Book reviews for January 2016
Starhawk (The Academy, #7) by Jack McDevitt
3/5
It's a prequel - how Hutch became Hutch - and because of that it's a bit limited in scope. Comfortable filler with a few good moments - worth reading for completeists.
3/5
It's a prequel - how Hutch became Hutch - and because of that it's a bit limited in scope. Comfortable filler with a few good moments - worth reading for completeists.
Wisdom teeth removal is rarely necessary
Glad to hear it because my dentist is always wanting to rip out my wisdom teeth and I've always refused...
Case made for 'ninth planet'
Can we call it Pluto?
A few people have asked for 3D shape support in my ESRI Shapefile library. I've never got around to it, but CodePlex user ekleiman has forked a version in his ESRI Shapefile to Image Convertor that supports PointZ, PolygonZ and PolyLineZ shapes. If that's what you need please check it out.




San Bruno Mountain State Park has outstanding views of San Francisco, the Pacific out to the Farallon Islands and much of the bay. We did the three mile summit loop (the wrong way round, San Bruno pros do it counter-clockwise).
Hike starts at 37.6888964,-122.437008 (Google Earth).
(Hike Map)
3/5
I always want to like Kim Stanley Robinson more than i do, this time was no different. It's a generation ship colonization story with a pretty decent if depressing twist and I really enjoyed the fist half of the book. After that it gets pretty slow and repetitive and then ends in a pretty unsatisfying and trite way.

360 degree 4K timelapse from Mount Davidson, the highest peak in San Francisco. Shot in five segments.
(Published to the Fediverse as: Mount Davidson 360 4K #timelapse #360 #4k #video Timelapse showing the views from Mount Davidson in San Francisco, California. 360 4K. Highest peak in San Francisco. )

Winter Solstice 2015 rendered in Catfood Earth (Windows, Android).

Photo of San Francisco seen through some rocks on Mount Davidson.
(Published to the Fediverse as: San Francisco from Mount Davidson #photo #mountdavidson #sanfrancisco Photo of San Francisco from Mount Davidson (through some rocks). )

Catfood Earth 3.41 fixes a problem that was preventing the weather radar layer from loading.
I've also updated to the latest (2015g) time zone database and the latest time zone map from Eric Muller.
Download the latest Catfood Earth.