    Cover for Apex by Ramez Naam

    Global unrest spreads through the US, China, and beyond. Secrets and lies set off shockwaves of anger, rippling from mind to mind. Riot police battle neurally-linked protestors. Armies are mobilized. Political orders fall. Nexus-driven revolution is in here.

    Against this backdrop, a new breed of post-human children are growing into their powers. And a once-dead scientist, driven mad by her torture, is closing in on her plans to seize planet's electronic systems, and re-forge everything in her image.

    A new Apex species is here. The world will never be the same.

    Unlike my wife, writing reviews for books isn’t something I automatically think of doing. But I always regret not doing it because, years later, they help remind my poor, addled brain what I thought about a book or series. My memory, it’s not great!

    So, here I am at the end of The Nexus Trilogy, and I’m gonna try to write a (brief? I dunno, we’ll see!) review of Apex particularly but the whole series in general. We’ll see how this goes.

    Continue reading...