Rapture in Everything

2015 Apr 18

Diaspora by Greg Egan

This is the second book by Greg Egan that I’ve read. Just like Quarantine before it, I’ve read it without knowing what I were getting into. I’ve picked it up because I wanted to read sci-fi, and a lot of people on the ‘net recommended this one as a prime example of hard science fiction. Now I see why. The plot of the book is fairly simple – people are trying not to die. But it mostly serves as a framework that holds a plethora of ideas, explorations and philosophical musings; so many, in fact, that I’d...

2015 Mar 24

Rationality: From AI to Zombies by Eliezer Yudkowsky

We all make mistakes – it’s whether we learn from them that makes all the difference. But how exactly does one go about doing that? What kind of mistakes do we make? And what to do when our own minds don’t work the way we think they do? Every one of us is biased – our patterns of thought gravitate in certain directions without us ever knowing. And we can’t fix something if we don’t even suspect it exists.So how do we find these deficiencies? How do we compensate for them? These, along with many others, are...

2012 Oct 04

Death Has Deep Roots

The “who’s done it” style of detective literature surely needs no introduction. Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved Agatha Christie and the local Labyrinth and Green Library editions, supplying me with all the high-quality detective fiction I could wish for. So when I bought Michael Gilbert’sDeath Has Deep Roots (*Hlboké korene smrti *in Slovak) from the local library, I thought I was in for a standard treat. Turns out I was wrong. My beautiful, tattered Hlboké korene smrti (Death Has Deep Roots) by Michael Gilbert, decommissioned from a library. Not long after the Second...

2012 Sep 16

How to have a great evening

Prepare a hot beverage, if you’re so inclined. Dim your lights Play some fitting music (channel Doomed on soma.fm) Read I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream When I found out that it is only 13 pages long, I decided to read it as soon as possible, and sent it to my Kindle. Then I went on to read this Saturday Crapshoot on PC Gamer which spoiled the whole plot and ending immediately. Damn. But, oh well, never mind. I like listening to soma.fm channels when working or reading, because they seldom contain distracting vocals that...