Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series is an interesting beast, but The Final Empire is a great introduction. I normally stay away from fantasy sans notable exceptions, yet a friend of mine recommended it and I trust his judgment, even if he’s a fan of Robert Jordan. But what do we really have, here? We have a magic system where a person can “burn” ingested metals to achieve certain effects. Everything is paired, and specific alloys can produce opposite reactions as their base metal.

It’s about time I write about something that is near and dear to our hearts. Something that affects the whole of our society and is probably one of the most pressing issues in the world today. Yes, the quality of the Borders website threatens the very internet itself. Let’s see what this bastion of quality provides the public. The URL isn’t nearly convoluted enough. Some sites practically luddites about this, insisting on sharp, clean urls capable of being typed by humans.

For the past couple of months, I’ve tapped a universe very much unlike the one I’m accustomed to experiencing. I did this by purchasing my first Android phone, in this case, a Droid Eris. My Samsung Rogue suffered a mishap in the washing machine back in June, and I wasn’t eligible for a new phone until March 2011. It just so happened Verizon was veritably shelling out previously owned Eris handsets, so I grabbed one to tinker.

DATE OF OPERATION : 07-17-84 PREOPERATIVE DIAGNOSIS : L transposition of the great vessels, dextrocardia, double outlet right ventricle, pulmonary stenosis, atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, single coronary artery. POSTOPERATIVE DIAGNOSIS : Same. SURGEONS : Peter Mansfield, M.D.; 1st assistant Edward Rittenhouse, M.D.; 2nd assistant Kathryn Batts, Physicians Assistant. OPERATION : Median sternotomy, cardiopulmonary bypass 2 hours and 45 minutes, body temperature 26°, heart temperature 8°, potassium cardioplegia. Noncoronary perfusion time 2 hours, 19 minutes.

Charles Stross wrote Accelerando while high on meth, I think. Not only is it densely packed with author-coined terminology loosely based on the underlying technological innovations, but it’s a meandering plotless testament to its own existence. It follows the trials and tribulations of Manfred Macx and his descendants before, during, and after what we can call a technological singularity, when the pace of progress reaches such a pronounced crescendo, it becomes self-sustaining.