Another looks at David Weber's world.

First of all: WARING: MASSIVE SPOILER ALLERT! If you haven’t already read ‘Torch of Freedom’ and ‘Mission of Honor’, Stop Now! I’m not even going to attempt to tell the stories so you will spoil all the surprises and get none of the fun.

A while back, I made some predictions about what was going to happen in a pair of forthcoming books. Well the no longer forthcoming; my copies are sitting on the desk in front of me. So time to see how will I did:

-When the Sollies attack the Lynx terminus, Manticore pounds them flat. - Sort of 1/3 outright kills, 2/3 abject surrender.
-Honor and 8th fleet is sent through to Talbott putting a substation portion of the Apollo equipped ships and their auxiliaries in Lynx. - partly right, 8th fleet is out of place, but at Haven. On the other hand, a lot of Apollo munitions are in Talbott
-While they are out of position the Oyster Bay ballistic pods attack. - Yup, but only the yards are the target.
-Most of the Manticore yards and many of home fleet ships that didn't go to Lynx get severely damaged. - All the yards get trashed but the fleet is untouched.
-The yard tech crews get out somehow. - The techs get toasted but ALL the R&D types get lucky.
-Oyster Bay is blunted to some extent but still hurts Manticore a lot. - Spot on.
-Somewhere in all this, the Mesa spider drive ships attack. - Spot Off
-The Mesa manned units, take a royal beating including most of the units getting captured or destroyed. - Ditto
-Non of this shows up in Torch of Freedom. - A little foreshadowing but otherwise nothing.

-Zilwicki and Cachat infiltrate Meas. - Check
-They learn of Oyster Bay, Mesa's other plans and both the spider and streak drives. - Nope, sort of and yes.
-They don't get the full story. - No, but they came sooo close.
-They capture documentation, hardware or complete examples of a spider drive. - They got one of the people who designed the thing.
-They get enough to figure out how to detect the spider drive. - Nope.
-Zilwicki and Cachat capture a functional Mesa streak drive courier ship. - Nope
-They get back about the time Oyster Bay kicks off. - Nope
-Torch of Freedom ends with Zilwicki and Cachat on the way from Mesa to Manticore. - Almost, they are heading back but not directly to Manticore.

-Elizabeth, post Zilwicki & Cachat, will send Honor directly (and uninvited) to Haven to offer not only peace but an alliance. - Directly and uninvited? Check. But pre Zilwicki/Cachat/Oyster Bay.
-Honor arrives with a very small task force as a pointed reminder that Manticore can still hurt them but isn't. - Same effect, Big taskforce
-Honor steamrollers her way into what she wants by, with impeccable manors, assuming that she will get it. - Not as much of a bulldog as I expected.
-She gets immediate talks (as in least time to Haven orbit and "meet me at the shuttle pad" immediate) face to face with Pritchart. - Almost exactly.
-After hearing what Honor (and maybe Cachat) has to say Pritchart jumps in on the spot. - Nope.

On the other hand, much of what I missed in this set of points, happens later and in reverse when Pritchart take a trip to Manticore.

-Haven sends units to help protect Manticore. - Sounds like it will happen in the next book and not that they will actually need it in the short run.
-Manticore sends tech crews displaced from the Manticore yards to Bolthole along with the Zilwicki and Cachat's finds. - Not yet at any rate.
-Hemphill and Foraker start working together. - Ditto

-The Sollies eventually turn into a back drop for the Mantcore/Haven vs. Mesa conflict. - Looks that way
- Mantcore/Haven begin to use Mesa’s operations to turn groups of Sollies away from war. - Maybe
-Some sectors fall to Mesa, others to Manticore/Haven. - It still looks like it will go that way.
-The Sollies fracture along the lines of what Honor outlined in Storm From the Shadows. - Still Looking that way.


Score:
-Yes: 8
-No : 6
-Sort of: 8
-Not yet: 7

Not bad. None of the books went as far as I expected them to, but aside from that I was about half right.

What are the chances?

Well I just got back from an interview trip to California. It was kind of fun. Oddly I found the worrying about driving more stressful than worrying about the interview (or actually doing either). The flight went off without a hitch and (once I figured out how to get way from the airport, man I hate construction) the driving wasn’t even that bad. The interview was fun, I enjoyed chatting with the people and the flight back was mostly on time.

The fun part started in the San Jose airport while I was waiting for my flight back: I got there early and was standing around waiting when someone I knew from collage spotted me! I’m just shy of 690 miles from home in a city I can’t name a sole in and I run into someone I know and they're on the same flight as I am. What are the odds? (It was a Friday and this was the late flight home so if I was going to run into anyone I knew, it would be there and then.) Well it gets better. At Sea-Tac, while waiting for our connection (it sure was handy having someone who knew there way around there to follow), I ran into someone else I knew coming from Alaska and, just before the flight boarded, yet another coming from Boston. What are the odds? (Better than you might think given that it was the last flight to the local airport,.. but three different people in one trip?)

Creative Phrasing

Found in a Police Daily Activity Log July 8, 2009, 20:48

A moose is in the field, between Rolling Hills area and Moser, was in a yard. Escorted from the city.[Emphasis added]

I like the way that's phrased...

The Consequences of Deciding and Timeing

This article on the consequences of not deciding brought to mind a story about one of the US presidents (sorry I don't remember where I heard it or the president's name): When asked to make a decision, he would ask how long he could wait to make it. Then he would ask the person to come back in that amount of time and then he would make the decision. Almost always he would have better information to decide with and sometimes all but one of the options where clearly wrong that that point. The trick here is that he needed to get a correct answer to his question; how long could he wait without causing other problems or adversely effecting his options. The upshot is, make decisions as soon as you must, but no sooner.

Stackoverflow Flair widget

I have made up a quick hack of a page to add a Stackoverflow Flair Widget to a blogspot blog.

Note to the stackoverflow team: you have my permission to use that page wholesale if you want.

Oh, Man I want one of these!!

This "in house" print on demand system prints books faster than some places can make you coffee (and they call it the "Espresso machine")

So I started a blog this afternoon...

I hope I can think of stuff to say...