The semi-official description of Dope Stars Inc. is that they are an Italian industrial rock band. Personally I’m not exactly sure what I would categorise them under – at least the Italian part is accurate.

The first I heard of DSI was their album “21st Century Slave” sometime last year. The one line pitch for 21st Century Slave is that it’s “a cyberpunk concept album”. The concept album hasn’t seen too much light in recent years and my love of anything cyberpunk made me immediately give it a listen.

Telling the story of freedom fighters in a cyberpunk authoritarian state, 21st Century Slave is a well produced electronic/rock album from the mind of the awesomely named Victor Love. If you distill Gibson’s Sprawl novels, a touch of Snowcrash and a hint of adolescence and listen hard 21st Century Slave is what you will hear.

Ranging through aggressive raw tracks and modern rock-ish ballads you really get a feel for the kind of images Love et al are trying to invoke. I seem to never tire of listening to it.

Their next album, the recently released “Ultrawired: Songs for a ketaware generation”, follows in a similar but maybe more accessible vein. With tracks that beg to be played in some dark subterranean club somewhere it has earned itself a place on my most played list as well.

More than just an image,the message of freedom from oppression that permeates DSI’s music is carried over into DSI’s approach to the music industry. Ultrawired was released free online, along with encouragement for fans to burn and sell their own copies.

It certainly will not be for everyone but Dope Stars Inc are now one of my favourite bands of recent years.

Listen to some of their music and download Ultrawired from the Dope Stars Inc. website.

From a self published author to a very much published author with Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. Another one of the books Jonas has been trying to get me to read for years now, Altered Carbon is the first of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy.

Set in the distant future Altered Carbon introduces Kovacs, a former elite soldier now taking mercenary work. While that setup is not particularly enticing the world Kovacs inhabits is. Based on the passing of humanity into a meta human civilisation Kovacs‘ world is one of people having their minds “re-sleeved“ in another, possibly genetically enhanced, body for a variety of reasons.

Space travel is made common for the rich and poweful by having their minds transmitted from planet to planet to be sleeved on arrival, and immortality is a possibility due to the ability to back up your mind (for those who can afford it).

With suspended animation of the mind being common place, and even used a punishment for crimes, the ideas of subjective and objective time come into play. While a person may be a century old objectively, if they have been “on stack“ their subjective life experience could be considerably shorter.

In fact the plot hinges in some ways on the difference in world view between those with relatively young lives (at least subjectively) and the super rich “Meths“ who can afford to live for ever. It is an interesting angle and one that does not get as much play in SciFi as in fantasy (How many ancient wizards have you read about?).

Talking of science fiction I get a distinct cyberpunk flavour from Altered Carbon. The concept of some kind of extended humanity is one common to all cyberpunk works and I guess that it is this trope, coupled with the grittyness of the writing that brings forth the cyberpunk feel.

Altered Carbon is definitely a cut above the majority of similarly set science fiction and cyberpunk fare and I definitely look forward to reading the two following books in the series.

First up is “Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance“ by Derek J. Canyon. You have probably never heard of Dead Dwarves or Mr Canyon. That would be down to Dead Dwarves being a self published title.

Self published work typically has a very uneven quality level. Without the filter of a publisher a reader is left unshielded from the authors ego. Luckily, unlike some other recent examples, Mr. Canyon is not deluding himself as to the quality of what he can produce.

Dead Dwarves is a cyberpunk novel set it the day after tomorrow. Its world is one of genetic manipulation, massive corporations and a bit of the good old uber violence. If you took the setting as a prediction of things to come you would probably find it horribly cynical. Luckily the author is more concerned with creating an interesting world for Noose, the protagonist, to run around in than one which rams a depressing view of the future down your throat.

The quality of writing and plotting is good through out. You definitely get a sense of this being a budget production in some way, but i suspect that is down to the limited amount of editing it received compared to a tradionally published book. On a scale of cyberpunk greatness Dead Dwarves doesn’t quite rank alongside Snow Crash, Neuromancer et al but then again, what does?

Dead Dwarves was a quick and enjoyable read with characters well drawn and a plot that although nothing new still manages to take you along for a ride. The ending is a fun, action packed climax (common to cyberpunk works in general) – my only criticism here would be that more tension in the build up to the finale would have been nice.

In fact after finishing it I then purchased “Dead Dwarves, Dirty Deeds“ which is a collection of three earlier stories set in the same world. While I enjoyed the novel more than the short stories I still look forward to reading the sequel to Dwarves (on which, sadly, progress is apparently not great )

Given that when I purchased Dead Dwarves it was only 99 cents it was a great buy. After reading it I suspect that I would still think the same if I had payed a more normal figure.

While trawling the interwebs when I couldn’t sleep the other day I discovered a cool Russian/Ukrainian blog post with pictures of graffiti found in Pripyat.

Quite a haunting place, and it is made even more so by some of the graffiti that has appeared there. Thanks to Alex Cheban for the pictures.

Alex Cheban’s Pripyat blog post

I was wrong!

Over the last few days at home the toilet rolls have been developing faces (and obvious personalities)…

This is great! Now I do not have to throw any away ever again and there is always a chance I can sell them all to the Tate Modern in the future!

Karin and I had a great Easter weekend in Tyresö at Karin’s family summer house. Summer is definitely on it’s way

• Altered Carbon – Richard K. Morgan
• Dead Dwarves, Dirty Deeds- Derek J. Canyon
• Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance – Derek J. Canyon
• Hood – Ian Lawhead
• Heroes – Joe Abercrombie
• Finch – Jeff Vandameer
• A Game of Thrones – George R. R. Martin
• The Crown Conspiracy - Michael J. Sullivan
• Nyphron Rising - Michael J. Sullivan
• The Emerald Storm - Michael J. Sullivan
• Avempartha – Michael J. Sullivan
• Wintertide - Michael J. Sullivan
• A Dance of Cloaks – David Dalglish
• Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss
• The Wise Man’s Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
• Zero History – William Gibson
• Wintersmith – Terry Pratchett
• Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett
• Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett
• Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett
• Clementine – Cherry Preist
• Dreadnought - Cherry Preist
• Boneshaker - Cherry Preist
• Hull Zero Three – Greg Bear
• On Basilisk Station – David Weber
• The Honor of the Queen – David Weber
• The Short Victorious War – David Weber
• Field Of Dishonor – David Weber
• A Flag In Exile – David Weber
• Honor Among Enemies – David Weber
• In Enemy Hands – David Weber
• The Fuller Memorandum – Charles Stross
• The Call Of Cthulhu – H. P. Lovecraft

Given that a job application is a) Your first contact with your prospective employer and b) Something you can spend time on, I am constantly amazed by some of the applications I have received.

Some people obviously need advice here and in the interests of making my life a little bit easier in the future here are some tips for applying for technical jobs…

Job Application Basics

1) READ the job advert and research the company you are applying to. Receiving a job application for the wrong job, wrong office or even wrong company does not help your chances and double checking these things costs you nothing.

I have more than once received a job application where the applicant had misspelt the companies name. Needless to say these applicants did not progress further in the application process…

Make sure you follow the instructions on the job advertisement to the letter. If they want a demo submitted with your application, submit a demo. If they want a portfolio of projects, supply one. If they want CVs in PDF and not DOC format, do that.

2) SPELLCHECK your application. Grammar check your application. Get someone else to read it through before you send it. If you are applying in a language other than your native one get a native speaker to double check it. If you are applying for a job that requires fluency in some language or another ensure that you have no mistakes in that language in your application.

I have no problem with receiving applications from people who are obviously not fluent in English or Swedish – as long as the job they are applying for is not “Technical Writer” or similar!

3) ENSURE that you feel you are qualified for the job and present yourself thusly. I’m not talking about actual qualifications here, just the belief in yourself that you can perform the job coupled with making the effort to let the potential employer know that.

If the job specifies that degree level education is required but you do not have a degree, yet you feel that your experience more than makes up for that fact let the employer know. Remember though: Don’t be cocky, be honest.

Including samples of your work, or past projects, is a good idea if you do not have a body of experience and/or successes to rely on (and even if you do, it doesn’t hurt to make samples of your work easily available).

4) TAILOR your application for the job you are applying for. Bring relevant experience to the fore. The simplest way to do this is to write a custom cover letter for each application. They do not need to be substantially different, but specifically mentioning something that employers will obviously look for increases your chances.

I once received an application for a programming job where under “Relevant interests” the applicant included the line:

“I like all reptiles. ESPECIALLY SNAKES.”

His emphasis. This did not help his application! (But it did make it legendary within our department).

5) HIGHLIGHT problem solving and mental skills as well as (or even above) more specific skills. Very often with technical jobs the skill set required for the job changes over time. Letting people know that you can take this in your stride will only help you. If you can think of particularly good examples of you using these skills in the past either mention them in your application or make a note of them for use in any interviews you take.

More than anything else, my ability for problem solving and being a quick study has aided me in finding work. If you feel you are lacking in these areas remember that practice makes perfect! Although problem solving comes easier to some than others it can be improved with practice.

TextMate by Macro Mates (Text Editor, OS X)

Given the tag line “The missing editor”, TextMate has become the de-facto tool for text editing on the Mac. With what feels like hundreds of languages supported whatever text files you need to edit the chances are that TextMate has something to help. You may initially balk at paying 45€ for a text editor but once you start using it you will realise that it is money well spent.

Tower by Fournova (git Client, OS X)

I tried a few git clients when I moved to using git at home and Tower felt like the easiest to use. Visually it is very nice, with a true Mac-like experience. It also features all the functionality I use of git on a daily basis, such as pushing, pulling, branching and stashing. I started using it during the free Beta period but when that ended I was more than willing to pay the 49€ price for version 1.0.

The GIMP (Image Editor, All)

Sure, The GIMP is not as easy to use as Photoshop and lacks some complex features but at the end of the day for most tasks it more than suffices. I’ve used GIMP for years now, so the interface is second nature to me. Even at work, where I have Photoshop sitting on my desktop, I still find working in GIMP quicker for some tasks.

muCommander by The muCommander Team (File Manager, All)

Back at Starbreeze (and also at Hansoft) the old-timers (!) are all big fans of TotalCommander. For some reason TC  just never clicked with me and I tend to rely on my mad shell skillz for complex file management tasks. A few months back I came across muCommander (TotalCommander like but simpler and cross platform) and decided to make a conscious effort to get used to it. It certainly lacks some important features (background file copies etc…) but I find myself using it more and more.

Wings3D by Dan Gudmundsson et al. (3D Modeller, All)

Another program I have used for many years, Wings3D is a polygonal modelling tool based around a winged edge model and subdivision. It is, in my opinion, one of the easiest modellers to use. Even when I have Maya available to me I still find myself reverting to Wings for the bulk of modelling tasks.

Since everything I read these days seems to be part of a series or trilogy I decided not to immediately follow Hood with it’s sequels Scarlet and Tuck. Instead I returned to another series that I am already invested in: The Honor Harrington novels by David Weber.

The first four Honor Harrington books. Yeah, I mention the cover art below...

The Honor Harrington novels can most quickly be described as Horatio Hornblower in space, and indeed this was Weber’s goal. The novels follow the career of Harrington as she makes her way through the Royal Manticorean Navy.

As you can see the “Honorvese”, as it is called, is quite expansive. Spanning 12 (soon to be 13) Harrington novels and 10 spin off novels set in the same universe, the amount of detail the Honorvese is rendered in is quite outstanding now.

The stories themselves (at least the Harrington ones) contain a large amount of what can be described as “military space porn”. Missile velocity, ship tonnage and armour thickness values are thrown around frequently, but this is saved from being tiresome by an amazing level of internal consistency coupled with some very complete world building.

Where other authors are content with giving the reader a picture of how things are in their fantasy worlds Weber does not stop there – he wants the reader to know why things are as they are and how they got there. This world building is, for the most part, wrapped into the internal monologues the characters frequently share with the reader as they think and reason about the past, present or future.

This style has the slightly curious effect (to me at least) of making what would be short conversations in other books be expanded into multipage information packed monologues on a characters internal thoughts and reasoning. It sounds overly long and boring but in actual fact Weber makes it work.

The books themselves are never horrendously long, and manage to balance this world and character building with a healthy amount of plot. In fact, the books themselves are fairly quick reads – they slide down the gullet of interested readers quickly and smoothly. Sharing this property with works such as those of Pratchett (although not the content), you can often find yourself burning through a couple of Harrington books quickly, when you had only really meant to have read one. Indeed my first stint reading the novels resulted in me reading the first four back to back.

There are however two things that I think any potential readers of the Honor Harrington books should know:

1. The covers are… “of a style” shall we say. To my eyes they are not particularly attractive and I’m glad I can get all the books on my Kindle, rather than have to buy each one from a store!

2. You will feel silly when explaining about Honors six legged tree cat Nimitz. There is no way around this – it sounds terrible. In the context of the books however it works perfectly.

I am currently reading the 7th Harrington novel, “In Enemy Hands”, and returning to the universe is comforting, like sitting down in a comfy armchair. I can understand how not everyone who reads science fiction is going to enjoy them, but I think that you do yourself a disservice if you dismiss them without at least trying them.