I'm using these to replace incandescents in existing fittings as those burn out, and they're drop-in replacements in the way that other energy saving spots simply haven't been -- they're kitchen lights so I really want instant on when I'm cooking, and resilience to short duty cycles when calling the cats in at night.

The daylight colour is somewhat harsh when compared with the usual dull glow of compact fluorescents, so works best somewhere separated from that sort of background lighting. I'm using this one as a light in an enclosed lobby which only gets used for a handful of seconds at a time (i.e. exactly not what you want a cf bulb for), and it's serving well. Of course it's only been a few months, so I can't talk to the whole life-cycle.

4 stars rather than 5 because this is not a drop-in replacement for an incandescent in the same way that a compact fluorescent was -- the light is noticeable directional, so if used in a ceiling fitting will leave gloom around the walls; probably best suited for up-lighters instead.

What do you do if a bright youngster asks you about learning to program? This was a problem I had earlier this summer. There are lots of books out there that introduce languages -- but most of them are aimed at people who are already in the "l337 53kr3t k0d3rz klub".

Hello World! is one of those rare exceptions, a gentle, and humorous introduction to the idea of programming, using Python, a language well suited to filling the niche that BASIC dialects did a generation ago. Even to a crusty and cynical old-timer, like myself, it makes entertaining reading -- not only is the writing style light and engaging, but you can nod sagely and think "Been there, done that" at all the "In the good old days" asides.

Trying out on members of the target audience, it has proven a hit. In its catchy and absorbing manner, it explains the fundamentals (the simple things like variable names being, well, just names) clearly and the exercises concentrate on making fun things happen sooner rather than later. The infectious enthusiasm of the author even managed to hook my non-programmer wife, and get her trying out the examples.

The only reason I'm not giving the book a full 5 stars is that what makes it good as a teaching book, leading the reader in a quick tour of the concepts, rather than plodding through in a slow and structured (and boring) way leaves it not so good as a reference once the reader has worked through it.

The Scala language has been gaining strong word-of-mouth as the hot new thing for the Java platform -- but even with the various quick tour and introductory documents on the language web site, it is clear there are a lot more subtleties to the language to be explained.

With the "stairway book", that explanation is at hand.

The book is aimed at the experienced programmer in 'C' derived imperative languages, with at least some familiarity with the Java language, and ideally some notion about functional programming techniques -- it is not by any stretch of the imagination a "my first programming book". For the intended audience, it is an extremely effective step-by-step guide to the features, and the syntax, of the language.

Concepts are introduced in the context of concrete examples -- such as a representation for rational numbers, a layout engine, or a DSL for modelling logic circuits -- that are revisited and refined throughout the book; and always with the functional approach to the fore, and imperative constructs following (so pattern matching and higher order methods are covered before the "for" expression is completely detailed).

Of particular interest in a world of increasingly multi-core processors is the chapter on concurrency, and the Erlang-style actor based approach (as opposed to the more conventional thread-and-locks style) that the standard Scala library supports.

IronPython, as the first dynamic language on top of the CLR, with version 1.0 released over two years ago, is an important language in the wider world of .net, and yet has been strangely neglected in the English language press (though there has been a Japanese language book available for a couple of years now).

IronPython in Action now fills that surprising gap.

The task the authors set themselves is an heroic one -- to teach Python to .net programmers, and .net to Python programmers, and, just in case that was not enough, several of the more outré parts of .net, and good programming practices, for just about everybody as well. What makes this a great book is that, in the course of about 450 pages, with copious external citations, they actually succeed.

Part of the secret of the success is that this (like Programming In Scala: A Comprehensive Step-By-Step Guide) is not a beginner's book and assumes the reader has a degree of familiarity with basic programming concepts -- for example, the Python "if", "for" and "while" statements are covered together in just over a page, with the link collection in Appendix C there in case a more at length treatment is required -- so freeing space for more advanced material to be covered.

The coverage of the less glamorous parts of .net (such as the System.Management namespace) is more than many mainstream .net books bother with, and the coverage of the sexier new material (WPF, Silverlight) is more measured than in the typical technology-specific text -- enough to be worthwhile whatever .net language you might typically use, even if you don't catch the Python bug.

Declaration of interest: I get cited on page 221 for a blog post I made a couple of years ago.

Every so often, a book comes along that codifies best practice in a way that manages to illuminate the path from where things are right now, to a better place that we'd rather be -- things like Fowler et al. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (Object Technology Series) or the Gang of Four Design patterns : elements of reusable object-oriented software. This is one of those books. And if much of the material is the sort that seems obvious in hindsight -- well, that is the mark of a well written book, to make the concepts that clear.

Taking a series of real world examples -- open source projects with significant user bases, including FitNesse and JUnit -- a series of worked examples take us from good, or at least adequate, code, to a form which is better factored, and easier to read, with the steps along the way clearly marked. Yes, even some of Kent Beck's code is put under the microscope, and carefully polished that extra stage or two more.

The reader is cautioned that, without working long hours to follow these examples, this will be just another of those feel-good books. I don't quite agree -- spending just a little time to follow the transformations, and then reflecting on one's own outpourings should be enough to make this a feel-bad book. All the sins from obscurely named variables to sprawling functions that gaily mix abstraction levels, we've all done them (especially programming in FORTRAN on minicomputers with slow stacks and a rule of thumb that 1 call ~ 40 loc in terms of performance).

The maxim to take from the book is based on Baden-Powell's "Try and leave this world a little better than you found it", and owes to the same school of thought as "whenever you are in the garden, pull at least one weed". The meat of the book is in distinguishing what are the weeds from the intended crop.

So read it, understand the examples, and then refer to it often -- like the other titles mentioned, it is a reference work, and should join them as among the most thumbed on your bookshelf.

I really enjoyed the first two in this series, being stories of people who just happened to be caught up in the day-to-day life of a reasonably plausible future; and from other sources had expected this to be the final volume, and assumed that it would thus culminate in the departure of the Jupiter expedition that has formed the running motivation. But it isn't.

What attracted me about the first two volumes was the not-quite "business as usual" future, with its attention to plausible technical, social and psychological issues, reminiscent of the style of a young Arthur Clarke. This volume is a continuation of the previous two, adding some more back story, without even reaching the launch of the Jupiter expedition. But the thing about continuations is that they by definition don't stay in the same place. And this one drifts from psychological to nigh-mystical in a way that feels like it's copping out.

And there's a teaser for the next volume at the very end, which is a spoiler of the worst sort, one that retroactively casts a shadow over the whole series to date.

Effective, well written and drawn, but drifting away from what I liked about the previous parts.

I bought this album on the strength of having played the Noir soundtrack #1 album nigh to death over the last couple of months. I would have rated this disk higher (3 stars) were it not for the fact that the versions of _Canta per Me_ and _Salva Nos_ here are mere shadows of the originals; particularly the latter, which is arranged, and sung in the technique of, lieder (a style that turns me cold), rather than the choral+descant over a heavy beat.

For the rest of the tracks - well, pleasant to listen to, but I think I shall have to assemble a hybrid compilation for further use.

I don't usually go for soundtracks. But by the time I'd finished watching the first Noir DVD, I thought "I want this music" - mournful romance; Church Latin sung to a techno beat; melancholy atmospherics. Inevitably it has the intro and outro tracks, which are the weakest of the material, book-ending Yuki Kajiura's masterful work.

This is a CD that's rarely left my player since I got it - though it might get displaced by Vol. 2 that's on its way now from amazon.com

Having reached the end of the tale, apart from the sadness that it is now all over, it did not disappoint, unless you really want irrelevant levels of detail in character back-stories to have been expounded. We learn all we need to know, and there is closure.

Disk 7 also gives us some of the fan-service that we'd been missing to date. And a poignant scene when we see that Kirika has finally achieved peace and happiness - and we know that it cannot last.

If I have to pick nits with the series, it's that it was dub-titled (in about four places sub-titles appeared without matching Japanese dialogue, presumably reflecting the English voice script). In all but one of the cases, it was just adding some suggestion of "noises off" for a distant crowd, so could be ignored. The last - which happens on this disk - changes the tenor of a scene - whether one character calls another's name in warning or not. And in a series - and an episode in particular - that relies heavily on subtle nuance as to what the characters are feeling and how they are reacting, that's a big change to make.

Having been put off the American voices and mispronunciations on the first disk, I can't comment on how that version developed.