Where's Rob?

I've been getting a surprising amount of e-mail asking what's up with the lull. Fear not, I'll be actively posting again, but as I said in an earlier entry, I've been busy with other things. Perhaps I should add 'irregular' to the banner - might also increase my audience of readers with bowel problems when they Google for cures...

In case you wonder, I've been busy with:

1) Summer. My High School junior daughter is at Stanford doing research for the whole summer, cutting down our face time a lot. So any real spare time I have that matches her schedule, I'm there with her.

2) New games:

• Just Cause 2 (micro-micro-review posted).
• Sniper Ghost Warrior : So far, so not good. I had very high hopes. I'll do a micro review when I form a final opinion.
• Portal Prelude; Very tough mod of Portal. Marred by inane dialogue, but some seriously hard and advanced portal use. If you have portal, check it out.
• BFBC2, Splinter Cell Conviction, COD: MW2: Replaying these using three displays in ultra-wide screen mode via eyefinity. Pretty immersive.

3) The big time sinks:

• Understanding Information Transmission (IEEE): A high-level overview of many facets of communication and information theory. Used as a textbook by many schools. Not super deep ( I own dozens that are seriously deep in my library of ~1500 technical books), but a good addition to my 'loaner' shelf - books I loan to interested friends that want to get a basic background and to stimulate them to pursue deeper studies. Hideously expensive at $65.00 for a slim paperback, but I've not seen a better overview to date.
• Two volume set of  (The Tenseless)/(The Tensed) Theory of Time: A Critical Examination by W.L. Craig. Traipsing from Special Relativity to A/B-Theories of time, a philosophical work that demands hours of hard thinking for each page, to answer "What is time, is it even real...". Fun.

So, when I'm back, I'll publish the pending articles and some new ones. Thanks to the many that have suggested subjects - do continue to do so!

Rob