Books
This week I read:
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
Which is about nothing less than the entire future history of humanity, up until its extinction at the hands of the sun. Olaf Stapledon is definitely one of the great minds of sci-fi. All of his books tackle big themes, and do an amazing job at it.
I remember when I last (and first) read this back in 2012 I found the beginning chapters kind of dull, as they deal with the (now very outdated) future history of the first human race, and I much preferred Star Maker partly because of its nonhuman focus. But on this reread I quite enjoyed the beginning; sure, it’s outdated, but as an alternative history it’s perfectly fine.
Miscellaneous
Unfortunately, nyarlathotep is dead.
The emergency cheap graphics card arrived on Wednesday, I hooked up a monitor to the stricken machine, turned it on, but no dice. Fans spin; nothing else happens.
So I’ve ordered replacement parts. They’re going to arrive over the next fortnight, so I’ll be without a home server for a little while. An inconvenience, but not the end of the world. Though, without DNS adblocking anymore, browsing the web on my phone is a much more painful experience.