Jun 10 2013

Two Years Ago Today

Me: Today is the two year anniversary for the blog.

You: Hey, Congratulations!

Me: Thank you. This is actually the third blog of mine, but is the first to last longer than 10 months. Of course, since I have taken breaks from posting several times during the two years, I can call it a win, but not an accomplishment as such.

You: That’s not true. Most blogs don’t even survive their 4:20 warranty.

Me: 4:20 warranty?

You: 4 posts or 20 days. The internet is littered with abandoned blogs. Over 95% of all blogs are effectively abandoned.

Me: 95%? Is that a real statistic?

You: According to a 2008 Technorati survey. I made up the 4:20 warranty though.

Me:  I had a feeling.

You: Sadly, the original source page for the survey is gone. I know how you find that important.

Me: It is important. You can’t trust other people to cite information properly.

You: Not all of us have the pedantism to get a PhD, but you’re right. Everybody has a bias. If you want to formulate your own opinions, go to the source.

Me: That’s the least of it, but I won’t lecture. … Not today anyway.

You: Good. You lecture people way too much for someone who gave up on education. So has your blog been everything you’d hoped it’d be?

Me: That’s an interesting question. I think so. Like most bloggers, 90% of the time I just want someplace I can put my thoughts out to the world. I understand that ultimately, I am flushing them into a virtual ocean of information. One or two people, which may or may not include myself, will read my words and then they turn into digital jetsom forever sinking under the next digital layer.

You: Wow. You sound depressed.

Me: Ha! Not at all. I’m just not delusional about my place in the universe. There’s an Urban Myth that (for some reason people believe) there are more people living now than have ever lived. This is ridiculousness. I have read estimates that the total number of people who have ever lived is between 80 and 120 billion. Here’s a recent survey that comes up with 107 billion. Because of evolution, definitively answering the question “when was the dawn of man?” is not easy to answer.

You: You said no lectures.

Me: Sorry. As I was saying, I accept my place in the universe. More specifically, human history. If we accept the estimate of 107 billion people having lived, how many of those people can you even name off the top of your head? A few hundred? How many are even named in history books? A few thousand, maybe a few tens of thousands. that means less than .0001% of all people to have ever lived have made any impact on history what-so-ever, and the rest, impact or no, will never be remembered.

And yet so many people dream about having 15 minutes of fame? Why do you think crappy reality shows are so popular? Most claim it’s a guilty pleasure. The truth is, deep down, most people know their impact on the human condition will be insignificant. Watching a bunch of no-talents tempermentally act out at the behest of a director gives them hope they too can be remembered. After all, if you can’t be legitimately famous, you may as well be repugnantly infamous.

You: That’s bleak. You sure you’re not depressed?

Me: Really. I’m fine. Just because I’m not filled with blind hope and unrealistic optimism doesn’t make me a negative person.

You: I think it might. Either way, I’m not sure I fully accept your premise. Not all reality television revolves around the negative side of the human condition. There’s shows like Survivor, So You Think You Can Dance, and American Idol. Well, if you ignore the preliminaries. But if your premise is true, what’s to stop the millions of reality TV viewers from running out the front door and becoming the next Bonnie and Clyde?

Me: You mean aside from morality, ethics, and an evolved penchant for communal survival? Or can I just use that as my answer?

The truth is, most people want to be famous and enjoy the concomitant benefits without having to deal with the negatives. Yet paradoxically, the biggest benefits to being famous are also the worst negatives.

You: What’s that?

Me: Expectations and responsibilities. When you’re famous, others have expectations of you. Most people love being adored, though there is a constant pressure to live up to whatever made you famous. You are expected to go beyond those boundaries and are expected to somehow be magically qualified in other areas as well. After all, if you’re special, you must be special in every way. It sounds ridiculous, but that’s what people expect whether they realize it or not.

Since most people look to avoid unnecessary responsibility, they wouldn’t be able to handle being famous or expert in anything. The truth is, most people can not even handle the expectations and responsibilities that are required to become an expert, let alone to actually being at expert. And as such, they will never approach fame or infamy. You can take that as the principle reason so many blogs fade away even before they’ve begun. Almost anyone can get a bur under their skin and feel compelled to write a few times. The self-imposed expectations and responsibilities to reproduce and surpass those results are usually more than they can endure. So they quit.

You: You must think you’re something special for making it two years then.

Me: Yeah right. Being in the top 5% is so special considering we’ve already discussed that less than .0001% of us will ever make an impact. As I said in the beginning, this is my third blog, so I’m only a two-time loser. Actually, based on the Technorati criteria of not having posted in a four month period, this blog has already died twice and been reborn. That’s better than…

You: Don’t go there.

Me: Fine.  What I’m getting at is this: I know this is it for me and I’m okay with that. I write and blog because I enjoy it without obligation. I’ve tried to use this site as a platform or vehicle for my writing, but after two years I’ve come to realize that’s not me and probably not what I want. I’m fine with what I have and what I do. I’m pretty sure I don’t want all the expectations and obligations of actual fame.

I’m still open to infamy though.

Jun 4 2013

Review: The Shambling Guide to New York City

The Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Lafferty is her best work to date. I have listened to her podcast for over five years and have read or listened to most of the things she has written. During this time, her work has steadily improved. Don’t take that as an implication that her early work was poor. I’m not saying that. Merely, her work has evidently matured and I found this book to be the best of her work thus far. Her nomination for the Campbell Award is well earned.

Urban Fantasy has been all the rage for over a decade now, so it’s nice to see an author I enjoy bring something new to the table. The accepted premise of most Urban Fantasies is that monsters of one form, or more likely many forms, share society with humans and humans fail to see them all around because we choose to not see them. Our puny human brains can’t come to grips, for some reason, that monsters exist and we come up with excuses to explain their evidence away. I generally find this premise a little more than I can swallow, but I choose to not let this one thing ruin all the excellent stories that have been coming out. The Shambling Guide is no exception in using this trope.

What separates The Shambling Guide from other Urban Fantasies is the protagonist, Zoe. Zoe is not a Monster Hunter, or a Witch/Wizard, or even “In the Know” at the beginning of the story. She’s an office worker. Specifically, a publishing editor. (Bet the people in the industry got a kick out of this one!) It was refreshing to read a story with an “every day” hero. Such heroes are my favorite. It gets boring reading about “experts” in the monster field with all the answers deal with problems. I’d rather read about how a “normal” person reacts to being thrust into an extraordinary situation.

Mur Lafferty handles Zoe’s introduction to the local Coterie (as opposed to “monster”) community in a very natural way. Zoe needed a job. If monsters existed alongside and unbeknownst to humans, this seems the most likely reason for a human to be introduced into their secret world. From there, Zoe’s story unfolds into a “Save the City while protecting the Coterie Charade” as she works as the editor to the creation of a Monster’s guidebook to visiting NYC.

That’s as much of the plot as I’m going to give away. What I will say: This book was fun to listen to. There was a surprising amount of humor. Often used in Urban Fantasy, but rarely is it organic. The humor in the Shambling Guide came about as a natural consequence of the story unfolding and Zoe simply living in a strange new world. If you don’t laugh out loud a half dozen times throughout this book, then you’ve never had a job where you’ve had to work with other people.

I suppose I give one warning: The story is read by the author. Whereas Mur has a fine reading voice, she does not “do” voices. If you listen to the audio book, as I did, and you prefer a reader who “performs” the reading with a different voice for each character, Mur is not your gal. However, after years of podcasting and releasing audio versions of many of her stories (for free), she has a professional voice, so there’s no need to fear that she may not have the chops to make her own story come alive. In my audible review, I gave the reading performance 4 stars, because I tend to reserve the 5 star performance rating for speakers who “wow” me on some level. I gave the story and overall ratings 5 stars.

If you’re looking for a different sort of Urban Fantasy, give this one a try.

Apr 12 2013

The Huffington Post is Gay

Me: The Huffington Post really has a tendency to fly off the deep end. Check out this article.

You: Vaccines Produce Homosexuality?

Me: Crazy right? Some old Italian (so-called) doctor still thinks being gay is a disease. Some days I just can’t wait for these old bigots to kick the bucket so their lame prejudices can die with them.

You: That’s a little harsh. You can hardly blame the elderly for their prejudices. It’s the way they were raised. Fifty years ago, being gay was practically synonymous with being a pedophile. Is it any wonder they have such differing opinions.

Me: This isn’t a differing opinion. It’s morally wrong.

You: I’m not disagreeing with you on that point. But from their perspective, if being gay is akin to pedophilia, can you blame them for thinking that being gay is the morally wrong choice?

Me: Yes. They need to update their world view. Homosexual behavior is nearly universal in the animal kingdom.

You: Come on. You know most people don’t stay abreast with current scientific news. Especially the Baby Boomers, an entire generation of elderly and soon to be elderly, with a world view filled with skepticism for authority figures, like scientists.

Me: Don’t get me started with the Baby Boomers and their New Age – Egalitarian – Everybody’s opinion is equal bull crap. Some people become experts and their opinions bear more weight than others. They should deal with it.

**SHOUTS** Hey old people: Science! It works bitches!

Getting back on point, this isn’t new news. I first started hearing about traits of homosexuality being universal over a decade ago. This research has been ongoing since the 80′s. That’s 25 to 30 years they’ve had the chance to acquaint themselves with modern science and reality in general.

You: Try not to alienate too many people will ya? I thought you wanted people to read this blog. Your thoughts are all over the place. What point is it you’re trying to make?

Me: Hmm, what point indeed… I think I’ll go right back to to the top: The Huffington Post. I firmly believe printed news is effectively dead. Which means those of us who want quality news are going to have to look for it online. Unfortunately, the masses tend to shun actual science news. Even worse, most people will head straight to the low hanging fruit when it comes to news aggregation. I think it’s the responsibility of modern news organizations to report the news accurately. They should filter out obvious nonsense.

Just because someone writes a press release, it doesn’t mean you have to print a story based on that press release. On the contrary, you could even print a story saying: “Hey! Look at this old bigot and his fake scientific bologna.”

You: Now who should update their world view? Besides, the article isn’t uncritical. The author states, “Some of Vanoli’s arguments, however, have been disputed for more than 30 years.”

Me: True, but not really true. This style of reporting is uncritical in my opinion. By treating “all opinions as equal” this automatically lends credibility to a guy who is an obvious fraud as a doctor. Consider his own words:

“The problem will especially be present in the next generations, because when gays have children, the children will carry along with them the DNA of their parent’s illness. Because homosexuality is a disease,…”

He’s talking as if being gay is a disease that one can contract, but he’s also talking as if being gay is genetic and passed on through DNA. Which is it?

You: In his defense, their are some diseases that can be passed on from mother to unborn child. But I get your point, most of those diseases are passed through the blood and if being gay is a disease that passes through the blood how does it also get passed through DNA? Of course, you’re also missing the point that gay people don’t breed in the numbers that heterosexual people manage, so how are we going to be inundated with gay people in the coming generations?

Me: Oh, I wasn’t forgetting that. I just found it too obvious to mention. Like if being gay is passed through the blood, say from mother to child, why don’t EMT’s, doctors, and nurses who get exposed to other people’s blood suddenly become gay?

You: I’m sure he’d say that heterosexual people so exposed are adults and already have their sexual identity set, or something along those lines.

Me: That’s called “special pleading“. It’s a logical fallacy that people should be taught to see through and respectable news organizations should reinforce proper logic in their readers by asking the “next question” rather than taking his comments at face value. There are plenty of experts out there that can refute this guys nonsense and expose it for the mystical mumbo-jumbo that it is.

I’m not even a medical doctor and I can see through this crap. What’s wrong with the reporter? You see, I do live in the real world, and I know most people aren’t going to critically read that article. Which means that even if they don’t buy into it, they’ll have the nagging suspicion that maybe, just maybe, there might be something to what this quack says when very obviously there is not.

You: So what do you suggest? People stop reading the news?

Me: No. People should stop reading generic news aggregation sites like the Huffington Post. I know they’re convenient, but getting your news from more specialized sources, written by appropriate experts that take a more critical look at the news can only improve one’s understanding.

You: Basically, you’re asking people to push themselves mentally? You got out of education because the average student all but refuses to intellectually push themselves and you want people to do it with their daily news because it’s good for them?

Me: Yes?

You: I thought you said you were living in the real world?

Apr 3 2013

The Corporate Touch – A Vendor Contract of Responsibility

You: You’re not going to go on another rant are you?

Me: I don’t know. I think it’s building though.

You: I don’t understand why anyone would go on a rant like you do. I don’t even know why you’re so upset. It didn’t happen to you.

Me: Maybe not. But we’ve all been there. At some time or another, with some company or another, we’ve all been there.

You: Probably, but just ranting about it doesn’t solve anything. If you want to change something, you have to act on it.

Me: That’s not true. Every piece of social change starts with people just talking about it. If people don’t talk about it first, then most don’t even realize there’s a problem.

You: Fine. Go ahead.

Me: I’ll start with a brief description of my friend’s problem: I’ll make everything anonymous, because the actual companies involved aren’t important. This sort of thing happens all the time, and scandals have been discovered where presumably reputable companies rip-off their own customers. Take American Express and Bank of America for example. 

Anyway, my friend recently bought a new cell phone online direct from one of the major cell companies. Somehow the Carrier screwed up and charged her debit card twice totaling over $500. As a result one of her checks for under $50 to a local grocery store bounced. She should have had plenty of money in her checking account, but due to the error, the bank is going to charge her $35, the grocery store is going to charge her $25 and post her “bad” check on their wall of shame. Now she’s being charged for fees greater than the value of the check. Of course, to add insult to egregious injury, she had to spend over an hour on the phone arguing with the carrier about whether or not she was charged twice. When they finally admitted their mistake, all she got was an apology and a promise that the money would be refunded to her account within a couple of weeks. Weeks to get her money back!

You: It’s egregious.

Me: Don’t be patronizing. My friend, along with two-thirds of this country lives paycheck-to-paycheck. Just because you may be one of the persons in three who doesn’t have to worry about it, doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.

You: True, but it’s not the problem you’re currently ranting about.

Me: Fair enough. What I’m really ranting about is the lack of protections people have against these sociopathic corporations.

You: Did you watch “The Corporation” recently? (Aside: YouTube Link)

Me: I haven’t seen that in years. Like any documentary, it’s a bit agenda oriented, but it does make some fair points. Now stop interrupting! You’re screwing up my chi!

You: Sorry.

Me: As I was saying, I think consumers should hold corporations accountable for their actions. I think their customers should respond in kind, tit-for-tat.

You: How so?

Me: Whenever you open a bank account, sign a cell phone contract, TV cable contract, all those types of corporate contracts where you are forced to agree to their policies, extra fees, etc. I think someone, presumably a lawyer, needs to draw up a contract where the company has to sign to get you as a customer. A contract that will hold the company liable for their mistakes and dare I say, punish them for when they screw a customer over.

You: You speak as if your friend is without recourse.

Me: She has options. Mostly, she’ll have to go to the store and the bank and explain things and HOPEFULLY, they’ll understand and not charge her the extra fees, but they are under no legal obligation as far as I know. Maybe they are, but I doubt it. If she is forced to pay the fees, and the carrier won’t readily give her the money to cover the fees, her only option is to sue the national carrier in small claims court. She’ll win, but how much time and effort is that going to take? What recourse does she have for her time?

We have Customer Agreements, why is it the customer doesn’t have a Vendor Agreement available to them? A document stating the company is responsible for their mistakes and requires them to make good on those mistakes, posthaste, lest they start paying extra fees.

You: You’re dreaming.

Me: I may be dreaming now, but if people are going to demand a minimal level of social responsibility to protect the little guy/gal, it has to start somewhere. Someone has to start the conversation.

Apr 1 2013

Review: Hard Magic (Book 1, Grimnoir Chronicles)

You: That’s interesting, Audible certainly makes it easy to fill out reviews. They list pertinent questions for you to answer.

Me: Yup. Or you could just ignore the questions and write your own thoughts in the additional comments section. This is only my second review on the site, but these are different questions than when I reviewed Trail of the Spellmans.

You: Let’s see, the first one is, “Would you listen to Hard Magic Again? Why?”.

Me: Definitely. I love the current trend where authors have been mixing very disparate genres. In this book, Larry Correia takes urban fantasy and puts it in a noir setting in the 1920′s. The fantastical element being magic begins to suddenly appear in humans around 1850. So even though everyone has grown up with the idea of magic, it is not well understood and is still quite uncommon. You know, I wrote a blog post about this about 18 months ago called Genre is Dead.

You: Pimping yourself now? That’s kind of sad.

Me: Sorry. What’s the next question?

You: Who was your favorite character and why?

Me: I hate questions like this. I’m a numbers guy. I’m really awful at remembering names in real life. Trying to remember character names from books is down right hard. The fact that I listened to this, so I didn’t even get the repetition of reading the name to burn it into my brain makes naming more than a couple of characters almost impossible. I guess I’d have to say Fay was my favorite. She was a “Traveler”, or someone who could teleport themselves. I liked her country bumpkin simplicity. To her, everything was right or wrong, friend or foe, black and white. Even more interesting was her simple morality, if you were good you should live, if you were bad, you should die. And she had no compunction about ending those she deemed bad.

You: Which scene was your favorite?

Me: Geez, these questions are terrible. If a book is written well, it should be a scene near the end, likely the climax, because each preceding scene should have been what culminated into a satisfying result. Since I don’t want to give any of that stuff away, I guess I’ll say this book followed that template.

You: Hmm, I’d chastise you for not answering the question, but that kind of makes sense. I’ll let it go. Next question: Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Me: I’m not doing a review for a 6th grade book report. I’m skipping to my final comments now.

You: Hey, answering the audible questions was your idea.

Me: And I’ve never had a bad idea?

You: Touche. Get on with it.

Me: Hard Magic isn’t the first Fantasy-Noir combo I’ve listened to. The first being Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword by Tee Morris. It’s a free download at Podiobooks.com. Also an excellent listen.

First things first,  Larry Correia marries the two genres wonderfully. I suppose you could also call this story an Alternate History. I’m not sure I would. All genre quibbling aside, his alternate history is both well crafted and interesting. One subplot dips into the “why’s” of how magic came to earth, which aids in building both his vision of the world and creates a foundation for the sequel. Speaking of which, I enjoyed this story so much, after I was finished, I purchased and downloaded the sequel right away. I suppose that’s as good as praise gets.

Of course, the world makes for a nice place to visit in fantasy, but ultimately, it’s the characters that makes a story worth reading. As is the modern convention, good versus evil is merely a matter of perspective and morality. This story is no different. Though in true noir fashion, the protagonist, aka Jake Sullivan, is the type of person we can consider to be “morally pure”. By that, I mean, he always does what he feels to be the right thing. Considering the U. S. Hippy-Christian salted with a pinch of schadenfreude-ian Old Testament Eye-for-an-Eye mentality that many of us have been raised with, we’re inclined to agree with his actions.

You: Basically, that’s a long-winded way of saying Jake is sympathetic and likable.

Me: Yeah, I guess. In a nutshell, this story takes all the elements of fantasy, noir, and alternate history and blends them into nourishing protein drink.

You: What?

Me: The weaving a story into a tapestry metaphor is over done. I was trying to come up with something different.

You: Keep trying.

Me: I’ll do better next time. For those interested in a brief description of Hard Magic, this is how GoodReads describes it:

Jake Sullivan is a war hero, private eye – and ex-con free because Feds need his magic to apprehend magic-using criminals. But the last operation went wrong, and Delilah, old friend in happier times, had more magical muscle than the Feds could handle. Now Jake finds the Feds lying and opposing magic forces waging war. Jake has attracted the attention of ruthless leaders who say he is too dangerous to live.

Mar 24 2013

Review: Apple Moonshine

You: Doesn’t this violate some sort of ethical standard?

Me: Why would it? I’ll disclose that I know K. S. Bowers. I don’t know her personally, but I “internet” know her. I read and comment on her blog. Out of pity, I mean reciprocity, she pops in here from time to time.

You: Pity?

Me: Yeah well, she blogs about important stuff. I don’t offer useful content here. I just sort of spout off at the fingertips.

You: Is that what these reviews are? An attempt at offering useful content?

Me: Sort of.  As I said last time, it’s an attempt to give back to the reading and writing community. Though honestly, the goal is for me to try to think a little deeper about the books and other stuff I read, watch, or listen to. I’m still curious about the story telling process. I figure the best way to improve my understanding is to actually pay attention to the stories and deconstruct them.

You: You’re going to deconstruct stories for people?

Me: Not really. People aren’t interested in getting lectured to, but they might be interested in an opinion. Now can I get to the review?

You: It’s your blog. Why listen to me?

Me: Don’t start.  **Ahem** Apple Moonshine is a short story bundled with four pieces of flash fiction. You can purchase the story for 99 cents at Amazon or download it for free at Smashwords.

You: Those aren’t affiliate links are they? You said last time…

Me: No, they’re not affiliate links. What would be the point? The readers can download the story for free. Stop interrupting.

You: Sorry. I wasn’t actually listening anymore. Go on.

Me: This was the first story of K. S. Bowers’ that I’ve read. I honestly don’t read a lot of horror or that many short stories. So this piece was an abrupt change of pace for me. That’s probably a good thing. Cutting to the quick, I’d give the main story four stars, the whole package, probably four-and-a-half  stars. Though when I post my reviews on Smashwords and Amazon, I’ll be rounding it up to five stars. Seeing as this will be the story’s first review, I wouldn’t want someone to look at a single four star review and pass it by based solely for that reason.

You: That’s not very honest.

Me: Shut up. You’re not listening. Besides, I’m a mathematician, rounding off numbers is fine when I say it is. Now,… the interesting thing about horror is that it is difficult to write. Of the forms of speculative fiction, it is the most poetic. That’s right, horror is poetic. The word choice has to be made with a great deal of care precisely because the writer is trying to create a mood in addition to a story. With short stories, word choice also has to be made with care, simply because the author isn’t using a lot of them.

So in a horror short story the word choice is of paramount importance and I think Ms. Bowers makes excellent use of her words. In fact, as I read the four pieces of flash fiction I felt as if I were reading free verse poetry, which I think is the highest praise I can offer her work.

You: So why didn’t you give her story five stars?

Me: I think one of the reasons I don’t read a lot of horror is because the plot twists don’t often surprise me. Of course, the point of reading horror is to experience the mood it offers, so perhaps the genre focuses less on twists and more on the tension. Anyway, the story itself was good. That’s why I gave it four stars. I gave the flash fiction half five stars because I enjoyed the poetic effect each piece offered. Thus, four-and-a-half  stars.

You: I guess that makes sense.

Me: Thank you. Here is the description from Smashwords for those who may be interested in hearing more:

A beautiful plantation home in Georgia’s Appalachian region bears witness to a horrific murder and hosts a bloodthirsty demon hell-bent on vengeance.

Mar 21 2013

Some Days

You: What are you doing?

Me: Uhhh-I’m looking to procrastinate from working.

You: You really should get to work.

Me: I know. I’m rationalizing that I don’t have a lot to do until I get to the courthouse later this afternoon.

You: I see. But, if you’re not going to do some real work, why don’t you get some writing done?

Me: I was just thinking that. I thought a quick blog post might get the writing motor running.

You: How’s that been going? The writing, not the blog post.

Me: Alright. Not as productive as I would like, but I’ve managed to get in three thousand words this past week. So I haven’t been completely useless.

You: Not bad. It’s at least a little something.

Me: Still, if I’m going to procrastinate, I really should learn to be productive with my procrastinations. You know, rather than watch TV or some other time waster, like a browser game, or some other mindless nonsense, I’ll do some cleaning, or go to the store. Other things I generally budget time for, I’m trying to get done during my unproductive periods.

You: That’s probably a good idea.

Me: Thanks. … You’re being awfully nice today. Why is that?

You: Nice? What do you mean?

Me: You’re not being critical, sarcastic, or ironic.

You: That’s being nice?

Me: For You, it kind of is.  Besides, some days, I think that’s as nice as the world gets.

You: **Sigh** Sadly, you’re probably right… About the latter, not the former.

Me: That’s more like it. Contrariness for its own sake.

You: Whatever.

Me: Something has to be bothering you. You’re much too subdued.

You: I don’t know. Maybe it’s just one of those days.

Me: What does that mean? I’ve never really understood what a “those days” are.

You: Like I said. I don’t know. Ever have a day where you’re sort of uninspired; Not up or down; Not happy or sad. You’re just Being. You’re just numb.

Me: Sure. We all have “those days”. I think those are the days where it’s most important to motivate yourself into doing something. Preferably something you enjoy. If you can push through, be productive. Make yourself enjoy the day in spite of yourself. I think those days are the most satisfying. It’s like you took a little something away from the soul-sucking aspects of the world and gave it back to yourself.

You: Hmmm. **Nods** I like the sound of that. You should get on that.

Mar 18 2013

Review: Trail of the Spellmans

Pardon me as I forgo the “You-Me” dialog I’ve been using of late.Whereas I do enjoy that style of writing for my blog posts, the point of a review is to give credit to a particular work and I think writing a review in such a way would distract from giving the work its due.

I can’t say as I’ll make reviews a regular thing on this blog, but as long as I am busy with work and still able to find the time to at least listen to a book every now and again, I figured this seemed like a good way to give back to the reading and writing community.

Since I think it is inappropriate to create affiliate links or anything else looking for “back door” payments for doing this sort of thing, I will not link to any sites in this post. Also, for the record, I do not personally know Lisa Lutz. Nor have I been compensated in any way for my opinion.

On with the review:

“Trail of the Spellmans” is the fifth book in Lisa Lutz’s Spellman series. Clearly, if I am reading the fifth book in any series it’s because I thoroughly enjoy the series. What first attracted me to these stories was the originality in their presentation. Ms. Lutz uses a number of interesting, call them gimmicks, to present the story. Not as much for this novel, but she has often utilized in media res techniques as a way to foreshadow. Since the Spellman’s are private investigators, she presents scenes as transcripts of recorded conversations.  Which creates an interesting economy to parts of the story. And, well, I don’t want to give all her tricks away. Suffice it to say, Lisa Lutz has done something wonderfully different from the standard narrative with the Spellman stories.

All of these stories are completely character driven and oddly enough (pleasantly enough? Differently enough?) they have very little external conflict. Thus, the “escalations” that occur within every story happen much more organically. Of course, this means Ms. Lutz has had to work overtime creating a set of characters interesting enough to perform such a feat.

I gave this particular story 4 stars out of 5, only because I felt it on par with the rest of the books in the series, which I would definitely rate each as 5 stars. When this series first came out, I felt it was quite different and intriguing in its presentation. Seeing as this was the 5th book, I felt it was time the author start pushing the envelope of this series a bit. Whether Ms. Lutz does this or not in the 6th book, I’m sure I’ll be there to buy it if, and when, it comes out.

For interested parties, here is the Amazon & GoodReads Description:

For the first time in Spellman history, Isabel Spellman, PI, might be the most normal member of her family. Mom has taken on an outrageous assortment of extracurricular activities—with no apparent motive. Dad has a secret. Izzy’s brother and sister are at war—for no apparent reason. And her niece keeps saying “banana” even though she hates bananas.

That’s not to say that Izzy isn’t without her own troubles. Her boyfriend, Henry Stone, keeps wanting “to talk,” a prospect Isabel evades by going out with her new drinking buddy, none other than Gertrude Stone, Henry’s mother.

Things aren’t any simpler on the business side of Spellman Investigations. First, Rae is hired to follow a girl, only to fake the surveillance reports. Then a math professor hires Izzy to watch his immaculate apartment while he unravels like a bad formula. And as the questions pile up, Izzy won’t stop hunting for the answers—even when they threaten to shatter both the business and the family.

Mar 4 2013

Wound Up

Me: When I get bound up I find a pound of carrots will usually do the trick by the next day.

You: Wha? … What? I said, “wound up”. You should do a post about being “wound up”.

Me: Oh, … so uh, … OH!

Carrots

Carrots (Photo credit: chriscook04)

You: Yeah! Get your head in the game.

Me: Sorry, I mis-, …. Nevermind. Yeah, actually I am a little wound up. I finally finished a huge project for work, so that stress is out of my life, for the most part.

You: Such things can always come back to bite you when you least expect them.

Me: Of course. My boss could always say, “Now we need this…”. Mostly I am excited because the local courthouse expanded its hours so that people like me who have to dig through the records won’t get locked out.

You: Locked out? Of a public building?

Me: You don’t really want to know. The details are even more boring than looking through old documents.

You: But you like looking through old documents.

Me: Yeah, but most people don’t. Actual dig your heels in and get your hands dusty research is not something most people enjoy. Suffice it to say, the courthouse has been so busy with researchers like me they had to start limiting the number of people in per day. Things have gotten so bad in recent months they had to increase the number of hours the records room is open. The upshot is that now scheduling a time to get in is a breeze. In fact, my favorite time to do this sort of work is in the evenings when it’s least busy, so I can get even more work done.

You: Is that why you’re so wound up? You can look through old documents for longer?

Me: Sort of, though mostly I’m pleased because this type of schedule leaves my early mornings open. This means most days I’ll be able to get back into writing first thing in the morning.

You: You could have done your writing in the evenings all this time.

Me: This is true. And I should have, but I guess I just feel more creative in the mornings. It’s no excuse mind you, but this is a start.

You: Speaking of starting, why haven’t you?

Me: Uhm, because you told me to blog more. You told me to blog about being wound up. Look, I even added a picture of carrots because supposedly pictures will help drive traffic to the blog. … I’m not sure how though.

You: And you have to do everything I tell you? Everything some “supposedly expert blogger screwball” tells you?

Me: No, but sometimes you give good advice. The blogger screwballs I’m not so sure about.

You: Thank you. My advice now is to get writing. And that goes double for the two people that’ll read this.

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Feb 16 2013

Procrastination

You: Hey? Didn’t you say you were going to write a post about procrastination last night?

Me: Huh? … Uhm, yeah, I guess so.

You: Well? Where is it?

Me: Uh, well, I thought it might be more clever if I waited a few days.

You: Seriously? What were you really doing last night?

Me: Well, it kind of started in the morning.

You: As any good procrastinator does. Go on.

Me: I was side tracked, … somehow and found myself on Kickstarter. Do You know what that is?

You: Of course, it’s a website where people can go to help get funding for creative projects. Say an artist, a writer, a painter, whatever, has always wanted to do a personal pet project, but money is an issue. They can start a project on Kickstarter, offer rewards stemming from the project, to people who donate.

Me: Exactly! I decided I should be a patron of the arts. I donated to Gabriel Böhmer’s novel, Beetle Days. After all, maybe I’ll want to do a Kickstarter project one day. I should invest in the system. And if I don’t ever start a project, then I helped out a fellow human being fulfill their dream. The best part, if a project doesn’t meet the minimum funding the creator asks for, then none of the people who promised backing are charged, and alas, that’s the end of the project. So not everyone gets their dreams fulfilled, but at least it’s a way for modern day creative types to find themselves a benefactor. It’s called crowd funding.

You: Okay, not bad, but you said this was in the morning. What did you do last night that stopped you from blogging?

Me: **Sigh** Way to stay on point. You can be pretty sharp. Anyway, in the late afternoon, the project was funded so I went to check the page out. From there, I started looking at other projects.

You: You spent the whole evening looking through Kickstarter projects?

Me: Don’t be silly. I started looking through the board game projects.

You: Board games?

Me: Yeah, I’ve always enjoyed the classic style board games like Checkers and Chess. I remember sitting down as a teen and searching for the shortest possible game in Chinese checkers using ten marbles and no opposing army. My best solution was 32 moves.

You: Why waste the time? There’s always an opposing army.

Me: Why do people sit around and play solitaire? To procrastinate. To waste time.

You: Touche.

Me: By the way, it was only in 2008 that George I. Bell proved that the shortest game possible for solitaire Chinese checkers is 27 moves.

You: Did you just link to an academic paper on Combinatorics?

Me: He also showed that with opposing armies acting cooperatively, rather than opposing each other, the shortest game is only 30 moves. Think about that. There’s 20 marbles in such a game and they each have to move at least once!

You: Hmm, okay I admit that’s kind of interesting as trivia, but you didn’t spend your whole evening reading that paper did you?

Me: No, I came across a message board, a forum, where people discuss the creation of these types of board games.

You: **Groan**

Me: Since I am trained as a mathematician and I almost opted  to get a PhD in Computer Science instead, I got sucked into the discussions about classic games being, for the lack of a better mundane word, computable. By that, I mean algorithms and/or databases of moves that allow a computer to play perfectly. Think back at how lame computers were back in the early and mid 90′s. Even back in 1992, Chinook, a checkers program lost in a series of games to the World Champion, 4 games to 2 (with 33 draws). Chinook’s two wins against Dr. Tinsley, a professor of mathematics (of course), represented Tinsley’s 6th and 7th loss since 1950! Unfortunately, a rematch was never completed since Tinsley passed away in 1994. The creators retired the program when they realized no human could beat it. Finally, in 2007, computers finished the task of “breaking” checkers. Chinook now plays the perfect move every time. Go try it.

You: Why would I want to play a checkers program that plays perfectly? No thanks. Besides, you’re just paraphrasing a NY Times article.

Me: Yeah, but I read it back in 2007. I knew where to go to find it so I could at least get the facts straight.

You: Alright, so you were looking into discussions about people computing board game stuff and you read about this all evening? How sad…

Me: Not exactly. I admit I read for a couple of hours, but then I came across a game that was compared to chess, though it’s really nothing like chess other than it’s played on an 8 by 8 square board.

You: Are you going to go on a long soliloquy about chess now?

Me: Uhm, … No?

You: NO.

Me: Suffice it to say, that there is so much human created chess theory over the past 150 years, the game is getting to be “played out”. It is not uncommon for grandmasters, the best players in the world, to run through essentially memorized sequences with nothing new being played until each player has moved thirty or more times. More than two-thirds of these games end in a draw. It almost seems as though the only new theory that’s being created, though rarely, occurs in games between computers. Chess is fine for the every day player, but the best in the world have kind of dried up the field.

Stop rolling your eyes. That’s the short soliloquy on chess. The game I was fascinated by is called Arimaa. Two things make this game special. The first, solves the chess problem in that the player is allowed to set up his or her own pieces. Thus, creating strategies from a fixed starting position is solved because there are no fixed starting positions. The second, is the simplicity. The rules are even simpler than chess. It can be a bit trying to teach a four or five year old to move the pieces in chess. The abstract interactions between pieces that all behave differently is a bit daunting for most children at that age. In Arimaa, all the pieces move the same, one square up, down, left, or right.

You: So how is Arimaa more complex than chess?

Me: First off, for each turn, a player can make up to four moves. You don’t have to play all four, but you do have to move at least once. There is a hierarchy to the pieces: Elephant, Camel, Horse, Dog, Cat, and Rabbit.

You: Sounds like a kids game.

Me: Quiet you. The truly interesting thing about Arimaa is that a larger animal can push and pull smaller enemy animals. You don’t capture opposing pieces by moving and taking over the square. There are four “traps” on the board. You capture pieces by pushing or pulling your opponents pieces into the traps. Even though the Elephant is the biggest piece and cannot be pushed or pulled, it is the rabbit (akin to the pawn in chess in that you have 8 of them) that is the most important piece. A player wins by getting one of their rabbits to the far side of the board. Of course, you can also win by trapping all 8 of your opponents rabbits, thereby making it impossible for them to win. And finally, you can win by immobilizing all of your opponent’s pieces. If they can’t move, they lose.

You: Doesn’t sound so hard.

Me: It’s not. But like any game, there are some subtleties that go into making it interesting. Like when a trap captures a piece. (The trap only works if there are no other friendly animals nearby.)   And if a smaller animal is next to a larger animal, that piece is frozen, unless it has a friendly animal nearby. (Nearby = up, down, left, or right. Nothing acts diagonally in this game! See, it’s nice and simple.) The freeze rule prevents smaller animals from running from a larger animals without help.

You: So you spent your evening learning to play a kids game? Worse yet, a kids game that teaches them it’s okay for larger animals to bully smaller animals?

Me: Now you’re just twisting things. It’s not a kids game. Several thousand adults regularly play this game online. Considering how hard it is to market classic style board games these days, that’s a pretty impressive number.

You: How do you know it’s not several thousand kids?

Me: Because the game was invented by Omar Syed. He has degrees in Computer Engineering and Electronic Engineering. He designed it specifically so that it would be impossible for current computers to crack the game without new advances in computer science and artificial intelligence. There is nothing elegant about the way computers have solved checkers and currently analyze chess. The program simply looks through millions of moves and counter moves until it determines the best one. The number of moves a computer would have to analyze to determine the best one in Arimaa is beyond current technology’s ability to brute force it’s way through. Thus, new methods of getting computers to analyze information will have to be created. Necessity is the Mother of invention, after all.

You: **Fake snoring sounds** I no longer care why you didn’t post last night. Just end this would you.

Me: Alright, let me just finish by saying that in order to encourage other computer scientists to be interested in this particular problem, Omar Syed has offered a $10,000 prize to anyone who can create a program that can beat three chosen humans best two out of three games against each opponent. The challenge will remain open until 2020. After ten years, the humans are still undefeated. :)

You: **Sigh** …hooray…