obso1337.org

I can’t believe how long it took us to move. Since the Saturday before last, we’ve been taking a few boxes after work every night to the new place. Last Saturday we had movers help with all the furniture. The first dozen boxes were books and computer gear (even after donating half a ton of books and several old computers). There’s nothing like moving to get much needed spring cleaning done. To be fair, we have a house full of furniture etc., but I still have more “stuff” than I wish I had. Oh, and it is so awesome to have a balcony again.

So now that the network is back up and I have my electric kettle and tea box, I can get back to open source work. Between the sketchy ‘net connection, moving boxes, and abnormal buzziness with the Day Job, I haven’t had much time to pay attention to mailing lists or IRC (which reminds me, I think I owe a few people an email). I have three unfinished blog entries and need to continue working on KDE User Research Profiles. I know Okular has been working on their user profile the past few weeks and I want to put some cycles in to helping them out. Projects get ready, because I will resume calling out for completing user research profiles again next week. There were also those KGrubEditor wireframes I was working on for Artemis_Fowl…

Over the past month or so I’ve managed to get through the first two Hitchhiker’s books (Background: I had only ever read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and am now working through the rest of the series), but I’m losing momentum near the end of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Sure, it’s still funny, but it doesn’t seem to have the same substance as the first two books. I have about 10 more pages before I move on to So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. We’ll see how it goes. (I also have some more Gaiman and Peake to read afterwards).

We also took a break last Friday to go celebrate the Hardy release with fellow Maryland LoCoers. After the UDS in May, I will be focusing on ways to get the LoCo community involved in usability testing (in more ways than just acting as participants in tests).

seele :: Apr.29.2008 :: Book List, General, Life, Open Source :: 4 Comments »

I wrapped up my reading list for 2007 a few days early so I can prepare to open 2008 with Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy. I did fairly well trying to meet my 25-books-in-a-year goal with 24 books. There was a period of a few months where I did no recreational reading because I spent all of my extra time working on my graduate thesis.

I was a little surprised by the amount fantasy in my list this year, mostly attributed by Harry Potter, Watch trilogy, and the Dresden Files. Although I always read science fiction, I had never considered myself a “fantasy” fan beyond the few classics before I went through the Harry Potter kick. I really liked the Watch trilogy, so maybe I like vampires and witches more than fairies and unicorns? The Dresden Files are detective/mystery novels first with magic as a secondary device. I am still a little wary of fantasy-genre recommendations (perhaps I just need guidance) and tend to gravitate towards books in the classics, science fiction, and social sciences genres. In the end, I will read anything that is good regardless of genre.

Any suggestions for 2008?

seele :: Dec.28.2007 :: Book List, General :: 18 Comments »