Hey, if you pass the link of the online PDF document to the Google Translate service then Google will extract the text from the PDF and translate it in the language that you selected. It doesn't keep the exact same page formatting but the PDF is now very readable. Much more readable than it was before…

I didn't know that!

Larry Niven

Ringworld (Sf Masterworks)

ISBN 0575077026

$7.80

No wonder this has won both Hugo and Nebula awards in 1970/71.

I was not very fond of Niven's writing style (this is the first Larry Niven book I read) and maybe he used it for this book only. The plot though was ingenious. The idea of the Ringworld was very interesting. It kept me entertained from the beginning until the end.

Highly recommended! Read more about the plot on wikipedia.

Robert A. Heinlein

Time Enough for Love

ISBN 0441810764

$4.38

Lazarus Long
1916-4272
The capstone and crowning achievement of Heinlein's famous Future History, TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE follows Lazarus Long through a vast and magnificent timescape of centuries and worlds. Heinlein's longest and most ambitious work, it is the story of a man so in love with Life that he refused to stop living it; and so in love with Time that he became his own ancestor.

(From the books back cover)

I think Heimlein is one of my favorite authors. “Time enough for Love” was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel (1973) and the Hugo and Locus Awards (1974) and although did not finally win, nonetheless it is quite an interesting read.

As always, I cannot outdo the Wikipedia article on the book.

Today I saw my first overhead pass of the ISS.

For some time I was registered to Twisst and I was receiving their notifications on Twitter but I never actually bothered to really look up and see the station fly overhead. Well, in my defense, living in Athens, with all this light pollution you can barely see the sky and the stars, so I was waiting for the right opportunity before I actually tried.

So, today at 20:52 (right as Twisst predicted) I saw the ISS. The brightness was supposed to be at a magnitude of -1.6 (I have no idea how bright that is) and I was wondering what was I was supposed to be looking at. Suddenly, approximately where I was looking at, a very bright star appeared out of nowhere. And I could see it with a naked eye.

It was brighter than the other current stars I could see at the moment and it moved at a pretty high speed accross the sky. It looked like an airplane was flying overhead, but at a quite fast pace. The whole pass took approximately 5 minutes and the station traversed an arc almost two thirds of the sky. Then, slowly, in 5-6 seconds, while it was still moving, faded out to nothing.

I must have look like an idiot, standing there in the middle of the park (it was Azul's nightly walk) gazing at the sky for five minutes. But, I think it was worth it…

It's funny how many of the following domain names are actually working (and how many of the letter combinations actually make sense):

Ξαφνικά άρχισαν να μου έρχονται κάποια SMS στο καρτοκινητό μου ότι:

ΜΟΛΙΣ ΣΥΝΔΕΘΗΚΕΣ ΣΤΟ INTERNET ΜΕ ΧΡΕΩΣΗ 1Ε ΓΙΑ 24 ΩΡΕΣ.
ΜΠΟΡΕΙΣ ΝΑ ΣΕΡΦΑΡΕΙΣ ΑΠΕΡΙΟΡΙΣΤΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΚΙΝΗΤΟ ΣΟY
ΜΕΧΡΙ ΤΙΣ 22/05/11 11:45 ΧΩΡΙΣ ΕΠΙΠΛΕΟΝ ΧΡΕΩΣΗ.

Στην αρχή νόμιζα ότι έκανα εγώ κάποιο λάθος, αλλά σήμερα διασταύρωσα με την αδερφή μου ότι γίνεται και σε εκείνην το ίδιο. Σε αυτήν είχαν ήδη χρεώσει περίπου 20 ευρώ και όταν πήρε τηλέφωνο την εξυπηρέτηση πελατών της είπαν ότι είναι μια καινούρια υπηρεσία της Cosmote και αν δεν την θέλει μπορεί να την απενεργοποιήσει.

Read more…