Interesting Stuff

First off, quite possibly the first science fiction movie was Le voyage dans la lune, a silent film made in 1902 based off stories by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne (the French narration can be found here). It has some surprisingly good special effects, and is well worth the 14 minutes it takes to watch.

Also, it appears that Microsoft is actually going to require that all kernel-space drivers be certified in Windows Vista, which I think is going to be fantastic. They are permanently moving graphics stuff into user space, so I don’t anticipate many drivers needing certification. I expect that this will make the Windows kernel much more stable and secure, to the point that the BSoD might be a thing of the past in a few years. The Slashdotters are naturally wanking about OSS issues, but I think this is actually a pretty great change. The worrying part is that they could very well put copyright enforcement stuff in there, which no one would be able to change, even for legitimate reasons. Yes, that would be a poor design decision from a stability/security standpoint, but Microsoft hasn’t had the greatest record with that stuff in the past. Here’s hoping that the execution goes as well as the planning!

How cool is this – my favourite author, Lois McMaster-Bujold, is mentioned in the News section of the current Penny Arcade. Few people have heard of her because her publicist is mediocre at mest, but she’s a fantastic writer (to this day, my favourite book is Cordelia’s Honor by McMaster-Bujold). She is currently tied with Robert A. Heinlein for winning the most Hugo Awards ever, and has won a bunch of other awards as well.

A couple years ago, I unknowingly got to meet her–my girlfriend at the time and I were wandering around Barnes & Noble, and since we’re both fans of McMaster-Bujold, we stopped to look at her books. A woman walked up to look at them too, and asked if we were fans of the author. We replied that yes, we both loved her work. She then pulled a book off the shelf, and told us that she had just finished it and rather liked it. We thanked her, and she left. We then turned to the back cover of the book, which contained a large picture of the woman with whom we had just spoken! It was pretty cool, though I wish I had recognized her before she left.

Anyways, I highly recommend her writings, if anyone is looking for some great science fiction to read. Her character development is unmatched, in my opinion.