Adrian McCarthy's Blog, page 2
May 8, 2013
Sony adds DRM against author’s wishes
It has come to my attention that the Sony Reader Store added DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) to copies of my novel Blue Screen of Death. I do not approve of DRM, and it was never my intention for my book to be sold with it.
I’m not sure why Sony did this. They do not add DRM to all of the books they sell, but Sony does have a terrible history of putting anti-consumer technologies into their media products, which is why I try to avoid purchasing Sony products.
I’ve begun the process of rem...
April 7, 2013
Response to TSA Proposal to use AIT
In regard to Docket Number TSA-2013-0004:
The TSA’s proposal to use advanced imaging technology routinely as a primary screening method at transportation security checkpoints should be denied.
The proposal utterly fails to justify the costs against the infinitesimal incremental improvement in the ability of the TSA to detect a weapon that poses a significant threat to safe air travel. The proposal makes specious, unsubstantiated assertions, uses flawed reasoning, ignores certain costs, and misl...
March 16, 2013
Silencing a Wine Refrigerator
[This is a reconstruction of a blog post I made back in 2007, before I bungled my Word Press backup and lost the old blog posts. Several people have requested it. I might find the pictures later.]
My brother and I just had one of our quarterly project weekends. I can’t believe it was time for another one already, since I hadn’t even blogged about the last one yet. So let me catch up by showing off the projects we did this summer.
My wife and I have a wine refrigerator in our dining room. It has...
July 15, 2012
Quick Review: The Starcrossed
The Starcrossed by Ben Bova
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
An amusing tale of the crazy mid-1970s television industry. It’s told as a science fiction story, but isn’t really necessary. It’s based on the adventures of Ben Bova and Harlan Ellison in the making of The Starlost, a pathetic 1973 science fiction show. I’m sure there are lots of inside jokes for those who know the backstory, but it’s not necessary to appreciate the antics of these outrageous characters and their scheming. I laughed out loud...
July 7, 2012
Quick Review: Masters of Mystery: The Strange Friendship of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini
Masters of Mystery: The Strange Friendship of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini by Christopher Sandford
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This wasn’t quite as entertaining a read as Hiding the Elephant by Jim Steinmeyer, but Masters of Mystery: The Strange Friendship of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini by Christopher Sandford added dimensions to the era of spiritualism that the former book only touched on. I had never known that Doyle and Houdini had corresponded extensively despite their differin...
July 1, 2012
Review: Timecaster
Timecaster by Joe Kimball
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Timecaster is more of an action/adventure story set in the future than a hard science fiction novel. Nevertheless, J.A. Konrath (writing as Joe Kimball) puts some interesting what-if ideas out there, and they help the story to good effect. It’s a fast read–one cliffhanger after another. Overall, it was a nice mindless escape with the usual Konrath humor, lots of imaginative action sequences, and downright over-the-top violence and sex.
I have a f...
May 31, 2012
Review: The Bug
The Bug: A Novel by Ellen Ullman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I stumbled upon a description of this book earlier in the year and added it to my reading list. Just a few weeks later, a friend who had read my book, Blue Screen of Death, said he enjoyed BSoD much more than The Bug, so naturally I moved it up to the top of my reading list.
Comparing them isn’t fair. Blue Screen of Death is a genre mystery. The Bug is a mainstream literary work, mostly a character study. Nevertheless, there were some stri...
May 13, 2012
Quick Review: Spook Country
Spook Country by William Gibson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The chapters alternate among three separate story lines that eventually intersect at the climax of the novel. I really enjoyed the characters in one of these lines, but the other two didn’t pique my interest until at least the halfway point.
But all along, it seemed to be building to something bigger, something more important. There were so many hints of backstory, that I expected a lot more revelations and interesting interactions, but I w...
May 4, 2012
Day Against DRM
Happy Day Against DRM.
Feel like celebrating? My book, Blue Screen of Death, is DRM-free from all authorized retailers.
April 28, 2012
Lost Opportunities
This week I came across some C++ code like this:
if (foo & 0x0FFFFFFF >= width * height) {
/* copy width * height items to a buffer */
} else {
/* handle error */
}
This is buggy code. Worse, it’s probably a security vulnerability. The code parses a particular file format. This if-statement is attempting to make sure the fields are internally consistent. Getting this check wrong, probably means an attacker could craft a file to cause the parser to overrun a buffer, which is almost certainly an ex...
