A Sunday Review

TV this week:

• Timeslip: "The Day of the Clone" - Final story of the series. All the various strings come working their way back together, and I get totally confused. I have a number of questions that might have been more clear if I'd seen the series closer together instead of spread out. Still, surprisingly satisfying series even after all these years.


• Primeval: "Series 4 Episode 3" - People come out of the anomaly into a theatre, followed by monsters. I'm really getting curious as to what Matt is up to. But I enjoyed the episode.
• Primeval: "Series 4 Episode 4" - Revenge of the nerds, as Connor becomes a role model in a high school incursion. That was one HUGE school. It was cool they could tap into the school's security cameras. Pity about the victims.
• Primeval: "Series 4 Episode 5" - The setting was great in this one. Beautiful cliffs and coast. And the cave was a neat trick usually read about in children's adventure series, not seen concealing a "worm". The science in this one was interesting too, and showed Connor's value in the field. But Connor already spilled the beans on Philip's outside projects to at least two people before he was warned not to... interesting.


• Being Human (US): "There Goes the Neighborhood, Part 1" - Definitely not the same as the British series. For one thing, Doomsday is a vampire. I like how his origin is changed from WWI to the Revolutionary War. And a quick intro to the werewolf's family. I wonder if the ghost's backstory will be the same as in the UK version.
• Being Human (US): "There Goes the Neighborhood, Part 2" - Good cliffhanger on the first episode, nicely resolved at the beginning of the second. But I was having deja vu, as the whole thing happened in the UK series. Things are happening much more quickly in this series. It's not a problem for me, since I know the set up, but I wonder if newer viewers will have trouble keeping up.


• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "The Knights of Tomorrow!" - An Elseworlds tale, sort of. I really enjoyed this one, as we see the future of Batman... or do we?
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "The Malicious Mr. Mind" - The Monster Society of Evil. I like Shazam and company, but I don't love 'em. And watching them battle it out just didn't do it for me. I was terribly amused by Batman's regression, though. Fun voices.


• Young Justice: "Welcome to Happy Harbor" - I really thought for a moment that Speedy would join the crew. I liked how Aqualad handled himself in this story, and I'm really looking forward to seeing more of him in action. Definitely an interesting addition to the Aqua-family. Finally, a calm character from the sea.

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My Comic related Kindle book this week was Agatha H and the Airship City by Phil and Kaja Foglio. This is the first book I bought specfically for the Kindle. I purchased it through the Amazon store and paid for it with some Amazon credit I got through the selling links in these reviews. So thank you to everyone who bought something through the links, allowing me to purchase this book and support two of my favorite creators. If you've read the graphic novels, the storyline will be extremely familiar, but the prose adds another layer to the characters even as it loses the joy of the artwork. This book covers the events in the first three collections of the graphic story, so if you've read them you'll find the story to be very familiar. However, there are significant differences, enough to make it more than worthwhile to have the prose book for a big fan of Girl Genius. I highly recommend it as just a great book, but it will definitely have added meaning for fans of the original comics. As with almost all Kindle books, there were some minor formatting issues, but it didn't affect the readability much at all.

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My Kindle book this week was The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz. I got this as an eBook from webscription.net a long time ago and finally read it after my mom recommended it to me. I'll note that I have a big pile of eBooks from webscription.net that I've added to my Kindle library and will probably read now that I have something to read them on besides my laptop. It's just way easier on my eyes to read books on the Kindle. Anyway, this book concerns the captain of a ship who rescues three girls from slavery, starting a chain of events that eventually impacts worlds. I loved the humor in this book. It was sometimes subtle, and sometimes whacked you over the head, but it was always funny. Add in a good dose of dramatic tension, fantasy elements hand-in-hand with hard science fiction, and you've got a great little book. Definitely worth a read if you have a chance. No wonder it's considered a classic.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist

Weird weather

It's cloudy but dry here at the house. But Laura, calling from church which is only about five blocks to the east, reported snow.

Hey!

It's Aquaman's Birthday!

Remember

Was it really 25 years ago?

My Ubuntu Adventure

My little sister Lisa gave me an old computer she had, a laptop that is even older than my now-ancient (by computer ages) laptop. It's a Presario 2200, and had Windows XP installed on it. I intended to use it as a mobile computer since my laptop's battery has long since bit the dust, and the Presario has enough battery left to be able to be moved, about 15 minutes worth of juice. I spent several days trying to remove enough of the existing software to make it usable for my tasks, but the thing seemed to get slower and slower as I went.

Over the weekend we visited family for our birthdays, and my evil twin Lisa told me about Dropbox. I'd heard of it, but hadn't really given it much thought. I hardly need a way to sync between my single computer, right? Well, now I have TWO computers, so maybe Dropbox would come in handy after all. Once I got home and got the invitation from my sister, I signed up and started to move every file that I felt was crucial to my computer life into the new Dropbox folder. However, to my annoyance, the older computer didn't want anything to do with Dropbox.

That sealed the deal. I decided to install Ubuntu on the new/old computer just to see what would happen. Lisa had reported that the CD drive on the thing was busted, so I prepped a USB stick to install from, and then attempted to change the BIOS so it would boot from USB. Ha. No such setting. I tried a number of ways to convince the BIOS that I really wanted it to read from the USB drive, but it refused. Argh.

So, I clearly needed to install a boot manager. I considered grub, but I ended up using plop. I had to install it on the harddrive, but not from Windows. This turned out to be a bit difficult, but through my Google-fu and persistence, I managed it. All that work, just to completely wipe the drive and install Ubuntu over it! Which is what I did.

And so I ended up with a fresh clean install of Ubuntu on this nice old computer. It was great except for one looming issue. I couldn't get the wireless network to work. The network card was disabled, the light that indicates it's on wouldn't even flicker into life. I had no internet. I tried about a dozen different things suggested by various sites I found on Google, but eventually I had to give up and plug the computer directly into the modem. After my last experience with network problems on an Ubuntu machine, I was just glad this one HAD a network port to plug into. Sure enough, there was a firmware driver download for the obsolete card in the Presario, and I was able to get the wireless working after about an hour of various downloads.

The next thing I installed was Dropbox. And working with my two laptops side-by-side, I set up a variety of things on the Presario that were already set up on Artie, my old computer. I got Firefox almost to the exact set of add-ons, and installed Calibre for my Kindle. I also installed a version of my password saver program that allowed me to share the passwords across Dropbox. My ReminderFox points to a shared file Dropbox now, and shows the same reminders on both computers. In short, I got all the browser stuff done yesterday.

Today I added Thunderbird email to the mix, and it took me awhile to get all my email set up the way I wanted. Especially since I choose to run an older version of Thunderbird on Artie, and I couldn't quite figure out how to install the same version on the Presario. At least I have email, and in a form I almost like. I also started to customize a bit more, and installed Wine.

Wine allows you to run Windows programs on Ubuntu. While I've been using open source software that is available on Ubuntu as well as Windows for most of my needs for many years, there is at least one piece of software I need Windows for: Calorie King. I wouldn't have lost 100 pounds without it, so I wanted to be able to run it on Ubuntu. And I'll tell you, it installed quickly and cleanly under the latest Wine, and runs great.

In any case, I'm nearly to the point where I'm willing to take Artie upstairs and make it a desktop in my room, while I use the Presario as my regular system. If nothing else, it would show me fairly quickly what stuff I've forgotten to set up on the Presario. And it is all just a step on moving away from Windows computers entirely when I can next get a new system. At least now I'm more convinced than ever that I can make that jump, and it won't be nearly as much a pain as I was afraid it would be.

Air Miles

If anyone has any Alaska Air miles they are willing to give up to get Eric down to a Jeopardy tryout, please let me know. Thanks.

A Poem

                The words
                             are
                                       scattered across
                                                             the page
         Splashed
                      droplets
                                    in a mud
                                                       puddle
                        The
                           meandering
                                     thoughts
                                make
                             no
                        sense
                             to
                                the
                                   modern
                               eye
                         when
                a life
                      can be contained
                                        in less
                       than one hundred
                  forty
                        characters.

A Hawk Got Loose in the Library of Congress

No, really... a hawk is loose in the Library of Congress main reading room. They are trying to catch it, but can't help educating people at the same time. Hey, they're librarians!

So you're not feeding it any mice?

No, and no bookworms either.

How much do you think the bird is worth?

Once we get it in hand, I would say it's worth at least two in the bush. Or at least that's what the Geico commercial says.

Will you be releasing any other wildlife into the Main Reading Room?

Staff are contemplating that, both to keep themselves alert and on their toes, and also to prevent researchers from taking long naps.

Happy Birthday Eric!

It's still strange that we have birthdays so close, but I still love it.

Happy (exhausted) Birthday to Me.

Yay.

Update: Hubby sent me link for Birthday: Sheldon.

A Sunday Review

Not much on TV this week, and I've only just begun to read the comic books from December, so it's a very light review week...

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This week's comic book related review was Dragonbreath: Curse of the Were-wiener by Ursula Vernon. Danny the dragon and his iguana friend Wendell have to deal with a very dangerous hot dog in the school cafeteria. This one breaks the established pattern of going off to visit Danny's relative via the awesome bus system, but it still manages to get a great little trip in as well as a genuine climatic fight. I'm looking forward to the fourth book, coming out in March.

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My book this week was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and translated by Reg Keeland. My mother-in-law, who has fantastic reading tastes, loaned this book to me with a warning that the violence in it was graphic, although necessary for the story. The story focuses on an industrial family and their dark secrets, and a financial reporter hired to solve a decades old mystery. The first half of the book was fairly slow as the situations were set up in great detail, but eventually the action started to pick up. As for the violence... yikes. This book is very much about abuse. In particular, the abuse of women in Sweden and the inability of women to fight back legally. There are a couple of other types of abuse (the poor cat!) but it's mostly the abuse of women. I don't plan on seeing the movie, although I won't avoid it, but I might try to check out the second and third book eventually. If only because the end of this one left the title character on something of a cliffhanger. Definitely not a book for everyone, but I understand why it's a bestseller.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist

Swagbucks

Most of you can simply ignore this, thanks...

The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Arizona Shootings Reaction

Driving in the Snow

I'm a snow wimp. I freely admit it. I don't like driving on even the lightest amount of snow. I remember Seattle, and I remember a particular drive home in the snow in which I was clearly being protected by a higher power... because I'm just not that good a driver.

It snowed last night. Not much. Barely an inch, if that. But it was enough to put a layer of snow on the roads which were compacted into ice by traffic.

And Eric needed me to run some errands for him today, including mailing a job application. I told him I might not do it, and he was slightly annoyed but understanding. It was him being so understanding that guilted me into doing it. I decided to take the risk and drive down to the post office despite the snow.

For the most part it was fine. The layer of ice was worse on some corners, and it was sometimes difficult to get the car to start moving again. But that's better than having trouble stopping it, so I won't complain about those instances.

The biggest fear happened when I was almost home, and I stepped lightly on the brakes as I approached a stop sign. And the car kept moving, with a strange noise underneath that sounded like paper being crumpled. I wasn't going very fast, and my instant panic was literally less than a second long. I lifted my foot off the brake and reapplied it, and the car slowed enough that I went safely through the stop sign and around the corner in a sliding motion that was very slow but at least controlled. Whew. After I was on the straightaway again, I tapped the breaks a couple of times. Same sound, but this time the car stopped. I continued homeward, and behind me I saw another car run the same stop sign going MUCH faster than I was, and slide up into the driveway of the unoccupied house opposite the sign. They got control and got back on the road, but it looked like a close thing. I turned off before I could see if they decided to risk speeding in the snow again.

So, mostly uneventful. But I guess I'm glad I did it. I may not like driving in the snow, but I'm going to have to get used to it this winter. We've got a major storm moving in tomorrow, and who knows what that will do to us?

A Sunday Review

TV this week:

• Primeval: "Series 4 Episode 1" - Connor and Abby are back! After a whole year in the Cretaceous? Still no Danny, but at least my favorite character of the show (Connor) is in the scene again. This was a pretty strong first episode that introduced the new cast nicely, but didn't do a lot of explaining for people who have never seen the show at all before. If you've already seen Primeval and enjoyed it, you'll probably like this. I sure did.
• Primeval: "Series 4 Episode 2" - Connor proves his worth to the project in a roundabout way. I was really happy with how this all turned out, and a little confused by the new plotlines. I'm looking forward to being unconfused by them as time goes by. Lots of good moments in this one with Connor and his old friend, but I was sure the guy would be toast before the end of the episode.

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This week's movie was Star Trek from 2009. I finally got to see this, and no, Sylar didn't overtake Spock like I expected, although there was at least one moment when he was throttling Kirk... anyway. I liked the alternate universe aspect, as it made the movie work even in the context of the series. That said, the ending surprised me. I fully expected the cosmic reset button to be pushed. On the other hand, if they did that, then how would they be able to continue the franchise? A fun little movie. And if anyone says, "that's not how it happened!" they can just say, "hey, it's an alternate universe, duh!"

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This week's comic book related review was Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs by Ursula Vernon. Danny Dragonbreath and his iguana friend Wendell return. This time they have to help out an exchange student, Suki, that Wendell is a bit sweet on. Seems she's being chased by ninjas. This is another funny and gentle story, with lots of in-jokes for adult readers. Again, it's mostly text with comic pages inserted within the story. I love the bus system in Danny's town. I picked up on the oddness in the first book, but it was made a little more explicit in this one with Suki's commentary. A fun series, and I've got the third volume from the library now so I can finish reading it.

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My library book this week was The Island of Adventure by Enid Blyton. A group of children on holiday find adventure under their noses. This is an old book, first in a series. I think that one of the books in this particular series was read to me as a child in a class, but my memory isn't clear on which one. I've sort of narrowed it down to this series, and I decided to go ahead and read them and find out if anything sounds familiar. I admit I already enjoy children's series, even formulaic ones, so this isn't exactly a tough task for me. And this was a pleasant little book, reflecting a little too much of the sexism and racism of its time, perhaps, but not as bad as some I've read. It certainly felt like it would be a good read-aloud story, so maybe I do have the right series. We'll just have to see as I read the rest.

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Agatha Christie this week was At Bertram's Hotel from 1965. At Bertram's Hotel you can go back in time and experience the true British experience, but Miss Marple thinks there is something terribly wrong. There wasn't really all that much to get with this one, as the behind-the-scenes bits helped to make everything pretty clear as the story went along. No, I didn't figure out the exact positions of the players until the reveal, but I had a good idea. I feel pretty sorry for Miss Marple in this one, as she never seems to get a real holiday. On the other hand, she seems to love the intrigue. This isn't the best Christie by a long shot, but it's a fun little read.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist

Condolences

My deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the insane shooter in Arizona this morning.

A fond look back at 2010

Dave Barry's 2010 in Review.

Why DRM Sucks

This is my own personal experience with an annoying bit of DRM. I'll not name names, but I'm sure those involved will know what I'm talking about.

First of all, DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It's the method that many publishers are using to try to prevent copyright infringement of their books and music online. When a file has DRM on it, the file is limited in where it can be used and how. For instance, a music file with DRM cannot be moved to a new computer and played unless you can authorize that new computer somehow.

In this case, the file in question was a book. It had been purchased some time ago by the reader, who wanted to share the book with his wife. The file itself was on his ebook reader, and he thought that, since he had paid for the book, he could simply transfer it to his wife's computer and she could read it. He couldn't figure out how to do it, which is where I come into the story.

The reader, who we shall name "Tim" for no other reason that it amuses me, asked me if I could transfer the file to his wife's computer. For ease of telling, I'll call the wife "Jane". Tim showed me his reader, the SD card he'd put the book on, and explained the problem. I said the problem might be DRM, which Tim didn't know about. All he knew is that he'd bought the book for almost as much as a hardcover, and he thought he ought to be able to lend it to his wife. I asked if he remembered where he'd bought it. He didn't.

I took the SD card and loaded the file into my computer and tried to read it. Yup, DRM. I told Tim that there was no legal way for his wife to read the book on her computer. Tim was disgusted. Again, he asked what DRM was supposed to do. I answered that almost all publishers assume that their customers are criminals and put restrictive DRM on the books to prevent copyright infringement, but it doesn't work because the savvy can easily strip DRM and share the books anyway.

Tim wanted to know if I could strip the DRM off his book. I told him it was probably illegal, but I would try if it didn't bother him. He told me that he'd paid enough for the book that he wasn't concerned about the legality in this particular case. He just wanted Jane to be able to read the freaking book. So I tried. And failed utterly. I'm a techie, but there are things you have to know to strip DRM from a book, and finding those on an unfamiliar computer and an unfamiliar operating system was just a little bit beyond my technical competence.

Depressed at my failure, I resorted to Pirate Bay. And promptly found a non-DRM copy of the book. I *ahem* acquired it and loaded it onto a USB card, then put it on Jane's computer for her. She was delighted, I think, and I hope she enjoys the book. I asked her to delete it when she was done, as it's not a legal copy. However, it seems to me that it was a moral copy. Tim paid for the book, and should have the ability to read it and loan it out as he pleases. That DRM doesn't allow this is both an insult to the consumer and a sea change in the way people do business.

The thing that really bothers me about this incident is that the DRM forced Tim to be what the publishers thought he was (a copyright infringer) in order to do something that all people who buy books take for granted: the ability to loan a good book to a friend. By automatically assuming that all their customers are thieves, they make thieves of their customers.

I've noticed that some ebook readers are trying to address the problem, usually with more technology that is bound to go wrong. The latest Kindle apparently allows you to transfer a book to a friend's Kindle for some time period. And other readers already have that functionality, usually in the standard restrictive way. I appreciate the effort, but why not just trust your consumers instead?

The books are going to be pirated. Period. It's going to happen. Instead of taking it out on the paying consumer, make life easier and better for the people who pay. Personally, I'm in favor of marking the file when it is purchased with a user ID embedded in the code, preferably a couple of different ways so it's not easy to remove. I don't have a problem with a file I buy having my name on it. I have a problem with it not working on my computer/ereader because you've put DRM on it that breaks it.

As for the actual problem, the piracy, there are lots and lots of ways people have come up with to deal with it. Some work, some don't, but at the moment most of what's in effect punishes the paying customers and doesn't affect the pirates one bit. If anything, it increases the demand for clean, non-DRM pirate copies. Which emboldens the pirates and, if anything, makes their efforts seem more acceptable to people like Tim and Jane, who just wanted to read a freaking book that they'd already bought.

Down with DRM. There's got to be a better way to protect copyright than crippling the format.

CameraPhone Zen

New Year's Goals

My (public) goals for the New Year:

1) Get a job.

2) Work out on the Wii Fit or by Walking on a regular basis, and work my way back up to daily workouts again.

3) Start counting calories again so I can get back to my ideal weight.

4) Continue writing daily at 750words.com. If I don't have access to a computer, write my words out longhand.

5) Start to find a career. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

A Sunday Review

TV this week:

• Doctor Who: "A Christmas Carol" - To save a ship in danger, the Doctor must convince an old man to change his ways. I really don't like it when the Doctor messes with the past. And while his cause was just, I really felt like he was going way too far with way too much recklessness in this one. Still, ignoring that, it was a fun story. I loved the appearance of "Bruce" (as we've dubbed it) and WOW can that lady sing. I adored the running gag of what Amy and Rory were wearing. And you know, it just wouldn't be a Doctor Who Christmas story without snowfall. Also, I loved the steampunk inspired setting of the story, and would have enjoyed seeing more of those costumes.

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This week's movie was Despicable Me. A villain threatened by a younger and more successful villain finds his schemes backfiring. Over the Christmas break, my sister took the family out to see this at a second-run theater, and I really enjoyed it. Nice contrast of the three girls, and the villain was likable enough to make you want to root for him, even though you know darn well he's a bad guy. And making a Bill Gates look-alike as the real baddie was a nice touch. I loved the pyramid in his back yard painted to look like the sky. Of course, the high point of the movie was the minions. They were a delight, and I'd love to see more of their antics. Their hunt for a toy unicorn was one of the best bits of the film. Definitely a good one for the kids, and a fun little popcorn movie for adults.

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This week's comic book related review is Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle. This is the story of an artist working for a French company who goes to Pyongyang in North Korea to supervise the animation of a show. He gives a scattered account of his trip through his notebooks. Each day he sketches in his notebook on the right-hand page, and writes a few notes on the left. The result is a stark portrait of a terrifying society in which people are cogs in a great machine, and are so used to it that they aren't even aware that they are oppressed. At least, as far as the author can tell. It was a little jarring how Delisle describes the attitude of the North Koreans towards Americans, including using cut-outs of American soldiers as target practice and having a museum dedicated to the American atrocities during the Korean war. It's a quick read, and by its nature not a complete view, but it's more than most of us will ever see inside North Korea, and so worth a read.

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My book this week was Reengineering Health Care: A Manifesto for Radically Rethinking Health Care Delivery by Jim Champy and Harry Greenspun. I ordered this when it came up on the free Kindle books from Amazon.com. I have a strong interest in the state of health care in the United States, and I found this to be an informative read, even though it is squarely aimed at health care professionals rather than patients and other end-users. The ideas in the book are all about the delivery side and wisely didn't touch on health insurance at all. A topic covered heavily but not in great detail was the use of technology in health care, with commentary on just how backward our systems really are along with why it is so difficult to successfully update and integrate tech in the medical industry.

I want to go off the topic of the book for a second... when I lived in the Seattle area, my health care providers wrote out prescriptions by hand, my files were all on paper, and everything was done the same way I have always seen it done from the time I was a child. When I moved out into the boonies, far away from the big city, my new health care providers have netbooks that the doctors consult to determine what medicines you are on, instead of paper charts they have to manually update. They can send my prescription directly to the pharmacy from that same netbook. If the doctor wants to check on a symptom they aren't sure about, there is an internet connection they can use. In short, I think the health care delivered in Churchville is superior to what I was getting in the Seattle area as far as the use of technology to improve record-keeping goes. And you don't have to worry about a doctor's bad handwriting when they are sending the prescription electronically.

And that's just one of the kind of things this book covers. I don't recommend it unless you are either very interested in health care or involved in health care delivery (doctor, nurse, staff member), but if you have the interest this is a very good read.

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Agatha Christie this week was A Caribbean Mystery from 1964. Miss Marple is relaxing on a Caribbean vacation when death starts to stalk the hotel. I got this one. I got the motive and the murderer well before the reveal. True, I doubted that I'd gotten it at times, but was eventually vindicated in the end. And I did mess up on one of the facts. So it wasn't a 100% victory, but it was as close as I've come in the novels so far. I seem to have access to all the rest of the mystery novels, now, with only the collections of short stories in some doubt. So I might end up running through the rest very quickly this year.

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One last note. I don't think anyone has ever purchased anything for me from my wishlist without either telling me first or being related to me, but I've gone ahead and created a Kindle Wishlist for myself where I'll be adding books that I'd love to get on my Kindle. From here on out, it will be listed with my regular wishlist at the bottom of every review post. As usual, you may ignore it, but if you've enjoyed this blog over the years and want to pay something back (as well as give me more material to write about), it shouldn't be too hard to buy me a Kindle book. Even if you don't buy something for me, if you use my links when you shop at Amazon.com, I'll get a tiny cut. I'll probably use that cut to buy more Kindle books. Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading!

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist

Hello 2011!

I hope you're ready to impress me, because I really need some serious impressing.