Usually, I like my science fiction set on Earth, in the near future, and undiluted by fantasy. This book fulfills two out of three of those criteria. I like it anyway.

Fun and educational but fusty, and riddled with errors.

This book is often fun and educational, but the frequent mistakes and “young fogey” tone get annoying. It resembles something out of the early 20th century, not just in style, but in substance.

While I was reading, every few pages, I noticed a mistake. Were they trying to bring the American edition to print in a hurry?

Although I appreciate the imperative to get away from the TV and out of the house, some more diversity in the historical sections would have been nice. I would have loved to have read some stories of brave acts by African Americans and women, for example.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. I have heard that a corresponding “Daring Book for Girls” is coming out in time for Christmas. I plan to read that one too—maybe it will be better.

Addendum: here’s an example of the kind of error I’m referring to. On page 161, in the section, “Finding Direction with a Watch,” Iggulden writes, “If it’s summer, wind it back an hour; if it’s winter, wind it forward an hour.” Of course, the second part of that sentence is wrong. If it’s winter, the hour hand points to 12 when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. If it’s winter, leave the setting on your watch alone. Good fact checkers should have caught that.

As for the fustiness, the best example is the grammar section, where Iggulden writes, “The general rule for prepositions is: Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.” That rule may have been popular in the 19th century, when reformist-minded grammarians wanted to make English sound more like Latin. These days, however, it’s the sort of nonsense up with which we do not put.

Some friends of mine had this too—they called it, “Are you nervous?”

I knew this game as simply “Adventure.” The first time I played it was in December 1980 at my Uncle Michael’s house in Mill Valley, California. He had a terminal with no monitor. Rather, it printed everything on green bar paper.

Later in 1981, I played the game again at the Hamilton College Computer Center on a Terak. The Terak had a CRT monitor, its own CPU and 8” floppies. It was quite advanced.

The UCSD P-system was my first operating system. When I used it (1981-1987), I didn’t even know the term, “operating system.” I just knew I had files, a compiler, an editor, and a way to execute programs. The mental image I have of the P-system is not that of a desktop (like modern systems) but rather that of a series of rooms. In some ways, this seems like a richer experience than the desktop metaphor. The mind fills in imaginary graphics the same way it creates pictures when one is reading a book.

Here’s a Terak page

When I was eight years old, I got a Dataman for Christmas. I immediately started playing with it and stopped paying attention to the activities of the day or to any other presents. My Dad said it was a toy I could relate to.

With my new job, I don’t have much free time for fiction. Or rather, I only have time for the fiction I love. I renewed it three times: now it’s time to give it back to the library.

Yes, I read this book in a weekend. I can’t say I understood it all but I read it. I think I have some insight now into what it is like to be a graduate student. Anyway, it’s very cool. At some point I’ll go back and reread the parts I need to reread. The related software package, Weka, is very nice and helps those (like me) who aren’t too familiar with statistical terminology to learn by playing.

Vernor Vinge’s novel, Rainbows End takes place about 20 years in the future, in 2025. In the novel, this is an era in which the young understand much more about their world than grown-ups do. Old people find themselves going back to “high school” (which is attended by junior high or middle school-aged kids) to learn how to function in this new world.

One of these people is Robert Gu, a poet and a recovering Alzheimer’s patient, who is lucky enough to regain his mental function through new therapies. Although he has regained his intelligence, he has lost both his poetic ability and his characteristic meanness. He semi-unintentionally gets drawn into a scheme involving the UCSD library and international espionage.

All of the ubiquitous computing people use in this fictional future scenario is based on something called SHE (Secure Hardware Environment, I think), which is sort of like Trusted Computing. A couple of times in the novel, characters find themselves frustrated by the fact that below a certain level, you can’t change things. Below a certain level (where SHE comes into play—possibly at the OS), there are “no user-modifiable parts inside.” Of course, this restriction is quite different from the neo-DIY/Make Magazine style hardware hacking we see today. It reminds me of those little remote control cars that were all the rage a few Christmases ago. You could “customize” them, which meant snapping off a few pre-designed parts and snapping on other ones. In the novel, SHE allows for far more complex combinations, creating a network effect much like the Internet itself. In this future, people are making creations that don’t make much sense to folks from our time—ubiquitous computing allows possibilities that we cannot yet envision. However, I still get the sense that something is lost when hackers give up the ability to modify their OS or below.

A related geek reference—I found it rather hard to believe that:

1. the GNU Hurd kernel is released by 2025.
2. it’s illegal—someone uses a contraband “HurdOS” box in the novel.

Anyway, I definitely recommend this book—I enjoyed both the tech and the humanity of this near-future tale.