Over the last few years, Microsoft's been increasingly making rational business decisions. One of the less seemingly rational ones, however, is the introduction of XBox Play Anywhere. The idea is that if you bought an XBox game, you'd be able to play it on both an XBox and a Windows 10 PC (well, a PC that had a decent graphics card, at least). In theory, this is a nice perk for folks who've bought completely into the Microsoft eco-system. Except that I don't know why you'd have both a high-end graphics card PC system and an XBox.
There are several problems with this: first of all, if you have a capable PC, this definitely means you won't buy an XBox. Maybe Microsoft doesn't care, or maybe it's just a side effect. The second issue is that the PC ecosystem is still wonky. Some games, (e.g., Quantum Break), may or may not play on your system.
In any case, I wouldn't normally pay the absurd prices digital vendors ask for consumables such as video games. But over the holidays, Microsoft ran a series of Microsoft Reward specials that enabled me to convert Microsoft Rewards points to cash for the Microsoft App store. Since I had 20,000+ points, I took full advantage and ended up with a large app store bonus. The Microsoft app store, sadly is lacking in useful programs, so I picked up Gears of War 4.
Gears of War 4 belongs to my favorite genre of shooter games: the 3rd person cover-shooter. Gears of War has the reputation for being the series that introduced this genre to the world, so I downloaded the multi-gigabyte download to my D drive and started up the app. PC gaming has a reputation for being very complex, requiring lots of tweaking and tuning in order to maximize image quality while still retaining a high enough frame rate to be acceptable. To my surprise, out of the box, the app detected my system settings and picked a compromise that I could not casually improve in about 10 minutes of playing with the dials and sliders available in the settings screen. That made me feel like Microsoft had really done its homework.
Then, when I started up the game, upon the opening titles starting up, the game crashed. Not only did it crash, it crashed without a dialog box, without a log file for me to look at, or even any indication that there was anything wrong. The system snapped back to the desktop as though I'd quit using a keyboard short-cut. Not cool. I searched around for a solution but couldn't find an answer. I eventually stumbled upon this: a Universal Windows Program (UWP) game cannot be installed onto any drive other than C in order to run. What's this? Did we regress to the mid-1990s, where everything had to be installed into the C drive? Wow.
Other than that, the program had been mostly stable. In the last act of the single player campaign I ran into hard system crashes, but then again, my 8 year old PC is starting to get flakey in general, so maybe that's to be expected. In any case, once I figured out the C drive issue I could play, but I can certainly understand how the PC gaming ecosystem got its reputation as being unfriendly or even user-hostile, on top of being expensive and bulky.
The game itself is fun. Here you have to split your understanding between "fun as a game" and "fun as a movie experience." Games nowadays have movies driving a plot in between playable parts. Games like Uncharted 4, The Last of Us, or Batman Arkham Asylum have excellent plots, fantastic pacing, and a nice balance between game play and movie watching so you're never bored and have a good experience. A game like Rise of Tomb Raider might have better game play (including more complex but satisfying resource management systems), but much worse writing and plotting. Gears of War pretty much says, "Forget the story --- it's just an excuse to dump you into the Game Play loop."
Gears of War's game play loop, however is pretty bland! There are no resource management issues: you fundamentally have to pick up ammo or switch weapons. Sometimes the weapons left for you on the battlefield are a hint as to what's coming up. Several times, you have to play a "hold the line" scenario, in which you can deploy fortifications which can help you hold the line and even carry over resources from one wave of enemies to another. These are particularly fun and can withstand repeated play. But that's it. Now it's been a while since I got a cover shooter to play, so I had a lot of fun, but there's no way you would pick up an XBox just for this game, nor would you even bother paying money for it, since it's something other games do a much better job on. Nevertheless, as a freebie, it's a game that doesn't waste a lot of time, jumps straight into what it does best, and gives you loads to do.
There are a few mechanical niceties. First of all, the game always gives you at least one companion character at all times to play. Those companion characters can even take care of themselves and each other, as well as saving you if you get hurt badly (you can also crawl back to one of them to get "rescued."). Then I noticed the enemies doing the same, so the mechanics apply to them as well. Very sweet. The game is much less lonely than a Batman game or a Tomb Raider game as a result, which is a very good thing.
The story and characters aren't much to go by, though some of the banter is great at making fun of the game itself. The boss fights are fair, and the game never overstays its gimmicks. In short, this is competent, polished work. Just not inspired. If you have an XBox One (or a gaming capable PC) anyway, a sale might make this worth picking up. And it is one of the few games where configuring the graphics settings isn't an exercise in frustration. As such, I can recommend it if you enjoy 3rd person cover shooters.
Monday, January 23, 2017
Friday, January 20, 2017
Review: Laser Maze Jr Logic Game
Laser Maze Jr is a puzzle game (like Rush Hour) that features a laser built into the board, 3 obstacles, 2 rocket ship targets, 5 satellite mirrors, and 1 splitter. Unlike Rush Hour, Laser Maze Jr is deliberately not compatible with the adult version of the same game. The reason behind this is that the adult version allows you to pick up and move the laser, which would be dangerous for a little kid to do since the kid might shine the laser into somebody else's or his own eyes.
The game is set up like Rush Hour: you get a bunch of cards that tell you how to set up each puzzle, and the goal is to make all the target rockets on the board light up using the pieces that you're allowed to use. There are several problems with the components. First of all, the laser is very low powered and subtle. In fact, in a room with windows and bright sunlight, you cannot tell whether the targets are lit up! You'll have to draw the curtains to make it obvious.
Secondly, and much more importantly, the components are small and easy to lose, and Thinkfun's policy is $5 per part. Fortunately, the lossage occured within Amazon's window (in fact, the game could have arrived with one of the mirrors missing). With such an unfriendly policy it was a no brainer to return the entire game to Amazon. One way to have mitigated the lossage problem would have been to have a decent carry bag bundled in the box, or some way to lock unused pieces to the board, but neither of those features were available.
With all the design defects with the product and the extremely , I would not recommend this puzzle to parents. Wait until the kids are old enough not to lose pieces.
The game is set up like Rush Hour: you get a bunch of cards that tell you how to set up each puzzle, and the goal is to make all the target rockets on the board light up using the pieces that you're allowed to use. There are several problems with the components. First of all, the laser is very low powered and subtle. In fact, in a room with windows and bright sunlight, you cannot tell whether the targets are lit up! You'll have to draw the curtains to make it obvious.
Secondly, and much more importantly, the components are small and easy to lose, and Thinkfun's policy is $5 per part. Fortunately, the lossage occured within Amazon's window (in fact, the game could have arrived with one of the mirrors missing). With such an unfriendly policy it was a no brainer to return the entire game to Amazon. One way to have mitigated the lossage problem would have been to have a decent carry bag bundled in the box, or some way to lock unused pieces to the board, but neither of those features were available.
With all the design defects with the product and the extremely , I would not recommend this puzzle to parents. Wait until the kids are old enough not to lose pieces.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Review: Batman and Psychology - A Dark and Stormy Knight
There was an audible 2-for-1 promotion that included Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight.If anyone's going to have psychological issues, it's gotta be Batman, so this sounded like a fun read (or in this case, listen).
In practice, it's pretty boring. No, Batman isn't insane (despite dressing up as a bat). Neither does he suffer from PTSD, multiple personality disorder, or any of the alphabet soup of problems he should have. Given what he is, what he does, and the world he lives in, he truly is the best possible person he could be. That's pretty boring.
The analysis of his rogue's gallery proves to be more interesting: what are the aspects of his personality that his villains reflect? What about his femme fatales? His relationship with the father figures in his life? And the relationships with the various Robins? How to reconcile all of the "what-if" stories that have been written over the years? How about the campy TV series, the Tim Burton movies and the Christopher Nolan movies?
The author, Travis Langley has an excellent command of the source material, and uses them to good effect (though I noticed that he quotes much more from the Chris Nolan movies than the other movie materials). He's conducted several interviews and/or been in comic book convention panels with various Batman writers. I certainly couldn't remember even half the Batman trivia the book provides, though I suspect Tom Galloway would probably be able to top it and correct any typos in the quotations.
Overall, the book does do a good job of dispensing with the various myths propagated by years of comic book stories. "No, the Joker would not get away with the insanity defense, nor would any of the other comic book villains." Multiple personality disorder cannot consistently recur with a blow to the head. The book even cursorily covers parenting styles!
But despite all that, the book never really captured me, despite what should be fascinating subject matter. Maybe because the psychology of a character that's been through multiple authors just can't be that consistent, or that I'm much more interested in Batman's role as a symbol and place in popular culture than in the psychology of what actually makes Bruce Wayne tick. I found myself switching between this and other audio books to give the grim subject matter a break.
Thus: not recommended even if you're a Batman fan.
In practice, it's pretty boring. No, Batman isn't insane (despite dressing up as a bat). Neither does he suffer from PTSD, multiple personality disorder, or any of the alphabet soup of problems he should have. Given what he is, what he does, and the world he lives in, he truly is the best possible person he could be. That's pretty boring.
The analysis of his rogue's gallery proves to be more interesting: what are the aspects of his personality that his villains reflect? What about his femme fatales? His relationship with the father figures in his life? And the relationships with the various Robins? How to reconcile all of the "what-if" stories that have been written over the years? How about the campy TV series, the Tim Burton movies and the Christopher Nolan movies?
The author, Travis Langley has an excellent command of the source material, and uses them to good effect (though I noticed that he quotes much more from the Chris Nolan movies than the other movie materials). He's conducted several interviews and/or been in comic book convention panels with various Batman writers. I certainly couldn't remember even half the Batman trivia the book provides, though I suspect Tom Galloway would probably be able to top it and correct any typos in the quotations.
Overall, the book does do a good job of dispensing with the various myths propagated by years of comic book stories. "No, the Joker would not get away with the insanity defense, nor would any of the other comic book villains." Multiple personality disorder cannot consistently recur with a blow to the head. The book even cursorily covers parenting styles!
But despite all that, the book never really captured me, despite what should be fascinating subject matter. Maybe because the psychology of a character that's been through multiple authors just can't be that consistent, or that I'm much more interested in Batman's role as a symbol and place in popular culture than in the psychology of what actually makes Bruce Wayne tick. I found myself switching between this and other audio books to give the grim subject matter a break.
Thus: not recommended even if you're a Batman fan.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Review: Rush Hour Jr
I saw a copy of Rush Hour Jr for sale during the holidays and grabbed it, having had fun memories of the original, adult version. The game is essentially a "slide puzzle", but with restricted direction of movements for the "cars and trucks" and a goal of getting the key piece out.
The game components are better than the adult version: the toy vehicles aren't any better made, but the game comes with a carry bag, and the vehicles are kid-themed: buses, fire trucks, police cars, and of course, the ice cream truck "key" piece.
I expected Bowen to have to struggle with the puzzle, but he actually got to puzzle #26 before getting stuck! The best thing about this puzzle game is that if/when he runs out of the puzzles in the base piece, the expansion card decks are fully compatible with the adult versions of the game, so more curated puzzles are available. Whenever Bowen got frustrated, he'd put away the game for a few days and then come back and start all over at Puzzle #1. I'm rediscovering that kids just don't get bored of repetition the way adults do.
There are Android app versions of the game, but I discovered that they were all geared for adults and the puzzles are a bit too hard for Bowen. Curation is really what you're paying for, and of course, there's something satisfying about pushing the plastic pieces on a board versus swiping away at a phone.
To the extent that your child likes puzzles, this is a cool, easily portable kit that can actually engage your child for a good afternoon at a time. Recommended.
The game components are better than the adult version: the toy vehicles aren't any better made, but the game comes with a carry bag, and the vehicles are kid-themed: buses, fire trucks, police cars, and of course, the ice cream truck "key" piece.
I expected Bowen to have to struggle with the puzzle, but he actually got to puzzle #26 before getting stuck! The best thing about this puzzle game is that if/when he runs out of the puzzles in the base piece, the expansion card decks are fully compatible with the adult versions of the game, so more curated puzzles are available. Whenever Bowen got frustrated, he'd put away the game for a few days and then come back and start all over at Puzzle #1. I'm rediscovering that kids just don't get bored of repetition the way adults do.
There are Android app versions of the game, but I discovered that they were all geared for adults and the puzzles are a bit too hard for Bowen. Curation is really what you're paying for, and of course, there's something satisfying about pushing the plastic pieces on a board versus swiping away at a phone.
To the extent that your child likes puzzles, this is a cool, easily portable kit that can actually engage your child for a good afternoon at a time. Recommended.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Review: Heat Moisture Exchanger
If you travel with a full-size CPAP machine (which I do when I travel with family), then you might consider bringing the humidifier as well. However, the humidifier adds a huge amount of weight, not just because the humidifier itself is bulky and includes a heating unit and water chamber, but also because the power supply need to drive it also needs to size up!
This winter, on our travels, I looked at the HME attached to my Z1 CPAP and realized that it could also serve as a replacement humidifier for the Resmed S9!
The HME is supposedly disposable and needs to be replaced every week or so. (In practice, every 10 days is sufficient) For the last 3 days of the trip I decided to do without just to see. It was horrible. I went from being able to use the CPAP all night to taking off the machine after 4-5 hours of therapy. (This might have contributed to my catching a nasty virus on the flight back!)
Suffice to say, next time I buy a batch of HMEs, I'll be buying far more than for use with just the Z1! This is essential equipment and it doesn't go bad and I can easily buy enough to qualify for a discount!
This winter, on our travels, I looked at the HME attached to my Z1 CPAP and realized that it could also serve as a replacement humidifier for the Resmed S9!
The HME is supposedly disposable and needs to be replaced every week or so. (In practice, every 10 days is sufficient) For the last 3 days of the trip I decided to do without just to see. It was horrible. I went from being able to use the CPAP all night to taking off the machine after 4-5 hours of therapy. (This might have contributed to my catching a nasty virus on the flight back!)
Suffice to say, next time I buy a batch of HMEs, I'll be buying far more than for use with just the Z1! This is essential equipment and it doesn't go bad and I can easily buy enough to qualify for a discount!
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Disney Magic Kingdom and Universal Islands of Adventure
On paper, it looked like a good idea to return the rental car in the Orlando area, and visit the theme parks there before returning to California. My idea was to visit the Kennedy Space Center on the transition. A deluge of storms and a wrong turn on the highway made that plan worthless.
My memories of Magic Kingdom were colored by the 2014 visit. At that time, the crowds were minor, and we could do every ride Bowen could do in 2 days.
This time, the clouds were extensive,and our fast passes of limited use as all the good rides were already taken. The waits were long and the food expensive. The fireworks was something to see, but it disrupted the kids bedtime enough that they were cranky. I feel no desire to ever repeat the Magic Kingdom visits except under some very ideal conditions.
With that, our expectations for Islands of Adventure was muted. The customer service was horrible, with long lines just to wait for the tickets an app that refused to issue tickets! But once into the park it was actually a better experience than the Magic Kingdom. The lines were short except for one ride (the King Kong experience), and more importantly, Bowen loved the Spiderman ride.
The Spiderman ride is a 4D ride, with water, heat, and 3D glasses. The roller coaster experience along with the other sensory inputs were so much fun that Bowen went on the ride 5 times! We tried some of the other rides, like the Jurassic jungle experience, and I tried the Hulk roller coaster, but none of them were as complete as the Spiderman one. We didn't stay too late, but one nice thing about the park was that if you did stay late, the park's lines become even more diminished and it's a much more pleasant experience.
If I had this trip to do over I'd visit the Islands of Adventure first and stay late to that one, and not do Magic Kingdom again. One interesting feature is that while Disney now owns Marvel, Orlando Universl has an exclusive license to use those characters in a theme park, which is why Disney's theme parks don't actually have Marvel characters! Just buy your tickets ahead of time at your hotel or online and you won't have the massive wait we had to get into the park.
My memories of Magic Kingdom were colored by the 2014 visit. At that time, the crowds were minor, and we could do every ride Bowen could do in 2 days.
This time, the clouds were extensive,and our fast passes of limited use as all the good rides were already taken. The waits were long and the food expensive. The fireworks was something to see, but it disrupted the kids bedtime enough that they were cranky. I feel no desire to ever repeat the Magic Kingdom visits except under some very ideal conditions.
With that, our expectations for Islands of Adventure was muted. The customer service was horrible, with long lines just to wait for the tickets an app that refused to issue tickets! But once into the park it was actually a better experience than the Magic Kingdom. The lines were short except for one ride (the King Kong experience), and more importantly, Bowen loved the Spiderman ride.
The Spiderman ride is a 4D ride, with water, heat, and 3D glasses. The roller coaster experience along with the other sensory inputs were so much fun that Bowen went on the ride 5 times! We tried some of the other rides, like the Jurassic jungle experience, and I tried the Hulk roller coaster, but none of them were as complete as the Spiderman one. We didn't stay too late, but one nice thing about the park was that if you did stay late, the park's lines become even more diminished and it's a much more pleasant experience.
If I had this trip to do over I'd visit the Islands of Adventure first and stay late to that one, and not do Magic Kingdom again. One interesting feature is that while Disney now owns Marvel, Orlando Universl has an exclusive license to use those characters in a theme park, which is why Disney's theme parks don't actually have Marvel characters! Just buy your tickets ahead of time at your hotel or online and you won't have the massive wait we had to get into the park.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Florida Keys 2016
This winter break, we took the family over to the Florida's Keys area for a warm weather visit. There are a few reasons the Keys is attractive: first, it's in the continental US, so the flights are fairly easy, and the areas are familiar. Even stores like Costco and Target are available, which makes shopping for supplies much easier than some of the more exotic trips. Secondarily, it's almost at the Caribbean, which makes the water warm enough for swimming and snorkeling, as well as providing ideal location for a refresh dive. Added to the attractiveness is the idea that much of the Keys will be gone in a few decades as sea levels rise, so we should see it while we can! Houses in the area, for instance, are already built on stilts, with the idea that when floods and storms happen you would escape by car and abandon your garage/parking area to nature.
Neither Google nor Facebook no longer allow embedded slide shows of albums to blogger, so you now have to put up with a crummy web-link if you want to see the photo album.
Because it was our first time in the area, we screwed up a lot. First of all, we booked our rental house in Marathon, instead of Key West or Key Largo. When I looked at the map, I naively thought that Marathon being between Largo and West would make an ideal base from which to commute to both sides. What I didn't know was that traffic in the Keys is terrible, and Florida drivers are much worse than California drivers by several orders of magnitude. Commuting from Marathon to Key Largo was an ordeal during traffic hours, and there was one day when we abandoned a trip to Key West because there was a 4 hour traffic jam!
We did a dive trip from John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. All those months spent teaching Bowen how to snorkel finally paid off as he enjoyed the water and loved looking at fishes. His limit was basically his ability to keep warm in the water. His favorite movie quickly became Finding Dory!
On New Year's Day, we went to Key West for the Yankee Freedom to ferry us to Dry Tortugas National Park. This place was touted as having the best snorkeling in the Keys and lived up to its reputation. While most tourists stayed near the beach, if you make it over to the coal pilings, it's like swimming in an aquarium!
Neither Google nor Facebook no longer allow embedded slide shows of albums to blogger, so you now have to put up with a crummy web-link if you want to see the photo album.
Because it was our first time in the area, we screwed up a lot. First of all, we booked our rental house in Marathon, instead of Key West or Key Largo. When I looked at the map, I naively thought that Marathon being between Largo and West would make an ideal base from which to commute to both sides. What I didn't know was that traffic in the Keys is terrible, and Florida drivers are much worse than California drivers by several orders of magnitude. Commuting from Marathon to Key Largo was an ordeal during traffic hours, and there was one day when we abandoned a trip to Key West because there was a 4 hour traffic jam!
We did a dive trip from John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. All those months spent teaching Bowen how to snorkel finally paid off as he enjoyed the water and loved looking at fishes. His limit was basically his ability to keep warm in the water. His favorite movie quickly became Finding Dory!
On New Year's Day, we went to Key West for the Yankee Freedom to ferry us to Dry Tortugas National Park. This place was touted as having the best snorkeling in the Keys and lived up to its reputation. While most tourists stayed near the beach, if you make it over to the coal pilings, it's like swimming in an aquarium!
We paid a visit to Bahia Honda State Park. Unfortunately, the wind and waves made it impossible to do any snorkeling, and the swimming was mediocre. Both kids enjoyed the sand and sun though.
One interesting feature of Marathon was that we could easily visit the Turtle Hospital. You need to make reservations for this, but it was all Bowen could talk about for a few days. The facilities were indeed impressive and it's interesting to see what sort of ailments are solutions the hospital developed. It's well worth visiting, and yes, some of the turtles were named after the mutant ninjas.
On our second visit to Key West, we visited the Hemingway House. At most museums you would avoid the dry, boring tour. Not here! The tours are led by funny guides who did a good job of making the writer's life interesting (not that any life which involved 4 marriages, several wars, and affairs needed a lot of help!).
We got to watch the sunset, but boy, the crowds were something as well. The house we were in had a dock, so we rented a tandem kayak to explore the area, and did some final snorkeling before leaving for the Orlando area.
If I had to do this trip all over again, I would either stay at Key Largo or Key West, preferably with a base in each area rather than trying to split the difference. The rest of it you're dependent very much on the weather anyway as to how good the snorkeling is. One thing worth trying is to rent a boat in Miami and sail/motor down to the Keys. It's not as pleasant as the BVIs, but there are enough anchorages that it would be prettier than trying to see the place by land.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Review: Panasonic Ergo Fit Earbuds
The Playstation Vita supports bluetooth, but in a funky way that disconnects every time it goes to sleep, and occasionally finds it difficult to pair. I wasn't willing to spend a lot of money on dedicated headphones for it, so got the Panosonic Ergo Fit Earbuds, which had great reviews on Amazon.
The ear buds are surprisingly comfortable and do a reasonable job of sealing out outside noise. What's really nice about traditional headphones using the traditional headphone port is that the power requirements are minimal and the devices last forever, whether they're smartphones or PS Vitas.
For $8 + tax, these are a great deal. In fact, I wish I'd sprung for the version with the inline mic so it can serve as a backup for my regular bluetooth headsets.
Recommended.
The ear buds are surprisingly comfortable and do a reasonable job of sealing out outside noise. What's really nice about traditional headphones using the traditional headphone port is that the power requirements are minimal and the devices last forever, whether they're smartphones or PS Vitas.
For $8 + tax, these are a great deal. In fact, I wish I'd sprung for the version with the inline mic so it can serve as a backup for my regular bluetooth headsets.
Recommended.
Monday, January 09, 2017
First Impressions: Nikon AW130
The Nikon AW130 isn't nearly as good a camera as a high end smart phone. While it will start up pretty fast and take pictures, and the optical zoom is obviously better than any smart phone's, the camera is missing features like Auto HDR, and the sensor in the camera isn't any bigger than your smart phone's.
The lens features awful distortion and the wide end (see the curved horizon line above), which even Lightroom is unable to correct (I'd have to pull up Photoshop). At the wide end, it probably any better.
Of course, it's 30% of the price of current high end smart phones (at $199), and it shoots pictures under water even down to a depth of 100 feet. The camera also features shock-proofing for a drop from 7'. The zoom is internal, so there are no moving parts underwater to break, and it features wireless connectivity to your phone so pictures can be exported without a 3rd party app. It does all this without a case, but unlike say, the Olympus TG-4 ($379), does not feature RAW mode.
In practice, the pictures from the camera are better than the Moto G 2015. I picked the camera because there was a sale during Black Friday for ($199), which made it too attractive given a snorkeling and diving trip that we had in December. The price difference between it and more expensive cameras is such that I'd rather have this one with the better depth rating like the above-mentioned TG-4. I opted not to go with an underwater case for one of the better cameras because I've flooded way too many cases in the past, and the extra bulk didn't seem worth it.
In practice, the lack of RAW is by far the most punishing problem with the camera. Let's face it, under water, I'm not going to be adjusting white balance, zooming, or setting aperture and shutter speed. I would rely on RAW post-processing for all that. Because the camera only shoots in JPG, I can't do that and have to live with limited adjust-ability. In ideal conditions that's not a big deal but in challenging lighting conditions or murky water your keeper ratio is just going to drop like a rock.
Another issue is that the camera is not neutrally buoyant, so you're going to have to find a way to secure it or it'll sink like a stone if you let go. During this trip it wasn't a big deal. Every time I needed to use both hands for other uses I'd just stuff the camera down my wet suit and recover it later. But the camera does not come with any kind of strap suitable for underwater use, so I'll have to find another solution for the long term.
Waterproofing is done via a lock on the chamber that provides access to micro-USB charging and the SD card. There are no rubber grommets to break and lose, and the inside of the chamber is colored bright yellow so you know that the camera hasn't been waterproof'd. The closure is a bit finicky and I'm fearful that the locking mechanism will break some day, so I would avoid opening and closing the chamber frequently. The wireless transfer via smartphone would be one way to avoid doing that, but Nikon's solution/app is even worse than Canon's, which surprised the heck out of me. The result is that I'd process photos every other day rather than every day.
Overall, I do like the camera enough to recommend it at $199.00 (which Amazon still supplies). Hopefully, competition will drive one of the major manufacturers to provide a better camera in the future for a similar price, but for the moment this is the best compromise for the money.
The lens features awful distortion and the wide end (see the curved horizon line above), which even Lightroom is unable to correct (I'd have to pull up Photoshop). At the wide end, it probably any better.
Of course, it's 30% of the price of current high end smart phones (at $199), and it shoots pictures under water even down to a depth of 100 feet. The camera also features shock-proofing for a drop from 7'. The zoom is internal, so there are no moving parts underwater to break, and it features wireless connectivity to your phone so pictures can be exported without a 3rd party app. It does all this without a case, but unlike say, the Olympus TG-4 ($379), does not feature RAW mode.
In practice, the pictures from the camera are better than the Moto G 2015. I picked the camera because there was a sale during Black Friday for ($199), which made it too attractive given a snorkeling and diving trip that we had in December. The price difference between it and more expensive cameras is such that I'd rather have this one with the better depth rating like the above-mentioned TG-4. I opted not to go with an underwater case for one of the better cameras because I've flooded way too many cases in the past, and the extra bulk didn't seem worth it.
In practice, the lack of RAW is by far the most punishing problem with the camera. Let's face it, under water, I'm not going to be adjusting white balance, zooming, or setting aperture and shutter speed. I would rely on RAW post-processing for all that. Because the camera only shoots in JPG, I can't do that and have to live with limited adjust-ability. In ideal conditions that's not a big deal but in challenging lighting conditions or murky water your keeper ratio is just going to drop like a rock.
Another issue is that the camera is not neutrally buoyant, so you're going to have to find a way to secure it or it'll sink like a stone if you let go. During this trip it wasn't a big deal. Every time I needed to use both hands for other uses I'd just stuff the camera down my wet suit and recover it later. But the camera does not come with any kind of strap suitable for underwater use, so I'll have to find another solution for the long term.
Waterproofing is done via a lock on the chamber that provides access to micro-USB charging and the SD card. There are no rubber grommets to break and lose, and the inside of the chamber is colored bright yellow so you know that the camera hasn't been waterproof'd. The closure is a bit finicky and I'm fearful that the locking mechanism will break some day, so I would avoid opening and closing the chamber frequently. The wireless transfer via smartphone would be one way to avoid doing that, but Nikon's solution/app is even worse than Canon's, which surprised the heck out of me. The result is that I'd process photos every other day rather than every day.
Overall, I do like the camera enough to recommend it at $199.00 (which Amazon still supplies). Hopefully, competition will drive one of the major manufacturers to provide a better camera in the future for a similar price, but for the moment this is the best compromise for the money.
Thursday, January 05, 2017
Review: Daredevil Season 1
One of the challenges of a superhero series is the expectation built up over the years from having some really great stories. For Daredevil, there's Miller & Mazzucchelli's Born Again. That story, however, stood in context of a long series, while the TV show (for whatever reason) feels obliged to tell the origin story, recasting it in a different fashion.
TV shows get much more room to deal with their subject matter: tension can be added to scenes, and longer stories get a chance to play out. With series on streaming video like Netflix, shows don't even need to have a 3 act structure to give room for commercial breaks. Towards the end of the season, the producers and directors take advantage of this to deliver 55 minute episodes instead of 45 minute episodes, which allow them to derail expectations in certain sequences while heightening the climaxes.
The chief villain in this season is Wilson Fisk (known in the comics as The Kingpin, but never gets that label here). The actor does an amazing job, portraying Fisk as a man with genuine goals and ideals and viewing himself as a good guy. The show spends about as much time on him as it does on Matt Murdock. Daredevil himself never gets a name until right at the end, nor does he wear a costume for most of the series.
The storyline is reasonable, and the action sequences are justifiably praised by critics. The entire thing was done on a budget, but done well. The show even takes advantage of its ability to depart from the comics by killing off characters that were long standing actors in the books, adding more shock value to those who read the comics.
Is this the best superhero show on TV? I haven't watched enough shows in recent years to be able to tell you. But it's pretty good, and with the holiday discounts, enough to justify the microSD card storage space I had devoted to it while I watched in 15 minute chunks during the holidays. Recommended.
TV shows get much more room to deal with their subject matter: tension can be added to scenes, and longer stories get a chance to play out. With series on streaming video like Netflix, shows don't even need to have a 3 act structure to give room for commercial breaks. Towards the end of the season, the producers and directors take advantage of this to deliver 55 minute episodes instead of 45 minute episodes, which allow them to derail expectations in certain sequences while heightening the climaxes.
The chief villain in this season is Wilson Fisk (known in the comics as The Kingpin, but never gets that label here). The actor does an amazing job, portraying Fisk as a man with genuine goals and ideals and viewing himself as a good guy. The show spends about as much time on him as it does on Matt Murdock. Daredevil himself never gets a name until right at the end, nor does he wear a costume for most of the series.
The storyline is reasonable, and the action sequences are justifiably praised by critics. The entire thing was done on a budget, but done well. The show even takes advantage of its ability to depart from the comics by killing off characters that were long standing actors in the books, adding more shock value to those who read the comics.
Is this the best superhero show on TV? I haven't watched enough shows in recent years to be able to tell you. But it's pretty good, and with the holiday discounts, enough to justify the microSD card storage space I had devoted to it while I watched in 15 minute chunks during the holidays. Recommended.
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
Review: Caliban's War
Caliban's War is the sequel to Leviathan Wakes, and the second book in the Expanse series. It has much of the fun and flaws of the first novel: the characters don't really develop much, and the storyline while full of plotholes, is still compellingly readable.
The novel does a good job of summarizing the previous novel for those who skipped it, so you can jump right in. There will be several references that won't be understood, but by and large the plot doesn't need much of the back story as the characters are kept in ignorance of the grand plot anyway (which is being set up in this novel).
The crew of the Rociante are the central characters of the novel, though UN under secretary Avasarala also plays a major role in the story, explaining the politics of the situation.
Most of the story takes place on Ganymede, a station that supplies food for the rest of the outer solar system. We get some insight into what it takes to keep a sustainable ecosystem, and why such systems are prone to failure and fragile while being complex enough to be unpredictable. All that exposition falls away, however, as soon as the shooting starts, and once it starts, it pretty much never stops.
In many places, I wonder why humans bother with exploring space in manned vessels. I'm pretty sure that this novel, like many space operas, will seem quaint and out of date by the time the AI revolution is over. Manned weapons cannot keep up with AI-driven machines, any more than a human player will ever succeed against DeepMind at Go or any computer at Chess. Add to that the need for human-piloted machines (acknowledged in the novel) to stay below around 8gs and the first super-power to deploy AI machines will simply wipe the floor with all the others.
If you enjoyed Leviathan Wakes, you'll enjoy Caliban's War. In a world where sequels often disappoint, this is unusual and worthy of note, though not sufficient for me to rate this better than mildly recommended.
The novel does a good job of summarizing the previous novel for those who skipped it, so you can jump right in. There will be several references that won't be understood, but by and large the plot doesn't need much of the back story as the characters are kept in ignorance of the grand plot anyway (which is being set up in this novel).
The crew of the Rociante are the central characters of the novel, though UN under secretary Avasarala also plays a major role in the story, explaining the politics of the situation.
Most of the story takes place on Ganymede, a station that supplies food for the rest of the outer solar system. We get some insight into what it takes to keep a sustainable ecosystem, and why such systems are prone to failure and fragile while being complex enough to be unpredictable. All that exposition falls away, however, as soon as the shooting starts, and once it starts, it pretty much never stops.
In many places, I wonder why humans bother with exploring space in manned vessels. I'm pretty sure that this novel, like many space operas, will seem quaint and out of date by the time the AI revolution is over. Manned weapons cannot keep up with AI-driven machines, any more than a human player will ever succeed against DeepMind at Go or any computer at Chess. Add to that the need for human-piloted machines (acknowledged in the novel) to stay below around 8gs and the first super-power to deploy AI machines will simply wipe the floor with all the others.
If you enjoyed Leviathan Wakes, you'll enjoy Caliban's War. In a world where sequels often disappoint, this is unusual and worthy of note, though not sufficient for me to rate this better than mildly recommended.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Review: Leviathan Wakes
Leviathan Wakes is the starting novel in the Expanses series, which has spawned a TV series of the same name. The TV series got outstanding reviews from various friends of mine, but let's face it: I'm never going to have the time to watch that much TV! My recent attempts to watch Daredevil in 5-10 minute chunks basically made the series very disjointed in my memory.
Fortunately, it's fairly straightforward to checkout books from the library, and once I got it I dove into the novel n rapid order.
The good news is that the book's very readable, with great characters, transparent prose, and interesting situations. The two alternating viewpoint characters (Detective Miller and Captain Holden) have diametrically opposed life experiences, as well as attitudes towards information. Miller views information as currency, to be used and withheld or bargained with, while Holden sees that information should be shared as much as possible and that humans would do the right thing if they were given all the information. The latter is very much in line with views many techies hold in Silicon Valley, but Miller is clearly by far the more sympathetic character in the novel, and comes off as being far more effective, while Holden's naive approach brings one disaster after another.
The setting is also intriguing, set in the relatively near future, with a humanity on the verge of colonizing the entire solar system and making use of all its resources.
The bad news is that you pretty much have to turn off your brain for many of the plot points because they simply do not make sense. Even the villain of the novel could probably have gotten what he wanted a lot more easily than hatching the nefarious plot he eventually did.
All in all, while an enjoyable read, this is more along the lines of Peter F. Hamilton-style space opera rather than Alastair Reynolds. I'll probably place more holds at the library, but am not running out in a hurry to pay full price for the other novels in the series. Mildly recommended.
Fortunately, it's fairly straightforward to checkout books from the library, and once I got it I dove into the novel n rapid order.
The good news is that the book's very readable, with great characters, transparent prose, and interesting situations. The two alternating viewpoint characters (Detective Miller and Captain Holden) have diametrically opposed life experiences, as well as attitudes towards information. Miller views information as currency, to be used and withheld or bargained with, while Holden sees that information should be shared as much as possible and that humans would do the right thing if they were given all the information. The latter is very much in line with views many techies hold in Silicon Valley, but Miller is clearly by far the more sympathetic character in the novel, and comes off as being far more effective, while Holden's naive approach brings one disaster after another.
The setting is also intriguing, set in the relatively near future, with a humanity on the verge of colonizing the entire solar system and making use of all its resources.
The bad news is that you pretty much have to turn off your brain for many of the plot points because they simply do not make sense. Even the villain of the novel could probably have gotten what he wanted a lot more easily than hatching the nefarious plot he eventually did.
All in all, while an enjoyable read, this is more along the lines of Peter F. Hamilton-style space opera rather than Alastair Reynolds. I'll probably place more holds at the library, but am not running out in a hurry to pay full price for the other novels in the series. Mildly recommended.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
First Impressions: EF 40mm/2.8 STM
Canon occasionally has massive sales on their refurbished equipment. I'd been eyeing the 40mm/2.8 for a while, and when the price dropped below $100, I gave in to the temptation and bought it. There are a few reasons to have done so:
- It's smaller and lighter than my EF 50mm/1.8 II.
- It's got better focusing, since it's sporting the newer STM motor.
- I finally broke my Sony RX100, and needed a camera. Rather than replace the RX100, I figured my EOS 5D2 is a much better camera and just needed to become smaller and lighter to make it easy to carry. For $100, I could buy a lens and still have left over to replace the compact camera in the future.
The size and weight together made me more willing to carry my 5D2 around --- with my ancient Galen Rowell Chest Pouch, I can now carry the 5D2 on the triplet and ride it, do a hike, and then ride back without feeling like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I could carry Boen in a backpack or on my shoulders and still carry the 5D2 with the 40mm attached. I did not even attempt to carry a second lens, though I did carry a small fill flash.
I recently brought it along on a hike with my family. My wife brought along her EOS M3 with the 22mm/2 STM, and we shot in similar lighting situations. From the focal length point of view, both lenses are in the same ballpark (22mm * 1.6 = 35.2).
EOS 5D/40mm 2.8 STM
EOS M3/22mm 2.8 STM
What's interesting is that the color palette on the EOS M3 looks a little more saturated to me (this is using Lightroom to process the RAW files). In both cases, the camera produces sharp images, though as you might guess the 5D2 wins simply on the basis of being faster to react to changing situations.
In practice, having only one focal length can be liberating --- after a while, you get used to the field of view of the lens and you can frame shots quickly. And in the age of Lightroom and easy cropping, there's no real reason to need a longer focal length up to about 3X the focal length of your main lens: modern SLRs have so many mega pixels that you can crop 50% of the picture and it'll still be usable.
The 5D2 with the EF 40mm is still about one and a half times the weight of the EOS M3, so for big trips where I'm space/weight constrained I'm still likely to stick to the EOS M3; I'm unlikely to ever just carry the 5D2 for a Tour of the Alps, for instance.. But for situations where I just want to have a camera? I now have one less excuse not to use my EOS 5D2 where before I'd just bring the compact and live with missing shots while waiting for it to turn on.
Recommended.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Review: Playstation Camera (PS4)
I hadn't planned on ever buying the PS4 camera. It was unbundled from the PS4 for good reason: the only reason for its existence was the fear that Microsoft's Kinect would take off, and Sony needed a good response in case that became the main way to use a game console. When Kinect became an obvious failure and no games supported it on the XBox, there were no games that required the PS4 camera either. Of course, if you have plans to get PSVR or you do live-streaming (neither of which appeals to me), the PS4 Camera would be essential.
What drove me was Just Dance. I first bought versions of Just Dance for the PS3, which were about $5 each. It turned out that my wife liked the game, and played it a lot, but complained about having to hold the move controller in one hand for scoring purposes. Versions of Just Dance for the Kinect wouldn't need the controller, but I wasn't about to switch platforms just for one game. I did some research, and discovered the Just Dance for the PS4 with a Playstation Camera wouldn't need you to hold a controller!
There was a sale over the holiday season so I managed to pick up a camera for $30. Just Dance 2015 could be had around $20, and we'd be in business. In practice, Just Dance's action pick up doesn't seem very sensitive (which is probably a good thing). Basically, if you flail around in the general direction you'd score correctly. My wife was very unimpressed when I could score as high as she did, since she's obviously a much better dancer. (I couldn't deny it simply because after each song the game shows you a video record of you flailing around trying to score) But she did appreciate not having to have anything in her hand.
The game does do a good job of making you move. My step-counter would run up about 500 steps per song, which is about right. My HR would go up as well, indicating that the Vivoactive HR is only accurate for people who aren't cycling.
What surprised me was that the PS Camera got used by Bowen for the free app that came with every playstation: Playroom. Bowen never seems to get sick of the AR Robot, and the companion app that lets you draw an object and then send it into the augmented reality view of the room was just as addictive to him as having paper and crayons.
For the standard price of $60, the PS4 Camera is pretty poor value (though you can get it as part of the bundle for PSVR), but at discounted prices it's reasonable.
Mildly recommended.
What drove me was Just Dance. I first bought versions of Just Dance for the PS3, which were about $5 each. It turned out that my wife liked the game, and played it a lot, but complained about having to hold the move controller in one hand for scoring purposes. Versions of Just Dance for the Kinect wouldn't need the controller, but I wasn't about to switch platforms just for one game. I did some research, and discovered the Just Dance for the PS4 with a Playstation Camera wouldn't need you to hold a controller!
There was a sale over the holiday season so I managed to pick up a camera for $30. Just Dance 2015 could be had around $20, and we'd be in business. In practice, Just Dance's action pick up doesn't seem very sensitive (which is probably a good thing). Basically, if you flail around in the general direction you'd score correctly. My wife was very unimpressed when I could score as high as she did, since she's obviously a much better dancer. (I couldn't deny it simply because after each song the game shows you a video record of you flailing around trying to score) But she did appreciate not having to have anything in her hand.
The game does do a good job of making you move. My step-counter would run up about 500 steps per song, which is about right. My HR would go up as well, indicating that the Vivoactive HR is only accurate for people who aren't cycling.
What surprised me was that the PS Camera got used by Bowen for the free app that came with every playstation: Playroom. Bowen never seems to get sick of the AR Robot, and the companion app that lets you draw an object and then send it into the augmented reality view of the room was just as addictive to him as having paper and crayons.
For the standard price of $60, the PS4 Camera is pretty poor value (though you can get it as part of the bundle for PSVR), but at discounted prices it's reasonable.
Mildly recommended.
Monday, December 19, 2016
2017 Book Review Index
Books of the year for 2017 have been selected
Fiction
Fiction
- The Old Man and the Sea
- Leviathan Wakes
- Caliban's War
- Seveneves
- Abaddon's Gate
- Cibola Burn
- Nemesis Games
- Babylon's Ashes
- The Three Body Problem
- Beyond the Aquila Rift
- The Wall of Storms
- House of Suns
- Revenger
- Norse Mythology
- My Sister Rosa
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Pachinko
- Muse of Fire
- Parable of the Sower
- Parable of the Talents
- Stories of Your Life and Others
- The Jungle Book
- The Player of Games
- The Rise and Fall of DODO
- The Fifth Season
- The Sudden Appearance of Hope
Non-Fiction
- Algorithms to Live By
- Cure - A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body
- Moonwalking with Einstein
- Hillbilly Elegy
- A Twist of the Wrist II
- The Gene - An Intimate History
- The Undoing Project
- The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman
- Concussion
- Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
- I contain Multitudes
- Storm in a Teacup
- Radical Candor
- Rise of the Rocket Girls
- The Populist Explosion
- Hidden Figures
- The Telomare Effect
- The Miracle of Dunkirk
- Code Your Own Games
- Uncertainty
- The Scientist in the Crib
- The Health of Nations
- The Secret Race
- The Body Builders
- Memoirs of a Theoretical Physicist
- How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain
- Einstein
- The Innovators
- Now - The Physics of Time
Audio Books
- The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books
- Medical School for Everyone: Emergency Medicine
- Nutrition Made Clear
- The Psychology of Batman: A Dark and Stormy Knight
- How to Listen to and Understand Great Music
- Your Best Brain: The Science of Brain Development
- Medical School for Everyone: Pediatrics Grand Rounds
- Biology and Human Behavior
- Medical School for Everyone: Grand Rounds Cases
- Becoming a Great Essayist
- The Art of Critical Decision Making
- Secrets of Sleep Science
- My Favorite Universe
- The Genius Dialogs
- English Grammar Boot Camp
- The Home Front
- The Dispatcher
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
- On Power
- How Great Science Fiction Works
Graphic Novels
Friday, December 16, 2016
Review: Garmin Tempe Sensor
The Garmin Vivoactive HR has every sensor the Edge 800 or Fenix 3 HR has except for the temperature sensor. I'm sure some of it is cost cutting (though it's probably measured in the cents) but some of it is also practical: a device on your wrist is going to end up measuring your wrist's temperature, which hopefully is somewhere around 98.6F. That's not very useful, however!
The solution is the Garmin Tempe sensor. The device was actually created for the Fenix series of Garmin outdoor watches, since a temperature sensor really should be away from your body. It works and pairs with the Vivoactive with no problem, and if you plan to only record temperatures for your bike rides, you can just leave it on your bike (I stuff it into my handlebar bag) and then it's a "pair and forget" device. On my bike rides, it never takes longer than about a minute before the Vivoactive picks it up and it records the temperatures on nice graphs. It takes about 3 minutes for it to come down to ambient temperature from my indoor bike parking area, which is not an issue --- you can actually see in most cases that the indoor bike parking is colder than the ambient temperature, since on a cold day I tend to want to ride in sunny places.
If you want to take the device on a hike, the clip it comes in works on belt loops. Note that it doesn't actually work on belts. It's not big enough or long enough to go around a broad/tall belt, but it's just the right size to go on a belt loop and stay on all day even when switching from cycling to hiking and vice-versa. The tough part is to remember to take it off your pants before sticking the pants into the laundry!
The $25 question is whether the Garmin unit uses it to correct elevation/altitude data. I don't know, and have no easy way to figure it out short of taking it to the Alps and climbing a few marked passes with accurate elevation signs back to back. While I'm happy to do that, it'll take awhile for me to get to it. I know that on stable weather days, the Edge 800 (with the built in temperature sensor and barometer) is easily accurate within 5 meters. I'd love to see if the Vivoactive HR can also achieve that.
In a nice touch, the device uses the same battery (CR2032) as all other Garmin sensor units. That means you can expect long life and you only need to stock one type of backup batteries and it'll work with all your sensors.
In any case, it's cheap, light, easy to carry (and automatically pairs). It's unobtrusive in use. It's certainly not essential, but it's fun to go back and say, "Oh that's why it felt so cold!" Recommended.
The solution is the Garmin Tempe sensor. The device was actually created for the Fenix series of Garmin outdoor watches, since a temperature sensor really should be away from your body. It works and pairs with the Vivoactive with no problem, and if you plan to only record temperatures for your bike rides, you can just leave it on your bike (I stuff it into my handlebar bag) and then it's a "pair and forget" device. On my bike rides, it never takes longer than about a minute before the Vivoactive picks it up and it records the temperatures on nice graphs. It takes about 3 minutes for it to come down to ambient temperature from my indoor bike parking area, which is not an issue --- you can actually see in most cases that the indoor bike parking is colder than the ambient temperature, since on a cold day I tend to want to ride in sunny places.
If you want to take the device on a hike, the clip it comes in works on belt loops. Note that it doesn't actually work on belts. It's not big enough or long enough to go around a broad/tall belt, but it's just the right size to go on a belt loop and stay on all day even when switching from cycling to hiking and vice-versa. The tough part is to remember to take it off your pants before sticking the pants into the laundry!
The $25 question is whether the Garmin unit uses it to correct elevation/altitude data. I don't know, and have no easy way to figure it out short of taking it to the Alps and climbing a few marked passes with accurate elevation signs back to back. While I'm happy to do that, it'll take awhile for me to get to it. I know that on stable weather days, the Edge 800 (with the built in temperature sensor and barometer) is easily accurate within 5 meters. I'd love to see if the Vivoactive HR can also achieve that.
In a nice touch, the device uses the same battery (CR2032) as all other Garmin sensor units. That means you can expect long life and you only need to stock one type of backup batteries and it'll work with all your sensors.
In any case, it's cheap, light, easy to carry (and automatically pairs). It's unobtrusive in use. It's certainly not essential, but it's fun to go back and say, "Oh that's why it felt so cold!" Recommended.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Review: A Twist of the Wrist II
A Twist of the Wrist II was recommended to me by Pengtoh as being one of the best books about bike handling. While I've never actually ridden a motorcycle, my understanding is that as 2 wheeled vehicles that move at high speed, some of the skills and thinking involved might be transferable to the lighter, more environmentally friendly vehicles.
To my disappointment, the first third of the book is all about throttle control. Motorcycles (and bicycles) are designed to handle best with a 40/60 weight ratio (40% of the weight on the front, 60% on the rear). When you corner a motorcycle you tend to have a 50/50 weight balance. How do you get the ideal 40/60 weight balance? You apply a constant 0.1g thrust at the throttle. That means that all through the corner you need to be accelerating (he calls this roll-on) throughout the entire process. This sounds scary but I guess if you're going to be racing a motorcycle the answer seems to be: "More gas! What was the question?" This has zero applicability to bicycles: not only is pedaling through corners difficult (you risk pedal strike if you have a low BB), but you just don't have the power to apply a constant 0.1g acceleration through any corners!
The second third of the book is more applicable to cycling. It's about relaxing. Basically, the barrier to high performance on 2-wheeled vehicles is what Keith Code calls SR (Survival Reflex). If your SR is triggered you will slow down. Worse, if your SR is counter to what the bike needs to be doing, you'll crash. The key to not triggering your SR is to relax. Most of the advice here is very relevant: keep a bend in your elbows, unweigh the seat, and don't keep a death grip on the handlebars! In particular, when you encounter road chatter, a frequent reaction is to tighten up on the handlebars. Don't do that! Keith Code notes that by tightening your grip on the bars, any oscillation will now get transmitted throughout the entire system through your body, which is a bad bad thing to have happen. Good stuff. He provides practical tips on how to get better --- including slowing down before you approach a corner, and then slowly speeding up your corner entries as you get more comfortable. A few things aren't applicable: for instance, a motorcyclist can lean all the way over to the point where his knee touches the ground. Bicyclists can't do that --- the tires will lose traction long before that. Furthermore, a motorcycle is so big and heavy that counter-steering is the only way to quickly change the lean, while bicycles (with the exception of tandems) can generally be steered without counter-steering, though Code points out that if you do counter-steer you can start the steering action later, which lets you get through the corner by leaning less at greater speed! Good stuff, and worth a refresher read even if you're a decent bike handler.
The last third of the book is about avoiding the tunnel vision that tends to happen when you start exceeding your comfort zone. He talks about picking a point far enough ahead that you still have sufficient situation awareness to know what's going on. Similarly, for cornering he recommends first look at the place where you've picked to turn the bike, and then just before you get there to look through the turn so you steer the bike there. He also recommends that every corner should have only one steering action, and if you second guess yourself in the middle you'll slow down. Again, useful advice, and worth a read.
Obviously, you can't learn to ride a bicycle at high speed by reading a book. But assuming you've had a few mountain descents under your belt, some of the counter-intuitive things Keith Code mentions are worth practicing. Some of the advice (like tuning suspension) isn't applicable to most road bikes, but hey, anything with two wheels simply doesn't behave like a car, so in general it's worth seeking out people who've spent a lot of time thinking (and practicing) bike handling.
The oddest thing in the book is the glossaries at the end of each chapter. They cover elementary terms (such as the phrase "vice-versa") that makes me wonder about the vocabulary limitations of motorcycle racers.
The book doesn't cover any low speed bike handling problems (which motorcycle road racers never encounter but mountain bikers do), so don't expect any special insight there.
Otherwise, the book's worth a read. It doesn't make me want to ride a motorcycle, but does give me some sympathy as to the problems a motorcycle road racer would encounter.
To my disappointment, the first third of the book is all about throttle control. Motorcycles (and bicycles) are designed to handle best with a 40/60 weight ratio (40% of the weight on the front, 60% on the rear). When you corner a motorcycle you tend to have a 50/50 weight balance. How do you get the ideal 40/60 weight balance? You apply a constant 0.1g thrust at the throttle. That means that all through the corner you need to be accelerating (he calls this roll-on) throughout the entire process. This sounds scary but I guess if you're going to be racing a motorcycle the answer seems to be: "More gas! What was the question?" This has zero applicability to bicycles: not only is pedaling through corners difficult (you risk pedal strike if you have a low BB), but you just don't have the power to apply a constant 0.1g acceleration through any corners!
The second third of the book is more applicable to cycling. It's about relaxing. Basically, the barrier to high performance on 2-wheeled vehicles is what Keith Code calls SR (Survival Reflex). If your SR is triggered you will slow down. Worse, if your SR is counter to what the bike needs to be doing, you'll crash. The key to not triggering your SR is to relax. Most of the advice here is very relevant: keep a bend in your elbows, unweigh the seat, and don't keep a death grip on the handlebars! In particular, when you encounter road chatter, a frequent reaction is to tighten up on the handlebars. Don't do that! Keith Code notes that by tightening your grip on the bars, any oscillation will now get transmitted throughout the entire system through your body, which is a bad bad thing to have happen. Good stuff. He provides practical tips on how to get better --- including slowing down before you approach a corner, and then slowly speeding up your corner entries as you get more comfortable. A few things aren't applicable: for instance, a motorcyclist can lean all the way over to the point where his knee touches the ground. Bicyclists can't do that --- the tires will lose traction long before that. Furthermore, a motorcycle is so big and heavy that counter-steering is the only way to quickly change the lean, while bicycles (with the exception of tandems) can generally be steered without counter-steering, though Code points out that if you do counter-steer you can start the steering action later, which lets you get through the corner by leaning less at greater speed! Good stuff, and worth a refresher read even if you're a decent bike handler.
The last third of the book is about avoiding the tunnel vision that tends to happen when you start exceeding your comfort zone. He talks about picking a point far enough ahead that you still have sufficient situation awareness to know what's going on. Similarly, for cornering he recommends first look at the place where you've picked to turn the bike, and then just before you get there to look through the turn so you steer the bike there. He also recommends that every corner should have only one steering action, and if you second guess yourself in the middle you'll slow down. Again, useful advice, and worth a read.
Obviously, you can't learn to ride a bicycle at high speed by reading a book. But assuming you've had a few mountain descents under your belt, some of the counter-intuitive things Keith Code mentions are worth practicing. Some of the advice (like tuning suspension) isn't applicable to most road bikes, but hey, anything with two wheels simply doesn't behave like a car, so in general it's worth seeking out people who've spent a lot of time thinking (and practicing) bike handling.
The oddest thing in the book is the glossaries at the end of each chapter. They cover elementary terms (such as the phrase "vice-versa") that makes me wonder about the vocabulary limitations of motorcycle racers.
The book doesn't cover any low speed bike handling problems (which motorcycle road racers never encounter but mountain bikers do), so don't expect any special insight there.
Otherwise, the book's worth a read. It doesn't make me want to ride a motorcycle, but does give me some sympathy as to the problems a motorcycle road racer would encounter.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Review: Hillbilly Elegy
Lots of websites and book review sites recommended Hillbilly Elegy during election season. All of them promised insight into the Trump voter, the anguish of working class whites, and the difficulties surrounding the culture of the poor whites in Appalachia. Reviews promising insight and enlightenment usually means that the book would be a boring slog, but the most surprising thing about this memoir of growing up in Kentucky and Ohio is how compellingly readable it is, despite the horrors inflicted upon J.D. Vance during his childhood.
Part of it is that we know that the book has a happy ending for Vance (he ends up graduating from Yale Law School after surviving a stint in the marines), if not for the Appalachian whites (and unfortunately, the country as a whole). But most of it is that the style is eminently readable, transparent, and neither sentimental nor full of self-pity. The childhood was astonishingly violent. He speaks of his grandparents as his social support when he was growing up, but the family history explains why their daughter (his mom) grew up to be a drug addict:
Vance's insights are compelling:
It's fashionable among Silicon Valley's "middle class" to note that environment matters less than genetics or raw talent. But that's only for relatively optimal environments: increase financial pressure and many relationships will break down. Throw in drugs, alcohol, and other social problems into the mix, and you end up with un-salvageable childhoods:
In any case, this is a compellingly readable book with great insight and important reading for everyone. Highly recommended.
Part of it is that we know that the book has a happy ending for Vance (he ends up graduating from Yale Law School after surviving a stint in the marines), if not for the Appalachian whites (and unfortunately, the country as a whole). But most of it is that the style is eminently readable, transparent, and neither sentimental nor full of self-pity. The childhood was astonishingly violent. He speaks of his grandparents as his social support when he was growing up, but the family history explains why their daughter (his mom) grew up to be a drug addict:
Mamaw told Papaw after a particularly violent night of drinking that if he ever came home drunk again, she’d kill him. A week later, he came home drunk again and fell asleep on the couch. Mamaw, never one to tell a lie, calmly retrieved a gasoline canister from the garage, poured it all over her husband, lit a match, and dropped it on his chest. When Papaw burst into flames, their eleven-year-old daughter jumped into action to put out the fire and save his life. Miraculously, Papaw survived the episode with only mild burns. (Kindle loc 674)Vance's mother rotated through a series of relationships, having children with different fathers, and then later (after she stopped) a series of boyfriends, none that she could keep for the long term. But the marital strife left their marks on Vance:
Mom and Bob’s problems were my first introduction to marital conflict resolution. Here were the takeaways: Never speak at a reasonable volume when screaming will do; if the fight gets a little too intense, it’s okay to slap and punch, so long as the man doesn’t hit first; always express your feelings in a way that’s insulting and hurtful to your partner; if all else fails, take the kids and the dog to a local motel, and don’t tell your spouse where to find you—if he or she knows where the children are, he or she won’t worry as much, and your departure won’t be as effective. (Kinde Loc. 1043)At one point, Vance's mom threatens to commit double-suicide by crashing the car she was driving. When Vance jumps to the backseat for his own safety, his mom stops the car to drag him out of the back seat to beat him. Escaping the car, he races to a house and begs the house owner to save him by not letting his mom in, but his mom breaks down the door of the house and is about to kill Vance when the police show up to arrest her. Reading accounts of incident like this over and over again would be horrifying, but Vance manages to intersperse these episodes with reminders of how his grandparents always stepped in to rescue him and his sister. The bitter fighting when they were raising his mom had gone away and made them decent grandparents.
Vance's insights are compelling:
The New York Times recently reported that the most expensive schools are paradoxically cheaper for low-income students. Take, for example, a student whose parents earn thirty thousand per year—not a lot of money but not poverty level, either. That student would pay ten thousand for one of the less selective branch campuses of the University of Wisconsin but would pay six thousand at the school’s flagship Madison campus. At Harvard, the student would pay only about thirteen hundred despite tuition of over forty thousand. Of course, kids like me don’t know this. My buddy Nate, a lifelong friend and one of the smartest people I know, wanted to go to the University of Chicago as an undergraduate, but he didn’t apply because he knew he couldn’t afford it. It likely would have cost him considerably less than Ohio State, just as Yale cost considerably less for me than any other school. (Kindle Loc 2675)I had similar epiphanies when I showed up at graduate school to discover that many of my cohorts had already had NSF fellowships, something that I didn't apply for because I'd never heard about it, despite having had close relationships with professors as an undergraduate. This type of knowledge is taken for granted by folks who grow up with educated parents (my children would likely never suffer from this type of disadvantage), but when many members of the privileged, when told of my experience would just disparage me as being "stupid" instead of understanding (as Vance writes) that there's a huge difference between lack of knowledge and social capital and lack of talent:
social capital is all around us. Those who tap into it and use it prosper. Those who don’t are running life’s race with a major handicap. This is a serious problem for kids like me. (Kindle Loc. 2965)What rescues him is his mentoring relationship with Amy Chua (yes, the Tiger Mom), who in this book advises him not to take an aggressive clerkship with a judge known to destroy relationships and for him to prioritize his future wife instead. Clearly, she's a more interesting character in person than the one-note person in her memoir.
It's fashionable among Silicon Valley's "middle class" to note that environment matters less than genetics or raw talent. But that's only for relatively optimal environments: increase financial pressure and many relationships will break down. Throw in drugs, alcohol, and other social problems into the mix, and you end up with un-salvageable childhoods:
Even excessive shouting can damage a kid’s sense of security and contribute to mental health and behavioral issues down the road.... American working-class families experience a level of instability unseen elsewhere in the world. Consider, for instance, Mom’s revolving door of father figures. No other country experiences anything like this. In France, the percentage of children exposed to three or more maternal partners is 0.5 percent—about one in two hundred. The second highest share is 2.6 percent, in Sweden, or about one in forty. In the United States, the figure is a shocking 8.2 percent—about one in twelve—and the figure is even higher in the working class. The most depressing part is that relationship instability, like home chaos, is a vicious cycle. (Kindle loc 3045-3060)In my early working life in Silicon Valley, I was once taken to a bar by a co-worker I barely knew. There, I met his friends, one of which introduced his girlfriend as being "a scientist." In later conversation, I asked her if she was a post-doc, a graduate student, a staff researcher, or professor. Her response was: "Wait a minute, you know what a post-doc is? Nobody in this crowd knows or even cares that I'm a post-doc at SRI!" Clearly, even in Silicon Valley, the social segregation keeps the different circles separate and unaware of each other.
In any case, this is a compellingly readable book with great insight and important reading for everyone. Highly recommended.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Review: Snapcircuits Rover
Bowen liked the Snapcircuits Arcade kit so much that there are days when he wakes up at 6:00am and asks to do projects. So when the Snapcircuits Rover went on sale during Black Friday my wife and I picked it up.
The concept is fairly similar: you get a breadboard that's mounted onto a chassis. The chassis contains the batteries, wheels, motors, but none of the electronics that you then wire together to put together a remote control vehicle. The remote is a simple flimsy remote that's fixed function, by contrast.
The problem with the rover, however, is that it's of very limited variation. The wireless module and the control modules are two very big blocks that are connected by a bunch of resistors. In fact, as long as you want to receive signals from the controller and move the rover, you don't have any choice but to wire up these two big blocks a certain way. The problem then is that you don't have much space left on the breadboard for much else. Thus, the kit comes with 3 rover variations, and all the other projects basically treats the rover as a fixed unit supplying the power. Worse, the manual states that your other Snapcircuit kits (save a few exceptions) cannot be used on this circuit board because the voltage and power draws are different.
If I were the designer of the system, I would have fused the wireless and control modules together into one block, eliminating the need to take up so much space on the board. Furthermore, I'd also include a voltage stepper so that the rover would be compatible with other Snapcircuit kits.
As it is, the Rover sounds great, but is so limited that Bowen basically never played with it again after one night. I returned the toy to Amazon and he didn't even notice!
Not recommended.
The concept is fairly similar: you get a breadboard that's mounted onto a chassis. The chassis contains the batteries, wheels, motors, but none of the electronics that you then wire together to put together a remote control vehicle. The remote is a simple flimsy remote that's fixed function, by contrast.
The problem with the rover, however, is that it's of very limited variation. The wireless module and the control modules are two very big blocks that are connected by a bunch of resistors. In fact, as long as you want to receive signals from the controller and move the rover, you don't have any choice but to wire up these two big blocks a certain way. The problem then is that you don't have much space left on the breadboard for much else. Thus, the kit comes with 3 rover variations, and all the other projects basically treats the rover as a fixed unit supplying the power. Worse, the manual states that your other Snapcircuit kits (save a few exceptions) cannot be used on this circuit board because the voltage and power draws are different.
If I were the designer of the system, I would have fused the wireless and control modules together into one block, eliminating the need to take up so much space on the board. Furthermore, I'd also include a voltage stepper so that the rover would be compatible with other Snapcircuit kits.
As it is, the Rover sounds great, but is so limited that Bowen basically never played with it again after one night. I returned the toy to Amazon and he didn't even notice!
Not recommended.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Review: The Old Man and the Sea
I'll admit to never having read The Old Man and the Sea, or actually, any of Hemingway's work before this. Since it was a short book and easily available at my library as an eBook, I checked it out and read it.
I think this is one of those classics that don't necessarily age well. Compared to his contemporaries, Hemingway had a refreshingly direct prose style that was transparent. However, most modern prose writers have also adopted this style (which is a good indicator of how influential he was). As a result, while the style is easy to read and direct, that doesn't make the book stand out.
The plot is very predictable, and again, doesn't stand out in this day and age either. While I did finish the book, it was out of a sense of obligation, not because I wanted to know more (I felt like I already knew what would happen by the end of the novel, and I turned out to be right). Sure, there's a ton of symbolism, statements about man's hubris and ambition, and the trials of age. But I'm not sure there's anything there that isn't in a Richard K. Morgan novel, with at least a less predictable plot.
Now, compared to the boring crap assigned to me as literature in high school English classes (is there a more boring Shakespeare play than The Merchant of Venice?), I would have way preferred this book. But compared to what I usually read for fun? This just doesn't compare.
This won't keep me from reading more Hemingway, but doesn't leave me dying for more prose from him, either.
I think this is one of those classics that don't necessarily age well. Compared to his contemporaries, Hemingway had a refreshingly direct prose style that was transparent. However, most modern prose writers have also adopted this style (which is a good indicator of how influential he was). As a result, while the style is easy to read and direct, that doesn't make the book stand out.
The plot is very predictable, and again, doesn't stand out in this day and age either. While I did finish the book, it was out of a sense of obligation, not because I wanted to know more (I felt like I already knew what would happen by the end of the novel, and I turned out to be right). Sure, there's a ton of symbolism, statements about man's hubris and ambition, and the trials of age. But I'm not sure there's anything there that isn't in a Richard K. Morgan novel, with at least a less predictable plot.
Now, compared to the boring crap assigned to me as literature in high school English classes (is there a more boring Shakespeare play than The Merchant of Venice?), I would have way preferred this book. But compared to what I usually read for fun? This just doesn't compare.
This won't keep me from reading more Hemingway, but doesn't leave me dying for more prose from him, either.
Friday, December 09, 2016
Review: Enemy Unknown Plus (PS Vita)
Through a combination of sales, coupons, and credits, I picked up Enemy Unknown Plus on my PS Vita for about $2 during my summer trip. For the next several months, my Vita was turned into the "Enemy Unknown Plus" machine.
I'd been given free licenses of Enemy Unknown (the base version) for both PC and the PS3 over the years. The PC version, however, crashed during the tutorial, so I was never actually able to play. The PS3 just didn't feel like a good venue for a strategy game that required lots of thought, as it would take up the family entertainment center.
The PS Vita turned out to be an ideal platform: you never have to turn it off, as power consumption is minimal. Suspending the game didn't impact any other activity on your smartphone or computer, so you could stay in context for weeks and months. The game itself is a port from the iOS/Android versions of the game. However, one visit to the Android App store and you'll see that games like this have a really spotty record for even people who have high end phones! That's because the game was written using the C-based Unreal Engine, and I'm sure the amount of hacking required to get it to work on Android at all must have been huge.
The Vita, on the other hand, not only has a common platform (no fragmentation), but it also has 2 joysticks, a joy pad, and face buttons. That means the UI on the game is awesome --- you're getting an experience almost identical to that of the console. In fact, once I learned the game, out of curiosity, I tried it on the PC and found the mouse interface on the PC inferior --- I ended up attaching an XBox Controller to make headway. Even then, I discovered that the base version of the game was inferior: Enemy Unknown Plus integrates features from Enemy Within, and made the game so much better that even though it was harder, I went back to the Vita version to finish it.
The game itself is a tactical game with strategic elements that are outside the tactical game. The tactical game is a squad based game where you control a squad of 4-6 characters in a grid-based turn based tactical game that's very reminiscent of D&D. Each side gets a turn with its characters, and each character gets 2 moves, 1 move, and an action. Actions, however, always end your turn, so if you take your action right away you don't get to move. The characters' moves can be interspersed with each other, so for instance, you can move one character, switch characters and then move another character, and then switch back for the first character to take its action. The UI is very intuitive and the only touch input is for switching weapons, which isn't done frequently. The game has a fixed number of maps, but the missions played on each map is varied. I played 3-4 games (to varying levels of completion) and only had a few repeats.
Each character has a class (there are 4 classes: snipers, heavies, assault, and support) and can be leveled up, attaining skills that affect loadout and occasionally allow them to break rules. As with any D&D game, you'd want a mix of classes in the field as each class brings an important ability to the game.
The strategic elements aren't confined to characters and leveling up, however! The game also includes resource management at multiple levels (base building), and strategic positioning (where to add satellites to watch for UFOs), and research (what weapons to research first, and how to allocate funds for equipment for the tactical game vs interceptors for the strategic game). This makes for agonizing decisions every month, and nail biting resolutions to various missions as the tactical game impacts whether you have resources to carry on the fight to the next level.
The game does have several design errors. One is that the skill tree for various classes are not evenly balanced. Certain skills (like squad sight) are much more powerful than the alternates, but you don't know that until you get to the middle of the game and suddenly discovered that you just get wiped and can't make progress any more! Similarly, if you fail to prioritize satellites and engineers over scientists, you'll get quickly over-run by the aliens and lose the game.
As for the implementation on the PS Vita, there are several issues: one is that the load time is incredible. Expect load times of up to a minute in between enemy encounters. Save/restore take similar amounts of time. Secondly, there are bugs: I've had more than one or two games crash out during a mission load. The solution is to save early and often. Since the file sizes are relatively small, this will not hurt you.
Despite all that, the game's well done and a lot of fun. It's ideal for short bursts of play, since in about 10 minutes you can finish an UFO encounter. As mentioned, even if you can't, you can always suspend the game and resume later with zero load time on the Vita, so as far as I'm concerned, the ideal platform for this game is the PS Vita. Highly recommended, and a must-own if you have a Vita and haven't played the game on other platforms yet.
I'd been given free licenses of Enemy Unknown (the base version) for both PC and the PS3 over the years. The PC version, however, crashed during the tutorial, so I was never actually able to play. The PS3 just didn't feel like a good venue for a strategy game that required lots of thought, as it would take up the family entertainment center.
The PS Vita turned out to be an ideal platform: you never have to turn it off, as power consumption is minimal. Suspending the game didn't impact any other activity on your smartphone or computer, so you could stay in context for weeks and months. The game itself is a port from the iOS/Android versions of the game. However, one visit to the Android App store and you'll see that games like this have a really spotty record for even people who have high end phones! That's because the game was written using the C-based Unreal Engine, and I'm sure the amount of hacking required to get it to work on Android at all must have been huge.
The Vita, on the other hand, not only has a common platform (no fragmentation), but it also has 2 joysticks, a joy pad, and face buttons. That means the UI on the game is awesome --- you're getting an experience almost identical to that of the console. In fact, once I learned the game, out of curiosity, I tried it on the PC and found the mouse interface on the PC inferior --- I ended up attaching an XBox Controller to make headway. Even then, I discovered that the base version of the game was inferior: Enemy Unknown Plus integrates features from Enemy Within, and made the game so much better that even though it was harder, I went back to the Vita version to finish it.
The game itself is a tactical game with strategic elements that are outside the tactical game. The tactical game is a squad based game where you control a squad of 4-6 characters in a grid-based turn based tactical game that's very reminiscent of D&D. Each side gets a turn with its characters, and each character gets 2 moves, 1 move, and an action. Actions, however, always end your turn, so if you take your action right away you don't get to move. The characters' moves can be interspersed with each other, so for instance, you can move one character, switch characters and then move another character, and then switch back for the first character to take its action. The UI is very intuitive and the only touch input is for switching weapons, which isn't done frequently. The game has a fixed number of maps, but the missions played on each map is varied. I played 3-4 games (to varying levels of completion) and only had a few repeats.
Each character has a class (there are 4 classes: snipers, heavies, assault, and support) and can be leveled up, attaining skills that affect loadout and occasionally allow them to break rules. As with any D&D game, you'd want a mix of classes in the field as each class brings an important ability to the game.
The strategic elements aren't confined to characters and leveling up, however! The game also includes resource management at multiple levels (base building), and strategic positioning (where to add satellites to watch for UFOs), and research (what weapons to research first, and how to allocate funds for equipment for the tactical game vs interceptors for the strategic game). This makes for agonizing decisions every month, and nail biting resolutions to various missions as the tactical game impacts whether you have resources to carry on the fight to the next level.
The game does have several design errors. One is that the skill tree for various classes are not evenly balanced. Certain skills (like squad sight) are much more powerful than the alternates, but you don't know that until you get to the middle of the game and suddenly discovered that you just get wiped and can't make progress any more! Similarly, if you fail to prioritize satellites and engineers over scientists, you'll get quickly over-run by the aliens and lose the game.
As for the implementation on the PS Vita, there are several issues: one is that the load time is incredible. Expect load times of up to a minute in between enemy encounters. Save/restore take similar amounts of time. Secondly, there are bugs: I've had more than one or two games crash out during a mission load. The solution is to save early and often. Since the file sizes are relatively small, this will not hurt you.
Despite all that, the game's well done and a lot of fun. It's ideal for short bursts of play, since in about 10 minutes you can finish an UFO encounter. As mentioned, even if you can't, you can always suspend the game and resume later with zero load time on the Vita, so as far as I'm concerned, the ideal platform for this game is the PS Vita. Highly recommended, and a must-own if you have a Vita and haven't played the game on other platforms yet.
Thursday, December 08, 2016
Review: Algorithms to Live By
Algorithms to Live By is actually an interesting book, even if you're a computer scientist. For one thing, even if you're a computer scientist, once in a while it's nice to get a layman's refresher of the breadth of the field. This includes analysis of the Secretary Problem, a review of exponential backoff, and of course, the range of NP-complete problems (though since the book is for a non-technical audience, the term NP-complete is never mentioned)
Some of the applications are fun and entertaining, like the application of scheduling theory to personal time management. Others are a mere discussion of topics: for instance, over-fitting in machine learning has correspondences in human training programs. Most Googlers would have already had exposure to these algorithms, as well as the quick sampling of auction theory the book covers.
For the non-technical, this book is written in a very clear, non-mathematical fashion. As long as you remember what a polynomial and an exponent with, I don't expect any of the concepts in the book to give you trouble. Since the book opens with the secretary problem, a quick browse of the first chapter will quickly help you determine whether this book is for you. Certainly, for a non-technical audience I find it hard to think of a better book to read if you're not familiar with computer science.
Recommended.
Some of the applications are fun and entertaining, like the application of scheduling theory to personal time management. Others are a mere discussion of topics: for instance, over-fitting in machine learning has correspondences in human training programs. Most Googlers would have already had exposure to these algorithms, as well as the quick sampling of auction theory the book covers.
For the non-technical, this book is written in a very clear, non-mathematical fashion. As long as you remember what a polynomial and an exponent with, I don't expect any of the concepts in the book to give you trouble. Since the book opens with the secretary problem, a quick browse of the first chapter will quickly help you determine whether this book is for you. Certainly, for a non-technical audience I find it hard to think of a better book to read if you're not familiar with computer science.
Recommended.
Wednesday, December 07, 2016
Review: Cure - A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body
The author of Cure, Jo Marchant, comes with a ton of credentials, essential because of the credibility required to cover the topic.
The first few chapters explore the placebo effect. Impressively, even placebos that are labeled placebos work --- and the more expensive the better. Then she covers more innovative approaches, such as using immersive virtual reality for pain reduction, and various approaches combining cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness.
All of these approaches however, only work on issues where pain perception or the illness (such as chronic fatigue syndrome) is largely psychological. Marchant acknowledges for serious diseases (such as cancer), there's no question that approaches such as homeopathy, etc., will not work purely on a "mind over body" basis, and are in fact, harmful if they prevent the patient from seeking real medicine.
While an interesting and entertaining book, I'm not sure I got a lot out of it. It's very clear that all research in mind over body has quite a ways to go, but the lack of easy studies (it's tough to do double-blind between people who do mindfulness and people who don't, for instance) mean that if you're a skeptic, the evidence is not quite compelling as yet.
The first few chapters explore the placebo effect. Impressively, even placebos that are labeled placebos work --- and the more expensive the better. Then she covers more innovative approaches, such as using immersive virtual reality for pain reduction, and various approaches combining cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness.
All of these approaches however, only work on issues where pain perception or the illness (such as chronic fatigue syndrome) is largely psychological. Marchant acknowledges for serious diseases (such as cancer), there's no question that approaches such as homeopathy, etc., will not work purely on a "mind over body" basis, and are in fact, harmful if they prevent the patient from seeking real medicine.
While an interesting and entertaining book, I'm not sure I got a lot out of it. It's very clear that all research in mind over body has quite a ways to go, but the lack of easy studies (it's tough to do double-blind between people who do mindfulness and people who don't, for instance) mean that if you're a skeptic, the evidence is not quite compelling as yet.
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Review: The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books
The elevator pitch for this book's awesome: what if, instead of trying (and failing) to read all the "great books" that are part of the western literary canon could be replaced by exciting, fun books that will have you eager to read them instead? What if a professor gave you 12 books to replace boring stuff like Hamlet, Moby-Dick, War and Peace, or Ulyses?
Sucker that I am, I jumped on The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books. The problem is, the typical professor's taste is not necessarily going to be to be yours. I'd actually read 3 of the books Prof. Voth provides in this course: Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men", Le Carre's "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", and Moore's "Watchmen." For those 3 books, I can attest that Voth does a good job describing the book and explaining why it's so great. Unfortunately, for the rest of the books in his list, I can't say as much. He recommends 12 books, and of them all, the only 2 books I'm even intrigued by are Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, and Death of An Expert Witness. The other books he recommend sound as boring as the classical works they replace.
The upside is that the audio lecture series is short: 6 hours to cover 12 books, so worse comes to worse you're not out a lot of time.
Sucker that I am, I jumped on The Skeptic's Guide to the Great Books. The problem is, the typical professor's taste is not necessarily going to be to be yours. I'd actually read 3 of the books Prof. Voth provides in this course: Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men", Le Carre's "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", and Moore's "Watchmen." For those 3 books, I can attest that Voth does a good job describing the book and explaining why it's so great. Unfortunately, for the rest of the books in his list, I can't say as much. He recommends 12 books, and of them all, the only 2 books I'm even intrigued by are Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, and Death of An Expert Witness. The other books he recommend sound as boring as the classical works they replace.
The upside is that the audio lecture series is short: 6 hours to cover 12 books, so worse comes to worse you're not out a lot of time.
Monday, December 05, 2016
First Impressions: Garmin Vivoactive HR
My brother bought me a Garmin Vivoactive HR as a late birthday present. Continuous use of my Vivoactive has reduced its battery life significantly, so it was a timely gift. Over the past year, Garmin has been the only smart watch maker that has been gaining market share. Since you've probably not ever seen a Garmin ad (I certainly haven't), this market share gain has been entirely via word of mouth and product excellence, which is unusual in this day and age where marketing trumps all.
When putting the watch on the wrist, I was immediately impressed by how it's completely changed the UI from the predecessor. The two buttons no longer do what I thought they did, but in exchange the device is more customizable. I can now remove the Golf app, which I'll never use. The touch screen swipes also no longer do what they used to do. I also bought the Garmin Tempe sensor, and that pairs reliably with the Vivoactive HR, as well as providing temperature information for my rides to the device, which faithfully logs it.
The HR functionality is the major feature upgrade. I didn't realize how constricting my HRM band was until I started riding without it. It felt liberating. In exchange, the data probably isn't anywhere as accurate. My hardest efforts barely registered 160bpm, while with the strap I could regularly exceed that on the reading. One nice note about the HR functionality --- if you have both a Garmin watch and an Edge, you can broadcast the HR from the watch to the Edge by turning on the broadcast feature. While the device warns that this will reduce battery life, in practice, the battery life of the device is so great that I haven't really noticed it.
The other improvement is the battery life. There's two ways to view this. One is that passive battery life has been reduced, because the always-on HRM reduces the previous life from about 14 days to about 5 days if you leave it on. The other way is that active GPS-on battery life has been increased from 10 hours to 13 hours. In practice, 3 hours of riding (with HR broadcast on) reduces the battery life by about 20%, which extrapolates to about 15 hours of riding. That's excellent, and gives me confidence that after a year or so of use, the battery will still be good for about 10 hours of riding, which would enable me not to have to charge it in the middle of a ride. Not only does the increased battery life mean that battery wear will no longer make the device useless, the increased battery life also means that the number of cycles the device endures is reduced, which in turns also reduces battery wear if you're fond of long workouts.
The third feature is the barometer, which is huge for cyclists and hikers, but also opens up ski mode. Reports are that ski mode works really well, detecting when you get on ski lifts, etc., and recording the number of runs, but I'm not an enthusiastic skier, so don't expect to use this mode at all.
The con is that as before, Garmin has locked out open water swimming (there's no reason the device couldn't do it, just that Garmin wants you to upgrade to the $600/$450 during holiday sale Fenix 3 HR). There are also no structured workout or power meter support. But if you need either of those, you're way more serious about training than the average athlete, and can probably justify a dedicated device or the Fenix 3 HR.
The long and short of it is that Garmin has hit the ball out of the park with the Vivoactive HR. If the competition was just Google, Garmin could rest easy, since Google ADD probably means that it will give up on Android wear soon. Unfortunately for Garmin (and fortunately for us consumers), Apple and Fitbit still provide viable competition in this space, and neither of those suffer from ADD and will stick around for the foreseeable future.
The difference between the Garmin device and the Apple watch is the battery life: if your ride/run ever exceeds 4 hours or so, the Garmin device will be your choice. The difference between a Fitbit and a Garmin is the software/data ecosystem. If your primary social network for fitness activities is Strava (as it is with most cyclists), then go with the Garmin. If you're mostly a "step-counter" person whose social network is filled with Fitbit users, then Garmin wouldn't work for you at all. As a self-driven person who's workout patterns aren't driven by social networks, the Garmin device has much better reliability and integrates with the cycling ecosystem better.
Obviously, a long term review is a necessity, but my first impressions of the Vivoactive HR is nothing short of stellar. With the holiday pricing of $199 and potentially coupons at Best Buy, REI, and other vendors, this is a great time to get one.
When putting the watch on the wrist, I was immediately impressed by how it's completely changed the UI from the predecessor. The two buttons no longer do what I thought they did, but in exchange the device is more customizable. I can now remove the Golf app, which I'll never use. The touch screen swipes also no longer do what they used to do. I also bought the Garmin Tempe sensor, and that pairs reliably with the Vivoactive HR, as well as providing temperature information for my rides to the device, which faithfully logs it.
The HR functionality is the major feature upgrade. I didn't realize how constricting my HRM band was until I started riding without it. It felt liberating. In exchange, the data probably isn't anywhere as accurate. My hardest efforts barely registered 160bpm, while with the strap I could regularly exceed that on the reading. One nice note about the HR functionality --- if you have both a Garmin watch and an Edge, you can broadcast the HR from the watch to the Edge by turning on the broadcast feature. While the device warns that this will reduce battery life, in practice, the battery life of the device is so great that I haven't really noticed it.
The other improvement is the battery life. There's two ways to view this. One is that passive battery life has been reduced, because the always-on HRM reduces the previous life from about 14 days to about 5 days if you leave it on. The other way is that active GPS-on battery life has been increased from 10 hours to 13 hours. In practice, 3 hours of riding (with HR broadcast on) reduces the battery life by about 20%, which extrapolates to about 15 hours of riding. That's excellent, and gives me confidence that after a year or so of use, the battery will still be good for about 10 hours of riding, which would enable me not to have to charge it in the middle of a ride. Not only does the increased battery life mean that battery wear will no longer make the device useless, the increased battery life also means that the number of cycles the device endures is reduced, which in turns also reduces battery wear if you're fond of long workouts.
The third feature is the barometer, which is huge for cyclists and hikers, but also opens up ski mode. Reports are that ski mode works really well, detecting when you get on ski lifts, etc., and recording the number of runs, but I'm not an enthusiastic skier, so don't expect to use this mode at all.
The con is that as before, Garmin has locked out open water swimming (there's no reason the device couldn't do it, just that Garmin wants you to upgrade to the $600/$450 during holiday sale Fenix 3 HR). There are also no structured workout or power meter support. But if you need either of those, you're way more serious about training than the average athlete, and can probably justify a dedicated device or the Fenix 3 HR.
The long and short of it is that Garmin has hit the ball out of the park with the Vivoactive HR. If the competition was just Google, Garmin could rest easy, since Google ADD probably means that it will give up on Android wear soon. Unfortunately for Garmin (and fortunately for us consumers), Apple and Fitbit still provide viable competition in this space, and neither of those suffer from ADD and will stick around for the foreseeable future.
The difference between the Garmin device and the Apple watch is the battery life: if your ride/run ever exceeds 4 hours or so, the Garmin device will be your choice. The difference between a Fitbit and a Garmin is the software/data ecosystem. If your primary social network for fitness activities is Strava (as it is with most cyclists), then go with the Garmin. If you're mostly a "step-counter" person whose social network is filled with Fitbit users, then Garmin wouldn't work for you at all. As a self-driven person who's workout patterns aren't driven by social networks, the Garmin device has much better reliability and integrates with the cycling ecosystem better.
Obviously, a long term review is a necessity, but my first impressions of the Vivoactive HR is nothing short of stellar. With the holiday pricing of $199 and potentially coupons at Best Buy, REI, and other vendors, this is a great time to get one.
Friday, December 02, 2016
Review: Harmony Hub & Echo Dot
I started writing this review of an Echo Dot, but realized that I couldn't really review it without the true reason for its presence in the home, which is the Logitech Harmony Smart Control.
A year ago, I bought the Amazon Echo and returned it. It was a great device, but didn't really justify its place in the living room. It was too big, and it didn't do very much, and it did a terrible job of voice recognition for my wife and Bowen. (The non-English speakers in the household obviously couldn't use it at all!) A year later, the Echo Dot is $50 ($40 during the holiday season), and it's basically the Echo stripped of the speakers, requiring you to plug it into the entertainment center's speaker system. That's perfect, since you likely have much better speakers in the entertainment center than any puny portable speaker will do. Much has been made about how the Google Home device is cheaper than the Echo, but the reality is that most people should really buy the Dot instead.
Out of the box, the device could control my Sensi thermostat. Realistically speaking, however, you're not going to adjust your home temperature that way. If your programming is up to par at all, you're going to tweak the thermostat at most once a month, and remember the voice command to do that is more onerous than pulling out the smartphone and running the app.
But once I got the Logitech Harmony Smart Control Hub ($70 right now on Amazon, which is a great holiday season deal), the Dot proved to be extremely useful. I'll summarize what the Harmony Hub does. It plugs into the wall, and you can program it with your computer or smart phone app to act as a universal report. What's great about it is that it accepts commands from your smart phone, a "simple remote", or another universal report via RF. That means it can sit inside a cabinet and still receive signals. It incorporates an IR blaster, which can then activate all the other devices in the same cabinet. For devices that are outside the cabinet (e.g., the TV), the device comes with an auxiliary IR blaster that can be plugged in and then run outside the cabinet.
Put it together with the Amazon Echo, and wow! With the old universal remote, it could power on the IR-driven devices, but couldn't turn on the PS3. Now, I'd walk into the living room and say, "Alexa, turn on Playstation." It would then immediately power up the PS3, TV, and Speakers, switching the speakers over to the PS3's output. "Alexa, turn off AV" would turn everything off. No more hunting for the remote, no pulling out the phone to switch to the app. As someone who's never cared about home automation (seriously, do you need voice control to turn on the lights?), this is truly a "Star Trek" living in the future experience. And no, Google Home can't do it because it doesn't support "external skills" yet.
The penalties: I still can't access my Google Music library, and I'd have to pay $24/year to upload all my music to Amazon's music library. That sucks. I'm sure at some point I'll break down and pay if music becomes important enough.
In any case, I highly recommend this combination. Given the sales during the holiday season, it's well worth the time to set it up.
A year ago, I bought the Amazon Echo and returned it. It was a great device, but didn't really justify its place in the living room. It was too big, and it didn't do very much, and it did a terrible job of voice recognition for my wife and Bowen. (The non-English speakers in the household obviously couldn't use it at all!) A year later, the Echo Dot is $50 ($40 during the holiday season), and it's basically the Echo stripped of the speakers, requiring you to plug it into the entertainment center's speaker system. That's perfect, since you likely have much better speakers in the entertainment center than any puny portable speaker will do. Much has been made about how the Google Home device is cheaper than the Echo, but the reality is that most people should really buy the Dot instead.
Out of the box, the device could control my Sensi thermostat. Realistically speaking, however, you're not going to adjust your home temperature that way. If your programming is up to par at all, you're going to tweak the thermostat at most once a month, and remember the voice command to do that is more onerous than pulling out the smartphone and running the app.
But once I got the Logitech Harmony Smart Control Hub ($70 right now on Amazon, which is a great holiday season deal), the Dot proved to be extremely useful. I'll summarize what the Harmony Hub does. It plugs into the wall, and you can program it with your computer or smart phone app to act as a universal report. What's great about it is that it accepts commands from your smart phone, a "simple remote", or another universal report via RF. That means it can sit inside a cabinet and still receive signals. It incorporates an IR blaster, which can then activate all the other devices in the same cabinet. For devices that are outside the cabinet (e.g., the TV), the device comes with an auxiliary IR blaster that can be plugged in and then run outside the cabinet.
Put it together with the Amazon Echo, and wow! With the old universal remote, it could power on the IR-driven devices, but couldn't turn on the PS3. Now, I'd walk into the living room and say, "Alexa, turn on Playstation." It would then immediately power up the PS3, TV, and Speakers, switching the speakers over to the PS3's output. "Alexa, turn off AV" would turn everything off. No more hunting for the remote, no pulling out the phone to switch to the app. As someone who's never cared about home automation (seriously, do you need voice control to turn on the lights?), this is truly a "Star Trek" living in the future experience. And no, Google Home can't do it because it doesn't support "external skills" yet.
The penalties: I still can't access my Google Music library, and I'd have to pay $24/year to upload all my music to Amazon's music library. That sucks. I'm sure at some point I'll break down and pay if music becomes important enough.
In any case, I highly recommend this combination. Given the sales during the holiday season, it's well worth the time to set it up.
Thursday, December 01, 2016
Review: Snap Circuits Arcade
I grew up with legos here and there, but never got obsessed with them the way some people did. The dedicated kits that are now popular also fail to ignite my interest, and the times someone gives Bowen one of those kits it invariably results in me assembling it for him.
Over the Thanksgiving holidays there was a sale on the Snap Circuits Arcade Electronics Kit for a reasonably good price. The cover says it's for kids 8 and up, but various reviews said that a 5 year old would still get good value out of it if an adult helped, so I jumped on it, despite not having ever played with electronics as a kid.
The box is huge, but most of it is air. There's a bread board, and 35 discrete pieces: a battery holder, a fan (with LED persistence of vision output!), a microcontroller (already preprogrammed and not programmable!), a speaker and alarm unit, various resistors, switches, and wires of different lenghts as well as a bunch of jumper cables. Most of the units are quite well built and capable of withstanding a 5-year-old's abuse. The disco lights, however, is a flimsy 2 piece dome and stick set that's very prone to getting lost, unfortunately!
I got out the set and looked at the instructions and resigned myself to having to assemble the circuits for Bowen as he picked projects in the book. To my surprise, that turned out not to be true! He was the one who figured out that I had laid out the bread board upside down (i.e., it's an inside out breadboard, with pegs instead of holes), and then with only a little bit of help, he could assemble the simple circuits and place the jumper cables correctly in the right places!
What's great about the kit is that some of the more complex circuits force you to learn how to debug. If the speaker doesn't work, you know to trace the speaker area to see which part of the circuit hadn't been assembled directly. After watching me do that a few times, Bowen learned to do it himself!
The projects are relatively simple: a dice simulator, a black jack game, a trip-wire alarm, a moisture detector, and some projects that just make noise and light up. Many of the projects are just the same circuit with different programs to run on the micro-controller, so of the 200 projects listed, there are really only about 30-40 circuits that you have to build.
What's not so great:
Over the Thanksgiving holidays there was a sale on the Snap Circuits Arcade Electronics Kit for a reasonably good price. The cover says it's for kids 8 and up, but various reviews said that a 5 year old would still get good value out of it if an adult helped, so I jumped on it, despite not having ever played with electronics as a kid.
The box is huge, but most of it is air. There's a bread board, and 35 discrete pieces: a battery holder, a fan (with LED persistence of vision output!), a microcontroller (already preprogrammed and not programmable!), a speaker and alarm unit, various resistors, switches, and wires of different lenghts as well as a bunch of jumper cables. Most of the units are quite well built and capable of withstanding a 5-year-old's abuse. The disco lights, however, is a flimsy 2 piece dome and stick set that's very prone to getting lost, unfortunately!
I got out the set and looked at the instructions and resigned myself to having to assemble the circuits for Bowen as he picked projects in the book. To my surprise, that turned out not to be true! He was the one who figured out that I had laid out the bread board upside down (i.e., it's an inside out breadboard, with pegs instead of holes), and then with only a little bit of help, he could assemble the simple circuits and place the jumper cables correctly in the right places!
What's great about the kit is that some of the more complex circuits force you to learn how to debug. If the speaker doesn't work, you know to trace the speaker area to see which part of the circuit hadn't been assembled directly. After watching me do that a few times, Bowen learned to do it himself!
The projects are relatively simple: a dice simulator, a black jack game, a trip-wire alarm, a moisture detector, and some projects that just make noise and light up. Many of the projects are just the same circuit with different programs to run on the micro-controller, so of the 200 projects listed, there are really only about 30-40 circuits that you have to build.
What's not so great:
- The project manual is strictly that, a project manual. It lists projects, circuit boards, and instructions. While there are rudimentary descriptions of the various pieces, there's no guide as to how the inputs are supposed to work. For instance, there's no comprehensive listing of every program available in the microcontroller, nor are the specifications for how the controller sends signals to the speakers for them to play music.
- As mentioned above, some small pieces are easy to lose and a bear to keep track of. Fortunately, there's a web-site that let's you order missing parts.
- The micro-controller should be more programmable than it is. Why isn't there an EPROM in there where I can plug in a micro USB cable and reprogram it?!!
Nevertheless, for the price, it's reasonably fun and teaches the kind of debugging skills that's useful in real life. Recommended.
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