Hello

Hello & Welcome

they’ve made the world so loud
that no one can hear the whispers
they’ve lit the world so bright
that no one can see in the dark
they’ve told so many lies
that no one knows the truth now
they’ve ruined all of nature
and told us to play in the park


Satisfaction Guaranteed — Isaac Asimov

Satisfaction Guaranteed -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in The Complete Robot.

The U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men corporation are finally allowed to carry out a secret trial of a humanoid robot on Earth, and one of their employees volunteers his wife so he can hopefully get a promotion.

And so the wife is left with a robot housekeeper/man-about-the-house for 10 days while the husband is away trying to impress his bosses for said promotion.   Once again, the “Three Laws of Robotics” throw up some interesting behaviour.

Another good story getting us used to the quirks of the “Three Laws of Robotics”.

Next up in the robot stories is Lenny.

Isaac’s Page

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Liar! — Isaac Asimov

Liar! -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in I, Robot, The Complete Robot and Robot Visions.

The first full Susan Calvin, Robopsychologist, story is about a mind reading robot.   Susan is called into action to try to find out what went wrong when it was made, but the robot gets to read her mind and things go off on a bit of a tangent.

A good little story exploring how reading human minds may conflict with the three laws.

And the next robot story is Satisfaction Guaranteed

Isaac’s Page

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Catch That Rabbit — Isaac Asimov

Catch That Rabbit -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in I, Robot and The Complete Robot.

A lot better than the last one.   Powell and Donovan are back, this time they’re testing a new mining robot, on an asteroid, that has six robots slaved to it like fingers of a hand.   Everything works great while they’re observing the robot, but as soon as they leave it to get on with things on its own no mining gets done, and they have 10 days to sort it out before they get the sack.

And now i’m off straight into the next robot story, Liar!: finally into the Susan Calvin stuff.

Isaac’s Page

#scifi #isaacasimov

To Preserve — Mickey Zucker Reichert

To Preserve -- Mickey Zucker ReichertI finally reach the end of this trilogy.

For the most part i’ve enjoyed the whole trilogy, but there are some annoying bits.   Like in this book: how did Cadmium know that Susan and Nate would be walking through that park at that time to set up their ambush?   She’d only just managed to rescue Nate and escape and even Susan had no idea how that was going to happen until, by a freak chance, it did.   So all rather ridiculous if anyone is asking what i think.

And it just so happens that there’s a jogger who saves her who is a super handsome god type who convinces Susan (who knows she’s seriously plain Jane) that he thinks she’s totally beautiful and seduces her into rampant sex.   Well it was obvious from the start what was going on, but super intelligent, genius Susan couldn’t see it until it was basically slammed into her face by Jake.   Once again, ridiculous.

But, if you can overlook the ridiculous it’s not too bad a story and we do get some good history on the beginning of humanoid robots and how Susan Calvin became the world’s first robo-psychologist.

Now, thankfully, i can return to Isaac to read the real stuff.

Bye for now.

Mickey’s Page

#scifi #isaacasimov #mickeyzuckerreichert

Alice in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland -- Lewis CarrollAnother book that i used for typing practice over at TypeLit.

It’s rather an enjoyable way to read a book, while at the same time being incredibly useful in improving ones typing.

As to the typing experience, it’s a quagmire of punctuation and capitalisation due to most of the book being in dialogue, which are obviously very useful skills to practice.   So i present it to you, totally recommended, as both a great read and also great typing practice: what’s not to like?

Alice in Wonderland -- Lewis Carroll typing practice results

Lewis’ Page

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Currently
 

Fiction

Platform Decay - Martha Wells Oooh, more Murderbot.  
Use of Weapons -- Iain M. Banks I thought it was about time i got around to reading this series.

Nonfiction

Why Work? -- Collection Yeah, why?

Nonfiction

More Zen.