Broke?

Nope, Baroque.  As in, The Baroque Cycle.  Quicksilver is the first book in this trilogy, and I just finished it up a bit ago.  Mr. Stephenson weaves an interesting tale here, setting it as a sort of historical fiction (people such as Asimov and Hooke are central figures), but it’s not dry.  He manages to pull in scientific discovery and inquiry, as well as cryptography and intrigue.

At times, I had some troubles keeping track of what was happening when (as the story jumps back and forth in time), but it was an enjoyable read.  Definitely looking forward to what happens in the remaining volumes.

It’s gadget time!

Alright, I finally have another gadget to talk about.  I just installed a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo on the network.  This little box seems to pack a lot into its chassis.  The setup was an absolute breeze, and I’ve got some backups running to it right now.

Due to a deal I found on Dell, I’ve got this running with 2 x 500 GB drives, rather than the single drive most configurations come with.  This provides automatic mirroring, so even if one drive fails, I’ve got another copy there and ready to go.

Some other functionality it has (that I’ve not yet played with) includes a BitTorrent client and iTunes streaming.  One very nice feature we’ve already made use of is the fact it can act as a print server.  Just plug a USB printer into one of the three USB ports, and you’re off to the races!

This little box has a great set of features (click on the image to go to the product site), especially for the price.  If you’re looking into some network-attached storage, put this one on your list to check out.