My beloved Samsung SBH 500 died earlier this year (from mechanical breakage --- the band connecting the two ear pieces split in half from fatigue and abuse), and I tried to make do using my trusty Sennheiser PX100, but while those headphones work well for walking, they are a disaster in the gym. The cords get caught in gym equipment, and the plug gets pulled out of my Nexus One in my rare vigorous moments and are very annoying.
Samsung no longer makes the SBH500, so I had to find something else. The GoGroove Airband looked study enough to stand up to abuse.
Unfortunately, the device is crap. It stutters, and only works when the phone is held 5 inches or closer to the headphone. That means if the phone is in your pocket it doesn't work. If the phone is in your hand, it will stutter as you swing your hand in normal walking (unless you have short arms).
This is going right back to Amazon.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Review: Harmony 600 Universal Remote
My previous remote was a Sony VL-610, now unavailable but most similar to the VLZ-620. It worked fine, integrating with every component in my setup, even the PS3 via the Nyko Bluwave. Even though I could program it to do a lot, I anticipated having non-English speakers living with me, so when the Harmony 600 came on-sale for $32 at one of the daily deals sites, I jumped on it.
The selling point of the Harmony 600 is that instead of programming individual devices and turning individual devices on and off and switching between them, you program activities (similar to macros) and then use those. This has several features. First of all, you can indicate that the volume control always goes to the receiver/amplifier, for instance, instead of the volume control on the TV or what-have-you. While the VL-610 had this capability, I frequently found it hard to set it up that way (you have to deliberately not program the volume button on the individual devices and then tell it to use the amp instead, and I always forgot not to program the volume button). Secondly, the hours spent "teaching" the VL-610 are replaced by a simple, easy-to-use web-app that downloads the IR codes into the Harmony 600, which is a snap.
This approach is really nice when it works. For instance, I can now program the Roku Soundbridge to play music with one click. One button turns off everything, eliminating the need for your guests to remember anything about what mode it's gotten into. It even knows how to switch the inputs for your TV smartly, which is more than the remote that came with the TV itself!
When does it fail? It fails when your guests get the system into some weird state. It fails on the PS3 because it doesn't really know how to turn the PS3 off, so it'll turn the TV and the amp off and leave the PS3 on. That's really unfortunate, but for the PS3 which is really blue-tooth only, I can understand that.
The big annoyance for me is that there's no UI that I can see where I can over-ride the default settings. For instance, when watching a movie, I want the menu button to bring up the options button, but whoever programmed the blue wave control didn't know about that, and I have no way to reassign keys. The same would apply to nearly every other activity --- the existence of the softkey screen seems to have prevented logitech from thinking very hard about doing proper button assignment to activities.
All in all, at the current prices of $40 for a Harmony 600 versus $20 for the VLZ-620, I'd recommend the Harmony. Your time is probably worth way more than $20, and time spent programming the VLZ-620 is no fun at all. On the other hand, at the original retail price of $120 for the 600, buy the VLZ-620. The advantages just don't justify that price.
The selling point of the Harmony 600 is that instead of programming individual devices and turning individual devices on and off and switching between them, you program activities (similar to macros) and then use those. This has several features. First of all, you can indicate that the volume control always goes to the receiver/amplifier, for instance, instead of the volume control on the TV or what-have-you. While the VL-610 had this capability, I frequently found it hard to set it up that way (you have to deliberately not program the volume button on the individual devices and then tell it to use the amp instead, and I always forgot not to program the volume button). Secondly, the hours spent "teaching" the VL-610 are replaced by a simple, easy-to-use web-app that downloads the IR codes into the Harmony 600, which is a snap.
This approach is really nice when it works. For instance, I can now program the Roku Soundbridge to play music with one click. One button turns off everything, eliminating the need for your guests to remember anything about what mode it's gotten into. It even knows how to switch the inputs for your TV smartly, which is more than the remote that came with the TV itself!
When does it fail? It fails when your guests get the system into some weird state. It fails on the PS3 because it doesn't really know how to turn the PS3 off, so it'll turn the TV and the amp off and leave the PS3 on. That's really unfortunate, but for the PS3 which is really blue-tooth only, I can understand that.
The big annoyance for me is that there's no UI that I can see where I can over-ride the default settings. For instance, when watching a movie, I want the menu button to bring up the options button, but whoever programmed the blue wave control didn't know about that, and I have no way to reassign keys. The same would apply to nearly every other activity --- the existence of the softkey screen seems to have prevented logitech from thinking very hard about doing proper button assignment to activities.
All in all, at the current prices of $40 for a Harmony 600 versus $20 for the VLZ-620, I'd recommend the Harmony. Your time is probably worth way more than $20, and time spent programming the VLZ-620 is no fun at all. On the other hand, at the original retail price of $120 for the 600, buy the VLZ-620. The advantages just don't justify that price.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Review: The Broken Kingdoms
I named The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms the Book of the Year for 2011. So I picked up The Broken Kingdoms with no little nervousness. First of all, second novels are frequently subject to regression to the mean. Furthermore, after all the reveals in the first book, I didn't see how Jemisin could provide more reveals that would surprise me.
The Broken Kingdoms is told from the point of view of Oree, a blilnd woman artist and painter who discovers that she is actually living with a god, part of the aftermath of the events from the first book. Being set 10 years later, we get to see a little bit of the changes that have occurred, but the world hasn't changed as much as we might expect.
A lot of the problem is that Oree is not as strong a character as Yveine. While Yveine would barrel headlong at full tilt and was very aware, Oree was more clueless and tended to be dragged along by events rather than effect them. This happens even at the climax! That makes the book a lot less compelling than The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
As expected, there's not much more to reveal, so the plot centers around artifacts and rules already laid down by the first book. This is fine, except that Oree is so much of an outsider that she cannot explain or tell you much about the politics behind the story, so you're only told about it at the same time as she has it explained to her, which makes her feel even more passive.
Characters from the first book make reappearances, but only very minor ones. That's good: you don't need to read the first book to enjoy the second one, but the second one is not as enjoyable as the first.
The ending, however, is written exceedingly well. Everything is taken to the logical conclusion, and nothing feels forced. As a result, I don't feel like I've wasted my time reading the book, but on the other hand, this performance doesn't make me want to run out and buy all her other books, unlike the first one. As a result, I can only mildly recommend this book, and really only for fans of the first novel.
The Broken Kingdoms is told from the point of view of Oree, a blilnd woman artist and painter who discovers that she is actually living with a god, part of the aftermath of the events from the first book. Being set 10 years later, we get to see a little bit of the changes that have occurred, but the world hasn't changed as much as we might expect.
A lot of the problem is that Oree is not as strong a character as Yveine. While Yveine would barrel headlong at full tilt and was very aware, Oree was more clueless and tended to be dragged along by events rather than effect them. This happens even at the climax! That makes the book a lot less compelling than The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
As expected, there's not much more to reveal, so the plot centers around artifacts and rules already laid down by the first book. This is fine, except that Oree is so much of an outsider that she cannot explain or tell you much about the politics behind the story, so you're only told about it at the same time as she has it explained to her, which makes her feel even more passive.
Characters from the first book make reappearances, but only very minor ones. That's good: you don't need to read the first book to enjoy the second one, but the second one is not as enjoyable as the first.
The ending, however, is written exceedingly well. Everything is taken to the logical conclusion, and nothing feels forced. As a result, I don't feel like I've wasted my time reading the book, but on the other hand, this performance doesn't make me want to run out and buy all her other books, unlike the first one. As a result, I can only mildly recommend this book, and really only for fans of the first novel.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
First Impressions: Canon S100
As long time readers of this blog know, I'm an unabashed fan of the Canon S90. It is all around the best pocketable camera for the serious cyclist/photographer. It's lightweight enough to fit in the jersey pocket, while producing photos of such high quality that I used many of those photographs in Independent Cycle Touring.
I ended up skipping over the Canon S95, but when Canon launched the S100 the features made contemplating a switch compelling:
I ended up skipping over the Canon S95, but when Canon launched the S100 the features made contemplating a switch compelling:
- Integrated GPS, so no awkward geo-coding hassles lining up the Edge 800 with the Canon.
- 1080p Video. With Bowen's arrival, I found myself shooting video. Some of it is even viewable.
- 12 Megapixels while preserving low light performance. More resolution means you can crop more and still have enough leftover for usable pictures. I've never been satisfied by the quality of digital images short of the .Canon 5D Mark II's. The S100's sensor stays the same size, so raising the number of pixels could add more noise, but Canon claimed that this wasn't so.
- 24mm->120mm higher zoom range. At the long end it didn't matter very much. However, the wide end is very attractive. The 24mm end of the 24-105/4L is one of my favorite focal lengths. Having it on a point and shoot makes photos coming out of it extra special.
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| From BayArea |
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| From BayArea |
Thursday, December 15, 2011
E-Books Sticker Shock
The Wall Street Journal today had an article about ebook sticker shock and how ebooks have now risen to the point where they're as expensive as paperbooks or even hardcovers, because while paperbooks are still sold via the old model (wholesale price to retailers who can discount the books and even use them as loss leaders to drive traffic), ebooks (as sold by the big six) are sold under the agency model, where the retailer is not allowed to set prices.
There's a general denial in the industry that this increase in prices is driving down ebook sales, even as ebook adoption increase. Think the two aren't compatible? Then you don't understand piracy, or library use. For instance, when The Snowball first came out at $9.99 on Amazon, I bought it and read it right away. My reviews on this blog drove further purchases. The Snowball is now $16. Can you imagine a 3 year old car selling for more than it did 3 years ago? Probably not, especially since a used copy of the same book has the same information and can be had for much less. Now that Steve Jobs and Thinking Fast and Slow are $15 and $13 respectively, I opted to check them out from the library instead. The unscrupulous would just download them.
The publishers would argue that ebooks are more portable, easier to carry and easier to store. But there's one huge thing wrong with them: with license terms as they are today, ebooks are impossible to resale, difficult to lend to your friends, and of course, the added cost makes no sense.
Furthermore, most books sold are not non-fiction (as the three are above). For non-fiction, most books are not fungible, not even mine. When someone on Quora asked Why are my books so expensive, my reply caused a flood of sales. Fiction, however, is more easily fungible. The next best-sellers will probably be independent phenomena, not traditional publisher-driven ones. The regular publishers are going to lose their stand as gatekeepers if they insist on pricing ebooks for the 19th century. Like the music publishers, they will become gradually more and more irrelevant.
The lesson for you if you're a fiction author? You have a window of opportunity right now where traditional publishers have provided an incredible price umbrella. Take that opportunity and ride it for as hard as you can.
There's a general denial in the industry that this increase in prices is driving down ebook sales, even as ebook adoption increase. Think the two aren't compatible? Then you don't understand piracy, or library use. For instance, when The Snowball first came out at $9.99 on Amazon, I bought it and read it right away. My reviews on this blog drove further purchases. The Snowball is now $16. Can you imagine a 3 year old car selling for more than it did 3 years ago? Probably not, especially since a used copy of the same book has the same information and can be had for much less. Now that Steve Jobs and Thinking Fast and Slow are $15 and $13 respectively, I opted to check them out from the library instead. The unscrupulous would just download them.
The publishers would argue that ebooks are more portable, easier to carry and easier to store. But there's one huge thing wrong with them: with license terms as they are today, ebooks are impossible to resale, difficult to lend to your friends, and of course, the added cost makes no sense.
Furthermore, most books sold are not non-fiction (as the three are above). For non-fiction, most books are not fungible, not even mine. When someone on Quora asked Why are my books so expensive, my reply caused a flood of sales. Fiction, however, is more easily fungible. The next best-sellers will probably be independent phenomena, not traditional publisher-driven ones. The regular publishers are going to lose their stand as gatekeepers if they insist on pricing ebooks for the 19th century. Like the music publishers, they will become gradually more and more irrelevant.
The lesson for you if you're a fiction author? You have a window of opportunity right now where traditional publishers have provided an incredible price umbrella. Take that opportunity and ride it for as hard as you can.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
First Impressions: HP Promo ZR 2740w Monitor
XiaoQin recently decided that she wanted to try a faster machine, so I set her up with my old Dell 2407 monitor along with my X201, which is one heck of a rocking setup. One thing I didn't realize was that VGA happily drives a 24" monitor at the native resolution of 1920x1200 with no problems whatsoever, and I was very pleased to see the Lenovo automatically detect that and realize what's going on.
I thought about replacing it with another 24" monitor, but my brother found the HP Promo 27" monitor for about $682 shipped from Amazon. It's about $200 or so less than the competing Dell 2711. Reviews are pretty scarce on this monitor, but my brother found one written by TFT Central which indicated that it was ok as long as you didn't care about not having HDMI, VGA, S-Video, and making do with just the display port or the dual-link DVI cable.
Note that there are $300 27" monitors, but most of them are just 1080p TVs, not really monitors capable of 2560x1440, which is the resolution both the Dell and the HP are capable of driving at. Along with the monitor, you have to have a video card capable of driving that resolution, but fortunately my M9600t already sports not one but two dual-link DVI ports in addition to the (probably never to be used) HDMI port.
Unboxing the monitor, it wasn't immediately how much bigger the 27" monitor was until you hooked it up and put it next to the 24". Then I powered it on and saw how much brighter the HP Promo monitor was compared to the old Dell 24". After calibrating both monitors with the Eye One Display 2, I went ahead and compared them and indeed, the 24" monitor looks really drab. The extra screen real estate is really nice as well, and colors really popped. At first, I was really concerned when my video card fritzed and I had to reboot my machine, but after a while I realized that I had over-clocked my Radeon 4850, and after backing off the over-clocking the machine is now nice and stable.
All in all, I'm very pleased by the monitor and will most likely be keeping it. The old monitor (as seen in the image above) is now turned to portrait mode to serve as a lightbox for Lightroom. Obviously, we'll see how it goes living with the monitor day to day, but for now, I'll give it the recommended rating. (Note that unlike 24" and below monitors, the 27" and 30" monitors haven't really drop in price for the last few years, probably because of the lack of demand, but then when I first bought the 24" monitor way back in 2004, they were also around $666 a piece --- hopefully eventually I will get to make use of that second dual-linked DVI port on the 4850)
Monday, December 12, 2011
Followup: T-mobile Pay As You Go
Earlier this year, I wrote about the T-mobile prepaid plans and how you could buy a Web Daypass for $1.50 a day unlimited data. Unfortunately, T-mobile expired the Web Daypass without telling anyone, so now we're stuck with several more expensive plans.
If you're willing to live with 2G speeds, you can pay $2/day for unlimited data, but only over the Edge network. This kinda sucks. For 3G, you now have to pay $3/day for unlimited data. If you're traveling for extended periods and need data all the time but are willing to live with 100 minutes of voice calling (no big deal, since you can always use Skype), then you can opt for the $30/month 100 minutes/unlimited data plan. These are all pre-paid plans, so no contracts.
One of the nice things about the T-mobile pay as you go plan is that if you start off with $100 of credit, that lasts for a year. If you're like me, you don't use anywhere close to 1000 minutes of calling a year (especially with Google voice where you can pick up your land-line if you're at home). What most people don't know is that all you have to do is to "refill" your T-mobile prepaid SIM for $10 any time, and you get extended for another year from the most recent refill! So if you don't call a lot and are usually in a WiFi zone, your mobile phone service could easily be $10/year. I just called T-mobile's customer service and verified that if you switch between the pay-as-you-go plan and the monthly prepaid plans you will retain your gold rewards status (which is what enables the 1 year between renewals).
Republic Wireless is currently trialing a plan for unlimited data and voice for $19/month provided you're mostly in a WiFi zone (note that you have to buy their specific phone --- this is not a bring your own phone service). This is a good price if you don't want to ever think about metering. My experience, though is that the pay-as-you-go T-mobile plans have been extremely cost effective.
If you're willing to live with 2G speeds, you can pay $2/day for unlimited data, but only over the Edge network. This kinda sucks. For 3G, you now have to pay $3/day for unlimited data. If you're traveling for extended periods and need data all the time but are willing to live with 100 minutes of voice calling (no big deal, since you can always use Skype), then you can opt for the $30/month 100 minutes/unlimited data plan. These are all pre-paid plans, so no contracts.
One of the nice things about the T-mobile pay as you go plan is that if you start off with $100 of credit, that lasts for a year. If you're like me, you don't use anywhere close to 1000 minutes of calling a year (especially with Google voice where you can pick up your land-line if you're at home). What most people don't know is that all you have to do is to "refill" your T-mobile prepaid SIM for $10 any time, and you get extended for another year from the most recent refill! So if you don't call a lot and are usually in a WiFi zone, your mobile phone service could easily be $10/year. I just called T-mobile's customer service and verified that if you switch between the pay-as-you-go plan and the monthly prepaid plans you will retain your gold rewards status (which is what enables the 1 year between renewals).
Republic Wireless is currently trialing a plan for unlimited data and voice for $19/month provided you're mostly in a WiFi zone (note that you have to buy their specific phone --- this is not a bring your own phone service). This is a good price if you don't want to ever think about metering. My experience, though is that the pay-as-you-go T-mobile plans have been extremely cost effective.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Referrals: Google Plus versus Facebook versus Quora
I ran into this article where Google plus supporters claimed that all the estimates of Google plus usage are low. In other words, Google plus is far more popular than the estimated 50 million users. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of people who've logged into Google plus is incredibly high, north of 200M. Google has been pushing the notification bar and Google plus relentlessly, and integrating it into more and more products, while eliminating products (such as Google Reader) whose model don't fit into Google Plus's model.
Far more important than the sheer number of users, however, is the engagement of those users. For instance, while Buzz got pushed to nearly every Gmail user, most non-Google affiliated users told me (on Facebook, no less) that Buzz was a dead zone for them. So I used my own blog analytics to see whether Google Plus users got referred to my blog.
The number one referral (visitors who came from another sitee) to my blog came from Google.com. That's Google+, right? No. It turns out to be Google Reader. The next most popular referral was Facebook, which was almost as popular. (Though Google Reader users are really engaged: they visit 4 times as many pages as Facebook readers, who presumably see the link, click to read the article, and immediately leave) The next best referral came from Quora, the question answer site. This came as a bit of a surprise. Then the dropoffs become really steep, my own Books web-site and Friendfeed, a so-called "dead" service. (As an aggregate-site of all my online activity, Friendfeed beats the heck out of all the other sites)
By the time I got to Google+ and Hacker News, I'm down to one fifth the visitors that Google Reader sends me. This is incredibly low. I doubt if Quora has 200M users, but their users are incredibly engaged, unlike Google Plus's.
Here are a few lessons I would draw from this:
Far more important than the sheer number of users, however, is the engagement of those users. For instance, while Buzz got pushed to nearly every Gmail user, most non-Google affiliated users told me (on Facebook, no less) that Buzz was a dead zone for them. So I used my own blog analytics to see whether Google Plus users got referred to my blog.
The number one referral (visitors who came from another sitee) to my blog came from Google.com. That's Google+, right? No. It turns out to be Google Reader. The next most popular referral was Facebook, which was almost as popular. (Though Google Reader users are really engaged: they visit 4 times as many pages as Facebook readers, who presumably see the link, click to read the article, and immediately leave) The next best referral came from Quora, the question answer site. This came as a bit of a surprise. Then the dropoffs become really steep, my own Books web-site and Friendfeed, a so-called "dead" service. (As an aggregate-site of all my online activity, Friendfeed beats the heck out of all the other sites)
By the time I got to Google+ and Hacker News, I'm down to one fifth the visitors that Google Reader sends me. This is incredibly low. I doubt if Quora has 200M users, but their users are incredibly engaged, unlike Google Plus's.
Here are a few lessons I would draw from this:
- RSS support is really important. Reader, Facebook, Quora, and Friendfeed all support RSS export or RSS import so you can track somebody's content. Google Plus insists on you manually typing in a share with no method of automation. Even Twitter supports an auto-export from my blog to my Twitter stream. While I do try to promote blog posts on Google Plus, I don't always do so, especially for book reviews.
- Google Plus is still extremely niche. Even though I'm not active on Hacker News, for instance, it's still way better at sending me referrals than Google Plus.
- Twitter messed up. I have no way whatsoever of tracking Twitter referrals at all. As a result, it's not surprising that I rarely find time to engage on Twitter. But, because of the automation provided for sending blog posts, etc, automatically to Twitter, it costs me nothing to twitter my blog posts, so I do it. Which goes to show that automation will make up for other poor decisions on the social network front.
- I really miss the old Google Reader. The old Google Reader gave me 2X the engagement of the current Google Reader, according to the referral logs. It's a pity Google was willing to give up all that engagement, but I'm guessing that as usual, small fry like me don't count for very much.
Friday, December 09, 2011
Starting Up While Employed
Someone recently asked me for advice on working on a startup while he was still employed at a large tech company. My first response was to point him at my response on Quora. Even though I provide details on pretty much how to do this, I still don't think it's a great idea.
- Working at a startup is tough. Doing so while trying to hold down a full time job at a large tech firm is going to slow you down a lot. Unless your idea has such a high technical barrier that you're the only person who could conceivably execute on it, someone else is very likely to get to market before you do.
- It sends the wrong message to your potential investors and co-founders. As a co-founder, I want to see someone else dedicated enough to cut the safety net and go full time. As an investor, I'd be wondering about your commitment if you were only willing to work on it part time. Yes, nearly everyone knows that Reed Hastings did his startup while contracting for other Silicon Valley firms. But note: he was not an employee, and no one doubted his commitment to the startup because he took out a second mortgage on his home!
- If you're working everywhere but California, which has extremely employee friendly laws and courts, then even my reply to the above question might not save you. In particular, are you so good at keeping a secret that you can avoid talking about your idea at lunch? And of course, you'd better be scrupulous about never doing any work on that company laptop or on a company paid-for internet connection. (A surprising number of people at large tech companies don't even own their own computer, and trust me, if you end up going to court and this comes up, you are losing all your intellectual property)
- Finally, if you really are startup material, then quitting your job to do a startup and coming back to a big company if it fails will always be an option. If you're not, then what makes you think your startup will be worth all that extra time you're putting in?
Review: The Magician King
Despite a wonderful concept, I reviewed The Magicians last year with faint praise. I was surprised when it won the John W. Campbell award... until I read the competition, most of which was barely readable and not really worth mentioning.
I sampled The Magician King on the Kindle, and the writing was good enough that I decided to place a hold at the library for the book. I'm glad I did.
First of all, the worst part of The Magicians was the teenage whining and angst. The Magician King does away with that. While Quentin (one of the two protagonists) is still more than a little clueless and frequently seems to be just someone dragged from one event to another without any reflection, the plot this time is far more interesting and focuses on the nature of magic itself, and why it exists in this milieu. And the second protagonist is Julia, whom we didn't much of in the first book except at the end. She's not clueless or whiny, and her story runs through the second strand of narrative in the novel.
Julia's a much more interesting character than Quentin, and we get to see the darker side of magic through her. There's more than a few streaks of meta-thinking in the novel, especially as the characters start thinking about fantasy quests in the abstract: "We don't need a map. Quests are all about attitude."
Finally, when the big reveal happens and we see what the point of all this questing is, we're also done with the quest. Unfortunately, at this point, Grossman decides that he's done with being innovative, and delivers us a standard fantasy, complete with a fantastical ending which ends up being cliched. This does not detract from the journey, which is a lot of fun.
Nevertheless, the book is overall an enjoyable read (more so than his previous novel), and while it's not on the scale of Stephen Donaldson's work, as a short easy read I would recommend it as an airplane novel or brain candy.
I sampled The Magician King on the Kindle, and the writing was good enough that I decided to place a hold at the library for the book. I'm glad I did.
First of all, the worst part of The Magicians was the teenage whining and angst. The Magician King does away with that. While Quentin (one of the two protagonists) is still more than a little clueless and frequently seems to be just someone dragged from one event to another without any reflection, the plot this time is far more interesting and focuses on the nature of magic itself, and why it exists in this milieu. And the second protagonist is Julia, whom we didn't much of in the first book except at the end. She's not clueless or whiny, and her story runs through the second strand of narrative in the novel.
Julia's a much more interesting character than Quentin, and we get to see the darker side of magic through her. There's more than a few streaks of meta-thinking in the novel, especially as the characters start thinking about fantasy quests in the abstract: "We don't need a map. Quests are all about attitude."
Finally, when the big reveal happens and we see what the point of all this questing is, we're also done with the quest. Unfortunately, at this point, Grossman decides that he's done with being innovative, and delivers us a standard fantasy, complete with a fantastical ending which ends up being cliched. This does not detract from the journey, which is a lot of fun.
Nevertheless, the book is overall an enjoyable read (more so than his previous novel), and while it's not on the scale of Stephen Donaldson's work, as a short easy read I would recommend it as an airplane novel or brain candy.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Review: Republic, Lost
I came across Republic Lost by watching the video:
To tell the truth, the video wasn't very good. Lessig presents a complex argument and some solutions, and those are best done in book form, so I checked out the book from the library. This is an important book if you're an American citizen.
Lessig argues what many of us who've watched the political process for the last 20 years know: Congress is broken. Not just broken when it's owned by Republicans or Democrats, but broken no matter who controls the house and/or the senate. The problem is that of money, and he traces the history of how it's happened: campaign financing has turned campaigning into a full time job, because of the amounts of money required. While bribery is outright illegal, a lot of the result is that Washington D.C. has become a gift economy, where "gifts" buy attention as well as time.
Lessig points out other places where Congress has become corrupted by money, and then details several potential solutions, none of which seems very probable to me (seriously? A constitutional convention? It's more likely that a morally upright billionaire could ride in and save the day). However, this book was written before the Occupy Wall Street movement, and if he can persuade the movement (as well as most of the American people) that this is at the root of the problem, there's a real chance we might have real elections and an ability to actually affect outcome so that we can have a government of the people for the people and by the people again.
The big problem with Lessig's book is that he's not a historian. There have been previous times when the Republic has become as corrupted, for instance, during the Gilded age. It took an extraordinary man (FDR) and a world war to get us out of it, but it would have been interesting to see an analysis of how it happened and how.
In any event, I think the book's way more interesting than the presentation, and deserves every voter's attention. While you might find the book a slog, especially if you start reading the book already convinced that Congress is corrupt, you'll still find something new every chapter. Recommended.
To tell the truth, the video wasn't very good. Lessig presents a complex argument and some solutions, and those are best done in book form, so I checked out the book from the library. This is an important book if you're an American citizen.
Lessig argues what many of us who've watched the political process for the last 20 years know: Congress is broken. Not just broken when it's owned by Republicans or Democrats, but broken no matter who controls the house and/or the senate. The problem is that of money, and he traces the history of how it's happened: campaign financing has turned campaigning into a full time job, because of the amounts of money required. While bribery is outright illegal, a lot of the result is that Washington D.C. has become a gift economy, where "gifts" buy attention as well as time.
Lessig points out other places where Congress has become corrupted by money, and then details several potential solutions, none of which seems very probable to me (seriously? A constitutional convention? It's more likely that a morally upright billionaire could ride in and save the day). However, this book was written before the Occupy Wall Street movement, and if he can persuade the movement (as well as most of the American people) that this is at the root of the problem, there's a real chance we might have real elections and an ability to actually affect outcome so that we can have a government of the people for the people and by the people again.
The big problem with Lessig's book is that he's not a historian. There have been previous times when the Republic has become as corrupted, for instance, during the Gilded age. It took an extraordinary man (FDR) and a world war to get us out of it, but it would have been interesting to see an analysis of how it happened and how.
In any event, I think the book's way more interesting than the presentation, and deserves every voter's attention. While you might find the book a slog, especially if you start reading the book already convinced that Congress is corrupt, you'll still find something new every chapter. Recommended.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Review: Thinking Fast and Slow
In recent years, there's been a spate of non-conventional economics books, two of which are Freaknonics and Dan Ariely's The Upside of Irrationality. After all this, you might think hey, I'm over-saturated with books, I don't have time for another one, and you'd be wrong.
First of all, Thinking Fast and Slow was written by Dan Kahneman, whom with Amos Tversky started the entire field of behavioral economics, so you're hearing this from the guy whose shoulders everyone else is standing on. Secondly, the book is packed. I have nothing against Levitt or Ariely, but every 4 pages of this book would correspond to entire chapters of one of their books. This is a book packed densely with information. For instance, the chapter on Intuition vs Formula would alleviate the need for you to read any of John Gottman's books if you took it seriously (he has a very simple formula for determining of your marriage will last, and the minute you see it you'll realize that it works and works well). And that's not even the point of the entire chapter, it's just something that Kahneman threw off while discussing other, more involved topics. The last third of this book, for instance, would alleviate the need for you to read Thaler's Nudge. Not that Thaler's book is not good, but Kahneman is so much better a writer and gets his points across with such economy of prose and ease that he gets done in 100 pages what lesser writers would take an entire book to do. Many books that cover an area with such detail would be dry and difficult to read, but Kahneman's book is fantastic, filled with humor (including some sight gags that will have you giggling with delight when you see them) and examples (frequently the experiments that created the results) that will let the point stick to your head.
The range and breadth of this book is tremendous, yet every topic is covered well and (clearly) by the person who pioneered the field. All I can say is, don't waste your time reading anything by the other writers in this field, just read this book and be done with it! I don't usually consider buying books after reading them since usually most books deserve only one read, but I will likely buy this book the next time I want to reference an idea in it. Highly recommended
As an aside, if you have a choice, buy the Kindle version of the book. The hardcover is poorly designed, and will not stay flat no matter what you do (yes, even if you cracked the spine of the book!).
After you've read the book, if you want more of Kahneman, his Multimedia Page has tons of lectures, talks, etc.
First of all, Thinking Fast and Slow was written by Dan Kahneman, whom with Amos Tversky started the entire field of behavioral economics, so you're hearing this from the guy whose shoulders everyone else is standing on. Secondly, the book is packed. I have nothing against Levitt or Ariely, but every 4 pages of this book would correspond to entire chapters of one of their books. This is a book packed densely with information. For instance, the chapter on Intuition vs Formula would alleviate the need for you to read any of John Gottman's books if you took it seriously (he has a very simple formula for determining of your marriage will last, and the minute you see it you'll realize that it works and works well). And that's not even the point of the entire chapter, it's just something that Kahneman threw off while discussing other, more involved topics. The last third of this book, for instance, would alleviate the need for you to read Thaler's Nudge. Not that Thaler's book is not good, but Kahneman is so much better a writer and gets his points across with such economy of prose and ease that he gets done in 100 pages what lesser writers would take an entire book to do. Many books that cover an area with such detail would be dry and difficult to read, but Kahneman's book is fantastic, filled with humor (including some sight gags that will have you giggling with delight when you see them) and examples (frequently the experiments that created the results) that will let the point stick to your head.
The range and breadth of this book is tremendous, yet every topic is covered well and (clearly) by the person who pioneered the field. All I can say is, don't waste your time reading anything by the other writers in this field, just read this book and be done with it! I don't usually consider buying books after reading them since usually most books deserve only one read, but I will likely buy this book the next time I want to reference an idea in it. Highly recommended
As an aside, if you have a choice, buy the Kindle version of the book. The hardcover is poorly designed, and will not stay flat no matter what you do (yes, even if you cracked the spine of the book!).
After you've read the book, if you want more of Kahneman, his Multimedia Page has tons of lectures, talks, etc.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
2012 Book Reviews
Fiction
- The Magician King
- The Broken Kingdoms
- The Alchemist
- Children of the Sky
- The Kingdom of Gods
- Lady Lady I Did It
- Reamde
- The City and The City
- I am Legend
- The Intergalactic Medicine Show Anthology: Vol 1
- Among Others
- A Dance With Dragons
- The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
- The Curse of Chalion
- Altered Carbon
- Touchback
- The Newlyweds
- Existence
- Ready Player One
- Dune
- Alif the Unseen
- The Apocalypse Codex
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- Kill Decision
- The Complete Tales of Winnie-The-Pooh
- The Good School
- Thinking Fast and Slow
- Republic, Lost
- The Magic of Reality
- Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love
- Knocking on Heaven's Door
- Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
- The Price of Civilization
- Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine
- Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius
- Liars and Outliers
- The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011
- The Longevity Project
- The Best American Science Writing 2008
- Career Warfare
- Which Comes First: Cardio or Weights?
- The Mathematics of Life
- The End of Illness
- The 4 Hour Body
- End This Depression Now!
- Bringing Up Bebe
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
- Just Ride: A Radically Practical Approach to Riding Your Bike
- Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
- What's Going on In There
- Team Geek
- The Price of Inequality
- The Gathering Storm
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
- Search Inside Yourself
- The Story of the Giro D'Italia, Volume 2
- Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History
- Where Good Ideas Come From
- The Guardian of All Things
- The Last Lecture
Review: The Good School
I came to The Good School as a foreigner who's never been through the american K-12 system. I read an excerpt about how class sizes didn't matter as much as you think they do, and nodded to myself. I personally grew up with class sizes of around 40 students to 1 teacher.
The first thing that made me realize that this was a high quality book was that the research results were impressive and surprising. For instance, right out of the first chapter on academic pre-schools: Researchers showed that the academic approach created students with more emotional problems, had more acts of teen misconduct, and lower academic aspirations than kids who attended a playful learning program. She tend goes on to detail Tools of the Mind, which was described in Nurture Shock.
One of the things that stands out to a non-American is that the American educational system is bat-shit insane. For instance, tests in Singapore are graduated, which means that you start with easy questions and move on to tougher and tougher questions that require deeper and richer understanding of the material. Well, that's not how Americans do it. The standardized tests are designed so that 40-60% of kids will get it right, in a statistically defensible pattern. WTF! That makes no sense! As a result, questions that nearly everyone will get right are banned, as are questions that nearly everyone cannot answer, since those add no value to the test. I remember my SATs, and they were somewhat graduated, but frequently had a lot of repetitively similar questions, and this explains why.
The section on class sizes is interesting, as I never understood why Americans obsessed about it given my experience in Singapore. Then I realized that students are not sorted in the American system! In Singapore, each year's report cards would be used to stream students into classes with other students of similar ability. As a result, the teachers have the relatively easy job of teaching students who are all more or less at the same level. In America, students are all clumped together and then the teacher is expected to be able to give the laggards or the brilliant ones individual attention. It wouldn't be a surprise to you that that doesn't work.
They cover two big topics: reading and math. Apparently, learning to read English is so well understood that experts agree that there's only one way to teach it: Phonics. But in their survey of school literature, apparently most schools do not teach reading that way, which means that many students fail. Teaching how to read English is much easier than teaching how to read Chinese, so you can imagine my jaw dropping when I read that.
Math, of course, is something Americans are famously bad at compared to the rest of the world. There are two big differences between Americans and the rest of the world. Elementary school teachers in America come from low performers: while the rest of the world gets its teachers from the upper 30% of the class, many American elementary school teachers say things like: "I don't like Math." Secondly, unlike Asians, Americans don't believe that Math is something that can be worked on and believe that you either have a talent for math or not. What results is that the math curriculum is set politically rather than by experts, and as a result, America's math textbooks are confusing and badly written.
The surprising antidote turns out to be Singapore Math, the math studies system I grew up with. I'm surprised that the system isn't just imported wholesale into the US given how much more effective it is than what's in place right now. Apparently, there are school districts that have switched over to it, but it's apparently not something people are pushing for. (By the way, Singapore Math gets you Calculus by the time you hit grade 10, and you're doing simultaneous differential equations by grade 12)
All in all, this book is an eye opener if you grew up outside the American school system. I used to think that Americans are badly educated because the culture here doesn't prize academics but prefers to worship Britney Spears and sports stars instead. Now I know it's not just the culture, but also the system which seems to be put together by people pushing political agendas rather than try to teach kids. If you're used to Asian educational systems, you need to read this book to get an idea of how American schools are different (and probably much worse) than what you grew up with. Recommended.
The first thing that made me realize that this was a high quality book was that the research results were impressive and surprising. For instance, right out of the first chapter on academic pre-schools: Researchers showed that the academic approach created students with more emotional problems, had more acts of teen misconduct, and lower academic aspirations than kids who attended a playful learning program. She tend goes on to detail Tools of the Mind, which was described in Nurture Shock.
One of the things that stands out to a non-American is that the American educational system is bat-shit insane. For instance, tests in Singapore are graduated, which means that you start with easy questions and move on to tougher and tougher questions that require deeper and richer understanding of the material. Well, that's not how Americans do it. The standardized tests are designed so that 40-60% of kids will get it right, in a statistically defensible pattern. WTF! That makes no sense! As a result, questions that nearly everyone will get right are banned, as are questions that nearly everyone cannot answer, since those add no value to the test. I remember my SATs, and they were somewhat graduated, but frequently had a lot of repetitively similar questions, and this explains why.
The section on class sizes is interesting, as I never understood why Americans obsessed about it given my experience in Singapore. Then I realized that students are not sorted in the American system! In Singapore, each year's report cards would be used to stream students into classes with other students of similar ability. As a result, the teachers have the relatively easy job of teaching students who are all more or less at the same level. In America, students are all clumped together and then the teacher is expected to be able to give the laggards or the brilliant ones individual attention. It wouldn't be a surprise to you that that doesn't work.
They cover two big topics: reading and math. Apparently, learning to read English is so well understood that experts agree that there's only one way to teach it: Phonics. But in their survey of school literature, apparently most schools do not teach reading that way, which means that many students fail. Teaching how to read English is much easier than teaching how to read Chinese, so you can imagine my jaw dropping when I read that.
Math, of course, is something Americans are famously bad at compared to the rest of the world. There are two big differences between Americans and the rest of the world. Elementary school teachers in America come from low performers: while the rest of the world gets its teachers from the upper 30% of the class, many American elementary school teachers say things like: "I don't like Math." Secondly, unlike Asians, Americans don't believe that Math is something that can be worked on and believe that you either have a talent for math or not. What results is that the math curriculum is set politically rather than by experts, and as a result, America's math textbooks are confusing and badly written.
The surprising antidote turns out to be Singapore Math, the math studies system I grew up with. I'm surprised that the system isn't just imported wholesale into the US given how much more effective it is than what's in place right now. Apparently, there are school districts that have switched over to it, but it's apparently not something people are pushing for. (By the way, Singapore Math gets you Calculus by the time you hit grade 10, and you're doing simultaneous differential equations by grade 12)
All in all, this book is an eye opener if you grew up outside the American school system. I used to think that Americans are badly educated because the culture here doesn't prize academics but prefers to worship Britney Spears and sports stars instead. Now I know it's not just the culture, but also the system which seems to be put together by people pushing political agendas rather than try to teach kids. If you're used to Asian educational systems, you need to read this book to get an idea of how American schools are different (and probably much worse) than what you grew up with. Recommended.
Monday, November 28, 2011
2011 Books of the Year
This year, I read 53 books, of which 4 were Hugo nominees that weren't really novels but novellas. Unlike previous years, however, the standout book this year isn't non-fiction. I did ponder giving Presimetrics a nod for the book of the year, but instead, the book of the year really should be The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. To me, it reinvents fantasy boldly, and does all of the intended themes justice. For a first time author this is nothing short of outstanding, and I'm going to read her other books as well.
Strangely enough, this was not a good year for novels. The only other two notable novels were The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Surface Detail. Both were fun, but neither earth-shaking.
Non-fiction, however, had a lot of great books to choose from, though Presimetrics really stood out. The Box, The Victorian Internet, The Party: The Secret World of China, and Peopleware will delight the geeks amongst the readers of this blog. Finally, I also went on a baby book binge (for the obvious reasons), but the reality is, most baby books are horribly written, and the only one that I would recommend is still Brain Rules For Baby. I have no idea why baby books are so badly written. I'd imagine that moms are so busy that books for them would have to be well-edited and tightly written, but that's definitely not the case.
Finally, graphic novels have been relatively disappointing, though once again, Fables comes recommended. If you haven't already started reading it, I urge you to do so.
Strangely enough, this was not a good year for novels. The only other two notable novels were The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Surface Detail. Both were fun, but neither earth-shaking.
Non-fiction, however, had a lot of great books to choose from, though Presimetrics really stood out. The Box, The Victorian Internet, The Party: The Secret World of China, and Peopleware will delight the geeks amongst the readers of this blog. Finally, I also went on a baby book binge (for the obvious reasons), but the reality is, most baby books are horribly written, and the only one that I would recommend is still Brain Rules For Baby. I have no idea why baby books are so badly written. I'd imagine that moms are so busy that books for them would have to be well-edited and tightly written, but that's definitely not the case.
Finally, graphic novels have been relatively disappointing, though once again, Fables comes recommended. If you haven't already started reading it, I urge you to do so.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Review: I'm Feeling Lucky
I never encountered Doug Edwards in person at Google, so when I'm Feeling Lucky hit the shelves, I took my time getting to it, since I was familiar with many of the details behind the story.
Well, I finally checked out the book from the local library, and I'm glad I did. First of all, it's cool to see names and people you're familiar with. For instance, upon request, Edwards provided a pseudonym for a well-known engineer, "Claus." Well, as a Googler, it would take you all of 10 pages to figure out who "Claus" was, so what's anonymous for others isn't anonymous for you. Secondly, as a Googler, some mysteries are solved through stories from the old days. For instance, if you've always wondered why a certain executive is hated, this book explains why that person wasn't just hated by his/her reports, but also by other functional teams. It even explained to me why a certain engineer, despite his critical role in the company (and was one of the first ten employees) was denied refresher options and essentially told to leave. If you're a current or ex-googler, this sort of gossip is fun and explains certain behavior that has roots somewhere in the murky past and which makes no sense today and (in many case) didn't even make sense back when I joined in 2003.
This is primarily a book written from a marketing person point of view. Furthermore, it's written by Google's brand manager. You're not going to find the sort of nitty gritty technical details that would please someone whose life was devoted to Hacker News, for instance. On the other hand, the business milestones are documented in great detail: the AOL deal, the Yahoo deal, and the various Overture deals. Unfortunately, you're not going to get a lot of strategic insight: Edwards wasn't privy to those, and a 20 minute conversation with PengToh would do you a lot more good than reading this book if you wanted those.
Nevertheless, Edwards does provide some insight into the engineering organization. For instance, Google is famous about not providing positive feedback inside the engineering organization. I've met retired ex-Googlers worth multiple tens of millions in net-worth who still seem emotionally scarred by the experience of doing amazing stuff that never got any recognition. What I didn't realize at that time was that this is part of Google's engineering DNA, buried deep inside its founders and early employees. If you hire former Google engineers, read this book, and you won't be as surprised as some Facebook managers who told me, "I thought I was getting a good engineer, but I wasn't prepared for how political Google engineers got as a result of their never received proper recognition inside Google and having to fight for any sort of recognition as a result." That makes the book well worth reading for this insight alone, not just in case you happen to hire Google engineers, but to also ensure that your engineering culture doesn't end up like that, because while obviously it didn't hurt Google, there was no need to do this to otherwise valuable people.
All in all, I think this book is well worth reading, and definitely worth paying the Kindle price for. If you're affiliated with Google at all, I would encourage you to read this book. If you've got even a modicum of curiosity about Google, this book is so well-written that you will not feel like you've wasted your time. Recommended.
Well, I finally checked out the book from the local library, and I'm glad I did. First of all, it's cool to see names and people you're familiar with. For instance, upon request, Edwards provided a pseudonym for a well-known engineer, "Claus." Well, as a Googler, it would take you all of 10 pages to figure out who "Claus" was, so what's anonymous for others isn't anonymous for you. Secondly, as a Googler, some mysteries are solved through stories from the old days. For instance, if you've always wondered why a certain executive is hated, this book explains why that person wasn't just hated by his/her reports, but also by other functional teams. It even explained to me why a certain engineer, despite his critical role in the company (and was one of the first ten employees) was denied refresher options and essentially told to leave. If you're a current or ex-googler, this sort of gossip is fun and explains certain behavior that has roots somewhere in the murky past and which makes no sense today and (in many case) didn't even make sense back when I joined in 2003.
This is primarily a book written from a marketing person point of view. Furthermore, it's written by Google's brand manager. You're not going to find the sort of nitty gritty technical details that would please someone whose life was devoted to Hacker News, for instance. On the other hand, the business milestones are documented in great detail: the AOL deal, the Yahoo deal, and the various Overture deals. Unfortunately, you're not going to get a lot of strategic insight: Edwards wasn't privy to those, and a 20 minute conversation with PengToh would do you a lot more good than reading this book if you wanted those.
Nevertheless, Edwards does provide some insight into the engineering organization. For instance, Google is famous about not providing positive feedback inside the engineering organization. I've met retired ex-Googlers worth multiple tens of millions in net-worth who still seem emotionally scarred by the experience of doing amazing stuff that never got any recognition. What I didn't realize at that time was that this is part of Google's engineering DNA, buried deep inside its founders and early employees. If you hire former Google engineers, read this book, and you won't be as surprised as some Facebook managers who told me, "I thought I was getting a good engineer, but I wasn't prepared for how political Google engineers got as a result of their never received proper recognition inside Google and having to fight for any sort of recognition as a result." That makes the book well worth reading for this insight alone, not just in case you happen to hire Google engineers, but to also ensure that your engineering culture doesn't end up like that, because while obviously it didn't hurt Google, there was no need to do this to otherwise valuable people.
All in all, I think this book is well worth reading, and definitely worth paying the Kindle price for. If you're affiliated with Google at all, I would encourage you to read this book. If you've got even a modicum of curiosity about Google, this book is so well-written that you will not feel like you've wasted your time. Recommended.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Review: Facebook Groups
Some companies just never get good press, no matter what they do right. For instance, in 2006, I switched from Mac OS X (Tiger) back to Windows XP mainly because Tiger did not remember my password, so every time I connected to my NAS I would have to retype it. Windows did so with no trouble at all. Ironically, the very next release of Mac OS fixed the problem, but by then I had already reformatted the hard drive and had no desire to go back. That same machine is still happily running XP over at my parents'.
Similarly, Facebook's in that purgatory today. No matter what they do right, very few people say good things about them. Well, recently, Facebook Groups fit our needs in a way that nothing else really does. Not wanting to turn my blog/delicious shares/picasaweb album into a free for all kiddie posts, I wanted a way for XiaoQin and I to share the pictures/videos with our friends. Google groups didn't cut it, since it doesn't really integrate with Picasa. (Does anyone use Google groups any more?) Google Plus doesn't let two people share the same circles (circle sharing only shares circles at one point in time), nor does it let two people administer one circle.
Facebook Groups, however, lets you create a group, provide admin privileges to as many users as you like, and then share photos/videos all to the same group. All the usual Facebook commenting happens there, and users get a friendly notification whenever new content shows up in the group, but you don't get your feed spammed with each new post/photo/video. This is clearly the right thing to do. There are a few glitches. The first big glitch is that the Facebook Android App doesn't know about groups, so if you take a photo with your Android phone, you have no way of uploading to any Facebook group! If I was the kind of person who shot photos on the phone instead of on a real camera, I'd be very pissed, but as it is, it's not much of an annoyance. The second glitch is that you have to have a Facebook account to participate. That's not a big deal --- even my mom has a Facebook account nowadays, while she's always had trouble with following me on Picasa. To be honest, that was the biggest feature: the Grandma has no trouble using Facebook.
After using this set up for a few weeks, I'm pretty impressed. First of all, I had no idea there were that many people interested in my baby pictures. And there's enough feedback that I'll keep posting to the group. I used to think that Google Wave would address such needs, but having seen what Facebook Groups is doing, I'd say that it's definitely doing a better job than Wave would have. Recommended.
(Disclosure: I own both Facebook and Google stock)
Similarly, Facebook's in that purgatory today. No matter what they do right, very few people say good things about them. Well, recently, Facebook Groups fit our needs in a way that nothing else really does. Not wanting to turn my blog/delicious shares/picasaweb album into a free for all kiddie posts, I wanted a way for XiaoQin and I to share the pictures/videos with our friends. Google groups didn't cut it, since it doesn't really integrate with Picasa. (Does anyone use Google groups any more?) Google Plus doesn't let two people share the same circles (circle sharing only shares circles at one point in time), nor does it let two people administer one circle.
Facebook Groups, however, lets you create a group, provide admin privileges to as many users as you like, and then share photos/videos all to the same group. All the usual Facebook commenting happens there, and users get a friendly notification whenever new content shows up in the group, but you don't get your feed spammed with each new post/photo/video. This is clearly the right thing to do. There are a few glitches. The first big glitch is that the Facebook Android App doesn't know about groups, so if you take a photo with your Android phone, you have no way of uploading to any Facebook group! If I was the kind of person who shot photos on the phone instead of on a real camera, I'd be very pissed, but as it is, it's not much of an annoyance. The second glitch is that you have to have a Facebook account to participate. That's not a big deal --- even my mom has a Facebook account nowadays, while she's always had trouble with following me on Picasa. To be honest, that was the biggest feature: the Grandma has no trouble using Facebook.
After using this set up for a few weeks, I'm pretty impressed. First of all, I had no idea there were that many people interested in my baby pictures. And there's enough feedback that I'll keep posting to the group. I used to think that Google Wave would address such needs, but having seen what Facebook Groups is doing, I'd say that it's definitely doing a better job than Wave would have. Recommended.
(Disclosure: I own both Facebook and Google stock)
Monday, November 21, 2011
Review: The Cold Commands
After reading The Steel Remains, I read that author Richard Morgan intended the story and the universe he created to show how you wouldn't want to live in the typical fantasy universe. One of the big schticks in The Steel Remains was that the major protagonist, Ringil "Gil" Eskiath was gay, and indulged in as much debauchery as he could get away with. Lacking that surprise, The Cold Commands reads as a much more pedestrian work.
The Cold Commands can easily be read as a stand-alone novel. I barely remember the plot of the previous novel, so it's nice to see a trilogy that allows you to jump in in the middle without feeling like you're missing much. Even the protagonists are all re-introduced, and since what they start out doing has very little to do with how the previous novel ended, there's no context lost.
The plot runs in three separate strands, coming together only very late in the novel. Morgan takes the opportunity to do more world building, and it really is made clear that the setting is only a sort of fantasy: these is a science fiction world as well, with some of the various races involved in the big story-line being aliens.
Unfortunately, there's no real character development, and not even a lot of blood and guts. Other critics make a big deal out of an early-scene rape scene, which shows how nasty one of the protagonists actually is, but Morgan even took the sting out of that one --- it certainly doesn't have the shock impact that Lord Foul's Bane had, for instance.
All in all, while the book satisfied any desire I had for more Richard Morgan, it's definitely not him at his best. I still refer people to Altered Carbon instead. If that doesn't make you a Richard Morgan fan, for heavens sake, don't bother with The Cold Commands.
The Cold Commands can easily be read as a stand-alone novel. I barely remember the plot of the previous novel, so it's nice to see a trilogy that allows you to jump in in the middle without feeling like you're missing much. Even the protagonists are all re-introduced, and since what they start out doing has very little to do with how the previous novel ended, there's no context lost.
The plot runs in three separate strands, coming together only very late in the novel. Morgan takes the opportunity to do more world building, and it really is made clear that the setting is only a sort of fantasy: these is a science fiction world as well, with some of the various races involved in the big story-line being aliens.
Unfortunately, there's no real character development, and not even a lot of blood and guts. Other critics make a big deal out of an early-scene rape scene, which shows how nasty one of the protagonists actually is, but Morgan even took the sting out of that one --- it certainly doesn't have the shock impact that Lord Foul's Bane had, for instance.
All in all, while the book satisfied any desire I had for more Richard Morgan, it's definitely not him at his best. I still refer people to Altered Carbon instead. If that doesn't make you a Richard Morgan fan, for heavens sake, don't bother with The Cold Commands.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Review: Motorola Baby Monitor 3.5
For my birthday this year, my brothers gave me a Baby Monitor. I was real skeptical when this showed up on my door step. $240 and it doesn't export to the internet? What use is it?
Well, we've been using it for a week now, and so far, it's been surprisingly good. The best feature is that it's really easy to set up. Plug in the camera, plug in the screen, turn on the screen (the camera never turns off), and instant picture time. The microphone on the camera picks up sound really easily, and you can turn up the speakers on the screen if you want to hear every toss and turn. Yes, it's that sensitive. The battery life on the screen is pretty lousy: it advertises 3 hours, but in reality if you keep the screen on (that's the point of the monitor --- I can hear the baby crying from all over the house), you won't get much more than 2 hours. The screen turns itself off after a couple of minutes to save battery, but if you keep the screen plugged in, then it'll stay on.
What was surprising to me was that the entire setup is easy enough that grandma and granddad just picked it up and immediately knew how to pan the camera, turn up the sound, etc. You can also talk back to the baby if you like, but that feature rarely gets used, and frequently we forget it's there even when it'd be useful to have an intercom system to the baby's crib. The picture quality is good enough that granddad would be fascinated by it throughout dinner. Night vision mode automatically turns on and it provides a nice black and white picture that still looks pretty good. There's a USB port that supposedly lets you export to some sort of computer, but no accessories can be found to use it.
The biggest problem so far for me is that the system doesn't seem designed to mount say on the side of a crib. There are no suction cups or obvious places to tie the camera to velcro, for instance, making jury rigging mounts much harder than expected for something that you would want to mount out of the way once the baby gets big enough to explore the entire crib.
From what I read of other reviews of baby monitors, it seems like the combination of reliability (both the screen and the camera's been dropped multiple times with no sign of damage) and ease of use is hard to find. Therefore, despite my initial impressions I have to recommend this monitor.
Well, we've been using it for a week now, and so far, it's been surprisingly good. The best feature is that it's really easy to set up. Plug in the camera, plug in the screen, turn on the screen (the camera never turns off), and instant picture time. The microphone on the camera picks up sound really easily, and you can turn up the speakers on the screen if you want to hear every toss and turn. Yes, it's that sensitive. The battery life on the screen is pretty lousy: it advertises 3 hours, but in reality if you keep the screen on (that's the point of the monitor --- I can hear the baby crying from all over the house), you won't get much more than 2 hours. The screen turns itself off after a couple of minutes to save battery, but if you keep the screen plugged in, then it'll stay on.
What was surprising to me was that the entire setup is easy enough that grandma and granddad just picked it up and immediately knew how to pan the camera, turn up the sound, etc. You can also talk back to the baby if you like, but that feature rarely gets used, and frequently we forget it's there even when it'd be useful to have an intercom system to the baby's crib. The picture quality is good enough that granddad would be fascinated by it throughout dinner. Night vision mode automatically turns on and it provides a nice black and white picture that still looks pretty good. There's a USB port that supposedly lets you export to some sort of computer, but no accessories can be found to use it.
The biggest problem so far for me is that the system doesn't seem designed to mount say on the side of a crib. There are no suction cups or obvious places to tie the camera to velcro, for instance, making jury rigging mounts much harder than expected for something that you would want to mount out of the way once the baby gets big enough to explore the entire crib.
From what I read of other reviews of baby monitors, it seems like the combination of reliability (both the screen and the camera's been dropped multiple times with no sign of damage) and ease of use is hard to find. Therefore, despite my initial impressions I have to recommend this monitor.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Tips for Surviving Childbirth
These are a few notes that I hope are helpful for those dads-to-be who plan to be involved with the childbirth process. There are plenty of resources focused on moms-to-be, and to be honest, moms have the much tougher job, but there are a few things that dads can do, mostly because they'll actually not be exhausted from 24 hours of labor (plus possibly a c section).
The biggest tip I got and was very grateful for was to stay flexible. Yes, you can write up a birth plan. Yes, you can say "I support breast feeding and my wife is into it 100%." But when your wife comes out of the delivery room pumped full of anesthetics and is too exhausted to breast feed, it is absolutely not a crime to feed baby from a bottle. You can generally tell the kid's hungry if you're holding him and he's arcing his neck and head going for your breasts. That's a pretty good sign of desperation and hunger, especially if he just came off from mom's breasts, for instance. (Incidentally, one dad told me he got a bottle of formula into the baby while mom was sleeping just so that everyone could sleep)
The second tip I have is to make sure you have a camera handy. That means that if you're toting a super-duper SLR, make sure you also have a point and shoot. Here's why: if there's an emergency c section, and you have to put scrubs on, then that SLR probably isn't going into the operating room with you, but the point and shoot can and should. That means that all your batteries should also be charged prior to the big day.
Keep an eye on both the health of the baby and mom! Baby needs to be watched for signs of hydration. One of XiaoQin's friends left the hospital with a dehydrated child because she listened to the "breast-only" nazis and they told her that baby doesn't need that much food for the first few days. Well, the problem is that if you don't feed baby anything, he's not getting food or water. In my case, XiaoQin complained of an itching feeling near her c section wound. When a nurse and doctor checked her, it turned out to be an infection that required a couple of weeks of pretty strong anti-biotics, and regular draining and cleansing. Yes, it was gross.
Expect to be the person changing diapers for at least the first 24 hours. Mom will be out of it (and if she has any energy it should be spent resting/sleeping, breast feeding and feeding herself). Track all activities like pooping, feeding, urine, etc. That'll be very useful for giving you an idea of what's normal and what's not in the future. Pummel visiting doctors with questions, and feel free to ask for help with all basic issues like breast feeding, swaddling, etc. Most folks at the hospital have done everything tons of times, and now's your chance to learn all the little time saving tips.
If you can, have other people come in and help. We had 3 grandparents visiting and 2 helping. This let me run out to get food, catch up with sleep, and other things. If you don't have other family around, pay someone to take care of mom and baby for at least 4 hours every day so you have time to sleep and eat.
Finally, don't panic. Everyone keeps telling you how much work the initial experience is. It's a lot of work, but it's not worse than digging trenches in the army.
The biggest tip I got and was very grateful for was to stay flexible. Yes, you can write up a birth plan. Yes, you can say "I support breast feeding and my wife is into it 100%." But when your wife comes out of the delivery room pumped full of anesthetics and is too exhausted to breast feed, it is absolutely not a crime to feed baby from a bottle. You can generally tell the kid's hungry if you're holding him and he's arcing his neck and head going for your breasts. That's a pretty good sign of desperation and hunger, especially if he just came off from mom's breasts, for instance. (Incidentally, one dad told me he got a bottle of formula into the baby while mom was sleeping just so that everyone could sleep)
The second tip I have is to make sure you have a camera handy. That means that if you're toting a super-duper SLR, make sure you also have a point and shoot. Here's why: if there's an emergency c section, and you have to put scrubs on, then that SLR probably isn't going into the operating room with you, but the point and shoot can and should. That means that all your batteries should also be charged prior to the big day.
Keep an eye on both the health of the baby and mom! Baby needs to be watched for signs of hydration. One of XiaoQin's friends left the hospital with a dehydrated child because she listened to the "breast-only" nazis and they told her that baby doesn't need that much food for the first few days. Well, the problem is that if you don't feed baby anything, he's not getting food or water. In my case, XiaoQin complained of an itching feeling near her c section wound. When a nurse and doctor checked her, it turned out to be an infection that required a couple of weeks of pretty strong anti-biotics, and regular draining and cleansing. Yes, it was gross.
Expect to be the person changing diapers for at least the first 24 hours. Mom will be out of it (and if she has any energy it should be spent resting/sleeping, breast feeding and feeding herself). Track all activities like pooping, feeding, urine, etc. That'll be very useful for giving you an idea of what's normal and what's not in the future. Pummel visiting doctors with questions, and feel free to ask for help with all basic issues like breast feeding, swaddling, etc. Most folks at the hospital have done everything tons of times, and now's your chance to learn all the little time saving tips.
If you can, have other people come in and help. We had 3 grandparents visiting and 2 helping. This let me run out to get food, catch up with sleep, and other things. If you don't have other family around, pay someone to take care of mom and baby for at least 4 hours every day so you have time to sleep and eat.
Finally, don't panic. Everyone keeps telling you how much work the initial experience is. It's a lot of work, but it's not worse than digging trenches in the army.
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