Adam Laycock

Improving Next.JS File Performance

Making this site run and build better.

ADSync Service Missing on Server

The ADSync service is gone! How do you get it going again?

Images with MDX-Bundler

Co-locate and bundle your images with MDX-Bundler!

MDX Bundler with Next.JS

Using MDX Bundler with Next.JS.

Next.JS

Rewriting this site in Next.JS

This is what Minecraft Needs!

Looking forward to building contraptions with this.

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O was a fantasic read that took up most of my Summer this year.

The way they fit magic into the real world and explain it in a midly scientific manner was very amusing.

The last Neal Sephenson book I read was Seveneves whcih was amazing and is still one of my favourite books so I went into this with high hopes and it did not disapoint.

The first part of the book is a study of how magic works and why it stopped working. I wont spoil it here but it all feels very plausible.

The middle of the book does get bogged down in a lot of bureaucracy in the middle that is entertaining but does get a little fustrating at times. I did like it being there as there is no way a time travel wing of the government would exist without tonnes of oversight and management.

Snow Crash

Snow Crash is quite an old book (1992 is old now?) that I found a little underwhelimg. I've read some of Neal Stephenson's books before, Seveneves is still one of my favourite books, but this one was a little lacking.

Snow Crash is set in the not so distant future (more distant when it was written) where rampant capatalism has created loads of small countries and collapsed the federal/state arms of the US Government. Along side that there is the Metaverse and VR environment that users can connect to over the fibre network.

The Metaverse is a bit of a let down, I picked the book up because of it thinking I was getting another Ready Player One but unfortunatley not. It seems like the Metaverse is secondary to the plot, It could just have easily been a standard on screen MMO and given the same results. Although I am writing this 27 years after the book was written.

Having just read some of his latest work Snow Crash felt less polished and I suppose thats to be expected with its age.

All this aside I did enjoy the book and would reccomend reading it, Neal Stephenson has a habbit of writing very well researched and thought out books that are very intresting reads.