Pluto was never not a planet
Andrew Liptak over at The Verge included Frontlines in a list of thirteen sci-fi series starters to fill up that new Kindle you got for Christmas. I’m in some really lofty company there, along with James S.A. Corey, Ann Leckie, Linda Nagata, John Scalzi, and N.K. Jemisin. My favorite reads this year were the Broken…
Just before I went to Europe last year, I upgraded my phone from an iPhone 5 to a 6 Plus. Having read the reviews online (and having taken big swigs of the marketing Kool-Aid), I figured I could use the Plus to combine the jobs of both tablet and phone in one device. After a…
I have a severe case of technology ADD. When it comes to hardware, I sometimes impulse-buy shiny things just to try them out and see how they fit my workflow. Sometimes they look and work better on the store shelf or in the YouTube review than they do in actual real-world use, and sometimes they exceed…
We moved to Castle Frostbite in December of 2007. The Castle has a driveway that is dog-legged and at a 5-percent incline that increases to nine or ten percent at the very top of the driveway, in the least convenient spot possible. I’ve been driving Grand Caravans since before we moved up here, and those…
That monstrosity is a Brother WP-1 word processor. I recently found this picture online, and boy, did it trigger some memories. I got one of those babies in the late 1980s, when I was just out of high school. I kept it throughout my four years of military service, and it got dragged to every…
Back when I went to community college in Tennessee, I took archery as one of my P.E. classes, and found that I really enjoyed it. Ever since then, I had plans to get a bow of my own and shoot it regularly, but we didn’t have the space in Tennessee, and other priorities got in…
The Apple Bluetooth wireless keyboard that ships with new Macs is very sleek and stylish, but it doesn’t stand up to hard typing. It has minimal key travel, lacks a Delete key, and the tactile feedback is so-so at best. For checking Facebook and writing emails, it’s OK, but folks who have to drum out…
So I got to upgrade the long-in-the-tooth Dogevan last week. I was briefly flirting with the idea of downsizing and going with a Mazda5 or a Mistubishi Outlander, based on their ability to serve as a six- and seven-seater respectively in a pinch. In the end, however, I decided on getting…another Grand Caravan. Here’s the…
That’s the new word-banger-outer here in the Castle Frostbite Novel Factory, a 13″ MacBook Pro with Retina display. (I usually work longhand and then transcribe stuff every chapter or so, but the current deadline means that I have to skip a step and write straight on the computer.) I had a MacBook Air last year,…
Three of the most dangerous words in the English language: “Legitimate tax write-off.” We took some time to redo the office in the back of the house last weekend. I’ve been using the standing desk I got at the Borders going-out-of-business fire sale two and a half years ago, and it works just fine as…