I've been suffering from some lower back pain due to lifting my toddler at a time when he was struggling. The pain's been bad enough that I've been banned from cycling or heavy lifting, and about the only sport I can indulge in is swimming.
I've been stealing my wife's cheap goggles for those swims, but they're a bit small for me (yes, I know, you're not surprised), and I felt the pressure in my eyes. They also weren't optically very clear, so I splurged and bought the Aqua Sphere Kayenne Googles.
I picked these because (1) they're cheap, and (2) the goggles themselves are wide enough that it looked like the cup around the goggles would be wide enough so that they would spread themselves out over a wide area around my eyes, relieving some of the pressure around my eyes while swimming. At $16 for the cheapest versions they're not super cheap, but they were indeed less pressure than the previous goggles.
They're also optically very clear! I swapped them with my wife one day in the pool and she liked it so much I bought her another pair that were identical to mine. Needless to say, for me to buy 2 of anything means I really like it alot. Recommended.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Review: Invisiblity
Invisibility is a young-adult novel by Andrea Creme and David Levithan. Levithan, you'll recall, is the author of Every Day, and the voice in this novel is very similar to that novel, despite being told alternatively from two perspectives, Stephen and Elizabeth.
The hook in the novel is that Stephen was cursed to be invisible from the day he was born. The novel details all the issues this brings. Stephen seems to have done a good job coping with life as it is, until one day, neighbors move in and Elizabeth is able to see him. We start with a quiet love story, set in New York and its environs, while Elizabeth and Stephen work through their budding romance.
Once Elizabeth discovers that she's the only person who can see Stephen, however, the action revs up and the novel goes into high gear. She quickly discovers why, and starts trying to figure out ways to solve Stephen's problem. At this point, Stephen quickly shifts from being the center of the story to becoming almost a by-stander.
What I like about the novel is that the characters are faced with no easy answers, and have to sacrifice in order to stay together. The authors also do not try to resolve the situation arbitrarily and let the rules they have in place run the climax and conclusion.
While this novel started slowly, towards the end I found myself captivated, flipping pages relentlessly to find out what happens next. That the novel doesn't cheat itself by trying to set up for a sequel (unlike Every Day) is another point in its favor.
Recommended.
The hook in the novel is that Stephen was cursed to be invisible from the day he was born. The novel details all the issues this brings. Stephen seems to have done a good job coping with life as it is, until one day, neighbors move in and Elizabeth is able to see him. We start with a quiet love story, set in New York and its environs, while Elizabeth and Stephen work through their budding romance.
Once Elizabeth discovers that she's the only person who can see Stephen, however, the action revs up and the novel goes into high gear. She quickly discovers why, and starts trying to figure out ways to solve Stephen's problem. At this point, Stephen quickly shifts from being the center of the story to becoming almost a by-stander.
What I like about the novel is that the characters are faced with no easy answers, and have to sacrifice in order to stay together. The authors also do not try to resolve the situation arbitrarily and let the rules they have in place run the climax and conclusion.
While this novel started slowly, towards the end I found myself captivated, flipping pages relentlessly to find out what happens next. That the novel doesn't cheat itself by trying to set up for a sequel (unlike Every Day) is another point in its favor.
Recommended.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Review: Six Earlier Days
Six Earlier Days is a short prequel to David Leviathan's novel, Every Day. It's a light fast read, but doesn't have the heft or development of the novel. It brings together 6 different days of A's life, some of which reveals a facet of his character, and two of which foreshadowing the events to come in the novel. I can only recommend this book if you read Every Day and wanted more.
Review: Deep Risk
William Bernstein has written a new series of short books titled "investing for adults". Deep Risk is one of the series. The book is short, and I wish Bernstein had simply cobbled all the books in the series together as one book rather than trying to sell each monograph separately.
The idea behind Deep Risk is that there are 4 major potential disasters (Bernstein refers to them as the Four Horsemen) that can derail your financial plan. These are: inflation, deflation, confiscation (taxes), and devastation (war). He then analyzes them in terms of how frequently they occur and how difficult it would be to insure against them.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that inflation is by far the most common potential problem for any portfolio. What's interesting about Bernstein's analysis is that he discovers that the traditional inflation protection, Gold bullion, isn't actually very good as an inflation hedge! Rather, stock portfolios tend to do far better as inflation protection even though in the aftermath of an inflation, the stocks could do badly. Bernstein dismisses the potential short term underperformance of stocks as shallow risk: in other words, if you had the fortitude to hang on, you'd recover your portfolio with no permanent loss of capital.
Deflation is much less likely, and Bernstein claims that it has only happened once in Japan since developed countries went off the gold standard. He dismisses Japan as a one off. I disagree, as the U.S. came close to adopting the very same policies that Europe did and could have gotten 10 years of deflation as well. It's also not clear to me that Europe hasn't been subject to the same deflationary problems. Bernstein claims that gold is actually a great deflation hedge, since a big depression triggers a flight to safety, which is what gold traditionally is.
Bernstein defines confiscation relatively loosely. For instance, an increase in tax rates could be defined as confiscation. It seems to me that you could solve the confiscation relatively easily, by moving to a very high tax state with already confiscatory taxes, at which point your risk of further confiscation is relatively low. To be fair, Bernstein does point out the exiting U.S. citizenship would cost you an exit tax, and even holding foreign assets is no protection from the tax man, should we ever get an administration that chooses to enforce such laws. The reality is, if you're a U.S. citizen intending to stay in the U.S., there's relatively little that you can do beyond the existing well-known tax-sheltered accounts and tax-managed funds.
Finally, the threat of war is real, but again, there's relatively little you can do unless you decide to become a survivalist and start building bunkers. In serious threats, what you'd have to do is to stockpile food, guns, and ammunition and build a private army. Historically, people who've done that don't tend to do all that well financially, and the existence of events such as the Waco Seige indicates that even building your own private army doesn't do very good if someone with a real army chose to take you out.
Ultimately, I found the entire book disappointing and lacking in useful action items. The truth is, as a financial observer I've found that far more people have devastated their portfolio by panicking during a crisis than by having their wealth confiscated by a government, war, or even inflation. So rather than writing a series of books called "investing for adults", Bernstein probably should have written a book about how to become an adult, as far as investing is concerned. Not recommended.
The idea behind Deep Risk is that there are 4 major potential disasters (Bernstein refers to them as the Four Horsemen) that can derail your financial plan. These are: inflation, deflation, confiscation (taxes), and devastation (war). He then analyzes them in terms of how frequently they occur and how difficult it would be to insure against them.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that inflation is by far the most common potential problem for any portfolio. What's interesting about Bernstein's analysis is that he discovers that the traditional inflation protection, Gold bullion, isn't actually very good as an inflation hedge! Rather, stock portfolios tend to do far better as inflation protection even though in the aftermath of an inflation, the stocks could do badly. Bernstein dismisses the potential short term underperformance of stocks as shallow risk: in other words, if you had the fortitude to hang on, you'd recover your portfolio with no permanent loss of capital.
Deflation is much less likely, and Bernstein claims that it has only happened once in Japan since developed countries went off the gold standard. He dismisses Japan as a one off. I disagree, as the U.S. came close to adopting the very same policies that Europe did and could have gotten 10 years of deflation as well. It's also not clear to me that Europe hasn't been subject to the same deflationary problems. Bernstein claims that gold is actually a great deflation hedge, since a big depression triggers a flight to safety, which is what gold traditionally is.
Bernstein defines confiscation relatively loosely. For instance, an increase in tax rates could be defined as confiscation. It seems to me that you could solve the confiscation relatively easily, by moving to a very high tax state with already confiscatory taxes, at which point your risk of further confiscation is relatively low. To be fair, Bernstein does point out the exiting U.S. citizenship would cost you an exit tax, and even holding foreign assets is no protection from the tax man, should we ever get an administration that chooses to enforce such laws. The reality is, if you're a U.S. citizen intending to stay in the U.S., there's relatively little that you can do beyond the existing well-known tax-sheltered accounts and tax-managed funds.
Finally, the threat of war is real, but again, there's relatively little you can do unless you decide to become a survivalist and start building bunkers. In serious threats, what you'd have to do is to stockpile food, guns, and ammunition and build a private army. Historically, people who've done that don't tend to do all that well financially, and the existence of events such as the Waco Seige indicates that even building your own private army doesn't do very good if someone with a real army chose to take you out.
Ultimately, I found the entire book disappointing and lacking in useful action items. The truth is, as a financial observer I've found that far more people have devastated their portfolio by panicking during a crisis than by having their wealth confiscated by a government, war, or even inflation. So rather than writing a series of books called "investing for adults", Bernstein probably should have written a book about how to become an adult, as far as investing is concerned. Not recommended.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Review: The Sports Gene
The Sports Gene is not just a book about athletes. It's also a thorough debunking of books such as Talent is Overrated. If you were to want to debunk that book, you'd want to do this starting with athletes. Pretty much everyone knows intuitively that no on 5' 2" and shorter is going to play in the NBA. The disadvantages that accrue from being shorter than all the freaks of nature playing in the NBA would just be too much for any amount of practice to overcome.
The book starts with Tiger Woods, whose dedication to golf is pretty famous and well-documented. What Epstein points out, however, is that few accounts of Woods' success points out that even at 6 months, Woods was capable of standing on his father's palm while his dad walked around the house! That's innate talent that wasn't taught and can't be taught.
The book then goes on to cover short distance athletes, marathoners, skiers, sled dogs, and ties it all together. What's great is that in the course of covering the genetics of performance, he also discusses certain questions that have always bothered me. For instance, if living at altitude is so beneficial, why aren't the gold medalist sprinters and marathoners from Tibet and the Nepal Himalaya instead of being from Africa? It turns out that there's an optimum altitude for hemoglobin creation (5000-7000'), beyond which it's difficult to train hard. Furthermore, the sherpas and other high mountain people developed a different genetic pathway towards altitude acclimation rather than the metabolically expensive hemoglobin creation.
There's also a great discussion of Superbaby, how the success of a breed of alaskan Huskies proved that even motivation has a genetic component (they bred a breed of dogs that just wants to run when harnessed!).
The author also studied the Australian Olympic program, which specializes in identifying which sports an athlete is uniquely suited for, and then grooms that athlete for those sports. In those cases, it's quite clear that gold medalists with talent can achieve in 4,000 hours what others without talent cannot do with 10,000 hours.
Epstein succeeds in making his points, though obviously doesn't answer any questions about the intellectual analogues to the skills/abilities he discusses. Along the way, you'll learn a few things about genetics and what types of bodies it takes to succeed in the various sports. The average reader might be disappointed that he doesn't discuss what ethical implications they may be, and how quickly genetic engineering is likely going to take over the sporting events. The days of unaugmented athletes being able to perform at the world level might very well be numbered.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and can highly recommend it.
The book starts with Tiger Woods, whose dedication to golf is pretty famous and well-documented. What Epstein points out, however, is that few accounts of Woods' success points out that even at 6 months, Woods was capable of standing on his father's palm while his dad walked around the house! That's innate talent that wasn't taught and can't be taught.
The book then goes on to cover short distance athletes, marathoners, skiers, sled dogs, and ties it all together. What's great is that in the course of covering the genetics of performance, he also discusses certain questions that have always bothered me. For instance, if living at altitude is so beneficial, why aren't the gold medalist sprinters and marathoners from Tibet and the Nepal Himalaya instead of being from Africa? It turns out that there's an optimum altitude for hemoglobin creation (5000-7000'), beyond which it's difficult to train hard. Furthermore, the sherpas and other high mountain people developed a different genetic pathway towards altitude acclimation rather than the metabolically expensive hemoglobin creation.
There's also a great discussion of Superbaby, how the success of a breed of alaskan Huskies proved that even motivation has a genetic component (they bred a breed of dogs that just wants to run when harnessed!).
The author also studied the Australian Olympic program, which specializes in identifying which sports an athlete is uniquely suited for, and then grooms that athlete for those sports. In those cases, it's quite clear that gold medalists with talent can achieve in 4,000 hours what others without talent cannot do with 10,000 hours.
Epstein succeeds in making his points, though obviously doesn't answer any questions about the intellectual analogues to the skills/abilities he discusses. Along the way, you'll learn a few things about genetics and what types of bodies it takes to succeed in the various sports. The average reader might be disappointed that he doesn't discuss what ethical implications they may be, and how quickly genetic engineering is likely going to take over the sporting events. The days of unaugmented athletes being able to perform at the world level might very well be numbered.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and can highly recommend it.
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
Review: Naked Statistics
Naked Statistics is a non-technical introduction to statistics. In terms of explaining the science of statistics to laymen, it does a passable but not stellar job. The basics are straightforward: nearly everyone should know the difference between mean and median (the book doesn't cover "mode"), and Wheelan does a fine job of explaining the difference.
Where the book starts to fall apart is on items such as the Central Limit Theorem and Regression analysis. Both topics are technical enough that you really should just get out a statistics or math textbook and work through examples yourself. The book separates out the technical details in an appendix to each chapter, but I found that treatment unsatisfactory. On the other hand, I'm also the kind of person who'd read a textbook if I really wanted to review this material as preparation.
The book is sprinkled with lots of examples, some of which are fun, but doesn't into enough depth about the anecdotes to really get at the gist of the matter. The author says he was inspired by How to Lie With Statistics, but in my opinion anyone who wants to read this book should read the original instead.
Not recommended. Go read a textbook instead, or the original source of inspiration instead.
Where the book starts to fall apart is on items such as the Central Limit Theorem and Regression analysis. Both topics are technical enough that you really should just get out a statistics or math textbook and work through examples yourself. The book separates out the technical details in an appendix to each chapter, but I found that treatment unsatisfactory. On the other hand, I'm also the kind of person who'd read a textbook if I really wanted to review this material as preparation.
The book is sprinkled with lots of examples, some of which are fun, but doesn't into enough depth about the anecdotes to really get at the gist of the matter. The author says he was inspired by How to Lie With Statistics, but in my opinion anyone who wants to read this book should read the original instead.
Not recommended. Go read a textbook instead, or the original source of inspiration instead.
Review: Cold Days
Cold Days is the latest available novel in the Dresden Files series. Like the previous couple of books in the series, you are well advised not to read this novel until you've read at least the previous 3 books in the series.
The books at this point suffer from the travails of a D&D campaign that's gone past the sweet spot of the game system. The characters are now extremely powerful and the only way for the DM/author to challenge the players is to keep throwing bigger and bigger challenges and bigger and bigger bad-asses at them.
This is not a bad thing. But as an action series, there's precious little time for reflection on the part of Harry Dresden, and there's even less motivation for him to introspect. We do get a few notices here and there on the part of the temptations he's subject to as the new Winter Knight, but by and large he brushes them off as he spends much of his time going for survival, rather than flexing his powers.
I did enjoy a number of plot twists in the book, and the expanded awareness of his urban fantasy world is a lot of fun for long time readers of the series. If you're already a follower of the series, this is a great book, and worth your time. While it's not necessary to read the entire series, it'd be worth while to at least start from Changes. Recommended.
The books at this point suffer from the travails of a D&D campaign that's gone past the sweet spot of the game system. The characters are now extremely powerful and the only way for the DM/author to challenge the players is to keep throwing bigger and bigger challenges and bigger and bigger bad-asses at them.
This is not a bad thing. But as an action series, there's precious little time for reflection on the part of Harry Dresden, and there's even less motivation for him to introspect. We do get a few notices here and there on the part of the temptations he's subject to as the new Winter Knight, but by and large he brushes them off as he spends much of his time going for survival, rather than flexing his powers.
I did enjoy a number of plot twists in the book, and the expanded awareness of his urban fantasy world is a lot of fun for long time readers of the series. If you're already a follower of the series, this is a great book, and worth your time. While it's not necessary to read the entire series, it'd be worth while to at least start from Changes. Recommended.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Review: Ghost Story
Ghost Story is book 13 of the Dresden Files. It is a direct sequel from Changes, and if you haven't read that book you'll not get very much out of this book, because it picks up directly where Changes start. Given that that's the case, I'm going to spoil this book if you insist on reading further on this review.
Dresden was murdered at the end of the last novel, and he wakes up as a ghost, 6 months later, at the start of this one and is charged with investigating his own murder. Unfortunately, there's a complete shortage of clues, and Dresden wanders from situation to situation, trying to resolve more urgent problems than that of his murder, which in fact, he deduced correctly fairly early on in the novel.
In many ways, fantasy is about wish-fulfillment. In some ways, this is Dresden's wish-fulfillment. He gets to see how crucial he was to the community, and how much things went wrong without him for 6 months. The mystery as such isn't much of one, but again, is more like an action movie. It does end up with a setup for the next book, so it's clear at this point that Jim Butcher has given up on standalone novels and is only writing for folks who'll read the entire series.
Only recommended if you're willing to slog through the entire series.
Dresden was murdered at the end of the last novel, and he wakes up as a ghost, 6 months later, at the start of this one and is charged with investigating his own murder. Unfortunately, there's a complete shortage of clues, and Dresden wanders from situation to situation, trying to resolve more urgent problems than that of his murder, which in fact, he deduced correctly fairly early on in the novel.
In many ways, fantasy is about wish-fulfillment. In some ways, this is Dresden's wish-fulfillment. He gets to see how crucial he was to the community, and how much things went wrong without him for 6 months. The mystery as such isn't much of one, but again, is more like an action movie. It does end up with a setup for the next book, so it's clear at this point that Jim Butcher has given up on standalone novels and is only writing for folks who'll read the entire series.
Only recommended if you're willing to slog through the entire series.
Re-Read: Ender's Game
This is my third time reading Ender's Game, and I've read the previous incarnation of the novel (which began as a short story in 1977) several times over the years. I started reading it because of the upcoming movie based on the novel.
There are several things that date the novel at this point: the first of which is the superpowers of the world back in 1977 were the Russians and the Americans. Obviously, that has changed recently, and but the book doesn't reflect that. Fortunately, this background has little to do with the main focus of the novel.
The novel is compellingly readable, but it lost a bit of impact between the short story of the same name and the conversion into a novel. The short story was focused at it's core: if the horror of war could be distilled away into a child's game, then we could perhaps train children to become amoral warriors. The novel is quite a bit more nuanced, meandering into issues of xenocide, the rightness of abusing a child, no matter how brilliant and no matter how important the purpose. What's worse, the ending of the novel makes it clear that Ender's sacrifice was unnecessary.
Nevertheless, the book, when it does focus on Ender and his travails, is excellent, providing many examples of leadership that real world managers and executives would be well-advised to emulate. Highly recommended.
There are several things that date the novel at this point: the first of which is the superpowers of the world back in 1977 were the Russians and the Americans. Obviously, that has changed recently, and but the book doesn't reflect that. Fortunately, this background has little to do with the main focus of the novel.
The novel is compellingly readable, but it lost a bit of impact between the short story of the same name and the conversion into a novel. The short story was focused at it's core: if the horror of war could be distilled away into a child's game, then we could perhaps train children to become amoral warriors. The novel is quite a bit more nuanced, meandering into issues of xenocide, the rightness of abusing a child, no matter how brilliant and no matter how important the purpose. What's worse, the ending of the novel makes it clear that Ender's sacrifice was unnecessary.
Nevertheless, the book, when it does focus on Ender and his travails, is excellent, providing many examples of leadership that real world managers and executives would be well-advised to emulate. Highly recommended.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Review: Changes
Changes is book #12 in the Dresden files. In many ways, the series reminds me of a RPG game. As the characters get more and more powerful, the ante has to ramp up, otherwise, the characters are left with no challenge in their lives.
At least Butcher is willing to make drastic changes in his milieu, resolving a major plotline that's been long-running in the series, which is the war between the White Council and the Vampiric Red Court, while Dresden, the main character, undergoes a major life change as well, picking up yet another family member, a new job, as well as a new life state.
The bad things about the book is that the plot feels like it's been reused. The "little girl in trouble" scenario feels a bit old, because it was just used a couple of books ago. Finally, the end of the book feels very much like a cliffhanger to get you to read the next book in the series. Regardless, there's thrills galore, lots of explosions, and many set pieces. There's not much boring investigation work, but at least Butcher seems to have given up on the "I got bonked on the head, fell unconscious, and woke up someplace different" mode of investigation.
It's good summer reading, a lot like any of the summer blockbusters. I'll pick up the next book in the series soon.
At least Butcher is willing to make drastic changes in his milieu, resolving a major plotline that's been long-running in the series, which is the war between the White Council and the Vampiric Red Court, while Dresden, the main character, undergoes a major life change as well, picking up yet another family member, a new job, as well as a new life state.
The bad things about the book is that the plot feels like it's been reused. The "little girl in trouble" scenario feels a bit old, because it was just used a couple of books ago. Finally, the end of the book feels very much like a cliffhanger to get you to read the next book in the series. Regardless, there's thrills galore, lots of explosions, and many set pieces. There's not much boring investigation work, but at least Butcher seems to have given up on the "I got bonked on the head, fell unconscious, and woke up someplace different" mode of investigation.
It's good summer reading, a lot like any of the summer blockbusters. I'll pick up the next book in the series soon.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Review: Turn Coat
Turn Coat is book 11 of the Dresden Files. The series finally comes full circle, as Dresden now has to bail out the very person who was his "parole officer" at the start of the series. We finally get a good view of the White Council HQ, as well as the politics involved in the wizards. I still found myself wondering why the wizards seem to be so ineffectual in the world if there were so many high powered individuals wandering the globe. There's a grand climax with big battles. It seems nothing ever gets resolved with a big bang in Butcher's milieu when it could be resolved by multiple nuclear options.
It's still an enjoyable read, though the series is starting to get to the point where Butcher is introducing as many new mysteries in each novel as he's resolving them.
It's still an enjoyable read, though the series is starting to get to the point where Butcher is introducing as many new mysteries in each novel as he's resolving them.
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Review: Small Favor
Small Favor is book 10 of the Dresden files. It is so far the best book yet. It's action packed, exciting, and is the equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie.
Harry Dresden is finally behaving like a good hero of the traditional sort: rather than being an investigator who "investigates" by getting thumped on the head, he's now actually driving the action in the novel. For me, anyway, this reads much better than the older novels.
This is the first novel from Jim Butcher where I didn't see gaping plot holes. Everything does come together neatly, and the ending is quite satisfying. The only problem with the series is that jumping into the series at this point is that you'd lose some of the context, but unlike other fantasy novels, Jim Butcher does tie everything in the story off at the end of the novel, so even if you only read one novel it works by itself.
Recommended.
Harry Dresden is finally behaving like a good hero of the traditional sort: rather than being an investigator who "investigates" by getting thumped on the head, he's now actually driving the action in the novel. For me, anyway, this reads much better than the older novels.
This is the first novel from Jim Butcher where I didn't see gaping plot holes. Everything does come together neatly, and the ending is quite satisfying. The only problem with the series is that jumping into the series at this point is that you'd lose some of the context, but unlike other fantasy novels, Jim Butcher does tie everything in the story off at the end of the novel, so even if you only read one novel it works by itself.
Recommended.
Saturday, August 03, 2013
Review: Neptune's Brood
Neptune's Brood is set in the same world as Saturn's Children, but is not a direct sequel in style, tone, or humor. This is a feature, since Saturn's Children, as much as I enjoyed it, was a Heinlein Pastische, and you don't need too many of those.
Science Fiction is often called the literature of ideas because it's frequently lacking in other areas like character, plot, and pacing. As a hard science fiction writer, Stross demonstrates this in this book, which frequently reads more like a treatise in interstellar commerce than a novel. There are long expositions abound in which the reader is lectured to (shades of Asimov) about Fast Money (cash), Medium Money (investments), and Slow Money (interstellar bitcoinage), and how Spanish Prisoner and other fraud schemes would occur in the absence of FTL travel and only lightspeed communications.
Now, all this works only because the characters are all post-human, including the narrator/protagonist (Krina), a historian/accountant who specializes in audits and has a sideline/interest in investigating slow money fraud. As a result, she can "beam" to various locations and travel via starship to places without a beacon. The plot revolves around Krina's visit to her sister Ana. When Ana disappears before she gets there, Krina investigates and gets dropped into a web of intrigue when everyone she talks to, works for, or is arrested by wants a piece of whatever Ana seems to have found before she disappeared.
Like you would expect in a science fiction novel where all the fun happens in the exposition, Krina isn't much of an active entity in the story. She gets dragged and dropped by other forces outside her control pretty much throughout the novel, and never really initiates anything herself. This allows her to exposit on topics that Stross considers important for the reader to know.
The ending, much like with Saturn's Children, comes together in a hurry after the great reveal (which isn't terribly exciting), and leaves the reader with most of the loose ends tied up and a deeper understanding of how Charles Stross feels the entire financial system is. There are lots of snide remarks about investment banking, bankers, accountants, and bank branches (one of them is a pirate outfit), but in the end, the reader isn't likely to gain any more expertise in economics as a result of reading this book than he already had. (On the other hand, Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman liked the book, but of course he would)
Now it sounds like I didn't enjoy this book, but I did. It's just that the audience for this book is likely to be incredibly narrow (geeks who enjoy Economics). To that audience, I'd highly recommend this novel. It explores many ideas that few other science fiction novels do. For anyone else, I'm afraid you're going to have to enjoy lectures or the novel just won't work.
Science Fiction is often called the literature of ideas because it's frequently lacking in other areas like character, plot, and pacing. As a hard science fiction writer, Stross demonstrates this in this book, which frequently reads more like a treatise in interstellar commerce than a novel. There are long expositions abound in which the reader is lectured to (shades of Asimov) about Fast Money (cash), Medium Money (investments), and Slow Money (interstellar bitcoinage), and how Spanish Prisoner and other fraud schemes would occur in the absence of FTL travel and only lightspeed communications.
Now, all this works only because the characters are all post-human, including the narrator/protagonist (Krina), a historian/accountant who specializes in audits and has a sideline/interest in investigating slow money fraud. As a result, she can "beam" to various locations and travel via starship to places without a beacon. The plot revolves around Krina's visit to her sister Ana. When Ana disappears before she gets there, Krina investigates and gets dropped into a web of intrigue when everyone she talks to, works for, or is arrested by wants a piece of whatever Ana seems to have found before she disappeared.
Like you would expect in a science fiction novel where all the fun happens in the exposition, Krina isn't much of an active entity in the story. She gets dragged and dropped by other forces outside her control pretty much throughout the novel, and never really initiates anything herself. This allows her to exposit on topics that Stross considers important for the reader to know.
The ending, much like with Saturn's Children, comes together in a hurry after the great reveal (which isn't terribly exciting), and leaves the reader with most of the loose ends tied up and a deeper understanding of how Charles Stross feels the entire financial system is. There are lots of snide remarks about investment banking, bankers, accountants, and bank branches (one of them is a pirate outfit), but in the end, the reader isn't likely to gain any more expertise in economics as a result of reading this book than he already had. (On the other hand, Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman liked the book, but of course he would)
Now it sounds like I didn't enjoy this book, but I did. It's just that the audience for this book is likely to be incredibly narrow (geeks who enjoy Economics). To that audience, I'd highly recommend this novel. It explores many ideas that few other science fiction novels do. For anyone else, I'm afraid you're going to have to enjoy lectures or the novel just won't work.
Thursday, August 01, 2013
Review: White Knight
White Knight is book 9 of the Dresden files. What impresses me about this book is that Jim Butcher seems to actually be tying up loose ends faster than before. We get a recurring villain, a hint of the overall plot arc, as well as lots of action. I thought the finale was very suitable for a big-bang hollywood movie, and given the popularity of urban fantasy, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a movie series optioned for it. (There was a tv series, but it definitely doesn't have the bang or the sizzle of the books) It's quite possible that having the lead character be male is the problem.
Dresden tracks down a serial killer of women magic practitioners, only to discover that the person responsible dressed up like him. It turns out that there's an organization involved in the killings, and the plot deepens as Dresden struggles to outwit everyone as well as taking responsibility in his new position as a warden of the White Council.
Mildly recommended. Good summer reading.
Dresden tracks down a serial killer of women magic practitioners, only to discover that the person responsible dressed up like him. It turns out that there's an organization involved in the killings, and the plot deepens as Dresden struggles to outwit everyone as well as taking responsibility in his new position as a warden of the White Council.
Mildly recommended. Good summer reading.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Review: Proven Guilty
Proven Guilty is book #8 in the Dresden files, and we see Jim Butcher finally starting to tie all the previous books together. This is a good thing, because the disparate plots were all feeling like the "monster of the day".
What I do like about the book is that the character, Harry Dresden, finally seems to be more than competent and doesn't just drop his magical implements in the middle of a fight all the time. Even better, he seems capable of plotting more complex solutions than in previous novels, and no longer seems to just try to fry everything in his path.
The novel does tie up many loose ends from previous novels and bring some of them to a partial resolution, so in that sense it works on many levels. On the other hand, at an emotional level, things still seem to be fairly simplistic. That doesn't detract from the novel though: it's summer reading, and one that I can recommend.
What I do like about the book is that the character, Harry Dresden, finally seems to be more than competent and doesn't just drop his magical implements in the middle of a fight all the time. Even better, he seems capable of plotting more complex solutions than in previous novels, and no longer seems to just try to fry everything in his path.
The novel does tie up many loose ends from previous novels and bring some of them to a partial resolution, so in that sense it works on many levels. On the other hand, at an emotional level, things still seem to be fairly simplistic. That doesn't detract from the novel though: it's summer reading, and one that I can recommend.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Review: Modernist Cuisine at Home
Modernist Cuisine at Home is a cookbook. As such, it shouldn't be read end-to-end, but should be reviewed for the recipes it contains. However, it's more than a cookbook, since it's also an advocate for a different approach towards cooking, which is ideally suited for engineers and other folks (mostly men) who have little patience for acquiring skills associated with traditional cooking. I am just such a person, so the Modernist approach does have great appeal to me.
As far as I can see, modernist cooking has a few principles:
As far as I can see, modernist cooking has a few principles:
- Use of modern technology. This includes pressure cookers, sous vide machines, and blow torches
- Accurate temperature control. This could mean water baths, or simply an oven safe probe stuck into the thickest part of the meat.
- An emphasis on time efficiency. Minimum prep time, and "fire and forget" formulas.
I, on the other hand, was looking for the following:
- Minimum skill required, as well as prep effort. I can barely flip an egg over to make eggs over-easy. Anything more is just too much.
- Precise prescriptions. "A dash of baking soda" means nothing to me. I'd rather hear, "10g of baking soda."
To my mind, Modernist Cuisine at Home meets a lot of this criteria. Much has been made about sous vide, but I didn't have a sous vide set up, so I first tried the other recipes that were easy:
- Slow Baked Chicken with Onions (page 242). The first time I did this the results were amazing. The prep work is weird, using brine injectors and slicing onions thinly, but my wife (who usually hates chicken) liked it a lot so I tried again. The second time was a disaster. I had to throw it away. The inconsistency of the oven made me willing to buy a Sous Vide setup.
- Pressure Cooked Lamb Shank (page 234). The first time I did it the results were good, but marred by my pressure cooker being not up to spec. I splurged, upgrading to a $30 Presto pressure cooker, and the second time I made it it was nothing short of incredible. The meat just peeled off the bone when I lifted the bone up, and the resulting lamb curry tasted great. In fact, the store-bought sauce did not do the meat justice.
- Carrot Soup (page 178). Since my visits to Rosenlaui began, I've admired their soups. Since I had a pressure cooker now, I could use their recipe to see if I could emulate the creamy soups that Rosenlaui did. The resulting texture is nothing short of amazing. It's quite a bit of work, since you have to pressure cook the carrots, then blend them, and then add carrot juice. This is eliminating the final step. But the soup is incredibly smooth and generally good stuff. I liked it a lot, but Xiaoqin is in general not a fan of Western style soups, so I guess I won't be making this again.
All this convinced me that I should experiment with sous vide for a more consistent experience. It took a bit to figure out what to buy, so I'll list it here, in case you want to try it yourself:
- Sous Vide Supreme Demi. You don't need anything bigger, so don't waste your time with the other stuff. I didn't opt for a circulating bath heater, because the resulting decor would not please my wife. If you're single and cheap, try a manual rice cooker or crockpot and the DorkFood temperature controller.
- Iwatani Torch Burner. It burns butane cartridges you can easily get at Ranch 99. Easy on, easy off, and it doesn't look like industrial equipment.
- Seal-a-Meal Vacuum Sealer. If all you do is short recipes you can use zip-loc bags. You can also buy a package including the Sous Vide Supreme sealer, but the difference between reviews of this unit and reviews of the Sous Vide Supreme unit is huge, so I recommend buying this one.
- Sous Vide Salmon (page 276). OMG. This is melt-in-your-mouth type salmon. I couldn't believe how good this was. Xiaoqin doesn't like cooked Salmon, but she found this acceptable. I'm going to have to try cod one of these days.
- Sous Vide Chicken (page 244). You know how baked chicken always tastes dry? The reason the Slow Baked chicken receipe works is because you inject the chicken with enough brine so it doesn't dry out. Well, by cooking sous vide, you don't have to do that and the results are amazing. Xiaoqin doesn't usually like chicken, but she liked this one so much she complained I didn't eat enough. Bowen doesn't usually eat meat, and he ate a third of a piece of chicken thigh by himself. This blew my mind.
- Sous Vide Prime Rib (page 194). This was relatively disappointing. Not because the result was bad, but because we'd had high hopes after the last two sous vide dishes. I didn't follow the instructions enough, and left the meat in the machine for 3+ hours instead of the recommended 50 minutes, because I read some other instructions on the internet. On the one hand, it was my loss, but on the other hand, it demonstrates the value of the book: the book's recipes so far out perform the internet, which is unusual.
- Sous Vide Duck Confit (pages 245-246). This was the most ambitious recipe that I tried from the book. It took about 18 hours of brining the duck legs in the refrigerator, and then about 27 hours in the Sous Vide machine. But it was excellent and better than some duck confit I've had in France! If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be able to make duck confit this good, I wouldn't have believed you.
I'm not much of a foodie, and have eaten at Michelin 2-star restaurants that I considered terrible compared to say, Kabab & Curry's. I've also eaten at Google's cafetaria during the good years (2005-2007), and could taste the difference when I returned to Mountain View in 2008 after a stint in Europe. I would say that this book has revolutionized my approach and expectations for home cooking, and I cannot imagine not using the sous vide approach for meats cooked home if I can help it. I justified my purchase of my above set up based on the idea that I could easily return it to Amazon if I didn't like it. Well, I'm not going to return those machines. Furthermore, when I first heard about the 72 hour short-rib sous vide recipes, I thought, "3 days to cook dinner? That's ridiculous." I will now admit that my thoughts about the matter now are: "how could I do without my sous vide machine for 3 days?!!"
I will now pay this book the greatest compliment I can: before I return this book to the library, I will either buy my own copy of Modernist Cuisine at Home, or the entire $530 6-volume set of Modernist Cuisine. Highly recommended. If you haven't tried it out, try it. If you're local and want to try it, talk to me and we'll work something out. And if you're an engineer who hates cooking and can't do anything right in the kitchen, you need this book.
Update: My 4-month retrospective.
Update: My 4-month retrospective.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Review: Dead Beat
Dead Beat is book 7 of the Dresden files. The theme villains for this novel are the necromancers, so we finally get to see zombies in action. Harry Dresden no longer seems as incompetent at the start of the novel as in other novels, as he faces off several villains who outclass him by a lot. But then he pulls off a bone stupid move in the last third of the novel.
Fortunately, not all is broken with the novel. We finally start to see him get some recognition from the other Wizards, and he even gets a regular paycheck, which eliminates some of the silliness inherent in the series: if you're any good at magic, how can you stay so darn broke all the time?
The novel does seem set up to be a blockbuster movie at some point, with undead dinosaurs, gobs of explosions, and even a spot for a pretty guest star. Butcher gets his pacing right, and while there is a spot of idiocy in Dresden's actions, the rest of it is reasonable.
As lightweight summer reading this novel works. Mildly recommended.
Fortunately, not all is broken with the novel. We finally start to see him get some recognition from the other Wizards, and he even gets a regular paycheck, which eliminates some of the silliness inherent in the series: if you're any good at magic, how can you stay so darn broke all the time?
The novel does seem set up to be a blockbuster movie at some point, with undead dinosaurs, gobs of explosions, and even a spot for a pretty guest star. Butcher gets his pacing right, and while there is a spot of idiocy in Dresden's actions, the rest of it is reasonable.
As lightweight summer reading this novel works. Mildly recommended.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Review: Strikefleet Omega
The first time I saw Air Traffic Control, I immediately got addicted. This is one of those genre of games which are ideal for a tablet or phone: you draw lines on the screen to direct planes to their destinations. However, other line drawing games haven't been as good. Air Patriots, for instance, was just too hard and tedious.
Strikefleet Omega, however,gets the difficulty right, and is not at all tedious. The science fiction theme is that you're the commander of a fleet of battleships fighting for humanity's survival. You fly from star system to star system, warping in and then defending yourself from incursions from the enemy. Enemies come in 3 types: fighters (small planes), cruisers (larger flying saucers), and battlecruisers (giant ass ships or constructs). Correspondingly, you have 5 types of ships you can warp in to defend your flagship, 3 of which deal specifically with the different types of enemy. The 4th type is a mining ship that generates resources so you can pay for the warp ins. The last is a generic artillery unit which can be used to target small and large ships alike.
Most of the missions are fair. You'll win on the first try, just barely, and then be able to improve your performance. The game has two types of currency: alloys, and mega creds. The former are gathered by destroying large ships and scoring points, and the latter can only be attained by a flying saucer that can be shot with an artillery unit. The last 3 missions are exceedingly hard, and I found myself using mega-bombs twice. I had more than enough mega creds to do so, however, without having to spend real money on the game. I didn't do much grinding: I'd play each mission twice, and the last few missions just once each because I didn't want to blow mega creds..
I rarely get around to finishing games, on tablets or otherwise. That Strikefleet Omega got me interested enough to play it to completion speaks volumes about how well-designed and addictive it is. Recommended.
Strikefleet Omega, however,gets the difficulty right, and is not at all tedious. The science fiction theme is that you're the commander of a fleet of battleships fighting for humanity's survival. You fly from star system to star system, warping in and then defending yourself from incursions from the enemy. Enemies come in 3 types: fighters (small planes), cruisers (larger flying saucers), and battlecruisers (giant ass ships or constructs). Correspondingly, you have 5 types of ships you can warp in to defend your flagship, 3 of which deal specifically with the different types of enemy. The 4th type is a mining ship that generates resources so you can pay for the warp ins. The last is a generic artillery unit which can be used to target small and large ships alike.
Most of the missions are fair. You'll win on the first try, just barely, and then be able to improve your performance. The game has two types of currency: alloys, and mega creds. The former are gathered by destroying large ships and scoring points, and the latter can only be attained by a flying saucer that can be shot with an artillery unit. The last 3 missions are exceedingly hard, and I found myself using mega-bombs twice. I had more than enough mega creds to do so, however, without having to spend real money on the game. I didn't do much grinding: I'd play each mission twice, and the last few missions just once each because I didn't want to blow mega creds..
I rarely get around to finishing games, on tablets or otherwise. That Strikefleet Omega got me interested enough to play it to completion speaks volumes about how well-designed and addictive it is. Recommended.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Review: Weeride Kangaroo Childseat
It is clearly not a hidden agenda with me that I want my child to enjoy cycling, preferably from as early an age as possible. One of my fellow bike club members once confided in me that her biggest disappointment was that both her sons did not like cycling at all, so she has to ride "on the sly" as far as her family is concerned.
We did buy a trailer fairly early on, but he didn't like it. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. The trailer is much more like a car than like a bike: he's low to the ground, with limited visibility, and has to stare at daddy's rear wheels and legs. So we started shopping for a child seat. We ruled the rear carriers out of hand, because that was only a mild improvement over a trailer. I also wanted to be able to monitor Bowen, and a rear mounted seat doesn't work that well for that.
As far as front carriers are concerned, there are only 2 choices, the WeeRide, and the iBert.
We did buy a trailer fairly early on, but he didn't like it. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. The trailer is much more like a car than like a bike: he's low to the ground, with limited visibility, and has to stare at daddy's rear wheels and legs. So we started shopping for a child seat. We ruled the rear carriers out of hand, because that was only a mild improvement over a trailer. I also wanted to be able to monitor Bowen, and a rear mounted seat doesn't work that well for that.
As far as front carriers are concerned, there are only 2 choices, the WeeRide, and the iBert.
We picked the WeeRide because it was cheaper, and looked easier to install, and didn't have his legs sticking out under the bars, where it might interfere with cables, etc. We tried the iBert at a Co-Motion event in the middle seat of a triplet, and in that situation, the iBert is actually better, so whether you plan to use the seat on a single or a triplet makes a difference. In any case, both are so cheap that you could reasonably buy both and not break the bank.
Since both types of seats are suitable only for flat bar bikes, I decided to just buy a cheap bike for riding with Bowen. While I paid only $250 on BikesDirect, I'm not sure I would go quite so cheap next time. The big chainring on that bike bent on the first ride, and the wheels definitely needed additional tensioning. I'm equipped to fix the latter problem, but the former is just an indication of poor quality.
The problem with the Weeride is that unless you have an unusually long top tube on the bike, your knees will interfere with the seat. I ended up setting my saddle height low as a result so I could actually mount and ride the thing with Bowen on it. This is not a big deal for very short rides, but it does mean that any ambitious I have of towing a trailer as well are gone.
The mounting scheme doesn't let you adjust the seat height after you've set up the seat without a hassle, so no, you can't just set it up and then set up your saddle.
I might sound like I'm complaining a lot, but actually, we've been using the Weeride quite a bit! Bowen loves it and has started demanding bike rides, and has taken to imitating the Weeride on his strider. He now asks to listen to Queen's Bicycle race over and over again. So in terms of getting Bowen into cycling, it's working. We'll see how it goes when he masters the Strider.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
My Books Are Discounted on Amazon
Those of you who visit my books' website know that I don't believe in discounting. But Amazon believes otherwise, and for now, print copies of my book are being sold at a discount:
- An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups ($39.56)
- Startup Engineering Management ($35.96)
- Independent Cycle Touring ($26.01)
Independent Cycle Touring in particular is discounted by a huge amount (35%), and it works particularly well in print format, so if you've been holding off on buying it, this is the cheapest it's ever been and probably the cheapest it will ever be. If you have any interest in the topic at all, this is the best book on the topic, and of all of my books is the least likely to be outdated.
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