The Nebula Awards 19 (1984) by various writers

Some of the stories are good.  I really don't like Greg Bear.  Post apocalyptic (nuclear war) was still dominating; half the stories are bad, 2/5 stars (dated, not worth reading anymore).

Auberon by James S.A. Corey

I wish the authors and publishers could get more of the their works out faster and sooner.  The tv show is a completely different experience from the awesome books and novellas. 5/5 stars.  Best space opera of this decade.

Mare Internum by Der-Shing Helmer

I recommend the web comic (soon to be a graphic novel) Mare Internum. Read it soon before it is deleted.  I followed each new page as it was being written.  The story is imaginative and gripping.  4/5 stars.

Invasion (book 9 blood on the stars) by Jay Allan

I am getting a little bored with the series and may wait a few years before reading the last few. The story line is exciting but the melodrama and repetition are grating.  He writes as if he were paid by the word.  3/5 stars

Salvation Lost by Peter F Hamilton

Fantastic!  I recommend buying all three books so that the tantalizing preludes and story interruptions are less jarring. 5/5 stars.

Die Tagesordnung by Eric Vulliard

Französisches preisgekröntes Buch ins Deutsche übersetzt und sehr beliebt. Dieses Buch wurde von meiner Schwägerin empfohlen. Die historischen Dokumente mit einigen der Spekulationen und Spekulationen des Autors geben einen grimmigen Überblick über die Ereignisse, die vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg stattfanden, und über die Erfolge unserer herrschenden Klasse bei der Schuldumleitung und -manipulation. Ich mag Geschichten aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg nicht mehr besonders, weil ich in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren mit zu vielen bombardiert wurde. 3/5 Sterne.

3 minutes, 3 hours, 3 days, 3 weeks

Late one evening this week I received a phone call from one of my children, asking what to pack as he was evacuating his house to escape a fire.  Without giving it much thought I told him to pack dust masks (3 minutes without air), water (3 days without water), and a power bank for his phone.

Now that he is safe, I am thinking that for urban survival in the event of natural disasters, we should think about preparedness much differently from outdoor survival.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

A Russian co-worker who shares my passion for science fiction recommended Arkady Strugalsky's books so I picked this one up.  It is fantastic. I missed the second wave of Soviet Science Fiction from the late 1970s but I caught the first wave because Isaac Asimov was a champion of the translations.  If you, like me, have not read Arkady Strugatsky, you are in for a treat. 5/5 stars.

I am a strange loop by Douglas Hofstadter

It took a while to get through this one.  Hofstadter is disappointed that fans of his magnum opus GED did not grasp his main point about (his metaphysical belief) that machines can have souls and that the level of soul-size or  consciousness is a spectrum.  He then creates a bunch of thought experiments and analyses to convince us.  His metaphysics is terrible, as is his neurobiology.  His ideas on abstraction and strange-loops are not bad, though.  Not great, 2/5 stars -- not worth reading.  Read an explanation of the Gödel paper instead.

algae bio-reactor sucks CO2 creates food, fuel, textiles

https://www.hypergiant.com/green/

A 1.8 cubic meter (67 cubic feet) sized "bio reactor" that is open-sourced, including the algae, sucks out as much CO2 from the air per second as 400 trees. The older or dead algae can be eaten, turned into fuel, or spun into textiles (clothing, carpet, insulation).