Pogue on the Volt

A few other cool touches: in the top center of the dashboard there’s a bright indicator that lights up green when the car is charging, and flashes when the charge is full. It’s placed there so you can peek out your window or garage door and know, just by glancing through the windshield, the status of the charge. This is cool, too: you can monitor the car’s charge on an iPhone app. You can even warm up the cabin using the app, by remote control, so that it’s toasty on winter days when you’re ready to drive. (A button on Read more…

James Madison

via whitehouse.gov I read a short biography of Madison, our fourth president, in my Presidential reading series. The book is from the American President series, which was also the series I chose for George H.W. Bush. I suspect it will be the only option when I get to presidents like Taylor and Polk. This one was interesting because it was the first biography of a President I’ve read that was pretty down on him. Madison was the “father of the constitution” and his significance as a Founding Father is pretty high. But that doesn’t guaranteed he’d be a good President. Read more…

William Gibson’s “Blue Ant” trilogy

Or maybe it's the "Hubertus Bigend" trilogy. Anyway, I finished his recent trilogy this past weekend, and really enjoyed it. The books are: Pattern Recognition (2003), Spook Country (2007), and Zero History (2010). They are primarily about marketing, art, design, technology, and such, but they are also spy thrillers to a certain extent. I found all of them to be really interesting. Good stories, a good touch of irony, some action, strong leads, and a lot to think about. Gibson is known for his science fiction work primarily (in the 80s he coined the term cyberspace in his debut novel). Read more…