Dave Nelson

I received this book while attending a workshop with Whitney Quesenbery and Steve Krug. It was a great seminar with lots of hands-on training in a two-day format.

If you read a lot of books on design and usability there may not be much in this book you have not read before, even so it can be a great resource for sharing with others and as a meta-reference for looking up more information on studies, experiments, and papers.

I also think this is a great book to thumb through while working on a design, maybe picking a random number from 1 to 100, reading that chapter, and then thinking about how it may apply to your design.

From the Susan Weinschenk’s web site:

You design to elicit a response. You want your target audience to buy, read, register — to take action of some kind. Designing without understanding about people is like exploring a new city without a map: results will be haphazard, confusing, and inefficient. 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People covers the psychology research that you need to know in order to design intuitive and engaging websites, software and products that match the way people think, work, and relate.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 as a reference and as a source of inspiration.

I read this book as an ebook on an iPhone using eReader Pro.

In the second book of the series we get some more time with Thaddeus, Gloria and the new magician nicknamed Houdini.

My favorite part of this story is when Ahazuerus, talking about himself and Thaddeus, explains to Houdini “We are two sides of a coin. He lacks empathy and tact, although he is slowly acquiring both. I lack drive and ambition, though I too am learning. We complement each other perfectly.” This really speaks to me; the two of them are growing together as a team and as individuals. It increases my desire to learn more about both characters and the characters that surround them.

From the authors web site:

The carnival is traveling among the stars, and finding all kinds of problems that Thaddeus Flint and his crew didn’t anticipate. What use is a wild animal tamer when the audience looks more like the animals than the trainer. Who would pay to watch Butterfly Delight perform her striptease when to many of them it seems like an unappetizing snake shedding its skin? One by one, Flint and his alien partner, Mr. Ahazuerus, must tackle each problem before the show goes broke.

I rate this book a 7 out of 10 and the complete series as a 9 out of 10.

Like the first book of the series I read this book on a Kindle and listened to it on an iPhone switching back and forth as needed.

Wow, these books are long. It took me a few weeks to make it through this one. But it was a great ride.

The story goes on and on with no end in sight. The characters are holding my attention and I look forward to reading the third book, although that will have to wait until June or so as I am in non-fiction book mode now.

I am still surprised by how much I am enjoying these books, especially given their length and relatively slow pace. I was able to sum up most of the various plot lines from the book to my wife in less than an hour, I left out some of the good bits so she will still have some surprises left when we watch the TV show.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clash_of_Kings):

A Clash of Kings picks up where A Game of Thrones ended. The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros are plagued by civil war, while the Night’s Watch mounts a reconnaissance force north of the Wall to investigate the mysterious people, known as wildlings, who live there. Meanwhile, in the distant east, Daenerys Targaryen continues her quest to return to and conquer the Seven Kingdoms. All signs are foreshadowing the terrible disaster that is to come.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10, it is even better then the first book.

This story is a first for me; I both listened to the audiobook and read the ebook interchangeably.

The audiobook is narrated by Roy Dotrice who does an amazing job performing all of the characters in this novel.

This is not normally a book I would read; I consider this to be ‘hard fantasy’ and my tastes lean more towards ‘humorous fantasy’ or ‘light fantasy,’ I think the last hard fantasy book I read was a Terry Brooks something or other back when I went to a friends house every weekend to play Dungeons and Dragons (actually that sounds kind of fun, hmmm.)

But, I enjoyed the HBO series on TV, so much so that I subscribed to HBO just to watch it, so I decided to give the book a try. I expected the book to differ greatly from the TV show, or vice versa, but I am amazed at how closely the two followed each other. The audiobook is almost 34 hours long and the TV series is less than 10 hours long but somehow they have fit everything that I consider significant into the show.

It was very interesting to go from listening to the book to reading the book. The transition was not always smooth. It was not easy to find my place when going from one format to the other, but the audiobook is truly unabridged so I was always able to find my spot and continue the story. I find that it is not always polite to wear headphones, but reading from an ereader is understandable, while at times reading from an eraeder is not appropriate but headphones are fine. By switching back and forth I was able to listen and read while driving, at the grocery store, in restaurants, at friends houses, while shopping, in bed, in a bathtub, in an airport, and on airplanes. How else am I to get all of these books read?

From the publisher:

In a time long forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons off balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. As the cold returns, sinister forces are massing beyond the protective wall of the kingdom of Winterfell. To the south, the king’s powers are failing, with his most trusted advisor mysteriously dead and enemies emerging from the throne’s shadow. At the center of the conflict, the Starks of Winterfell hold the key: a reluctant Lord Eddard is summoned to serve as the king’s new Hand, an appointment that threatens to sunder both family and kingdom. In this land of extremes, plots and counterplots, soldiers and sorcerers, each side fights to win the deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

©1996 George R.R. Martin, (P)2003 Books On Tape, Inc., published in arrangement with Random House Audio Group,a division of Random House, Inc.

I rate this book, both audiobook and ebook an 8 out of 10. If I could only have one version I would choose the audiobook and the wonderful narration of Roy Dotrice.

I played this game using a MacBook Pro and OnLive. It took me 33 hours to play it through on the medium setting; I earned 2,050 of 5,000 points and 28 of 49 achievements.

I really enjoyed the original Deus Ex back in the day, at the time the idea of “augments” that allowed you to update your player as you went along was pretty unique feature of the game. In Human Revolution the augments are brought to a new level.

The only places I feel this game stumbled is in explanation for how certain augments function and the number an location of side missions. There are a few augments that I thought would be always-on but instead require activation. I felt like I did a LOT of running from place to place for no good reason, just lots and lots of running. Not so much that it ruined the game but enough that I spent some time being bored out of my mind.

Also, I was unable to find any side missions later in the game, they may be there, but I did not find them. I enjoyed the early side missions and really appreciated the extra cash, weapons, and augments I was able to earn and would have really appreciated more later in the game.

From the game’s web site:

You play Adam Jensen, an ex-SWAT specialist who’s been handpicked to oversee the defensive needs of one of America’s most experimental biotechnology firms. Your job is to safeguard company secrets, but when a black ops team breaks in and kills the very scientists you were hired to protect, everything you thought you knew about your job changes

Badly wounded during the attack, you have no choice but to become mechanically augmented and you soon find yourself chasing down leads all over the world, never knowing who you can trust. At a time when scientific advancements are turning athletes, soldiers and spies into super enhanced beings, someone is working very hard to ensure mankind’s evolution follows a particular path.

You need to discover where that path lies. Because when all is said and done, the decisions you take, and the choices you make, will be the only things that can change it.

I rate this game a 8 out of 10 and recommend it for any fans of first person shooters.

I listened to this as an audiobook. Narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner the unabridged book is a glorious 38 hours and 34 minutes. I have read many of Neal Stephenson’s books and have liked them all, a few of them I have really loved, and this is one of the best.

The story is full of characters, but the time is taken with each one in turn to make them memorable and to draw you into their lives. By then end of the book I cared about the fate of each and every one of them. But this is not some slow moving drama, it is a rip-roaring fast paced action adventure that takes you around the world.

From the author’s website:

Neal Stephenson, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Anathem, returns to the terrain of his groundbreaking novels Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon to deliver a high-intensity, highstakes, action-packed adventure thriller in which a tech entrepreneur gets caught in the very real crossfire of his own online war game.

In 1972, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa farming clan, fled to the mountains of British Columbia to avoid the draft. A skilled hunting guide, he eventually amassed a fortune by smuggling marijuana across the border between Canada and Idaho. As the years passed, Richard went straight and returned to the States after the U.S. government granted amnesty to draft dodgers. He parlayed his wealth into an empire and developed a remote resort in which he lives. He also created T’Rain, a multibillion-dollar, massively multiplayer online roleplaying game with millions of fans around the world. But T’Rain’s success has also made it a target. Hackers have struck gold by unleashing REAMDE, a virus that encrypts all of a player’s electronic files and holds them for ransom. They have also unwittingly triggered a deadly war beyond the boundaries of the game’s virtual universe—and Richard is at ground zero.

Racing around the globe from the Pacific Northwest to China to the wilds of northern Idaho and points in between, Reamde is a swift-paced thriller that traverses worlds virtual and real. Filled with unexpected twists and turns in which unforgettable villains and unlikely heroes face off in a battle for survival, it is a brilliant refraction of the twenty-first century, from the global war on terror to social media, computer hackers to mobsters, entrepreneurs to religious fundamentalists. Above all, Reamde is an enthralling human story—an entertaining and epic page—turner from the extraordinary Neal Stephenson.

I rate this book a 10 out of 10. I highly recommend it for any fan of action, cyberpunk, or thriller genres.

I bought the entire Galactic Midway series many years ago to read on my PalmPilot. This is probably my 5th time reading them.

Sideshow is the first book in a series of 4 novels following a most unusual carnival.

From Mike Resnick’s web site:

Carny owner Thaddeus Flint kidnaps a rival carnival’ freak show, only to learn that the “freaks” are alien tourists visiting Earth in the one disguise they thought was safe from discovery. As they fall sick and go into fits of depression, Flint must work to keep them healthy and on display, which leads to a most unlilkely bond between captor and captives.

I rate this book a 7 out of 10 by itself and the “Tales of the Galactic Midway” series as whole a 9 out of 10.

Recently Onlive had a special offer to play Red Faction: Armageddon and Homefront for the 4 day Thanksgiving weekend. I didn’t like Homefront very much, the violence was a to much for me, but Red Faction: Armageddon was more to my liking.

Unlike Red Faction: Guerrilla, this version of the game is pretty much on rails with very little chances for the player to choose his own path. This is partly explained by the change in location, Armageddon takes place mostly underground instead of on the surface.

I did enjoy the new weapons, a few new mechs, and loads of new mobs.

I took me 11 hours to play all the way through the game at a medium setting. I was able to acquire 2,275 points and complete 25 of 48 available achievements.

From the Red Faction web site:

Half a century after the Red Faction resistance and their Marauder allies freed Mars from the brutal Earth Defense Force, harmony on Mars is again threatened but this time by a lethal force shrouded in mystery.

When the massive Terraformer that supplies Mars with its Earth-like air and weather is destroyed, the atmosphere turns to chaos, super-tornados and lightning storms engulf the planet. To survive, the Colonists flee to the underground mines and build a network of habitable caves.

Five years later, Darius Mason, grandson of Martian Revolution heroes Alec Mason and Samanya, runs a lucrative business from Bastion, underground hub of Colonist activity. Mining, scavenging, mercenary work–if the job is dangerous, Darius is your man. Few sane people now venture to the ravaged surface, aside from contractors like Darius and the smugglers who run goods between the settlements.

When Darius is tricked into reopening a mysterious shaft in an old Marauder temple, he releases a long-dormant evil and unleashes Armageddon on Mars. As Colonist and Marauder settlements are torn asunder, only Darius and the Red Faction can save mankind. The battle will take them across the storm-blasted planet–and below it, to the very heart of the unspeakable threat.

I rate this game a 6 out of 10 and recommend it for anyone looking for a quick FPS on rails fix.

I bought this audiobook from Audible.com.

Boy-oh-boy do I love me some Mike Resnick space bounty hunter goodness and this one does not disappoint. It is the fourth book in the Widowmaker trilogy, which is kind of stretching the bounds of the meaning of trilogy, but it has happened before and will again.

This audio book was created as a part of the Audible Frontiers program and I want to thank them from the depths of my geeky little sci-fi loving heart for creating such great productions.

The narrator Stefan Rudnicki voice requires me to turn the bass down on my car stereo so that I can clearly hear him, but his acting abilities are wonderful creating real depth and breadth to the characters that he portrays.

From the publisher:

There is only one thing that Jefferson Nighthawk, the original Widowmaker, really wanted to do, and that was retire on a far-away planet and raise a garden. There were still two clones of him to keep the peace and carry on his legend. Unfortunately for him, his two clones have come to a disagreement. When a widowmaker takes on a widowmaker, everyone runs for cover. There is only one man who can stand up to the clones of the Widowmaker… the Widowmaker himself.

©2006 Mike Resnick (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and a must read for all Mike Resnick fans.

I bought Trine as part of the Humble Bundle 3 and played it on a Mac using Steam.

I really enjoyed Trine, it is my favorite game from the Humble Bundle 3 package, it is the only one I have had enough interest in to play all the way through.

The game is a side scrolling fantasy game with 3 characters, a fighter, a thief, and a wizard. You use only one of the characters at a time to complete the puzzles, fight the bad guys, and make your way through the maze of world. And what a beautiful world it is.

I took a lot of screen shots, but none of them do the game justice. There is always something to look at, the static artwork is amazing and the animations are glorious. Looking at the screenshots on the Trine web site also fail capture the beauty of the world.

If you want to see a good representation of what the gameplay looks like check out some of the video in 720p on Youtube, they look great. The abilities of the players in the demo put my game skillz to shame, especially with the wizard, the idea of being able to make a plank that is falling then use it to run and jump over a gap is jaw dropping to me. After watching some of these videos I am eager to play through again trying to use some of what I saw.

From the game’s web site:

Trine is a physics-based action game where three characters allow clever solutions to challenges created by hazardous puzzles and threatening enemies. The gameplay is based on fully interactive physics – each character’s different abilities and tactics can be used to invent new ways to overcome obstacles and save the kingdom!

I rate this game a 9 out of 10, it would be a 10 out of 10 but the last level was beyond me without dropping the skill level to easy, and then it was to easy.