The Amazon Echo was just announced for general availability today, so it's appropriate for me to write a review for our device, which we tested for 2 weeks before somewhat reluctantly packing it up to return to Amazon.
My friend Steve Grimm raved about how it was the closest thing to a Star Trek computer experience that he'd ever had, and to some extent I agree. For me, queries like "What's today's weather" worked perfectly, as did, "Play some music", "Turn it up", "Turn it down", etc. It works way better than Google's voice query (yes, those 7 microphones actually make a huge difference). However, voice recognition didn't work so great for my wife (thick Chinese accent), and surprisingly, it didn't work for Bowen either, who enunciates correctly. This might or might not be a feature, as I can imagine you might not want your child controlling the music. But of course, if it had worked, it would have been huge, since I could off-load all the annoying toddler questions like "Why is the sky blue" to Echo. (And yes, I tried it and Echo does have a scientifically correct and credible answer)
I'm well aware that there's a training app you can store, but the payoff wasn't enough for my wife to even bother, and of course, a training app for a 3-year old is worthless.
In any case, other than the occasional query, it mostly got used as a music device. Amazon Prime music is rather comprehensive, but of course, it wasn't complete. You can upload 200 songs up to it, but of course, that's not nearly enough. I wasn't going to pay for online storage of music when my file server is more than adequate, as is Google music.
Ultimately, if music storage was unlimited (e.g., via integration with Google Music), or if it did a better job of voice recognition sans training, I might have kept the device, especially since we paid $99 for it due to being Prime pre-order customers. For a full $180, I'd want it to do quite a bit more.
Nevertheless, if you're not opposed to paying for music storage, or if the device works for your entire household, then it's a very nice speaker system, and decent value for money. It might take Amazon a couple of generations, but I suspect that a device like this will eventually find its way into our home.
And of course, if it takes off, both Google and Apple will have similar devices out. Which I hope it does. I do look forward to the day when interacting via mouse and keyboard would be considered "quaint."
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Review: Blue Remembered Earth
After the lackluster Terminal World and Slow Bullets, I picked up Blue Remembered Earth with trepidation. Fortunately, this novel is miles better than either of his previous works, and leads me to believe that I will continue to enjoy (and seek out) more Alastair Reynolds books in the future.
Blue Remembered Earth is set in a near future. Nantechnology is common, as are space elevator trips, a moon base, and asteroid mining. The novel depicts Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya, two scions of an African matriarch (Eunice) who single-handedly built a lucrative empire based on space-exploration and exploitation. When the aforementioned matriarch dies, Geoffrey is called on by the other members of the family to investigate a safe-deposit box left on the moon by Eunice.
One thing leads to another, and Geoffrey and Sunday end up in the deep oceans (dealing with the United Aquatic Nations), on Phobos and Mars, as well as a climatic visit to the Kuiper belt. As far as a wild romp through the solar system it's a lot of fun, but the plot device is thin, and extremely tenuous. The world building is entertaining, but not vivid, and of course, Reynolds has no plausible explanation as to why the African continent rose to be an economic super-power other than "I thought it was their turn."
The science is mostly impeccable, and I enjoyed the depiction of man's near future self-created utopia. Lesser writers would have made it something to rebel against, but Reynolds goes out of his way to actually show how it eliminates many of the problems that plague humanity today.
Now, it's not up to par to his previous work such as Revelation Space or House of Suns, but it's still a boldly optimistic view of humanity's near future, something that's rare these days. Recommended.
Blue Remembered Earth is set in a near future. Nantechnology is common, as are space elevator trips, a moon base, and asteroid mining. The novel depicts Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya, two scions of an African matriarch (Eunice) who single-handedly built a lucrative empire based on space-exploration and exploitation. When the aforementioned matriarch dies, Geoffrey is called on by the other members of the family to investigate a safe-deposit box left on the moon by Eunice.
One thing leads to another, and Geoffrey and Sunday end up in the deep oceans (dealing with the United Aquatic Nations), on Phobos and Mars, as well as a climatic visit to the Kuiper belt. As far as a wild romp through the solar system it's a lot of fun, but the plot device is thin, and extremely tenuous. The world building is entertaining, but not vivid, and of course, Reynolds has no plausible explanation as to why the African continent rose to be an economic super-power other than "I thought it was their turn."
The science is mostly impeccable, and I enjoyed the depiction of man's near future self-created utopia. Lesser writers would have made it something to rebel against, but Reynolds goes out of his way to actually show how it eliminates many of the problems that plague humanity today.
Now, it's not up to par to his previous work such as Revelation Space or House of Suns, but it's still a boldly optimistic view of humanity's near future, something that's rare these days. Recommended.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Review: Slow Bullets
In recent years, there's been a proliferation of small press imprints. What these small press imprints try to do is to take short stories or novellas, and use giant fonts, and then publish them as books. This doesn't do very much harm, except tht they usually try to charge full price for such books. This boutique approach seems to work only for genre fiction, where the fan base for an author such as Alastair Reynolds is such that they might be persuaded to pay full price for relatively little value.
Slow Bullets unfortunately comes from just such an imprint. It's clearly experimental fiction: Reynolds strays far afield from the hard science fiction that he's well known for, and sets up the story with a few small premises: a ship has performed a jump that took it into a far future where human civilization is threatened. The ship's computer systems are malfunctioning, and the only way to salvage the situation is to copy data off the systems.
Unfortunately, if you're at all conversant with even the technology of today, you'll know that the premise is ridiculous. Even piss poor smart phones today have 4GB of storage, which is enough to store thousands of books. Sure you can't preserve videos or pictures or even live recordings of music with that little space, but in a crisis situation, you're going to be only concerned with words. As a result the story's technical premise is a shambles and pitiful.
The only redeeming feature of the story is that Reynolds is clearly experimenting with fiction, and the character study of the narrator/protagonist is somewhat interesting, and where the story goes with its (very) lame premise is reflective of his attempt to write a character-based story instead of his usual hard-science approach. Nevertheless, Reynolds isn't great at character development, and in the short space of a novella doesn't really get a chance to do a decent job.
Not recommended, not even for fans of Reynolds. In fact, fans of Reynolds perhaps should especially stay away, as it might diminish your opinion of him after reading.
Slow Bullets unfortunately comes from just such an imprint. It's clearly experimental fiction: Reynolds strays far afield from the hard science fiction that he's well known for, and sets up the story with a few small premises: a ship has performed a jump that took it into a far future where human civilization is threatened. The ship's computer systems are malfunctioning, and the only way to salvage the situation is to copy data off the systems.
Unfortunately, if you're at all conversant with even the technology of today, you'll know that the premise is ridiculous. Even piss poor smart phones today have 4GB of storage, which is enough to store thousands of books. Sure you can't preserve videos or pictures or even live recordings of music with that little space, but in a crisis situation, you're going to be only concerned with words. As a result the story's technical premise is a shambles and pitiful.
The only redeeming feature of the story is that Reynolds is clearly experimenting with fiction, and the character study of the narrator/protagonist is somewhat interesting, and where the story goes with its (very) lame premise is reflective of his attempt to write a character-based story instead of his usual hard-science approach. Nevertheless, Reynolds isn't great at character development, and in the short space of a novella doesn't really get a chance to do a decent job.
Not recommended, not even for fans of Reynolds. In fact, fans of Reynolds perhaps should especially stay away, as it might diminish your opinion of him after reading.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Review: Terminal World
Terminal World is Alastair Reynolds' science fantasy novel set in an Edgar Rice Burroughs Pastiche World. Now, you might argue that it's science fiction, but the reality is that while Reynolds' does provide somewhat plausible explanations for how the world the story is set in came to be the way it is, there's no actual exposition that makes any scientific sense, so the proper classification is science fantasy.
The central conceit behind the novel's machinations is that the world is divided into Zones. Much like Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought novels, Reynolds provides areas of the planet (or even the same city-spire) that have strongly differing tech zones. In some areas, neon lights, flying machines, and high technology work, while in others, only steam engines work, while in some dead spots, even living organisms could not survive.
The protagonist of the novel, Quillion, is a spy sent from one of the higher zones to infiltrate a lower tech zone. He's offended some people, and now has to make a run for it. This plot device gives him motivation to traverse several zones, and of course that means we get to see the world Reynolds has imagined for us.
It's a fun romp, reminiscent of Escaflowne, for instance, with airships mixed in with machine guns, weird cyborg variants, and of course, magic that turns out not to be. If that had been all there was to it, it'd be a short novel, and fun. But Reynolds tries to explore deeper, and show us the origin of the Zones, and the explanation isn't really very convincing or complete. As a result, when the novel ends with obvious room for a sequel, you don't really care very much.
As with other Reynolds' novels, characters are fairly wooden and stereotyped, and Quillion never really develops.
This is a mediocre Reynolds' novel, but of course, that means it's probably much better than most novels you'll read from anyone else. Regardless, however, I'd only recommend it if you've read everything else he's written and are looking for more.
The central conceit behind the novel's machinations is that the world is divided into Zones. Much like Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought novels, Reynolds provides areas of the planet (or even the same city-spire) that have strongly differing tech zones. In some areas, neon lights, flying machines, and high technology work, while in others, only steam engines work, while in some dead spots, even living organisms could not survive.
The protagonist of the novel, Quillion, is a spy sent from one of the higher zones to infiltrate a lower tech zone. He's offended some people, and now has to make a run for it. This plot device gives him motivation to traverse several zones, and of course that means we get to see the world Reynolds has imagined for us.
It's a fun romp, reminiscent of Escaflowne, for instance, with airships mixed in with machine guns, weird cyborg variants, and of course, magic that turns out not to be. If that had been all there was to it, it'd be a short novel, and fun. But Reynolds tries to explore deeper, and show us the origin of the Zones, and the explanation isn't really very convincing or complete. As a result, when the novel ends with obvious room for a sequel, you don't really care very much.
As with other Reynolds' novels, characters are fairly wooden and stereotyped, and Quillion never really develops.
This is a mediocre Reynolds' novel, but of course, that means it's probably much better than most novels you'll read from anyone else. Regardless, however, I'd only recommend it if you've read everything else he's written and are looking for more.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
300 Mile Retrospective: Co-Motion Periscope Triplet
Our ride to the library on Sunday brought the odometer on the Co-Motion Triplet over 300 miles. While I rode a fair number of miles solo (mostly to school in order to pick him up on the bike), Bowen's gotten at least 250 miles or so on it. We've even had to raise the seat a little since he got an inch taller!
The bike is indeed longer, but surprisingly when riding solo it doesn't feel particularly hard or different. I can mostly do the same kind of riding I can do on the other bikes, but have to take into the extra turning radius, which got me in trouble once. The bike is heavy, at over 50 pounds, so riding into the hills won't be done for a little while. For reference, and 3% grade feels like a 6% grade, and a 6% grade feels like a 12% grade. The 24x36 drive train is not nearly over kill.
What's most surprising to me is how much of a handful the bike is to manage when you're not riding it. When parking the bike in the bike shed, I always have to man-handle it in ways I never had to when dealing with the single or tandem. I've beaten up the rear handle bars a few times because I mis-estimated the distance to the door way when maneuvering the bike in and out of the shed.
One thing that I'd read about but didn't really understand until I had one is that your kids aren't going to really get tired on a tandem. They might get bored, thirsty or hungry, but tiredness is not something on the agenda. At this point, Bowen's had 20 mile days, and he'd get home and still want me to chase him around the house. I don't know what his limits are, but 20 miles isn't even close! Others have warned me that a toddler might fall asleep on the bike, but nope. Never happened. The bike's just too much stimulation for Bowen to even consider taking a nap.
One redeeming feature of the bike being this big and heavy is that I don't care about weighing it down further with panniers. The bike always has front panniers aboard, and sometimes have rear panniers when I have to bring Bowen's blankets and sheets home from school. It truly is set up as a utility bike and we frequently drop by the supermarket or library on the way home.
I fully expected the other kids at the school to get used to the bike in short order and treat it as no big deal. But no. Every time I show up to pick Bowen up, the other kids run around and stare. Bowen's learning to develop a thick skin as a result, which can't be a bad thing at all. The bike definitely gets a ton of attention even when riding to and from the library.
The bike's ridiculously expensive, but it all seems worth it for the days when I ask Bowen whether he wants to drive to the library or bike. He says, "Bike of course! The library is so close!" Maybe one day he'll realize that most adults consider a 6 mile round trip a long way to bike. Recommended!
The bike is indeed longer, but surprisingly when riding solo it doesn't feel particularly hard or different. I can mostly do the same kind of riding I can do on the other bikes, but have to take into the extra turning radius, which got me in trouble once. The bike is heavy, at over 50 pounds, so riding into the hills won't be done for a little while. For reference, and 3% grade feels like a 6% grade, and a 6% grade feels like a 12% grade. The 24x36 drive train is not nearly over kill.
What's most surprising to me is how much of a handful the bike is to manage when you're not riding it. When parking the bike in the bike shed, I always have to man-handle it in ways I never had to when dealing with the single or tandem. I've beaten up the rear handle bars a few times because I mis-estimated the distance to the door way when maneuvering the bike in and out of the shed.
One thing that I'd read about but didn't really understand until I had one is that your kids aren't going to really get tired on a tandem. They might get bored, thirsty or hungry, but tiredness is not something on the agenda. At this point, Bowen's had 20 mile days, and he'd get home and still want me to chase him around the house. I don't know what his limits are, but 20 miles isn't even close! Others have warned me that a toddler might fall asleep on the bike, but nope. Never happened. The bike's just too much stimulation for Bowen to even consider taking a nap.
One redeeming feature of the bike being this big and heavy is that I don't care about weighing it down further with panniers. The bike always has front panniers aboard, and sometimes have rear panniers when I have to bring Bowen's blankets and sheets home from school. It truly is set up as a utility bike and we frequently drop by the supermarket or library on the way home.
I fully expected the other kids at the school to get used to the bike in short order and treat it as no big deal. But no. Every time I show up to pick Bowen up, the other kids run around and stare. Bowen's learning to develop a thick skin as a result, which can't be a bad thing at all. The bike definitely gets a ton of attention even when riding to and from the library.
The bike's ridiculously expensive, but it all seems worth it for the days when I ask Bowen whether he wants to drive to the library or bike. He says, "Bike of course! The library is so close!" Maybe one day he'll realize that most adults consider a 6 mile round trip a long way to bike. Recommended!
Monday, June 08, 2015
Review: Deep Navigation
Deep Navigation is a collection of Alastair Reynolds' short stories. His most recent novels have gotten very mixed reviews (plus are part of a trilogy that aren't complete yet), but this collection of short stories is excellent.
Many of them date from earlier in his career, which means that there's a lot of science, and there's relatively little character development. On the other hand, that's what I enjoy most about Alastair Reynold's fiction, so for me, it's a feature, not a bug. (Most of the criticism of his latest work is due to too much mucking about with characters and too little science)
Some of the greats for me include "Stroboscopic", a story about a board game based on some very alien biology. "Viper" explores the idea of using dream-like virtual reality to determine the psychological states of "reformed" criminals. "The Star Surgeon's Apprentice" is an unusual story about pirates in space, and "Fury" is an excellent robot story.
A look at the credits page explained to me why I've encountered none of these stories before: most of them are published in English (as in United Kingdom) magazines or anthologies, with only one story previously published in Asimov's Science Fiction. As a result, even if you are a big Reynolds fan and have subscription to the most popular American Science Fiction magazines you're unlikely to have encountered any in this collection.
If you've never read Reynolds before and have time for a novel, I would recommend starting with Revelation Space. But if you only have bite-sized chunks of time, this collection is a great start and will leave you hungry for more. It is priced well at $6.99.
Recommended.
Many of them date from earlier in his career, which means that there's a lot of science, and there's relatively little character development. On the other hand, that's what I enjoy most about Alastair Reynold's fiction, so for me, it's a feature, not a bug. (Most of the criticism of his latest work is due to too much mucking about with characters and too little science)
Some of the greats for me include "Stroboscopic", a story about a board game based on some very alien biology. "Viper" explores the idea of using dream-like virtual reality to determine the psychological states of "reformed" criminals. "The Star Surgeon's Apprentice" is an unusual story about pirates in space, and "Fury" is an excellent robot story.
A look at the credits page explained to me why I've encountered none of these stories before: most of them are published in English (as in United Kingdom) magazines or anthologies, with only one story previously published in Asimov's Science Fiction. As a result, even if you are a big Reynolds fan and have subscription to the most popular American Science Fiction magazines you're unlikely to have encountered any in this collection.
If you've never read Reynolds before and have time for a novel, I would recommend starting with Revelation Space. But if you only have bite-sized chunks of time, this collection is a great start and will leave you hungry for more. It is priced well at $6.99.
Recommended.
Friday, June 05, 2015
Review: Robot Turtles
I was a kickstarter backer of the Robot Turtles board game way back when. I did it mostly to support a Googler, but also partly because the kickstarter promised to teach my toddler how to program. My understanding of toddler hood is that it's somewhere between 1 and 3. I'm guessing that Dan Shapiro's toddlers must have been very advanced, because even at 2 years of age, Bowen didn't want to do much with the board game except spew the counters all over the floor. I gave up and put it away.
At age 3.5, Bowen now understands the concepts of games, and taking turns. The second time I presented it to him, he finally understood the game, and the idea that playing cards lets you move turtles. He also understands the goal is to move the turtles to a jewel. It took him a while to figure out that the turn left, turn right, and straight ahead cards are turtle-relative, rather than him relative. And he delights in crying out "BUG!".
In just a few days, he's gone from being challenged in getting the turtle to its destination on an empty board, to being able to negotiate a maze, deal with moving crates, and lasering ice walls. I don't go a day without him asking to play Robot Turtles with me, and he loves screaming "BUG!" to reverse a bad move.
I haven't managed to get him into the planning stage of the game, where you play 3 moves at once, and of course, that's necessary in order to get to the part of the game where you build subroutines. But given the amount of play Bowen's gotten out of it, suffice to say that it's been worth the $25 kickstarter price or the current $21 Amazon price.
The nit-picks are that the instructions refer to an online video to teach you how to play the game. That video is non-existent (Shapiro probably got bored trying to make it). It would be nice if the game came with sample mazes, etc. It's not a big deal that such refinements aren't there, but they're so obviously that it's disappointing that they're not.
Nevertheless, the game comes recommended.
At age 3.5, Bowen now understands the concepts of games, and taking turns. The second time I presented it to him, he finally understood the game, and the idea that playing cards lets you move turtles. He also understands the goal is to move the turtles to a jewel. It took him a while to figure out that the turn left, turn right, and straight ahead cards are turtle-relative, rather than him relative. And he delights in crying out "BUG!".
In just a few days, he's gone from being challenged in getting the turtle to its destination on an empty board, to being able to negotiate a maze, deal with moving crates, and lasering ice walls. I don't go a day without him asking to play Robot Turtles with me, and he loves screaming "BUG!" to reverse a bad move.
I haven't managed to get him into the planning stage of the game, where you play 3 moves at once, and of course, that's necessary in order to get to the part of the game where you build subroutines. But given the amount of play Bowen's gotten out of it, suffice to say that it's been worth the $25 kickstarter price or the current $21 Amazon price.
The nit-picks are that the instructions refer to an online video to teach you how to play the game. That video is non-existent (Shapiro probably got bored trying to make it). It would be nice if the game came with sample mazes, etc. It's not a big deal that such refinements aren't there, but they're so obviously that it's disappointing that they're not.
Nevertheless, the game comes recommended.
Thursday, June 04, 2015
Review: Your Body in the World: Adapting to Your next Big Adventure
I'm not much of a classroom learner, preferring workshops and independent reading rather than the traditional classroom lecture + exam format. But when I saw the promo video for Stanford's Environmental Physiology 101 class, I was hooked. It seemed targeted almost entirely towards someone like me.
The courseware is surprisingly well done (this being my first MOOC, I was blissfully unaware of all the tech that goes into these sites). For instance, after you register and login, you can watch videos (hosted on YouTube), which you can tune the speed of (I watched them all at 125% speedup, to save time). If you're interrupted in the middle of a video (e.g., browser window crashed, or your toddler comes by and asks you to play Robot Turtles), the courseware remembers where you were, and puts you back in your last visited location. Even the video gets restarted from where you left off, which is awesome.
As to the content itself, it's great. The class goes first through both cold and heat, which gives you great practical tips on how to deal with such extremes. What really hooked me, however, was the section on aging as an environmental extreme. This module covered all the aspects of aging, and what goes on but more importantly, gives you practical, actionable changes you can apply to ameliorate or even partially reverse the effect of aging. (Spoiler: it's all about diet and exercise)
It's a truism of education that the people who most need a certain class are the people least likely to attend. It's no less true of EP101. In particular, the module on aging calls out how much more likely it is that petite women are likely to succumb to the most deleterious effects. Unfortunately, the way the promo video for this class is done, it's also least likely to attract that demographic I have very little hope that my wife or any number of my friends who fall into this category will sign up and audit this class, but in the slim chance that they do, they should jump straight to the section on aging.
For me, it was very motivational. I couldn't work through that section's videos without being scared into wanting to go out and exercise (and I'm no couch potato!).
My only criticism in the class is that it doesn't cover the ultra-marathons (RAAM) or extreme sleep deprivation events (anywhere from having a baby to doing any of the solo sailing races). But hey, the class is free! My other issue with the class is that the online discussion forum doesn't seem to get the attention of the instructor and her TA. Also, the review questions and exams are too easy. But maybe that's just an indictment of grade inflation found in modern instructional program.
In any case, as an introduction to MOOCs, and a survey of topics that are both fun and interesting, I thought this class was very much worth my time. Highly recommended!
The courseware is surprisingly well done (this being my first MOOC, I was blissfully unaware of all the tech that goes into these sites). For instance, after you register and login, you can watch videos (hosted on YouTube), which you can tune the speed of (I watched them all at 125% speedup, to save time). If you're interrupted in the middle of a video (e.g., browser window crashed, or your toddler comes by and asks you to play Robot Turtles), the courseware remembers where you were, and puts you back in your last visited location. Even the video gets restarted from where you left off, which is awesome.
As to the content itself, it's great. The class goes first through both cold and heat, which gives you great practical tips on how to deal with such extremes. What really hooked me, however, was the section on aging as an environmental extreme. This module covered all the aspects of aging, and what goes on but more importantly, gives you practical, actionable changes you can apply to ameliorate or even partially reverse the effect of aging. (Spoiler: it's all about diet and exercise)
It's a truism of education that the people who most need a certain class are the people least likely to attend. It's no less true of EP101. In particular, the module on aging calls out how much more likely it is that petite women are likely to succumb to the most deleterious effects. Unfortunately, the way the promo video for this class is done, it's also least likely to attract that demographic I have very little hope that my wife or any number of my friends who fall into this category will sign up and audit this class, but in the slim chance that they do, they should jump straight to the section on aging.
For me, it was very motivational. I couldn't work through that section's videos without being scared into wanting to go out and exercise (and I'm no couch potato!).
My only criticism in the class is that it doesn't cover the ultra-marathons (RAAM) or extreme sleep deprivation events (anywhere from having a baby to doing any of the solo sailing races). But hey, the class is free! My other issue with the class is that the online discussion forum doesn't seem to get the attention of the instructor and her TA. Also, the review questions and exams are too easy. But maybe that's just an indictment of grade inflation found in modern instructional program.
In any case, as an introduction to MOOCs, and a survey of topics that are both fun and interesting, I thought this class was very much worth my time. Highly recommended!
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
Review: Smart As (Vita)
Recently, my father's doctor told him to start doing some brain games as part of his recovery from stroke. I remember playing Smart As for a bit and that it fell into that category, so while visiting him, I let him have my Vita and play it. I had set up a Wii for him in his house prior to this, but the problem with a home console is that the effort for an older person to learn to turn it on, switch HDMI inputs, etc. was just too much. The Vita has a touch screen, and most of the games don't require any thing more complicated than touching the front or back touch pads on the device.
Well, Bowen saw the game, and immediately took to it, and now refers to Smart As as the "drawing letters game." Basically, he starts the game, switches to the language module, and then starts the spelling game! Since he hasn't actually learnt to spell, I'd tell him each letter as he needs it, and he'll draw the character. It's very cute, since every time we get to a letter that he can't draw, he'll shake his head and I'll pick up his finger and draw it for him. He's learnt how to draw a few more letters this way, with me guiding him.
The games are split into four categories: language, math, observation, and logic. Each mini game comes in multiple difficulty levels, and while the easy levels truly are easy (though some of the logic puzzles at easy difficulty are plenty hard!) as you work your way up the difficulty levels you end up
at incredibly fiendish levels, including words that I have trouble with!
The game has a "daily training" functionality, which basically tests a random game from each category and then comes up with a bogus "brain meter". It's fun, but the problem is that it's used to unlock various games in the other free play modes, so you're pretty much forced to wait before all the games get unlocked.
There's also a "street smarts" area where local (to your area) challenges are played and you can visit different places to get different challenges. I didn't explore this too much, but in my limited play the biggest problem is that the loading time is exceedingly long.
Regardless, if you have a Vita and a kid, this is one of those games you probably wouldn't mind seeing your kid play lots of. Recommended.
Well, Bowen saw the game, and immediately took to it, and now refers to Smart As as the "drawing letters game." Basically, he starts the game, switches to the language module, and then starts the spelling game! Since he hasn't actually learnt to spell, I'd tell him each letter as he needs it, and he'll draw the character. It's very cute, since every time we get to a letter that he can't draw, he'll shake his head and I'll pick up his finger and draw it for him. He's learnt how to draw a few more letters this way, with me guiding him.
The games are split into four categories: language, math, observation, and logic. Each mini game comes in multiple difficulty levels, and while the easy levels truly are easy (though some of the logic puzzles at easy difficulty are plenty hard!) as you work your way up the difficulty levels you end up
at incredibly fiendish levels, including words that I have trouble with!
The game has a "daily training" functionality, which basically tests a random game from each category and then comes up with a bogus "brain meter". It's fun, but the problem is that it's used to unlock various games in the other free play modes, so you're pretty much forced to wait before all the games get unlocked.
There's also a "street smarts" area where local (to your area) challenges are played and you can visit different places to get different challenges. I didn't explore this too much, but in my limited play the biggest problem is that the loading time is exceedingly long.
Regardless, if you have a Vita and a kid, this is one of those games you probably wouldn't mind seeing your kid play lots of. Recommended.
Monday, June 01, 2015
Garmin Live Tracking
The Vivoactive has a cool feature that I didn't realize about in my initial review. It turns out that you can enable Live Tracking on it.
Why might you want to use Live Tracking? The most common use case is the "concerned spouse." You're going off on a solo bike ride to who knows where, and your spouse says, "What if something happens to you?" Your answer can then be, "I'll turn on Live Tracking. You'll get an e-mail with a link. That link will take you to a map showing where I am, what my progress has been, and that way you don't have to panic if I'm a little late." Another interesting use case is to stick a Live Tracking device on your free range kid while he runs off hiking/cycling/wandering the neighborhood. Of course, that means you'd have to hand him a Garmin-enabled cell phone as well, and he would still have the capability of turning it off. Note that you don't have to buy a dedicated device: you can pay for a subscription to Garmin Fit Android or iOS app instead.
Most of you who are Android users will probably remember when Google Latitude provided much of the same functionality, but nobody used it because (1) it was a massive privacy invasion (2) it was a battery suck. The fact that it requires an explicit e-mail invite and the user has to activate it eliminates (1), and that it depends mostly on your device's battery to power the GPS rather than the phone's makes it easier on (2).
Here's how it works. You go into the Garmin Connect app on your phone. Select "Live Tracking", enter the e-mail address of your concerned one, and then push the "start" button on the Vivoactive. The e-mail goes out immediately, and your progress is hence force updated via your phone's data plan.
There are a few obvious limitations to this. First, if you have no data access, the live track won't update. That's not a big deal for cycling, since you will almost always have data in populated areas. It is a problem if you're going to go base jumping in Yosemite National Park. Secondly, it does impose a battery drain in that your phone has to update the live track. On my Xperia Z1, it looked like the drain is somewhere around 10% per hour: much less than if I was running GPS on my phone, but still significant, though it looks like my Vivoactive's 10 hour battery life will drain in much less time than the phone's.
All in all, it's an interesting feature that I will probably make use.
Why might you want to use Live Tracking? The most common use case is the "concerned spouse." You're going off on a solo bike ride to who knows where, and your spouse says, "What if something happens to you?" Your answer can then be, "I'll turn on Live Tracking. You'll get an e-mail with a link. That link will take you to a map showing where I am, what my progress has been, and that way you don't have to panic if I'm a little late." Another interesting use case is to stick a Live Tracking device on your free range kid while he runs off hiking/cycling/wandering the neighborhood. Of course, that means you'd have to hand him a Garmin-enabled cell phone as well, and he would still have the capability of turning it off. Note that you don't have to buy a dedicated device: you can pay for a subscription to Garmin Fit Android or iOS app instead.
Most of you who are Android users will probably remember when Google Latitude provided much of the same functionality, but nobody used it because (1) it was a massive privacy invasion (2) it was a battery suck. The fact that it requires an explicit e-mail invite and the user has to activate it eliminates (1), and that it depends mostly on your device's battery to power the GPS rather than the phone's makes it easier on (2).
Here's how it works. You go into the Garmin Connect app on your phone. Select "Live Tracking", enter the e-mail address of your concerned one, and then push the "start" button on the Vivoactive. The e-mail goes out immediately, and your progress is hence force updated via your phone's data plan.
There are a few obvious limitations to this. First, if you have no data access, the live track won't update. That's not a big deal for cycling, since you will almost always have data in populated areas. It is a problem if you're going to go base jumping in Yosemite National Park. Secondly, it does impose a battery drain in that your phone has to update the live track. On my Xperia Z1, it looked like the drain is somewhere around 10% per hour: much less than if I was running GPS on my phone, but still significant, though it looks like my Vivoactive's 10 hour battery life will drain in much less time than the phone's.
All in all, it's an interesting feature that I will probably make use.
Friday, May 29, 2015
Review: The Hero of Ages
The Hero of Ages is the last book in Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. The first book was great, the second book was mediocre, and the third book never quite reaches the heights of the first book, but is significantly better than the second.
Like the other books, this novel has two intertwining narratives, and one of the games the reader is supposed to guess is to figure out who the narrator of the opening portion of each chapter is. The book also does a good job of tying up all the loose ends in the series, and also providing explanations for various events that had happened in the past. In particular, I thought the reveal about Vin's earrings was very well done --- it was fair, had clearly been plotted far in advance, and explained much.
The reveal about the nature of the mists, the mythology behind the actual creation of the world, and the use and role of religions in the world are all decent, but you can feel the gears of the authors' mind working behind the scenes. Everything fits neatly, but the exposition is a bit obvious.
Alas, the action sequences seem to have taken a big dip in this latest novel, while the character development hasn't been much better. The magic system gets developed further, but not all of its mysteries are solved, providing room for a sequel (though given how this series has developed, I'm not sure I'd pursue any sequels).
Having read the entire trilogy, do I think it's worth the effort? Barely. The whole series would make for a good summer read, but I wouldn't go out of the way to find it.
Mildly recommended.
Like the other books, this novel has two intertwining narratives, and one of the games the reader is supposed to guess is to figure out who the narrator of the opening portion of each chapter is. The book also does a good job of tying up all the loose ends in the series, and also providing explanations for various events that had happened in the past. In particular, I thought the reveal about Vin's earrings was very well done --- it was fair, had clearly been plotted far in advance, and explained much.
The reveal about the nature of the mists, the mythology behind the actual creation of the world, and the use and role of religions in the world are all decent, but you can feel the gears of the authors' mind working behind the scenes. Everything fits neatly, but the exposition is a bit obvious.
Alas, the action sequences seem to have taken a big dip in this latest novel, while the character development hasn't been much better. The magic system gets developed further, but not all of its mysteries are solved, providing room for a sequel (though given how this series has developed, I'm not sure I'd pursue any sequels).
Having read the entire trilogy, do I think it's worth the effort? Barely. The whole series would make for a good summer read, but I wouldn't go out of the way to find it.
Mildly recommended.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Review: RAVPower 3200mAh external powerbank
I'd come to realize that my RAVPower 10400mAh was really overpowered for daily use. It's great on boats where I need enough power for overnight use, but for day trips, I didn't want to carry something that big. I waited for the 3200mAH pack to drop below $10, and jumped on it. What tipped the difference for me was the LED flashlight that came with it, which ads a level of usefulness when camping.
Unboxing the package, it's way bigger than I expected, about the same length as the 10400mAH battery. It's much lighter and narrower, however, so I can fit it in my pockets and it won't weigh me down. It's sufficient to recharge my Xperia Z1 from about half-full, or my Edge 800 multiple times from empty. Charging time is about two hours, which is surprisingly long but not a big deal for general use.
Recommended.
Unboxing the package, it's way bigger than I expected, about the same length as the 10400mAH battery. It's much lighter and narrower, however, so I can fit it in my pockets and it won't weigh me down. It's sufficient to recharge my Xperia Z1 from about half-full, or my Edge 800 multiple times from empty. Charging time is about two hours, which is surprisingly long but not a big deal for general use.
Recommended.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Review: OXO Tot Tub Drain Stopper
My old tub drain stopper started leaking, so I went to look for a replacement. The OXO one came highly recommended on Amazon, and I ordered one despite my skepticism. It's over-sized, and drops into the tub cover with no problems. It didn't look like it would work, but once water gets into the tub over it, even a bit of water seals the stopper and holds it tight. Much simpler than my previous mechanical spring-loaded stopper which had to be taken apart and fixed once by me before failing completely.
Recommended.
Recommended.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Review: Excelsteel 18/10 Stainless 4 Non Stick Egg Poacher
I love onsen eggs coming out of the sous vide machine, but unfortunately, I'm the only one in the family who does, and it does take a long time to cook. I remember Xiaoqin liking the poached eggs in the eggs benedict she ordered once, but not the sauce. I do enjoy it as an occasional treat, so I bought the specialized egg poacher on Amazon.
My first impression upon receiving it was how small it was. That's an advantage both in shelf-space, as well as in cooking. The small pan takes relatively little water and boils quickly, getting your eggs poached fast! The transparent cover is great: you get to see your eggs whiten, and then become opaque, letting you know when to remove them.
I like my egg yolks soggy, so a minute or two after they've turned opaque, I use tongs to remove one and then eat it that way. The rest of the family seems to like their yolks much more cooked (or in Bowen's case, with no yolk at all), so I then turn off the heat and let the eggs simmer some more.
Clean up is effortless because everything is non-stick, and extraction from the cups is also easy, once you've seasoned it. The manufacturers recommend non-stock spray, but I just take a stick of butter and swish it around the cups.
The bad: the tray holding the cups is super thin stainless steel. Get even a bit of egg on it and it'll discolor. No change to functionality, but if you're the type who likes their cookware pristine, this won't stay pristine for long. Fortunately, I'm not one of those.
Recommended.
My first impression upon receiving it was how small it was. That's an advantage both in shelf-space, as well as in cooking. The small pan takes relatively little water and boils quickly, getting your eggs poached fast! The transparent cover is great: you get to see your eggs whiten, and then become opaque, letting you know when to remove them.
I like my egg yolks soggy, so a minute or two after they've turned opaque, I use tongs to remove one and then eat it that way. The rest of the family seems to like their yolks much more cooked (or in Bowen's case, with no yolk at all), so I then turn off the heat and let the eggs simmer some more.
Clean up is effortless because everything is non-stick, and extraction from the cups is also easy, once you've seasoned it. The manufacturers recommend non-stock spray, but I just take a stick of butter and swish it around the cups.
The bad: the tray holding the cups is super thin stainless steel. Get even a bit of egg on it and it'll discolor. No change to functionality, but if you're the type who likes their cookware pristine, this won't stay pristine for long. Fortunately, I'm not one of those.
Recommended.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Review: Garmin Vivoactive
Last year, I bought, tested, and returned the Garmin Vivofit. While it was a reasonable device for the people who are looking to start exercising or otherwise return to fitness, it wasn't a suitable product for someone like me. When prices dropped this year, however, I bought 2 for my parents to replace the pedometers that had been very flakey for them. The Vivofit was an ideal product for them: it didn't need to be recharged, and sync'ing to their PC was a matter of pushing a button and waiting while Garmin Express picked up and uploaded to the cloud. Even better, they didn't need to sync more than once every week or so, and the product would survive being worn 24x7, so they didn't get a chance to forget to put it on. It would even survive being washed in the laundry!
While buying the Vivofits, however, I noticed that Garmin had launched the Vivoactive, a product much more suited for someone like me. Since my brother had a birthday incoming, I bought him one, despite his skepticism. (My brother is an Apple iPhone user, and a first-round Kickstarter backer of the first generation Pebble Smartwatch) Upon receiving the Vivoactive, he was so positive about it that he'd asked my other brother for a full suite of Garmin Bike Sensors for his birthday. It immediately replaced his Pebble, and got him to track his cycling and steps/day as well. (He once had an Edge 305, but never replaced it once the battery died)
With that level of enthusiasm, I bought one for myself with the help of a Best Buy coupon. If you know me, I'm as cheap as they come. When I told one of my friends that he was as cheap as I was, he said he didn't know whether he should have felt complimented or offended. To get an idea of why the Vivoactive is such a good value, consider that it converges/replaces the following products all at once:
So how does the Vivoactive work out in real life? The first feature you notice when you power it on is the always-on watch display. If you're lifelong watch-wearer, then this wouldn't seem like a big deal. But I hadn't worn a watch since I was 21, and the first time I saw someone wearing an Apple Watch I thought it was broken or the battery had run down because the screen was blank. It wasn't until the person stooped to pick up something and the display flashed on that I realized that it was a power saving feature to blank the screen. I'm happy to say that the Vivoactive serves as a watch just fine, with a white-on-black default display for time, date, and current charge status. It's not flashy and doesn't call attention to itself, but it's thin and robust, and you don't have to use an exaggerated motion of the wrist in order to tell time.
One interesting thing about sync'ing it to my PC is that my version of Garmin Express was old, and hadn't updated itself (I didn't realize that it didn't do that). When I plugged in my Vivoactive, it got confused and led me down a garden path trying to sync with it until I realized the problem and upgraded it. After that it was a snap, downloading and installing new firmware onto my Vivoactive quickly and easily.
The Vivoactive came charged to 92%, so I immediately went and took it for a ride, pairing it with my bike's sensors, heart-rate monitor and running an Edge 800 in parallel, so I could see the results. Here's the Vivoactive track, and here's the Edge 800 track. You can see that with the exception of elevation data, both tracks are essentially indistinguishable from each other. What you can't see, is that the Vivoactive was much faster at satellite lockon and booting up than the Edge 800! Brad Silverberg had raved to me on Facebook about how quickly GLONASS+GPS locked on, and I hadn't realized how quick it was until I did the back-to-back comparison against the Garmin Edge. Let's just say that while I could keep the Edge 800 confused for half a minute by cycling quickly during the boot up phase, I could not keep the Vivoactive confused for even 5 seconds. Even more importantly, because the Vivoactive is an "always on" watch, there's no boot up period! Even before you can select the "Bike" function and push the start button, the GPS function has already turned on and satellite tracking has started!
Even more importantly, the display, albeit small compared to the Edge, was crisper, brighter, and more readable in direct sunlight! It beats the Edge 800 by a mile in that regard. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that it beats my 2-year old Basic Kindle, which of course outperformed any color screen in daylight until the Vivoactive came along. I don't have a Paperwhite to compare it with, unfortunately. By the way, you'll read about how difficult to read the display is indoors on Amazon reviews. I call bollocks. It's actually far easier than any of the traditional watches I've ever seen!
If you turn on GPS+GLONASS, your battery life isn't going to be anywhere the 10 hours claimed by Garmin for GPS tracking. But overall, the Vivoactive more than holds its own against my Edge, with the exception of elevation, where it's within about 5%.
Next-up, hiking/walking. I'll note that if you have an Edge unit, you can buy a (relatively) cheap wrist-strap, stick your Edge on it, and use it to track your hikes. I've done that in the past for hikes, but it's not as satisfactory in that you don't get pace data, nor do you get the step counter functionality (which runs in the background!). Again, with GLONASS+GPS, you can even see where I cheated and cut across the parking lot at the end of the hike. The Vivoactive is also much more comfortable to wear on your wrist than any of the Garmin Edge units, which are thick, bulky, and aren't really intended to be worn so you have to tilt your head a bit to read them.
Swimming: I did a swimming workout and discovered to my disappointment that the device doesn't actually attempt to figure out what swim stroke you're using, which Garmin Swim does. What it did do a good job with, however, is to provide a stroke count, time per lap, and lap count. (The latter is useful because swimming is so boring that I swim with headphones and music, and occasionally would lose count and forget to switch to the next segment of my workout) Reviewing the data from the session, I could clearly see the kick-board laps, and it was fairly easy to see when I was using the crawl vs the backstroke, breast-stroke, etc. So while stroke detection would have been nice (which to be fair Garmin Swim does do), it's not necessary. If I was a more serious swimmer I'd try to improve my times, etc. But much like the Vivoactive, I'm a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.
Now, Open-Water Swim is explicitly not a feature of the Vivoactive, but I tried it anyway, since I was in an outdoor pool by using walking mode. The results are as you might expect: with only intermittent GPS pickup (yes, I had GLONASS on as well), the track jumps all over the place and the errors are huge. On the other hand, it's better than nothing, and you do get what seems to be a reasonable mileage reading at the end. Note that while Swim mode turns off the touch screen, walking mode doesn't, and that can cause weird things to happen due to water splashes. On the other hand, since the start/stop button is a physical one, you can't accidentally lose data due to the water splashes.
As far as smart-watch notifications are concerned, they're actually surprisingly useful, especially when cycling. I'm used to ignoring my smartphone's various noises while cycling, though I do stop to take calls when I'm not wearing a bluetooth headset. It's very nice to see e-mails/texts flow through to the watch, glance at them, and then let them disappear, knowing that it's nothing urgent. This is one feature that's surprisingly useful whether you're driving, cycling, or even in the middle of the hike. What I did not test is the music control functionality. That's because when hiking, I use a bluetooth headset which has physical buttons for controls, and that's just going to be better than any touch screen. The same applies while driving. While you can click through on a notification and read the e-mail or text message, you can't reply on the Vivosmart. For that, you'd have to pull out the phone, which I think is a perfectly acceptable approach.
As an activity tracker, the device works as well as the Vivofit. What's nice is the automatic sync'ing via smartphone. Of course, this leaves me with a dilemna, since the Edge 800's data is definitive, but doesn't get sync'd more than once a week, while the Vivofit's data is always up to date, but has suspect elevation data. Given the convenience, however, I am very tempted to use the Vivofit's data and just not ever sync my Edge 800, using it as an on-board display, and an odometer for each bike, which is something the Vivoactive doesn't do. (Neither does the follow-on Edge 810, for that matter!) The Vivoactive (like the Vivofit, Vivofit 2, and the Vivosmart), nags you every hour to walk about 100 steps or so in order to stay active. The vibration is subtle and not aggressive, but it's there and the red-bar is very much guilt-inducing, so if you tend to sit a lot (and what Software Engineer doesn't), that's a good feature. I was previously using Moves, and running both the Vivosmart and the app confirms what I've long suspected: Moves systematically under-counts steps and miles cycled. Since Moves got bought by Facebook, the app has not been updated and I suspect the server-side applications will probably be killed before long, just like Friendfeed was. The competing app Google Fit gets crappy reviews even from ex-Googlers, explaining why FitBit, for instance has been so successful that it will soon file for an IPO.
As a sleep tracker, the data is nice, but I'm not sure what to do with it. In combination with my CPAP machine, however, I now have more data than I know what to do with. The only thing I'm missing now is an oxymeter, which has already been proven to be remarkably worthless for someone like me.
The battery life is acceptable. With 3 hours of hiking, 2 hours of cycling (all with GLONASS+GPS on), an hour of swimming, and 2 days of sleep tracking and activity tracking, the battery was down to 40% after 2 days. I expect the battery life to be better with GLONASS off. The battery charges from 40% to 99% in about 90 minutes from a computer's USB port.
As far as comparison with other devices are concerned, the obvious one is the Garmin Fenix 3. This offers most of the features of the Vivoactive, plus Openwater Swim, Triathlon mode, a real barometer, a compass, climbing mode, and a skiing/snowboarding mode. Of course, at twice the price ($500, $600 for the super-tough sapphire version), you literally pay for it. It's also much thicker, heavier, and bulkier. While the barometer is nice, elevation data isn't very accurate if the unit's thermometer is next to your skin, since to get correct elevation you need accurate air temperature. So if you want a reliable temperature you need to also pick up the Tempe sensor, which is also compatible with the Vivoactive. From my perspective, I think Garmin lost an opportunity by not selling an external barometer/temperature sensor for the Vivoactive.
The inevitable comparison is with the Apple Watch. Here in Silicon Valley, I've already seen many people walking around with those blank screens attached to their wrists. But that's a function of Apple marketing much more than anything else. If the two products had their parent companies swapped, I'm pretty sure the features of the Vivoactive would be touted as revolutionary (week-long battery life, thinner, swim tracking, 50m water resistance, GPS+GLONASS that doesn't depend on your phone) while folks would be making fun of the Apple Watch (wearing a thicker blank screen? Having to charge every day so it can't even do sleep tracking?). But that is what it is. Despite next to zero marketing from Garmin, my local REI (in Silicon Valley!) reports that their black Vivoactives (sans heart rate monitors) sell out as soon as they come in, and that they only have the white ones in stock. So it does seem that the outdoors people do understand and value the product, even while the tech press (and the outdoor press, as far as I can tell!) has basically ignored the Vivoactive.
Regardless, the Vivoactive comes highly recommended. The value and functionality this product represents are pretty much unbeatable. Even if you're not a watch wearer (I wasn't), you might consider this product as worthy of possibly changing your mind. As mentioned above, if you use any 2 of the functions the Vivoactive supports regularly, you'll get your money's worth (and then some --- there's significant value to convergence into a package that's smaller than every one of the products the Vivoactive replaces). The only folks I can think of who would be unhappy with the product are the ones who use Windows Phones and hence lose out on the smartwatch features, but even for those folks, having to sync the device manually through a PC might be worth the trouble if they're regular swimmers.
Further reading: DC Rainmaker's In-Depth Review
While buying the Vivofits, however, I noticed that Garmin had launched the Vivoactive, a product much more suited for someone like me. Since my brother had a birthday incoming, I bought him one, despite his skepticism. (My brother is an Apple iPhone user, and a first-round Kickstarter backer of the first generation Pebble Smartwatch) Upon receiving the Vivoactive, he was so positive about it that he'd asked my other brother for a full suite of Garmin Bike Sensors for his birthday. It immediately replaced his Pebble, and got him to track his cycling and steps/day as well. (He once had an Edge 305, but never replaced it once the battery died)
With that level of enthusiasm, I bought one for myself with the help of a Best Buy coupon. If you know me, I'm as cheap as they come. When I told one of my friends that he was as cheap as I was, he said he didn't know whether he should have felt complimented or offended. To get an idea of why the Vivoactive is such a good value, consider that it converges/replaces the following products all at once:
- Garmin Swim ($150): stroke tracking, lap counting, swim timer
- Garmin Vivosmart ($150): Step tracking, sleep tracking, smartphone notifications, ant+ bike sensor and hrm pairing, VIRB action camera control, auto-sync
- Garmin Edge 200 ($130): Cycling GPS (no barometer, no sensor pairing)
- Garmin Approach S2 ($190): Golf GPS. I'm not a golfer, so no comment.
- Garmin Forerunner 220 ($200): Running GPS with foot pod pairing and accelerometer for indoor training.
So how does the Vivoactive work out in real life? The first feature you notice when you power it on is the always-on watch display. If you're lifelong watch-wearer, then this wouldn't seem like a big deal. But I hadn't worn a watch since I was 21, and the first time I saw someone wearing an Apple Watch I thought it was broken or the battery had run down because the screen was blank. It wasn't until the person stooped to pick up something and the display flashed on that I realized that it was a power saving feature to blank the screen. I'm happy to say that the Vivoactive serves as a watch just fine, with a white-on-black default display for time, date, and current charge status. It's not flashy and doesn't call attention to itself, but it's thin and robust, and you don't have to use an exaggerated motion of the wrist in order to tell time.
One interesting thing about sync'ing it to my PC is that my version of Garmin Express was old, and hadn't updated itself (I didn't realize that it didn't do that). When I plugged in my Vivoactive, it got confused and led me down a garden path trying to sync with it until I realized the problem and upgraded it. After that it was a snap, downloading and installing new firmware onto my Vivoactive quickly and easily.
The Vivoactive came charged to 92%, so I immediately went and took it for a ride, pairing it with my bike's sensors, heart-rate monitor and running an Edge 800 in parallel, so I could see the results. Here's the Vivoactive track, and here's the Edge 800 track. You can see that with the exception of elevation data, both tracks are essentially indistinguishable from each other. What you can't see, is that the Vivoactive was much faster at satellite lockon and booting up than the Edge 800! Brad Silverberg had raved to me on Facebook about how quickly GLONASS+GPS locked on, and I hadn't realized how quick it was until I did the back-to-back comparison against the Garmin Edge. Let's just say that while I could keep the Edge 800 confused for half a minute by cycling quickly during the boot up phase, I could not keep the Vivoactive confused for even 5 seconds. Even more importantly, because the Vivoactive is an "always on" watch, there's no boot up period! Even before you can select the "Bike" function and push the start button, the GPS function has already turned on and satellite tracking has started!
Even more importantly, the display, albeit small compared to the Edge, was crisper, brighter, and more readable in direct sunlight! It beats the Edge 800 by a mile in that regard. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that it beats my 2-year old Basic Kindle, which of course outperformed any color screen in daylight until the Vivoactive came along. I don't have a Paperwhite to compare it with, unfortunately. By the way, you'll read about how difficult to read the display is indoors on Amazon reviews. I call bollocks. It's actually far easier than any of the traditional watches I've ever seen!
If you turn on GPS+GLONASS, your battery life isn't going to be anywhere the 10 hours claimed by Garmin for GPS tracking. But overall, the Vivoactive more than holds its own against my Edge, with the exception of elevation, where it's within about 5%.
Next-up, hiking/walking. I'll note that if you have an Edge unit, you can buy a (relatively) cheap wrist-strap, stick your Edge on it, and use it to track your hikes. I've done that in the past for hikes, but it's not as satisfactory in that you don't get pace data, nor do you get the step counter functionality (which runs in the background!). Again, with GLONASS+GPS, you can even see where I cheated and cut across the parking lot at the end of the hike. The Vivoactive is also much more comfortable to wear on your wrist than any of the Garmin Edge units, which are thick, bulky, and aren't really intended to be worn so you have to tilt your head a bit to read them.
Swimming: I did a swimming workout and discovered to my disappointment that the device doesn't actually attempt to figure out what swim stroke you're using, which Garmin Swim does. What it did do a good job with, however, is to provide a stroke count, time per lap, and lap count. (The latter is useful because swimming is so boring that I swim with headphones and music, and occasionally would lose count and forget to switch to the next segment of my workout) Reviewing the data from the session, I could clearly see the kick-board laps, and it was fairly easy to see when I was using the crawl vs the backstroke, breast-stroke, etc. So while stroke detection would have been nice (which to be fair Garmin Swim does do), it's not necessary. If I was a more serious swimmer I'd try to improve my times, etc. But much like the Vivoactive, I'm a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.
Now, Open-Water Swim is explicitly not a feature of the Vivoactive, but I tried it anyway, since I was in an outdoor pool by using walking mode. The results are as you might expect: with only intermittent GPS pickup (yes, I had GLONASS on as well), the track jumps all over the place and the errors are huge. On the other hand, it's better than nothing, and you do get what seems to be a reasonable mileage reading at the end. Note that while Swim mode turns off the touch screen, walking mode doesn't, and that can cause weird things to happen due to water splashes. On the other hand, since the start/stop button is a physical one, you can't accidentally lose data due to the water splashes.
As far as smart-watch notifications are concerned, they're actually surprisingly useful, especially when cycling. I'm used to ignoring my smartphone's various noises while cycling, though I do stop to take calls when I'm not wearing a bluetooth headset. It's very nice to see e-mails/texts flow through to the watch, glance at them, and then let them disappear, knowing that it's nothing urgent. This is one feature that's surprisingly useful whether you're driving, cycling, or even in the middle of the hike. What I did not test is the music control functionality. That's because when hiking, I use a bluetooth headset which has physical buttons for controls, and that's just going to be better than any touch screen. The same applies while driving. While you can click through on a notification and read the e-mail or text message, you can't reply on the Vivosmart. For that, you'd have to pull out the phone, which I think is a perfectly acceptable approach.
As an activity tracker, the device works as well as the Vivofit. What's nice is the automatic sync'ing via smartphone. Of course, this leaves me with a dilemna, since the Edge 800's data is definitive, but doesn't get sync'd more than once a week, while the Vivofit's data is always up to date, but has suspect elevation data. Given the convenience, however, I am very tempted to use the Vivofit's data and just not ever sync my Edge 800, using it as an on-board display, and an odometer for each bike, which is something the Vivoactive doesn't do. (Neither does the follow-on Edge 810, for that matter!) The Vivoactive (like the Vivofit, Vivofit 2, and the Vivosmart), nags you every hour to walk about 100 steps or so in order to stay active. The vibration is subtle and not aggressive, but it's there and the red-bar is very much guilt-inducing, so if you tend to sit a lot (and what Software Engineer doesn't), that's a good feature. I was previously using Moves, and running both the Vivosmart and the app confirms what I've long suspected: Moves systematically under-counts steps and miles cycled. Since Moves got bought by Facebook, the app has not been updated and I suspect the server-side applications will probably be killed before long, just like Friendfeed was. The competing app Google Fit gets crappy reviews even from ex-Googlers, explaining why FitBit, for instance has been so successful that it will soon file for an IPO.
As a sleep tracker, the data is nice, but I'm not sure what to do with it. In combination with my CPAP machine, however, I now have more data than I know what to do with. The only thing I'm missing now is an oxymeter, which has already been proven to be remarkably worthless for someone like me.
The battery life is acceptable. With 3 hours of hiking, 2 hours of cycling (all with GLONASS+GPS on), an hour of swimming, and 2 days of sleep tracking and activity tracking, the battery was down to 40% after 2 days. I expect the battery life to be better with GLONASS off. The battery charges from 40% to 99% in about 90 minutes from a computer's USB port.
As far as comparison with other devices are concerned, the obvious one is the Garmin Fenix 3. This offers most of the features of the Vivoactive, plus Openwater Swim, Triathlon mode, a real barometer, a compass, climbing mode, and a skiing/snowboarding mode. Of course, at twice the price ($500, $600 for the super-tough sapphire version), you literally pay for it. It's also much thicker, heavier, and bulkier. While the barometer is nice, elevation data isn't very accurate if the unit's thermometer is next to your skin, since to get correct elevation you need accurate air temperature. So if you want a reliable temperature you need to also pick up the Tempe sensor, which is also compatible with the Vivoactive. From my perspective, I think Garmin lost an opportunity by not selling an external barometer/temperature sensor for the Vivoactive.
The inevitable comparison is with the Apple Watch. Here in Silicon Valley, I've already seen many people walking around with those blank screens attached to their wrists. But that's a function of Apple marketing much more than anything else. If the two products had their parent companies swapped, I'm pretty sure the features of the Vivoactive would be touted as revolutionary (week-long battery life, thinner, swim tracking, 50m water resistance, GPS+GLONASS that doesn't depend on your phone) while folks would be making fun of the Apple Watch (wearing a thicker blank screen? Having to charge every day so it can't even do sleep tracking?). But that is what it is. Despite next to zero marketing from Garmin, my local REI (in Silicon Valley!) reports that their black Vivoactives (sans heart rate monitors) sell out as soon as they come in, and that they only have the white ones in stock. So it does seem that the outdoors people do understand and value the product, even while the tech press (and the outdoor press, as far as I can tell!) has basically ignored the Vivoactive.
Regardless, the Vivoactive comes highly recommended. The value and functionality this product represents are pretty much unbeatable. Even if you're not a watch wearer (I wasn't), you might consider this product as worthy of possibly changing your mind. As mentioned above, if you use any 2 of the functions the Vivoactive supports regularly, you'll get your money's worth (and then some --- there's significant value to convergence into a package that's smaller than every one of the products the Vivoactive replaces). The only folks I can think of who would be unhappy with the product are the ones who use Windows Phones and hence lose out on the smartwatch features, but even for those folks, having to sync the device manually through a PC might be worth the trouble if they're regular swimmers.
Further reading: DC Rainmaker's In-Depth Review
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Review: Fables 21: Happily Ever After
After 13 years of story, Fables is finally drawing to an end. Unfortunately, the series jumped the shark a while back, with Fables #13. The recent issues have seen a pick up in quality, but I'm afraid not enough to redeem itself completely.
This collection covers the return of Bigby (though in a form unrecognizable from who he's been in the past), the failed attempts to stop him and who's behind him. It then quickly morphs into a "doomed conflict" scenario between Rose Red and Snow White, with a reveal involving who their mother is, and why there's inevitable conflict between the two sisters.
Along the way, we get many digressions (it seems as though Willingham had to feed each issue with a mini story to keep stringing us along), but those are minor, with only a few pleasant ones. Fables is at its best when the reveals are of the "of course, that's how it would work" variety, but the story is getting so very meta that sometimes it feels like more of a cliche than an epiphany.
I'll pick up the last collection, of course, but go read Fables #1-12 instead.
This collection covers the return of Bigby (though in a form unrecognizable from who he's been in the past), the failed attempts to stop him and who's behind him. It then quickly morphs into a "doomed conflict" scenario between Rose Red and Snow White, with a reveal involving who their mother is, and why there's inevitable conflict between the two sisters.
Along the way, we get many digressions (it seems as though Willingham had to feed each issue with a mini story to keep stringing us along), but those are minor, with only a few pleasant ones. Fables is at its best when the reveals are of the "of course, that's how it would work" variety, but the story is getting so very meta that sometimes it feels like more of a cliche than an epiphany.
I'll pick up the last collection, of course, but go read Fables #1-12 instead.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Review: Monument Valley (Android)
It is rare that I play games on smartphones, let alone get to the point where I review them. That's mostly because most games on smartphones are cash grabs that are disrespectful of the consumer and have neither aesthetics or sense of art about what games are about. Rather, they're mostly micro-transaction driven attempts to cater to the addictive behavior of humans at a primitive level. I even find such games offensive when they target children.
Monument Valley is a welcome exception. It's a puzzle game that makes use of touch to control just one or two objects, plus the main character (the protagonist) of the game. It adheres to several rules: first, no move or attempt to solve the puzzle can put you in an irrecoverable position. Hence, there are no "game over" situations. Secondly, each chapter (the game is divided into 10 of them) introduces just a few concepts, gives them a work-over, and then is over in a matter of at most 20 minutes. This prevents the concepts from being over-worked and the game never feels repetitive, while not being so context-driven that you can't finish a chapter in a session, which would lead to the game overstaying its welcome in a mobile environment.
The puzzles are not difficult: many of the perspective driven puzzle have its roots in rotational and illusions first seen in Fez, but while Fez is epic and occasionally frustratingly hard, Monument Valley never became frustrating for me, and felt breezingly easy, so much so that I got started on a bus trip and was done by the end of the day. The developers are part of a firm specializing in UI design, and so excel at making clear what it is that you need to do with a minimum of clues.
As with Murasaki Baby, the game is short, with a play time of just about 3 hours, but for $4 full price, it's well worth the time and money. By the way, I tend to buy games like this on the Amazon App Store, not only because I have a bunch of Amazon coins (which essentially means that the game's free), but also because I can share the app with my wife simply by using the Amazon app store login.
The Forgotten Shores Add-in (purchased via in-app purchase) adds another 8 levels to the 10 that are in the default game. The cost is $1.99, and it nearly doubles the length of the game. The add-on's levels are just a little bit harder, enough to stump me for a few minutes at the end, but the quality is every bit as high as in the original. I do not usually pay for in-app purchases (and granted, I paid with coins this time as well), but this was well worth the money and time and clearly not a cash grab. In fact, you can see that the ROI on the expansion wasn't nearly as high as on the game. In fact, analyzing their finances, it doesn't seem that even having a hit game with tons of awards on the app store isn't going to net you very much money without being evil and pushing micro-transactions every which way.
Monument Valley and Forgotten Shores come highly recommended.
Monument Valley is a welcome exception. It's a puzzle game that makes use of touch to control just one or two objects, plus the main character (the protagonist) of the game. It adheres to several rules: first, no move or attempt to solve the puzzle can put you in an irrecoverable position. Hence, there are no "game over" situations. Secondly, each chapter (the game is divided into 10 of them) introduces just a few concepts, gives them a work-over, and then is over in a matter of at most 20 minutes. This prevents the concepts from being over-worked and the game never feels repetitive, while not being so context-driven that you can't finish a chapter in a session, which would lead to the game overstaying its welcome in a mobile environment.
The puzzles are not difficult: many of the perspective driven puzzle have its roots in rotational and illusions first seen in Fez, but while Fez is epic and occasionally frustratingly hard, Monument Valley never became frustrating for me, and felt breezingly easy, so much so that I got started on a bus trip and was done by the end of the day. The developers are part of a firm specializing in UI design, and so excel at making clear what it is that you need to do with a minimum of clues.
As with Murasaki Baby, the game is short, with a play time of just about 3 hours, but for $4 full price, it's well worth the time and money. By the way, I tend to buy games like this on the Amazon App Store, not only because I have a bunch of Amazon coins (which essentially means that the game's free), but also because I can share the app with my wife simply by using the Amazon app store login.
The Forgotten Shores Add-in (purchased via in-app purchase) adds another 8 levels to the 10 that are in the default game. The cost is $1.99, and it nearly doubles the length of the game. The add-on's levels are just a little bit harder, enough to stump me for a few minutes at the end, but the quality is every bit as high as in the original. I do not usually pay for in-app purchases (and granted, I paid with coins this time as well), but this was well worth the money and time and clearly not a cash grab. In fact, you can see that the ROI on the expansion wasn't nearly as high as on the game. In fact, analyzing their finances, it doesn't seem that even having a hit game with tons of awards on the app store isn't going to net you very much money without being evil and pushing micro-transactions every which way.
Monument Valley and Forgotten Shores come highly recommended.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Review: Vivere Double Hammock with Steel Stand
I've long enjoyed the idea of having a hammock around in the home, but never had any place around to hang it, either in the form of trees, columns. And I'm too lazy (or chicken) to drill holes in the walls or support beams.
When Amazon had a sale on the Vivere Hammock with Stand, I jumped on it. I figured worse comes to worse, I'd return it.
Unpacked, the hammock came with a carrying case, 5 pieces of metal, and a hammock with metal reinforcements on the eyelets. The stand was fairly easy to assemble, and tool-free. Once the hammock was set up, there was no question of returning it, as Bowen immediately decided that it was his! He fell off the hammock a couple of times despite us teaching him how to get in and out of it properly, but after that had no problems whatsoever.
It's unusual nowadays for a toy to hold Bowen's attention for more than a few days, but it's been a couple of weeks and he still guards it jealously, though he occasionally will share it with friends. It's been a great buy and I have no regrets.
Recommended!
When Amazon had a sale on the Vivere Hammock with Stand, I jumped on it. I figured worse comes to worse, I'd return it.
Recommended!
Friday, May 15, 2015
Review: Up the Down Staircase
Up the Down Staircase is a novel about a teacher stuck in what I'm convinced must be the ninth level of hell: teaching English to the "slow readers" in high school of the under-privileged in New York City. Written in the 60s, the novel describes an attempt to teach indifferent students from varying backgrounds and affectations that range from the would-be career politician to the cool dropout wanna be.
The novel is written in the form of intra-school memos, handed in notes (through a suggestion box), various forms and bureaucratic memos and circulars, and letters (written frantically) to friends for emotional and moral support. (It would be fun to think of a modern version of this book, with e-mail replacing memos, twitter messages replacing the suggestion box, and of course, Facebook likes instead of messages passed between students)
What does come through is the strength of the bureaucracy in preventing positive change, the dire lack of materials and facilities facing underfunded school systems, and of course, the crazy idea that one adult in a classroom of 40+ teenagers with raging hormones might be able to control the class long enough to teach. (Caveat: I've never been an American high school. I went to school in a much more regimented, polite, and well-behaved Asian school, where the most defiant posture struck by a student would be one of refusing to hand in homework --- Kaufman might actually have been able to teach under those conditions, but would have a field day with the public canings!)
In any case, the novel's a fun read, complete with the misspellings and grammatical errors provided by the students, and it's short and quick, so not a waste of time.
I picked this book up through the Kindle Unlimited program, and discovered that the black and white Kindle is not the ideal way to read the book: the blackboard facsimile pages are pretty much undecipherable, so pick up the paper copy if you can.
Recommended.
The novel is written in the form of intra-school memos, handed in notes (through a suggestion box), various forms and bureaucratic memos and circulars, and letters (written frantically) to friends for emotional and moral support. (It would be fun to think of a modern version of this book, with e-mail replacing memos, twitter messages replacing the suggestion box, and of course, Facebook likes instead of messages passed between students)
What does come through is the strength of the bureaucracy in preventing positive change, the dire lack of materials and facilities facing underfunded school systems, and of course, the crazy idea that one adult in a classroom of 40+ teenagers with raging hormones might be able to control the class long enough to teach. (Caveat: I've never been an American high school. I went to school in a much more regimented, polite, and well-behaved Asian school, where the most defiant posture struck by a student would be one of refusing to hand in homework --- Kaufman might actually have been able to teach under those conditions, but would have a field day with the public canings!)
In any case, the novel's a fun read, complete with the misspellings and grammatical errors provided by the students, and it's short and quick, so not a waste of time.
I picked this book up through the Kindle Unlimited program, and discovered that the black and white Kindle is not the ideal way to read the book: the blackboard facsimile pages are pretty much undecipherable, so pick up the paper copy if you can.
Recommended.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
PSA: How to Resolve Your Lollipop Slowness
A couple of weeks ago, I upgraded my Xperia Z1 to Lollipop. Other than it being good policy in general to stay on the latest release for security reasons, the major reason for the upgrade was that Lollipop enables the use of SD Card storage for apps. That's a particularly nice feature to have, since the Z1 comes with only about 16GB of storage, and after all is said and done only 10GB is really available to the user. 64GB microSD cards can now be had for under $30, a good deal by almost any measure. (In reality, I tend to buy these things only when they go on sale, and have netted them at an average price well under $25)
The Lollipop upgrade for the Xperia phones comes via Sony software tethered to a PC. The process went smoothly, but a day or two after the upgrade, however, I noticed that the phone was getting slower and started running like molasses. Facebook would take half a minute to load. At one point, I even missed a phone call because the UI was so slow that the counter-party had hung up before the swipe-to-answer operation completed.
Worse, battery life had deteriorated! Not only was my phone so slow I was rebooting it once a day, my battery life (despite turning on Stamina mode) was miserable. I started charging the phone at every opportunity, like a Nexus 4/5 user. The phone's bluetooth connection to my car was also spotty, dropping music. Even turning off Moves didn't help. Not that Moves was doing much at this point: the slowness and lagginess of the phone meant that movement tracking was so laughably off that the data was worthless.
I got so frustrated that I researched ways to rollback the Xperia Z1. Heck, I started contemplating replacing my Z1 with the Lumia 635. While doing the above research, I came across a post noting that slowness after upgrade from Kitkat to Lollipop was common, and that the solution was actually straightforward: factory reset!
Painful as it was to lose about 4 months of state, I figured I'd give this a try before downgrading to KitKat for real. And indeed, my phone is now fast again! Bluetooth connections no longer suck. Battery life is now more than acceptable. Moves is now fairly accurate once more. I don't even lose phone calls! I can now contemplate that my Z1 will have acceptable performance for at least another year or two! I no longer wondered how Lollipop could have made it past QA/Sony's certification process without being labeled a piece of crap.
So, if your phone got upgraded from Kitkat to Lollipop and performance and battery life sucks. It's not necessarily Lollipop's fault. Try a factory reset and you might get a new lease on life. It's silly than neither Sony nor Google actually resolved this problem before releasing software. But at least there's a workaround. I just wonder how Google expects Android NOT to lose market share to the competition if they keep ignoring the upgrade scenario.
The Lollipop upgrade for the Xperia phones comes via Sony software tethered to a PC. The process went smoothly, but a day or two after the upgrade, however, I noticed that the phone was getting slower and started running like molasses. Facebook would take half a minute to load. At one point, I even missed a phone call because the UI was so slow that the counter-party had hung up before the swipe-to-answer operation completed.
Worse, battery life had deteriorated! Not only was my phone so slow I was rebooting it once a day, my battery life (despite turning on Stamina mode) was miserable. I started charging the phone at every opportunity, like a Nexus 4/5 user. The phone's bluetooth connection to my car was also spotty, dropping music. Even turning off Moves didn't help. Not that Moves was doing much at this point: the slowness and lagginess of the phone meant that movement tracking was so laughably off that the data was worthless.
I got so frustrated that I researched ways to rollback the Xperia Z1. Heck, I started contemplating replacing my Z1 with the Lumia 635. While doing the above research, I came across a post noting that slowness after upgrade from Kitkat to Lollipop was common, and that the solution was actually straightforward: factory reset!
Painful as it was to lose about 4 months of state, I figured I'd give this a try before downgrading to KitKat for real. And indeed, my phone is now fast again! Bluetooth connections no longer suck. Battery life is now more than acceptable. Moves is now fairly accurate once more. I don't even lose phone calls! I can now contemplate that my Z1 will have acceptable performance for at least another year or two! I no longer wondered how Lollipop could have made it past QA/Sony's certification process without being labeled a piece of crap.
So, if your phone got upgraded from Kitkat to Lollipop and performance and battery life sucks. It's not necessarily Lollipop's fault. Try a factory reset and you might get a new lease on life. It's silly than neither Sony nor Google actually resolved this problem before releasing software. But at least there's a workaround. I just wonder how Google expects Android NOT to lose market share to the competition if they keep ignoring the upgrade scenario.
Review: Murasaki Baby (PS Vita)
I will say that the Playstation Vita and its library of unique games has continued to be a delight in the year and a half since I bought it. In combination with a Playstation Plus subscription, you end up with a collection of games that are delightful, exciting, fun, and some of them exclusive to the platform with experiences you can't get anywhere else.
Murasaki Baby was on this month's PS Plus subscription, and I picked it up not expecting to have it just sit on my Vita for an almost continual playthrough. It's billed as a puzzle/platformer, and I do extremely poorly on puzzle games, but this one is so good and exceptional in design, atmosphere, and playability.
You play a child's going through her nightmare searching for her mommy. She's holding on to a purple balloon, which if lost or burst, ends the sequence and restarts you at a checkpoint. The game eschews conventional game controls, relying only on the front and rear touchscreen. It also ignores the game conventions of having a tutorial, dumping you into the game and expecting you to figure out the very simple controls. Tugging on the child or the balloon on the touchscreen moves them. Swiping on the rear touchscreen swipes between backgrounds on the playfield, and tapping on the rear touchscreen activates the play mode. On occasion you might have to turn the Vita physically, and in one stage you use the joystick controls.
Each puzzle inside the game is extremely logical: you usually pick a background, and then tap on it to activate, and then swipe to a different background to proceed. Each mode does something interesting, and the puzzles aren't repetitious, though they do build up, so by the end of each "level", you're swiping between 3-4 different backgrounds, activating them in a particular sequence, while also moving the character and/or the balloon to overcome the challenge. Some puzzles are time/action oriented, but the time pressure is never so prevalent as to be frantic. This is a good thing, as touch controls aren't either precise or super-responsive, so frantic time pressure is likely to lead to frustration.
The art and music are also quirkly, befitting the game. The music, in particular, is so atmospheric that the game begs to be played with headphones on.
The negatives of the game include the rather floaty and occasionally unresponsive controls (which sometimes lead to a cheap death). I also encountered a bug halfway through the game where it suddenly failed to save. It turned out that I hadn't installed the latest version of the game. Doing that fixed the problem. Some might consider the game a bit short (how long to beat estimates game play time at 2.5 hours, which sounds about right), but I'd much rather have an excellent short game than a long game padded with repetition and frustration.
All in all, an excellent game that fully justifies its play time. Recommended!
Murasaki Baby was on this month's PS Plus subscription, and I picked it up not expecting to have it just sit on my Vita for an almost continual playthrough. It's billed as a puzzle/platformer, and I do extremely poorly on puzzle games, but this one is so good and exceptional in design, atmosphere, and playability.
You play a child's going through her nightmare searching for her mommy. She's holding on to a purple balloon, which if lost or burst, ends the sequence and restarts you at a checkpoint. The game eschews conventional game controls, relying only on the front and rear touchscreen. It also ignores the game conventions of having a tutorial, dumping you into the game and expecting you to figure out the very simple controls. Tugging on the child or the balloon on the touchscreen moves them. Swiping on the rear touchscreen swipes between backgrounds on the playfield, and tapping on the rear touchscreen activates the play mode. On occasion you might have to turn the Vita physically, and in one stage you use the joystick controls.
Each puzzle inside the game is extremely logical: you usually pick a background, and then tap on it to activate, and then swipe to a different background to proceed. Each mode does something interesting, and the puzzles aren't repetitious, though they do build up, so by the end of each "level", you're swiping between 3-4 different backgrounds, activating them in a particular sequence, while also moving the character and/or the balloon to overcome the challenge. Some puzzles are time/action oriented, but the time pressure is never so prevalent as to be frantic. This is a good thing, as touch controls aren't either precise or super-responsive, so frantic time pressure is likely to lead to frustration.
The art and music are also quirkly, befitting the game. The music, in particular, is so atmospheric that the game begs to be played with headphones on.
The negatives of the game include the rather floaty and occasionally unresponsive controls (which sometimes lead to a cheap death). I also encountered a bug halfway through the game where it suddenly failed to save. It turned out that I hadn't installed the latest version of the game. Doing that fixed the problem. Some might consider the game a bit short (how long to beat estimates game play time at 2.5 hours, which sounds about right), but I'd much rather have an excellent short game than a long game padded with repetition and frustration.
All in all, an excellent game that fully justifies its play time. Recommended!
Friday, May 08, 2015
Review: The Well of Ascension
The Well of Ascension is the sequel to Mistborn, and is the middle book of the Mistborn trilogy. Middle books are typically the weakest volume of any trilogy, and unfortunately, Sanderson's trilogy is no exception.
While the action sequences are still well-written, the book suffers from fantasy-level-up-escalation, carried to the extremes, as the main character, Vin grows in power, and as a result, the rest of the threats have to scale up as well. This would be OK if the other characters on her team grows in power as well, but they don't, so you're treated to increasingly lopsided situations that could be mistaken for the typical Mary Sue fantasy.
The unfortunate thing is that Sanderson's ability to do character development seems to be limited to depicting characters agonizing about dilemmas that in no way feel real (i.e., the reader has so much information that he knows what the right choices are, and in no way feels like the characters will do anything but). Worse, some long running supporting characters are killed off in cheap fashion that do not serve the plot in any way.
Finally, the ultimate reveal sucks: not only was the reader misled in every way, the entire state of the world is left dangling and obviously hanging for the final book in the trilogy. In some ways, this is some of the worst sins of writing a fantasy series: an entire book in which nothing substantial happens, and you could easily have skipped an entire book and gone on with the series without missing much. While this book isn't as abusive of readers as A Dance With Dragons or A Feast For Crows, Sanderson's not doing anyone any favors with this novel. I'm debating between plowing ahead and finishing the series for the sake of completion or abandoning Sanderson permanently altogether.
Not recommended.
While the action sequences are still well-written, the book suffers from fantasy-level-up-escalation, carried to the extremes, as the main character, Vin grows in power, and as a result, the rest of the threats have to scale up as well. This would be OK if the other characters on her team grows in power as well, but they don't, so you're treated to increasingly lopsided situations that could be mistaken for the typical Mary Sue fantasy.
The unfortunate thing is that Sanderson's ability to do character development seems to be limited to depicting characters agonizing about dilemmas that in no way feel real (i.e., the reader has so much information that he knows what the right choices are, and in no way feels like the characters will do anything but). Worse, some long running supporting characters are killed off in cheap fashion that do not serve the plot in any way.
Finally, the ultimate reveal sucks: not only was the reader misled in every way, the entire state of the world is left dangling and obviously hanging for the final book in the trilogy. In some ways, this is some of the worst sins of writing a fantasy series: an entire book in which nothing substantial happens, and you could easily have skipped an entire book and gone on with the series without missing much. While this book isn't as abusive of readers as A Dance With Dragons or A Feast For Crows, Sanderson's not doing anyone any favors with this novel. I'm debating between plowing ahead and finishing the series for the sake of completion or abandoning Sanderson permanently altogether.
Not recommended.
Wednesday, May 06, 2015
RIP Jobst Brandt (1935/1/14 - 2015/5/5)
My first encounter with Jobst Brandt was on USENET in 1992, right after buying a bike. He was one of the designers of the Avocet tires, and recommended their use. I had bad luck with those tires, and so switched to Michelin Hi-lite tires which were cheaper.
It wasn't until years later that I discovered what changed my life: his Tour of the Alps trip reports. I thought to myself, how can one guy ride pretty much the same roads year after year, and not get bored? In fact, some of his trip reports looked like they'd been copy/pasted from year to year with minor variations. I saw for myself in 2003, and met him in person just before the trip. Off the cuff, he gave me directions to the Inn river bike path from Imst. I found the bike path precisely as described from his directions. (Those directions are now obsolete)
From then, I was hooked, not just because of the beauty and bicycle-friendliness of the countries I cycled through, but also because I noticed that every time I stayed in a hotel that he'd visited multiple times, the quality of the food went up while the price of the lodging went down. Soon, I was studying multiple years of his trip reports, trying to ferret out which places of note to visit with the excellent food and great prices. To this day, it's always exciting to me to get a chance to visit a "Jobst Hotel" that's new to me. (And yes, beloved Rosenlaui is a Jobst hotel) This forced me to read every one of his trip reports, some of which were amazing. He'd overcome so many early obstacles (some of which required rebuilding wheels using wooden rims in the middle of a tour) that you can still find a poster-sized photo of him climbing the Gavia at the refuge at the top of that pass today.
One of my favorite excerpts from his trip reports went as follow:
Unlike him, I didn't tour the Alps every year, and I would venture to new territory every so often. Most of these experiences taught me something that Jobst had always known: it's nearly impossible to find better cycling than in the European mountains. But I had to see for myself.
Jobst wasn't easy to communicate with. Sometimes he would answer the question he wished you had asked, rather than the question you asked him. I once sent him e-mail asking him if Lauterbrunnen valley was worth visiting. Rather than answer the question, he replied as though I'd ask him for train trip recommendations in Switzerland, and gave me a list of mountain trains to ride. I filed away that e-mail never intending to read the details, but then in 2013 with Xiaoqin and Bowen in tow, I dug up that e-mail and we rode every train he recommended, and they were indeed amazingly beautiful.
So even my failed communications with him turned out to have stunning results. We have seen a passing of a legendary cyclist, and an inspiration to all and any who would explore the world by bicycle.
It wasn't until years later that I discovered what changed my life: his Tour of the Alps trip reports. I thought to myself, how can one guy ride pretty much the same roads year after year, and not get bored? In fact, some of his trip reports looked like they'd been copy/pasted from year to year with minor variations. I saw for myself in 2003, and met him in person just before the trip. Off the cuff, he gave me directions to the Inn river bike path from Imst. I found the bike path precisely as described from his directions. (Those directions are now obsolete)
From then, I was hooked, not just because of the beauty and bicycle-friendliness of the countries I cycled through, but also because I noticed that every time I stayed in a hotel that he'd visited multiple times, the quality of the food went up while the price of the lodging went down. Soon, I was studying multiple years of his trip reports, trying to ferret out which places of note to visit with the excellent food and great prices. To this day, it's always exciting to me to get a chance to visit a "Jobst Hotel" that's new to me. (And yes, beloved Rosenlaui is a Jobst hotel) This forced me to read every one of his trip reports, some of which were amazing. He'd overcome so many early obstacles (some of which required rebuilding wheels using wooden rims in the middle of a tour) that you can still find a poster-sized photo of him climbing the Gavia at the refuge at the top of that pass today.
One of my favorite excerpts from his trip reports went as follow:
After descending the Costalunga (1753m) to Canazei, I ran into a group of Berkeley riders with Gary Erickson of Cliff Bars. He was having a great time but his recruits, who had never seen so many mountains, were pretty long in the face. He sent them on to Canazei, out of the steady rain that we hardly noticed as we exchanged adventures of our rides.By 2007, I'd become a Jobst-disciple of sorts, teaching Wheel Building classes at Google, and leading Tours in the Alps that were nowhere as tough as the ones he did. In 2005, in fact, I ran into Jobst while at the foot of Grosse Scheidegg, and we chatted for a bit while I ate at his favorite restaurant, the Lammi.
Unlike him, I didn't tour the Alps every year, and I would venture to new territory every so often. Most of these experiences taught me something that Jobst had always known: it's nearly impossible to find better cycling than in the European mountains. But I had to see for myself.
Jobst wasn't easy to communicate with. Sometimes he would answer the question he wished you had asked, rather than the question you asked him. I once sent him e-mail asking him if Lauterbrunnen valley was worth visiting. Rather than answer the question, he replied as though I'd ask him for train trip recommendations in Switzerland, and gave me a list of mountain trains to ride. I filed away that e-mail never intending to read the details, but then in 2013 with Xiaoqin and Bowen in tow, I dug up that e-mail and we rode every train he recommended, and they were indeed amazingly beautiful.
So even my failed communications with him turned out to have stunning results. We have seen a passing of a legendary cyclist, and an inspiration to all and any who would explore the world by bicycle.
Monday, May 04, 2015
Review: Mistborn
Mistborn is Brandon Sanderson's novel about a rebellion in a fantasy world against an empire ruled by a god. It's part of a trilogy, but can be read alone with a satisfying conclusion and non cliff-hangers, an unusual and notable attribute in this day and age.
The novel starts slowly, introducing the characters and rules of the magic system in the novel (and presumably the series). The main viewpoint character is Vin, a street urchin who's been abandoned by her brother and eventually grows to become a powerful allomancer, a person who can extract magical powers from metals and alloys and then use it to effect the world.
The milieu isn't as detailed as those provided by the traditional classics of the genre: entire civilizations and even the primary political system is barely sketched out. Sanderson's clear emphasis here is on the magic systems made available in the world. The other viewpoint characters are mostly there to mentor Vin, educate her on how the world works, and turn her from a suspicious street urchin into a human being who can trust other people and become loyal to them.
That means, unfortunately, that the characters are also barely sketched out. Even the love interest gets relatively little exposure, while Vin's primary mentor (her steward Sazed) is better described, but you never get the sense that the relationships are real.
Nevertheless, the final quarter of the novel makes everything pay off. The reveals are smartly done, and the villains, unlike the cookie-cutter villains of the old are actually smart and operate intelligently, foiling the protagonists' plans over and over again. The eventual overthrow of the Final Empire is well done and doesn't have major plot holes. And of course, there's lots of action, and the Sanderson might not be able to write a romance to save his life but is definitely great at action.
Recommended.
The novel starts slowly, introducing the characters and rules of the magic system in the novel (and presumably the series). The main viewpoint character is Vin, a street urchin who's been abandoned by her brother and eventually grows to become a powerful allomancer, a person who can extract magical powers from metals and alloys and then use it to effect the world.
The milieu isn't as detailed as those provided by the traditional classics of the genre: entire civilizations and even the primary political system is barely sketched out. Sanderson's clear emphasis here is on the magic systems made available in the world. The other viewpoint characters are mostly there to mentor Vin, educate her on how the world works, and turn her from a suspicious street urchin into a human being who can trust other people and become loyal to them.
That means, unfortunately, that the characters are also barely sketched out. Even the love interest gets relatively little exposure, while Vin's primary mentor (her steward Sazed) is better described, but you never get the sense that the relationships are real.
Nevertheless, the final quarter of the novel makes everything pay off. The reveals are smartly done, and the villains, unlike the cookie-cutter villains of the old are actually smart and operate intelligently, foiling the protagonists' plans over and over again. The eventual overthrow of the Final Empire is well done and doesn't have major plot holes. And of course, there's lots of action, and the Sanderson might not be able to write a romance to save his life but is definitely great at action.
Recommended.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Meet Boen Na (蓝博恩）
Length: 19.5"
Weight: 6 lbs 10ozs
Both mommy and baby are doing fine.
As before, a name that works in English and Mandarin, but it was much tougher to find a good name this time, so the pronunciation is different in English vs the Chinese. In English, the e is silent, while it's enunciated in Mandarin.
Update: The proper English pronunciation is "Bon", as in "Bonny".
Monday, April 27, 2015
Review: Edge of Eternity
Edge of Eternity is Ken Follett's concluding novel covering the 20th century. After having a novel each covering the two world wars, having one novel covering the rest of the century feels rushed. As such, Follett skipped the Korean war entirely, and jumps straight into the 60s.
It's a surprisingly good book considering it covers events that most people already know. The problem is that in fictionalizing history, Follett has to put his characters front and center, thereby replacing Walter Cronkite, Jane Fonda, Woodword/Bernstein, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn with his own fictional characters so that he use first-hand narratives about the major events of that era.
Because the events are separated by such moments in time, the strength and the continuity of the narrative suffers. Nevertheless, all the major events are covered, though some in much less detail than others. Nevertheless, some events (such as the fall of the Berlin wall) were so memorable that I can remember where I was when I saw the news, and could even remember thinking "now that's history in the making." That sense of power comes through, but I will always wonder whether that's because of my personal association with those memories.
Looking at the Amazon reviews, I'm amused by the highly negative reviews about the liberal bias of the novel. The novel is written in hindsight, of course, so I suppose that's the equivalent of saying that history has a liberal bias.
As with the previous two novels, Edge of Eternity is transparent reading, and compelling and entertaining. It might even be educational, if you hadn't lived through those events. I wouldn't be surprised if children learning history would be be better served by reading these novels rather than the usual boring history books. Recommended.
It's a surprisingly good book considering it covers events that most people already know. The problem is that in fictionalizing history, Follett has to put his characters front and center, thereby replacing Walter Cronkite, Jane Fonda, Woodword/Bernstein, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn with his own fictional characters so that he use first-hand narratives about the major events of that era.
Because the events are separated by such moments in time, the strength and the continuity of the narrative suffers. Nevertheless, all the major events are covered, though some in much less detail than others. Nevertheless, some events (such as the fall of the Berlin wall) were so memorable that I can remember where I was when I saw the news, and could even remember thinking "now that's history in the making." That sense of power comes through, but I will always wonder whether that's because of my personal association with those memories.
Looking at the Amazon reviews, I'm amused by the highly negative reviews about the liberal bias of the novel. The novel is written in hindsight, of course, so I suppose that's the equivalent of saying that history has a liberal bias.
As with the previous two novels, Edge of Eternity is transparent reading, and compelling and entertaining. It might even be educational, if you hadn't lived through those events. I wouldn't be surprised if children learning history would be be better served by reading these novels rather than the usual boring history books. Recommended.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Review: Heavy Rain (PS3)
It's a good thing I picked up and played Heavy Rain after The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead. It makes those two games look sad by comparison.
These games fall into the category of "choose-your-own-adventure". The puzzles provided per-se aren't particularly challenging, so what I evaluate these games on is the deepness and richness of the content: how often are the decisions meaningful? How many different ways can the story end? Does the story provide emotional impact? Is the story coherent?
By those standards Heavy Rain is outstanding. In fact, if you own a PS3, just stop reading, find yourself a copy, and play!
Still with me? OK. Heavy Rain is a story about parenthood. It starts with Ethan Mars' interaction with his family, and a defining incident in which he fails to save his son from a traffic collision. Years later, we find him depressed and subject to occasional blackouts. During one of those blackouts, his second son disappears, kidnapped by the "origami killer", a serial killer who focuses on killing children. The rest of the game follows Ethan's attempt to rescue his son and uncover who the origami killer is.
There are 3 other playable characters: Madison Paige, a reporter, Scott Shelby, a private detective also investigating the case, and Jayden, the FBI agent assigned to the case. The viewpoint of the game shifts between these playable characters, and you see them cross-paths, or even watch one storyline uncover clues while another storyline is oblivious.
The script is exceedingly well written. The characters are believable, and their interaction choices don't leave me frustrated. Furthermore, when the reveal happens, not only was I surprised, when I thought back to all the clues previously provided I felt that the mystery was fair: I had enough clues to figure out who the killer was, but the misdirection and setup had distracted me enough that I didn't put them together. This is exceedingly hard to do, and Heavy Rain succeeds.
What's even more amazing is the game play. In The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us, if you fail at one of the "game" section, the game restarts at a checkpoint and then you play it over until you succeed. Heavy Rain throws away such conceits. If you fail at one point, your viewpoint character can die but the game carries on! The story changes, and you can get a different ending. I'm not a great game player, so by the time I finished the game two of my characters have died, and poor Ethan Mars was a mess of injuries. But the ending still satisfied me and didn't leave me feeling as though I was cheated of storyline that I should have observed but didn't.
What's more, the game did a fantastic job making me feel what the characters were going through. Because lives were at stake and because I could fail, the story was intense. At several points I winced as the killer put Ethan Mars through trials to see how far a father would go to save his son. Whenever I failed one of those trials, I felt devastated. Some of those scenes had me shaking while pushing buttons on the controller, events that never happened in other games.
When I bought the game, I thought I'd sell it when I'd finished. Now that I'm done, I realize that like a good movie, it's a game I wouldn't mind playing again, especially since you can get different endings. (If you want to shorten the time it takes to watch all the different endings, you should save frequently so you can try both success and failure scenarios --- I wasn't aware of this feature until it was too late) I liked this game enough that I'll probably hunt down Quantic Dream's other games in the future.
What are the nits in the game? The controls are a little painful: sometimes you have to hold down multiple buttons and then shake the controller in order to get certain things to happen. If your controller is broken in that the six-axis sensor is inconsistent this can drive you nuts. This game definitely depends on a low latency screen as well. My plasma screen even in game mode made this game harder because of the induced latency. The background music is not as enjoyable as I would like: the game uses the same themes too often, which makes it repetitive. Being a PS3 game, the graphics are fantastic for that era but of course cannot compare to the PS4. I'm looking forward to Quantic Dream's future games on the PS4. Finally, the adult situations and nudity means that this game is unsuitable for pre-teens.
But despite these faults, I'd say that this game is exhibit A in why a dedicated home console (especially Sony's) makes sense. You can't get games of this quality on any other platform, and it's clear that Quantic Dream's efforts are of a level of maturity, sophistication, and emotional impact that makes other efforts on competing platforms look like they're multiple decades behind. Highly recommended!
These games fall into the category of "choose-your-own-adventure". The puzzles provided per-se aren't particularly challenging, so what I evaluate these games on is the deepness and richness of the content: how often are the decisions meaningful? How many different ways can the story end? Does the story provide emotional impact? Is the story coherent?
By those standards Heavy Rain is outstanding. In fact, if you own a PS3, just stop reading, find yourself a copy, and play!
Still with me? OK. Heavy Rain is a story about parenthood. It starts with Ethan Mars' interaction with his family, and a defining incident in which he fails to save his son from a traffic collision. Years later, we find him depressed and subject to occasional blackouts. During one of those blackouts, his second son disappears, kidnapped by the "origami killer", a serial killer who focuses on killing children. The rest of the game follows Ethan's attempt to rescue his son and uncover who the origami killer is.
There are 3 other playable characters: Madison Paige, a reporter, Scott Shelby, a private detective also investigating the case, and Jayden, the FBI agent assigned to the case. The viewpoint of the game shifts between these playable characters, and you see them cross-paths, or even watch one storyline uncover clues while another storyline is oblivious.
The script is exceedingly well written. The characters are believable, and their interaction choices don't leave me frustrated. Furthermore, when the reveal happens, not only was I surprised, when I thought back to all the clues previously provided I felt that the mystery was fair: I had enough clues to figure out who the killer was, but the misdirection and setup had distracted me enough that I didn't put them together. This is exceedingly hard to do, and Heavy Rain succeeds.
What's even more amazing is the game play. In The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us, if you fail at one of the "game" section, the game restarts at a checkpoint and then you play it over until you succeed. Heavy Rain throws away such conceits. If you fail at one point, your viewpoint character can die but the game carries on! The story changes, and you can get a different ending. I'm not a great game player, so by the time I finished the game two of my characters have died, and poor Ethan Mars was a mess of injuries. But the ending still satisfied me and didn't leave me feeling as though I was cheated of storyline that I should have observed but didn't.
What's more, the game did a fantastic job making me feel what the characters were going through. Because lives were at stake and because I could fail, the story was intense. At several points I winced as the killer put Ethan Mars through trials to see how far a father would go to save his son. Whenever I failed one of those trials, I felt devastated. Some of those scenes had me shaking while pushing buttons on the controller, events that never happened in other games.
When I bought the game, I thought I'd sell it when I'd finished. Now that I'm done, I realize that like a good movie, it's a game I wouldn't mind playing again, especially since you can get different endings. (If you want to shorten the time it takes to watch all the different endings, you should save frequently so you can try both success and failure scenarios --- I wasn't aware of this feature until it was too late) I liked this game enough that I'll probably hunt down Quantic Dream's other games in the future.
What are the nits in the game? The controls are a little painful: sometimes you have to hold down multiple buttons and then shake the controller in order to get certain things to happen. If your controller is broken in that the six-axis sensor is inconsistent this can drive you nuts. This game definitely depends on a low latency screen as well. My plasma screen even in game mode made this game harder because of the induced latency. The background music is not as enjoyable as I would like: the game uses the same themes too often, which makes it repetitive. Being a PS3 game, the graphics are fantastic for that era but of course cannot compare to the PS4. I'm looking forward to Quantic Dream's future games on the PS4. Finally, the adult situations and nudity means that this game is unsuitable for pre-teens.
But despite these faults, I'd say that this game is exhibit A in why a dedicated home console (especially Sony's) makes sense. You can't get games of this quality on any other platform, and it's clear that Quantic Dream's efforts are of a level of maturity, sophistication, and emotional impact that makes other efforts on competing platforms look like they're multiple decades behind. Highly recommended!
Monday, April 20, 2015
Review: The Winter of The World
The Fall of Giants was so compelling that I immediately checked out The Winter of The World from the library to follow along the novel. When you read history in novel form, especially the history of this episode from the previous century, it's easy to think about how compelling the narrative of the story is. It's almost as though real life thought that "World War" was so good that it deserved "World War 2: The Sequel".
The big difference for me personally is that while I wasn't as aware of what happened during World War I, World War II was something I was much more knowledgeable about. As with the prior novel, the prose is compellingly readable and transparent, while the characters get sent all over the world in increasingly unbelievable ways so the author can get them into the midst of the action. One character in particular went from working in Roosevelt's state department to witnessing Pearl Harbor and then parachuting down into France as part of D-Day all in the span of a few years.
Another interesting consequence of the approach the author took is that while the first novel started everyone more or less in poverty, by the start of the second world war, most of the characters are wealthy people. It's easy to understand why: in order to be able to ship the characters all over the world in order to cover all the events during this period properly, they need to do so. But as a result, you can see the gears grinding behind the plot and events.
By far the biggest problem in the novel is that it doesn't do a good job explaining why such people stayed put and put up with the obvious disasters that were moving towards them. For instance, by the end of the war, the fairly wealthy characters in Berlin had been through hell, and could see the iron curtain moving in, yet they stayed put instead of moving to West Germany. Now, we know this is needed so the author can get some viewpoint characters in the sequel, but a more compelling explanation of the characters' motivations would have made the novel stronger.
Nevertheless, the novel is compelling reading and a lot of fun, while reminding me how important this history was. For instance, this novel did a better job in explaining why Churchill lost the election after winning the war than any source that I can remember. Recommended.
The big difference for me personally is that while I wasn't as aware of what happened during World War I, World War II was something I was much more knowledgeable about. As with the prior novel, the prose is compellingly readable and transparent, while the characters get sent all over the world in increasingly unbelievable ways so the author can get them into the midst of the action. One character in particular went from working in Roosevelt's state department to witnessing Pearl Harbor and then parachuting down into France as part of D-Day all in the span of a few years.
Another interesting consequence of the approach the author took is that while the first novel started everyone more or less in poverty, by the start of the second world war, most of the characters are wealthy people. It's easy to understand why: in order to be able to ship the characters all over the world in order to cover all the events during this period properly, they need to do so. But as a result, you can see the gears grinding behind the plot and events.
By far the biggest problem in the novel is that it doesn't do a good job explaining why such people stayed put and put up with the obvious disasters that were moving towards them. For instance, by the end of the war, the fairly wealthy characters in Berlin had been through hell, and could see the iron curtain moving in, yet they stayed put instead of moving to West Germany. Now, we know this is needed so the author can get some viewpoint characters in the sequel, but a more compelling explanation of the characters' motivations would have made the novel stronger.
Nevertheless, the novel is compelling reading and a lot of fun, while reminding me how important this history was. For instance, this novel did a better job in explaining why Churchill lost the election after winning the war than any source that I can remember. Recommended.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Review: The Fall of Giants
After reading The Pillars of The Earth, I went back to the library and placed a hold on The Fall of Giants, to see if Follett was consistently book. I deliberately didn't read any reviews, as I didn't want to be biased.
To my surprise, The Fall of Giants is even better, and still compelling reading. It's a long novel but I plowed through it rapidly, not wanting to stop. The novel covers the events surrounding World War I, including the Bolshevik revolution, the rise of women's suffrage, and of course, the involvement of Germany, the United States, and Great Britain.
Now, I'd read enough history and even literature (nobody's ever allowed to skip Animal Farm or Wilfred Owen) to know at an abstract level what happened during those years, but Follett manages to make it personal, and in doing so, create empathy for the common people who were caught up in those historic events. By doing so, he enables a deeper understanding of why events unfolded during that period the way they did.
In particular, by the end of the novel, Follett had gotten me to care about Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which was something that had horribly bored me in history classes (and which I'd never cared very much about. That's a considerable achievement.
Now, in order to get such a wide ranging set of people's narratives to tie together, Follett had to include some fairly improbable events (though as a novelist he's great at ensuring that the characters' motivations are consistent). But that's easily forgiven in a novel with such great scope.
This novel's a great achievement, and did far more for my understanding of those events far more than both my history and literature classes in school. Highly recommended. Needless to say, I'm ready to keep going and read the next novel in the series.
To my surprise, The Fall of Giants is even better, and still compelling reading. It's a long novel but I plowed through it rapidly, not wanting to stop. The novel covers the events surrounding World War I, including the Bolshevik revolution, the rise of women's suffrage, and of course, the involvement of Germany, the United States, and Great Britain.
Now, I'd read enough history and even literature (nobody's ever allowed to skip Animal Farm or Wilfred Owen) to know at an abstract level what happened during those years, but Follett manages to make it personal, and in doing so, create empathy for the common people who were caught up in those historic events. By doing so, he enables a deeper understanding of why events unfolded during that period the way they did.
In particular, by the end of the novel, Follett had gotten me to care about Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which was something that had horribly bored me in history classes (and which I'd never cared very much about. That's a considerable achievement.
Now, in order to get such a wide ranging set of people's narratives to tie together, Follett had to include some fairly improbable events (though as a novelist he's great at ensuring that the characters' motivations are consistent). But that's easily forgiven in a novel with such great scope.
This novel's a great achievement, and did far more for my understanding of those events far more than both my history and literature classes in school. Highly recommended. Needless to say, I'm ready to keep going and read the next novel in the series.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Music Lessons
Living in Silicon Valley sometimes feels a lot like living in Singapore for one reason: sometimes, it feels as though people around here (the ones with kids anyway) engage in competitive parenting more than any other sports. At one point, someone told me about how she forced her kid to practice music in order to earn hours at video games. And then there's the mandatory after-school Chinese language lessons (for those who are Chinese). There's nothing like useless jumping-through-hoops hyper-competitive parenting to make kids resent the subject.
You hear a lot of junk science about how this is supposed to teach kids self-discipline, or teach them to persevere to be good at something. There's also the frequent comment that it's harder to learn music as an adult. There's the real-science behind it mentioned in Brain Rules for Baby, which discusses how about 10 years of music lessons is correlated with better understanding of emotions or empathy. (I don't remember which)
Anyway, Xiaoqin said, "if those parents like music so much, why don't they learn the instrument themselves instead of making their kids that way?" My tip for kids is to make this bargain with their parents: they'd spend precisely as much time practicing their instruments as their parents spend playing Bloodborne. (Those kids who want to have mercy on their parents can choose an easier game like Uncharted 2 instead) (No, I'm not afraid of my kids doing this to me --- I've been secretly practicing video games)
In any case, I grew up hating piano lessons as well, just like many other Asian kids. Thankfully, my parents let us give up on those lessons before any permanent damage was done: I'll never love classical music, but at least I can enjoy some music.
In any case, I'd always thought that I'd enjoy the flute. I bought a tiny white recorder-toy for Bowen, and could play a few tunes for him, but the recorder's range is pretty limited. And then during a re-watch of Battlestar Galactica (we knew to stop at Season 3, Episode 4), I heard Wander My Friends, which captivated me. Coupled with my wife's comments about learning an instrument, I decided to buy a cheapo flute and a book and try to learn how to play.
A few days into it, I realized that learning an instrument from a book was a recipe for giving myself bad habits, and engaged an instructor for private lessons. A couple of weeks of practice later, and I'm beginning to hit high notes. Most of all, I'm now actually able to play tunes that I like, albeit not mistake free, and perhaps at a halting tempo. (I've long been able to play anything by ear, with minor experimentation, so this is not a surprise --- my sight reading skills are still piss-poor, however, mostly because playing by ear has made me neglect those skills)
The flute's a much tougher instrument than the piano: rather than just working your fingers and hands, you have to form an embouchure. Worse, the embouchure varies from note to note, so you're changing the embouchure and your fingering at the same time, which makes for challenging practicing. On the other hand, it's a much more fun instrument than the piano.
For one thing, you don't have to sit! I never realized how much I disliked sitting in front of a piano until the day I realized that the flute didn't have to be played sitting down. I can stand and play, walk around and play, and generally move around. The instrument is portable, and if I ever got really good at it, I supposed I could hike and practice at the same time. If you're a cyclist, hiker, sailor, a piano is a ridiculous thing to bring with you on trips, but it's entirely feasible to bring along a flute, or its cheap but robust relative, the fife.
So a couple of weeks later, my cheapo flute developed an air-leak that made me unable to play certain notes. My instructor looked at it and asked me how much I paid for it. When I told him, he said that he was surprised that it even made any noise at all. He recommended that I upgraded to the Gemeinhardt. That darn thing cost $300, but it was a revelation! Now I can easily hit every note I can form a decent embouchure for, and I could now play Wander My Friends. The day it arrived I spent a couple of hours playing it because it was so much fun being able to play whatever I wanted without the instrument getting in the way! I was never that motivated as a kid! Note that the technical practice still sucks. It's still boring to repeatedly play the same piece over and over again, and it's still annoying as heck to fail for 4-5 days until suddenly everything clicks and you can do it on the 6th.
So the argument that it's easier to learn music as a kid doesn't really pan out for me. As an adult, it's easier for me to tolerate having to do technical exercises in order to get better. I've learned to reward myself by playing tunes I like after I'm done with the technical exercises. I also have low standards. I'm not going after orchestra-level performance: I'm playing for my own satisfaction and fun. When it gets boring, I stop.
And of course, Bowen after seeing me play, wants to play too. But even if we start him on lessons (most music instructors will agree that 5 years is about the right age to start, not earlier), there's no way I'm going to make him practice or let him treat music as anything but fun. Though having read this answer on Quora, I'm tempted to force him into music lessons and use math or cycling as a reward instead.
I think as far as music lessons are concerned, the advice written by Antoine de Saint Exupery from decades ago applies, more than anything else:
"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
You hear a lot of junk science about how this is supposed to teach kids self-discipline, or teach them to persevere to be good at something. There's also the frequent comment that it's harder to learn music as an adult. There's the real-science behind it mentioned in Brain Rules for Baby, which discusses how about 10 years of music lessons is correlated with better understanding of emotions or empathy. (I don't remember which)
Anyway, Xiaoqin said, "if those parents like music so much, why don't they learn the instrument themselves instead of making their kids that way?" My tip for kids is to make this bargain with their parents: they'd spend precisely as much time practicing their instruments as their parents spend playing Bloodborne. (Those kids who want to have mercy on their parents can choose an easier game like Uncharted 2 instead) (No, I'm not afraid of my kids doing this to me --- I've been secretly practicing video games)
In any case, I grew up hating piano lessons as well, just like many other Asian kids. Thankfully, my parents let us give up on those lessons before any permanent damage was done: I'll never love classical music, but at least I can enjoy some music.
In any case, I'd always thought that I'd enjoy the flute. I bought a tiny white recorder-toy for Bowen, and could play a few tunes for him, but the recorder's range is pretty limited. And then during a re-watch of Battlestar Galactica (we knew to stop at Season 3, Episode 4), I heard Wander My Friends, which captivated me. Coupled with my wife's comments about learning an instrument, I decided to buy a cheapo flute and a book and try to learn how to play.
A few days into it, I realized that learning an instrument from a book was a recipe for giving myself bad habits, and engaged an instructor for private lessons. A couple of weeks of practice later, and I'm beginning to hit high notes. Most of all, I'm now actually able to play tunes that I like, albeit not mistake free, and perhaps at a halting tempo. (I've long been able to play anything by ear, with minor experimentation, so this is not a surprise --- my sight reading skills are still piss-poor, however, mostly because playing by ear has made me neglect those skills)
The flute's a much tougher instrument than the piano: rather than just working your fingers and hands, you have to form an embouchure. Worse, the embouchure varies from note to note, so you're changing the embouchure and your fingering at the same time, which makes for challenging practicing. On the other hand, it's a much more fun instrument than the piano.
For one thing, you don't have to sit! I never realized how much I disliked sitting in front of a piano until the day I realized that the flute didn't have to be played sitting down. I can stand and play, walk around and play, and generally move around. The instrument is portable, and if I ever got really good at it, I supposed I could hike and practice at the same time. If you're a cyclist, hiker, sailor, a piano is a ridiculous thing to bring with you on trips, but it's entirely feasible to bring along a flute, or its cheap but robust relative, the fife.
So a couple of weeks later, my cheapo flute developed an air-leak that made me unable to play certain notes. My instructor looked at it and asked me how much I paid for it. When I told him, he said that he was surprised that it even made any noise at all. He recommended that I upgraded to the Gemeinhardt. That darn thing cost $300, but it was a revelation! Now I can easily hit every note I can form a decent embouchure for, and I could now play Wander My Friends. The day it arrived I spent a couple of hours playing it because it was so much fun being able to play whatever I wanted without the instrument getting in the way! I was never that motivated as a kid! Note that the technical practice still sucks. It's still boring to repeatedly play the same piece over and over again, and it's still annoying as heck to fail for 4-5 days until suddenly everything clicks and you can do it on the 6th.
So the argument that it's easier to learn music as a kid doesn't really pan out for me. As an adult, it's easier for me to tolerate having to do technical exercises in order to get better. I've learned to reward myself by playing tunes I like after I'm done with the technical exercises. I also have low standards. I'm not going after orchestra-level performance: I'm playing for my own satisfaction and fun. When it gets boring, I stop.
And of course, Bowen after seeing me play, wants to play too. But even if we start him on lessons (most music instructors will agree that 5 years is about the right age to start, not earlier), there's no way I'm going to make him practice or let him treat music as anything but fun. Though having read this answer on Quora, I'm tempted to force him into music lessons and use math or cycling as a reward instead.
I think as far as music lessons are concerned, the advice written by Antoine de Saint Exupery from decades ago applies, more than anything else:
"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
Monday, April 13, 2015
Review: The Altar Girl
I'll admit that while I religiously pick up my free Kindle First book, I rarely get around to reading them, let alone finish them. They don't usually have good writing, and frequently have all too many cliches like Vampires, Zombies, or marrying a billionaire.
The Altar Girl promised to be an exception. First, the protagonist is unusual: a Ukrainian woman (Nadia Tesla) who separated from her community, and estranged from her family. When her godfather dies, she comes back and discovers that he was probably murdered. Like any other noir novel, her investigations leads her into deeper and deeper trouble, until a "thrilling" conclusion.
The Ukrainian background is authentic (the author himself is Ukrainian), and the heroine herself is more or less competent. The mystery, however, is kinda matter-of-fact, and has a cliched twist that doesn't quite play fair with the reader. (That means that the novel properly falls into the "thriller" category rather than the mystery category)
There's a flashback thread involving an incident in Nadia's childhood that doesn't actually add much, and serves more of a red herring than anything else. While it's good to depict Nadia's character from a young age, there's too big a discontinuity from her childhood event to her depiction as an adult for it to carry much weight.
Nevertheless, the novel is short and doesn't cost a lot of time, so I'd recommend it as an airplane novel. Mildly recommended.
The Altar Girl promised to be an exception. First, the protagonist is unusual: a Ukrainian woman (Nadia Tesla) who separated from her community, and estranged from her family. When her godfather dies, she comes back and discovers that he was probably murdered. Like any other noir novel, her investigations leads her into deeper and deeper trouble, until a "thrilling" conclusion.
The Ukrainian background is authentic (the author himself is Ukrainian), and the heroine herself is more or less competent. The mystery, however, is kinda matter-of-fact, and has a cliched twist that doesn't quite play fair with the reader. (That means that the novel properly falls into the "thriller" category rather than the mystery category)
There's a flashback thread involving an incident in Nadia's childhood that doesn't actually add much, and serves more of a red herring than anything else. While it's good to depict Nadia's character from a young age, there's too big a discontinuity from her childhood event to her depiction as an adult for it to carry much weight.
Nevertheless, the novel is short and doesn't cost a lot of time, so I'd recommend it as an airplane novel. Mildly recommended.
Monday, April 06, 2015
Review: Skinny Mini Pen
If you're like me, you can never find a pen whenever you need one. I'm forever borrowing pens in order to fill out customs forms while traveling, or even to write a check. I've tried buying boxes of pens from Costco or Amazon, but that doesn't work. Before I know it, the pens have disappered, and I'm back to borrowing random pens from strangers if I'm lucky, or just searching through every nook and cranny of the house in the hopes of finding one that works.
The solution for me, it turned out, it to forget about traditional pens, and buy a wallet pen. If you Google that, you'll get outrageously priced garbage that's pretty to look at but actually won't fit in your wallet. However, during a recent sale, I found the Skinny Mini Pen. This device is actually engineered to fit in the fold of your wallet, and when I keep it there, I hardly ever notice that it's around.
However, because of its location, I can always find it, since I usually have my wallet with me! The pen telescopes to become longer in case you have bigger hands than mine, but for me, I can just use it without that feature. The biggest issue I have with this pen is that the cap is a screw on cap. That slows things down for me, but much less so than desperately having to look for a pen would. It even has replaceable ink fillers, which is very nice, but given how little I need to write nowadays, I'll be surprised if I have to replace the filler more than once every 5 years.
In any case, this is highly recommended. If you never have a pen when you need one, this is the solution for you.
The solution for me, it turned out, it to forget about traditional pens, and buy a wallet pen. If you Google that, you'll get outrageously priced garbage that's pretty to look at but actually won't fit in your wallet. However, during a recent sale, I found the Skinny Mini Pen. This device is actually engineered to fit in the fold of your wallet, and when I keep it there, I hardly ever notice that it's around.
However, because of its location, I can always find it, since I usually have my wallet with me! The pen telescopes to become longer in case you have bigger hands than mine, but for me, I can just use it without that feature. The biggest issue I have with this pen is that the cap is a screw on cap. That slows things down for me, but much less so than desperately having to look for a pen would. It even has replaceable ink fillers, which is very nice, but given how little I need to write nowadays, I'll be surprised if I have to replace the filler more than once every 5 years.
In any case, this is highly recommended. If you never have a pen when you need one, this is the solution for you.
Friday, April 03, 2015
Review: Camelbak Podium Bottle
I'm a notorious cheapskate, and have been using my Google-issued water bottles for at least the last 8-9 years. But they recently sprung a leak, which would normally have me keep using them if all I had in them was water and/or ice, but because I've been adding Nuun tablets to my bottles, end up with all sorts of electrolytes bursting out. Not really acceptable, since it would cause rapid chain wear.
There was a deal for the Camelbak Podium bottle, so I got 2 effectively for free, despite my skepticism about them truly working. I'm abashed to say that they actually do work, and work well. Even with an effervescent tablet in them, they don't leak, and when you squeeze the bottle, they do provide water. There's a fully lock out tab, which I've used by mistake, but it's easy to undo while riding.
My biggest problem with them is that I still keep bumping the bottle spouts with my chin in an attempt to close or open them out of habit.
Recommended. When it comes time to replace my insulated bottles, I'll seriously consider the insulated "Chill" version of these bottles as well.
There was a deal for the Camelbak Podium bottle, so I got 2 effectively for free, despite my skepticism about them truly working. I'm abashed to say that they actually do work, and work well. Even with an effervescent tablet in them, they don't leak, and when you squeeze the bottle, they do provide water. There's a fully lock out tab, which I've used by mistake, but it's easy to undo while riding.
My biggest problem with them is that I still keep bumping the bottle spouts with my chin in an attempt to close or open them out of habit.
Recommended. When it comes time to replace my insulated bottles, I'll seriously consider the insulated "Chill" version of these bottles as well.
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