[{"content":"\nAllessandro the Protector Our adventure began on May 8, 2024 and ended one year later on May 28, 2025. It was a great year of gaming once a week on Wednesday nights.\nAllessandro, aka Alice is a Goliath from Bryn Shander, but he travelled to Waterdeep, Baldur’s Gate, and other places along the Sword Coast where his religious studies led him to becoming a Paladin of Helm with the ambition to be a member of the order of the Vigilant Eyes of the God.\nOn a stormy night in Baldur’s Gate Alice received a vision that called him back to Ten Towns to bring an end to the cold and darkness.\nBremen We start in Bremen, we have been here for a couple of years. At the Grumpy Moose tavern. Alice has joined up with a group of like-minded adventurers who all are bent on ending the eternal frost. Kavac is a female half-orc with many talents, Fierra is a tiefling with some odd thoughts on life and death, Snacks is the our little dragon-ish cleric of the night, Sylphine is an energetic fairy full of questions the desire to hit things with her oversized mallet, while Jon is strange guy with a lot of things going on. Oh, and then there is Derek, a ranger-ish type that is a bit of a mess.\nWe are approached by a lady offering us work. She tells us that things in the Ten Towns have been going down hill. She says there is something big lurking in the waters of the lake. The creature is big enough that fishing vessels have been going down. Maer Dualdon is the name of the lake. She pays us 5 gp each as a down payment.\nShe is looking for more information about the creature, maybe get a sample of it. Her name is Cassmina or Cass.\nWe get two row boats and head out to the lake. I tie a rope and stick to Sylphy And have her dip into the water every now and then as we row around. As we do this a large fishing boat makes crashing noises and starts to sink. We head for it.\nWe sea a serpent like tale in the water. It’s dropping scales and off of its body. There are a few sailors floating in the frigid water. Sylphy picks up some of the stuff in the water including a crystal and uses the rope and stick to begin rescuing one of the sailors.\nI row a little closer to Sylphy and the sailor and then grab some scales and crystals from the water. As soon as I pick up a crystal I get a pain in my head so I drop them into the bottom of the boat and the pain immediately stops. Sylphy grabs some more specimens and drags a sailor onto the boat.\nThe other group is rowing away as fast as they can and we do the same.\nAs we leave we see the larger fishing ship drop a barrel into the water and then it explodes and some fish float up.\nWe get back to Cass and give her the bits and pieces we found. It appears that she had a bet with the Habor master that we would die. She takes one of the crystals, gives us each 10 gp, I hold on to Sylphy’s share to buy trinkets with later. Sylphy is not interested in gold, but wants trinkets.\nWe go back to the tavern and Cass is there with maps. She thinks the crystal has something to do with the darkness and cold infecting Ten Towns. I carve up a couple of the “Young Sea Serpent Scales” with drawings of Sylphy and I on the rowboat and a portrait of myself. I give them to Sylphy as her payment.\nKava studies on of the crystals and learns a little bit, but not much.\nCass says her brother has another task for us involving a missing person in East Haven.\nTargos We rent some sled dogs and equipment for the trip and go to Targos. We turn in the dogs, all that goes well. The town cryer says something about missing researchers at Kelvin’s Carin. We see a strange man walking down the street, he is wearing a long coat and appears to be made up of 3 sections. He turns around and has the face of a kobold. As soon as Snax talks to him 3 kobolds shoot out from under the coat and run in every direction.\nWe go to the cryer and ask about the missing researchers, he tells us Sven is looking for them and tells us where to go. He is making potions. We talk to him about a job, he wants us to go to the top of Kelvin’s Carin and return with samples. He offers to rent us dogs to get there and back. He gives us some generic mountain climbing gear. It is going to take us about 12 hours to get from Targos to Termalaine to Kelvin’s Carin.\nTermalaine The town cryer here announces that black gems found in the mine, and then that the mine has been closed due to takeover by kobolds. We all look at Snax. He tells us that they employ the kobolds in the mine, but recently they revolted and have taken over the mine.\nWe would rather go on to Kelvin’s Carin, but that will take 10 hours, so we decide to go check on the mine before going to bed.\nWe go to the inn to learn more. The foreman who went into the mine to talk to the kobolds and never came out is a dwarf. The speaker, Orkas Matthews, is a half-orc. Fi try’s to pull some shenanigans but the party calls her on it, but she talks him out of 60% of the reward up front.\nWe head to the mine with our borrowed dog sleds, it takes an hour to get there. We get to the mine, it is a basic hole in the ground. There is a sign outside that says “Kobolds only, no on else allowed.”\nBefore going in Snax blesses me with enhanced dark vision. As we go in it gets very dark but it is getting warmer. Once we get in a little ways I start calling out. Looked at the floor and found rat and lizard tracks. Fi uses her raven and dark vision to see a lot further into the mine. We continue deeper. We get to a bottomless vertical shaft with a rickety crosswalk. We get across and there is a bucket for lowering us down. I volunteer to be lowered first, it looks to be about 50 ft down. Fi sends the raven ahead and doesn’t see anything special.\nAs we walk down a path Snax gets attacked by 3 kobolds. Snax, Fi, and Kavac kill one, subdue one, and the last one runs away to tell “Trex”. Then Kavac brings the dead one back to life.\nI give the guy one hit point and we start asking questions, he doesn’t know about the foreman. He tells us Trex has wings. He says the kobolds are afraid of the miners. He says they have been here about a week. His name is Grek. We tell him to take us to Trex.\nIn an alcove we find a Mind Flayer skull with a crystal shard where its brains would be. Kavac reaches in and grabs the shard, he hears voices in the far off distance when he holds it. It is a psy-crystal, if attuned to it will give him telepathy. Into the next room is a lot of Geodes and in the middle is a large black metal-like formation, floor to ceiling.\nFrom behind the rock a kobold comes out with fake wings. He asks what he can do for us. He says they have not seen the foreman. He says that when they came into the mine the miners ran away and did not fight. I ask if he would be willing to come up to the top and speak with the speaker of the town to see if they can work out a deal with the town.\nGrek has a bag on his waist that appears to be strongly magical. Fi charms him and try’s to talk him out of the bag, but it doesn’t work. Fi is a bit upset by this.\nWe walk up with Grek and 5 other kobolds. Snax gets attacked by a Grell once he is by himself. He does a great job beating them up and we are able to attack them from above. Kavac harvests the Grell for parts.\nWe get topside and load the kobolds up on the sleds to get headed back to town to talk with the speaker. Fi distracts Grek and The Face sleight-of-hands the bag from Grek and is possessed… Snax is able to cast Sleep and Fi digs through his stuff to get the bag. She also finds a holy symbol of bahamut.\nA ghost forms next to the satchel and ask Fi what she is doing. Fi makes some kind of deal with the creature in the satchel. The creatures name is Janeth.\nWe head to the tavern with the kobolds. We explain to the speaker that we believe the foreman was killed by a Grell. He says that he will have to talk the other townsfolk into being comfortable with the kobolds. He gives us the remaining 40 gp from the contract. He also gives us food and drink for the night. We get a good nights rest.\nWe are going to head out and check on Sven‘s research team. 5 hours of travel but get snowed in by a blizzard. Some of us go to the local magic shop to see what they have. Kavac shows the proprietor Ben a black crystal, he says it is magical but very strange. I trade one of my crystals with them for an Everbright Lantern. I have 1 black crystal left.\nKavac takes his to the potion shop to trade.\nKelvin’s Carin The blizzard ends and we head out to Kelvin’s Carin. There is a sled at the base of the mountain with dogs still tied up to it who are upset and hungry. We feed them and straighten out the sled.\nThere are crates where we find crates with rations. We get the dogs set up and begin climbing.\nDerek helps lead us up. After we make it up a ways there is an avalanche, we hunker down and it passes. But now something has happened and where Ten Towns was there is a huge White Castle. We climb up some more, find corpses of researchers. I search through them and don’t find any personal items to take back to their families.\nFi sees a flower that she has been searching for further up the mountain at the entrance to a cave that also has smoke coming from it.\nI give the last crystal to Sylphy so she can get 1 common magical “trinket”.\nBack to climbing.\nWe come upon a shimmering wall of rock that we are able to walk through. There is a howling wind and crackling of a fire. It appears to be a normal ice cave.\nIn a small opening we find 3 bodies, and on the floor and ceiling are ice spikes, in the middle there is a ring on the top and bottom with pointing to a large floating black crystal in floating in the middle. Derek takes a shot at it and it moves a bit but nothing else happens.\nThen mephits come out the walls and attack then the crystal moves around and blasts a freezing cold cone. Then sylphy whacks it with a maul and it explodes.\nTwo of the bodies are alive, Snacks gives them some hit points and they are feeling better but they are exhausted. They say they are researchers but they don’t know who would have sent us to find them. They say that they think someone is trying to merge the material world and the fey wild.\nWe spend the night in the cave and when we come out is snowing, but it is not a blizzard. We make it to the bottom without much drama. But the researchers sled and dogs are gone. It looks like they also tried to take our sleds, but they were secured better. It is going to take us about 10 hours to get back to town of Termalaine.\nWe get caught in stronger snowfall, but still not a blizzard. Then the ground starts shaking like giant stomps. Kavac is able to see a mammoth being ridden by a giant. I try to hide.\nSylphy goes out to talk to them and it is a Frost Giant who talks nicely to her. He says he is hunting a dragon named “The White Death” and he offers Sylphy the chance to join him in future hunts.\nWe rest up and continue on. About 4 hours out, the weather has let up a bit, and we are approached by another sled. They are a group of drugar and they demand all of our crystals. The fight ensues.\nSylphy surprises me by growing larger and larger until she is a large creature. She stands by my side and starts smacking on a guy in front of me.\nKavac does a big thing and the robed guy is destroyed. Then Sylphy takes out the guy in front of me and he turns out to be an automaton.\nTermalaine We kill them and get their 4 dogs and sled. Then we make it back to Termalaine but when questioned they do not know who Sven from Targos is and why he would be interested in the researchers. She reads Ryans mind and says his name Nass Lantonir and she loosely works with him. He is a divination wizard. She says that Nass is after her and is using us to follow her, she has something he wants. She says we need to go to East Haven and talk with her brother.\nI’m going to take care of the dogs. I buy enough rations for myself and for the dogs along with snow shoes and crampons.\nWe head to Targos on the way to Brin Shandair. We investigate an empty house that appears to have been Nass’, in it Snax touches a crystal ball with then cracks and shatters. Kavac finds a pouch with 300 gp. Sylphy finds a picture with a family in it and none of them are Nass. Snacks freaks out a bit and I go out in front of the house with him.\nKavac also found a cloak of protection which he kindly gives me, I attune to it ASAP!\nThen we move onto Brin Shandair where they want to do a human sacrifice to help alleviate the winter cold. “Aurel” is a minor god of harsh winters, she rules out of fear.\nWe hang out with Kavac’s family, they feed us and such. There is a lottery to pick someone to sacrifice to Aurel, no one we know was picked.\nEast Haven Then we move onto East Haven. As we arrive the town has gathered to witness the execution of Casamier’s brother, they have found him guilty of killing people. Turns out Casamier’s brother was a former red wizard and he was responsible for killing people on an expedition.\nThere’s a tower outside of town where they captured Casamier’s brother. We make our way out there, it is in terrible shape. We walk in through the rickety front door. Not much on the first floor, I climb the ladder up to the second floor.\nWillie’s sister Fierra sends her raven up to the third and then the fourth floors. On the fourth floor, the top floor, there is a guy rummaging through treasure. I confront him and he changes into Sven. I move to throw him off of the building and end up falling through the floor all the way down to the second floor.\nFierra talks with the bad guy, a human wizard, Nas Lantimere. She says her goal is to kill the god Aurel and the death of some citizens are inconsequential. She has an orb that she got from Casmina. She works for the Arcane Brotherhood.\nShe says she needs to find the Canonical of White. Shenanigans happens and then she dimension doors away.\nSylphy looks through the telescope. It is pointed at a large black spire in the distance to the east.\nIn the chest there are some books including research books on the Netherse… something or other and other history books. Then we hear the militia bell ringing in East Haven.\nWe head back and are told that someone is attacking the Town Hall. Once we are closer we are told we can either chase the assailants or investigate Town Hall. We follow their tracks and find them carrying a large statue of a devil lord made of black crystal. There are 4 large Drugar carrying the statue. They are headed to the closest exit from the town.\nWe do our best to stop them. After Some fighting they drop the statue, shrink in size, and run away. The statue is of a major devil of the ice level of hell. I use my divine sense and determine it is desecrated but is not actually a fiend. Sylphy touches the statue and becomes paranoid, Fierra shrinks the statue and Sylphy is able to take it back to the Town Hall.\nThe head of the town says they were hiding the statue, we think maybe we shouldn’t leave it here. We decide to go to Bryn Shander with the statue. We captured one of the Drugar and are going to interrogate it.\nHe says his king is Sunblight and they are agains Aurel The Frost Maiden. He Says they are making a beast that will destroy the Ten Towns and and kill the Frost Maiden. He says they will have an army soon. We turn him over to the townspeople to lock him up.\nA crier announces that ten people were kidnapped from Bryn Shander. We are going to head there to try and get the statue un-desecrated. Kavac’s mother was one of the people kidnapped.\nBryn Shander We have made it to Bryn Shander with the statue and give it to the people at the temple to un-deconcecrate and protect it. They say they will.\nWe find tracks of the kidnappers and they lead us towards Kelvin’s Carin. A blizzard hits and slows us down. We make it to the backside of Kelvin’s Carin in the dead of night, it is pitch black.\nSnacks gives us darkvision for an hour. Fierra uses her bat familiar to scout ahead and finds a Drugar in a bunker. Sylphy gets shrunken and goes in through an arrow slit. The Drugar was able to see some of us, we’re not very stealthy. He gets taken out before he has a chance to hit us.\nFierra sends the bat down the tunnel and it finds a full armory, enough to arm a dozen. Further along there is another Drugar pacing. Outside the party opens the main door and we find cages with goats and a rotting Ogre that is alive. We rush to fight the Drugar with Sylphy.\nWe defeat the first guy, a construct shows up and we start beating on him, Marty sees an invisible Drugar, Kavac finds a room with a bunch of cells and townspeople in them. Kavac’s mother is in there.\nWe defeat all of them and capture a robed guy who says in Undercommon that he is the sun of Sunblight and if we mess with him we will rue the day. I grab him and shackle them up where Kavac’s mother was being held.\nKavac saves his mother and Casmena. She tells us she is sorry for lying to us. Nas left her for dead and the Drugar picked her up.\nI collect a crossbow and 100 bolts.\nMarty and Kavac find the commanders quarters where they find a spell book, a note about a ferry in East Haven and a guy named Nildar, and color changing lantern.\nValene Harpell is Casmena who is a Necromancer. She raises the dead Drugar to pull her sled.\nWe decide to put up the drawbridge and spend the night here. We cook up a goat and get a long rest.\nIn the morning Sylphy starts acting strangely evil, as soon as I notice I give her a pair of manacles and yank the dark crystal crown from her head. She returns to “normal.”\nValene says that she was here to find magic and arcane things, they believe that a Netherene city was once here. While they were searching the never-ending winter started. She has lost an item that let her read Netherese. She thinks Nas has it.\nThey believe the Netherese city is buried under Reghed Glacier. They think that getting into the city will give them a way to defeat the Frost Maiden.\nStill in the outpost, Jon interrogates the prisoner with Marty’s help. He says that they are going to take over the Sword Coast and rule above ground. “Our Master will let our King rule the world.”\nValene uses Detect Thoughts and she recoils in horror, all she sees is a man trapped in ice. They are working with the dark lord Levestus, they want to attack an island to get the canonical of white.\nBrin Shandar We travel to Brin Shandar, the statue is no longer desecrated, the fence will give us 500 gp which we immediately spend on a dog sled and dogs. Our reward for bringing back citizens is 1,000 gp.\nSylphy buys some studded leather armor 2 healing potions. I buy 1 healing potion for myself.\nOn the way to somewhere else we stop in a town and meet with the speaker of the city. She gives us nice warm cookies that work us up and give a tiny bit of health. She tells us there is a white moose that has been attacking people.\nWe go out looking for the moose but it doesn’t show up. We spend another night and find the moose, its antlers are glowing. As we approach it, it runs off. As we follow it the woods twist and become more like the fey wild. We hear an owl hoot and see above us 3 owls with horns. We are unable to get closer than 100 ft from the moose. Then we see shimmery sprites, they are trying to talk to Derek, but they cannot be heard. It seems like they are a mirage.\nWe loose the moose but find fancy spot with a gazebo and sarcophagus. I think about my religion and don’t figure out much other than a relation to Selune. Kavac talks to the person in the sarcophagus. He tells him that he was killed by the Pale Prince, a winter fey. He leaves the sarcophagus and says to lead the way.\nSahune is the name of the mummy. We turn the dial and the platform descends 40 feet then the a room comes out and covers the opening. Then there is a night sky visible on the walls and ceiling. There are constellations on the walls, one of them opens up. In it is a room with a large tablet covering a wall that talks about Selune and the phases of the moon.\nSnacks moves the arrow again and the constellations on the walls rotate around exposing new ones. After moving it around a bit the decorations on the floor of the moon phases pop-up a little. Snacks steps on one and the phases rotate but nothing else. Then I step on one and it rotates again, I move to another and when it finishes rotating there is the mirror constellation and a new room is open.\nI look into the mirror and see stuff reflecting my desire to be a member of the Vigilant Eyes of the God.\nBlah, blah, blah, they open another door and find The Pale Prince’s domain… they quickly close the door. Sahune tells us that he was a part of the Pale Prince’s court and that the prince’s betrothed turned him down and that made him so bitter and upset that he turned away from the summer court to the winter court and became a bad guy.\nSomething about the Pale Prince not wanting to be in the material plane, but he wants something that is only available here. Derek seems to know a lot about the Pale Prince.\nIn the next room is a glowing chest. Snacks immediately jumps in and touches it and takes a lot of radiant damage and the sound of breaking glass. The chest is no longer glowing. In the chest is a +1 Moon touched long sword. Kavac is going to hold onto it tonight, but we may offer it to Sylphy later.\nThe next room is tiny but full of shelves with jars and the smell of death. Fierra goes in there and investigates the jars. They are full of organs. Kavac finds one of the jars is glowing, it is full of blood, and is abjuration magic.\nNext room… more abjuration magic and a sarcophagus. It is Eamar, Sahune’s lover. On the plaque is “Even in death, we will be together.” Derek tries to enter and finds he can’t.\nFierra tells Sahune. She has the idea of coming back later and raising Eamar for Sahune.\nSahune says that we can call on him in the future to help us.\nWe head out and go to the Speakers house to tell her about the moose. She offers us a run-down tavern as a reward.\nBlack Cabin Then we head out to the Black Cabin. The terrain gets rougher. It takes us an entire day get to the Black Cabin. It looks abandoned and in bad shape. I check out the outhouse and find torn notes being used as toilet paper. The notes are about the Netherese. Fierra uses her raven to look into the cabin. There is an incinerated corpse in the room. Then there is a burst of light like the sun and the raven is toasted. It may have been the weather device we are here to look for.\nIn a workshop room we find smith’s tools and tinkerer’s tools. In the main room I get out of it and move the next room where I find calligrapher’s tools and a scroll. Kavac picks up the scroll and investigates it, it is a note about a guy wanting to go back to Ten Towns and take a break. He mentions the summer star.\nSnacks goes into another room and find a clay statue of a tiny man. It is a dead homunculus.\nThe next room is a bad bedroom with a broken window and a lot of snow.\nJon steps into the far side of the room and the floor breaks and begins to fall away. Derek is able to save him with his bees. Then we see footsteps appear in the snow. We think it is the dead guy whose corpse is on the floor.\nI slide into the last room and all I find is wine. Snax comes into the room and says the ghost is upset we are messing with the barrels. I leave.\nOn the corpse Fierra finds and Amulet of Health that is the shape of Amon Tore.\nBack in the room where Snax found the statue Kavac finds blueprints on how to make the device and how to fix it. The ghost wants us to do it here at the cabin. Snacks picks it up and brings it to the workshop. Snacks figures out that 2 rings are not enough and a third ring needs to be constructed.\nFierra gives the creation of the third ring a try and is able to do it. Fierra also attunes to it and can now use it to control the weather. It allows her to cast the spell “Control Weather.”\nThe ghost really wants Fierra to activate it now. She wants to save it. We pack up the ghosts body and when we step outside there is a magic blizzard. Fierra decides to use the device. We see 6 horned owls spinning around in the blizzard.\nAs she activates it, it vibrates and levitates into the sky. 300 ft up boom and for 5 miles around the cabin for 8 hours it is summer time. We still have the blueprints to build another one. The ghost is now gone.\nWe now have the Blessing of the Morning Lord which gives each of us a little more life every morning.\nOff in the distance we see a large bird flapping its wings and headed our way.\nThe big bird appears to be made of ice. I hear a celestial voice in my head that tells me to trust and follow the light. There is someone riding the bird, it is an Ice Roc. As it gets closer, the air gets colder, sharply.\nThe creature riding the Roc has an owl face with horns and a glittering cape. I use my Devine sense and determine that the owl thing is celestial and god-like.\nJon talks to it, apologizing about something. An avatar of Amon Tor appears and tells us to run as it attacks the owl Who is Aurel. They go up and fight while a handful of mephits show up and start fighting us.\nWe defeat them all and head for the dogs. The gods are still fighting over us. Aurel does something to Amon Tor that causes him to drop. We rush to help him and he uses his last light to teleport us away with our dogs and sleds.\nJon throws another fit about being in the sun. We are on a glacier, we head towards a place that may give us some shelter from the oncoming storm.\nOn our way there we see a heard of animals crossing our path that are being followed by a tribe of people on sleds pulled by large animals. They are the Elk Tribe.\nAurel is a minor god of harsh winters and she wants to become a major god. She is fighting other gods to gain enough power to be a major god.\nJon admits to us that he had an agreement with Aurel, he talks with Kavac a bunch.\nAlong the way we find a goblin who has a map to a goblin outpost of the opposite side of Ten Towns. I bury it and say some nice goblin words over its body.\nAs we approach the spire, it is a 20 foot round mound made of black rock with a protrusion sticking out. We search the area and find a tunnel into it. We do some ritual casting and head on in with a bat leading the way.\nOnce we get down the rooms are upside down. There are statues on the ceiling and the door is 4 feet up and ajar. I climb over and find a door into a workroom. Sylphie goes digging through everything and finds an iron key. Then onto the next room. There is a metal chest stuck to the ceilin, it’s locked, but we have a key. Kavac sees 4 objects of abjuration. We get it open and there are 4 potions, of resistance, Acid, Cold, Fire, and Force ( I take the potion of Force ).\nAcross the hall is a room with books and a tunnel going down. There are 3 books about Netherese stuff. Then we go down the tunnel. There is a table on the floor and a corpse of the Thrikine, they are astral travelers.\nI figure out that this was once a ship of some kind.\nInto another room, there are 2 cages, it looks like this is a dissection room(s).\nThe next chamber down is a wizards workshop. Sylphy flys down and Derek goes down. We make it down there and find some scrolls. There is a scroll tube of scroll preservation and inside is a scroll of invisibility written in gold leaf.\nThree is also an alter with the symbol of Mistrul.\nSnacks opens a door and there are 2 guys in the room, they turn and look at him. One of them is undead. The living guy welcomes Snacks and says he is here to study. This is the guy that guy that got burned at the stake, he is a simulacrum. He says that they believe that there is a device here that can take an illusion and make it reality.\nHe says the device is on the next level down. They have heard something down below, but they don’t know what it is. Lucky flys down there and finds 2 basilisks.\nI put on a blindfold and drop down to the level with the Basalisks and rest of the party fights from above. They kill one of them and the other runs into another room. Fiera and other party members come down, Fiera looks at the basilisk and begins to petrify. There is also a large insect in the room.\nI find the Rune room which includes the device.\nWe defeat the basilisks and investigate the rooms. We find an invisible treasure chest and inside is an ancient spell book that crumbles to dust as the air hits it. We collect the permanently invisible treasure chest. Fiera also collect 2 eggs and stores them in the chest.\nFiera and the ranger run out of the tower while the rest of us hide and wait for it to leave so that we can help the simulacrum become a person. The creature crashes through the building and goes after Fiera.\nWe go into the room with ruins and activate the device for him. A wizard appears and says a bunch of stuff we don’t understand. He steps into the space and Snax activates the machine… and he disintegrates and the ghost becomes inert.\nTo our knowledge the chamber has a chance to work, but something went wrong this time.\nLooking for magic items on the petrified figures. Jon finds a pair magic boots, but they are petrified along with the person wearing them.\nZhent Bandits We head up and see that Fiera and Derek have taken Kavac’s murder bird and run towards East Haven. We get the dogs ready and follow them. Along the way we see bandits, they are dragging a Ten-Towner and we decide to try to rescue them.\nAnd the fight is on, it is 5 barbarians that have been infected by the dark crystals. They are able to attack us 3 times in a turn. It is a slow slog of a battle. Their crystal weapons poison us. I am able to take most of the attacks protecting the rest of the party. Eventually we taken them out.\nWe see in the not so distance a large carriage being pulled by bears coming towards us.\nDerek yells down from the carriage, I go up inside with him. They are Zhentarum shady folks. They tell us that they will take us to Revel’s End. Jon has a heated conversation with the Zhent leader, I do my best to ignore them. The guy I meet in the bar is talking about a traitor, when I ask for more information they really don’t have any more information.\nFiera talks with one of the leaders and they admit it is a Dragonborn, but they don’t say a name.\nKavac and Jon are in a room talking with the Zhent leader, stuff happens Fiera fires a couple of knock spells, the door opens and Jon is lying on the floor. Kavac tells us he is ok and for us to hold on. Meanwhile Snacks is in another room and he figures out a puzzle that opens a cabinet and a dead body falls out that looks a lot like Jon.\nThe head Zhents name is Emerick. He wakes up Jon and gets everyone to calm down.\nEmerick get the construct, Jon hides somewhere, and the construct is brought out and the announcement is made that Jon is dead and Emerick killed him.\nSome other stuff happens and we leave the carriage before reaching Revel’s End. I get out and start unloading the animals and sleds.\nWe are headed to Revel’s End to find a big bad guy that may have information about how to stop the winter.\nI summon my Axe Beak steed for the first time. Their name is Beaky.\nIn the distance we see a large round structure with a tube sticking out of it. Like a large size igloo. We see a mammoth walking into it. We avoid it and go to a Zhent shelter to get a long rest.\nGiant Igloo In the morning we decide to go check out the igloo. Sylphy and I go into a side entrance and find a frozen orca and a chest. Kavac find a handful of cold light walkers (undead) in another room.\nSnacks goes in the main entrance and sits on a big chair he finds. There is a hacked up frozen frost giant. While snacks is sitting in the chair there is magical wind blowing around him and he hears in his mind the giant word for “go.”\nSylphy sits on the thrown and says the word “ice” and a storm starts surrounding the igloo, as soon as she gets off the thrown the blizzard dies down.\nIn another room is a giants bed roll. The next room has barrels of whale oil and some materials that can be used to make potions of cold resistance.\nSylphy find the ghost of a small human child hiding its face and crying. It turns around and is missing its face. It says “it is coming” and disappears. Then an undead frost giant is in the thrown room.\nWe defeat the frost giant skeleton quickly and 2 townie glowing guys walk in and the bright light they bring with them wreaks havoc. After a long fight we find a magical brass warhorn with a ruin on it that says “war.”\nJon figures out the warhorn is something for protection when blown any fear disappears and our armor increases, it is a “Warhorn of Valor”.\nJon heats up the frozen chest and finds some carved bones.\nAs we are leaving we see some Griffons with riders in the sky.\nRevel’s End We load up the sleds with 1 barrel of whale oil and head out to Revel’s end. The road to Revel’s end is quite hard. We take the Mountain route. As we move along a blizzard is coming. There is an avalanche concern. We stop at an overhang to wait out the storm.\nI get hit on the head by a rock dropped by guys on birds above us. Derek says they are Parrotens. Then we get attacked by 3 crag cats coming up the trail. 2 of the cats and one of the birds get killed the other 2 leave.\nDerek harvest the cat and gets 9 pounds of food. 2 cr1 magical parts.\nWe finish our rest and make it Revel’s End. It is a very large place.\nWe go to the main entrance, they say we need to turn over our weapons and stable our animals before coming into the visitor area. We wait there for the commander. She comes into the room and we explain why we need to talk to Prisoner 237 and she shares that he may be insane.\nWe are taken into an ant-magic zone and the prisoner is in the room reading a book looking smug.\nThe prisoner is named Falish Gant. Jon begins asking questions. He wants some entertainment, we are thinking of the books we picked up at the Library, but have to get them approved by the warden.\nThe warden is in her quarters up in the tower. We go up and blah, blah, blah something about a ghost inhabiting the warden.\nWe go to the kitchen, the rest of the party is looking for drinks.\nWe spend a bit more time with the warden, choose to give them the fiction book, and it takes a full day for them to go over the book and get it ready to give to the prisoner.\nWe try to take a nights rest but an alarm goes off in the middle of the night. I jump up and start putting my armor on. Once I get my armor on I head out and find a dead guard, I take his long sword and find Drugar fighting with guards.\nAfter a bunch of fighting Fiera overhears the Drugar Prince free his “brother.” Eventually all of the prisoners are set free and roaming the prison.\nGant is trying to get out of the anti-magic zone. We run into Gant in a hallway. The warden shows up and tells us to take Gant to the interrogation room we were in earlier.\nGant tries to escape, casts Sleep on Derek and climbs up a ladder, I grab him and pull him down and sit on him and wait for the Warden and other party members.\nGant seems to know a lot, but we don’t trust him to travel with us. We leave him with the Warden and head out going to the Treasure Ship by the way of Lonely Wood where we are selling rubies that Snacks has for 300gp and party members are buying Axe Beaks.\nWe see what looks like some members of the Wolf Tribe in the distance as we travel, they may be following us. As we travel they are getting closer. When we stop for a rest a rider on a Winter Wolf takes a shot at Derek with a long bow and then moves away again. We head back out.\nNow we see there are multiple guys and a lot of wolves and they are in a half circle around us. They take another pot shot and Derek is able to hit him.\nHour 9, traveling, and they are shooting at our dogs. Hour 10 Derek finally hits one of them enough times to kill him. But then a Winter Wolf pounces on Jon. Blah blah blah… We kill 2 of the archers.\nNow we are trying to take a long rest. We’ve got the Hut with the dogs in it. I’m resting with all my armor on and cuddled up to Beaky.\nWe get woken up to 3 studded leather armor guys riding wolves and a wolf on its own. We start the fight. We get the first guy down ok, and a long fight… one wolf gets away.\nThe tribes:\nBear – Preservation Elk – Endurance/li\u0026gt; Tiger – Isolation/li\u0026gt; Wolf – Cruelty/li\u0026gt; I kill the guy we captured and turn him over to Fierra. We search the other bodies, they all had a Cloak of Elvin Kind. The cloaks look like pelts of winter wolves and are a signature of the Wolf tribe.\nWe mount up and head out for another hour. Along the way we see that there is a magical blizzard between us and Lonely Wood. Up on a hill we see a nomad in bear skins and we decide to go say hi.\nHe is traveling the way we came from. He greats us, we tell him to beware of the wolves and he says that they will leave him alone. We ask him a lot of questions. He sounds good to travel with us for a while. His name is Ontuk. We head out and continue traveling toward Lonely Wood.\nWe get through the hour and get a short rest. Hour 16 another travel hour, the magical blizzard is 2 hours away. We wagon up and try to take a long rest. 3 hours in Ontuk tells us that we are being attacked. We fight the guys off and get a long rest in.\nThe blizzard is still there, it’s 4 hours out and is staying in place. It looks like it would be an extra 4 hours of travel to go around it.\nWe tie each other together and head through it with Ontuk’s help. We hear metal scraping ice. We see 2 black eyes staring at us. It is a visage of Aurel watching us. Ontuk says she has taken an interest in Derek. Then everyone starts seeing things that are our personal fears.\nAurel speaks to us and says she can change it all. The blizzard subsides.\nLonely Wood Just outside of Lonely Wood we go to the tomb/mirror…\nWe go to the Divination Mirror, the door is still open to the Fey Wild, the mirror still has 2 brazier’s lit above it. Sylphie asks the mirror “What is your favorite chocolate?”, one of the flames goes out and it does not answer as the mirror doesn’t know about chocolate.\nJon asks it “How do we find the island after it moves?” And it shows him 2 separate pathways, one with a whale that has a boat on its back and another is a tribe of people raising griffons in the mountains. The final flame flickers out.\nThe griffon people are at a place called Sky Tower. The Goliaths bond with griffons for life.\nNow in Lonely Wood we are selling the 8 dogs the kennel’s guy agrees to buy them. Everyone except Sylphie now has an Axe Beak.\nSylphie buys components and she spends all night making me a Flail with the symbol of Helm on it and a copy of the trinket with my face on it. The handle is a giant bone with carvings along it.\nIn the morning we head out to find the SOS that Kavac heard. We stop off in Brinshander for a bit then on to Dougan’s Hole, a tiny desolate village. Then on into the mountains.\nThe Mountains Up onto a plateau, the mountains appear to be broken unnaturally, trees are flattened, the damage is not recent, probably within the last year. There is an obvious lack of animals. The SOS signal is getting stronger.\nIn a large clearing there is a crater with a Nautiloid. Kavac teaches us all about Mind Flayers. The ship doesn’t look too bad, it should still fly. As we get closer Kavac hears words from the ship saying that it needs help.\nThere is a Clay Golem walking around on the ship. On the outside are a number of carrion crawlers. They attack us and the fight is on. We kill them fairly easily.\nWe climb up onto the deck of the ship. Jon wants to approach the Golem and have a conversation with it. The door opens and “Intruders, Intruders.” In the room there is the Clay Golem and 3 squidlings. Fierra fireballs the kids killing them. We fight the Golem for a bit then a guy comes down the stairs and tells the Golem to stop.\nHe tells us that they crash landed here and need a psy-crystal to take off. It is a Gnome Ceremorph. He says they have been out here about a year. There is a lot of talking and we agree to give him the crystal for trips, a helm of telepathy, and eyes of minute seeing.\nOur next stop is Brinshander.\nAlice was out of it for awhile and when he recovers…\nDrugar Fortress The party has just stepped out of the Fey Wild and we are close to a fortress and behind us is an army of Drugar that want to take over Ten Towns and make it their new twilight domain.\nThe current task is to get into the fortress and destroy a big weapon that we believe they are going to use to destroy the Ten Towns.\nThe main entrance is 100 feet up. We spend the night in Snax’s hut and then make our way up to the entrance. We hear a scream and a Drugar falls from the top of the fortress.\nSylphy flies up to some windows and hears a lot of big hammering and chain dragging sounds. Inside she sees a lever. She goes in and tries the lever and here’s something move.\nDerek opens the front door and behind it is a portcullis, it raises slowly. Down the hall there is a tall figure, a Mind Flayer, with the dark crystals as a blindfold. It floats toward Sylphy and then floats back.\nThen Derek does what he does and the alarm is sounded. I move into the room and see the guy who announced “intruders” through an arrow slit. I also cast Bless on Derek, Jon, and Snacks.\nThere are 6 or 7 Deurgar attacking us. After much fighting we defeat them.\nKavac sends a familiar to scout ahead and find the room making the loud hammering sound that is shaking the fortress. He sees a room with a conveyor belt feeding the hammer and then taking its product away. There are Duegar engineers and hammerer’s along with slaves of many different races. The slaves are wearing chardalyn collars that are biting into their necks. Also in the room is the heart of a red dragon beating. Above is a red dragon made of crystals and dark iron, something picks up the heart and puts it into the dragon (Mecha-Godzilla). Kavac uses minor illusion to show this to us.\nSnacks stumbles into a room and finds some stuff. Most importantly a map with a dragon figurine on it. He removes the dragon without looking at where it was on the map… but there was a base left of the map and when a lever is thrown it shows a path from place to place hitting all of the ten towns.\nThere is also a stone chest, Jon gets it open and finds treasure and a scroll with a number sequence on it in Dwarvish. But then there is a click and a gargoyle on the wall begins spewing a poison gas and the only door to the room is locked.\nOn to another room, the one with the lever, there is an elevator shaft.\nAnother room has a big table in it and a desk. Nothing of interest.\nIn the next room Kavac hears people talking and eating. A female voice calls out and says she knows who we are and that we are out there. She is only speaking in Dwarvish, she tells us to come in and relax. There is pseudo-dragon make of chardalyn.\nShe talks to us a lot. She doesn’t care for the king but won’t really help us. The prince also has 2 sons. There is also a training room somewhere. She is supposed to become his wife. There is a tunnel through the under dark to get out through the prince’s throne room. The other elevator is in the training room.\nShe also tells us that if we shout her name while in battle some the Duergar may stop fighting us. She teaches us how to say her name in a way that may get her people to fight on our side.\nOn to another room there 4 suits of plate armor and 3 dummies without armor. As soon as Jon enters the room the 4 suits of armor animate.\nOn to the next room we find the guy who kidnapped Kavac’s parents . Kavac starts working on him. I end up executing him.\nIn the next room a tiny Duergar makes Sylphy attack Kavac.\nStuff going on in the room down the hall with Kavac, Sylphie, and Jon. I’m still in the bed with the dead prince in it. I make my way into the room and find them fighting a mimic chest and a tiny Drugar. I help with the chest and the rest of the party takes out the Drugar.\nWe move on to the elevator by the entrance and send 4 of Fiera’s skeletons and her familiar up. One of them comes sailing back down and pops when it lands. Sylphie, Fiera, Jon, and I go up in the elevator and find 2 enlarged Drugar waiting for us at the top.\nWe take them out and begin exploring. The area is very loud with mechanical sounds. I open a door and a mechanical Drugar attacks me, Jon and Derek take it out quickly. The next door is more of the same.\nThe next room is much bigger, it is a shop for making and maintaining the constructs.\nBack in the workshop Jon finds a Slick Shot (15 feet of rope that pulls you, towards large things or small things to you (like spider-man)).\nIn the elevator rooms there are levers to open the hatches on the launcher shaft. We make sure they are closed.\nWe go back to the middle floor and formulate a plan. Jon, Derek, Sylphie, and an Uber Skeleton get in the elevator to go down. It is 200 feet down. We all get down there, it is a small room, lots of noise from machinery. Jon opens the door and there are 2 Drugar just outside the room.\nWhen they see us they choose to ignore us As they are the Lady’s men. We “sneak” past them and find ourselves in the Throne Room. There is a bunch of fungal folks in here.\nThere is a Micoden Sovereign here and 4 Quagoth. There are several bodies hanging from the ceiling, Humans, Dwarves, etc… with crystals pierced into them. We want to save the Micoden. As I enter the room Fiera super-sizes me!\nAs the fight goes on 4 more Quagoths come out of a side room and attack. We eventually defeat them all, the Micoden dies along with one of Fiera’s skeletons.\nOn the other side of a door we hear armor and weapons moving and gathering.\nI open the double doors and step into the ext room and get flambé’d, I step back and tell the party. They open side doors and find 4 Drugar. We kill them and through slits in the walls can see other Drugar and slaves mining. After a bunch of talking I push through and attack a spider with a rider.\nAfter the spider dies I get spells cast on me that causes me to attack party members. Lots and lots of fighting… we eventually defeat them all in this area and we try to figure out how to free the slaves.\nThey talk with Averus and she says she wants the Codigal of White from the glacier to get access to the Mithal city to give us more information about how to get to the island.\nWe head on to the next area looking to free some prisoner/slaves. We find a Goliath Warrior Kappanuck, he wants to return to his clan. Then a human from Dugan’s hole, we set him free also.\nAvery’s repeats her offer… we don’t take her offer… yet. Alice is very focused on stopping the never ending winter™, but doesn’t want to make deals with Evil to get it done, but if other party members make the deal he would not stop them, but he would not be a part of the contract.\nAverus is trying to free Levestus, Levestus is all about the chardalyn, and the Drugar are mining and collecting the chardalyn.\nOn her way out Averus gives us a key to the door to the forge, but tells us that we will need a second key to open it. On the door are a lot of Dwarvish Ruins glowing with magic.\nSnax goes to another door down the way, inside is a statue made of obsidian, chained to it is an orc whose body is almost all made of crystal. A Drugar comes out and tells us about Deep Dora and the orc.\nKavac figure out something is up and I use my divine sense to determine that the Drugar is actually a fiend and the room is desecrated.\nAfter more investigation it turns out the Drugar was a high level Devil. Livestus was using the Drugar for something.\nThey did a lot of fighting, there was a bunch of treasure, a glowing rune that is a key to the forge.\nWe break the jar and are enveloped in a bubble including Fiera’s skeletons. We are in an extra dimensional pocket. We get a long rest. We have the 2 keys we need to get into the forge.\nWe stealth up and begin heading to the forge, we can hear the heartbeat. The skeletons open the door and it is a 30 foot hallway to another door.\nWe go through that door and find the King, 2 hammerers, a mind guy, and 6 slaves. We take out the mind guy and one of the hammerers pretty quick. Chains come out of the walls and grab ahold of me and pull me towards “the chute.”\nI break out of the chains… turns out when the dragon’s heart gets attacked the chains pull anyone attached to them.\nBlah, blah, blah. The Sunblight has been defeated and the Drugar threat has been resolved. The Sunblight lineage is no more.\nGoldoffa tells us that Ten Towns is safe and that we are welcome to use the forge. She tells us that there is an Elderly woman with Axe Beaks headed our way, Vallin.\nI spent a lot of time and a bunch of gold for Sylphie to make Plate armor for me. Also found a magical Shield that also expands my protection ability to 30 feet, and a magical Light Crossbow.\nThere was an orc chained up in a chapel but he is gone now and the desecration of the chapel is now gone.\nWe go up out of the keep and meet up with some guy. We learn that the directional orb is pointing at the center of Auriel’s island where the Conical of White is located.\nDugan’s Hole We go to Dugan’s Hole and there is a mob of townsfolk outside of the town who have a prisoner they are encircling and angry with. “kill the heretic!” Fiera and others execute a plan to fake sacrificing the guy. When the guy comes too… he’s kind of a jerk, we talk about taking him to Good Mead.\nGood Meade We get to Good Meade and the people there are all talking about how great the Frost Maiden is. Fiera casts suggestion on him to help him not get killed by the locals. I figure out that the change in perception by the locals is being caused by the honey from the bees.\nDerek figures out the bees are not really bees and their defense is a “persuasion honey.”\nEast Haven Eventually we make it to East Haven. There isn’t anyone outside. We come upon one guy in the street, I approach and a bone devil unfolds itself from the body.\nThe bone devil says some stupid things, Alice is doing everything he can to ignore it and to move on with fighting the storm.\nI buy some healing potions for Sylphie and I along with Arrows as backup for Derek and a Signal Whistle for the group and a bell for Sylphie.\nWe do some shopping and then go out to the Wizard’s Tower.\nWe also spent some time with Valiene, she says she is researching things, like where to take the Canonical of White. She says she will meet us in Bryn Shandair.\nHans We are going to Skytower Shelter, where the birds and Goliaths are. It a 50 hour trip by Axe Beak. 25 miles outside of town, Derek sees odd shaped lumps in the snow. Fierra spends 5 minutes getting her skeletons prepared to fight. Turns out they are fresh killed deer, their blood is still fresh.\nAs Fierra begins to walk away Hans bursts out of one of the dead Deer. He says he lives “here” in the wilderness. Hans and Sylphie do some arm wrestling and drink some of Hans’s alcoholic drink. Then we notice the sled with the skeletons moving away from us no longer attached to the Axe Beak. Fierra yells at the skeletons and Hans yells, “They found out, run!”\nHans begins to escape and then Fierra casts a spell on him telling him to come back. Hans also gets grappled by Sylphie and he gets pulled by a rope tied to a snow leopard stretching him out an uncomfortable amount. I go over and cut the rope.\nKavac gets the other two to stop. Then… blah, blah, blah, Hans is elected King of Clan and leaves. We’re back on the road heading to Skytower Shelter.\nSkytower Shelter As we get closer we see Griffon’s in the air. As we get closer I introduce us and the Goliaths say that we are not welcome and demand us to prove we are not with Ariel. We show them the navigation stone and explain what we are trying to do.\nAfter a lot of talking the Goliaths say they want help with something. We get to that village and find them playing a football game, “Goatball.”\nAfter a lot of talking Sylphie talks me into joining her team, but the guy says we have to try-out and that wouldn’t happen today. The clan is Worm Doom.\nAfter the game there is a dinner and party with lots of socializing. The king of the clan wants the Griffon Clan to apologize for something that happened a very long time ago. Snacks is proposing that they set up a game of Goatball between the clans and the losers have to apologize. The King says that our team will need to win a game before he would be willing to allow this game.\nGoatball Gooooooaaaaaaattttttttbbbbbbaaaaaalllllllll!\nWe are going against the second best team. They are the Wormdoom clan of the Wormdoom Crag.\nWe win Goatball but the Goliaths are not happy about it, we were boring and didn’t fight enough. The chief agrees to play the game with the Skytower Clan. I explain to the Chief that all they have to do is beat the Wormdoom Clan at a game of Goatball to get their apology and there is no doubt they will win.\nThey start playing and end up just fighting and doing nothing to win the game, then one of the Skytower Clan gets a spell cast on him and falls asleep. After some negotiations they agree to let Alice sub-in for him. The game restarts and Alice focuses on beating on the Wormdoom Clan players with his warhammer.\nThen there is an intermission, the crowd starts a bunch of mayhem. Someone has stolen all of the goat balls. Derek tracks them down and find them with the Griffins. Derek is able to talk with them and the Grriffins say that a Goliath dropped the balls there who had a pointy crown. All four balls are deflated from the Griffins nibbling on them.\nDerek and Kavac talk with the teams to figure this out which leads to all of the clouds in the sky going away revealing a blood moon. Derek yells at us all to get ready to fight.\nWe move towards the village and there is a guy in red robes on top of the dragon skull, it is Dazahn, an evil wizard guy. He says he has what he came for, a large piece of pure Cyrstaline Chardalyn. He says he needs it for his research on the Netherese. He sends the crystal away and says we can take him but we may have big trouble coming soon.\nAfter Kavac does an Augury thing with Lathander he tells everyone that it is time to go. We get on Griffins and head out. We get to the Skytower Clan’s home on the edge of the weather control. The Chief sets us up with Griffin’s that will take us to the island and wait up to 3 hours to bring us back. We are now honorary members of the Skytower Clan. We fly off to Aurel’s Island.\nAurel’s Island It’s going to take us an about 12 hours to get there. We go over the sea of moving ice, below we see moving islands and some boats. In the distance we also see a white dragon come out of the water and fly away. We come across an island in the shape of a snowflake in the ocean, it is moving.\nThere is a giant skull in the center of the island. Once we get within 2 miles of the island we are surrounded by fog, we can only see about 200 feet. We are here to Codical of White. The skull is at the very top of a mountain. Jon is telling us that Aurel has a butler that is a huge asshole.\nWe get closer to the skull. As we land a dork comes out and tells us that we cannot land on the skull and need to go down to the entrance or he will call the Frost Giant guards. We fly down and see a forest of ice trees and ice sculptures that are actually creatures that have been frozen and died.\nThe dork comes out and says welcome to the Island of Solstice. His name is Zaba, he is a Mephit. Off in the distance we hear a monster out roar of a Yeti. He tells us there is a survivor from a ship wreck on the other side of the island and we will pass a maze of sculptures.\nWe see some Amon Tor type magic. Jon and Zaba have an argument about his ”badges.” We go to see the survivor. When we get closer it is Nas and they are dead, they have an orb in their hand and there is a Spirit animal of a weasel. Derek talks with the weasel and it says the orb is very important and it talks.\nSylphie picks up the orb and Professor Scaunt starts to talk with him. I look closer at Nas and determine that he was killed by necrotic magic. Sylphie asks the professor about what as had been talking with it about and it replies that Nas was interested in a Tarasque. About every hour a bolt of light bursts from the skull clearing the fog for a minute.\nThe orb says that he is an expert on the Netheral. He also says he was passed down from the Narfell family. It asks to be put down, it then casts mage hand to carry itself around. I want the orb to be placed in the bottom of someone’s bags.\nAt the entrance to the skull there is a pair of sculptures that give us a riddle. There are 2 doors, one is doom and the other is the entrance. We spend time asking stupid questions. Sylphie opens one of the doors and sees that all three doors open to the same room. We go in.\nAll the walls are mode of ice full of dragon bones. On the floor is the name Grimscale in the Giant language. We hear some heavy breathing down the hall, very deep breathing. Jon opens a door and there is a withered old frost giant there sitting in a room. He says something like “finally death’s sweet embrace and starts to attack us.”\nThe old man hobble up to me and whacks me. We eventually knock him out. In the room is a bunch of money. We wake him and he tells us that he is the only Frost Giant left in the castle. He tells us that the Frost Maiden leaves every night to spread the ice with her Roc. Also she gets visitors of Druids and they left an awakened Walrus. The Conical is in a vault in the dungeon and to get it you must pass Aurel’s tests. Sounds like Jon already knows them. Then Derek kills him. We place his body back on his stool propped up with his weapon.\nIn the Feasting Hall there are stairs going up, Kavac’s bird went up the stairs and found that it leads to the top of the skull. Then back towards the entrance there is a room full of rusted out giant sized weapons. Kavac takes a helmet and puts it on the dead giant.\nThen we find a decaying kitchen. It’s been a long time since there have been frost giants here.\nIn the next room there are ice gargoyles. They are Ice Mephits. On to the down staircase.\nThe stairs are slippery so I stop and put crampons on. It leads to a vaulted chamber with an Elephant sized Walrus having sliding around on the icy floor.\nHe tells us there is a Tomb of the Frost Giant Queen and that the vault is in the other direction. I eye Jon and let him know that I expect him to take the tests.\nI have found an Alchemy Jug that is able to spew out a large quantity of mayonnaise every day!\nThe Challeges Endurance Challenge On the ice with the Walrus. Only one of the doors is lit up, it is labeled “Endurance.” “The hardest part of any journey is the beginning.”\nJon opens the door and it is an empty room. We enter the room and the door shuts behind us. We get surrounded by a small blizzard the quickly recedes and we find ourselves in Icewind Dale. There is a tribal marker with a deer skull on it. We can smell roasted Elk.\nUp a small hill we can see a small tribal camp with a handful of tents. There are a number of Elk nearby. We see a chief wearing an Elk skull with large horns. They are sitting around a fire telling stories about endurance.\nHe sees us and invites us to join in. His wife is pregnant and about to give birth. He tells us about the Frost Father.\nThe more we learn the more we think we are now way in the past. The skies are clear and the Frost Father is a long dead god who was neutral good compared to Aurel’s evil.\nThe wife brings me an Elk Scarf, it is Cold Weather Gear.\nWe ask him about floating cities (they may be the Netherese) and he describes one over the frost shelf.\nThe chief’s wife sets us up with nice elk bedding and the elk join us to help keep us warm. The sun comes up but we don’t get our temporary hit points. We start to gear up to move on to the next location.\nWay up in the sky we can see a black circle, a small black dot, the tribesmen tell us that it is the floating city. In the direction we are intending to head the sky is black and it looks like there is a strong blizzard coming.\nWe get started moving and for the first 8 hours everything goes great. Then the blizzard hits and engulfs us. We can only see 30 feet.\nAt hour 11 the elk we are following come stampeding past us. After some tense moments a white dragon bursts from the ground and swallows one of the tribesmen and knocks the pregnant down. The dragon eats all of the tribesmen leaving the pregnant woman who has been injured. Snax and I heal her up and she goes into labor. Snax helps her and she delivers the baby. The baby is kinda weird, it doesn’t seem to be bothered by the cold.\nIt is a baby girl that seems to prefer the cold. We rope up again and head out. Kavac becomes an elk and knows where to go.\nAfter 14 hours we make it out of the blizzard and make it to a campsite with pitched tents. It is the bear tribe. The wife says that she is about to pass and asks us to look after her baby Aurora. She says that we have endured the harshness of winter.\nThe bear tribe ushers us into their camp. We become incorporeal and we see the wife on an elk with a baby be welcomed by the bear tribe, the wife is dead.\nWe are back on Aurel’s island. We still have our levels of exhaustion. The Endurance room’s door is no longer glowing, now the Preservation room door is glowing.\nAbove each player’s head is 1/4 of a snowflake probably signifying the we have 1 of 4 challenges completed.\nPreservation Challenge We then go into the Preservation room and as soon as the last person enters the door shuts and the wend blows engulfing us in our own personal blizzard. The blizzard clears and we are in a Bear Tribe camp full of dead bodies.\nWe hear a child crying and find a pre-teen in a tent, I think it is Arora the child from the Endurance challenge. Kavac gets on Beaky and tries to circle the camp but as soon as he leaves from one side he reappears on the other.\nThe child says they came in the night and killed everyone. Kavac sent up his familiar and it was immediately attacked and killed by vultures.\nBlah, blah, blah, a guy appears at the edge of the camp, I run as close as I can get to him and tell him to stop right there. He ignores me and goes on by.\nThen there is a cracking sound and hands come up out of the ice and grapple people. They are very hard to hit.\nThen we hear a voice that says “break the chains.”\nI enbiggen and grapple one of the hands and drag it 15 feet out of the ground. Then a psychic blast goes through the party and knocks some of us down and damage us.\nSnacks grabs the kid and fly’s away, when they leave the camp they…. We see an owl fly away with the girl and find ourselves back in the room and the door is open to the ice rink area.\nThe floor is much clearer and we can see a staircase below with a pedestal holding a book with a white cover. The only way to get to it is through the ice.\nCruelty Challenge The third door Cruelty is lit up and open. We go through the door and the swirling and we are in a small village with wolf tribe guys. They appear to be starving to death, looks like they have eaten all of their dogs.\nI give them 4 gallons of beer and they fight and even kill each other over it.\nThe leader says they have to kill old people to eat, Sylphie and Jon both kill someone. And we are back in the room. There is cracking noises the entrance to the stairs is no longer covered. Also Jon, Kavac, and I now have 3/4 of a snowflake floating above us.\nIsolation Challenge The next door opens and it is named Isolation. We step in the room, blah, blah, blah “Rawww” tiger clan leader yells that the Frost Father has sent people to help them. We see Aura lounging bandaged up as though she had been recently injured. Aura is now about 60 years old.\nSylphie asks her about the 3 headed man and she asks how we know of him. She says her name is Aurel (like the snow god). She points to the Netherese city in the sky, it is much closer to the ground but it does look fine. We can see wizards flying around the city casting spells.\nWe are stuck in this camp for 80+ days and even though I am teaching everyone Goblin and all about Helm Aurel is going a bit crazy. Kavac listens into her thoughts and hears an outside voice talking to her. Snacks goes into her tent and finds it covered in writing, he has a vision where he is in a black void for years and years before snapping back. Sylphie goes in and comes out mentally and physically damaged.\nDay 120 she is ripping the flesh from her face and saying that she has to leave her flesh behind to ascend. Snacks finds out there is nothing we can do. Blah, blah, blah, she is transformed, blood everywhere.\nAnother day goes by and Aurel is now a large winged owl-like being and flys away. We are now back in the room.\nThe Codicil of White The professor, guy in an orb, is talking with us in the big room. We get everyone headed down the stairs moving towards the [Codicil of White](https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2188449-the-codicil-of-white). On the way down there are various things until we come upon the book.\nI missed that an Avatar of Lathander is stuck in the ice here, I want to help Kavac and Sylphie break him out. Jon reads a ritual from the book, things begin cracking, Lethanders Avatar, a Humanoid male, breaks free but so does a Frost Giant and from the top we hear Auril as her avatar coming down the stairs moving towards us. I Lay on Hands with Lathander and give him 15 hit points.\nEverything else is blocked off, we need an exit now. Lathander is waking very slowly. Kavac “reduces” the Frost Father who is the Frost Giant. Sylpine has us all on ropes and is trying to pull us all up the stairs and out of the island. But Aril wraps Sylphie in her wings and says how she is happy to see him and that we all need to rest.\nAuril is trying to drag us back down the stairs. I push the button and Channel Divinity to embiggen myself and +2 my weapon.\nWe do make it up to the second floor but one of the pillar’s turns into a gigantic hand and grabs Sylphie who is Huge. Now there is a voice in our heads saying “I’m free, you have freed me from my prison.” From the void pit below pit below stuff is coming out.\nAuril is now leading us up the stairs and is upset about what is happening. We are being led to the roof. We make it to the roof Auril takes us and throws up on onto her gargantuan Roc (bird).\nThe dull of the castle is crumbling and now looks like an enormous skeleton that is climbing its way out of the Void very slowly. Auril had frozen him to protect the world and now we have ruined that. She was using the power of the Sky Father and Morning Lord to stop the Void guy.\nDerek gets a message that someone has figured out a way to get into the Netherese city. Auril tells us to go to the city and retrieve the [Ythryn Mythallar](https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2188403-ythryn-mythallar).\nAuril tells the bird a command and those of us who cannot fly begin to fall into a magical blizzard tornado that is below us. We all fall into the blizzard. The last thing we see is the Frost Maiden sending shots into the void. We get stretched and fall into a pile a snow and Valine is asking us how we got there.\nAuril used the Mytalar to capture the gods… something, something. I don’t really understand.\nThe Glacier Jon uses the ritual from the Codicil to open the glacier in front of us. Then Valine sees the orb I have and wants him because he was handed down through her family for years. I give the orb with the professor to Valine. She put him on a leash.\nWe move to the glacier. We come upon a ship, the Professor tells us some details about it. He says many Netherese vehicles used mini Mythalars. Kavac hears crackling fires from surrounding caves.\nWe go down some stairs and see a tower embedded in a wall. There are Ice Mephits in the ceiling, like 7 of them. The professor tells us that the tower is constructed of Netherese magic.\nWe hear of a voice in Goblin coming from the tower, “I smell fresh flesh.” There is mist coming through the holes in the tower. Sylphie leads us past the tower and it leads us back around towards the tower. There is a retreating goblin that the Professor says was a vampire spawn. I try to ask it where it is going before hearing the professor.\nWe have found another chest and this one has a frozen lock on it. We ask the Professor about the size of the Mythalar and he thinks the one we are looking for is very very large, like building sized.\nJon is able to open the chest and finds 2 potions of Superior Healing. I take on and Jon takes one.\nThere is a hole, Jon drops a torch down the whole and it silently slides down. We talk about it a lot and decide going down the hole is not our first choice.\nJon finds some Draconic Script and a magic button. Jon pushes and an “arcane eye” appears next to Jon. The script says to press the button and get a tour guide to the city. We can’t see it but Jon can. He sends it down the tunnel and then into the tower…\nJon has found what looks like an iron golem head with glowing eyes. Kavac has a familiar that is also checking things out.\nWe go into the room with the big iron head. Its eyes blink at us. Kavac asks if it can speak to us and it blinks once. Jon names him Headwig. After a few crude attempts at communication we give up and start moving further into the dungeon.\nJohn uses his Arcane Eye to scout ahead and finds a bunch of skeletons. Then into the next room where a bunch of shadows attack us. Fierra drops a fireball on them and kills them all.\nFierra and friends go into the cavern with frosted skeletons and feel an intense hunger. One of the skeletons has a symbol of Mystral. Fierra, John, and Sylphie have something making them hungry, they have to eat a ration every hour to keep from having exhaustion. Fierra is able to raise 9 skeleton allies.\nWe take a short rest so Sylphie can restore lost strength. After the rest we feel a bit of a quake. Sylphie goes down a hall and a voice comes from the passageway speaking a dead language and a Spectre comes out of the wall.\nIt runs through the walls a bit and causes a bunch of noise which brings vampirelings to come after us and then it gets killed and the vampirettes attack. We kill them off and move on.\nThere is a man with frostbite with his mouth agape wondering around. Derek throws a rock at him and he dissipates into mist.\nLooking around we find a section of wall that is solid ice, Sylphie breaks through it. We find a skeleton with jewelry. There is another ice wall and Sylphie breaks through that and there is another skeleton and this one has a mantle of magic resistance (Sylphie), a crystal ball and a staff of charming made of Netherese crystal (Fierra).\nSnacks grabs the crystal ball, shows it to us and it is broken.\nWe move along to a large cavern.\nSomething happened to Kavac’s familiar bat, it went out to the room and came back and attacked him before he dismissed it. The room in front of us looks like a clear ice rink.\nSnacks takes a run and slides across the ice, he falls and sees in another chamber a white dragon and squeals in fear. Fiera’s skeletons shoot arrows at it and they pass right through, Kavac looks closely at it and figures out it is an illusion, I try speaking to it to persuade it that we mean it no harm and it ignores me. Also I see a 4 tentacled thing frozen in the ice. Snacks casts dispell magic at the dragon and his spell is somehow countered.\nThe dragon flies over snacks and breathes on him and he reacts like he was fully damaged by it but Sylphie and I don’t feel anything coming off of it.\nFrozen in the ice we see a tentacled monster frozen in ice. We start moving towards it and it appears to be casting a lot of spells at us. The gravity gets reversed slamming us into the ceiling. We make our way over to the monster and start bashing our way through the ice to get to it.\nThen the monster disappears and all of the magic stops. Snacks casts Featherfall on me and keeps me from getting hurt from gravity returning to normal.\nSylphie figures out that the monster banished itself and will return in 1 minute. We get out.\nThe Netherese City In the next room there is a block of smooth gray-green stone without frost on it. Fierra has a skeleton touch it and it is a sticky mimic and the skeleton is stuck to it. It kills that skeleton and moves on to the next one. Sylphie flies up and starts bashing on it, Derek puts some arrows into it, Fierra casts a spell on it, the skeletons take shots at it and one of them hits and kills it.\nWe take a short rest and send the bat and a couple of skeletons into the next room, they see a room with mirrored walls. We move on from there into another hallway and we come across another large room.\nThere are trees! 6 exits. There is a female what may be a dryad. Kavac talks with her. She tells Fierra that it is her grove and that she is very lonely. We sort of make friends with her and get her permission to take a long rest here. She offers us purple pears and Sylphie eats one and then lightning erupts from her and deals a lot of damage. She says that the Netherese magic has warped the fruit.\nOn to the next room… the dryad stops us saying that she does not want to be left alone. She is now trying to charm us, but fails, we leave her behind crying.\nInto another room, there is a giant sized spear with an obsidian tip, it is frozen in the ice, it glows with a faint cold light. Sylphie starts digging it out and Fierra tells the skeletons to help carry it out. Sylphie touches the spear and gets visions about the spear, a giant used this spear to kill a dragon. Sylphie is now connected to it in some way.\nSylphie tells us about the Frost Giant Ural that Killed an Ancient Frost Dragon by itself.\nFierra sends her owl into the next room and sees 3 priests bowing down to a statue. We get into the room and the statue looks like a high level wizard with lots of adornments.\nThere is a plaque under the statue that goes on and on about how great the wizard is/was. The priests are dark elves, Fierra approaches them and pulls its hood back to reveal that they are Knopix, one eyed scaly monsters.\nFierra’s skeletons shoot a knopix and it screams but does nothing to save itself. Something something something.\nAveris shows up and starts shouting, she has 2 gargoyles with her. Calling one of a traitor, the ice beneath our feet begins cracking. Valine now has Jon’s backpack and the Codicil of White.\nFierra and Derek teleport into Valine’s globe of force, she teleports out and casts Fog Cloud into the globe blinding Fierra and Derek and covering her escape back the way we came.\nSnacks chooses to go sliding down the ice chute and discovers it was not lava but a glowing pool of roiling red water. In the middle of it is a pile of very large eggs. From out of the water Rumoraz comes out and attacks Snacks who flies back up the chute to the group.\nDerek lights it up with Faery fire and we attack it. After awhile it gets beat up enough that it runs away.\nWe now make our way to the city where it smells like lot rotting corpses. There are lots of tracks, Valines lead to the edge and we figure she feather-filled down. There are also a lot of Knopix tracks.\nWe make our way down.\nSomething, something, something. Up the street there is a Cloudkill that looks like a person. There is a large glowing circle moving around, it feels like a Zone of Truth.\nJust inside the gate is another statue to the pompous wizard.\nIn the middle there is a spire with buttresses that lead to other portions of the city. To the left is a small section of city with a bunch of building, to the right is a stadium. Fierra is trying to figure out how to get the maximum number of zombies.\nAveris walks off.\nKavac spots some tracks and we follow them into the city blockade. All the building are made of black marble. Every now and then there are more statues of the pompous wizard.\nWe make our way over to where one of the buttresses from the spire comes down to street level. As we approach we hear marching. We hide in the shadows and see humans walking/marching the city with armor, they also have green skin, they are not breathing, but they are acting like normal humans. They have 2 mages with them. We wait for them to pass.\nWe continue to the buttress. There is a gate with an arcane sigil on it. There is a force field keeping us from getting to the gate. Fierra looks at the sigil and sees that it signifies all the schools of magic. Fierra shoots the sigil with cold touch and the spell disintegrates before doing anything.\nAbjuration Magic Snacks see some stuff further down the way. Snacks starts wondering off and we decide to follow. We get to a smaller tower, at its entrance is a forge with the symbol of abjuration. It has a blue light in a window above. Kavac send Batty up to the window and sees a glowing anvil and 4 statues dressed as the marching humans we saw earlier. The forge area looks dirty.\nSnacks opens the door at the base of the tower, inside appears to be a typical smith’s shop. He then heads up the stairs which go all the way to the 4th floor. We follow 32 feet behind him. Snacks gets to the 4th floor which doesn’t have a door.\nThe room is messy and dusty. He moves into the room and grabs a hammer from the glowing anvil. The “statues” who are dressed as mages, move in and attack Snacks with lightning. Snacks recognizes that they are high level constructs. We take them all out.\nWe find the body of a human that appears to be the mage smithy whose room this was. Snacks goes back and picks the hammer up again. A voice says in Snack’s head saying “Bring me your items of power and I’ll destroy them!”\nSnacks notices an inscription on the ceiling In draconic. It reads _“First, shield thy heart with a wand from the Nether Oak.”_\nSnacks uses the hammer and anvil to destroy one of the trivial magic items, on the third strike the item is destroyed. Snacks keeps the hammer but as we leave it disappears from him and teleports back to the anvil.\nWe decide to go look at the park to see if the Nether Oak is located there. On the way we see a barrel in the middle of the street. Fierra’s owl goes over to take a look at it. It’s a mimic and the owl is destroyed.\nTakes us 30 minutes to get to the park. The branches of the trees sway even though there is no wind. In the center of the park is a large oak tree. Around the large tree there are digits in the ground. I approach the tree and politely ask for a wand. It replies in Primordial which only Kavac understands.\nIt is a nihilist tree who is ready for the world to end. Turns out it is Treant. He wants us to bring him a creature he can crunch and squish before he will give us a wand.\n30 minutes away we find a bazaar/marketplace. In a building we see a wardrobe thrown out of a window, there is huge creature raging inside. Kavac send his familiar and finds a headless iron golem tearing things up. We figure it is the body to the head we found earlier. Kavac talks to it some more, the head is at least an hour walk away.\nOut in the street there is a well, Snacks throws in a coin and there is not a splash. Then we hear movement in the well. We hear slapping of something slimy. Snacks looks in and sees a red slimy thing with multiple mouths, heads, and arms. We try to lead it to the Oak.\nIt is huge. It is a gibbering 5 headed aberration. It takes us 15 minutes to get back to the Treant who then attacks it. The fight goes on for 10 minutes. The Treant rips off a long branch and hands it to us. We now have a _Wand of the Nether Oak_.\nThe Library 20 minutes from the bazaar is a library. We head to the library. Fierra and Kavac debate on who should go in first. Kavac goes in and sees a Jackal headed guy and penguin in a leather harness. He says something about Kavac and Fierra being librarians and needing their help. The penguin and Kavac have a telepathic conversation. The Jackal says they seek a book to get them to the inner sanctum.\nAs we move around the library the Jackal stays right behind Fierra and the penguin stays within 5 feet of the Jackal. Kavac lets us know he is talking with the penguin about his situation and he says that he has been polymorphed from an human magician into a penguin by the Jackal and wants our help. The Jackal is only telling us lies as he is desperate to get into the inner sanctum.\nKavac does find a journal written by a survivor of the fall.\nKavac then casts Dispell Magic on the penguin and nothing happens. The Jackal was aware that it was going to happen and he let it. I sniff out the Jackal and he is a Fiend, a very high level fiend and caster, an Arcanaloth.\nFierra tells her skeletons to attack the Jackal and the fight is on. Snacks summons a celestial! After a little bit o fighting the Jackal and Penguin plane shift away. The party spends a bunch of time looking for and reading books. We leave and go to another tower.\nIt’s another tall tower with a broken roof. Above the door is the symbol for divination. The tower is about 40 feet tall. Fierra is casting arcane eye and sends it up to the roof to look down into the tower. There is a glass orb full of floating eyes which are able to see the arcane eye.\nSylphie “enlarges” herself and goes from being Huge to being Large. Then she goes up the stairs to see the orb of eyes. We follow her up. She gets to the orb and tries to pick it up, it seems unmovable. It is an orb oF scrying.\nKavac touches the orb and says show me the Mithilar. He gets shown the mithilar at the bas of the large tower in the middle of the city.\nThe clue would be on the ceiling of the tower, but it has been destroyed.\nSylphie get levitate from Fierra, floats up and touches the orb again and asks “where is the part of the roof with the words to the puzzle” and she is shown an observatory about an hours walk away.\nThen she asks “where the book is that would tell us how to get into the inner sanctum” and she is shown nothing.\nAccidentally she says “codical of white” and she sees Valine being followed with 20 skeletons.\nAnd she again accidentally says Valine and her left eye teleports into the orb as she is shown the same vision of Valine with her skeletons.\nThe Robe Shop We begin making our way to the observatory as it is to the left. Sylphie continues growing, she is up to 19ft. We come to a building that is in better shape than the others and it is a robe shop. There are 6 stone mages in front of the store.\nSnacks goes on into the store and the mages do not react. Snacks see’s 4 phase spiders hanging out on the ceiling, they watch him but don’t attack. There are crystal mannequins wearing the robes. There is a pedestal and Derek steps onto it and a voice in his head tells him to let them make a custom robe for him. The spiders come down and begin spinning a robe around him. It takes 10 minutes and now Derek has a robe with a fully animated face of the Pale Prince with a smug smile.\nThen Kavac goes in and stands on the pedestal. 10 minutes later he has a robe with a portrait of Amon Tor. Fierra casts comprehend languages to read the signs in the shop. Off the rack robes are 500gp and custom ones are 1000gp. Fierra uses her skeletons to grab Snacks and drag him out of the store.\nAhead of us is a Huge gray bald creature with a giant mouth on its stomach. It walks past us and we let it.\nThe Observatory We make it to the observatory and see a hole in its roof like something fell through it. There is a group of 9 constructs outside the building. Kavac send his bat in and one of the constructs shoots it down. When we get close to them they telepathically says “Intruders be Gone”.\nFierra and Kavac Dimension Door into the observatory. There is a large blue slad inside. Kavac is able to charm it so it does not attack, he has to feed it some good berries. Fierra reduces the chunk of roof and Dimension Doors out again.\nIn Draconic the puzzle reads “Third, a burnt palm loosens the tongue, share a secret about yourself for all to hear.” We have the First part somewhere, but we are obviously missing Second.\nConjuration Magic Then we move onto the next tower. It takes an hour to get there, it is made of stone. The doors are broken, there is a window on the second floor. Snacks approaches the doors and sees broom magically sweeping. Glowing orbs are set in the walls, there are giant glowing hands protecting a small little tower in the middle of the room. The Conjuration symbol is over the door.\nSnacks goes inside and the hands begin moving. They attack us and we defeat them.\nKavac goes inside and lands on it, a glowing doorway opens. Sylphie reaches in and puts a finger into the doorway and poof she is gone, but then we see here in miniature standing in front of the glowing tower.\nA handful of us go after her, we hear cackling from the tower. We are on a Demi-plane. We are now all medium sized in the demi-plane. I knock on the door and a voice inside says “Come in Deary’s.” Sylphie opens the door and the inside is that of a cabin in the swamp and there are 3 old lady’s making a soup.\nSylphie eats some soup and it tastes like watered down cabbage soup.\nThe hags are named Pinch, Pillage, and Plunder. On the wall are ”Second summon a flame in the palm of your hand.” The Hags want a memory in payment, we don’t get to choose.\nWe give them the memory and we leave. Fierra recognizes the Hags as Night Hags and tells us that they were fiends.\nLost memory. I cannot remember the first time I said my Oath of Devotion.\nWe have unlocked sections (Abjuration, Divination, and Conjuration) so far, we don’t know how many are left.\nAbove us we see rocks fall down and they hit a forcefield high above us and roll down the sides. There is a bubble encasing the entire city.\nNecromancy Magic We walk 30 minutes to the next tower. There is rubble with a ghost sitting on it. It says the tower broke in the fall. They say they died in the fall, they have no sense of humor. There are like 200 crawling hands on the ground.\nThey tell us that this is the Tower of Necromancy. They are/were an Archmage, his name is Kadrovix. Sylphie moves rubble and I help the bit I can and after 15 minutes we find his body and the riddle. Its skin is black and frost bitten. He tells Fierrra that his spell book is tattooed on his skin.\nHe has a necklace with 6 shiny balls on them, a Necklace of Fireball, I get to carry it for now. While I was admiring it… purple fog rolls out onto the ground at ankle height. Kardrovix says it was something he had been working on. He fades away and the crawling claws scatter.\nWe found the riddle and the party figured something out. Now there are 15 zombies shambling towards. Fierra tries to assert control of them and it doesn’t work. We walk away from them.\nThe Observatory Next we make our way to the Observatory, close by is a theater with a lot of cages and pits like a zoo or menagerie. Snacks goes into the theater’s back room and finds a script called “The Blasphemy of Kings.” Kavac uses Detect Magic and it is Divination magic and tells Snacks to grab it and bring it back to us.\nFierra finds some written stuff and casts Comprehend Languages and the text says “you should not be here.” On the wall it says “Build your own Chimera.” We leave.\nJon reads the play… and now he is vulnerable to attacks (attacks against him have advantage, it is a curse.) Snacks casts Remove Curse on Jon and all 3 of his curses are removed.\nChronomancy Magic Now on to an Obelisk. It is cracked. It has Runes. Fierra reads the runes and they are symbols of the magic schools, including Chronomancy.\nNext tower is shaped like an axe bade. It is the Evocation tower, skeletons escort Snacks to the tower and he finds the interior burnt by centuries of destructive magic.\nKavac is still looking at the obelisk. He then comes over to the tower.\nEverything in the tower is iced over, there is a brazier in the middle, Kavac and Derek go inside to try and light it. There is a frozen body in the wall. Green flame erupts. There are a bunch of stretched out gelatinous cubes inside the tower, I am just outside the door.\nBefore leaving the room Kavac reads the riddle from the ceiling of the tower, we now have 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7.\nThen a group of masked guys show up, from Levestus and say they are with Averis, and they want the codes. They say they are a part of a cult. They go away after some arguing.\nIllusion Magic Next tower, Illusion, there are eyes in the tower following us. Kavac and Fierra do some stuff and one of his skeletons dies to psychic damage. Fierra does some stuff with a rope and her skeletons. That fails, Derek tries and fails, Kavac turns into an owl and flies to the top where there is no mist.\nHe gets the riddle #6. In the distance we see rapid-fire fireballs in a place we haven’t been to yet. There is also another Huge creature fighting a giant zombie.\nMy skin starts to feel kind of scaly, like red tile scales, and I see a large eyeball with little eyeballs sprouting from it. I also hear voices whispering in my head.\nEnchantment Magic On to the next tower, frozen in ice, Enchantment college. Since I am immune to being charmed I go into the tower, on the wall are the text, “all work and no play make Idra a dull girl.” On the second floor there are empty wine bottle, written… up to the third floor written in blood is “The Crown knows all.” There is a door, I open it and there is an old woman covered in ice with an iron crown. Behind the thrown the writing “Coax a secret from another.”\nJon says something about someone stealing his weed and I tell him it may have been the lady with the crown took it. He goes in to confront her. He comes back down mad at me.\nThere comes a booming voice from the top of the tallest tower in a language we don’t understand. A large beam shoots down into the city and burns a line destroying everything but the undead. Every destroyed creature becomes another mob and begins attacking the zombies.\nAn hour later we arrive at the next tower. An ivory tower with crack climbing it like vines. Sylphie grabs Snax and throws him up into the tower. Snacks get the next riddle. Fierra goes up and they come back down with an Adamantine statue of a caster, they say we need to take it somewhere to turn her back into a person.\nIn the purple fog the undead cannot die. It has officially been 15 hours.\nThe Menagerie Dragging the statue… Fierra needs a rest to maintain control of her skeletons. Jon decides to spend the hit points to drain his blood to “make a friend.” He pulls a lever, the menagerie comes to life, rattling, goes on for a full minute. Out of a comes a Baboon which walks up to Jon scratches its butt and sits beside him. Jon now has a familiar.\nSnacks removes Jon’s curses and we get a long rest. Jon starts hallucinating even more.\nWe now need to fill the vat with blood to rescue the statue guy. Everybody donates some blood and we fill the vat, then put the statue in there.\nDuring our long rest the big tower stopped shooting out rays, but when we are arguing about the statue thing a wave of energy comes out and there are now undead coming to life all around the city and they are acting like they are going about their daily business as though they were still alive.\nKavac pulls the lever. A minute goes by and a Hare with Feathered wings comes out and it is speaking and is upset. He says he was High Transmuter Metalatra.\nHe tells us the last word we need is “poison.” Metaltra tells us he can help us complete the ritual to get where we need to go.\nSnacks finally casts remove Curse on Sylphie, she is no longer hungry all the time but she is still 20+ feet tall. We meet up at the robe shop. Fierra assigns 6 skeletons to me.\nThe Big Tower Next up we are going to the big tower to conduct the ritual. We get to the tower and it is surrounded by undead. They don’t act human. They look like they’re trying to get past the invisible barrier to get into the tower.\nI get bored listening to them go on and on about how to cast the ritual to drop the barrier. I take my 6 skeletons and make our way up to the front of the barrier.\nKavac casts the ritual and a door opens, but at the same moment the undead surrounding us grapples everyone to stop them. Kavac does some stuff and something/someone teleports in. It’s Valene, she teleports into the doorway and then vanishes up the tower. Then the skeletons quit grappling.\nNow we go through and get into the tower. The door closes behind us. It smells really bad in here. Sylphie runs up as fast as she can and the negative energy hurts. The negative energy kills Jon’s baboons.\nUp in the tower we hear music coming from a chamber, Fierra approaches and there are Netherese inviting her in, she casts Comprehend Languages and talks with them. They offer food and some Nobles approach Fierra and ask to dance.\nThey tell Fierra that we can’t go down a particular hallway because the master is down that way and does not want to be disturbed. They also tell Fierra that the master is a Chronomancer.\nBack in a room is a magical harp playing and a chest full of fruit, there is more food and drinks.\nSnacks and Jon find a suit of scary armor with a skull for a head. They run away and they are followed by the armor. Fierra talks with him, he does not think talking to the King is a good idea. Fierra tells him we are trying to get the Mythilar. He says that he is only interested in using Chronomancy to return the city to its glory. He says there is an obelisk in the city that can turn back time. We know that it is broken, but he believes that mending could fix the obelisk.\nWe also need the King’s staff of power which is in his study.\nThere was a whole bunch of talking and now we are making our way to the king by walking across an invisible walkway. We go into a star shaped room.\nThe walls are mirrored with niches containing gems with pent up power. An image fades in and greets us. An old man in a purple gown. Says his name is Everlast. He says it would not be a good idea to see the kind and that we can’t have the Mythilar because they need it to restore the city.\nThe entrance to the king’s chamber is 50 feet above us blocked by a hatch. Fierra and Derek try to go up and open it and fail. Fierra then grabs Sylphie and Dimension Door to the other side of the hatch. There are enclosed in a sphere of ice in a hallway that ends in double doors. In front of the door are 2 dark spots and a giant gem.\nFierra and Sylphie are being attacked by Living Blades of Disaster. I use Beaky and Fey Step to get upstairs to help, I cast Dispell Magic on one of the blades and it pops.\nKavac, turned into a bat and flew up shoving the hatch out of the way. We figure out that there is a glowing green gem in the ceiling. Sylphie breaks the gem and the force field drops leaving a sphere of ice. We defeat the other blade.\nKavac approaches the door and sees multiple clocks on it. Each clock has 12 different symbols on it, they do have hands that can be manipulated. Fierra figures out the puzzle and the doors open to a short doorway with another door at the end.\nFierra’s skeletons walk down the hallway and no matter how long they walk the door is still 15 feet away. Snacks and Sylphie do something silly and make it to the end and open the door. Inside that room are 8 more doors.\nEach door has an inscription above it, it says Speak thy Masters Name and Enter. The doors open freely but it is pitch black behind them. Kavac can see in and sees a giant cavern.\nSylphie goes through one of the door and almost gets turned to stone. Then John says Metalatra and goes through the Transmutaiton door. The rest of the party follows.\nThe Chamber We enter a beautiful room with a vortex of glowing stars. 8 chair with the schools of magic on them. Snacks runs in and sits on the Enchantment chair. Sylphie sits in another one, I stand behind them until they get bored.\nThen we move onto a spindle. Sylphie is trying to move it, but it is moving at its own pace. Sylphie puts her back into it and a magic pulse radiates out and all magic stops working. We can hear things in the city go crashing down. Now the spindle is not moving on its own. Fierra casts a spell into the spindle and it begins working again and magic is turned back on.\nKavac does something and the starfield turns into a giant door. We go through the door into another room. There may be a Demi-lich in the room.\nThere are tables with wizard stuff on them, staircases that go lower into the room like a pit with lots of books. There is a withered old lady who looks like she has been there hundreds of years, it is Valine. Apparently turning off the magic caused her to loose a battle.\nThe big bad in the room tells us to leave. There is a staff leaning against the wall, it is probably the staff we are after.\nFierra begins casting a spell and the demi-lich gets upset and attacks. He bellows at us to leave and I am frightened. When I get a chance I grab a necklace of fireball bead and chuck it at the guy. It doesn’t appear to damage him but it does damage other guys in the room and sets a bunch of books on fire.\nI keep dropping fireballs. More fighting, only the lich’s skull and body are left.\nNo longer feared. Some big magic happens and I take damage. I drop another fireball and the body disappears and is replaced by Sylphie, an angel, and a bunch of bad guys.\nI am feared again. The tower shakes and most of us get knocked to the ground.\nSylphie does a bunch of damage, bookshelves rumble and open as a door, and the Mythilar enters the room.\nStuff happens and I age 13 years. Then more and I am 40.\nKavac turns into a giant eagle and grabs the skull and brings it closer to us so we can bash it.\nThen the Mithilar gets upset and things in the room starts to change, time starts to speed up around us.\nSnax finds a book, Kavac realizes he can attune to the Staff of Power, time is slowing back down to normal and we return to our original ages.\nFierra re-appears… there is a guilded skull of the Demi-Lich on a bookshelf. Valine is expounding to us about how we are now far in the future. Kavac grabs the spell book and gives it to Fierra.\nValine gets very excited when Kavac shows the Staff of Power. She tells us that she is from the distant path and was sent forward to do something-something. She says she was here before and while Yetheren, the Netherese city, fell.\nValine says that the Lich is her father, that her brothers were corrupted. Jon says that he read a script about a corrupt family and realizes that it was Valine’s family. That corruption is what brought the Outsider into the world.\nValine suggests we talk to the Lich to ask him to let us out or start smashing the walls.\nThey spend a bunch of time looking at stuff. They find a spell book with lots of amazing spells in it.\nThey do some more stuff, I’m distracted. We figure out that the outside world has been eaten by The Outsider and the space we are in is the only thing left.\nLooking outside we can see the obelisk, the Litch says we need to go there to do the thing to save us and bring us back to our time. Kavac is trying to figure a way to get there and back.\nSylphie figures out that once she leaves the gravity well she can fly.\nSomething really big bumps into the tower we are in and sends it spinning in place. Derek figures out it is the Outsider.\nBlah, blah, blah, we make it to the obelisk.\nThe runes on the obelisk are broken up, Fierra and Sylphie are working hard to fix them up.\nMore stuff happens and the bit of ground and the obelisk are now hurtling toward the big bad’s stomach.\nThe obelisk starts to glow… a rock hits Valine in the back of the head and the staff flys out of her hand. Jon uses his grapple to catch it and the staff lights up.\nThere is a blinding light and we are unable to see and fall unconscious.\nBack to the Past We get splashed with water and someone is yelling at us to get up and get out of the park. And we all understand Netherese now. It appears that we are back in time and the Netherese city is whole.\nWe ask about Metalatra the arch mage. Jon goes behind a large tree to throw up, the tree reaches down, picks him up, and throws him across the park.\nAs we leave the park we hear alarms and sirens. The Pharim are attacking. They are a large size creature that look like a tornado with arms and teach. They look a lot like the Devourer/The Outsider.\nWe come to a bunch of vendors and everything gets silly for a while. We make it to Mealatra’s place and she is happy to see us.\nJon and Kavac talk with her to try and tell her what is going to happen in the future. Derek says some stuff. She really does not want to listen to what we have to say.\nArch Mages Tower We are going to the Arch Mages tower. We open the door and it’s a ballroom. We are looking for Valine. Derek is using Locate Object to detect The Professor Orb and it is on the floor above us.\nWe talk with a guy and find out that Valine is only 13 years old right now. The guy sends some messages and we are waiting for replies.\nSnacks and Sylphy go find Miranda the potion person that was a brain in a jar in the far future. She gives Sylphy something and she begins to fart, and with each fart she becomes a bit smaller.\nA message comes back and Iroloceus the lich arch mage will see us.\nIt is -335DR.\nWe go across the bridge then up a ladder to the mages room. The clock door is already open. We go in the room and there are a group of wizards representing each school of magic.\nFierra gives me 4 skeletons to command, 4 skeletons to keep an eye on Snacks, and 8 for herself.\nThe arch mage Iroloceus asks us why we are here. Blah, blah, blah. He is going to put the things together to send us back to our time. We can’t get him interested fighting the Pherum in a more serious way or listen to what we have to say about the spindle.\nSo we go wandering around the town. Library then lightning ball… we find a place to stay and get a good night’s sleep.\nWe get called back to the Arch Mage, they have the spindle up and running and see that it is doing stuff with the weave. I propose the idea that the spindle is feeding the Pherum which will lead to them growing until they become the Great Devourer who will then destroy the Material Plane.\nAfter a bit a young man shows up and walks off with the Arch Mage and goes into a room and closes the door. Awhile later Valine comes up and the arch mage and prince come out.\nIn an instant, Valine is on the ground with a large black blade sticking out of her chest. The prince is standing there covered in blood and lifeless. Kavac tries to heal Valine and it appears to hurt her.\nThen a voice rings out saying that time cannot be changed and that our world is doomed. Then the siren for the city goes off, it is under attack. The Pherum are attacking. Both Valine and the prince now have Protection from Good and Evil.\nSnacks casts remove curse and Kavac casts Greater Restoration on Valine and takes the knife out of her chest.\nStop the Spindle I talk Sylphie into coming into the Spindle room and to stop it spinning. She tries and is unable to pull it back. Then we make a plan for me to also embiggin and the two of us work together to stop the spindle.\nBlink\nThe prince is now a pile of ash. The Arch Wizard is the one who cast it, and he shot Valine into the future. We hear scratching at the door.\nOne of the wizards gets grabbed by a Pherum and it wiggles it way inside of him.\nAfter another a try Sylphie is able to break the spindle.\nWe’ve stopped the spindle and the city shudders. Pherum come into the building and take out a handful of skeletons and mages with them.\nI stand and protect the spindle from anyone trying to spin it back up. I totally believe that starting it back up with allow the Pherum to become the Devourer that destroys the Material Plane.\nI stayed there as long as I could take it, but Sylphie had jumped off the balcony and fell the 150 feet to the ground, so I embiggen myself, run and jump off the balcony after her. I nail a superhero landing beside her then Lay on Hands and heal her.\nDerek and a mage end up falling while trying to cross the magic bridge that is no longer there.\nWe get everyone together at the base of the tower. The people in the city are running around screaming and crying.\nThe McGuffin™ Then we come upon a McGuffin™ with a three pointed bowl. Snacks touches it and gets a view of the entire city and can feel himself falling. Then Fierra touches it and attunes to it, she get the same experience as Snacks and feels deeply connected. Then Kavac, then me, then Derek, then Sylphie.\nWe hear an otherworldly voice asks us what we wish. Then 4 large arms reach up out of the sea of moving ice and grabs the city. Kavac asks if there is anything we can do to stop this. They say they can only give power to one.\nWe agree to give it to Fierra. It asks if she is ready to use the Mithilar. It is as though Mistral herself controls her hand. Fierra does something with a scroll, a very fancy scroll, then nothing happens.\nFierra then tells us we should leave. A comet streaks through the sky, punches a hole through the city right next to us, destroying the city and makes a 500 foot crater in the sea of moving ice and the arms holding the city crumble away and fall back into the sea.\nThen Snacks says… hold on… and he summons a tarasque which smashes into the city and then the sea and begins fighting the arms. What is left of the city is now spinning.\nBack to the Present-ish Mistral then sends us all forward in time. We wake up in the ruins of the tower right next to the beach and a skull of a Tarrasque. The skull is up on a hill and looks a lot the lair for something. The party figures out that it is the lair of the Frost Maiden… We are on the Frost Maiden’s island now.\nDerek is released by the Dark Prince.\nTen Towns is across the water now. The weather is even worse than it was earlier. We quickly get our cold weather gear on.\nOn the island, lots of tracks around us, but they are old. We take a long rest. It looks like the Frost Maiden is still in power and the unending winter is in effect.\nWe make our way up the mountain and find ourselves at the entrance, the skull of a tarasque. Sylphie, Snax and I head up there, Sylphie is now Huge.\nSylphie squeezes through and blue lights light up along the walls. There is a puzzle, I get bored and space out.\nSnacks grabs the handles of the door at the end of the room and gets his hands frozen to them, Sylphie yanks him off of them.\nThen with the party’s help, Sylphie does the puzzle and the symbols all light up and she is able to open the door.\nThen there is a slide going down. Snacks blesses me with Darkvision. We go down the throat.\nAurel is down there forming some kind of glyphs. The party keeps messing with her, she does some things, then the fight is on.\nA blizzard forms, vision is limited, the wind is really strong, ranged weapons are at disadvantage. She disappears.\nSnacks calls in a celestial that blasts Ariel away. Then the ground cracks and falls. I land hard and am down. Fierra gets me stabilized.\nKavac heals me, I lay on hand, and Ice Mephits show up.\nA large form shoots out of the ground, a gargantuan sized Frost Woman. I throw 2 of my 3 fireballs at her, everyone jumps in and does their part, Fierra strikes the killing blow with a spell.\nBut then it gets colder and colder. The walls of the cave seems to drift off, the floor becomes a six-sided star. Outside of the six-sided snow-flake there is nothing but snow. A crystal floats up and speaks. “You will make great statues in my domain.”\nAriel rises up in front of us as a pure crystalline creature. The ground crumbles beneath us and only a platform shaped like a snowflake is left. There are magical blizzards swirling around.\nWe get a couple of hits in then 3 glowing orbs come out of the ground and shine light on Aurel making her stronger. We take them out.\nI throw my last fireball from the necklace at her and do some damage then the whole arena is covered in a non-damaging blizzard and the orbs come back. We take those out.\nSylphie gets close and whacks her with his maul and she poofs into snow and reappears behind us. Derek gets some hits in with his bugs and bow. As soon as she takes damage the orbs come back and she is invulnerable again.\nAnd finally, one of Fierra’s skeletons hits Ariel, she crumbles and everything dims… and we are now in the cavern where we first fought her among the Devourer’s bones.\nKavac turns into a Giant Eagle and gets all of us out of the cavern. The blizzard recedes and we can see the Sea of Moving Ic and it is sunny outside. Kavac says a prayer and then we see a boat wash ashore.\nJon is upset about the sun for some reason, we pack him into Sylphie’s backpack and make our way down to the boat. We get in and the oars magically rowing, I’m a bit concerned about where it is going to take us.\nAfter a day and a half we make it back to Icewind Dale. Snacks casts Remove Curse on Sylphie and she is back down to normal size. Amazingly our Axe Beaks are waiting on the beach for us.\nWe make our way to Ten Towns, Bryan Shandair, where Fierra tries to get a ticket to leave but the line is really long, she has now learned the Teleport spell and is going to use that to get out.\nSylphie donates all of her money to the local church where Helm is followed and together we go visit the Goliath villages in the hills.\nThe Adventures of Allessandro in Icewind Dale\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/allessandro-the-protector-in-icewind-dale/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dungeons and Dragons Logo\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2025/06/dungeons-and-dragons-icon.png\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch1 id=\"allessandro-the-protector\"\u003eAllessandro the Protector\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur adventure began on May 8, 2024 and ended one year later on May 28, 2025. It was a great year of gaming once a week on Wednesday nights.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAllessandro, aka Alice is a Goliath from Bryn Shander, but he travelled to Waterdeep, Baldur’s Gate, and other places along the Sword Coast where his religious studies led him to becoming a Paladin of Helm with the ambition to be a member of the order of the Vigilant Eyes of the God.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Allessandro the Protector in Icewind Dale"},{"content":"\nI made it to the 5.3 mile marker on the Silver Comet trail for a total skate of just over 11 miles.I am having so much fun skating. I wrote an initial post that talked about my history with skating, all the different type of skating I have done and the skates I have owned, but wow was it a long-winded mess. So here is the short version.\nI started skating when I was 4 years old taking lessons at a local rink in rural Ohio. Even though I didn’t enjoy it at first by the time I was 6 I loved it and looked forward to going to the rink and skating for hours. It was someplace I could be alone with a crowd of people, be independent, play pinball and video games, and once per day they had a session where I could skate as fast as I was able.\nWhen we moved to Georgia, I didn’t skate anymore, I took up skateboarding, but it was never much more than transportation. So, no skating from 12 until in my twenties.\nIn the Navy I discovered inline skates while in Charleston South Carolina. I loved skating in Charleston, it was a very flat place with lots of pavement and back alleys to have fun in. I spent many days in my skates in the early morning and didn’t take them off until late at night. I tried to continue skating when I got to Guam, but the streets there are paved with seashells that destroy skate wheels and there was no place to buy replacements, so I didn’t skate much.\nOnce out of the Navy I had other things on my mind and didn’t try to get back into skating until I was 50 years old. I was overweight and out of shape, skating wasn’t the fun that I remembered.\nThen life smacked me in the face, and I involuntarily lost 80 pounds and needed to find a way to exercise. I tried the skates that I had and was amazingly able to clumsily skate around a parking lot. I skated the flat parking lot a few times and then moved on to the roads of neighborhood. I still felt clumsy and fell down a few times, but it was getting to be fun.\nThen I saw Bill Stoppard announce a new version of the Adapt GTB skates. I followed the instructions on the Adapt website for measuring my feet and discovered that my skates should be a size smaller than what I had, that was a surprise. I used to skate in Roller Blade size 11s, the Sebas are size 10, and the Adapts I bought are a size 9 and fit perfectly.\nI now believe that skates should fit so that every part of your feet is cradled by the skates, your toes shouldn’t be crushed, but you also shouldn’t be able to freely wiggle them. That also means that your skate are going to have a painful break-in period even with heat molding. Once they are broken in the control and comfort you have will amaze you.\nNow I am skating 3 plus miles 3 or 4 times a week with a 10 mile stretch here and there. I still feel clumsy and still fall every now and then, but with more time in the skates I get a bit better every time I skate.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/inline-skating/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Skating on the Silver Comet Trail\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/08/dave-5.3.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI made it to the 5.3 mile marker on the Silver Comet trail for a total skate of just over 11 miles.I am having so much fun skating. I wrote an initial post that talked about my history with skating, all the different type of skating I have done and the skates I have owned, but wow was it a long-winded mess. So here is the short version.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Inline Skating"},{"content":"\nI bought these books from Amazon and read them on my Kindle Paperwhite. Written by N. K. Jemisin the Broken Earth Trilogy includes the books The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky.\nWhat caught my attention about these books and the author is that all 3 books won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Think about that for a second, all 3 books in the trilogy won Best Novel Hugo awards, 2016, 2017, and 2018. They also won a lot of other awards, but for one author to win 3 years in a row is amazing.\nI read the first 2 books in about 6 days; I made all kinds of excuses not to do other things so that I could spend more time reading. They went very fast, and I loved every word. The third book, The Stone Sky, took a lot longer, maybe 10 days to read it. I didn’t want the story to end… and the last book is emotionally a lot heavier than the first 2.\nI have also bought the books on Audible and look forward to listening to them in a couple of months, I plan on taking a long break from the story in the hopes that when I do listen to them, I discover some new bits I missed in the initial reading.\nFrom the publisher:\nThis is the way the world ends. Again.\nThree terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.\nNow Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.\nIf you like science fiction or fantasy stories I highly recommend The Broken Earth trilogy and rate them a 10 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-broken-earth-trilogy-by-n-k-jemisin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"book cover\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/07/Jemisin_FifthSeason-TP.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought these books from Amazon and read them on my Kindle Paperwhite. Written by \u003ca href=\"https://nkjemisin.com/series/the-broken-earth/\"\u003eN. K. Jemisin the Broken Earth Trilogy\u003c/a\u003e includes the books The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat caught my attention about these books and the author is that all 3 books won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Think about that for a second, all 3 books in the trilogy won Best Novel Hugo awards, 2016, 2017, and 2018. They also won a lot of other awards, but for one author to win 3 years in a row is amazing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin"},{"content":"\nI listened to Infinite 1 and 2 written by Jeremy Robinson and narrated by R.C. Bray using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI liked the first book, but the second book… not so much.\nInfinite Publisher’s Summary Searching for a new home….\nThe Galahad, a faster-than-light spacecraft, carries 50 scientists and engineers on a mission to prepare Kepler 452b, Earth’s nearest habitable neighbor at 1400 light years away. With Earth no longer habitable and the Mars colony slowly failing, they are humanity’s best hope.\nAfter 10 years in a failed cryogenic bed – body asleep, mind awake – William Chanokh’s torture comes to an end as the fog clears, the hatch opens, and his friend and fellow hacker, Tom, greets him…by stabbing a screwdriver into his heart. This is the first time William dies.\nIt is not the last.\nWhen he wakes from death, William discovers that all but one crew member – Capria Dixon – is either dead at Tom’s hands, or has escaped to the surface of Kepler 452b. This dire situation is made worse when Tom attacks again – and is killed. Driven mad by a rare reaction to extended cryo-sleep, Tom hacked the Galahad’s navigation system and locked the ship on a faster-than-light journey through the universe, destination: nowhere. Ever.\nMysteriously immortal, William is taken on a journey with no end, where he encounters solitary desperation, strange and violent lifeforms, a forbidden love, and the nature of reality itself.\n…he discovers the infinite.\nJeremy Robinson, the master of fast-paced and highly original stories seamlessly blending elements of horror, science fiction, and thrillers, tackles his most ambitious subject matter to date: reality itself. An amalgam of the works of J.J. Abrams and Ridley Scott, Infinite is a bold science fiction novel exploring the vastness of space and a man’s desire to exist, find love, and alter the course of his life.\n©2017 Jeremy Robinson (P)2017 Jeremy Robinson\nInfinite 2 Publisher’s Summary Infinite2 is a bold continuation of Robinson’s best-selling science fiction novel, packed with mystery, action, and mind-bending twists.\nOver a million books sold!\nWilliam Chanokh is immortal…and he’s trapped on the Galahad, an interstellar starship on a never-ending journey through open space.\nHis only companions are Capria – mortal and in cryo-sleep – and Gal, an artificial intelligence, and the love of his life, with whom he spends every waking moment in the “Great Escape”, a virtual paradise. After untold years living countless lives, Gal begins acting strange. Possessive. Violent. Paranoid.\nPositive that something in the real world is causing her to malfunction, Will attempts to leave the Great Escape, but he finds himself a prisoner. Guided by a voice from reality, he is thrust into a series of torturous narratives, each one designed to break his will and keep him trapped in virtual reality.\nBetrayed by his digital love, his long-term memory overwritten, and enduring violent manipulation, Will painfully peels back layers of simulation, fighting to reach reality 1.0 – where the nightmares are real.\nMaybe.\nNew York Times and number-one Audible best-selling author Jeremy Robinson takes listeners on a heart-wrenching journey to the edge of the universe and beyond, where distinguishing reality from simulation might be impossible.\n©2021 Jeremy Robinson (P)2021 Jeremy Robinson\nIf rate Infinite a 6 out of 10 and Infinite 2 a 4 out of 10, together as a single story I would rate it as a 5. If you like sci-fi or are interested in Jeremy Robinson’s Infinite Timeline, I definitely recommend giving these books a listen, but when you get bored of the repetitiveness, just go ahead and skip the rest of that chapter, you won’t miss much.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/infinite-1-and-2-by-jeremy-robinson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Cover art for Infinite by Jeremy Robinson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/06/51UgdpCVNHL._SL500_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI listened to Infinite 1 and 2 written by Jeremy Robinson and narrated by R.C. Bray using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI liked the first book, but the second book… not so much.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"infinite-publisher8217s-summary\"\u003eInfinite Publisher’s Summary\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSearching for a new home….\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Galahad, a faster-than-light spacecraft, carries 50 scientists and engineers on a mission to prepare Kepler 452b, Earth’s nearest habitable neighbor at 1400 light years away. With Earth no longer habitable and the Mars colony slowly failing, they are humanity’s best hope.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter 10 years in a failed cryogenic bed – body asleep, mind awake – William Chanokh’s torture comes to an end as the fog clears, the hatch opens, and his friend and fellow hacker, Tom, greets him…by stabbing a screwdriver into his heart. This is the first time William dies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is not the last.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen he wakes from death, William discovers that all but one crew member – Capria Dixon – is either dead at Tom’s hands, or has escaped to the surface of Kepler 452b. This dire situation is made worse when Tom attacks again – and is killed. Driven mad by a rare reaction to extended cryo-sleep, Tom hacked the Galahad’s navigation system and locked the ship on a faster-than-light journey through the universe, destination: nowhere. Ever.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMysteriously immortal, William is taken on a journey with no end, where he encounters solitary desperation, strange and violent lifeforms, a forbidden love, and the nature of reality itself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e…he discovers the infinite.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJeremy Robinson, the master of fast-paced and highly original stories seamlessly blending elements of horror, science fiction, and thrillers, tackles his most ambitious subject matter to date: reality itself. An amalgam of the works of J.J. Abrams and Ridley Scott, Infinite is a bold science fiction novel exploring the vastness of space and a man’s desire to exist, find love, and alter the course of his life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2017 Jeremy Robinson (P)2017 Jeremy Robinson\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Infinite 1 and 2 by Jeremy Robinson"},{"content":"\nI wanted to document why I have decided to buy the Roland Fantom 8 for my current needs in learning to play the piano and having fun making goofy music for myself, so here it is. Keep in mind that I have not received it yet and don’t expect to have it until late July.\nThe main reason is the keybed, the “88 Key (PHA-50 Wood and Plastic Hybrid Structure, with Escapement and Ebony/Ivory Feel, channel aftertouch)” feels amazing to me. When I compare it to the other keyboards, I have had access to the downward force required is medium heavy, the bottoming out is a good thunk without being mushy or hard, and the return is fast enough to almost stick to my finger.\nThe sounds are great, with thousands of presets to choose from and an amazing amount of customizability and sound design options, it blows my mind. There are a lot of people who do not like the “Roland Sound” but I am not one of them. While I had the Fantom 08 I found hundreds of sounds that I really liked. With the Fantom the V-Piano sounds are fantastic with customizability options that will let me get piano sounds I am after.\nNext is the construction, the Fantom line is built like a tank with lots of metal. The faders and knobs feel premium. The screen is large and bright enough to easily read while being responsive to touch. The solution for fader and knob position when changing presets, there are LEDs around or beside the control to show the controller’s saved position versus its physical position, is great.\nAbleton integration is the next important functionality for me. I have invested a lot into Ableton, the software license, the training, and the time. With the beautiful screen on the Fantom and the way Roland is showing clips and tracks, it’s great.\nInputs and Outputs are important. The Fantom uses a standard power cord with no brick so it’s easy to get a longer or right-hand cable for it. MIDI in, out, and thru to control multiple instruments. 4, count them, 4 pedal inputs for hands free manipulation. 2 balanced XLR/TRS inputs, multiple USB ports, 2 CV/GATE outputs, 2 Sub outputs, and more. I doubt that I will ever use them all, but it is nice to know they are available.\nWhat other keyboards did I think about? The first was the Yamaha P-125 which is a relatively inexpensive digital piano with a really nice Graded Hammer keybed that I still like a lot. I may still get a one used at some point, but the lack of inputs and outputs would make this an instrument that would be in some other room and only used for piano lessons and noodling around.\nWhen I visited Check Levin’s I had a chance to play with a lot of different keyboards I can’t afford. The employees were very helpful and glad to let me plink around on everything in the store. I worked my way from the Nord Stage to the Piano and finally the Nord Grand. The Nord Grand is something else, it is amazing! As a digital piano it is a dream, the keybed felt absolutely perfect to me. If money were no object I would have one set up in my living room where I would gush over it every day.\nThe Arturia KeyLab 88 MkII was also on my radar, but I have yet to put hands on one. As a controller it does not make its own sounds and is reliant on a computer or another piece of hardware. Also, the word on the street is that the keys are very heavy. Those 2 concerns kept me from ordering one.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/roland-fantom-8/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Roland Fantom 8\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/05/fantom-8.png\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI wanted to document why I have decided to buy the \u003ca href=\"https://www.roland.com/us/products/fantom_series/features/\"\u003eRoland Fantom 8\u003c/a\u003e for my current needs in learning to play the piano and having fun making goofy music for myself, so here it is. Keep in mind that I have not received it yet and don’t expect to have it until late July.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe main reason is the keybed, the “88 Key (PHA-50 Wood and Plastic Hybrid Structure, with Escapement and Ebony/Ivory Feel, channel aftertouch)” feels amazing to me. When I compare it to the other keyboards, I have had access to the downward force required is medium heavy, the bottoming out is a good thunk without being mushy or hard, and the return is fast enough to almost stick to my finger.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Roland Fantom 8"},{"content":"\nIn March Roland announced the Fantom 0, typically pronounced Fantom “Oh”, a lighter and less expensive version of their flagship Fantom series of synthesizer workstations. I had been very happily playing the Novation SL when I saw a video with the Fantom 0 and wow, it blew me away. Up until this point I had never heard of the Roland Fantom or Fantom 0. I didn’t know that Roland made workstation keyboards with Ableton integration.\nWhy the Fantom 08? What really attracted me to the Fantom 08 is the ability to make sound without a computer or other external equipment. The sound presets of the Fantom 0 are really good for what I am doing and look forward to doing. The Supernatural Piano presets are nice, with a little tweaking and reverb I think they sound great. The Strings are solid and among the Synth sounds I found a lot of bass sounds I really like.\nThe next thing is the keybed. I ordered the Fantom 08 before any of the local music shops had them in stock, so I really worried about this. Up until this point my favorite keybed was the Yamaha P125 Graded Hammer Standard (GHS) keybed which is light and fast. The PHA-4 Standard Keyboard: with Escapement and Ivory Feel keybed of the Fantom 08 is heavier and slower than the Yamaha. I kind of like the heavier, it allows me to rest my hands on the keys without triggering them. But the slower speed of the return, the time it takes a key from the bottom of its travel to the top position, feels sluggish, they key does not feel like it is glued to my finger. Not a big deal, but maybe it is.\nThe screen! Having a nice big touchscreen where you can really see what is going on is amazing. For sound design being able to see exactly what you are editing is fantastic. The screen is responsive to touch with very little lag.\nFaders and knobs, oh my. They feel great.\nWhat I Don’t Like Even though the Fantom 0 is a 2022 computer it is based on the Fantom which was released in 2019, a lot of the computer integration is coming from a 2015 or earlier mindset. The way the keyboard’s firmware is updated along with adding new sounds requires a USB thumb drive and juggling it between multiple ports on the back of the keyboard.\nThe interface is very clunky and different from anything I am familiar with. If you are not familiar with the Roland way of doing things, be ready to watch a lot of videos and to read the manual closely. But there is good news, if you learn one Roland product there is a good chance you can apply that knowledge to other Roland products, so in the long run I think it is worth spending the effort to learn it.\nSoftware drivers are required to use the keyboard with a computer. This bugs me a lot. I am ok with advanced features requiring a driver, but basic MIDI and Audio should not require drivers. But you can avoid the drivers by using an audio interface that includes MIDI input and output.\nDid I Keep It? After almost a month I decided to return the Fantom 08. I loved the keyboard so much that I decided I wanted more! I returned it and ordered its big brother the Fantom 8 which I should arrive in a few months.\nThe Atlanta Guitar Center has both the Fantom 8 and Fantom 08 on display, I spent a lot of time playing them both and decided that the PHA-50 keybed, V-Piano sounds, extra memory for sound expansion, and metal construction are worth the extra money to me.\nP.S. I am also keeping the Novation SL, it is a great controller and I plan on keeping it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/another-keyboard-roland-fantom-08/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Roland Fantom 08\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/05/fantom-08.png\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn March Roland announced the Fantom 0, typically pronounced Fantom “Oh”, a lighter and less expensive version of their flagship Fantom series of synthesizer workstations. I had been very happily playing the Novation SL when I saw a \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/rn-gjwYL-AE\"\u003evideo with the Fantom 0\u003c/a\u003e and wow, it blew me away. Up until this point I had never heard of the Roland Fantom or Fantom 0. I didn’t know that Roland made workstation keyboards with Ableton integration.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Another Keyboard, Roland Fantom 08"},{"content":"\nLate last year I decided I wanted to learn how to play the Piano and to create some music. After a reasonable amount of research, a lot of research, I picked Ableton as my Digital Audio Workflow (DAW) and that led me to buying a Novation Launchkey 61 MK3.\nNovation Launchkey 61 MK3 The main features that lead me to buying the Launchkey began with its Ableton Live integration. The quality of the really surprised me for a $250 keyboard, the keys are very “synthy” meaning plasticy and springy. But for the price, 61 keys, 16 pads, 9 faders, 8 knobs, transpose controls, a good sequencer, and arpeggiator it is pretty amazing.\nBut I made the mistake of going to Guitar Center too many times playing with Yamaha digital pianos and that got me to thinking I would like weighted keys or at least semi-weighted.\nNovation Impulse 61 That led me to buy a used Novation Impulse 61 for $225. It’s a pretty old board and its integration with Ableton is not as good as the newer Launchkey, but it will work with other DAWs in ways the Launchkey can’t.\nI really liked the keybed of the Impulse but after a couple of weeks with it I learned about the SL.\nNovation 61SL MkIII What can I say, the 5 LCD screens, CV control, semi-weighted keybed, and all those extra buttons on the Novation 61SL MkIII have really sucked me in. I love this keyboard for playing VST and other software synthesizers. Being able to see what it is the knob is controlling is HUGE! At $700 the price initially felt steep, but with all the features and the great keybed I think it is more than worth it, I think it’s a bargain.\nDig in deeper to all the features on the Novation website.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-different-kind-of-keyboard/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Novation SL MK3\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/05/SLMkIII-PP-Overhead-1067-396_0.png\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nLate last year I decided I wanted to learn how to play the Piano and to create some music. After a reasonable amount of research, a lot of research, I picked Ableton as my Digital Audio Workflow (DAW) and that led me to buying a \u003ca href=\"https://novationmusic.com/en/keys/launchkey\"\u003eNovation Launchkey 61 MK3\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"novation-launchkey-61-mk3\"\u003eNovation Launchkey 61 MK3\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe main features that lead me to buying the Launchkey began with its Ableton Live integration. The quality of the really surprised me for a $250 keyboard, the keys are very “synthy” meaning plasticy and springy. But for the price, 61 keys, 16 pads, 9 faders, 8 knobs, transpose controls, a good sequencer, and arpeggiator it is pretty amazing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Different Kind of Keyboard"},{"content":"I found myself using my 1st generation iPod Pro 12.9” from 2015 and 5th generation iPad from 2017 a lot and decided it was about time to upgrade.\nI am using the iPad for:\nRead books from Amazon using the Kindle app and technical books with the O’Reilly app Write notes and manage tasks with Obsidian Read comic books with ComiXology, the Marvel app, YAC Reader, and Smart Comics Web Surfing with Chrome Email with Fastmail Reading Reddit Watching videos using various streaming services A game here and there, primarily Pinball, Chess, Solitaire, and Soduku And other Internet “stuff” None of these require a “Pro” iPad, but I have learned from my experience with the 1st generation iPad Pro that in an Apple product, a Pro device will be useful longer than the non-Pro version. We go through an iPad about every 2 years with our son, he doesn’t abuse them, but they get used 18 hours or so a day which really stresses out the battery causing it to begin to fail after about 2 years.\nI’m not sure that the battery in the Pro devices is any better than those in the non-pro devices and I don’t use my iPads as much as Eli but I do no the 6-year old iPad Pro is still running strong where the 4 year old iPad only works for a couple of hours before needing charged.\nHere are the other features that made me want the Pro over the non-Pro iPad:\nBetter screen Better sound USB-C charging and accessories M1 processor which will hopefully mean that its usefulness will be 5 or more years A good keyboard so it can be used to easily take notes I picked the 11-inch iPad Pro over the 12.9-inch due to weight and bulkiness. The larger one is amazing for reading comics and watching movies, but the extra bulk and weight make it harder to use. I really like the idea of the larger screen, but I spend a lot of time holding the iPad and taking it from room-to-room, and the increased weight and bulkiness is enough to cause me to leave it behind. With the smaller one I find myself taking it everywhere.\nCombined with a keybooard it is delivering on the promise of a lightweight portable with long battery life that NetBooks and the MacBook Air made, although it feels like it weighs more than the MacBook Air.\nI’ve had the 2021 11-inch iPad Pro for a couple of weeks now and absolutely love it. With the right software and keyboard it is an amazing productivity and entertainment tool.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/2021-ipad-pro/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI found myself using my 1st generation iPod Pro 12.9” from 2015 and 5th generation iPad from 2017 a lot and decided it was about time to upgrade.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am using the iPad for:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRead books from Amazon using the Kindle app and technical books with the O’Reilly app\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWrite notes and manage tasks with Obsidian\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRead comic books with ComiXology, the Marvel app, YAC Reader, and Smart Comics\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWeb Surfing with Chrome\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEmail with Fastmail\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eReading Reddit\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWatching videos using various streaming services\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA game here and there, primarily Pinball, Chess, Solitaire, and Soduku\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAnd other Internet “stuff”\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNone of these require a “Pro” iPad, but I have learned from my experience with the 1st generation iPad Pro that in an Apple product, a Pro device will be useful longer than the non-Pro version. We go through an iPad about every 2 years with our son, he doesn’t abuse them, but they get used 18 hours or so a day which really stresses out the battery causing it to begin to fail after about 2 years.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"2021 iPad Pro"},{"content":"\nWhat is a Modular Synth From Thomann.de:\nSimply put, a modular synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that consists of a multitude of different components (modules) that are used and combined to create electronic sounds. The individual modules are connected via cables (patch cables), switches, sliders and patch panels. In this way, a large number of connection options and permutations are possible. It is important to know that the parameters of analog synthesizer modules can be controlled by Control Voltage (CV).\nModular Synthesizers are EXPENSIVE! Like $1,300 for a very modest system. You can start with a Behringer Neutron for $330 or so and another $100 for a MIDI controller to play it, but I think you’ll quickly want many more modules which add up quick, in fact the case and power supply you’ll want to use will cost more than the Neutron.\nModularGrid “ModularGrid is a database and planner for modular synthesizers”\nModularGrid is a great site to build up a synth before you start buying things, it will quickly show you how easy it is to spend $4,000 or more for a modular synth.\nAnother problem for me was the lack of availability in the Atlanta area for any modular synthesizer equipment. Some of that is due to supply chain, but there are no music stores with a synthesizer department. And the online options are sparse at the moment, even the DIY kits that are available are few and far between.\nThen I found VCV Rack 2 and a game on Steam called The Signal State and a whole new world opened up to me!\nVCV Rack 2 VCV Rack 2 is a free standalone modular synth application for Mac and Windows with a lot of available modules! As I am writing this there are 1,950 FREE modules and another 311 premium modules you can buy.\nFor $149 you can buy VCV Rack Pro and get a VST plugin that you can use in your Digital Audio Workflow (DAW), what makes this special is that you can use any modules in VCV Rack as effects, that means you can do things like use Valley’s Plateau reverb module on your tacks.\nOmri Cohen has videos on YouTube to walk you through using VCV Rack including how to use it with Ableton, Reaper, and Bitwig.\nThe Signal State Set in a post-apocalyptic future, The Signal State puts your logic skills to the test with complex puzzles inspired by modular synthesizers. Repair machines, rebuild an abandoned farm, and be part of a revolution that will change the fate of agriculture once and for all.\nLearning how the different modules in a synth work is a large part of the fun, but starting from nothing can be really hard. The Signal State game will teach how all of the basic and some of the advanced modules work and ways you may use them. It rewards you for creating the most efficient system to complete the puzzle.\nI’m having a lot of fun learning about synthesis and how to use modular synthesizers to create cool sounds and music.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/vcv-rack-2-and-the-signal-state/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Eurorack Modular Synthesizer\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/02/eurorack-modular-synthesizer.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"what-is-a-modular-synth\"\u003eWhat is a Modular Synth\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom \u003ca href=\"https://www.thomann.de/blog/en/modular-synthesizers-explained-simply/\"\u003eThomann.de\u003c/a\u003e:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSimply put, a modular synthesizer is an \u003cstrong\u003eelectronic musical instrument\u003c/strong\u003e that consists of a multitude of different components \u003cstrong\u003e(modules)\u003c/strong\u003e that are used and \u003cstrong\u003ecombined\u003c/strong\u003e to create \u003cstrong\u003eelectronic sounds.\u003c/strong\u003e The individual modules are connected via cables \u003cstrong\u003e(patch cables), switches, sliders\u003c/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003epatch panels.\u003c/strong\u003e In this way, a large number of \u003cstrong\u003econnection options\u003c/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003epermutations\u003c/strong\u003e are possible. It is important to know that the \u003cstrong\u003eparameters\u003c/strong\u003e of analog synthesizer modules can be controlled by \u003cstrong\u003eControl Voltage (CV)\u003c/strong\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"VCV Rack 2 and The Signal State"},{"content":"\nThe Roach is another superhero story by Rhett C. Bruno and I really like this one.\nThe Roach is a likable character with all kinds of flaws and the characters around him are interesting and add a lot to the story.\nPublisher’s Summary A string of killings. An identity stolen. Only he can find the truth.\nReese Roberts was the guardian of Iron City. Its fearless protector. The only one willing to do whatever it takes…until he was shot on the streets and left paralyzed from the waist down. Now, the vigilante known as the Roach has disappeared. Faded into legend. It’s been years since Reese could take on crime and clean up the streets. He’s a shriveled old drunk, living like a hermit and waiting for his life to end. All that’s left to do is wallow in the mistakes that led him here. To wonder if he went too far. But when a copycat steals his suit and takes justice into his own hands, a new killer emerges, leaving brutal messages behind. He wants to eliminate the Roach for good this time. It’s time for Reese to re-emerge from his shell and fight back. Who else can stop the flurry of killings? Definitely not the corrupt police department. Iron City needs the Roach again. Only, this time, he’ll need to save it without his legs.\n©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Podium Audio\nI rate The Roach an 8 out 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a good superhero story.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-roach-by-rhett-c-bruno/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/01/the-roach.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Roach is another superhero story by Rhett C. Bruno and I really like this one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Roach is a likable character with all kinds of flaws and the characters around him are interesting and add a lot to the story.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"publishers-summary\"\u003ePublisher’s Summary\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA string of killings. An identity stolen. Only he can find the truth.\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nReese Roberts was the guardian of Iron City. Its fearless protector. The only one willing to do whatever it takes…until he was shot on the streets and left paralyzed from the waist down. Now, the vigilante known as the Roach has disappeared. Faded into legend. \u003cbr\u003e\nIt’s been years since Reese could take on crime and clean up the streets. He’s a shriveled old drunk, living like a hermit and waiting for his life to end. All that’s left to do is wallow in the mistakes that led him here. To wonder if he went too far. \u003cbr\u003e\nBut when a copycat steals his suit and takes justice into his own hands, a new killer emerges, leaving brutal messages behind. He wants to eliminate the Roach for good this time. \u003cbr\u003e\nIt’s time for Reese to re-emerge from his shell and fight back. Who else can stop the flurry of killings? Definitely not the corrupt police department. Iron City needs the Roach again. Only, this time, he’ll need to save it without his legs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Podium Audio\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI rate The Roach an 8 out 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a good superhero story.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"The Roach by Rhett C. Bruno"},{"content":"\nBaron Steele is a very short listen at 47 minutes and I believe it is an introduction to the Raptors series of books.\nI didn’t especially like the book and probably wont be listening to the Raptors series anytime soon. The humor just didn’t work for me.\nAbout This Audible Original Paul Steele, known to the world as Baron Steele, isn’t your average masked crimefighter. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even wear a mask. And he doesn’t even fight crime anymore. That’s for the guys with too much brawn and not enough brain.\nNo, Steele works in consulting. After having his license revoked by the Guild of Masked Crimefighters, he decided he would scout talent instead. Match up heroes with their villainous counterparts, help the young bucks and buckettes discover their talents and abilities. That sort of thing.\nIt’s all going fine and well until Steele gets a bad cup of coffee. No. Seriously. Day after day, the same little twerp gets his order wrong. From there, it’s a downhill spiral into chaos, and Steele finds himself fighting for his freedom in a court of law. Did he really kill a barista over a cup of joe?\nDon’t miss this hilarious spin on the superhero genre from the number one Audible best-selling duo of Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle.\n©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Aethon Books\nI rate Baron Steele a 4 out 10 and don’t recommend it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/baron-steele-by-rhett-c-bruno-and-jaime-castle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Baron Steele by Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/01/baron-steele.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBaron Steele is a very short listen at 47 minutes and I believe it is an introduction to the Raptors series of books.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI didn’t especially like the book and probably wont be listening to the Raptors series anytime soon. The humor just didn’t work for me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"about-this-audible-original\"\u003eAbout This Audible Original\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePaul Steele, known to the world as Baron Steele, isn’t your average masked crimefighter. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even wear a mask. And he doesn’t even fight crime anymore. That’s for the guys with too much brawn and not enough brain.\u003cbr\u003e\nNo, Steele works in consulting. After having his license revoked by the Guild of Masked Crimefighters, he decided he would scout talent instead. Match up heroes with their villainous counterparts, help the young bucks and buckettes discover their talents and abilities. That sort of thing.\u003cbr\u003e\nIt’s all going fine and well until Steele gets a bad cup of coffee. No. Seriously. Day after day, the same little twerp gets his order wrong. From there, it’s a downhill spiral into chaos, and Steele finds himself fighting for his freedom in a court of law. Did he really kill a barista over a cup of joe?\u003cbr\u003e\nDon’t miss this hilarious spin on the superhero genre from the number one Audible best-selling duo of Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle.\u003cbr\u003e\n©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Aethon Books\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Baron Steele by Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle"},{"content":"Operation Brushfire is a solid mystery novel and Lou Diamond Phillips does a good job bringing it to life.\nPublisher’s Summary He’ll do anything for the truth. They’ll do anything to bury it.\nHenry Stasik, an Internal Affairs agent for the globe-spanning Coalition, is no stranger to crooked agents or scandals. He’s a truth-junkie. An addict. But when international celebrity Anastasia Danicheva specifically demands his presence at a police station, everything changes. The Coalition, which has brought peace through uniting the world under a single banner, wants her dead. But none of their case against her adds up.\nStasik can’t help but need to know why.\nHours after taking her under his department’s protection, a cybernetically enhanced hitman nips at Stasik’s heels. Witnesses disappear or turn up in pools of blood. And lurking above it all, guarded by a genocidal AI construct, is a secret that threatens to dismantle a perfect world and–Stasik himself.\nMan in the High Castle meets Blade Runner with a dash of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in this breakneck sci-fi spy thriller set in a drug-fueled alternate history from the number one Audible best-selling author of Titanborn, Rhett C. Bruno, and James Wolanyk. Performed by award-winning actor Lou Diamond Phillips, star of Prodigal Son, Young Guns, and La Bamba.\n©2021 Rhett C. Bruno, James Wolanyk (P)2021 Podium Audio\nI rate Operation Brushfire a 6 out of 10, meh.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/operation-brushfire/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Operation Brushfire Cover Image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2022/01/operation-brushfire.jpg\"\u003eOperation Brushfire is a solid mystery novel and Lou Diamond Phillips does a good job bringing it to life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"publishers-summary\"\u003ePublisher’s Summary\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHe’ll do anything for the truth. They’ll do anything to bury it.\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHenry Stasik, an Internal Affairs agent for the globe-spanning Coalition, is no stranger to crooked agents or scandals. He’s a truth-junkie. An addict. But when international celebrity Anastasia Danicheva specifically demands his presence at a police station, everything changes. The Coalition, which has brought peace through uniting the world under a single banner, wants her dead. But none of their case against her adds up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStasik can’t help but need to know why.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHours after taking her under his department’s protection, a cybernetically enhanced hitman nips at Stasik’s heels. Witnesses disappear or turn up in pools of blood. And lurking above it all, guarded by a genocidal AI construct, is a secret that threatens to dismantle a perfect world and–Stasik himself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eMan in the High Castle\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003emeets\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eBlade Runner\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003ewith a dash of\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Man from U.N.C.L.E.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003ein this breakneck sci-fi spy thriller set in a drug-fueled alternate history from the number one Audible best-selling author of\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eTitanborn\u003c/em\u003e, Rhett C. Bruno, and James Wolanyk. Performed by award-winning actor Lou Diamond Phillips, star of\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eProdigal Son\u003c/em\u003e,\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eYoung Guns\u003c/em\u003e, and\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eLa Bamba\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2021 Rhett C. Bruno, James Wolanyk (P)2021 Podium Audio\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Operation Brushfire by Rhett C. Bruno and James Wolanyk"},{"content":"Another Heartstrikers dragon book by Rachel Aaron, who’d a thunk?\nI’m working my way through the series and have to say that I am enjoying them. They are not great and amazing works of art, but they are good solid modern fantasy and I look forward to more of them.\nPublisher’s Summary After barely escaping the machinations of his terrifying mother, two all-knowing seers, and countless bloodthirsty siblings, the last thing Julius wants to see is another dragon. Unfortunately for him, the only thing more dangerous than being a useless Heartstriker is being a useful one. Now that he’s got an in with the Three Sisters, Julius has become a key pawn in Bethesda the Heartstriker’s gamble to put her clan on top. Refusal to play along with his mother’s plans means death, but there’s more going on than even Bethesda knows. Heartstriker futures are disappearing, and Algonquin’s dragon hunter is closing in. Now, with his most powerful family members dropping like flies, it’s up to Julius to save the family that never respected him and prove once and for all that the world’s worst dragon is the very best one to have on your side.\n©2015 Rachel Aaron (P)2015 Audible, Inc.\nI rate One Good Dragon Deserves Another 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who is looking for modern fantasy with dragons.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/one-good-dragon-deserves-another-heartstrikers-book-2-by-rachel-aaron/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAnother Heartstrikers dragon book by Rachel Aaron, who’d a thunk?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI’m working my way through the series and have to say that I am enjoying them. They are not great and amazing works of art, but they are good solid modern fantasy and I look forward to more of them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"publisher8217s-summary\"\u003ePublisher’s Summary\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter barely escaping the machinations of his terrifying mother, two all-knowing seers, and countless bloodthirsty siblings, the last thing Julius wants to see is another dragon. Unfortunately for him, the only thing more dangerous than being a useless Heartstriker is being a useful one. Now that he’s got an in with the Three Sisters, Julius has become a key pawn in Bethesda the Heartstriker’s gamble to put her clan on top. Refusal to play along with his mother’s plans means death, but there’s more going on than even Bethesda knows. Heartstriker futures are disappearing, and Algonquin’s dragon hunter is closing in. Now, with his most powerful family members dropping like flies, it’s up to Julius to save the family that never respected him and prove once and for all that the world’s worst dragon is the very best one to have on your side.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2015 Rachel Aaron (P)2015 Audible, Inc.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"One Good Dragon Deserves Another: Heartstrikers, Book 2 by Rachel Aaron"},{"content":"I bought The Werewolf’s 15 Minutes from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app.\nGood contemporary werewolf stories are hard to find, but I think this is one of them. It’s a modern day take on what could happen when a YouTube generation kid decides to go public about his lycanthropy.\nAt only 1 hour and 42 minutes in length it is short but tells an engaging story that I enjoyed.\nFrom the publisher:\nGary Bruce is a slacker of epic loserness. Can’t keep a job. His friends are as bad as he is. No girlfriend. No direction.\nGary Bruce is also a werewolf.\nDesperate for any kind of success, Gary decides to out himself on YouTube. The moment this ordinary guy goes full-on fur, fangs, and claws, the world can’t get enough of him. He’s the biggest thing on social media, he’s on every talk show, book and movie deals fall in his lap, and for the first time in his life he gets invited to all the best parties.\nBut celebrity is a special kind of voracious monster. And when Gary’s star begins to lose its luster, he has to decide how far he’ll go to stay relevant in a world that discards has-beens in favor of the next big thing.\nFortunately, Gary has a plan….\nThe Werewolf’s 15 Minutes is a brand-new short story by New York Times best-seller and five-time Bram Stoker Award winner Jonathan Maberry, author of Bewilderness and V-Wars (Netflix).\n©2021 Jonathan Maberry Productions, LLC (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC.\nI enjoyed The Werewolf’s 15 Minutes and rate it an 8 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-werewolfs-15-minutes-by-jonathan-maberry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Werewolf's 15 Minutes\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2021/12/the-werewolfs-15-minutes.jpg\"\u003eI bought \u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Werewolfs-15-Minutes-Audiobook/B09F1BW9Y2\"\u003eThe Werewolf’s 15 Minutes\u003c/a\u003e from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGood contemporary werewolf stories are hard to find, but I think this is one of them. It’s a modern day take on what could happen when a YouTube generation kid decides to go public about his lycanthropy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt only 1 hour and 42 minutes in length it is short but tells an engaging story that I enjoyed.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Werewolf’s 15 Minutes by Jonathan Maberry"},{"content":"\nI got Nice Dragons Finish Last from Audible and listened using the Audible App.\nIt is not as fantastical as the Detroit Free Zone books and not as much humor, but still a good story and great narration by Vikas Adam.\nFrom the publisher:\nAs the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn’t fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience. Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ – a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit – Julius has one month to prove he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test. He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons….\n©2014 Rachel Aaron (P)2014 Audible Inc.\nI rate Nice Dragons Finish Last a 7 out of 10 and look forward to listening to more stories of the Heartstrikers clan.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/nice-dragons-finish-last-by-rachel-aaron/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Nice Dragons Finish Last\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2021/12/nice-dragons-finish-last.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI got \u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/pd/Nice-Dragons-Finish-Last-Audiobook/B00PQVO914\"\u003eNice Dragons Finish Last\u003c/a\u003e from Audible and listened using the Audible App.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is not as fantastical as the Detroit Free Zone books and not as much humor, but still a good story and great narration by Vikas Adam.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn’t fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience. Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ – a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit – Julius has one month to prove he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test. He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons….\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2014 Rachel Aaron (P)2014 Audible Inc.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron"},{"content":"I went to 2 movies this week at a local AMC Theatre, the first one in a standard theater and the second in IMAX. The theater is understaffed and the employees appear to be undertrained and unmanaged.\nUnlike many newer theaters the first movie uncomfortable seats that did not recline and were in a very upright position that I found uncomfortable. The sound was mediocre and the picture was small. I don’t understand why the picture was so small, there was a lot more screen available, but the curtains were not pulled back and only three-quarters of the available screen was being used.\nThe second movie’s was much larger, being IMAX it should be. In this case the picture was too large, everything had the Screen Door Effect to a distracting degree. All of the text and where there was a hard line of strong contrast the ant-aliasing stair-stepping was extreme.\nThe audio before the movie began measured 82dB on my Apple watch, well into the “Loud” zone, it was uncomfortable enough that I had to put in my earbuds to block out some of it.\nI won’t be going back to that theater. I may not be going back to any theater. With all of the streaming options and my home theater, the “Big Screen” doesn’t offer anything for me anymore.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-movie-going-experience-in-2021/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI went to 2 movies this week at a local AMC Theatre, the first one in a standard theater and the second in IMAX. The theater is understaffed and the employees appear to be undertrained and unmanaged.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike many newer theaters the first movie uncomfortable seats that did not recline and were in a very upright position that I found uncomfortable. The sound was mediocre and the picture was small. I don’t understand why the picture was so small, there was a lot more screen available, but the curtains were not pulled back and only three-quarters of the available screen was being used.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Movie Going Experience in 2021"},{"content":"\nI bought Lost Planet Homicide from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app.\nLarry Correia always gets my attention and Gun Runners has a good start with Lost Planet Homicide. His world building skills shine here with a gritty crime riddled world settled long ago by people hoping to live in paradise, instead they end up barely being able to survive on hostile world where the air will kill them.\nI enjoyed the story and characters, but it is not in the same class as the Grimnoir Chronicles or Monster Hunter books, but it is a good book and I look forward to more.\nFrom the publisher:\nA lost colony planet, a perplexing murder, and a dogged homicide cop in this Audible Original story from best-selling author Larry Correia.\nWhen the biggest colony ship in human history was sent to settle a paradise world, an accident hurtled it deep into uncharted space. A thousand light years from Earth, with no way home and no way to call for help, the colonists’ only hope for survival was the one barely habitable planet in range, a nightmare world they named Croatoan. Landing on the only five mountain peaks tall enough to rise above the lethal acid clouds, the settlers carved a civilization from the rock.\nA hundred years later, Five Points has grown into a city of corruption and violence. With powerful corporations ruling the surface domes and criminal syndicates running the caverns below, murder is just the cost of doing business.\nSo when a Special Magistrate is found dissolving in a protein vat, it barely registers – until DCI Lutero Cade, the last honest cop in Five Points, catches the case. What he finds could threaten the colony’s very existence.\nOr, at the very least, Cade himself.\n©2021 Larry Correia (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC.Z\nI enjoyed Lost Planet Homicide and rate it a 6 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/lost-planet-homicide-by-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Lost Planet Homicide by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2021/12/lost-planet-homicide.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought \u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/pd/Lost-Planet-Homicide-Audiobook/B098FGWLHJ\"\u003eLost Planet Homicide\u003c/a\u003e from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLarry Correia always gets my attention and Gun Runners has a good start with Lost Planet Homicide. His world building skills shine here with a gritty crime riddled world settled long ago by people hoping to live in paradise, instead they end up barely being able to survive on hostile world where the air will kill them.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Lost Planet Homicide by Larry Correia"},{"content":"After reading Jamie McFarlane’s Junkyard Pirate series I went looking for more and found Rookie Privateer the first in his Privateer Tales series. Like the others, I read these on a Kindle Paperwhite.\nI made it through the first 12 books in the series one after another during March, April, and May and stalled out on number 13. I plan on getting back into them later. Amazingly there are now 19 books in the series.\nThis series is pure space adventure following Nick, Liam, and Tabith from humble beginnings on a space station to traveling across the universe confronting hostile aliens and violent pirates.\nI hihgly recommend the series to anyone who loves a good sci-fi adventure and rate it a 9 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/privateer-tales-by-jamie-mcfarlane/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Rookie Privateer\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2021/12/51v58uAQu2L.jpeg\"\u003eAfter reading Jamie McFarlane’s Junkyard Pirate series I went looking for more and found \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Rookie-Privateer-Jamie-McFarlane-audiobook/dp/B01BLRS7VO/\"\u003eRookie Privateer\u003c/a\u003e the first in his \u003cstrong\u003ePrivateer Tales\u003c/strong\u003e series. Like the others, I read these on a Kindle Paperwhite.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI made it through the first 12 books in the series one after another during March, April, and May and stalled out on number 13. I plan on getting back into them later. Amazingly there are now 19 books in the series.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Privateer Tales by Jamie McFarlane"},{"content":"\nMy 4 Oscillators\nIn my efforts to learn and use Morse Code I bought a straight key and an iambic paddle. The straight key is an MFJ-553 https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-553 , in my opinion it’s an inexpensive choice without being “junk”, I doubt I will ever use it on the air. The iambic paddle I chose is an HA8KF magnetic paddle, unlike the MFJ key this one is a work of art and will be the key I use the most until something different comes along.\nOscillators like the ones below are used with keys to produce the sounds that we know as Morse Code, the keys only create electrical contacts and maybe some clicking sounds, the oscillators make the dits and dahs for you without using a radio. They are great for training and practice by yourself or with a group.\nOscillators for Straight Keys North Fulton Amateur Radio League Morse Code Practice Kit\nNFARL Morse Code Practice Oscillator – a very simple practice oscillator with a built-in touch module that acts as a straight key so you can practice without an external key. This oscillator is about as basic as an oscillator can be, it includes a mono input for a straight key, a buzzer for tone, and 2 CR2032 batteries which will power it for a very long time.\nThe best thing about the NFARL Morse Code Practice Oscillator is it is very easy to assemble and can be used without an external key so it makes a great “learn how to solder” project.\nNightfire Oscillator\nNightfire Oscillator in an Altoids Tin\nNightfire Electronics CPO – it appears that the one I have is no longer sold, the version being sold now, “Rev C”, does not include a speaker. This another simple oscillator that uses a 9v battery for power and a 1.5” speaker for output.\nFor a simple oscillator I really like this one, once assembled and put into an Altoids tin it works great and is very loud.\nOscillators that Support Iambic Hamgadgets UltraPico\nHamgadgets UltraPico Disassembled\nTop of the Hamgadgets UltraPico\nBack of the Hamgadgets UltraPico\nHamgadgets Ultra PicoKeyer – the PicoKeyer is so much more than an oscillator or code practice tool. It comes in a great molded case with 3d-printed front and back panels, much nicer than putting it into an Altoids tin. You can listen to it through the built-in speaker or plug in an external speaker. It can even be plugged into a radio as a keyer. It includes a QSO counter for contesting… and so much more. As a beginner who doesn’t have all of the letters down I find changing the settings of the Ultra PicoKeyer challenging as it’s only method of telling you what setting you are changing is through Morse Code.\nI really like all the features of the Ultra PicoKeyer and expect that I may find a use for them as I become more proficient in Morse Code.\nQRP Guys Code Trainer – Top of Circuit Board\nQRPGuys Code Trainer – Bottom of Circuit Board\nQRPGuys Code Trainer – a very straight-forward code trainer oscillator with the added feature of “sending” practice codes. I haven’t used the sending feature yet as I am still learning the individual characters. I really like that all of the components are through-hole components that were easy to solder, it was a little more challenging than the NFARL CPO, but not much harder.\nThe QRPGuys Code Trainer is currently my favorite oscillator. When plugged into my paddles and external speakers it sounds great, much better than the other oscillators, and it is what I am using for Long Island CW Club classes on Zoom.\nI think all of these oscillators are pretty great and that as I learn Morse Code and my skills improve, I will find uses for all of them. I am keeping an eye out for a Morserino-32, it seems like it is a great tool for learning Morse Code.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ham-radio-morse-code-oscillators/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/ham-radio-morse-code-oscillators/oscillators-all-20201216-133909-0001/#main\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"4 oscillators\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/12/oscillators-all-20201216-133909-0001.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy 4 Oscillators\u003cbr\u003e\nIn my efforts to learn and use Morse Code I bought a straight key and an iambic paddle. The straight key is an MFJ-553 \u003ca href=\"https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-553\"\u003ehttps://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-553\u003c/a\u003e , in my opinion it’s an inexpensive choice without being “junk”, I doubt I will ever use it on the air. The iambic paddle I chose is an HA8KF magnetic paddle, unlike the MFJ key this one is a work of art and will be the key I use the most until something different comes along.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ham Radio Morse Code Oscillators"},{"content":"My Drobo died…\n\u0026lt;sigh\u0026gt;\nI tried everything, replaced drives, cleaned it out, banged on it, everything I could think of and every idea I could find online. But it’s dead. It did last 7 years, but it sure feels like it should have lasted longer.\nDrobo has not had any devices for sale for a long time now, and in fact they don’t even have anyone answering the phones anymore. So time to look for an alternative.\nAfter a lot of research I narrowed my choices down to a Synology device and more research drove me to picking a DS1621+ for the following reasons.\n6 Drive Bays 4 bondable Ethernet ports Up to 32 GB of RAM SSD Read and Write Caches The ability to run VMs and Docker containers Coming from the 5-bay Drobo I was excited about having 6 bays, if I was buying it now I would have bought the 8-bay as it is not much more expensive. But 6 bays is pretty good and gives me plenty of space with Synology’s SHR single disk redundancy.\nBonding Ethernet ports can be a really big deal, it doesn’t make copying or writing any faster, but it allows multiple machines to be able to read and write to the NAS at faster speeds which in the real world can be a huge performance boost. If you have Plex running the performance can take a big hit with a single Ethernet connection and multiple devices watching movies and uploading/downloading files, but with 4 bonded ports the performance hit is noticeably less.\nIf your going to run Virtual Machines more RAM is always better and 32 GB is overkill for most home uses, but why not?\nHaving read and write caches can really boost the performance of a NAS, I saw that with the Drobo so I made sure to put them in my Synology. The only concern is the longevity of the cache drives, they have a limited lifespan with the number of writes, so in a high-use environment you may be better off without a write cache.\nI want the flexibility to run a Windows Virtual Machine to reduce the number of physical machines I have in my office, but I am still reluctant to use a NAS for it. I am pretty old-school in the way I think about computers, I prefer my NAS just be Network Attached Storage and not a jack-of-all-trades with a lot of software running on it that could cause a problem later on, so I have yet to set any VMs up. But I might. One day. Maybe.\nI am running Plex and it is working great, even better than when I had it running on an iMac. We have 3 TVs in the house and are regularly streaming from Plex to 2 of them at once with no problems.\nI am also running Synology’s Photos app, it is kind of terrible, so I may remove it at some point.\nIt is not a quiet machine, especially once there are 6 Seagate IronWolf Pro hard drives in it. The machine sits in the corner of my office surrounded by sound proofing squares and I can still hear it whirring and clicking all day long. Its not really loud, but loud enough to be distracting.\nOverall I am very happy with the Synology DS1621+ and after 3 months of using it I recommend you consider it as an alternative to a Drobo, QNAP, or building your own NAS.\nP.S. A NAS is not a backup solution unless you have 2 of them backing up to each other. One is none, two is one, and three is adequate. You should always have at least 3 findable and proven good copies of any important data. At least one of them should be off-site at a location other than your home or business.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/synology-diskstation-ds1621/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eMy \u003ca href=\"https://www.drobo.com/\"\u003eDrobo\u003c/a\u003e died…\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026lt;sigh\u0026gt;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI tried everything, replaced drives, cleaned it out, banged on it, everything I could think of and every idea I could find online. But it’s dead. It did last 7 years, but it sure feels like it should have lasted longer.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDrobo has not had any devices for sale for a long time now, and in fact they don’t even have anyone answering the phones anymore. So time to look for an alternative.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Synology DiskStation DS1621+"},{"content":"\nI am getting organized, like in-general organized. I am creating to-do lists, setting goals, and closely tracking my progress. I am learning some new tools and working on building new habits and I am hoping that they will help facilitate some changes for the better.\nI am starting with collecting all of the notes that I have scattered across many different hard drives and the Internet, so I thought learning how to take better notes would be a good idea.\nI learned about the Hoe to Take Smart Notes book while learning how to use a note taking tool called Obsidian, many of the blog posts and videos I watched referred to it and made it sound like a great book.\nI bought it from Amazon to read on the Kindle and read it in a day.\nThe title is “How to Take Smart Notes,” but I think it would have been better served with the title, “Why Take Smart Notes and How to Use Them.” Although it does cover the “How” of smart note taking, the majority of its pages are about the “Why.”\nI found the why of it interesting, but very dry.\nThe references throughout the book may be the best thing about it, I highlighted and saved many quotes and references for future exploring, the bibliography is a great resource.\nI plan on using what I learned and applying it to my daily note taking, task management, and other writing projects.\nForm the author’s website:\nThis is the step-by-step guide on how to set up and understand the principle behind the note-taking system that enabled Luhmann to become one of the most productive and systematic scholars of all time. But most importantly, it enabled him to do it with ease. He famously said: “I never force myself to do anything I don’t feel like.” Luhmann’s system is often misunderstood and rarely well explained (especially in English). This book aims to make this powerful tool accessible to everyone with an interest in reading, thinking and writing. It is especially helpful for students and academics of the social sciences and humanities and nonfiction writers.\nI rate How to Take Smart Notes a 6 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking to build a solid system of note taking, but be ready for the book to be a slog.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/how-to-take-smart-notes-by-sonke-ahrens/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2021/12/kindle-cover4-188x300-1.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am getting organized, like in-general organized. I am creating to-do lists, setting goals, and closely tracking my progress. I am learning some new tools and working on building new habits and I am hoping that they will help facilitate some changes for the better.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am starting with collecting all of the notes that I have scattered across many different hard drives and the Internet, so I thought learning how to take better notes would be a good idea.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens"},{"content":"I discovered Dice Throne through their Marvel Kickstarter and after backing it decided to get the other Dice Throne games to go along with it.\nThe big pitch for Dice Throne and the mechanic that makes it a bit different from other games is that there are characters to play that are very simple and ones that are very complex with a nice mixture in between. Between Season One and Season Two there are 16 characters to choose from with a complexity rating between 1 and 6. But don’t be fooled, complexity does not translate to simple and hard to play, with some combinations of characters the simple characters are a lot harder to play well and win with than the more complex characters.\nMost importantly, the gameplay is very well balanced as long as the players are equally good/bad at playing the game. Since it is a dice game with the Yahtzee mechanic of being able to re-roll your dice up to 3 times (unless something changes that) there is also a good amount of luck involved.\nA 2 player game can take anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours depending upon the how fast the players make choices. Sadly, the base game does not include a solo game… but I got around that by playing a 2-handed solo game, which doesn’t work great, but it let me get an idea of what playing 2 of the characters is like.\nEnter Dice Throne Adventures, it is a totally different game that allows for a solo or multi-player game where the Dice Thrown characters are used to battle bad guys, monsters, and bosses… but it is on back order and I have no idea when it will be delivered.\nWe’ve played a couple of games so far and I am really enjoying it and I am looking forward to playing all 16 of the characters.\nI rate Season 1 and Season 2 of Dice Throne an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone with access to at least one other person to play it with.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dice-throne/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI discovered \u003ca href=\"https://shop.dicethrone.com/\"\u003eDice Throne\u003c/a\u003e through their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dicethrone/marvel-dice-throne\"\u003eMarvel Kickstarter\u003c/a\u003e and after backing it decided to get the other Dice Throne games to go along with it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe big pitch for Dice Throne and the mechanic that makes it a bit different from other games is that there are characters to play that are very simple and ones that are very complex with a nice mixture in between. Between Season One and Season Two there are 16 characters to choose from with a complexity rating between 1 and 6. But don’t be fooled, complexity does not translate to simple and hard to play, with some combinations of characters the simple characters are a lot harder to play well and win with than the more complex characters.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dice Throne"},{"content":"After finishing the Nikki and Bob Series by Jerry Boyd I dug around in the Kindle Unlimited store and found the Junkyard Pirate Books by Jamie McFarlane.\nThe 3 books in the Junkyard Pirate series have a lot of tropes from other books I have read, but they definitely tell a different story. I enjoyed reading them enough that once I finished them, I moved right on to the Privateer series also written by Jamie McFarlane.\nOverall, I rate the series a 9 out of 10 and recommend them to anyone looking for some fun sci-fi.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/junkyard-pirate-books-by-jamie-mcfarlane/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Book Cover of Junkyard Pirate\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2021/03/junkyard-pirate-jamie-mcfarlane.jpg\"\u003eAfter finishing the \u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/nikki-and-bob-series-by-jerry-boyd/\"\u003eNikki and Bob Series by Jerry Boyd\u003c/a\u003e I dug around in the Kindle Unlimited store and found the Junkyard Pirate Books by Jamie McFarlane.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 3 books in the Junkyard Pirate series have a lot of tropes from other books I have read, but they definitely tell a different story. I enjoyed reading them enough that once I finished them, I moved right on to the Privateer series also written by Jamie McFarlane.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Junkyard Pirate Books by Jamie McFarlane"},{"content":"\nAssemble and ready to go\nIn my previous post I wrote about the QRP-Labs QCX-mini amateur radio kit which only has through-the-hole components to be soldered by the enthusiast but had problems with some of the surface mounted op-amps and my desire to learn how to remove those surface mounted devices (SMD) and install new ones. To learn how to do that I bought a handful of kits to practice on.\nFirst up is the Gikfun DIY SMD SMT Welding Practice Soldering Skill Training Board Ek7028 which was a pretty great kit to assemble, when finished it isn’t much to share as it just blinks some lights in the middle of the circuit board, but it comes with 124 LEDs, capacitors, and resistors and 2 ICs to solder to the board. I even practiced correcting “tombstoning” and removing then replacing components. The 1206 and 805 sized components were pretty easy, I did those with my Hakko 888 fine tipped soldering iron, but the 603 and 402 components I used the hot-air rework station.\nThe Gikfun kit was a challenge but it also gave me a lot of confidence to get the fancier SMD kits assembled.\nI purchased 2 kits from Evil Mad Scientist, The 555SE Discrete 555 Timer and The 741SE Discrete 741 Op-Amp which when finished make great desk toys/conversation starters and can even be used to make working circuits.\nI actually assembled the 555 Timer first, I followed the provided instructions by installing components as they were stored in their packaging a few at a time. I applied a dab of Chip Quik SMD291AX REWORK SOLDER PASTE 5CC 63/37 NO CLEAN SOLDER on each pad and then used the hot-air rework station to melt the solder. It worked really well and by the end of the kit I was full of confidence.\nAt the top of the page is the completed Op-Amp and below you can follow along with the steps I used to assemble it. Unlike with the 555 Timer I applied paste to the entire board by hand, a solder mask is not supplied with the kit.\nSolder Paste Applied\nThen I placed each component. The solder paste did a decent job holding the components in place, I developed a rhythm of getting the component onto the board with a bit of it stuck in the paste then maneuvering it into its correct position followed by a tap on the top to set it down into the paste.\nComponents in the Paste\nAnd finally, I moved the hot-air rework station’s wand across the entire board moving quickly at first to warm up the entire board then more slowly and finally concentrating on each component until the solder flowed.\nSoldered Components\nThe finished kit puts a big smile on my face, I am very excited to do more SMD kits.\nSoldered Components Close-Up\nThe only thing that bothers me about using the hot-air rework station and soldering paste is that the soldering paste has an expiration date. I have been told that it is good for about 6 months and if refrigerated can be used up to a year, but after that it doesn’t work as expected. I have solder wire that is 30 plus years old and works as well today as it did the day I bought, that won’t be the case with solder paste.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/surface-mount-soldering-kits/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/surface-mount-soldering-kits/dave-nelson-20210131-141044-0004/#main\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Evil Mad Scientist The 741SE Discrete 741 Op-Amp\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2021/02/dave-nelson-20210131-141044-0004.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAssemble and ready to go\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn my previous post I wrote about the QRP-Labs QCX-mini amateur radio kit which only has through-the-hole components to be soldered by the enthusiast but had problems with some of the surface mounted op-amps and my desire to learn how to remove those surface mounted devices (SMD) and install new ones. To learn how to do that I bought a handful of kits to practice on.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Surface Mount Soldering Kits"},{"content":"\nAssembled QRP-Labs QCX-mini with dummy load and replacement op-amps.\nThe QCX-mini is a continuous wave (CW), think Morse Code, ham radio kit that transmits and receives on one band only at around 5 watts. I had been waiting for the release of the QCX-mini kits for a while and was able to order one as soon as it was released. I also bought the aluminum case and the 50-ohm dummy load.\nThe kit was pretty straight-forward to assemble, I am very proud of my soldering on this kit, it is the best I have ever done, but…\nWhen I was done and went through the alignment process it didn’t work. I went off to the QCX forums to see what I could do. Turns out there is an issue with the pre-installed surface mount op-amps used in some of the early kits. The solution is to check the voltages of each op-amp, there are quite a few of them, and then replace the ones that aren’t working as designed. Also using an oscilloscope is recommended to collect more troubleshooting information.\nI bought a 10 pack of op-amps directly from China on eBay, they arrived a lot faster than I expected.\nI bought an inexpensive scope for Ali Express, the DSO FNIRSI-150 Digital Oscilloscope full assembled with P6020 BNC standard probe, along with an extra probe. I’ve turned it on but haven’t learned how to use it yet. I am hesitant to use the scope as some members of the forums have shorted out their radios breaking a lot of components in the process, the surface mount components are so small I can see myself doing that.\nThis also led me to buy a hot air rework station. After a lot of research I bought the Sparkfun Hot-Air Rework Station – 303D. I chose this unit because I trust Sparkfun and they stock replacement heating elements for it.\nBut I have never soldered surface mount components or used a hot-air rework station so I bought a handful of SMD kits to practice on, there will be blog posts in the future about those.\nAs of right now I have a non-working QCX-mini which I am pretty bummed about. QRP-Labs is in the process of making some design changes to the radio and my plan is to buy one of the new kits when they are available instead of trying to fix the one I have. Even though the radio doesn’t work I am not upset about it, I believe they are pushing limits and doing their best to create a great kit experience and a great radio for us.\nI look forward to getting my hands on the next version of the QCX-mini and using it to make a lot of contacts with it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/qrp-labs-qcx-mini/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/?attachment_id=2365#main\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"QRP-Labs QCX-mini\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2021/02/dave-nelson-20210201-092946-0005.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAssembled QRP-Labs QCX-mini with dummy load and replacement op-amps.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"http://shop.qrp-labs.com/qcxmini\"\u003eQCX-mini\u003c/a\u003e is a continuous wave (CW), think Morse Code, ham radio kit that transmits and receives on one band only at around 5 watts. I had been waiting for the release of the QCX-mini kits for a while and was able to order one as soon as it was released. I also bought the aluminum case and the 50-ohm dummy load.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"QRP Labs QCX-mini"},{"content":"After finishing all of the books Nathan Lowell has written so far I tried some books recommended by my Kindle, or more correctly “Advertised” on my Kindle, and what a total waste of time. I find it hard to describe just how BAD those books were. But then I found Bob’s Saucer Repair by Jerry Boyd.\nThere are currently 14 books in the series, I am on book 9 and reading through a book every other day or so. These stories are science-fiction light with lots of humor, a fast pace, not a lot of depth, and a ton of characters.\nI highly recommend these books to anyone looking for some fun and light science fiction.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/nikki-and-bob-series-by-jerry-boyd/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51m4hoKOmOL.jpg\"\u003eAfter finishing all of the books Nathan Lowell has written so far I tried some books recommended by my Kindle, or more correctly “Advertised” on my Kindle, and what a total waste of time. I find it hard to describe just how BAD those books were. But then I found \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TCN8WYB\"\u003eBob’s Saucer Repair\u003c/a\u003e by \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Jerry-Boyd/e/B07VB5RRT5\"\u003eJerry Boyd\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are currently 14 books in the series, I am on book 9 and reading through a book every other day or so. These stories are science-fiction light with lots of humor, a fast pace, not a lot of depth, and a ton of characters.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Nikki and Bob Series by Jerry Boyd"},{"content":"I have now read every novel available from Nathan Lowell and I am eagerly awaiting more.\nNathan Lowell’s superpower is being able to write about “normal” people in a way that draws me in. Most of his characters are everyday people living ordinary lives, right up until they are not. Their motivations and desires are easy to understand and usually uncomplicated. But his stories are not straight-forward. They have twists and turns that keep me guessing and wanting more.\nI plan on listening to the podcasts of his books, that will take some time as I have a lot of podcasts and audiobooks in my playlist to get through but am happy to have Nathan’s to add to the mix.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/nathan-lowell-author/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have now read every novel available from \u003ca href=\"https://nathanlowell.com/\"\u003eNathan Lowell\u003c/a\u003e and I am eagerly awaiting more.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNathan Lowell’s superpower is being able to write about “normal” people in a way that draws me in. Most of his characters are everyday people living ordinary lives, right up until they are not. Their motivations and desires are easy to understand and usually uncomplicated. But his stories are not straight-forward. They have twists and turns that keep me guessing and wanting more.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Nathan Lowell, Author"},{"content":"My favorite Nathan Lowell book yet! This is the first Nathan Lowell book set in modern time but is a fantasy novel through and through.\nIt took me a little longer to read this one than the others as I savored every bit of it. It does follow some tropes that I have seen and read before, mainly the “muggle surrounded by magic but is ok with it” one but done in a way that I found very engaging.\nI really hope there are more in this series soon.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-wizards-butler-by-nathan-lowell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/?attachment_id=2336#main\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Book Cover of The Wizard’s Butler by Nathan Lowell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/12/Butler-catalog-cover.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eMy favorite Nathan Lowell book yet! This is the first Nathan Lowell book set in modern time but is a fantasy novel through and through.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt took me a little longer to read this one than the others as I savored every bit of it. It does follow some tropes that I have seen and read before, mainly the “muggle surrounded by magic but is ok with it” one but done in a way that I found very engaging.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Wizard’s Butler by Nathan Lowell"},{"content":"Another series by Nathan Lowell, but instead of Science Fiction, these are Fantasy. Tanyth Fairport is an old lady who has been traveling the last 20 years collecting information about herbalism from the old woman of Korlay.\nWe follow along with Tanyth for a couple of years as she grows into… well I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s pretty cool.\nIf you like fantasy that isn’t full of spell casting and dragons, then this series is for you.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/tanyth-fairport-adventures-by-nathan-lowell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/?attachment_id=2332#main\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Book Cover of Ravenwood by Nathan Lowell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/12/Ravenwood_Front_Final-203x300-1.png\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eAnother series by Nathan Lowell, but instead of Science Fiction, these are Fantasy. Tanyth Fairport is an old lady who has been traveling the last 20 years collecting information about herbalism from the old woman of Korlay.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe follow along with Tanyth for a couple of years as she grows into… well I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s pretty cool.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you like fantasy that isn’t full of spell casting and dragons, then this series is for you.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tanyth Fairport Adventures by Nathan Lowell"},{"content":"More fiction from Nathan Lowell set in the same universe as Trader’s Tales, Smuggler’s Tales, and Seeker’s Tales but this time we are dirtside on St. Cloud. We follow along with the Kruggs, Piranos, and a cast of others who are trying to find themselves and happiness.\nI really appreciate the chance to explore the shamans of St. Cloud and these books really pay off. They span a much longer period of time than the Solar Clipper books and delve deeper into the emotions of many characters.\nThe Shaman’s Tales series includes South Coast, Finwell Bay, and Cape Grace.\nThis series can be read out of order, they may be a great starting point for someone just starting to read Nathan’s books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/shamans-tales-by-nathan-lowell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/?attachment_id=2328#main\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Book Cover for South Coast by Nathan Lowell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/12/SouthCoast_catalog_cover.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eMore fiction from Nathan Lowell set in the same universe as Trader’s Tales, Smuggler’s Tales, and Seeker’s Tales but this time we are dirtside on St. Cloud. We follow along with the Kruggs, Piranos, and a cast of others who are trying to find themselves and happiness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really appreciate the chance to explore the shamans of St. Cloud and these books really pay off. They span a much longer period of time than the Solar Clipper books and delve deeper into the emotions of many characters.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Shaman’s Tales by Nathan Lowell"},{"content":"I am continuing my reading of Nathan Lowell’s novels with the Seeker’s Tales series using Kindle Unlimited and a Kindle Paperwhite. In Seeker’s Tales we continue along with Ishmael Wang and Phillip Carstairs on a new adventure in a “new” ship.\nI am still in awe of Nathan Lowell’s ability to weave a story and effortlessly create characters with so much depth and life in them. These books are really about the characters, the plot is secondary, in a good way.\nSeeker’s Tales includes, In Ashes Born, To Fire Called, and By Darkness Forged.\nI recommend Nathan Lowell’s books to anybody looking for something to read, give them a try, they may not be for you, but I love them.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/seekers-tales-by-nathan-lowell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/seekers-tales-by-nathan-lowell/01-in_ashes_borna_ebook_200x300/#main\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Book Cover for In Ashes Born by Nathan Lowell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/12/01-In_Ashes_BornA_ebook_200x300.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI am continuing my reading of Nathan Lowell’s novels with the Seeker’s Tales series using Kindle Unlimited and a Kindle Paperwhite. In Seeker’s Tales we continue along with Ishmael Wang and Phillip Carstairs on a new adventure in a “new” ship.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am still in awe of Nathan Lowell’s ability to weave a story and effortlessly create characters with so much depth and life in them. These books are really about the characters, the plot is secondary, in a good way.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Seeker’s Tales by Nathan Lowell"},{"content":"\nQSL Cards\nI really enjoy receiving QSL cards. During the COVID event I am only sending cards to US addresses, but look forward to sending them around the world in the future.\nHere are some of the cards I have received in the last few months.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/qsl-cards/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/qsl-cards/qsl-cards-contactsheet-001-small/#main\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"QSL Cards\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/12/QSL-Cards-ContactSheet-001-small.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eQSL Cards\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoy receiving QSL cards. During the COVID event I am only sending cards to US addresses, but look forward to sending them around the world in the future.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere are some of the cards I have received in the last few months.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"QSL Cards"},{"content":"\nTop of the Powerwerx MEGAbox\nWe have been having some power outages in our neighborhood recently so my plans for a portable power station have been moved up. I have done a lot of research and decided to spend the money now instead of spending more time trying to find something cheaper.\nBattery The battery I have chosen is a Bioenno Power Lithium Iron Phosphate 12V, 40Ah LFP Battery (PVC, BLF-1240A) and here is why:\n12V: All of my ham gear runs off of 12 volts and there are many other available tools that will also run off of the 12 volts. Using a 24V battery is tempting but requires more electronics to get the voltages I am looking for. Charge Current: 6A, this is easily supplied by an external power source or by solar panel(s) Max Discharge: 40A, my radios need around 21 amps to function well Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4): Lead Acid sealed, gel, or old-school are heavier than I want to deal with and do not provide a weight to power ratio that is appealing to me. There are also a lot of other things that make LiFePO4 40Ah: I want to be able to keep a radio running along with phones and tablets for a full day… but I also have to keep a budget in mind so 40Ah is what I bought. A 100Ah battery would be a lot better but is out of my price range. A negative of the Bioenno batteries is that they are not to be used in series or parallel as they each contain their own Battery Management System (BMS) which is not designed to be used in a multi-battery configuration. The BMS in Bioenno batteries is very highly thought of and works remarkably well.\nBox I chose the Powerwerx MEGAbox because I wanted one box that can hold the battery, charger, extra cables, and more. I also wanted USB-C and a light built into the box, when I looked at small and simpler boxes then included the cost of adding USB-C and a light it was almost as much as the MEGAbox. The light is kind of annoying with its seemingly endless number of modes, but it is a good light and is easily replaced if it gets too annoying.\nInside of the Powerwerx MEGAbox with PWRGate and PWRCheck+\nI am able to fit everything into the box and didn’t have to add any holes or make any major modifications to it. More details below.\nPower Management I needed a way to charge the batter via external power and solar, preferably with MPTT. Based on reviews and information from podcasts and such I chose the West Mountain Radio Epic PWRgate. The Epic PWRgate is rated up to 40 amps, instantly switch from external power to battery power, will charge Lead Acid, Lithium Ion, and LiFePO4 batteries, has advanced features available when plugged in to a computer via USB, has an optional temperature probe, and comes in a metal case that is very easy to mount.\nPower Measurement To measure the power coming from and into the battery I chose the West Mountain Radio PWRcheck+ for its easy-to-read screen and ability to store a lot of data that can be read back later on a computer. The PWRcheck+ is totally unnecessary, but I wanted a way to track the performance of the battery and figured it would be a good way to troubleshoot any issues that may come up.\nFor use with the solar panel, I got a Powerwerx Watt Meter – DC Inline Power Analyzer to have an easy way to see how much power is coming through the panel. It doesn’t have the features of the PWRcheck+ but it doesn’t cost as much either.\nSolar Power For solar I got the Bioenno Power 100 Watt Foldable Solar Panel (BSP-100-LITE). Its too big to take hiking but is a great size to carry in the back of the car and use for a field-day or to charge the battery on a sunny day when the power is out. I wanted enough wattage to give a decent amount of power to a battery but still be foldable and easy enough to move around. For the price I could have gotten 2 aluminum framed panels with twice the wattage, but they would not have been very portable. At some point I will probably buy those panels, but for now the foldable panel will do.\nShack Power My mains power supply is a SamlexPower SEC-1235M with the Fan and Powerpole mods documented by Phil Salas – AD5X. I have also upped the voltage it outputs to 14.6 volts which the Bioenno battery prefers.\nModifications to the Box I removed the top PowerPole connecter on the MEGAbox, took the connectors out and replaced them with Yellow and Gray connectors, Yellow for Solar input and Gray for power supply input, and they run to the Epic PWRgate which also has the battery and “load” plugged into it. I use Velcro to hold the battery in place along with the PWRgate and PWRcheck+. That keeps the outside of the box clean and offers a decent amount of water resistance.\nIn Use Day-to-day the box sits under the ham shack desk plugged into the SamlexPower power supply keeping the battery topped off. About once I week I leave the power supply turned off and run on battery power until it gets down to around 11 volts, at that point I turn the power supply back on. It works great. I take it outside every now and then to plug in the solar panel to get used to using that setup and learn how it works in the field. The solar panel is ok, but not amazing.\nThe Shack with the Powerwerx MEGAbox under the desk\nI am very happy with my Battery Box solution; it has already been tested in an outage where it kept my son’s tablet charged until the power came back on. I look forward to using it in an upcoming field day to really test it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/shack-power/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Powerwerx MEGAbox\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/12/powerbox-20201201-151433-0001.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTop of the Powerwerx MEGAbox\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe have been having some power outages in our neighborhood recently so my plans for a portable power station have been moved up. I have done a lot of research and decided to spend the money now instead of spending more time trying to find something cheaper.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"battery\"\u003eBattery\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe battery I have chosen is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.bioennopower.com/collections/12v-series-lifepo4-batteries/products/12v-40ah-lfp-battery-pvc-blf-1240a\"\u003eBioenno Power Lithium Iron Phosphate 12V, 40Ah LFP Battery (PVC, BLF-1240A)\u003c/a\u003e and here is why:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Shack Power"},{"content":"Smuggler’s Tales is in the same universe as Trader’s Tales and includes some of the same characters but is told from Natalya and Zoya’s point of view. I read these on my Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Unlimited.\nSmuggler’s Tales includes\nMilk Run Suicide Run Home Run Mr. Lowell, or should it be Dr. Lowell, has done such an amazing job building out this universe and by giving us 3 more books from a different perspective is wonderful. There is more action in these stories than in the Trader’s Tales, but the tone remains the same.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/smugglers-tales-by-nathan-lowell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Milk Run by Nathan Lowell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://nathanlowell.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/01-Milk_Run_corcy_ebook_thumbnail-200x300.png\"\u003eSmuggler’s Tales is in the same universe as Trader’s Tales and includes some of the same characters but is told from Natalya and Zoya’s point of view. I read these on my Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Unlimited.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSmuggler’s Tales includes\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://nathanlowell.com/1-milk-run/\"\u003eMilk Run\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://nathanlowell.com/2-suicide-run/\"\u003eSuicide Run\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://nathanlowell.com/home-run/\"\u003eHome Run\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMr. Lowell, or should it be Dr. Lowell, has done such an amazing job building out this universe and by giving us 3 more books from a different perspective is wonderful. There is more action in these stories than in the Trader’s Tales, but the tone remains the same.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Smuggler’s Tales by Nathan Lowell"},{"content":"\nThis is the first series of book that I read on my new Kindle Paperwhite. These books are available to purchase from Amazon as ebook, audiobook, and paperback versions. Instead of buying each book individually I subscribed to Kindle Unlimited to read them all.\nTrader’s Tales includes the books\nQuarter Share Half Share Full Share Double Share Captain’s Share Owner’s Share These books follow the life of Ismael Wang and his antics between the stars. I REALLY like these books; they are exactly what I was needing when I found them. They are not full of action, violence, fantasy, war, or death. They do not make up a sprawling space opera that spans centuries nor do they contain deep technical details about how people are able to live in space.\nTo me these books are a window into a world where cities in space are the way things have been for a long time. Where people work hard to be the people they want to be or need to be but struggle with all of the things that get in their way and either rise to the occasion, try to ignore them, or get crushed by them. The characters are all very believable and I have fallen for Ishmael and his friends. I look forward to reading more about the lives they lead and where they end up.\nDon’t get these books if your looking for a ton of action, but if you are in the mood for a good adventure story this may be the story you are looking for.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/traders-tales-by-nathan-lowell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"quarter share by nathan lowell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ISzG25N2L.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the first series of book that I read on my new Kindle Paperwhite. These books are available to purchase \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Nathan-Lowell/e/B003D54RY4\"\u003efrom Amazon\u003c/a\u003e as ebook, audiobook, and paperback versions. Instead of buying each book individually I subscribed to Kindle Unlimited to read them all.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrader’s Tales includes the books\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eQuarter Share\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHalf Share\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFull Share\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDouble Share\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCaptain’s Share\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOwner’s Share\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese books follow the life of Ismael Wang and his antics between the stars. I \u003cstrong\u003eREALLY\u003c/strong\u003e like these books; they are exactly what I was needing when I found them. They are not full of action, violence, fantasy, war, or death. They do not make up a sprawling space opera that spans centuries nor do they contain deep technical details about how people are able to live in space.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Trader’s Tales by Nathan Lowell"},{"content":"![amazon kindle paperwhite book reader](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61eAq6gg-XL._AC_SL300_.jpg?ssl=1\u0026quot; style=\u0026ldquo;float:right;margin:0 0 15px 15px)\nWhile studying for the Amateur Radio license exams I decided I wanted a new Kindle to read them on. Looking at the different versions of Kindle’s available I chose the Paperwhite for its price, size, backlighting, and water resistance. We have an original Kindle Keyboard and it still works, but it is larger and heavier than the Paperwhite, is not water resistant, does not have a backlight, does not have a touchscreen, and is awkward to hold. I was hesitant to buy a new Kindle as I had not been using the old one very often until I started studying for the license exams which is what got me to use the old one a lot.\nNow that I have the Paperwhite Kindle, I use it a lot. It is small enough to fit the pocket of my hoodies, light enough that with a Pop-Socket installed on the back of it I can hold it for hours, when there is enough light the screen without backlighting is easy to read and when there isn’t much light the backlight does a great job making it readable. It would be great if the color of the backlighting was something other than blue, I would prefer an amber color, but that would probably require more power from the battery than the blue.\nI like to boost the font size up pretty large, that allows me to read much faster than when I am straining to read smaller text. I have mostly read technical manuals and fiction novels with it, I have tried to use it to read PDF files, but with PDFs you cannot adjust the font size, so I mostly stick to Kindle formatted documents.\nThe battery lasts a good while for me, I usually charge it one a week or so when using it for a couple of hours a day. Yesterday I read on it for about 10 hours, finished an entire book, and that used around 30% of the battery. The brighter you have the light and the more you use Bluetooth and Wi-Fi functionality the shorter the battery life will be.\nI am now also subscribe to Kindle Unlimited and am using that subscription to read a lot of different science-fiction books. Its really cool having so many books available at my fingertips, but I think the $9.99 a month price will probably make me cancel it after a couple of months.\nHere are my 3 favorite things about Kindle I can read the books I get from Amazon for the Kindle on iOS or Android phones and tablets along with Kindle devices The waterproof Kindle Paperwhite can be used while in the bathtub or at the pool without wrapping it up to keep it dry I don’t have to find space to store or go through the process of selling all of the books that I have read Devices I live in a house with multiple tablets, phones, and even Kindles. I really appreciate that I can pick any of them up and continue where I left off for any book that I have been reading. It is not perfect, there are times when a device will screw up and send me to the wrong place in the book, when that happens with an audio book it is really annoying to find my place again, but with an ebook, it is not so bad.\nWaterproof I like to soak in water… a lot. I regularly sit in our bathtub for 3 hours at a time. With most of my devices I have to put them in a Ziploc bag before taking them into the bath with me, but with the current iPhone and Kindle Paperwhite I don’t have to do that anymore. I am careful with them and haven’t submerged them yet, but Apple and Amazon claim that they would be find if they took a plunge into the bath.\nStorage We have 8 bookshelves in our house and a couple in the garage and they are all full. The large “Science Fiction” bookshelf and the “Travel” bookshelf are so full that the shelves are 2 deep in books. This is after we have gone through the books multiple times giving, trading, and donating hundreds of books. Buying more physical books to fill the house really doesn’t interest me. Using the Kindle and big iPad Pro to read has been a fantastic experience for me. But of course there are physical books I just have to have, usually the big electronics or other technical reference books, because I do love spending time pouring over them and turning to random pages and learning something new.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/kindle-paperwhite/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e![amazon kindle paperwhite book reader](\u003ca href=\"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61eAq6gg-XL._AC_SL300_.jpg?ssl=1%22\"\u003ehttps://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61eAq6gg-XL._AC_SL300_.jpg?ssl=1\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e style=\u0026ldquo;float:right;margin:0 0 15px 15px)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile studying for the Amateur Radio license exams I decided I wanted a new Kindle to read them on. Looking at the different versions of Kindle’s available I chose the Paperwhite for its price, size, backlighting, and water resistance. We have an original Kindle Keyboard and it still works, but it is larger and heavier than the Paperwhite, is not water resistant, does not have a backlight, does not have a touchscreen, and is awkward to hold. I was hesitant to buy a new Kindle as I had not been using the old one very often until I started studying for the license exams which is what got me to use the old one a lot.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Kindle Paperwhite"},{"content":"On October 13, 2020 I took the Amateur Extra ham radio license with the [Silver Comet Trail Amateur Radio Society](http://www.silvercometars.com/ noreferrer) and PASSED! All of the bandwidths are mine.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/amateur-extra-ham-radio-license/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOn October 13, 2020 I took the Amateur Extra ham radio license with the [Silver Comet Trail Amateur Radio Society](\u003ca href=\"http://www.silvercometars.com/\"\u003ehttp://www.silvercometars.com/\u003c/a\u003e noreferrer) and PASSED! All of the bandwidths are mine.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Amateur Extra Ham Radio License"},{"content":"Wahoo! I have received my first QRZ.com award for completing on-air contacts with 25 members of QRZ from around the world.\nQRZ World Radio Friendship Award\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/my-first-qrz-com-award/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWahoo! I have received my first \u003ca href=\"https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/new-operating-award-celebrates-qrzs-25th-anniversary.620962/#post-4735540%EF%BF%BDgt\"\u003eQRZ.com award\u003c/a\u003e for completing on-air contacts with 25 members of QRZ from around the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"QRZ World Radio Friendship Award\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/10/freindship-award.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eQRZ World Radio Friendship Award\u003c/p\u003e","title":"My First QRZ.com Award"},{"content":"Here is a map of the contacts I have made so far, a couple were using RemoteHamRadio.com but the bulk were from my home using FT-8 over 20, 40, and 80 meters. I really blows me away that I have been able to reach so far with a bit of wire strung up in the trees.\nW6NEL Ham Radio Contacts\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/amazing-ham-radio-results/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHere is a map of the contacts I have made so far, a couple were using RemoteHamRadio.com but the bulk were from my home using FT-8 over 20, 40, and 80 meters. I really blows me away that I have been able to reach so far with a bit of wire strung up in the trees.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2020/10/Screen-Shot-2020-10-05-at-7.10.11-PM.png?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Map of the world with ham radio contacts marked\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/10/Screen-Shot-2020-10-05-at-7.10.11-PM.png\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eW6NEL Ham Radio Contacts\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Amazing Ham Radio Results"},{"content":"In ham radio the place where you keep the bulk of your radios is known as your shack. I currently have 2 radios and 2 antennas set up in my shack.\nIcom IC-9700 The IC-9700 is an all mode, tri-band transceiver covering 2 meter (144MHz), 70cm (430/440MHz) as well as 23cm (1200MHz). In my area there is not much traffic on the 70cm or 23cm bands. There are plenty of repeaters on 70cm, but they are rarely used.\nI have the radio connected to a Comet GP-95N which works with all of the bands the radio supports. I have the antenna at the top of 1 and a half fence rale toppers which has it up around 27 feet high. Due to local terrain, both natural and mand-made, I struggle to get signals from the West, but am able to hit repeaters 60+ miles away to the North East 30 miles away to the South.\nI primarily use the radio to check into local nets and to ragchew with people on the 2-meter repeaters. The North Fulton Amateur Radio League NF4GA repeater on 145.47Mhz is where I hang out the most, but I also regularly scan all of the repeaters I have in memory and drop into conversations every now and then.\nI hope to get an antenna(s) at some point so I can work satellites and do Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) with the 9700, but that is probably a couple of years away due to cost and limited space to put antennas.\nIcom IC-7300 The IC-7300 is a High Frequency (HF) plus 50MHz radio that covers the 6 to 160 meter bands.\nIt is connected to an MFJ-2010 Off-Center Fed Dipole covering the 6, 10, 20, and 40-meter bands. With the space that I have available I don’t think this antenna can be beat. I have it running from a tree in the front yard to a tree in the back yard with one end around 25 feet high and the other over 40 feet high.\nWith atmospheric conditions being what they are, I have decided to contrate on 20- and 40-meter bands using the FT-8 digital mode. I have been able to reach California, Washington State, North Eastern Canada, Belize, Ecuador, London, Spain, Hungary, and others. I am really amazed at how well such and inexpensive antenna is working for me.\nWith an LDG IT-100 Autotuner between the radio and antenna I am able to use the 80-meter band, but even with the tuner the Standing Wave Ratio (SWR) is high enough to cause my transmissions to be very weak.\nOther Bits and Pieces I also have HamClock set-up on a Raspberry Pi with the official 7 inch touchscreen so I can keep track of UTC time, solar activity, satellite positions, and sun/moon position. It is really handy.\nI also have a Raspberry Pi set up with HamPi, but have not put it to use yet. The IC-9700 can be worked remotely without a separate computer, but the IC-7300 requires a local computer that you VNC into to control the radio.\nPlans I don’t plan on adding much more to the shack, but I do plan on setting up remote control of both radios, I think it would be really cool to be able to use them while traveling or even from another location in the house.\nMy next project will be adding a radio to the car along with studying for the Extra exam, learning Morse Code (CW), and other digital modes.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-state-of-my-radio-shack/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn ham radio the place where you keep the bulk of your radios is known as your shack. I currently have 2 radios and 2 antennas set up in my shack.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch1 id=\"icom-ic-9700\"\u003eIcom IC-9700\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"https://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/amateur/hf/9700/default.aspx\"\u003eIC-9700\u003c/a\u003e is an all mode, tri-band transceiver covering 2 meter (144MHz), 70cm (430/440MHz) as well as 23cm (1200MHz). In my area there is not much traffic on the 70cm or 23cm bands. There are plenty of repeaters on 70cm, but they are rarely used.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The State of My Radio Shack"},{"content":"I found myself floundering a bit after passing the General exam. I had been in “study” mode for a few weeks and not having anything to study left me feeling… odder than usual. So I decided to start studying for the Amateur Extra exam, why not?\nSo far I have read the ARRL Extra Class License Manual cover to cover. I found it much harder to read than the Technician or General manuals, not because the content is more complicated or detailed, but because the writing and editing are not up to the same quality as those other manuals. There are many errors and many passages that are written in ways that confused me.\nNow I am on to reading and listening to the The Fast Track to Your Extra Class Ham Radio License by Michael and Kerry Burnette. You may recognize the title and authors from the book I used to study for the General exam, but this is for the Extra. I really enjoyed the General book, both on the Kindle and on Audible so decided to stick with them for the Extra.\nThis time I have also purchased The Fast Track to Mastering Extra Class Ham Radio Math along with the recommended Texas Instruments TI-30XS. Statistically, memorizing all of the formulas and being able to do all of the calculations is not necessary to pass the test, but I have decided it is something I would like to learn. There was a time in my life that I really enjoyed math, let’s see if I can rekindle that flame.\nThe Fast Track Ham website https://fasttrackham.com/ is also a great help with a handful of videos to help explain some more of the math and practice exams for each chapter of the books. I really like the way the “by chapter” practice exams build upon the previous chapters. That works well for me.\nAnd to round out my studies I am also using HamStudy.org website by SignalStuff to do even more practice exams. I really appreciate how HamStudy allows you to work through all of the exam pool and use flash cards to find your weaknesses and concentrate study time on them.\nMy plan is to take it slowly and learn the material well and hopefully take the test sometime in November. Wish me luck.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/studying-for-the-amateur-extra-exam/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI found myself floundering a bit after passing the General exam. I had been in “study” mode for a few weeks and not having anything to study left me feeling… odder than usual. So I decided to start studying for the Amateur Extra exam, why not?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo far I have read the \u003ca href=\"http://www.arrl.org/shop/ARRL-Extra-Class-License-Manual-12th-Edition-Spiral-Bound/\"\u003eARRL Extra Class License Manual\u003c/a\u003e cover to cover. I found it much harder to read than the Technician or General manuals, not because the content is more complicated or detailed, but because the writing and editing are not up to the same quality as those other manuals. There are many errors and many passages that are written in ways that confused me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Studying for the Amateur Extra Exam"},{"content":"As I said in a previous post, I got my Technician License to fly drones (quadcopters) and didn’t really learn much in the process, I just memorized the answers. But once I decided to get a General License I decided I really wanted to learn something.\nI started with the ARRL General Class License Manual and read it cover-to-cover. While doing that I attended the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo where I met Michael Burnette, AF7KB in a chat room who wrote The Fastrack to Your General Class Ham Radio License and he recommended his book to me which I immediately bought on Audible!\nYes! A technical book in audio book format! Michael is a great author and a great narrator. The audio book is fantastic and I highly recommend it to hams that listen to audio books. I was able to listen to it at 2 times speed to speed up the process, it takes more concentration to follow at that speed, but I think I actually learned more because I had to concentrate to follow him. I also bought the Kindle version of the book so I could see the figures, photos, and illustrations as they were being described in the audiobook. I ended up also reading the Kindle version cover-to-cover.\nI also bought the Patrick Maloney LLC Ham Study app for iOS and used that to take many practice tests.\nBetween the practice tests in the Ham Study app and on the Fast Track to Your Ham Radio License website I got my average score up to 80% or so and completed around 20 tests without failing (I failed plenty before I got to that point.)\nI used the Find an Amateur Radio License Exam Session search to find a local test in my area, right now there are many “in-person” testing sites listed that are not actually open, but I found one about 45 minutes from my house in Dallas Georgia hosted by the Silver Comet Amateur Radio Society.\nWe tested on Tuesday night in a picnic pavilion at the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. It was a great location, with COVID I really like that we did the testing outside. John, W4TXA, the president of the society and his team, did a great job of overseeing the testing and kept everything on track.\nI passed the General Exam and then took a shot at the Extra Exam which I did not pass, but that’s OK, I am very excited to now be able to talk on the HF bands.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/general-license-exam/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs I said in a previous post, I got my Technician License to fly drones (quadcopters) and didn’t really learn much in the process, I just memorized the answers. But once I decided to get a General License I decided I really wanted to learn something.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI started with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.arrl.org/shop/ARRL-General-Class-License-Manual-9th-Edition-Spiral-Bound/\"\u003eARRL General Class License Manual\u003c/a\u003e and read it cover-to-cover. While doing that I attended the \u003ca href=\"https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/\"\u003eQSO Today Virtual Ham Expo\u003c/a\u003e where I met Michael Burnette, AF7KB in a chat room who wrote \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Track-General-Class-Radio-License/dp/B07SCLFHKP/\"\u003eThe Fastrack to Your General Class Ham Radio License\u003c/a\u003e and he recommended his book to me which I immediately bought on \u003cstrong\u003eAudible\u003c/strong\u003e!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"General License Exam"},{"content":"In 2015 I earned my technician ham radio license so that I could legally fly my drones via a First-Person View (FPV) camera that used the ham radio bands to transmit. I bought a study aid for my iPhone and spent a week or two doing practice tests until I was passing them pretty easy. I didn’t read any books, go to a class, or even talk to anyone else about it at the time.\nI took the test locally and passed. I spent a couple of years drone racing and goofing off in parks and a couple of flying fields, but I spent a lot more time fixing than I did flying, so I don’t really fly anymore. I bought a Baofeng UV-5R and upgraded its antenna, but did not make any contacts with it, so it just sat on a bookshelf collecting dust.\nNow, 5 years later, I have decided I want to really dive into ham radio, get my general license and maybe even an extra license. But this time I am actually going to learn something!\nI have bought the style=\u0026ldquo;font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, \u0026lsquo;Segoe UI\u0026rsquo;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, \u0026lsquo;Helvetica Neue\u0026rsquo;, sans-serif;\u0026quot;The Fast Track to Your General Class Ham Radio License audio and Kindle books, joined ARRL, and am listening to a lot of podcasts and watching a lot of YouTube videos. More importantly I am taking my time and digesting the information and learning more than just the test answers.\nIt has been a lot of fun so far, there is so much to learn and it brings together a lot of geeky things that I really like. I am spending a lot of time on local VHF repeaters listening to advice and rag chewing, I have even taken part in a handful of local Nets where ham radio clubs meet to check-in and discuss various topics.\nMy plan is to take the General test in late September or early October, I won’t have the money to buy an HF radio and antenna until then, so no need to rush.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ham-radio/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2015 I earned my technician ham radio license so that I could legally fly my drones via a First-Person View (FPV) camera that used the ham radio bands to transmit. I bought a study aid for my iPhone and spent a week or two doing practice tests until I was passing them pretty easy. I didn’t read any books, go to a class, or even talk to anyone else about it at the time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ham Radio"},{"content":"I have recently gotten deep into card games, not collectable card games like Magic the Gathering, although I have done that in the past, but games like Legendary and Munchkin, and Dresden Files where there are a lot of cards, a lot of shuffling, and generally the potential for rough handling.\nWith my Legendary game there are a handful of cards that get used at the beginning of every game, so they see a lot more use than any other cards in the game. After just 5 solo games I could already see those cards taking a beating and showing signs of wear. A big part of the fun of these card games is not knowing what card is coming up next, so having cards that stand out is not a good thing.\nWith some of my existing games I have used the Ultra Pro Deck Protector Sleeves, they work well. They provide plenty of protection, shuffle well, and handling is ok. They are a bit too slippery for my taste and are quite a bit larger than the card which contributes to a large stack of cards not staying stacked very well. Also, they get expensive when you want to protect thousands of cards. Ultra Pro also has more expensive sleeves that address the slipperiness issue, but the price is well out of the range I would spend for anything other than the most valuable of cards.\nThen there are “penny” sleeves. I have never tried these, after reading a lot of reviews I decided that they weren’t worth the trouble.\nMy research brought me to [Board Game Geek](https://boardgamegeek.com/ noreferrer) (BGG) and the [Card Sleeve Sizes for Games](https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/164572/card-sleeve-sizes-games noreferrer) post. Wow, so much information to digest. After reading many, many, comments there I decided on KMC Perfect Fit Sleeves.\nFor my Legendary Marvel collection, I needed around 5,000 sleeves. I ordered the [KMC Perfect Fit Sleeves](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074Z1LTK7 noreferrer) from Amazon and they arrived in a couple of days. A $120 just for sleeves, are you kidding me? I could have bought 5 expansion sets with that money! (Ultra Pro Matte Sleeves would have cost over $250.)\nI love these sleeves so much. The cards slide into them easily, they fit perfectly with very little extra space, have just the right amount of slipperiness for shuffling and stickiness for large stacks to stay together, they are very clear and when a card is sitting on a table it is hard to tell it even has a sleeve on it.\nAs an added bonus, for cards that are super valuable or will be used by someone who is abusive with their cards you can use the KMC Perfect Fit Sleeves as inner sleeves and Ultra Pro sleeves as outer sleeves to double protect your cards.\nIf you have decided to sleeve your cards I highly recommend KMC Perfect Fit Sleeves.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/sleeving-gaming-cards/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have recently gotten deep into card games, not collectable card games like Magic the Gathering, although I have done that in the past, but games like Legendary and Munchkin, and Dresden Files where there are a lot of cards, a lot of shuffling, and generally the potential for rough handling.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith my Legendary game there are a handful of cards that get used at the beginning of every game, so they see a lot more use than any other cards in the game. After just 5 solo games I could already see those cards taking a beating and showing signs of wear. A big part of the fun of these card games is not knowing what card is coming up next, so having cards that stand out is not a good thing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sleeving Gaming Cards"},{"content":"I have really gotten into Upper Deck’s Legendary Marvel card game, as previous posts have shown, and a big part of that are the challenges provided by Legendary Leagues.\nHere is the description from their website:\n“The Legendary League Series are unofficial leagues for competitive solo play of Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game and Legendary: Villains. It was started on BoardGameGeek.com with the Marvel Legendary base set by Jesse Olivier in 2013, DarthEd has run the hero league since season 2, and Travelsized has run the leagues that feature the Villains sets as well as the Starter Leagues. In each league, individuals will be competing against each other in solo play in multiple scoring categories in order to see who is the most Legendary!”\nWhat I get from Legendary Leagues is new challenges every month to play solo but with other people playing the same challenge. Then we discuss the challenges on the Board Gaming Geek forums. In one of my early games I mis-understood the rules of one of the cards and the guys in the forums were great in explaining the correct way to play. Overall the people on BGG are great, but the folks in the Legendary League forums are fantastic and always there to help.\nI have yet to come out in first place in one of the challenges, but I recently came in 5th out of 20+ which made me very happy as I tend to choose heroes based on how much I like the character instead of based on optimizing my chance to win.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/legendary-leagues/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have really gotten into Upper Deck’s Legendary Marvel card game, as previous posts have shown, and a big part of that are the challenges provided by Legendary Leagues.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere is the description from their website:\u003cbr\u003e\n“The Legendary League Series are unofficial leagues for competitive solo play of Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game and Legendary: Villains. It was started on BoardGameGeek.com with the Marvel Legendary base set by Jesse Olivier in 2013, DarthEd has run the hero league since season 2, and Travelsized has run the leagues that feature the Villains sets as well as the Starter Leagues. In each league, individuals will be competing against each other in solo play in multiple scoring categories in order to see who is the most Legendary!”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Legendary Leagues"},{"content":"\nHobby Lobby Art Cases full of Legendary Marvel cards\nStoring around 5000 sleeved cards that you want to be able to easily get at and play with is a bigger problem than I thought it would be. I found some people using the medium size expansion boxes and some cutting and gluing to make some really cool cases, but I don’t want to cut up my boxes. I found a 3d-printed storage solution, but it added a lot of weight to the original box and didn’t come close to holding all of the cards.\nThen I found out Broken Token makes inserts for “All Media Artist’s Supply Sketch Box” sold by Hobby Lobby and I already really like Broken Token inserts. With a couple of online coupons, I got 2 cases for half-off and bought the inserts which all arrived in a week or so.\nThe art cases are well made, the handle is strong, the hinges keep the lid from flopping open, and the locks are sufficient. The insert fits very tightly, even requiring a little bit of sanding, and even without gluing it into the case I don’t feel like it would slide out unintentionally.\nI chose to stain both the cases and inserts with a Cherry colored Min-Wax stain, it took two coats to get the color I wanted, actually they are still a little pinker than I would like, but I think they look a lot better than the natural wood they were originally.\nEach case weighs around 25 pounds with both the original version and Villains along with all of the expansions up to New Mutants. Pretty soon I will be buying a third case to hold the coming 2020 and 2021 expansions that Upper Deck has planned.\nClosed art case Open art case with Broken Token Insert\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-legendary-storage-solution/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2020/04/legendary-cases-03.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Legendary Cases\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/04/legendary-cases-03.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHobby Lobby Art Cases full of Legendary Marvel cards\u003cbr\u003e\nStoring around 5000 sleeved cards that you want to be able to easily get at and play with is a bigger problem than I thought it would be. I found some people using the medium size expansion boxes and some cutting and gluing to make some really cool cases, but I don’t want to cut up my boxes. I found a 3d-printed storage solution, but it added a lot of weight to the original box and didn’t come close to holding all of the cards.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Legendary Storage Solution"},{"content":"\nFinished Planck KeyboardAfter building the macro pad I jumped right into building a Planck. The Planck is a 40% ortholinear keyboard and there are files available on Thingiverse to print your own case and plate to build one.\nI used a case from mesohuannny and a plate from furfoxsake. They were both easy to print, but I had to increase the height of the case a bit to accommodate my messy bundle of wires.\nFor switches I used all of the random switches I had from a couple of switch testers I already owned. My only thought when picking switches was not placing similar switches close together and I did not want clicky switches, but one of them sneaked in.\nWiring Planck KeyboardWiring and programming were exactly the same as the macro pad, just more of it. I did not give myself enough extra wire to route it well inside the case which caused the first case I printed not to fit, so I made the case taller and printed it again. That one fit everything but the keyboard only worked intermittently. After a lot of frustration, I realized the reset button on the Arduino was being depressed by the case. A little bit of Dremel tool work later and the keyboard now works great.\nI spent an hour or so typing on it and realized that I don’t like ortholinear layout so much. I think it is something I could learn, but then it would be harder to type on standard keyboards, I have a hard time making mental shifts like that. But if I could get a 75% keyboard with a split spacebar and 1u keys on the bottom row… I would jump at that. I may have to build that myself at some point.\nI have decided that building the Planck was a great experience and it is a fun conversation piece, but not something I would regularly use.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/planck-keyboard-build/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2020/04/planck-01.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Planck Keyboard\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/04/planck-01.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinished Planck KeyboardAfter building the macro pad I jumped right into building a Planck. The Planck is a 40% ortholinear keyboard and there are files available on Thingiverse to print your own case and plate to build one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI used a \u003ca href=\"https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2335566\"\u003ecase\u003c/a\u003e from \u003ca href=\"https://www.thingiverse.com/mesohuannny/about\"\u003emesohuannny\u003c/a\u003e and a \u003ca href=\"http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3180555\"\u003eplate\u003c/a\u003e from \u003ca href=\"https://www.thingiverse.com/furfoxsake/about\"\u003efurfoxsake\u003c/a\u003e. They were both easy to print, but I had to increase the height of the case a bit to accommodate my messy bundle of wires.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Planck Keyboard Build"},{"content":"\nHandwired 2×5 Macro Pad with 3D-Printed caseWhile on lockdown for COVID-19 I decided it was the perfect time to build my first hand-wired mechanical keyboard and that starting small was the right way to begin. After much searching and thinking I chose a [2×5 case](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2509293 noreferrer) that I found on ThingiVerse by [Jacob Jaeggli (jakebot)](https://www.thingiverse.com/jakebot/about noreferrer) and with [Kailh BOX Heavy Burnt Orange Switches](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/3099/8088/files/BOX_Burnt_Orange.pdf?5816470357010718290 noreferrer) and a quick trip to Microcenter for a Teensy 2.0 Arduino board and diodes I got started.\nWhat I am going to document here is not the process I went through, as I got a lot of things wrong, made a lot of mistakes, and had to start over a couple of times. Here is what I think is the correct way to put your hand wired keyboard together.\nThere are a lot of hand wiring a keyboard guides out there now, but my favorite, and the one I aspire to is [Kentlam0203’s Handwired Preonic Build Log](https://imgur.com/gallery/87LfDVI noreferrer), it is so clean. For the brains of the operation I chose the Teensy 2.0 which is a common choice for a hand wired keyboard, it is small, has plenty of inputs, and a sturdy USB-mini plug.\nI started on the [Keyboard Layout Editor](http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/ noreferrer) website where I laid out the buttons, added legends, and copied the “Raw Data” for use in the [Keyboard Firmware Builder](https://kbfirmware.com/ noreferrer). On the Keyboard Firmware Builder website I got the wiring diagram, pins on the Teensy to use, created a keymap, and compiled the firmware. It is hard to believe how easy this was.\nIt took a couple of hours for the case to print, then the switches go into the plate and tested with a multimeter to ensure they are all working correctly and get hot-glued into place, then the diodes get soldered to the switches, then the row wires (yellow) with more testing, followed by the columns (green) and a final round of testing.\nI then use the Teesnsyduino software to make sure the Teensy is working correctly by uploading the Blink test script to it and changing values in the code to verify. With that done I use the Teesnsyduino to flash the firmware downloaded from Keyboard Firmware Builder. Then I solder the rows and columns to the pins and hot glue the board down to the case so plugging and unplugging the USB cable will be solid.\nThen I plugged it in and used the MacOS Keyboard Viewer app to verify that it all works. I don’t have a lot of use for this macro pad as my mouse has more buttons and is already in my hand, but as a learning experience, this has been great.\nNext up is building a Planck 40% keyboard.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/mechanical-keyboard-macro-pad/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2020/03/macropad-open.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Macro Pad Open\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/03/macropad-open.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHandwired 2×5 Macro Pad with 3D-Printed caseWhile on lockdown for COVID-19 I decided it was the perfect time to build my first hand-wired mechanical keyboard and that starting small was the right way to begin. After much searching and thinking I chose a [2×5 case](\u003ca href=\"https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2509293\"\u003ehttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2509293\u003c/a\u003e noreferrer) that I found on ThingiVerse by [Jacob Jaeggli (jakebot)](\u003ca href=\"https://www.thingiverse.com/jakebot/about\"\u003ehttps://www.thingiverse.com/jakebot/about\u003c/a\u003e noreferrer) and with [Kailh BOX Heavy Burnt Orange Switches](\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/3099/8088/files/BOX_Burnt_Orange.pdf?5816470357010718290\"\u003ehttps://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/3099/8088/files/BOX_Burnt_Orange.pdf?5816470357010718290\u003c/a\u003e noreferrer) and a quick trip to Microcenter for a Teensy 2.0 Arduino board and diodes I got started.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Mechanical Keyboard Macro Pad"},{"content":"\nThis was my third or fourth listen to the Iron Druid Chronicles on Audible and my first time to listen to the entire series in one go. All 9 novels as I have not gotten the 10 short stories available but may get them at some point.\nIn general, I do not recommend listening to so many books in a series one-after-another, it can lead to burnout and reduce the enjoyment from a series of stories. But I really enjoyed this listen all the way to the new book Scourged.\nLuke Daniels is just as great in the last book as he was in the first book. His ability to create a strong audible differentiation between the different characters really brings them to life and highlights their different personalities.\nKevin Hearne does an amazing job creating characters that have different drives, goals, and personalities. From the gentleness and anger of Granuelle, the gruffness of Owen, and the lustful scariness that is the Morrigan, they are all wonderful characters. Atticus and Oberon are my favorite characters of the stories, but Owen and Orla are close seconds.\nThe book Scourged, the 9th, is meant as the last in the series (there is already a short story being touted as book 9.5). It is a good ending to the series and well worth your time.\nI highly recommend the entire Iron Druid Chronicles series, although you may not want to listen to them one-after-another, maybe takes some breaks in between.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/iron-druid-chronicles-by-kevin-hearne/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/series/Iron-Druid-Chronicles-Audiobooks/B006XE41AC\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Iron Druid Chronicles at Audible\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61qkB51M5kL._SL500_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis was my third or fourth listen to the Iron Druid Chronicles on Audible and my first time to listen to the entire series in one go. All 9 novels as I have not gotten the 10 short stories available but may get them at some point.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn general, I do not recommend listening to so many books in a series one-after-another, it can lead to burnout and reduce the enjoyment from a series of stories. But I really enjoyed this listen all the way to the new book Scourged.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne"},{"content":"\nLegendary Marvel Boxes\nLegendary is a card game from Upper Deck that came out in 2015. I first got the Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game (not a Legendary game), then Legendary Encounters Firefly game which I liked a lot, Legendary Big Trouble in Little China, then the Legendary Buffy the Vampire Slayer game.\nI am primarily a solo player of these games, but the first time I played the Buffy game was with my wife and some friends in a 4-player game. It took us a bit to understand the instructions, but it wasn’t too hard. That convinced me that I really wanted the original Legendary game, the Marvel version of the game.\nMy wife gave me the care game as a Valentine’s day present. Even before opening it I bought a couple of expansions. Oh, the expansions, so many expansions, large ones and small ones. I went kind of crazy. By the end of my first solo game I decided I was going to “Collect” this game and get “All” of the expansions!\nSo here I am a week later, and I have all of the expansions except Villains and Fear Itself, neither of which I am interested in. I am in this to play as heroes, not as villains.\nHere are the expansions I currently have:\nLegendary® S.H.I.E.L.D.: A Marvel Deck Building Game Expansion Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Captain America 75th Anniversary Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Champions Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Civil War Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Dark City Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Deadpool Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Dimensions Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Fantastic 4 Expansion Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Fear Itself Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Revelations Deluxe Expansion Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Secret Wars Volume 1 Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game: Secret Wars Volume 2 Legendary®: Marvel Noir Legendary®: Venom Small Box Expansion Legendary®: X-Men Marvel Legendary® Ant-Man Small Box Expansion I am really enjoying playing Legendary games and collecting them. My next tasks are to sleeve all of the cards and find a way to store and transport them all. My current collection is over 3,000 cards and I am still missing the Guardians of the Galaxy and Heroes of Asguard expansions.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/legendary-a-marvel-deck-building-game/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2020/02/legendary-marvel-boxes.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Legendary Marvel Boxes\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2020/02/legendary-marvel-boxes.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLegendary Marvel Boxes\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://upperdeckstore.com/games-collectibles/legendary.html?limit=all\"\u003eLegendary is a card game\u003c/a\u003e from Upper Deck that came out in 2015. I first got the Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game (not a Legendary game), then Legendary Encounters Firefly game which I liked a lot, Legendary Big Trouble in Little China, then the \u003ca href=\"https://upperdeckstore.com/games-collectibles/legendary/legendary-buffy-the-vampire-slayer.html\"\u003eLegendary Buffy the Vampire Slayer\u003c/a\u003e game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am primarily a solo player of these games, but the first time I played the Buffy game was with my wife and some friends in a 4-player game. It took us a bit to understand the instructions, but it wasn’t too hard. That convinced me that I really wanted the original Legendary game, the Marvel version of the game.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Legendary®: A Marvel Deck Building Game"},{"content":"\nContinuing the adventures of Barney and the Beer Can… I mean Joe Bishop and the great and all powerful Skippy. The feels in this one are real and plentiful.\nI don’t really have a lot to say about this book other than that it is a continuation of the last book with lots more Skippy doing his thing. If you read or listened to the first book and didn’t like Skippy so much, then maybe this series is not for you. But if you loved Skippy then I think you will love this book.\nR.C. Bray continues doing an amazing job bringing the snark to life.\nFrom the publisher:\nColonel Joe Bishop made a promise, and he’s going to keep it: taking the captured alien starship Flying Dutchman back out. He doesn’t agree when the UN decides to send almost 70 elite Special Operations troops, hotshot pilots, and scientists with him; the mission is a fool’s errand he doesn’t expect to ever return from. At least this time, the Earth is safe, right?\nNot so much.\n©2016 Craig Alanson (P)2017 Podium Publishing\nI rate SpecOps an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who liked Columbus Day.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/specops-expeditionary-force-book-2-craig-alanson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"SpecOps: Expeditionary Force, Book 2 by Craig Alanson book cover\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5181KyyR4PL._SL200_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContinuing the adventures of Barney and the Beer Can… I mean Joe Bishop and the great and all powerful Skippy. The feels in this one are real and plentiful.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI don’t really have a lot to say about this book other than that it is a continuation of the last book with lots more Skippy doing his thing. If you read or listened to the first book and didn’t like Skippy so much, then maybe this series is not for you. But if you loved Skippy then I think you will love this book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"SpecOps: Expeditionary Force, Book 2 by Craig Alanson"},{"content":"I attended the Mechanical Keyboard Meetup at the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast (VCFSE) in Roswell Georgia. I have attended the VCF a couple of times in the past and it has always been interesting.\nGetting to see and touch computer from my childhood and before is a lot of fun, and even better, many of them are in working order and available to play with. Typing on a Commodore 64 brought back a lot of good memories. Typing on the Atari 400 chiclet keyboard, not so much.\nThe Mechanical Keyboard Meetup was held in a corner of the room with over 100 keyboards on display. It was a great opportunity to see and touch boards from so many manufacturers and custom one-of-a-kind builds. But the environment was so loud that I was not comfortable trying to talk with people, so overall it was not very satisfying.\nThere are upcoming plans for another Meetup in October, hopefully it will be someplace that isn’t so crowded and loud.\nOver 100 keyboards on display.\nThe Commodore 64 was the computer I spent my teens on.\nI really like that there are younger people interested in vintage computers. He had some great 128k and SE Macintosh computers.\nNext had so much potential, but it wasn’t Apple\nI don’t have a lot of experience with Amiga computers, but my friends always raved about them.\nThe Atari 400 was my first computer, the chiclet keyboard gave me calluses.\nI drooled over many of these in the computer stores of the 80s.\nI still have a PC-2, the middle on, with dot matrix printer, somewhere. I loved that computer so much.\nMichael gave a great talk about his days at Commadore\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/mechanical-keyboard-meetup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI attended the Mechanical Keyboard Meetup at the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast (VCFSE) in Roswell Georgia. I have attended the VCF a couple of times in the past and it has always been interesting.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGetting to see and touch computer from my childhood and before is a lot of fun, and even better, many of them are in working order and available to play with. Typing on a Commodore 64 brought back a lot of good memories. Typing on the Atari 400 chiclet keyboard, not so much.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Mechanical Keyboard Meetup"},{"content":"\nMy office desk with the Tex Yoda 2\nI cannot say enough good things about the Tex Yoda 2. I am totally in love with it.\nPrice Let’s start with how ridiculously expensive it is, actually let’s not and just say that it is more expensive than most would pay for a really nice keyboard and mouse. You can get an RGB Pok3r and a Logitech G502 for a lot less than the Yoda 2, and you probably should. But once I touched the Yoda 2 and did some typing on it I fell in love, and you can’t put a price on true love.\nTrackPoint The other thing that may be a drawback to some users is the trackpoint mouse pointer in the middle of the keyboard. It is the same technology that is used on laptop keyboard with the trackpoint in the middle of the keyboard, but it is more fragile because of the long stem it has to use to get the eraser above the keys. Back in the day I used a lot of laptops with a trackpoint and loved them, probably because trackpads really sucked back then.\nOn the Yoda 2 the trackpoint does feel fragile and in reading around the internet, a lot of people have had problems with it breaking. I have also read complaints about mouse drift, but that is normal for this technology and you should expect it. It drifts a lot less than the old ThinkPads, so I am happy with it. If you really don’t like the trackpoint, you can not put a tip on it or remove it entirely.\nSwitches I got the Tex Yoda 2 with Cherry Black switches and no backlighting. I also got some fancy GMK keycaps that made the luxurious keyboard even more sensual. The sound the combination of the heavy flat aluminum plate, smooth Cherry MX Black switched, and thick GMK double-shot ABS keycaps create a sound that makes me forget how much money I spent on this thing and just luxuriate in its soothing sounds.\nConnector I also love that it uses a USB-C connector instead of those janky old USB Mini or Micro connectors. The connection is solid, and the choice of cables is plentiful.\nProgramming Programing the keyboard is super easy, there is a configurator that lets you program each and every key, up to three function layers, and macros. From the configurator you export a file that gets copied to the keyboard and you are done. The fear of owners though is that the configurator website will disappear at some point and we will no longer be able to program our keyboards. Hopefully Tex will open source the tool soon.\nThe only think I really used the configurator for is to make caps-lock key a Function 1 key which make the WASD keys easier to use as arrow keys for me. Oh, I also moved around the ALT and Windows keys for better use on Macs. It was all super easy to do, but not as easy as with the Pok3r.\nConclusion I love this keyboard so much that I am now saving up to buy another one so I can have one at home and one at work.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/tex-yoda-ii-mechanical-keyboard-trackpoint/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"my office desk\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2018/04/IMG_0237.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy office desk with the Tex Yoda 2\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI cannot say enough good things about the \u003ca href=\"https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_list%EF%BF%BDc=515\"\u003eTex Yoda 2\u003c/a\u003e. I am totally in love with it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"price\"\u003ePrice\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLet’s start with how ridiculously expensive it is, actually let’s not and just say that it is more expensive than most would pay for a really nice keyboard and mouse. You can get an RGB Pok3r and a Logitech G502 for a lot less than the Yoda 2, and you probably should. But once I touched the Yoda 2 and did some typing on it I fell in love, and you can’t put a price on true love.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tex Yoda II Mechanical Keyboard with Trackpoint"},{"content":"\nThe storefront for Mechanical Keyboards in Fairview Tennessee\nAfter ordering the Pok3r from Mechanical Keyboards I realized that they were located just outside of Nashville Tennessee, like a 4-hour drive from me, so when I got the chance to take a day off I headed out.\nArriving at their storefront at 9:30 am on Monday morning I was greeted by Lee who spent a lot of time with me showing me a lot of different keyboards and answering my questions, and boy did I have a lot of questions.\nFirst off, I asked to touch a lot of different switches. Having tried Cherry Brown, Blue, and Silver and deciding that I don’t like clicky or mushy tactile switches I focused on linear switches while also trying a couple tactile switches. After a lot of fondling I decided I wanted my next keyboard to be a Cherry Black, original or clone. They are very similar to the silver or red, but with a stronger spring.\nLots of keyboards to try out!\nI am still very interested in the NovelKeys x Kailh BOX Heavy Switches in Burnt Orange, but there are currently no keyboards available with those switches. At some point I may give them a try in a kit or use a couple to replace existing switches in a keyboard.\nWith the switch selected it was time to try different keyboards. My main interest right now are 60% and smaller keyboards, there are not a ton of different keyboards that fit that description, and even fewer places where you can actually touch them.\nVortex Pok3r This is the keyboard I already have, I have a Limited Edition version with Silver Switches\nKBParadise V60 This is a nice keyboard, but the case is made of plastic making it very light. If you are looking for a smallish keyboard to travel with, the V60 is worth a look. Also, the V60 comes with a lot of switches that are harder to find in 60% boards, like ALPS, Matias, and Fukka.\nMistel Barocco A 60% split keyboard, very interesting. It doesn’t just split a little, it is two separate pieces with a cord connecting them together. Very interesting, but not my thing.\nTex Yoda II WOW! WOW! WOW! This is the one I chose to buy, it really blew me away. Review coming soon.\nI appreciate the hospitality shown to me by the guys at Mechanical Keyboards, Lee did a great job helping me find exactly what I was looking for. He also let me know that if I wasn’t totally happy with the Pok3r that I bought a couple of weeks ago that I had 30 days to return it and get something different.\nI decided to take him up on that offer and when I got home sent the Pok3r back with a plan to replace it with the same keyboard with black switches instead of silver.\nIf you are looking for a place to check out a lot of different keyboard before you buy, Mechanical Keyboards is the place. And if you are looking to buy a keyboard or accessories, MechanicalKeyboard.com is a great place to buy from.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/visit-mechanical-keyboards-dot-com/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The entrance to a store\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2018/04/mechanical-keyboards-storefront.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe storefront for Mechanical Keyboards in Fairview Tennessee\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter ordering the \u003ca href=\"https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail%EF%BF%BDp=3065\"\u003ePok3r from Mechanical Keyboards\u003c/a\u003e I realized that they were located just outside of Nashville Tennessee, like a 4-hour drive from me, so when I got the chance to take a day off I headed out.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArriving at their storefront at 9:30 am on Monday morning I was greeted by Lee who spent a lot of time with me showing me a lot of different keyboards and answering my questions, and boy did I have a lot of questions.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Visit to Mechanical Keyboards dot com"},{"content":"\nAfter using the Cooler Master Ten-Key-Less (TKL) keyboards for a while, I decided to take it to the next level, and the POK3R really is something completely different. The Limited Edition RGB LED Black Pok3r keyboard is a great 60% keyboard with almost of all the features a mechanical keyboard enthusiast would want.\nI didn’t really like the Cherry MX Blue or Brown switches very much. The clicky noise of the blues overwhelms my senses and makes me nervous, the clicky-ness does help hide the mushiness of the tactile bump. The tactile-ness of the browns feels very mushy to me, I would prefer the tactile bump to be really short and sharp. With all that in mind I wanted to go with a linear switch and see how that felt.\nCherry makes many options in linear switches with red and black being the most common. Black switches have been around for a very long time, they go all the way back to 1984. But I was looking for something different, so I decided to get a new keyboard with one of newest switches, the Speed Silver which are like the reds but actuate at 1.2mm of travel instead of the red’s 2.0mm and only travel 3.4mm compared to 4.0mm in the red. On paper that sounded really great to me, it sounds really fast.\nWith the switches chosen I researched keyboards that I could get with them. Vortex keyboards came up a lot in my research, the Poker, Racer, Vibe, and Core all seem to be pretty popular boards. The Pok3r is a 60% board which means that it does include dedicated function keys, arrow keys, or a ten-key number pad. It is quite a bit narrower than a full-sized or even a TKL board which means more desk space for a mouse.\nI bought the Pok3r Limited Edition RGB version in a black case with Cherry MX Speed Silver switches. It also came with double-shot PBT keycaps that let the RGB light shine through very brightly. To say that I loved this keyboard is an understatement. It weighs a ton (3.06 lbs) and the rubber pads on the bottom of it hold it in place while pounding away on the keys.\nThe speed silver switches really are fast, in real-world use the shorter travel and actuation distance makes a difference. In fact, it makes such a difference that my error rate on TypeRacer.com shot way up, even a week of regular practicing could not overcome all the mistyped keys. For gaming this keyboard and switch combination would be amazing!\nBut I don’t game on a PC so much anymore, I am more about the typing. So the search for the perfect keyboard continues.\nThe Pok3r is an amazing keyboard, the programming options are almost endless, the double-shot PBT keycaps are really nice, the weight of the Limited Edition version is wonderful, and there is a wide selection of switches available. I recommend it to anyone looking to get into a 60% keyboard.\np.s.\nThe photo is from MechanicalKeyboards.com\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/vortex-pok3r-black-limited-edition-rgb-led/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Vortex Pok3r\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2018/04/vortex-pok3r.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter using the \u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/mechanical-keyboards/\"\u003eCooler Master Ten-Key-Less (TKL) keyboards\u003c/a\u003e for a while, I decided to take it to the next level, and the POK3R really is something completely different. The \u003ca href=\"https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail%EF%BF%BDp=3065\"\u003eLimited Edition RGB LED Black Pok3r keyboard\u003c/a\u003e is a great 60% keyboard with almost of all the features a mechanical keyboard enthusiast would want.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI didn’t really like the Cherry MX Blue or Brown switches very much. The clicky noise of the blues overwhelms my senses and makes me nervous, the clicky-ness does help hide the mushiness of the tactile bump. The tactile-ness of the browns feels very mushy to me, I would prefer the tactile bump to be really short and sharp. With all that in mind I wanted to go with a linear switch and see how that felt.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Vortex POK3R Black Limited Edition RGB LED"},{"content":"\nI am always looking for a new Sci-Fi series that has a lot of humor in it and after the Bobiverse series I wanted to keep the laughs going.\nColumbus Day is the first in the Expeditionary Force series of books by Craig Alanson.\nWith narration by R.C. Bray, you can never go wrong, and his portrayal of Bishop, Skippy, and the entire Expeditionary Force crew is fantastic.\nThis the story of a man and his super-duper intelligent beer can of AWESOMENESS. If that doesn’t get you to read the book, then nothing will.\nFrom the publisher:\nWe were fighting on the wrong side of a war we couldn’t win. And that was the good news.\nThe Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the Native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon came ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There went the good old days, when humans got killed only by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits.\nWhen the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved. The UN Expeditionary Force hitched a ride on Kristang ships to fight the Ruhar wherever our new allies thought we could be useful. So, I went from fighting with the US Army in Nigeria to fighting in space. It was lies, all of it. We shouldn’t even be fighting the Ruhar; they aren’t our enemy. Our allies are.\nI’d better start at the beginning.\n©2016 Craig Alanson (P)2016 Podium Publishing\nI rate Columbus Day an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for fun sci-fi.\nP.S.\nAn 8 out of 10 may seem a bit low, but the books and the stories get better and better.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/columbus-day-craig-alanson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Columbus Day Book Cover\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51iDDUcomYL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am always looking for a new Sci-Fi series that has a lot of humor in it and after the Bobiverse series I wanted to keep the laughs going.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Columbus-Day-Audiobook/B01N48VJFJ\"\u003eColumbus Day\u003c/a\u003e is the first in the Expeditionary Force series of books by Craig Alanson.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith narration by R.C. Bray, you can never go wrong, and his portrayal of Bishop, Skippy, and the entire Expeditionary Force crew is fantastic.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Columbus Day by Craig Alanson"},{"content":"\nThere are an overwhelming number of different switches for mechanical keyboards available. Linear, tactile, clicky, buckling spring, vintage, and each in a wide range of spring weights and crispness.\nFrom Novel Keys I ordered a 25 slot switch tester with a selection of Cherry MX, MOD, Gateron, and Zealio switches along with a Kailh Sample Pack of another 27 switches. Then from Thingiverse I printed out a PLANCK keyboard frame with room for 48 switches. Now I have a switch tester that I can take around and really get a feel for a wide range of the current switches available.\nWhat have I learned from playing with all of these switches? Mainly that many of them are very similar. As in, there are 12 tactile switches that I cannot feel any appreciable difference with. But that is actually good news. It is common for sellers to be out of certain brands and certain switches, but now that I know they are so similar it should be easier to find a comparable switch.\nWhat do I like? I like the Cherry and Kailh Silver Linear “Fast” switches, they are super sensitive and I my error rate is high with these than with brown or blue switches, but as I get used to them I am getting faster and more accurate.\nI have not gotten to try the following switches on a keyboard yet, but hope to soon.\n67g Zealios tactile for the sharp and crisp break Kailh Burnt Orange tactile because the bump is at the very top, really want this one for a space bar NovelKeys x Kailh BOX Thick Clicks for the ridiculously loud click, it would make a wonderfully annoying backspace key What don’t I like? I don’t like clicky switches so much, my Cherry MX Blue keyboard I am typing this on is driving me nuts. I will be selling or trading it soon. And I don’t like heavy linear switches with the exception of a spacebar and maybe the home keys.\nWhat are my plans? I put a lot of thought into building a keyboard from scratch, but after pricing the parts it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So my plan right now is to buy a pre-built keyboard with Cherry Silver switches then swap out the switches spacebar, home keys, and maybe a couple others with something more exotic.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/mechanical-keyboard-switch-choices/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"PLANCK Keyboard Frame full of different switches\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2018/03/switch-tester.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are an overwhelming number of different switches for mechanical keyboards available. Linear, tactile, clicky, buckling spring, vintage, and each in a wide range of spring weights and crispness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom \u003ca href=\"https://novelkeys.xyz/\"\u003eNovel Keys\u003c/a\u003e I ordered a 25 slot switch tester with a selection of Cherry MX, MOD, Gateron, and Zealio switches along with a Kailh Sample Pack of another 27 switches. Then from Thingiverse I printed out a \u003ca href=\"https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2678959\"\u003ePLANCK keyboard frame\u003c/a\u003e with room for 48 switches. Now I have a switch tester that I can take around and really get a feel for a wide range of the current switches available.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Mechanical Keyboard Switch Choices"},{"content":"\nThis had been sitting in my Audible Wish List for some time, after listening to The Wrong Unit, I wanted to continue the goodness with another Rob Dircks novel.\nI thoroughly enjoyed the story of Where the Hell is Tesla? which was made even more charming by the author’s reading of the tale.\nThere is not a lot new in this story, I feel like I have experienced all of the tropes before, but they are used to great effect in this time and space traveling experience. And it has Tesla!\nFrom the publisher:\nSci-fi odyssey. Comedy. Love story. And of course, Nikola Tesla.\nI’ll let Chip, the main character, tell you more: “I found the journal at work. Well, I don’t know if you’d call it work, but that’s where I found it. It’s the lost journal of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors and visionaries ever. Before he died in 1943, he kept a notebook filled with spectacular claims and outrageous plans. One of these plans was for an “INTERDIMENSIONAL TRANSFER APPARATUS” – that allowed someone (in this case me and my friend Pete) to travel to other versions of the infinite possibilities around us. Crazy, right? But that’s just where the crazy starts.”\nChip’s Official Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The events depicted in the collection of emails did not happen. I have never been in contact with a covert government group attempting to suppress knowledge of the lost journal of Nikola Tesla. I have not been threatened with death if I divulge the secrets contained inside. They did not buy me this handsome jacket (oh crap, you’re listening to this – trust me, it looks great on me). They did not come to my place, and liquor me up, and offer to publish this book as a sci-fi comedy novel to throw the public off the trail of the real truth.\nOr did they?\nI’m kidding. Of course they didn’t.\nOr did they?\nGod, I can’t keep my big mouth shut.\n©2015 Rob Dircks (P)2015 Rob Dircks\nI rate Where the Hell is Tesla? a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun sci-fi time-travel romp.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/hell-tesla-rob-dircks/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Where the Hell is Tesla Book Cover\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/512MwDoK8ML._SL300_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis had been sitting in my Audible Wish List for some time, after listening to The Wrong Unit, I wanted to continue the goodness with another Rob Dircks novel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI thoroughly enjoyed the story of \u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Where-the-Hell-is-Tesla-Audiobook/B00V3YD7S4\"\u003eWhere the Hell is Tesla?\u003c/a\u003e which was made even more charming by the author’s reading of the tale.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is not a lot new in this story, I feel like I have experienced all of the tropes before, but they are used to great effect in this time and space traveling experience. And it has Tesla!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Where the Hell is Tesla? by Rob Dircks"},{"content":"\nI really needed something humorous to read and The Wrong Unit really paid off.\nThere is a lot of humor and humanity in this story of a… well wait. This is yet another one of those stories where I don’t want to give too much away. Even telling you the main plot idea in the book would be giving to much away.\nLet’s just say it is a very humorous story of the distant future where machines have… You’ll have to read or listen to it yourself to find out.\nFrom the publisher:\nI don’t know what the humans are so cranky about. Their enclosures are large, they ingest over 1,000 calories per day, and they’re allowed to mate. Plus, they have me: an Autonomous Servile Unit, housed in a mobile/bipedal chassis. I do my job well: keep the humans healthy and happy.\n\u0026ldquo;Hey you.\u0026rdquo;\nHeyoo. That’s my name, I suppose. It’s easier for the humans to remember than 413s98-itr8. I guess I’ve gotten used to it.\nRob Dircks, author of Where the Hell is Tesla? and Don’t Touch the Blue Stuff!, has a “unit” with a problem: how to deliver his package, out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to guide him. Oh, and with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. It’s a science fiction tale of technology gone haywire, unlikely heroes, and the nature of humanity. (Woah. That last part sounds deep. Don’t worry, it’s not.)\n©2016 Rob Dircks (P)2016 Rob Dircks\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a good story with plenty of humor.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/wrong-unit-rob-dircks/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Wrong Unit Book Cover\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51YAIgYv73L._SL300_.jpg\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nI really needed something humorous to read and \u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Wrong-Unit-Audiobook/B01IFBO1NM\"\u003eThe Wrong Unit\u003c/a\u003e really paid off.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a lot of humor and humanity in this story of a… well wait. This is yet another one of those stories where I don’t want to give too much away. Even telling you the main plot idea in the book would be giving to much away.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLet’s just say it is a very humorous story of the distant future where machines have… You’ll have to read or listen to it yourself to find out.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Wrong Unit by Rob Dircks"},{"content":"\nThis is the second book in the Sorrow Falls series. The first was The Spaceship Next Door which I read and reviewed last year.\nI really enjoyed The Spaceship Next Door and The Frequency of Aliens continues the adventures of Annie Collins as she heads off to college. I really don’t won’t to tell you much more about the story, I feel that the less you know, the more you will enjoy it.\nSuffice to say Steve Carlson does an amazing job narrating the book bring all of the characters to life including men, women, ghost, and aliens alike.\nFrom the publisher:\nAnnie Collins is back!\nBecoming an overnight celebrity at age 16 should have been a lot more fun. Yes, there were times when it was extremely cool, but when the newness of it all wore off, Annie Collins was left with a permanent security detail and the kind of constant scrutiny that makes the college experience especially awkward.\nNot helping matters: she’s the only kid in school with her own pet spaceship.\nShe would love it if things found some kind of normal, but as long as she has control of the most lethal – and only – interstellar vehicle in existence, that isn’t going to happen. Worse, things appear to be going in the other direction. Instead of everyone getting used to the idea of the ship, the complaints are getting louder. Public opinion is turning, and the demands that Annie turn over the ship are becoming more frequent. It doesn’t help that everyone seems to think Annie is giving them nightmares.\nNightmares aren’t the only weird things going on lately. A government telescope in California has been abandoned, and nobody seems to know why.\nThe man called on to investigate – Edgar Somerville – has become the go-to guy whenever there’s something odd going on, which has been pretty common lately. So far, nothing has panned out: no aliens or zombies or anything else that might be deemed legitimately peculiar…but now may be different, and not just because Ed can’t find an easy explanation. This isn’t the only telescope where people have gone missing, and the clues left behind lead back to Annie.\nIt all adds up to a new threat that the world may just need saving from, requiring the help of all the Sorrow Falls survivors. The question is: are they saving the world with Annie Collins, or are they saving it from her?\nThe Frequency of Aliens is the exciting sequel to The Spaceship Next Door.\n©2017 Gene Doucette (P)2017 Gene Doucette\nI rate The Frequency of Aliens the same as I did The Spaceship Next Door, a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to everyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/frequency-aliens-gene-doucette/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Frequency of Aliens Book Cover\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61Nk34LMpWL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the second book in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/series?asin=B078X1YYBJ\"\u003eSorrow Falls series\u003c/a\u003e. The first was \u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Spaceship-Next-Door-Audiobook/B01JQC6C54\"\u003eThe Spaceship Next Door\u003c/a\u003e which I \u003ca href=\"/spaceship-next-door-gene-doucette/\"\u003eread and reviewed\u003c/a\u003e last year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed The Spaceship Next Door and \u003ca href=\"https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Frequency-of-Aliens-Audiobook/B078TLNLNQ\"\u003eThe Frequency of Aliens\u003c/a\u003e continues the adventures of Annie Collins as she heads off to college. I really don’t won’t to tell you much more about the story, I feel that the less you know, the more you will enjoy it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Frequency of Aliens by Gene Doucette"},{"content":"If you read my review of the 2016 MacBook Pro you know how much I dislike the keyboard on it. Along with that I have been reading Norman Chan on Tested.com, co-workers, gaming sites, and “computer experts” talking mechanical keyboards and how wonderful they are, my interest was piqued.\nMy goal for a keyboard is for it to be comfortable and to give a reliable amount of feedback for my not-so-fast touch typing. I don’t need it for “gaming” or a crazy amount of n-key rollover. Just something solid, reliable, and comfortable. I would have loved to build a keyboard kit with all the soldering and programming that entails, but I have other things I would rather be doing. So I spent months shopping and comparing every mechanical keyboard I could lay my hands on.\nI eventual bought a Corsair K-something-or-other. I quickly figured out that the keyboard required software installed on the computer to work. That is a no-go for me as they keyboard will be moved from Mac to Windows to Linux and I want it to work the same way no matter what it is plugged into. I researched a bunch more keyboards and found that most of the popular ones require software, usually only available for Windows, to do more than act as a basic keyboard.\nThen I took another look at the Cooler Master series of keyboards, turns out all of its features are programmed and stored directly on the keyboard. That means your settings and macros are stored and usable even when you switch the computer it is plugged into, exactly what I was after.\nCooler Master MasterKeys keyboards come in many variations, no back-light, white or blue back-light, RGB back-light, also Cherry MX switches in Blue, Brown, Red.\nI chose a Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S, with RGB back-lighting, Cherry MX Blue switches, in a TenKeyless (TKL) design for home use and for the office I chose the exact same keyboard but with Brown switches.\nSize I generally like full-sized keyboards with number pads, but at work I have been using an Apple Bluetooth keyboard for the last 7 years or so and have gotten used to it. When I went looking for a mechanical keyboard I discovered there are 3 typical sizes.\nFull-Sized – This is the usual keyboard with the number pad TenKeyLess (TKL) – Everything is where it would be on a full-sized keyboard but with the number pad cut-off Compact – A lot like a laptop keyboard with no number keys and the arrow keys are usually below the left-hand shift key Gaming – Usually a keyboard similar to a full-sized one, but with additional macro and media keys knobs and switches I chose a TKL size as I don’t really feel the need for the number pad and I like the extra space it leaves on my desk. Having that extra space for the mouse is great.\nSwitches For my home computer I wanted to go all in with the clicky-clicky of Cherry MX Blue switches, but for the office I went with the Brown switches which do not make the click sound. I then did a blind, or rather deaf, test and determined that the Blue and Brown switches in the Cooler Master keyboard are exactly the same with the exception of the click.\nWith both keyboards I tend to “bottom-out” the keys, which adds a lot more noise to my typing. I have found the solution to be some inexpensive O-ring switch dampeners that have made typing quieter with the added feature of shortening the throw of the keys.\nRGB Backlighting I need back-lighting so that I can see the keys in darker environments, I don’t really need the RGB and the fancy features that come with it, but I do get a kick out of having the keys light up bright purple when I touch them. Fun, but not necessary.\nErgonomics Wow, these keyboards are tall! I find it impossible to type on them without a wrist rest. I like the Glorious Gaming Wrist Pad in Full Size. I tried the TKL version, but found it to small as my wrists, especially the left one, sits outside the width of the keyboard. The firmness and height of the wrist rest is exactly what I needed. Ergonomically a keyboard should tilt slightly down and away from you and not up and toward you where your wrist are bent stressing out and leading to carpal-tunnel issues. With my old keyboard I was able to attach supports to the front of the keyboard lifting it, the Cooler Master keyboard is so tall that I don’t think lifting the front would be a very good solution.\nAt some point I may build a mechanical keyboard from a kit just so that I will have more control over the angle and height it.\nKeycaps I bought some fun keycaps to replace the “Cooler Master” OS specific keys and the escape key with Portal characters. Love them!\nOther Options You can build from a kit, you can build from parts sourced from all over the world, you can buy a ready-made keyboard like I did and customize it with different keycaps. You can get a keyboard like the Planck that has fewer keys but may be faster for a dedicated typer after a transition period. You can even get keyboards that are just a grid of keys for assigning macros to, and not just for gaming, you could create macros to type things for you that are typed often.\nRating I really like the Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S RGB keyboards, both the Blue and Brown switches are exactly what I was looking for.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/mechanical-keyboards/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIf you read my \u003ca href=\"/apple-macbook-pro-15-inch-late-2016-review/\"\u003ereview of the 2016 MacBook Pro\u003c/a\u003e you know how much I dislike the keyboard on it. Along with that I have been reading \u003ca href=\"http://www.tested.com/search/?term=mechanical+keyboard\"\u003eNorman Chan on Tested.com\u003c/a\u003e, co-workers, gaming sites, and “computer experts” talking mechanical keyboards and how wonderful they are, my interest was piqued.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy goal for a keyboard is for it to be comfortable and to give a reliable amount of feedback for my not-so-fast touch typing. I don’t need it for “gaming” or a crazy amount of n-key rollover. Just something solid, reliable, and comfortable. I would have loved to build a keyboard kit with all the soldering and programming that entails, but I have other things I would rather be doing. So I spent months shopping and comparing every mechanical keyboard I could lay my hands on.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Mechanical Keyboards"},{"content":"\nIt’s been awhile since I used Safari Books Online, O’Reilly’s online subscription service, to read something, so I picked The Phoenix Project which was recommended to me on my login page.\nThe Phoenix Project is a “novel” about DevOps and all that entails being implemented in manufacturing and retail environment where IT had always been seen as a necessary evil. I think a lot of people, both inside and outside of IT can relate to that. The back of the book is full of resources and information about where to learn more about DevOps, continuous deployment, and automation tools.\nI have yet to work somewhere where DevOps is a reality, not sure that I ever will, but a boy can dream. I have worked somewhere that was able to deploy multiple times a day, which was pretty great. But most places I have worked only deployed once a month, or a quarter, or in one instance only once every 18 months, when they were lucky. It really shouldn’t be like that.\nFrom the publisher:\nBill is an IT manager at Parts Unlimited. It’s Tuesday morning and on his drive into the office, Bill gets a call from the CEO.\nThe company’s new IT initiative, code named Phoenix Project, is critical to the future of Parts Unlimited, but the project is massively over budget and very late. The CEO wants Bill to report directly to him and fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill’s entire department will be outsourced.\nWith the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited.\nIn a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they’ll never view IT the same way again.\nI rate The Phoenix Project an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone in IT, anyone who manages people in IT, and to everyone who is sick and tired of late-night deployments that always seem to have a lot of problems.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/phoenix-project-george-spafford-kevin-behr-gene-kim/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Phoenix Project by George Spafford, Kevin Behr, and Gene Kim\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5170sr05QAL.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nIt’s been awhile since I used Safari Books Online, O’Reilly’s online subscription service, to read something, so I picked The Phoenix Project which was recommended to me on my login page.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Phoenix Project is a “novel” about DevOps and all that entails being implemented in manufacturing and retail environment where IT had always been seen as a necessary evil. I think a lot of people, both inside and outside of IT can relate to that. The back of the book is full of resources and information about where to learn more about DevOps, continuous deployment, and automation tools.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Phoenix Project by George Spafford, Kevin Behr, and Gene Kim"},{"content":"After 7 years it was finally time to update my trusty old 2011 MacBook Pro. Due to my dislike of the choices Apple has made with their laptops in the last few years, my first stop was an HP Omen Windows 10 machine with lots of upgrades. After a couple of months of trying to get Windows 10 and Windows software to do what I want in a way that I felt efficient doing it, I gave up and decided to give up on Windows, yet again, and get another MacBook Pro.\nI am only going to cover what makes the MacBook Pro different from the HP Omen as they actually have a lot in common. But my main reason for choosing the MacOS product over a Microsoft Windows product is the operating system and not the features. In fact the Omen has a MUCH BETTER keyboard, better storage options, a better video card, and can handle double the RAM of the MacBook Pro. On paper the HP Omen is a much better computer than the MacBook Pro, if I could run MacOs High Sierra on it, it would be a better computer in almost every way.\nWhat I Like The build quality of the MacBook Pro is fantastic, it is solid with no rattles or cheapness. I have covered it in a case from KEC with a great space image on it which fits perfectly and protects the laptop from scratches while making it clear that it is my laptop and not someone else’s.\nThe screen is also great, at a resolution of 2880×1800 at 220points per inch, and is super bright when I want it to be. The color reproduction is solid and dependable.\nThe computer is fast; even with less RAM, a slower video card, and the same processor, it feels noticeably faster for the way I use the computer. This is probably due to the control that Apple has over the hardware and software used with their computers, I think that is still a huge advantage.\nThe trackpad is pretty great, but with High Sierra I sometimes get confused about the multi-finger gestures and with how large it is I find it difficult to determine if I am on the left-hand or right-hand side of it.\nWhat I Don’t Like The Touchbar is a distraction that the computer could really do without. The way that it is constantly changing, moving buttons around, is awful. Just talking about something like that around the water cooler, it sounds kind of cool, but even a quick back-of-an-envelope usability test would show anyone that is a bad idea.\nThe keyboard is the worst keyboard I have ever used! Worse than the chiclet keyboard on the Atari 400. Buttons stick, offer almost no feedback (unless they stick), and is just horrible.\nOnly 16GB of RAM… just ridiculous! There are very few Windows machines over $1000 on the market that cannot be upgraded to at least 32GB and many of those may be upgraded to 64GB. It is claimed that having 32GB of RAM would greatly reduce batter life, but with the way that most professionals use these laptops battery life is not much of a concern. As long as it would have 3 hours of battery life, that would be fine.\nMeh There are a lot of people complaining about dongles and adapters. I am not one of them. I bought a couple Amazon Basics USB-C to USB 3 cables to replace USB-A to USB 3 cables and a pair of AUKEY USB-C to USB-A adapters that are so small they can stay on the cables I use them with and I am good to go.\nI also bought a Sinstar 8 in 1 adapter that includes an SD Card reader, Ethernet Port, and HDMI Port along with some other ports I really don’t use. It gets pretty warm when used but has been great so far.\nSoftware This is what makes a MacOS laptop work better for me than a Windows 10 laptop. I was able to replace most of these in Windows, but not all of them. When I did find a replacement, it did not work the same or was not as easy to use.\nBBEdit Default Folder X iStatMenu FlyCut Amphetamine Moom Name Mangler Now that you can install Linux as a subsystem in Linux, there may be some real options there. I’m keeping an eye on that.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/apple-macbook-pro-15-inch-late-2016-review/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAfter 7 years it was finally time to update my trusty old 2011 MacBook Pro. Due to my dislike of the choices Apple has made with their laptops in the last few years, my first stop was an HP Omen Windows 10 machine with lots of upgrades. After a couple of months of trying to get Windows 10 and Windows software to do what I want in a way that I felt efficient doing it, I gave up and decided to give up on Windows, yet again, and get another MacBook Pro.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch Late 2016 Review"},{"content":"\nBefore DragonCon 2016 I had decided that I wanted to play Dungeons \u0026amp; Dragons at the convention. Even though I played D\u0026amp;D in high school and went to a lot of conventions where it was played, I had never actually played at a convention before.\nIn the early 80’s I played Dungeons and Dragons with my friends at lunch and on the weekends along with a bunch of other role playing games (RPG). Most of those games are not played very much anymore, but D\u0026amp;D is now on its 5th iteration which has apparently brought it closer to the first version which is what I remember.\nAt DragonCon I got to play 3 sessions, 2 of which were great and 1 of which was kind of meh. So much in an RPG depends upon the person running the game, the Game Master (GM) or Dungeon Master (DM), the player characters (PCs), and the module or adventure.\nI tend to play “good” characters, with Lawful Good Human Paladins and Chaotic Good Elf Rangers being my preference, and in the convention setting that does not always work with the other players at the table. If everyone else is playing “not-so-good” characters like Warlocks, Thieves, Pirates, etcetera, a Lawful Good Paladin is kind of a stick-in-the-mud, which can actually be fun if the other players are into playing along, but it can also be really not fun if they want to play all serious. That last game at DragonCon was the latter.\nAlso keep in mind that I had not played since 1986 and never with anyone but friends. So at a convention with a hard time limit with a bunch of strangers was a very different experience.\nD\u0026amp;D 5e is a lot like what I remember in high school, apparently previous versions, especially 3.5e, were a lot more complicated. Right now there are only a handful of books needed, actually you could play the game entirely for free using the Systems Reference Document (SRD).\nIf you are interested in playing D\u0026amp;D I highly recommend checking out gaming at a convention, it was a lot of fun and I was able to learn a lot about the fifth edition rules and how to play the game.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/playing-dungeons-dragons-dragoncon-2016/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Logo for Dungeons and Dragons\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2017/06/DnD_Logo.png\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBefore \u003ca href=\"http://dragoncon.org/\"\u003eDragonCon\u003c/a\u003e 2016 I had decided that I wanted to play \u003ca href=\"http://dnd.wizards.com/\"\u003eDungeons \u0026amp; Dragons\u003c/a\u003e at the convention. Even though I played D\u0026amp;D in high school and went to a lot of conventions where it was played, I had never actually played at a convention before.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the early 80’s I played Dungeons and Dragons with my friends at lunch and on the weekends along with a bunch of other role playing games (RPG). Most of those games are not played very much anymore, but D\u0026amp;D is now on its 5th iteration which has apparently brought it closer to the first version which is what I remember.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Playing Dungeons and Dragons at DragonCon 2016"},{"content":"\nI have owned a few “toy grade” multi-rotors and I have to say that this is my favorite.\nThe Inductrix was a toy quadcopter by Blade that was special because it used inducted fan style motors and props which protects the propellers and may give a small power boost. Later, some guys created the Tiny Whoop was created by taking an Inductrix style quad and adding a small camera and transmitter to it so it could be flown FPV.\nSeeing the success of the Tiny Whoop, Blade created their own version and named it the Blade Inductrix FPV. It is essentially the Inductrix with a tiny camera and 25mw video transmitter. You have to supply a transmitter and goggles or screen.\nWith 205mw batteries I bought off Amazon and the great STRIX Power Stix 1s Charging Board I get about 3 minutes a flight, which is ok, but not great.\nFatshark goggles with the Laforge diversity modules, a spiral antenna and a patch antenna, I can fly pretty much anywhere in my house and still get reception good enough to keep it in the air.\nThe frame is a bit fragile, I recommend buying a couple extra and using a carbon fiber or 3d printed x-frame to add some rigidity and reduce the chance of breaking the motor mounts.\nI highly recommend the Blade Inductrix FPV to anyone wanting to fly FPV no matter what kind of flying they want to do!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/blade-inductrix-fpv/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://s7d5.scene7.com/is/image/horizonhobby/BLH8580G_a15\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Blade Inductrix FPV\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://s7d5.scene7.com/is/image/horizonhobby/BLH8580G_a15\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have owned a few “toy grade” multi-rotors and I have to say that this is my favorite.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Inductrix was a toy quadcopter by Blade that was special because it used inducted fan style motors and props which protects the propellers and may give a small power boost. Later, some guys created the \u003ca href=\"https://www.tinywhoop.com/\"\u003eTiny Whoop\u003c/a\u003e was created by taking an Inductrix style quad and adding a small camera and transmitter to it so it could be flown FPV.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blade Inductrix FPV"},{"content":" I really liked The Spaceship Next Door, it is the first of Gene Doucette’s books I have read and now I look forward to reading/listening to his other books.\nI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nThe characters Annie, who is overflowing with teen energy, and Edgar with his G-man attitude are a wonderful mix that makes this a wonderful sci-fi story even though there is really nothing new or ground-breaking.\nThe narration by Steve Carlson works well, his voice is perfect for Edgar and he does a great job conveying Annie’s energy and nosiness.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe world changed on a Tuesday.\nWhen a spaceship landed in an open field in the quiet mill town of Sorrow Falls, Massachusetts, everyone realized humankind was not alone in the universe. With that realization everyone freaked out for a little while.\nOr almost everyone. The residents of Sorrow Falls took the news pretty well. This could have been due to a certain local quality of unflappability, or it could have been that in three years the ship did exactly nothing other than sit quietly in that field, and nobody understood the full extent of this nothing the ship was doing better than the people who lived right next door.\nSixteen-year-old Annie Collins is one of the ship’s closest neighbors. Once upon a time she took every last theory about the ship seriously, whether it was advanced by an adult or by a peer. Surely one of the theories would be proven true – if not several of them – the very minute the ship decided to do something. Annie is starting to think this will never happen.\nOne late August morning, a little over three years since the ship landed, Edgar Somerville arrived in town. Ed’s a government operative posing as a journalist, which is obvious to Annie – and pretty much everyone else he meets – almost immediately. He has a lot of questions that need answers, because he thinks everyone is wrong: The ship is doing something, and he needs Annie’s help to figure out what that is.\nAnnie is a good choice for tour guide. She already knows everyone in town, and when Ed’s theory is proven correct – something is apocalyptically wrong in Sorrow Falls – she’s a pretty good person to have around.\nAs a matter of fact, Annie Collins might be the most important person on the planet. She just doesn’t know it.\nThe Spaceship Next Door is the latest novel from Gene Doucette, best-selling author of The Immortal Trilogy, Fixer, The Immortal Chronicles, and Immortal Stories: Eve.\n©2015 Gene Doucette (P)2016 Gene Doucette\nI rate The Spaceship Next Door a 9 out of 10 and recommend it anyone looking for a fun sc-fi story.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/spaceship-next-door-gene-doucette/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Spaceship Next Door audiobook cover\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61jX%2B1V6GcL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003e\nI really liked The Spaceship Next Door, it is the first of Gene Doucette’s books I have read and now I look forward to reading/listening to his other books.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe characters Annie, who is overflowing with teen energy, and Edgar with his G-man attitude are a wonderful mix that makes this a wonderful sci-fi story even though there is really nothing new or ground-breaking.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Spaceship Next Door by Gene Doucette"},{"content":"\nI ran the Prusa i3 Mk2S for a couple of weeks by copying files to the SD card and then printing from there.I could have also printed directly from a computer plugged into the printer, but that computer would need to stay connected and powered on while printing. Either one of those solutions work well enough, but I really wanted to be able to print from multiple computers while not dedicating a laptop or desktop to printing, and most of all I wanted to be able to monitor the printer remotely with video.\nOctoPrint is a web interface for 3D printers that can use a Raspberry Pi or similar inexpensive computer. With a Raspberry Pi 3 it allows for the sending of prints, controlling the printer, recording time-lapse videos, and viewing the printer in action remotely.\nI used a Raspberry Pi 3 and installed OctoPi and connected a Raspberry Pi camera with a long ribbon cable along with camera and board mount that I found on Thingiverse. It all went together very easy.\nI highly recommend watching Thomas Sanladerer’s “Getting started with OctoPrint” video, it will get you through most of the setup process.\nI setup a domain name with No-IP so that I can reach the OctoPrint server from anywhere in the world, following the steps was very easy. There is even a Linux Dynamic Update Client that will keep my IP address updated.\nI also installed the TouchUI plugin to get a better user interface when using OctoPrint on my phone, which is totally awesome.\nThe time lapses created by OctoPrint are very cool. By having the camera attached to the camera bed the point of view moves with the object being printed which makes it look like it is standing still while the printer and the room behind it are moving back and forth. I like this much better than having the camera stationary while the printed object is moving back and forth in the video.\nIf you are using a 3D printer and want to control and monitor it remotely and/or capture video of it printing, I highly recommend giving OctoPrint a try.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/octoprint-and-the-prusa-i3-mk2s/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"octoprint logo\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://octoprint.org/assets/img/logo.png\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI ran the Prusa i3 Mk2S for a couple of weeks by copying files to the SD card and then printing from there.I could have also printed directly from a computer plugged into the printer, but that computer would need to stay connected and powered on while printing. Either one of those solutions work well enough, but I really wanted to be able to print from multiple computers while not dedicating a laptop or desktop to printing, and most of all I wanted to be able to monitor the printer remotely with video.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OctoPrint and the Prusa i3 MK2S"},{"content":"![Assembled Prusa i3 MK2S](https://shop.prusa3d.com/312-large_default/original-prusa-i3-mk2-kit.jpg\u0026quot; style=\u0026quot;)\nI spent a lot of time and energy researching 3D printers before finally buying one, and even then I am not real happy with the first one I bought, but that will be another post. This one is about the second printer I bought and love, the Prusa i3 MK2S Kit.\nThe Prusa i3 MK2 is a very popular and highly rated printer, Make Magazine gave it their Outstanding Open Source, Best Value, and Best Overall awards in 2017. Thomas Sanladerer says “The Original Josef Prusa i3 MK2: It doesn’t get any better than this!”\nYou may have already done some reasearch and found that it takes up to 2 months to get this Prusa kit ship shipped to the states, I ordered mine on February 13 and it did not ship from the Czech Republic until March 31st and I received it a few days after that.\nThe total I paid for the kit with shipping came to $781.26. In the world of good 3D printers with auto bed leveling, a heated build plate, 8 inch by 8 inch by 8 inch (it’s actually bigger than that) build area, and quality components like the E3D V6 hot end, is an amazing price.\n![Prusa i3 MK2S kit parts](https://shop.prusa3d.com/272-large_default/original-prusa-i3-mk2-kit.jpg\u0026quot; style=\u0026quot;)\nI could have bought it assembled for $200.00 more, but I believe you should have the experience of building from a kit as you WILL be taking it apart to maintain it if you are going to be serious about 3D printing.\nPutting the printer together was not that hard, Prusa provides wonderfully detailed directions online in a format where you can ask questions and get clarification quickly. Many times someone at Prusa will even update the instructions based on feedback within a couple days of a comment being made. I used an iPad to view and follow the instructions, it worked great.\nThere are also many videos on YouTube, some as long as 12 hours, with people building their Prusa i3 MK2 kits. Also there are many video reviews, troubleshooting help, and timelapses of prints in progress.\nAfter 6 weeks or so of printing about 18 hours a day, something went wrong with my printer. I am still not sure exactly what went wrong, because I bent the heat break tube while trying to fix it. I ordered a new tube, nozzle, and boden tube from the MatterHackers website. I then proceeded to make some mistakes when re-assembling the E3D hot end which triggered a chat session with Shane at Prus who patiently helped me troubleshoot the issue.\nI led him down multiple wrong paths, I kept thinking it was an issue with the extruder motor, but eventually we figured out the issue was the filament cooling where it shouldn’t be. I spent some time with the E3D V6 Assembly instructions, figured out what I was doing wrong, took it all apart for the fourth or fifth time, and carefully assembled it following the E3D instructions to the letter. Then BANG! I was back in business.\nIf you are looking to get into 3D printing and want a printer that will last a long time, is easy to fix and maintain, will print almost any filament, and are willing to spend around $800.00 to get started, I recommend the Prusa i3 MK2S kit over anything else on the market.\nP.S.\nThe MonoPrice 3D Printers are getting great reviews and prices cannot be beat. I have been tempted by them, but I think I would save up and get another Prusa with all of its features instead.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/prusa-i3-mk2s-3d-printer/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e![Assembled Prusa i3 MK2S](\u003ca href=\"https://shop.prusa3d.com/312-large_default/original-prusa-i3-mk2-kit.jpg%22\"\u003ehttps://shop.prusa3d.com/312-large_default/original-prusa-i3-mk2-kit.jpg\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e style=\u0026quot;)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI spent a lot of time and energy researching 3D printers before finally buying one, and even then I am not real happy with the first one I bought, but that will be another post. This one is about the second printer I bought and love, the \u003ca href=\"http://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/53-original-prusa-i3-mk2s-3d-printer.html\"\u003ePrusa i3 MK2S Kit\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Prusa i3 MK2 is a very popular and highly rated printer, \u003ca href=\"http://makezine.com/product-review/prusa-i3-mk2/\"\u003eMake Magazine\u003c/a\u003e gave it their Outstanding Open Source, Best Value, and Best Overall awards in 2017. Thomas Sanladerer says “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfe_84FGJ8c\"\u003eThe Original Josef Prusa i3 MK2: It doesn’t get any better than this!\u003c/a\u003e”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Prusa i3 MK2S 3D Printer"},{"content":"\nThis Radian is the larger sibling to the UMX radian with a 2 meter wingspan, there is even a larger version, the Radian XL that has a 2.6 meter wingspan. So this is the middle sized, although still quite large, Radian.\nAfter flying the UMX Radian for awhile I decided I was ready for its big brother. I have heard from many places that the larger E-flite Radian flies just like the little one, well as an inexperienced pilot I have to disagree.\nI think the big difference between the 2 is the AS3X system in the UMX which provides a lot of stability and helps keep the plane flying level and smooth.\n![Radian battery compartment](https://s7d5.scene7.com/is/image/horizonhobby/EFL4750_a22\u0026quot; width=\u0026ldquo;1400\u0026rdquo; height=\u0026ldquo;1400)\nWith the larger plane and the lack of AS3X I find it much harder to control, to the point that I have put it nose-first into the dirt twice now. Yes, on my first maiden flight, about 2 minutes into the flight I lost control and put it into the ground at high speed. It broke the fuselage in half and crumpled the nose to the point it could not be repaired.\nIt is very nice that a replacement fuselage is available for less than $30. It took me about an hour and some E6000 to strip the parts I need from the old fuselage and get the new fuselage ready to fly. It was easy to do with some patience and care.\nThe second flight was even worse than the first. I did not keep it in the air much more than a minute when it felt like it was not responding to my commands. I think it was responding but I just had no idea what to do to get it to pull out of the dive it was in. So BANG, back in the dirt. At least this time I think I can glue it back together and not replace any parts, we’ll see.\nMy plan now is to find someone at the airfield who can buddy-box with me and give me some lessons in flying fixed wing planes. To tell you the truth I could use that kind of help with multi-rotors and ground RC.\nEven though I have had my issues with the Radian, I would still recommend it to anyone looking for a starter powered sailplane, but not as a first plane.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/e-flite-radian/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://s7d5.scene7.com/is/image/horizonhobby/EFL4750_a4\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"E-flite Radian\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://s7d5.scene7.com/is/image/horizonhobby/EFL4750_a4\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis Radian is the larger sibling to the UMX radian with a 2 meter wingspan, there is even a larger version, the Radian XL that has a 2.6 meter wingspan. So this is the middle sized, although still quite large, Radian.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter flying the UMX Radian for awhile I decided I was ready for its big brother. I have heard from many places that the larger \u003ca href=\"https://www.horizonhobby.com/radian-bnf-basic-efl4750\"\u003eE-flite Radian\u003c/a\u003e flies just like the little one, well as an inexperienced pilot I have to disagree.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"E-flite Radian"},{"content":"\nAfter a couple of years flying multi-rotors I decided to give a fixed wing plane a try. At some point I built a Flite-Test Trainer which I never really got to fly due to my total lack of experience. Then I did some research and decided to buy an E-flite UMX Radian.\nThere are many versions of the Radian and the UMX is the smallest and cheapest of the bunch at around $90.00 for the Bind-and-Fly version, meaning you have to supply your own transmitter to fly it. There is a FPV version that comes with a camera and transmitter, along with much larger version all the way up to the Radian XL with a 2.6 meter wing span.\nThe UMX Radian has been a great plane for me to get started with, the AS3X system does an amazing job keeping it level and steady even in a moderate amount of wind. But I feel like the AS3X system is not allowing me to learn the skills I need to fly larger planes that do not include include it. More on that in a later post.\nAnd most amazingly, this little plane is able to catch thermals and ride them until the plane is a dot in the sky. The first couple of times I caught a thermal and took it up and up it was a real thrill. Even with the 150mah batteries I regularly get 10 full minutes of flying and every now and then I get as much as 20 minutes.\nThe plane is so docile and easy to fly that I am usually sitting in a chair in the shade while flying it, but once it becomes a dot in the sky it is best to stand up and pay a bit more attention, but one of the really great things is that it is so light that even if you plant it into the ground you most like won’t break anything.\nI highly recommend the UMX Radian to anyone looking for a small inexpensive docile flyer that can take a bit of wind and take some bad landings without breaking.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/e-flite-umx-radian/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"E-flite Radian UMX\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://s7d5.scene7.com/is/image/horizonhobby/EFLU2980_a1\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter a couple of years flying multi-rotors I decided to give a fixed wing plane a try. At some point I built a Flite-Test Trainer which I never really got to fly due to my total lack of experience. Then I did some research and decided to buy an \u003ca href=\"https://www.horizonhobby.com/umx-trade%3B-radian-reg%3B-bnf-with-as3x%C2%AE-technology-eflu2980\"\u003eE-flite UMX Radian\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are many versions of the Radian and the UMX is the smallest and cheapest of the bunch at around $90.00 for the Bind-and-Fly version, meaning you have to supply your own transmitter to fly it. There is a FPV version that comes with a camera and transmitter, along with much larger version all the way up to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.horizonhobby.com/radian-xl-26m-pnp-efl5575\"\u003eRadian XL\u003c/a\u003e with a 2.6 meter wing span.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"E-flite UMX Radian"},{"content":"\nI had a great time at DragonCon this year, actually got to play Dungeons \u0026amp; Dragons Adventure League on 3 mornings in a row!\nMore pictures are over at my SmugMug site.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragoncon-2016-pictures/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2016/i-p8R5wRz\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Alan Tudyk at DragonCon 2016\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photos.smugmug.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2016/i-p8R5wRz/0/M/dave-nelson-20160902-0024-M.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2016/i-cwCC4mL\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photos.smugmug.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2016/i-cwCC4mL/0/M/dave-nelson-20160903-0313-M.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2016/i-cnnJQ2T\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photos.smugmug.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2016/i-cnnJQ2T/0/M/dave-nelson-20160903-0321-M.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI had a great time at DragonCon this year, actually got to play Dungeons \u0026amp; Dragons Adventure League on 3 mornings in a row!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMore pictures are over at \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2016/\"\u003emy SmugMug site\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"DragonCon 2016 Pictures"},{"content":"\nI have gone all in with the TBS Vendetta, I have put the ZMRs and the Shendrones Krieger away. I am now exclusively flying a pair of Vendettas that I have named McCoy and Hatfield.\nThe Vendetta is not perfect and it is not indestructible. It is a multirotor for experienced hobbyists and it is not for beginners. I would only recommend it to someone who has built more than 2 difference quads of their own and gone through the experience of tuning, flying, crashing, and breaking.\nIf you are a beginner I recommend you either buy an ImmersionRC Vortex 250 Pro or take the time to build one of your own from parts you ordered online. Look for locals that will take you under their wing and help you out, sometimes it only takes an experienced pilot seeing your plane fly in person for a minute to tell you exactly what you need to do to fix it.\nThe Vendetta You can learn more about the Team Black Sheep Vendetta on the TBS website and there are a lot of great instructional videos that various people have put together. I am not into making videos so I am going to offer my suggestions via this blog post.\nI bought the Vendetta because I was no longer having fun building and maintaining quadcopters. I rebuilt my ZMRs 5 times and built a Shendrones Krieger that I was never able to get to fly right, don’t get me wrong, I think the Krieger is one of the best frames on the market and capable of being the most agile and fastest plane out there, I just don’t want to spend any more time rebuilding it or tweaking on it.\nThe Vendetta comes almost ready to fly, add a receiver, set it up via a couple of pushbuttons and you are ready to fly.\nThe 3 things you may want to change with the Vendetta as soon as you get are replacing the camera, securing the rear LED cover, and adding a 5V power connector.\nCamera I do not like the ZeroZero camera, I do not like the inability to change its settings without opening it up and clipping wires to it and I do not like the quality of the video it outputs. TBS has updated the camera and I have one of each, an updated one that came with a little orange sticker on it and one without, and I do not like either of them. So I have replaced the camera with a Runcam Swift.\nThis is my first time using the Swift, but I have used the RunCam Sky many times before, in fact I have 5 of them on various planes and still in the box. The Swift offers very similar performance to the Sky and to the HS1177/PZ402M. It is easy to change the settings and easy to install it in the Vendetta.\nThe Swift comes with many different methods for mounting it, for the Vendetta you can use the flat back plate and the brackets that are on the ZerZero. But first you should harden the Swift to protect it from crashes, I have been known to hit trees head-on at over 30 miles an hour with my quads so it is important for the FPV camera to be tough.\nI use E6000 to and a bamboo skewer to glue down the capacitor and the sensor, doing a Google search can show you a lot of other people recommending this and there are other methods and other adhesives you might want to use.\nI do not recommend gluing the circuit board to the housing, issues can arise where the circuit board ends up crooked in the housing, which would cause a fuzzy picture. But I do recommend adding a bit of foam tape to the back plate to hold the circuit board in place while making it easy to remove.\nOnce the Swift has been toughened and it is time to remove the ZeroZero from the Vendetta and remove the video cables from the 4-pin micro JST connector, I use an X-Acto knife to gently pry up the little piece of plastic holding the cable and then pull it out. A Google search will get you some good videos showing this in action. Then do the same with one of the cables that came with the swift so that you have an empty 3-pin connector.\nWARNING: The pin-out for the Swift is different than the ZeroZero.\nNow place the wires from the Vendetta into the 3-pin connector being sure to get it right. For the white cable I wrapped it in a bit of electrical tape to keep it from shorting out on something in the plane.\nNext take the brackets off of the ZeroZero and put them on the Swift, it is an easy swap and easily fits. Make sure you have an antenna attached to the Vendetta before powering it on, ALWAYS ATTACH AN ANTENNA. In fact I keep an antenna attached at all times to my quads, I only take it off when I have to. Back in the day I burnt out 3 $75 video transmitters by not having an antenna attached.\nThis is the time to setup the camera, out of the box Wide Dynamic Range is not turned on and that is the most important change to make. I also lower the contrast and sharpness as I feel it make it easier to see small tree branches and other thin objects.\nNow time to put the camera into the plane and get ready to fly.\nLED Cover In my opinion the LED cover is the only real design flaw with the Vendetta, it is a piece of plastic glued to the carbon fiber frame, the glue gives out with the smallest bump, even a soft landing can cause it to pop out. I replaced it a couple of times, I really like the looks of having that translucent cover over the LEDs. The LEDs and the circuit board they are on is fragile and needs protection.\nThe best solution I have found is to drill some holes in the cover and use small zip ties to hold it in place.\nTransponder Power For the Drone Racing Club races I participate in I need a 5v female servo lead to connect a transponder.\nThe easiest place to get this from is the Servo output on top of the Cube, I was able to solder these wires without taking the Cube apart. Use a nice long cable lead and you can run the cable and connector to the front of the quad and hide it inside the frame behind the camera and front bumper when not in use. I choose to leave the signal cable unconnected for now.\nI also think you could use this connector to power a RunCam HD 2 or other action camera, I haven’t tried that yet, but plan to soon.\nWARNING: Do not do anything that makes the Cube taller, you will want that space between the top of the Cube and to top of the frame for when the screws holding the front arm sheer off and you need to push the tray up into the frame to get those screws out.\nOverall I really like the Vendetta and plan on it being my exclusive multirotor for a good long while. I like the way it flies and it is easy enough to repair.\nHere is a video of me chasing some wings at the Pecan Patch.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/team-black-sheep-vendetta-tips/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"TBS Vendetta\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2016/07/dave-nelson-20160626-0001.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have gone all in with the TBS Vendetta, I have put the ZMRs and the Shendrones Krieger away. I am now exclusively flying a pair of Vendettas that I have named McCoy and Hatfield.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Vendetta is not perfect and it is not indestructible. It is a multirotor for experienced hobbyists and it is not for beginners. I would only recommend it to someone who has built more than 2 difference quads of their own and gone through the experience of tuning, flying, crashing, and breaking.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Team Black Sheep Vendetta Tips"},{"content":"\nZMR250 Frame\nMy first 250 size quadcopter frame was a ZMR250 which I have been told is a clone of a Blackout 250. The Blackout costs $150 from GetFPV while the ZMR is available for as low as $20 from various sources. I got my first one from Banggood in May 2015, it required some drilling to get the 2204 motors to fit the arms and the SMA VTx to fit through the top plate, but I was pretty happy with it overall.\nMy initial build included:\nBanggood ZMR250 Carbon Fiber Frame SimonK 20Amp ESCs SunnySky 2204/2300kv Motors (I think they were knock-offs) 700tvl Sony Board Camera ImmersionRC 600mw VTx and Spironet Antennas Naze32 Flight Controller Home-made Power Distribution Board I chose black and orange as a color scheme using orange shrink-wrap and propellers. After making a lot of mistakes and burning myself with the soldering iron a dozen or more times I decided to name the plane “Orange Pain”.\nSince May I have rebuilt the machine a number of times due to burnt out or broken parts. I have gone through a Naze32, two 600mw VTx, a very expensive board camera, a top plate, three motors, three SN20a ESCs, and a ton of props. I bought an FPVModel ZMR250 and built it as a second plane but have since parted it out.\nThe current iteration of Orange Pain includes:\nA mixture of Carbon Fiber parts from the original Banggood frame and a FPVModel ZMR250 V2 frame RotorGeek RG20A ESCs SunnySky 2204/2300kv (I think these are real) Fatshark 250mw VTx 600tvl Sony Board Camera PZ4020 Naze32 Flight Controller DYS Power Distribution Board I think this is a great setup for an intermediate racer or daily basher. I am currently struggling to get the tune on it right and am ready to pay someone else to tune it for me.\nAfter rebuilding the machine a number of times I have learned a few things.\nThe expensive FPV cameras are not worth it, stick with the $30 Sony PZ4020 or PZ4020M with or without a case.\n600mw Video Transmitters are not needed and the extra heat can greatly shorten the life of the unit. A 200mw or even 25mw transmitter may last a long longer and provide a signal that is comparable to the higher-powered transmitters at racing and public park distances.\nIf you short out a flight controller it is probably ruined. It is good to have an extra on hand.\nSpend the extra money on 2 sets of drivers, keep one set in a toolbox at home and carry the other set with you.\nI really enjoy my ZMR and recommend them for people getting started who want to build their own. The FPVModel ZMR250 V2 is made of a much higher quality carbon fiber than the Banggood frame, but the cheaper frame is not a bad buy.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/zmr250-multirotor-frame/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2015/11/TTO_1609-copy.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"ZMR250 Multirotor Racing Drone\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2015/11/TTO_1609-copy.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eZMR250 Frame\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy first 250 size quadcopter frame was a ZMR250 which I have been told is a clone of a Blackout 250. The Blackout costs $150 from GetFPV while the ZMR is available for as low as $20 from various sources. I got my first one from Banggood in May 2015, it required some drilling to get the 2204 motors to fit the arms and the SMA VTx to fit through the top plate, but I was pretty happy with it overall.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"ZMR250 Multirotor Frame"},{"content":"\nVortex 285 – FPV Race Quad\nThe Vortex comes with 10 “Pro-Tunes” that were developed by sponsored pilots before its release. I did a bunch of Googling after buying the Vortex to try and find more details about these varoius tunes and found nothing more than a short video from UmmaGawd about the Vortex.\nSo here are all the tunes as of October 2015. I hope they add some new ones soon that are specific to newer motor and prop combinations, especially DAL props.\nPreset 1 Pilot: AntohonyRC\nProps: Gemfan 5040\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 4S\nCamera: Mobius\nStyle: Easy Rider\nPreset 2 Pilot: BewweB\nProps: Gemfan 5030\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 3S\nCamera: Mobius\nStyle: Beginner\nPreset 3 Pilot: BewweB\nProps: Gemfan 5030\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 4S\nCamera: Mobius\nStyle: Intermediate\nPreset 4 Pilot: BewweB\nProps: Gemfan 5040\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 4S\nCamera: Mobius\nStyle: Race\nPreset 5 Pilot: BewweB\nProps: HQ 5x4x3\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 4S\nCamera: Mobius\nStyle: Howler\nPreset 6 Pilot: BewweB\nProps: Gemfan 5040\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 4S\nCamera: Mobius\nStyle: Freeride\nPreset 7 Pilot: BorisB\nProps: HQ 5045\nMotor: Cobra CM-2204/32\nPack: 4S\nCamera: GoPro\nStyle: Acrobatic\nPreset 8 Pilot: Nocomp\nProps: Gemfan 6045\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 3S\nCamera: Mobius\nStyle: Freerider\nPreset 9 Pilot: Porco777\nProps: Gemfan 5030\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 4S\nCamera: Mobius\nStyle: Extreme\nPreset 10 Pilot: UmmaGawd\nProps: HQ 50540\nMotor: T-Motor 1806\nPack: 4S\nCamera: GoPro\nStyle: Precision\nIn the next couple of weeks I hope to experiment with each of these tunes and see how each performs with the props described and with various DAL props.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/immersionrc-vortex-pro-tunes/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2015/10/immersionrc-vortex-race-quad_1.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Vortex 285 – FPV Race Quad\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2015/10/immersionrc-vortex-race-quad_1.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVortex 285 – FPV Race Quad\u003cbr\u003e\nThe Vortex comes with 10 “Pro-Tunes” that were developed by sponsored pilots before its release. I did a bunch of Googling after buying the Vortex to try and find more details about these varoius tunes and found nothing more than a short video from UmmaGawd about the Vortex.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo here are all the tunes as of October 2015. I hope they add some new ones soon that are specific to newer motor and prop combinations, especially DAL props.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"ImmersionRC Vortex Pro-Tunes"},{"content":"\nVortex 285 – FPV Race Quad\nI have seen a handful of people flying Vortexes around the Atlanta area and after rebuilding my ZMRs like 5 times I decided to give the Immersion Vortex a try.\nI bought it from Atlanta Hobby along with both the Carbon Fiber Crash Kit and the Plastic Crash Kit. I also got a cable to allow me to easily connect a Spektrum Satellite receiver without having to make a cable of my own.\nI got it home, took it out of the box, connected it to a computer and installed all the updated and such, then was ready to fly. It took me a couple of weeks to have the time and place to fly it, it rained 3 weekends in a row.\nOnce I finally got to fly the experience was very good. I started out with the Gemfan 5030 props that came with it, Turnigy Nano-tech 3S 1300mah batteries, with a RunCam HD, and used BewweB’s Pro-tune number 2. It flew really well and was a lot of fun. Not what I would call fast or agile, but still fun.\nNext up I put a Glacier 4S 1300mah battery on it with DAL 5030 props, it was much faster and a bit more agile. Then I swapped the props out for DAL 5045 Bull-Nose props, but they were too aggressive and drew more amps than I was willing to risk.\nRight now I feel like the Vortex’s largest issue is the proprietary 12 amp ESCs. 12 amps is not enough to run 6 inch props on 4S batteries without burning them up very quickly, and right now you cannot get replacement ESCs and without doing something extreme you cannot use larger ESCs.\nAfter 7 flights with a mix of 3S and 4S batteries the ground cable to the FPV camera broke at the connector. I fixed it by cutting up a cable from a RunCam FPV camera and soldering together with the Vortex FPV cable. I also popped the cap off the video transmitter’s antenna, found it and popped it back on, but I plan on gluing it on before my next flight.\nOverall I think the Vortex is a decent quad, the trends have changed a lot since its creation and so it has fallen out of favor in comparison to smaller multirotors like the Shendrone’s Tweaker and Krieger, but that does not mean that it is not a good quad. I think it is suitable for fun-flying and even racing at a beginner to intermediate level.\nSorry about the lack of video, the RunCam HD was not at enough of an angle so about all you could see during my flights was the ground. A quick Google search will lead you to many videos of pilots much better than me flying the Vortex.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/immersion-rc-vortex-first-flights/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2015/10/immersionrc-vortex-race-quad_1.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Vortex 285 – FPV Race Quad\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2015/10/immersionrc-vortex-race-quad_1.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVortex 285 – FPV Race Quad\u003cbr\u003e\nI have seen a handful of people flying Vortexes around the Atlanta area and after rebuilding my ZMRs like 5 times I decided to give the Immersion Vortex a try.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought it from Atlanta Hobby along with both the Carbon Fiber Crash Kit and the Plastic Crash Kit. I also got a cable to allow me to easily connect a Spektrum Satellite receiver without having to make a cable of my own.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Immersion RC Vortex First Flights"},{"content":"\nRealFlight is an RC flight simulator that you can use to practice flying RC planes, helicopters, and multirotors (drones). It is a lot cheaper to crash in the simulator than in real life.\nRealFlight is a good flight-sim, I feel like there are other sims out there that have better physics and are more realistic, but RealFlight feels like the most polished and has many more options than any of the others. But to get the most out of it you will have to turn to the community around it.\nThere are many versions of RealFlight available and it can be very confusing picking the right one. You can get just the software, with a cable, or with a controller. To make it a bit more confusing there is more than one cable available. I went to my local hobby shop and bought Great Planes RealFlight 7.5 with Wired Interface which is currently $129.98 at Amazon.\nIf you buy this version you will also need a controller, I use the Spektrum DX6 controller (transmitter) and like it a lot. It is available on Amazon for $199.52 right now, which is a great price.\nA great feature of RealFlight is that you can install it on as many computers as you want, but to use it you have to have the Interlink cable with its built in reset button to run it.\nRealFlight will not run on MacOS so I primarily use Bootcamp and Windows 8 to play it. But I sometimes use Parallels with Windows 7 or Windows 8, it works but requires a fast Mac to work.\nCommunity After getting the software installed and you’ve taken a couple of test flights I recommend going over to RCGroups.com and downloading the RCG online field and then the RCG Killer Quad. After installing them and giving them a go you can see if RCG is hosting the field for multiplayer to have some fun with other RC Group members.\nIf the field does not offer you enough challenges you can open it up in the editor and make it more challenging. I added more gates and removed the stadium seating from mine.\nThe next place to stop is the Knife Edge Software Swap Pages. These are aircraft and airports created by other players.\nTroubleshooting The only problem I have had with the software is that when I load a new multirotor and try to fly it the plane flops around until it is crashed. This is fixed by flipping the auxillary switches, ‘Y’, ‘U’, ‘I’, and ‘O’, for me it is ‘O’ that usually does the trick.\nImprovements I hope that that next version of RealFlight includes more realistic physics, more realistic graphics, and a simpler interface.\nCompetition Phoenix RC is the direct competitor and has its own flaws.\nFPV Freerider is a multirotor FPV specific sim with a handful of maps.\nGive them all a try, it is a lot cheaper than wrecking and rebuilding your planes.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/great-planes-realflight-7-5-review/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Great Planes RealFlight 7.5 Review\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/2/7/4/2/9/6/ai17461913-162-thumb-s6.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRealFlight is an RC flight simulator that you can use to practice flying RC planes, helicopters, and multirotors (drones). It is a lot cheaper to crash in the simulator than in real life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRealFlight is a good flight-sim, I feel like there are other sims out there that have better physics and are more realistic, but RealFlight feels like the most polished and has many more options than any of the others. But to get the most out of it you will have to turn to the community around it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Great Planes RealFlight 7.5 Review"},{"content":"\nI have re-listened to this series a handful of times now and it just gets better every time. I burnt through my credits on Audible faster than usual this year so to delay spending more credits I decided it was about time to listen to all 15 books in the series, I skipped Side Jobs this time.\nHarry Dresden is such an amazing character and the world Jim Butcher has created is fantastic. But what makes the series so wonderful are the supporting characters, they are as unforgettable as Dresden.\nJames Marsters does an AMAZING job narrating these books, you owe it to yourself to listen to the audiobooks even if you have read the books yourself. He adds so much to them!\n“PARKOUR”\n“Polka will never die!”\nI rate the series a 10 out of 10 and recommend everyone give Storm Front a try.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-dresden-files-by-jim-butcher-2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2013/i-hkPpsVm/4/Th/dave-nelson-20130829-215125-0006-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nI have re-listened to this series a handful of times now and it just gets better every time. I burnt through my credits on Audible faster than usual this year so to delay spending more credits I decided it was about time to listen to all 15 books in the series, I skipped Side Jobs this time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHarry Dresden is such an amazing character and the world Jim Butcher has created is fantastic. But what makes the series so wonderful are the supporting characters, they are as unforgettable as Dresden.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher"},{"content":"We had a good time at DragonCon this year. It was a strange year and I felt kind of off the whole show. But I had a good time talking with friends and taking pictures.\nThe Costume Contest and Masquerade were great, seeing the BSG folks and Karen Gillian was great, and listening the Jim Butcher is always fun. Steranko was a crack-up and the American Horror: Freak Show folks were a blast. The Georgia Philharmonic Orchestra was amazing and Rasputina was delightful.\nDragonCon 2015 Photos\nAmerican Horror: Freak Show\nCostume Contest\nBattle Star Galactica\nSteranko\nGeorgia Philharmonic Orchestra\nRasputina\nJim Butcher\nMasquerade\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragoncon-2015/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe had a good time at DragonCon this year. It was a strange year and I felt kind of off the whole show. But I had a good time talking with friends and taking pictures.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Costume Contest and Masquerade were great, seeing the BSG folks and Karen Gillian was great, and listening the Jim Butcher is always fun. Steranko was a crack-up and the American Horror: Freak Show folks were a blast. The Georgia Philharmonic Orchestra was amazing and Rasputina was delightful.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"DragonCon 2015"},{"content":"Last year I saw a video of a guy flying a remote control helicopter upside down… A HELICOPTER… UPSIDE DOWN!\nI watched that video and others like it over and over. So I started saving my money and researching what kind of equipment I needed to learn how to do that myself. I started off with a cheap toy helicopter, then moved to a more expensive one that was much more powerful but still a toy and then finally with a hobby-grade collective pitch heli.\nThere is such a huge difference between a “Hobby-Grade” and a “Toy” RC vehicle. Mainly it is the ability to fix it and upgrade it, you usually cannot do that with a toy, and hobby-grade usually also means more power.\nI bought a Spektrum DX6, not the DX6i, but the new DX6 with the really nice gimbals, voice, and 250 plane memory. It is my first real transmitter so I do not have anything but toys to compare it to, but I really like it.\nThe helicopter I chose was the Blade Nano CPX, it is a tiny (nano) collective pitch helicopter that is capable of flying upside down. But a funny thing happened. As soon as I had the Nano CPX I started watching videos of guys racing quadcopters through the woods.\nRacing through the woods flying quadcopters in first-person view while wearing goggles is so amazing! So immersive! Better than any video game could make it. But there I sat with all this money sunk into a helicopter.\nI decided to learn to fly the helicopter until I could successfully fly it upside down, then I would move onto quads.\nAfter crashing a lot and spending a lot of money on replacement parts I broke down and bought the Phoenix RC software because it has the Nano CPX in it. I was really impressed by Phoenix because I crashed the heli in the app in the exact same way that I crashed it in real life. I spent a hundred hours or so practicing in the software and slowly got better with the real thing.\nI never got good at flying the helicopter; it was too fast for me to fly it indoors but so light that it was difficult to fly outside. And the cost of repairs was crazy, I spent more on replacement parts in a couple of months than I spent on it new. At that point it just wasn’t fun.\nI went to a couple of local events with guys flying large helicopters doing all kind of amazing tricks, their skills are amazing and exciting to watch. But my desire to fly helicopter is totally gone.\nI was able to fly it upside down a couple of time successfully and I will probably never fly it again. I will probably sell it and all of the parts I have for it soon. Let me know if you are interested.\nNow I am on to flying quadcopters. More about that soon.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/getting-into-rc-helicopters/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast year I saw a video of a guy flying a remote control helicopter upside down… A HELICOPTER… UPSIDE DOWN!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI watched that video and others like it over and over. So I started saving my money and researching what kind of equipment I needed to learn how to do that myself. I started off with a cheap toy helicopter, then moved to a more expensive one that was much more powerful but still a toy and then finally with a hobby-grade collective pitch heli.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Getting into RC Helicopters"},{"content":"What the heck is Joe Ledger doing in a Peter Clines novel, haha, I jest.\nI really enjoyed 14 by Peter Clines and when I saw his new novel The Fold in Audible I grabbed it and gave it a listen. The audiobook is narrated by Ray Porter who also narrates the Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry so when I hear his voice I hear the voice of Joe Ledger. But this book is not much like the Ledger series.\nThe lead character, Mike Erikson, is a really smart guy with a photographic memory and Peter Clines does a great job of making him likeable and relatable.\nThis book didn’t get me too excited, I enjoyed it, but it fell like a compilation of other sci-fi books and movies. There is nothing new here if you have been reading and watching science fiction for awhile. But it is a solid effort, the narration is great, and the characters are fun if a bit predictable.\nFrom the publisher:\nStep into the fold. It’s perfectly safe.\nThe folks in Mike Erikson’s small New England town would say he’s just your average, everyday guy. And that’s exactly how Mike likes it. Sure, the life he’s chosen isn’t much of a challenge to someone with his unique gifts, but he’s content with his quiet and peaceful existence. That is until an old friend presents him with an irresistible mystery, one that Mike is uniquely qualified to solve.\nFar out in the California desert, a team of DARPA scientists has invented a device they affectionately call the Albuquerque Door. Using a cryptic computer equation and magnetic fields to \u0026ldquo;fold\u0026rdquo; dimensions, it shrinks distances so a traveler can travel hundreds of feet with a single step. The invention promises to make mankind’s dreams of teleportation a reality. And, the scientists insist, traveling through the door is completely safe. Yet evidence is mounting that this miraculous machine isn’t quite what it seems – and that its creators are harboring a dangerous secret.\nAs his investigations draw him deeper into the puzzle, Mike begins to fear there’s only one answer that makes sense. And if he’s right, it may be only a matter of time before the project destroys…everything. A cunningly inventive mystery featuring a hero worthy of Sherlock Holmes and a terrifying final twist you’ll never see coming, The Fold is that rarest of things: a genuine pause-resister science-fiction thriller. Step inside its audio and learn why author Peter Clines has already won legions of loyal fans.\n©2015 Peter Clines (P)2015 Audible, Inc.\nI rate The Fold a 6 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who has run out of other books to read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-fold-by-peter-clines/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Fold by Peter Clines\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61Yu2l%2BAGkL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eWhat the heck is Joe Ledger doing in a Peter Clines novel, haha, I jest.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed \u003ca href=\"/14-by-peter-clines/\"\u003e14 by Peter Clines\u003c/a\u003e and when I saw his new novel The Fold in Audible I grabbed it and gave it a listen. The audiobook is narrated by Ray Porter who also narrates the Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry so when I hear his voice I hear the voice of Joe Ledger. But this book is not much like the Ledger series.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Fold by Peter Clines"},{"content":"I have been hearing about The Martian from a lot of friends over the last couple of months and it sounded to god to be true so I put it off. I really shouldn’t have.\nI bought the audiobook from Audible and listened to it about as fast as I could. It has a lot in common with the many recent stranded stories like Gravity and Cast Away, but it is so much better than them.\nI highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever dreamed of Mars, being an astronaut, an engineer, or a space botanist. Really I recommend it to anyone at all, it is a great story and R. C. Bray does a fantastic job narrating the audiobook.\nFrom the publisher:\nSix days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.\nNow, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.\nAfter a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive – and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.\nChances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain old \u0026ldquo;human error\u0026rdquo; are much more likely to kill him first.\nBut Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills – and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit – he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?\n©2012 Andy Weir (P)2013 Podium Publishing\nI rate The Martian a 10 out of 10 and recommend everyone give it a read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-martian-by-andy-weir/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Martian by Andy Weir\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KyIt5qdSL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI have been hearing about The Martian from a lot of friends over the last couple of months and it sounded to god to be true so I put it off. I really shouldn’t have.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought the audiobook from Audible and listened to it about as fast as I could. It has a lot in common with the many recent stranded stories like Gravity and Cast Away, but it is so much better than them.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Martian by Andy Weir"},{"content":"\nHard Luck Hank is turning into a great series; Steven Campbell keeps the action and the humor coming in the second installment.\nThere really isn’t much more to say about Basketful of Crap, it is more of what made Screw the Galaxy so good.\nFrom the publisher:\nHank was a dying breed on the space station Belvaille. The criminal gangs that had once made their homes there were forced out by the corporations that had taken over since the facility became an Independent Protectorate. Instead of the gentlemanly gang wars that had once dominated the scene, and made Hank’s services prized as a negotiator, the city was now plagued by the clash of corporate armies using heavy weapons. Even tanks roamed the streets regularly. Most everyone from the olden days had either fled the station or was killed due to the organizational changes. Changes that Hank personally brought about when he had negotiated Belvaille’s status with the Navy. As Hank contemplates whether he can survive in this increasingly hostile environment, he realizes that things aren’t as bad as they seem – they are quite a bit worse. The constant power plays among corporations might have further reach than just the alleys of a backwater space station at the edge of the galaxy.\n©2014 Steven Campbell (P)2014 Steven Campbell\nI rate Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone that enjoyed the first one. I am really looking forward to the next one.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/hard-luck-hank-basketful-of-crap-book-2-by-steven-campbell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap, Book 2 by Steven Campbell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61BC7tyM0qL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHard Luck Hank is turning into a great series; Steven Campbell keeps the action and the humor coming in the second installment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere really isn’t much more to say about Basketful of Crap, it is more of what made Screw the Galaxy so good.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHank was a dying breed on the space station Belvaille. The criminal gangs that had once made their homes there were forced out by the corporations that had taken over since the facility became an Independent Protectorate. Instead of the gentlemanly gang wars that had once dominated the scene, and made Hank’s services prized as a negotiator, the city was now plagued by the clash of corporate armies using heavy weapons. Even tanks roamed the streets regularly. Most everyone from the olden days had either fled the station or was killed due to the organizational changes. Changes that Hank personally brought about when he had negotiated Belvaille’s status with the Navy. As Hank contemplates whether he can survive in this increasingly hostile environment, he realizes that things aren’t as bad as they seem – they are quite a bit worse. The constant power plays among corporations might have further reach than just the alleys of a backwater space station at the edge of the galaxy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2014 Steven Campbell (P)2014 Steven Campbell\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap, Book 2 by Steven Campbell"},{"content":"\nHard Luck Hank by Steven Campbell really scratches my Sci-Fi itch. Straight-forward science fictiony goodness with plenty of humor and action.\nThe writing reminds me a lot of the Stainless Steel Rat series of books. Lots of good nature humor, although with Hank there is a lot more smashing and crunching involved instead of the happy go-lucky larceny of the Rat.\nThe narrator Liam Owen does a great job with Hanks character, he brings a sense of toughness to him without taking away his humanity.\nI really enjoyed Hank and the other citizens of Belvaille and I am excited to have found another series of books to dive into.\nFrom the publisher:\nHank is a thug. He knows he’s a thug. He has no problem with that realization. In his view the galaxy has given him a gift: a mutation that allows him to withstand great deals of physical trauma. He puts his abilities to the best use possible and that isn’t by being a scientist.\nBesides, the space station Belvaille doesn’t need scientists. It is not, generally, a thinking person’s locale. It is the remotest habitation in the entire Colmarian Confederation. There is literally no reason to be there.\nUnless you are a criminal.\nBecause of its location, Belvaille is populated with nothing but crooks. Every day is a series of power struggles between the crime bosses.\nHank is an intrinsic part of this community as a premier gang negotiator. Not because he is eloquent or brilliant or an expert combatant, but because if you shoot him in the face he keeps on talking.\nHank believes he has it pretty good until a beautiful and mysterious blue woman enters his life with a compelling job offer.\nHank and Belvaille, so long out of public scrutiny, suddenly find themselves the epicenter of the galaxy with a lot of very unwelcome attention.\n©2013 Steven Campbell (P)2014 Steven Campbell\nI rate Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone that enjoyed The Stainless Steel Rat books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/hard-luck-hank-screw-the-galaxy-by-steven-campbell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy by Steven Campbell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61VSkwVTPQL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHard Luck Hank by Steven Campbell really scratches my Sci-Fi itch. Straight-forward science fictiony goodness with plenty of humor and action.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe writing reminds me a lot of the Stainless Steel Rat series of books. Lots of good nature humor, although with Hank there is a lot more smashing and crunching involved instead of the happy go-lucky larceny of the Rat.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy by Steven Campbell"},{"content":" Jonathan Maberry and Ray Porter do it again with another Joe Ledger audio book. Code Zero is everything I love about the Joe Ledger series, action, action, and a bit of angst.\nThe highlight of Code Zero for me was the inclusion of DragonCon, I met Mr. Mayberry at DragonCon 2014 and got a couple of great photos of him. His panels were very interesting if a bit heavy on the talk about zombies and meeting him just made me want to read more.\nFrom the publisher:\nFor years the Department of Military Sciences has fought to stop terrorists from using radical bioweapons – designer plagues, weaponized pathogens, genetically modified viruses, and even the zombie plague that first brought Ledger into the DMS. These terrible weapons have been locked away in the world’s most secure facility. Until now. Joe Ledger and Echo Team are scrambled when a highly elite team of killers breaks the unbreakable security and steals the world’s most dangerous weapons. Within days there are outbreaks of mass slaughter and murderous insanity across the American heartland. Can Joe Ledger stop a brilliant and devious master criminal from turning the Land of the Free into a land of the dead?\nCode Zero, a Joe Ledger novel from Jonathan Maberry, is the exciting direct sequel to Patient Zero.\n©2014 Jonathan Maberry (P)2014 Macmillan Audio\nI rate Code Zero an 8 out of 10 and highly recommend it to anyone that has been reading the Joe Ledger novels.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/code-zero-joe-ledger-book-6-by-jonathan-maberry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Code Zero: Joe Ledger, Book 6 by Jonathan Maberry\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/6196OUAljUL._SL200_.jpg\"\u003e \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/search#q=maberry\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-NZMXtF9/0/S/dave-nelson-20140831-173147-0453-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJonathan Maberry and Ray Porter do it again with another Joe Ledger audio book. \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Code-Zero-Audiobook/B00IS8CWKW\"\u003eCode Zero\u003c/a\u003e is everything I love about the Joe Ledger series, action, action, and a bit of angst.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe highlight of Code Zero for me was the inclusion of DragonCon, I met Mr. Mayberry at DragonCon 2014 and got a couple of \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/search#q=maberry\" title=\"photos of johnathan maberry at drgaconcon\"\u003egreat photos of him\u003c/a\u003e. His panels were very interesting if a bit heavy on the talk about zombies and meeting him just made me want to read more.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Code Zero: Joe Ledger, Book 6 by Jonathan Maberry"},{"content":"As you may have read in previous posts I studied and took the Amateur Radio Technician Exam recently, it was a great experience.\nI bought a study guide and read it on a Kindle and the iOS Kindle app then took around 100 practice exams using an iOS app. All told I spent about 5 days studying after work and at lunch.\nUsing the National Association for Amateur Radio’s website I was able to find a local test which was on a Saturday morning at a local church around the corner from my house.\nI showed up a bit early and met a great guy in the parking lot who would be helping with the testing who had a remarkable radio system setup in his car. He told me that he had talked with people in Russia from the unit in his car that is pretty cool. After awhile other began showing up.\nThere was only two of being tested that morning; we began around 9am after the retelling of a number of stories about our experiences in the military. Most of us had been in the Navy.\nThe technician exam went fast and after being told that I had passed I was offered the chance to take the general exam. That sounded like a great idea so I gave it a shot. Sadly I did not pass that one, I had not studied for it and did not know the terminology used in the test.\nI recommend that if you are going to take the technician exam to spend some time also studying for the general exam, you may be able to get both of them on the same day.\nSo that was on Saturday, on Monday afternoon the examiner called me to let me know that I was in the FCC database and I could begin transmitting!\nI am now known as Dave Kilo Mike Four Julliet Whiskey X-Ray (KM4JWX).\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/amateur-radio-technician-exam/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs you may have read in previous posts I studied and took the Amateur Radio Technician Exam recently, it was a great experience.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought a study guide and read it on a Kindle and the iOS Kindle app then took around 100 practice exams using an iOS app. All told I spent about 5 days studying after work and at lunch.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUsing the \u003ca href=\"http://www.arrl.org\"\u003eNational Association for Amateur Radio’s\u003c/a\u003e website I was able to find a \u003ca href=\"http://www.arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-class\"\u003elocal test\u003c/a\u003e which was on a Saturday morning at a local church around the corner from my house.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Amateur Radio Technician Exam"},{"content":"Amateur Radio Exam Prep: Technician is an iOS app for iPhone and iPad to help you pass the ham radio technician exam. I am taking the exam to get my license so that I can legally use 5.8GHz video transmitters for first-person view remote control flying.\nThis app with a good study guide should easily get you through the technician exam. I read a study guide and took about 100 practice exams before taking the test and only missed 2 questions.\nI think the best feature of the app is the ability to see the questions you have missed after taking a bunch of test exams so that you can see exactly where you are falling short. That was invaluable to me and the only reason I did as well as I did.\nIf I decide to take the general exam I will definitely be buying the app for that test also.\nI rate Amateur Radio Exam Prep: Technician a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone preparing to take the Technician exam.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/amateur-radio-exam-prep-technician-by-patrick-j-maloney-llc/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Amateur Radio Exam Prep: Technician by Patrick J Maloney LLC\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://a3.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple4/v4/3a/86/71/3a8671b3-5ff9-ce5d-6a0f-6ebf029a67aa/icon175x175.jpeg\"\u003eAmateur Radio Exam Prep: Technician is an iOS app for iPhone and iPad to help you pass the ham radio technician exam. I am taking the exam to get my license so that I can legally use 5.8GHz video transmitters for first-person view remote control flying.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis app with a good study guide should easily get you through the technician exam. I read a study guide and took about 100 practice exams before taking the test and only missed 2 questions.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Amateur Radio Exam Prep: Technician by Patrick J Maloney LLC"},{"content":"To legally use a 5.8GHz video transmitter in the U.S. you need at least a Technician Amateur Radio license. It is not a hard test, but I wanted some study aids to make sure I only had to take the test once.\nA little bit of searching on Amazon led me to The No-Nonsense Technician Class License Study Guide (2014 edition): For tests given starting July 1, 2014 [Kindle Edition] for a very reasonable price.\nIt is a very good book covering only what you need to know to pass the test without a lot of fluff that many of the other study books include.\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who wants to quickly learn what it takes to pass the Technician license.\nP.S.\nI passed my test only missing 2 questions after reading this book twice and using an iPhone app to take around 100 practice tests.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-no-nonsense-technician-class-license-study-guide-by-dan-romanchik/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The No-Nonsense Technician Class License Study Guide by Dan Romanchik\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HGt41WiBL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eTo legally use a 5.8GHz video transmitter in the U.S. you need at least a Technician Amateur Radio license. It is not a hard test, but I wanted some study aids to make sure I only had to take the test once.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA little bit of searching on Amazon led me to \u003cstrong\u003eThe No-Nonsense Technician Class License Study Guide (2014 edition): For tests given starting July 1, 2014 [Kindle Edition]\u003c/strong\u003e for a very reasonable price.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The No-Nonsense Technician Class License Study Guide by Dan Romanchik"},{"content":"I really love the characters and world that Larry Correia has created with the Grimnoir Chronicles and Bronson Pinchot has done an amazing job bringing them to life.\nI didn’t think there was much new ground covered here, but Tokyo Raider is a solid addition to the series.\nFrom the publisher:\nWith the Japanese Imperium at war with the Soviet Union, and the United States watching cautiously on the sidelines, Second Lieutenant Joe Sullivan of the U.S. Marines is sent on a dangerous mission to Tokyo. The Russians have Summoned a demon of epic proportions to attack the city, and all that stands in its deadly path is an untested Japanese super-robot. Now, Joe is at the controls, his gravity-spiking Power at the ready. But that is one huge, mean Demon….\n©2014 Larry Correia (P)2014 Audible Inc.\nI rate Tokyo Raider an 8 out 10 and hope there are more Grimnoir Chronicles to come.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/tokyo-raider-a-tale-of-the-grimnoir-chronicles-by-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Tokyo Raider: A Tale of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/618AaDlReBL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI really love the characters and world that Larry Correia has created with the Grimnoir Chronicles and Bronson Pinchot has done an amazing job bringing them to life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI didn’t think there was much new ground covered here, but Tokyo Raider is a solid addition to the series.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith the Japanese Imperium at war with the Soviet Union, and the United States watching cautiously on the sidelines, Second Lieutenant Joe Sullivan of the U.S. Marines is sent on a dangerous mission to Tokyo. The Russians have Summoned a demon of epic proportions to attack the city, and all that stands in its deadly path is an untested Japanese super-robot. Now, Joe is at the controls, his gravity-spiking Power at the ready. But that is one huge, mean Demon….\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2014 Larry Correia (P)2014 Audible Inc.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Tokyo Raider: A Tale of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia"},{"content":"I love me some Veronica Mars, it was one of the few non-sci-fi shows I watched in real time. Kristen Bell and her friends just work for me.\nKristin Bell narrates the audiobook and does an amazing job, I felt like I could hear the actors from the show laughing about her impersonations of them. She really nails some of them and gets close enough with the others that it made the story even better.\nThe story written by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham is a solid one that could have easily been of handful of TV episodes. The Veronica Mars vibe is alive and well.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe first book in an original mystery series featuring 28-year-old Veronica Mars, back in action after the events of Veronica Mars: The Movie. With the help of old friends – Logan Echolls, Mac Mackenzie, Wallace Fennel, and even Dick Casablancas – Veronica is ready to take on Neptune’s darkest cases with her trademark sass and smarts.\n©2014 Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham (P)2014 Random House Audio\nI rate this audiobook a 10 out of 10 and recommend to anyone who loves Veronica Mars!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/veronica-mars-the-thousand-dollar-tan-line-by-rob-thomas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Veronica Mars: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BDGWGW4BL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI love me some Veronica Mars, it was one of the few non-sci-fi shows I watched in real time. Kristen Bell and her friends just work for me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKristin Bell narrates the audiobook and does an amazing job, I felt like I could hear the actors from the show laughing about her impersonations of them. She really nails some of them and gets close enough with the others that it made the story even better.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Veronica Mars: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas"},{"content":"\nI am working on a personal side-project for some friends and decided to build it using Node, Express, Mongo, and Passport.\nAbout the time I was working on the database architecture I received a coupon via email for the Udemy course “All about Node.js” taught by Sachin Bhatnagar. The full price for the course is currently $150 but it comes up on-sale from time-to-time and coupons are often available.\nThe course is 64 lectures with 8 hours of video and a handful of quizzes. It took me 3 weeks to work my way through all of the lectures as I was also reading a couple of books on Safari Books Online and Learn All The Node http://www.learnallthenodes.com/.\nSachin’s class is great; the lectures about using Amazon’s CloudFront and EC2 alone are worth the full price of $150. He is very articulate, easy to understand, and does a great job breaking complicated systems into easy to digest lessons.\nFrom the course description:\n“My intent is hand hold you all the way from writing your first NodeJS app to deploying production level apps on the cloud.”\nWhat am I going to get from this course?\nOver 64 lectures and 7.5 hours of content! Build High Performance and Scalable Apps using NodeJS Use NodeJS Streams to write a Web Server Use the Node Package Manager (NPM) for managing dependencies Use the Express 4 Framework for building NodeJS Apps Use the Hogan Templating Language Understand MongoDB as a NoSQL Database Create \u0026amp; Use MongoDB Databases using services like MongoLab Create Realtime Apps that use Web Sockets Upload \u0026amp; Resize Images using NodeJS Integrate Authentication using Social Media Sites like Facebook Structure the NodeJS app into modules Create and Deploy EC2 Cloud Server Instances on Amazon Web Services Create and Use Amazon’s S3 Storage Service with NodeJS Use Amazon’s Cloudfront Service Using Amazon’s Elastic IP Configure Security Groups, Ports \u0026amp; Forwarding on Amazon EC2 Deploy a NodeJS app on the EC2 Instance Deploy a NodeJS app on Heroku Deploy a NodeJS app on Digital Ocean Install \u0026amp; Deploy NGINX as a Reverse Proxy Server for NodeJS Apps Configure NGINX as a Load Balancer What is the target audience?\nWeb Designers \u0026amp; Front End Developers who wish to extend their knowledge of Javascript for building high performance network applications. Software Developers who want to build high performance network applications. Absolute beginners with basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and Javascript, wanting to upgrade to professional Web Development and Building Web Apps. PHP, ASP.net, Perl, Java \u0026amp; Ruby coders wanting to leap onto the Node.Js bandwagon. Anyone who wishes to get hands-on training with setting up an Amazon EC2 Instance with a host of other services like Cloudfront, Elastic IP and S3 Anyone who wishes to get hands-on training with deploying a NodeJS app on the cloud Computer Engineering students Tech Entrepreneurs who want to get their hands down and dirty with Web Coding \u0026amp; App Development. Anyone who wishes to stay on the forefront of technology! I rate the Udemy Course: All about Node.js a 10 out of 10 and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn Node.js and its surrounding technologies and frameworks.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/udemy-course-all-about-node-js/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Udemy Course: All about Node.js\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://blog.udemy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/udemy-logo-academyofyou-300x228.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am working on a personal side-project for some friends and decided to build it using Node, Express, Mongo, and Passport.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAbout the time I was working on the database architecture I received a coupon via email for the Udemy course “\u003ca href=\"https://www.udemy.com/all-about-nodejs/?dtcode=OtuWe6M2GILL#/\"\u003eAll about Node.js\u003c/a\u003e” taught by \u003ca href=\"https://www.udemy.com/u/sachinbhatnagar2\"\u003eSachin Bhatnagar\u003c/a\u003e. The full price for the course is currently $150 but it comes up on-sale from time-to-time and coupons are often available.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Udemy Course: All about Node.js"},{"content":"Changing pace yet again I decided to binge on some Cory Doctorow goodness. If you don’t know who he is check out Cory’s Wikipeida entry, he is an interesting character. His politics are about as far from mine as they could be, but he is a really great storyteller.\nYou can download and read Cory’s books for free and even remix, mash-up, re-write, and mangle the contents to your hearts content following the Creative Commons Attrivutions-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license. You can get his books at Craphound.com.\nFor The Win is an attractive story to me because I enjoy playing video games, have played a lot of different MMOs in the past and look forward to playing them again with my son when he is old enough. I also really like the international viewpoints the story presents, the U.S., China, India, and Russia all come together.\nI found the book to have a lot of lectures in it, at times I felt like I was being treated like a child in a schoolroom sitting at one of those little desks with the attached chairs. I tried to tune a lot of that out because the story itself is really good, the characters have a lot of depth and I found myself rooting for most of them. This is a really good story if you can get through the lectures.\nFrom the publisher:\nIt’s the twenty-first century, and all over the world, MMORPGs are big business. Hidden away in China and elsewhere, young players are pressed into working as “gold-farmers,” amassing game-wealth that’s sold to Western players at a profitable markup. Some of these pieceworkers rebel, trying to go into business for themselves—but there’s little to stop their bosses from dragging them back into servitude. Some of them, like young Mala in the slums of Bombay—nicknamed “General Robotwallah” for her self-taught military skill—become enforcers for the bosses, but that only buys them so much.All the way over in L.A., young Wei-Dong, obsessed with Asian youth culture and MMORPGs, knows the system is rigged, knows that kids everywhere are being exploited. Finally, he and his Asian counterparts begin to work together to claim their rights. Under the noses of the ruling elites, they fight the bosses, the game owners and the rich speculators, outsmarting them with their street-gaming skills. But soon the battle will spill over from the virtual world to the real one, leaving the young rebels fighting not just for their rights, but for their lives…\nI rate For The Win an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any Cory Doctorow or gaming fan.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/for-the-win-cory-doctorow/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"For The Win by Cory Doctorow\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51grioFwu4L.jpg\"\u003eChanging pace yet again I decided to binge on some Cory Doctorow goodness. If you don’t know who he is check out \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow\"\u003eCory’s Wikipeida entry\u003c/a\u003e, he is an interesting character. His politics are about as far from mine as they could be, but he is a really great storyteller.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou can download and read Cory’s books for free and even remix, mash-up, re-write, and mangle the contents to your hearts content following the Creative Commons Attrivutions-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license. You can get his books at \u003ca href=\"http://craphound.com/\"\u003eCraphound.com\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"For The Win by Cory Doctorow"},{"content":"Freedom is book 2 in the Daemon series of novels. It continues right where Daemon left off, more of the same.\nI enjoyed Freedom, there are a lot of subplots in it that I really enjoyed, but it is not as good as Daemon and I found the end wanting. I would like more, I would like more of the subplots to be wrapped up. I just want more.\nFrom the author’s website:\nIn one of the most buzzed-about debuts of 2009, Daniel Suarez introduced a terrifying vision of a new world order, controlled by the Daemon, an insidious computer program unleashed by a dying hi-tech wunderkind. Daemon captured the attention of the tech community, became a New York Times and Indie bestseller, and left readers hungry for more.\nWell, more is here, and it’s even more gripping than its predecessor. In the opening chapters of FreedomTM, the Daemon is firmly in control, using an expanded network of dispossessed operatives to tear apart civilization and rebuild it anew. As civil disorder spreads through the American Midwest, former detective Pete Sebeck, now the Daemon’s most influential yet reluctant-operative, must lead a small band of enlightened humans in a populist movement designed to protect the new social network. But the private armies of global business are preparing to crush the Daemon once and for all.\nIn a world of conflicted loyalties, and rapidly diminishing human authority, what’s at stake is nothing less than democracy’s last hope to survive the technology revolution.\nI rate Freedom a 6 out of 10 and recommend to anyone who read Daemon.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/freedom-daniel-suarez/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Freedom by Daniel Suarez\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://thedaemon.com/images/Freedom_MassMarketCover.jpg\"\u003eFreedom is book 2 in the Daemon series of novels. It continues right where Daemon left off, more of the same.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI enjoyed Freedom, there are a lot of subplots in it that I really enjoyed, but it is not as good as Daemon and I found the end wanting. I would like more, I would like more of the subplots to be wrapped up. I just want more.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Freedom by Daniel Suarez"},{"content":"I don’t remember how this series by Daniel Suarez came to my attention. It could have been as simple as the title of the first book, “Daemon”, or my proclivity for techno-thrillers that get most of it right.\nI burnt myself out reading Jack Campbell space battles one after another for a couple of months and needed a break. Daemon is about as far away from The Lost Stars as I could get.\nDaemon is a great story of a madman who leaves behind a legacy of malware that has infected thousands of machines around the world holding corporations and governments hostage.\nI really enjoyed this book, the pacing is good, the characters are believable, and the technology is pretty sweet. Suarez takes many liberties with the details of the technology, but they all worked for me. The security issues that are highlighted by the author don’t really bother me that much, apparently many people find it controversial, it just feels like a near-future reality with better internet.\nFrom the author’s website:\nDaemon brings readers on a harrowing journey through the dark crawl spaces of the modern world. It’s a cutting-edge high-tech thriller that explores the convergence of MMOG’s, BotNets, viral ecosystems, and corporate dominance—forces which are quietly reshaping society with very real consequences for us all.\nIt all begins when one man’s obituary appears online…\nMatthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer—the architect behind half a dozen popular online games. His premature death from brain cancer depressed both gamers and his company’s stock price. But Sobol’s fans weren’t the only ones to note his passing. He left behind something that was scanning Internet obituaries, too—something that put in motion a whole series of programs upon his death. Programs that moved money. Programs that recruited people. Programs that killed.\nConfronted with a killer from beyond the grave, Detective Peter Sebeck comes face-to-face with the full implications of our increasingly complex and interconnected world—one where the dead can read headlines, steal identities, and carry out far-reaching plans without fear of retribution. Sebeck must find a way to stop Sobol’s web of programs—his Daemon—before it achieves its ultimate purpose. And to do so, he must uncover what that purpose is…\nI rate Daemon an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes techno-thrillers or sci-fi.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/daemon-daniel-suarez/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Daemon by Daniel Suarez\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://thedaemon.com/images/Daemon_MM_Synopsis.jpg?w=200\"\u003eI don’t remember how this series by Daniel Suarez came to my attention. It could have been as simple as the title of the first book, “Daemon”, or my proclivity for techno-thrillers that get most of it right.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI burnt myself out reading Jack Campbell space battles one after another for a couple of months and needed a break. Daemon is about as far away from The Lost Stars as I could get.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Daemon by Daniel Suarez"},{"content":"This is the Raspberry Pi book I have been looking for. Instead of trying to push some advanced scripting language or Linux distribution, this book shows you how to use the most widely used distribution, Raspbian, and good old Bash scripts to do useful things with a Raspberry Pi.\nNow 3 years old the lessons in Learn Raspberry Pi still hold up. Raspbian has been through some major updates and the new Model A+ and B+ computers have added to the Pi’s capabilities, but the Linux/Unix commands, SSH and VNC techniques, network information, Web Server installation (LAMP), and a decent chapter covering compiling XMBC on your Pi.\nThis book does not cover any topics in depth, but it includes enough information to give you an idea of what to enter into Google to find out more. This is one of the greatest features of Linux and the Raspberry Pi, once you know what to search for, there is more information available for free. The community is made up of millions of people from all over the world that want to share what they have learned and what they have created.\nFrom the publisher:\nLearn Raspberry Pi with Linux will tell you everything you need to know about the Raspberry Pi’s GUI and command line so you can get started doing amazing things. You’ll learn how to set up your new Raspberry Pi with a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and you’ll discover that what may look unfamiliar in Linux is really very familiar. You’ll find out how to connect to the internet, change your desktop settings, and you’ll get a tour of installed applications.\nNext, you’ll take your first steps toward being a Raspberry Pi expert by learning how to get around at the Linux command line. You’ll learn about different shells, including the bash shell, and commands that will make you a true power user.\nFinally, you’ll learn how to create your first Raspberry Pi projects:\nMaking a Pi web server: run LAMP on your own network Making your Pi wireless: remove all the cables and retain all the functionality Making a Raspberry Pi-based security cam and messenger service: find out who’s dropping by Making a Pi media center: stream videos and music from your Pi Raspberry Pi is awesome, and it’s Linux. And it’s awesome because it’s Linux. But if you’ve never used Linux or worked at the Linux command line before, it can be a bit daunting. Raspberry Pi is an amazing little computer with tons of potential. And Learn Raspberry Pi with Linux can be your first step in unlocking that potential.\nWhat you’ll learn\nHow to get online with Raspberry Pi How to customize your Pi’s desktop environment Essential commands for putting your Pi to work Basic network services – the power behind what Pi can do How to make your Pi totally wireless by removing all the cables How to turn your Pi into your own personal web server How to turn your Pi into a spy How to turn your Pi into a media center Who this book is for\nRaspberry Pi users who are new to Linux and the Linux command line.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and highly recommend it to anyone looking to make a project with a Raspberry Pi.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/learn-raspberry-pi-linux-peter-membrey-david-hows/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Learn Raspberry Pi with Linux by Peter Membrey and David Hows\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61N-JUCTe7L.jpg\"\u003eThis is the Raspberry Pi book I have been looking for. Instead of trying to push some advanced scripting language or Linux distribution, this book shows you how to use the most widely used distribution, Raspbian, and good old Bash scripts to do useful things with a Raspberry Pi.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow 3 years old the lessons in Learn Raspberry Pi still hold up. Raspbian has been through some major updates and the new Model A+ and B+ computers have added to the Pi’s capabilities, but the Linux/Unix commands, SSH and VNC techniques, network information, Web Server installation (LAMP), and a decent chapter covering compiling XMBC on your Pi.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Learn Raspberry Pi with Linux by Peter Membrey and David Hows"},{"content":"\nI think a review in CycleWorld led me to buy this hardcover book; it tuned out to be the most disappointing “motorcycle” book I have ever read.\nThe full title is “There \u0026amp; Back Again To See How Far It Is: Cultural Observations of an Englishman Aboard a Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Across Small-Town America”\nJust a really boring read with lots of semi-interesting tid-bits pulled from Wikipedia and Google Maps. I found very few “Cultural Observations”, information about a “Harley Davidson Motorcycle”, or feel that the author and his wife had travelled very far throughout the book.\nTake a pass on this one.\nI rate this book a 1 out of 10 and do not recommend it to anyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/back-see-far-tim-watson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"There \u0026amp; Back Again To See How Far It Is by Tim Watson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.qbookshop.com/dynamic/images/products/thumbs/240x4009781844259571.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think a review in CycleWorld led me to buy this hardcover book; it tuned out to be the most disappointing “motorcycle” book I have ever read.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe full title is “There \u0026amp; Back Again To See How Far It Is: Cultural Observations of an Englishman Aboard a Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Across Small-Town America”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust a really boring read with lots of semi-interesting tid-bits pulled from Wikipedia and Google Maps. I found very few “Cultural Observations”, information about a “Harley Davidson Motorcycle”, or feel that the author and his wife had travelled very far throughout the book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"There \u0026 Back Again To See How Far It Is by Tim Watson"},{"content":"\nI was looking for a book to read and found What the Dog Saw on the office bookshelf. I have really liked the Malcolm Gladwell books I read in the past so decided to give it a try.\nThis book is a collection of articles that Malcolm Gladwell wrote for the New Yorker covering a wide variety of topics.\nMy favorite articles include Cesar Millan the “Dog Whisperer”, the story of Grey Poupon, and Enron.\nGladwell’s writing is superb, witty, and never strays to far from the point even when it is taking a winding path to get there.\nFrom Gladwell.com:\nWhat is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century?\nHere is the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling inventions of the pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, the “dog whisperer” who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and “hindsight bias” and why it was that everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate.\n“Good writing,” Gladwell says in his preface, “does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else’s head.” What the Dog Saw is yet another example of the buoyant spirit and unflagging curiosity that have made Malcolm Gladwell our most brilliant investigator of the hidden extraordinary.\nI rate What the Dog Saw a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dog-saw-adventures-malcolm-gladwell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/What_the_dog_saw.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was looking for a book to read and found What the Dog Saw on the office bookshelf. I have really liked the Malcolm Gladwell books I read in the past so decided to give it a try.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book is a collection of articles that Malcolm Gladwell wrote for the New Yorker covering a wide variety of topics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy favorite articles include Cesar Millan the “Dog Whisperer”, the story of Grey Poupon, and Enron.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell"},{"content":"\nThe Lost Fleet is a science fiction series written by John G. Hemry writing as Jack Campbell and consists of 6 novels centered around Captain “Black Jack” Geary and the Alliance Fleet. This is good old military science fiction space war stuff.\nI listened to these novels as audiobooks from Audible. Christian Rummel does a great job narrating all 6 of the novels and brings all of the characters to life. When adding up the playtime of all six novels you get 60 hours of space battles, political infighting, and military atmosphere.\nThis is not my ordinary type of reading, I usually go with something lighter, but The Lost Fleet had been recommended to me so many times that I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I am glad I finally picked it up, they are pretty great for what they are. Military space battles with some real military thought put into them.\nI listened to all 6 of them one after the other, just couldn’t stop myself. And now I am on to Jack Campbell’s Beyond the Frontier series.\nThe books that make up The Lost Fleet are:\nThe Lost Fleet: Dauntless The Lost Fleet: Fearless The Lost Fleet: Courageous The Lost Fleet: Valiant The Lost Fleet: Relentless The Lost Fleet: Victorious What the publisher has to say about Dauntless:\nThe Alliance has been fighting the Syndics for a century, and losing badly. Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory. Their only hope is a man who has emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he has been heroically idealized beyond belief.\nCaptain John “Black Jack” Geary’s legendary exploits are known to every schoolchild. Revered for his heroic “last stand” in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead. But a century later, Geary miraculously returns from survival hibernation and reluctantly takes command of the Alliance fleet as it faces annihilation by the Syndics.\nAppalled by the hero-worship around him, Geary is nevertheless a man who will do his duty. And he knows that bringing the stolen Syndic hypernet key safely home is the Alliance’s one chance to win the war. But to do that, Geary will have to live up to the impossibly heroic “Black Jack” legend.\nI rate The Lost Fleet series an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who loves science fiction and has a taste for the military.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/lost-fleet-jack-campbell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qyTpDD%2B%2BL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_pd_Sci-Fi_c2__1_sa?asin=B006K1S7IU\"\u003eThe Lost Fleet\u003c/a\u003e is a science fiction series written by \u003ca href=\"http://www.jack-campbell.com/\"\u003eJohn G. Hemry writing as Jack Campbell\u003c/a\u003e and consists of 6 novels centered around Captain “Black Jack” Geary and the Alliance Fleet. This is good old military science fiction space war stuff.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI listened to these novels as audiobooks from Audible. Christian Rummel does a great job narrating all 6 of the novels and brings all of the characters to life. When adding up the playtime of all six novels you get 60 hours of space battles, political infighting, and military atmosphere.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell"},{"content":"How to make a new folder icon for your MAME games is pretty easy with a handful of steps. This is the process I followed; there are other ways to do it using other tools. I used Preview, Adobe Photoshop, and Xcode’s Icon Utility.\nStep 1: Get the Icons I like JohanChalibert’s OS X Yosemite Icon set that he has posted on Deviant Art, but you could search around a bit and find many different icon sets that would be a great place to start.\nDownload the icon set, unzip it, take a moment to read the readme file, and then find the folder icon you want to use as a starting point, I used GenericFolderIcon.icns. Right-click the Icns file and open it in Preview.\nStep 2: Export the Base Icon Preview InpectorNow that you have the icon set open in preview you can see that it is made up of 10 different graphics. By opening the Inspector (Tools \u0026gt; Show Inspector or Command i) you can see the details for each graphic, like the first graphic is 1024 x 1024 pixels in size at 144 dpi.\nExport As…Right-click the “1” graphic and choose Export As…, change the Format to PNG making sure the Alpha checkbox is checked. I kept the default name of GenericFolderIcon.png.\nStep 3: Editing the Graphics Now I download the super large version of the MAME logo from MAME Dev. This is what I want to put on the front of my folder icon.\nOpen both the GenericFolderIcon.png and the MAMELogoTM.jpg files in Photoshop. On the MAME logo in the Layers panel click the padlock icon to convert the background to a regular layer. Using the Magic Wand tool with a Tolerance of 12, Anti-alias checked, and Contiguous unchecked click the black background of the logo. Delete BackgroundClick the Delete key to remove that black background then Command D to cancel the selection.\nAdjust LevelsOpen the Levels panel (Image \u0026gt; Adjustments \u0026gt; Levels… or Command L) and under Output Levels make both sides “0” which will make the entire logo solid black.\nPasted LogoThen Select All (Command A), Copy (Command C), then switch to the GenericFolderIcon graphic and Paste (Command V).\nTranform LogoInitially the MAME logo will be huge compared to the folder so you will need to transform it to fie. Transform (Command T) then while holding down the shift key to keep the ratio of the logo locked start resizing the logo until it looks good to you.\nIn the Layer panel switch the mode to Overlay. Create an “fx” layer with an Inner Shadow, I like the settings Blend Mode: Mulitply, Opacity: 36%, Angle: 128, Distance: 9px, Choke: 0, Size: 21px. Play with it until you find something you like. Adjust LogoFor my tastes the MAME logo is still too strong, I want it to more closely match the Apple Applications folder Icon. So back in the Layers I turn the Opacity of the logo layer down to 38%.\nSave that PSD file early and often so you have something to go back too if there are any problems or you want to make adjustments later.\nStep 4: Saving the Graphics For a complete Apple icon you need 10 images.\nicon_16x16.png\nicon_16x16@2x.png\nicon_32x32.png\nicon_32x32@2x.png\nicon_128x128.png\nicon_128x128@2x.png\nicon_256x256.png\nicon_256x256@2x.png\nicon_512x512.png\nicon_512x512@2x.png\nThe “2x” images are saved at 144 DPI while the others are saved at 72 DPI.\nIt can get a bit confusing at this point, but keep in mind that icon_128x128@2x.png is really 256×256 at a resolution of 144 DPI while icon_256x256.png is 256×256 at a resolution of 72 DPI.\nI make a Duplicate (Image \u0026gt; Duplicate) of the image so that I wont accidentally overwrite my full-sized PSD file.\nImage Size 512@2xIn the Image Size panel (Image \u0026gt; Image Size… or Command Option I) adjust the resolution to 1024×1024 at 144 DPI.\nThen Save for Web (File \u0026gt; Save for Web… or Command Option Shift S) with the settings of PNG-24 and Transparency Checked.\nClick Save and in the Save Optimized As dialog box make a new folder naming it “MAMEFolderIcon.iconset”. The “.iconset” portion is important later.\nName this first file icon_512x512@2x.png and save it.\nImage Size 512Back to the Image Size panel adjust the size to 72 DPI Resolution and sized 512×512 (easier to make the changes in that order as adjusting the resolution will change the width and height). Resample should be set to “Automatic” or “Bicubic Sharper (reduction)”.\nSave this one as icon_512x512.png.\nFinished FilesNow do that another 8 times adjusting the size and saving based on the file names above.\nAs the icon graphic gets smaller you could change it up to keep it distinguishable from other icons. Instead of using the full MAME logo you could use just an “M” or you could darken the logo, or anything else you can think of.\nStep 5: Building the Icon Set I am using the Icon Utilities tool that comes with Xcode. There are a lot of icon tools out there, the App Store is full of them, but I happen to have Xcode installed and decided this was the easiest way for me to create the finished icon set.\nOpen the Terminal app and change the directory to where you have the MAMEFolderIcon.iconset saved. For me that was “cd /Users/dnelson/Documents/Folder\\ Icon\\ Post/”\nThen run the Icon Utilities app “iconutil -c icns MAMEFolderIcon.iconset”\nAnd BANG! You have your very own MAMEFolderIcon.icns icon set.\nStep 6: Put your New Icon Set to Use Find the folder you want to give your new Icon Set to and get ready for the magic.\nSelect the folder, click on it once, than then Get Info (right-click and choose Get Info or Command I).\nDrag-and-DropNow drag-and-drop you new icon set on top of the folder icon at the top of the Get Info dialog box.\nUpdated FolderAnd you are done!\nIt is a tedious process, but it is nice to have custom icons like this, especially for folders in the Doc. This process will also work for making icons for your game launching files.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/make-icon-mac-yosemite/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHow to make a new folder icon for your MAME games is pretty easy with a handful of steps. This is the process I followed; there are other ways to do it using other tools. I used Preview, Adobe Photoshop, and Xcode’s Icon Utility.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"step-1-get-the-icons\"\u003eStep 1: Get the Icons\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI like \u003ca href=\"http://johanchalibert.deviantart.com/art/OS-X-Yosemite-Icons-458305951\"\u003eJohanChalibert’s OS X Yosemite Icon set\u003c/a\u003e that he has posted on Deviant Art, but you could search around a bit and find many different icon sets that would be a great place to start.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Make an Icon for Mac Yosemite"},{"content":"Sometimes you want to be able to launch a game by double-clicking an icon rather than going through MAME’s interface or using the Terminal. This method has the added benefit of letting you easily launch MAME with various options.\nWe are going to write a small shell script, save it as a command file, and make it executable.\nIf you have followed the directions in my previous post “MAME on Mac OSX Yosemite” you can follow these instructions exactly, if you have made changes or modified any steps, keep that in mind while working through these steps.\nFirst off we write the shell script.\nOpen the Documents directory and create a new folder named “MAME Games”. Open Applications \u0026gt; TextEdit and click Format \u0026gt; Make Plain Text On the first line of the document enter “#!/usr/bin/env bash”. This is known as a shebang and tells the computer that we want to use the Bash shell to run our script. Then for readablility’s sake skip a line and enter “cd ~/Documents/mame” on the next line. This changes the directory to your mame folder inside of your Documents folder. On the last line enter “./mame64 robotbwl” which launches the MAME application and loads the Robot Bowl ROM. Now save the file naming it “Robot Bowl.command”. The filename extension of “command” tells Mac OSX that this is a Terminal shell script. We have created our script now we have to give it permission to be executable.\nOpen the Terminal app and end enter “chmod +x ~/Documents/MAME\\ Games/Robot\\ Bowl.command”, this modifies the permissions of the “Robot Bowl.command” file by adding the Executebale for everyone permissions to it. NOTE: The back slash “\\” in the code escapes the spaces in the directory path and file names, without those back slashes the code will not work. That is all there is to it, you should now be able to double click on the Robot Bowl file to launch MAME and the Robot Bowl game.\nOptions Now we are going to create a file that will launch the Robot Bowl game with the screen much brighter than normal. This can be really handy if you have a screen or a game that is dark.\nCopy the Robot Bowl file we created above and name it “Robot Bowl Bright”. By copying the Robot Bowl file the copied file will have the original’s executable permissions. Open the Robot Bowl Bright file in TextEdit and add the brightness option to it by changing the last line to be “./mame64 robotbwl -brightness 1.5” and save it. Now launch the new Robot Bowl Bright file and you can see how much brighter it is, the background has become gray. Hit the Escape (esc) key to quit and launch the original Robot Bowl file and you should see that the background is black when launching the game from that file.\nIn the docs directory there is a config.txt file that contains many other options you can use to configure your launchers. The ones you will probably use most often are the joystick options.\nThe Dock To make launching games even easier you can drag the MAME Games folder onto the right-hand side of the Dock by the trashcan. I don’t like the default view of folders in the Dock so I right-click the folder and choose “Display as Folder” and “View content as List”. Now I can click the folder in the dock and choose a game from the list.\nYou could get creative with this and have a different folder for different types of games or with different options enabled for the games.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/easy-launching-mame-games-mac-osx-yosemite/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSometimes you want to be able to launch a game by double-clicking an icon rather than going through MAME’s interface or using the Terminal. This method has the added benefit of letting you easily launch MAME with various options.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe are going to write a small shell script, save it as a command file, and make it executable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you have followed the directions in my previous post “\u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/mame-mac-osx-yosemite/\"\u003eMAME on Mac OSX Yosemite\u003c/a\u003e” you can follow these instructions exactly, if you have made changes or modified any steps, keep that in mind while working through these steps.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Easy Launching of MAME Games in Mac OSX Yosemite"},{"content":"Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) is a free and open source application used as a reference of the inner workings of arcade gaming systems. A side effect of this is that MAME can be used to play old arcade games if you can find the games. MAME uses data dumps from the Read Only Memory chips (ROMs) that were used in the original arcade games.\nYou can download the ROMs of some games from the mamedev.org website. I am going to use Robot Bowl as an example.\nYou will have to use the terminal app and the console to get MAME working, but it is very easy following the steps below. You will also need admin privileges on the computer, this is not absolutely necessary to run MAME, but that is how I am going to cover it here.\nThese instructions are for SDLMAME version 0.156 64-bit which was released on November 28, 2014.\nLets get started.\nVisit http://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/SDL_Supported_Platforms and click on the URL for “Apple Macintosh OS X Intel” with a build target of “MAME”. Curretly that URL is http://sdlmame.lngn.net/ Follow the instructions at the top of the page and install the “SDL runtime library” From the SDL website download SDL2-2.0.3.dmg or the latest version. Double-click the SDL2-2.0.3.dmg file which will mount it as a drive. Open the Terminal application Applications \u0026gt; Utilities \u0026gt; Terminal Enter “open /Library/Frameworks” into the terminal window, this will open a window for the Frameworks directory Drag the “SDL2.framework” file from the SDL2 window into the “Frameworks” window, you may be prompted to enter an Admin username and password to authenticate your desire to modify the Frameworks directory. Click “Authenticate” and then enter an Admin Username and Password. Back at the SDLMAME page click on the “SDLMAME v0.156 64-bit” link and save the file to your computer. I am placing it in the “Documents” directory. Double-click the zip file, when finished you should now have a folder named “mame0156-64bit”, now rename this folder “mame”, keep in mind that case counts so make sure the folder name is all lower-case. Open the “mame” folder and take a look at the contents Over in the Terminal app, enter “cd ~/Documents/mame” and then “ls -al” to double-check that you are in the right directory Now to create the MAME configuration file enter “./mame64 -createconfig” this will create a “mame.ini” file in the “mame” directory Now to get a ROM visit the mamedev.org website and the Robot Bowl game at http://mamedev.org/roms/robotbwl/ Click on “I understand…” and download the game to the Documents/mame/roms directory WARNING: ROMs are saved as zip files and they should stay zipped. MAME will handle unzipping them and using the contents inside. If you use a web browser that automatically unzips files when you download them you will need to change that setting to preserve the original files. In Yosemite the keyboard does not use the function keys on as F-1 through F19 the way other operating systems do, they are assigned all kinds of other functions. You can hold the “Function (fn)” key down everytime you want to use a function key or you can open the System Preferences \u0026gt; Keyboard and check the “Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys” box. If you check this box you can use the “fn” key to utilize the special functions of those keys. That is my preferred method. Now to launch MAMA and give Robot Bowl a try - In the Terminal enter “./mame64” - Use the arrow keys to select “robotbwl Robot Bowl” and tap Enter - You may see a screen warning about using ROMs that you are not legally entitled to play, give it a quick read and know that you have been given permission by H.R. Kaufmann, president of Xidy, the original ROM images for Robot Bowl have been made available for free, non-commercial use. On your keyboard the left then right arrows to move on. - Then you may see a message that there are known problems with this game. The sound emulation isn’t 100% accurate. Click the left then right arrow keys again to move on. - Now the game should be playing its attract animation of a stick figure coming out to bowl. - Tap the “Tab” key to bring up the in-game configuration menu and choose “Input (this Game)” NOTE: I prefer not to change the “Input (general)” controls from the default. By keeping the general defaults tutorials and other help I may use in the future will work without me having to translate which keys to press. Controls This is really cool, when you look at the input controls for a specific game, it shows ALL of the control options for that game making it very easy to learn how to play that game and re-configure the buttons and controls for it. For Robot Bowl the default controls are: 1 Player Start: 1 Coin 1: 5 P1 Left Button: Left arrow key P1 Right Button: Right arrow key P1 Button 1: Left Control key or mouse button 1 (left mouse button) P1 Button 2: Left Alt key or muse button 3 (right mouse button) Hook Left: Z key Hook Right: X key You can use the arrow keys to navigate to any of these and change them by tapping the Enter key then tapping the key you want to use; you can have more than one key assigned to a single control. And that is it; you now have MAME up and running on your Mac OSX Yosemite computer.\nYou can find a lot more information about customizing MAME in the ~/Documents/mame/docs directory, especially in the config.txt file.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/mame-mac-osx-yosemite/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eMultiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) is a free and open source application used as a reference of the inner workings of arcade gaming systems. A side effect of this is that MAME can be used to play old arcade games if you can find the games. MAME uses data dumps from the Read Only Memory chips (ROMs) that were used in the original arcade games.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou can download the ROMs of some games from the \u003ca href=\"http://mamedev.org/\"\u003emamedev.org website\u003c/a\u003e. I am going to use \u003ca href=\"http://mamedev.org/roms/robotbwl/\"\u003eRobot Bowl\u003c/a\u003e as an example.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"MAME on Mac OSX Yosemite"},{"content":"\nI really like the Borderlands series of games, they are the right combination of first-person shooter (FPS), customizability, and goofy humor. The mechanics have always been good and it has been much more fun than frustrating.\nThe story lines in the Borderlands series do tend to be thin, this is not epic story telling by any means, but there is a story and it stays pretty consistent throughout the franchise, and I really enjoy it.\nBorderlands: The Pre-Sequel is the third update to the franchise. There are 3 main games, Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and now Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. But each of these have a lot of downloadable content available that greatly extend the gameplay.\nSo far I have made my way through The Pre-Sequel with Nisha bringing her up to level 50 and now I am working my way through with Jack from the most recent DLC.\nThese games are solid fun if you enjoy FPS and the skill trees give you the opportunity to play the game using many different styles of play.\nMy only real complain right now is that the Mac and PC updates are not in sync so as a Mac player am having a tough time to find groups to play with. That is very frustrating as Jack is the perfect team player and should be most enjoyable with a full group. I think a group of 4 jacks would be a blast.\nI rate Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun FPS to play.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/borderlands-pre-sequel/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/261640/header.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really like the \u003ca href=\"http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_4_4__12\u0026amp;term=borderlands\"\u003eBorderlands series of games\u003c/a\u003e, they are the right combination of first-person shooter (FPS), customizability, and goofy humor. The mechanics have always been good and it has been much more fun than frustrating.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story lines in the Borderlands series do tend to be thin, this is not epic story telling by any means, but there is a story and it stays pretty consistent throughout the franchise, and I really enjoy it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel"},{"content":"Here is something new, an single audiobook with 2 performances. Not 2 narrators in the same recording, but 2 narrators with their own recording. Kinda cool.\nI bought the audiobook from Audible as a pre-order that came with the added benefit of giving me the Amber Benson recording of the book.\nI first listened to the Wil Wheaton recoding and really enjoyed it. Wil Wheaton has turned in some great performances as a narrator of audiobooks and this is no exception.\nI am familiar with Amber Benson primarily from Buffy the Vampire slayer that I thought she was great in. I didn’t know that she is also an author and has narrated audiobooks.\nAfter listening to the Wil Wheaton version of the book I decided to wait a month or so before listening to the Amber Benson version. During that break I read a blog post by John Scalzi that was pretty cool and shines a new light on the book. It makes the story kind of gimmicky, but I don’t believe it ruins the book.\nWARNING: This link contains SPOILERS that will absolutely impact your enjoyment of reading or listening to Lock In. So don’t follow the link unless you have already read the book. If you have read it, please check it out, it is a cool aspect of the story you may have missed.\nI HAVE READ THE WARNING, TAKE ME THERE\nI enjoyed the story in Lock In and hope to read more stories that take place in the same universe. There is also talk of a TV series or a Movie, that could also be cool.\nFrom the publisher:\n\u0026ldquo;I love working with Audible, in no small part because they’re committed to doing what’s right, both for my books, and the people who listen to those books. There’s a really excellent reason for Lock In to have two entirely different versions, so when it came time to make the audiobook, Audible did an ingenious thing: they asked both Wil Wheaton and Amber Benson to record entire versions of the book. As the author, I’m impressed with Audible’s commitment to my narrative – and I’m geeking out that both Wil and Amber are reading my book. This is fantastic.\u0026rdquo; (John Scalzi)\nA blazingly inventive near-future thriller from the best-selling, Hugo Award-winning John Scalzi.\nNot too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent – and nearly five million souls in the United States alone – the disease causes \u0026ldquo;Lock In\u0026rdquo;: Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.\nA quarter of a century later, in a world shaped by what’s now known as \u0026ldquo;Haden’s syndrome\u0026rdquo;, rookie FBI agent Chris Shane is paired with veteran agent Leslie Vann. The two of them are assigned what appears to be a Haden-related murder at the Watergate Hotel, with a suspect who is an \u0026ldquo;integrator\u0026rdquo; – someone who can let the locked in borrow their bodies for a time. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden client, then naming the suspect for the murder becomes that much more complicated.\nBut \u0026ldquo;complicated\u0026rdquo; doesn’t begin to describe it. As Shane and Vann began to unravel the threads of the murder, it becomes clear that the real mystery – and the real crime – is bigger than anyone could have imagined.\nBONUS AUDIO: Audible’s audio edition of Lock In contains the bonus novella, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome, written by John Scalzi and narrated by a full cast.\n©2014 John Scalzi (P)2014 Audible Inc.\nI rate Locked In a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who enjoys police thrillers or science fiction.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/lock-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Lock In by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51fiGmQ%2BoGL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eHere is something new, an single audiobook with 2 performances. Not 2 narrators in the same recording, but 2 narrators with their own recording. Kinda cool.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought the audiobook from Audible as a pre-order that came with the added benefit of giving me the Amber Benson recording of the book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI first listened to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Lock-In-Narrated-by-Wil-Wheaton-Audiobook/B00KYUYM14/ref=a_search_c4_1_2_srTtl?qid=1417362398%EF%BF%BDsr=1-2\"\u003eWil Wheaton\u003c/a\u003e recoding and really enjoyed it. Wil Wheaton has turned in some great performances as a narrator of audiobooks and this is no exception.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Lock In by John Scalzi"},{"content":"In Extinction Machine Jonathan Maberry has Joe Ledger and Echo Team delving into the mysteries of ancient alien artifacts.\nThis is yet another, the fifth one in fact, exciting adventure of Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Science. I hope there a dozen more. I enjoyed Extinction Machine more than the last one, I find the subject more interesting and a little bit different than other books I have been reading lately.\nFrom the publisher:\nAudie Award Finalist, Science Fiction, 2014\nIn Extinction Machine, the fifth Joe Ledger book by Jonathan Maberry, the DMS must go up against someone – or something – in search of new technology that could bring about world war.\nThe president of the United States vanishes from the White House. A top-secret prototype stealth fighter is destroyed during a test flight. Witnesses on the ground say that it was shot down by a craft that immediately vanished at impossible speeds. All over the world, reports of UFOs are increasing at an alarming rate. And in a remote fossil dig in China dinosaur hunters have found something that is definitely not of this earth. There are rumors of alien-human hybrids living among us.\nJoe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences rush headlong into the heat of the world’s strangest and deadliest arms race, because the global race to recover and retro-engineer alien technologies has just hit a snag. Someone – or something – wants that technology back.\n©2013 Jonathan Maberry (P)2013 Macmillan Audio\nI rate Extinction Machine a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone following the Joe Ledger series.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/extinction-machine-joe-ledger-novels-book-5-jonathan-maberry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Extinction Machine: The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 5 by Jonathan Maberry\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61R-5nKCHjL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eIn Extinction Machine Jonathan Maberry has Joe Ledger and Echo Team delving into the mysteries of ancient alien artifacts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is yet another, the fifth one in fact, exciting adventure of Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Science. I hope there a dozen more. I enjoyed \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Extinction-Machine-Audiobook/B00BZ69GIK\"\u003eExtinction Machine\u003c/a\u003e more than the last one, I find the subject more interesting and a little bit different than other books I have been reading lately.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Extinction Machine: The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 5 by Jonathan Maberry"},{"content":"Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger is back in action.\nI don’t want to say anything about what is going on in Assassin’s Code as it would give away the most interesting thing about it. Suffice to say that Joe and Echo team are faced with another challenge that threatens the world while more personal threats step out of the shadows.\nRay Porter continues to do an amazing job narrating the Joe Ledger series and bringing all of the characters to life.\nFrom the publisher:\nWhen Joe Ledger and Echo Team rescue a group of American college kids held hostage in Iran, the Iranian government then asks them to help find six nuclear bombs planted in the Mideast oil fields. These stolen WMDs will lead Joe and Echo Team into hidden vaults of forbidden knowledge, mass-murder, betrayal, and a brotherhood of genetically-engineered killers with a thirst for blood.\nAccompanied by the beautiful assassin called Violin, Joe follows a series of clues to find the Book of Shadows, which contains a horrifying truth that threatens to shatter his entire worldview. They say the truth will set you free… Not this time. The secrets of the Assassin’s Code will set the world ablaze.\n©2012 Jonathan Maberry (P)2012 Macmillan Audio\nI rate Assassin’s Code an 8 out of 10 and highly recommend it to fans of the Joe Ledger series.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/assassins-code-joe-ledger-book-4-jonathan-maberry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Assassin’s Code: Joe Ledger Book 4 by Jonathan Maberry\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OWLb8uUuL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eJonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger is back in action.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI don’t want to say anything about what is going on in \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Assassins-Code-Audiobook/B007TN163Q\"\u003eAssassin’s Code\u003c/a\u003e as it would give away the most interesting thing about it. Suffice to say that Joe and Echo team are faced with another challenge that threatens the world while more personal threats step out of the shadows.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRay Porter continues to do an amazing job narrating the Joe Ledger series and bringing all of the characters to life.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Assassin’s Code: Joe Ledger Book 4 by Jonathan Maberry"},{"content":"I was looking for a good shot’em-up and realized I had bought Hitman Absolution from Steam on sale a long time ago and hadn’t played it yet, and even better I could play it on my iMac in MacOS instead of booting into Windows Bootcamp.\nI have played most of the other Hitman games and liked some more than others. A couple of them have been really awesome. I clearly remember a scene in an opera house where I was forced to harm a police officer for the first time in any of the games, that was really hard for me, I almost stopped playing the game because of it. But after dying and restarting the level for what felt like 100 times I was able to complete the mission without killing any cops. Knocking them around a bit is ok.\nIn Hitman Absolution the only mission that came close for me was in Chinatown with a ton of witnesses and a chase that led to me wearing a furry suit.\nThe gameplay was ok but not great, I took a couple of week long breaks while playing it and coming back to it I had to re-learn a lot of the controls. Keyboard and mouse all the way.\nThe story line was not very interesting to me, definitely the worst of the series. I feel like the core of its problem is that to much time and money creating infuriatingly long cut-scenes instead of honing the gameplay. The cut-scenes ruined the game for me, I feel like I spent 25% of my time playing the game and 75% watching boring cut scenes.\nFor a 2012 game played on a Late 2013 27” iMac the graphics were impressive, at full resolution the game was smooth-ish with good framerates that only slowed noticeably when there was a lot going on.\nI don’t remember what I paid for the game, but if it was in the $10 range I am happy with it, but will probably never play it again.\nI rate Hitman Absolution a 4 out of 10 and only recommend it to people who are playing their way through the franchise or for game developers to learn how not to do it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/hitman-absolution-eidos/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/HitmanAbsolutionPackArt.jpg\"\u003eI was looking for a good shot’em-up and realized I had bought \u003ca href=\"http://store.steampowered.com/app/203140/\"\u003eHitman Absolution from Steam\u003c/a\u003e on sale a long time ago and hadn’t played it yet, and even better I could play it on my iMac in MacOS instead of booting into Windows Bootcamp.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have played most of the other Hitman games and liked some more than others. A couple of them have been really awesome. I clearly remember a scene in an opera house where I was forced to harm a police officer for the first time in any of the games, that was really hard for me, I almost stopped playing the game because of it. But after dying and restarting the level for what felt like 100 times I was able to complete the mission without killing any cops. Knocking them around a bit is ok.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Hitman Absolution by Eidos"},{"content":"Listening to Ivanhoe caused me to read more Wikipedia articles than any other book or audiobook. I looked up info on the Normans, the Saxons, and a bunch of different royals.\nBut the story never caught my attention. It was interesting from a fictional historical perspective, but the pacing and dialog never grabbed me… Until I realized the narrator is the same guy who reads the “Lies of Locke Lamora” series by Scott Lynch. Michael Page is a great narrator and for the rest of the book I pretended that it was the Gentlemen Bastards on another adventure instead of Ivanhoe. That worked until the Robin Hood story kicked in and shattered that illusion.\nOverall I enjoyed the story, but I will probably not listen to it again.\nFrom the publisher:\nA century has passed since the Norman Conquest, and England is still a colony of foreign warlords. Prince John is plotting to seize the throne from his brother, Richard the Lion-Hearted, and Robin Hood and his merry band are making fools out of the Sheriff of Nottingham.\nWilfred, knight of Ivanhoe, the son of Cedric the Saxon, is in love with his father’s ward, Rowena. Cedric, however, wishes her to marry Athelstane, a descendant of the royal Saxon line, whom Cedric hopes will restore the Saxon succession.\nWith a colorful cast of chivalric knights and fair ladies, this action-filled novel comes complete with feats of derring-do, the pageantry of a tournament, and a great flame-engulfed castle – all of which makes it the most enthralling of Scott’s creations.\n(P)2005 Brilliance Audio, Inc.\nI rate Ivanhoe a 5 out of 10 and recommend it to those interested in history.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ivanhoe-sir-walter-scott/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51p3IMr%2BKEL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eListening to Ivanhoe caused me to read more Wikipedia articles than any other book or audiobook. I looked up info on the Normans, the Saxons, and a bunch of different royals.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut the story never caught my attention. It was interesting from a fictional historical perspective, but the pacing and dialog never grabbed me… Until I realized the narrator is the same guy who reads the “Lies of Locke Lamora” series by Scott Lynch. Michael Page is a great narrator and for the rest of the book I pretended that it was the Gentlemen Bastards on another adventure instead of Ivanhoe. That worked until the Robin Hood story kicked in and shattered that illusion.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott"},{"content":"I am ready to be done with Titus and Gormenghast, the ride was fun but it went on for just a bit to long. I will have fond memories of the Gormenghast Trilogy but will probably never listen to or read them again.\nTitus Alone had a lot to like but I never got into it, I was ready for it to be over almost as soon as it began.\nPublisher’s Summary\nIn Volume 3 of the classic Gormenghast Trilogy, a doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of Gormenghast Castle. This trilogy, along with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of everything is the 77th Earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom.\nIn this third volume, Titus turns against the iron discipline of Gormenghast’s ritual and sets forth on an uncertain quest – to find himself. His pilgrimage leads to encounters with mysteriously omnipotent, ruthless police, and a battle to the death with Veil, a gaunt ogre with a body like whips and a face that moves \u0026amp;quote;like the shiftings of the gray slime of the pit\u0026amp;quote;. Titus, in his quest for independence from his legacy, despite the fantastical trappings of his odyssey, captures successfully the humanistic conception of contemporary man.\n©1967, 1968 Mervyn Peake; (P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks\nI rate Titus Alone a 6 out of 10, if you have read the first 2 books you have to read this one.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/titus-alone-volume-3-gormenghast-trilogy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Titus Alone: Volume 3 of the Gormenghast Trilogy\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jktoweQ5L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI am ready to be done with Titus and Gormenghast, the ride was fun but it went on for just a bit to long. I will have fond memories of the Gormenghast Trilogy but will probably never listen to or read them again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Titus-Alone-Audiobook/B002V5B966\"\u003eTitus Alone\u003c/a\u003e had a lot to like but I never got into it, I was ready for it to be over almost as soon as it began.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Titus Alone: Volume 3 of the Gormenghast Trilogy"},{"content":"Spell or High Water is the second book in Scott Meyer’s Magic 2.0 series. I absolutely loved Off to Be the Wizard and was delighted to discover that there was a second book available.\nScott’s humor mixed with Luke Daniels’ delivery on the audiobook is a winner.\nI hope there are many more of these books to come.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe adventures of an American hacker in Medieval England continue as Martin Banks takes his next step on the journey toward mastering his reality-altering powers and fulfilling his destiny.\nA month has passed since Martin helped to defeat the evil programmer Jimmy, and things couldn’t be going better. Except for his love life, that is. Feeling distant and lost, Gwen has journeyed to Atlantis, a tolerant and benevolent kingdom governed by the Sorceresses, and a place known to be a safe haven to all female time-travelers.\nThankfully, Martin and Philip are invited to a summit in Atlantis for all of the leaders of the time-traveler colonies, and now Martin thinks this will be a chance to try again with Gwen. Of course, this is Martin Banks we’re talking about, so murder, mystery, and high intrigue all get in the way of a guy who just wants one more shot to get the girl.\nThe follow-up to the hilarious Off to Be the Wizard, Scott Meyer’s Spell or High Water proves that no matter what powers you have over time and space, you can’t control rotten luck.\n©2014 Scott Meyer (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.\nI rate Spell or High Water a 9 out of 10 and recommend you get to reading Off to Be the Wizard right now.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/spell-high-water-magic-2-0/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Spell or High Water: Magic 2.0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kW0jAoWpL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Spell-or-High-Water-Audiobook/B00KHEK842\"\u003eSpell or High Water\u003c/a\u003e is the second book in Scott Meyer’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_pd_Sci-Fi_c2__1_sa?asin=B00MQ2WZIK\"\u003eMagic 2.0\u003c/a\u003e series. I absolutely loved \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Off-to-Be-the-Wizard-Audiobook/B00IIS32NI/ref=a_series_c2_1_t?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;pf_rd_r=0D4TWTTFM1N3YENSWNWQ\u0026amp;pf_rd_m=A2ZO8JX97D5MN9\u0026amp;pf_rd_t=101\u0026amp;pf_rd_i=series-detail\u0026amp;pf_rd_p=1374482202\u0026amp;pf_rd_s=center-2\"\u003eOff to Be the Wizard\u003c/a\u003e and was delighted to discover that there was a second book available.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eScott’s humor mixed with Luke Daniels’ delivery on the audiobook is a winner.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI hope there are many more of these books to come.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe adventures of an American hacker in Medieval England continue as Martin Banks takes his next step on the journey toward mastering his reality-altering powers and fulfilling his destiny.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA month has passed since Martin helped to defeat the evil programmer Jimmy, and things couldn’t be going better. Except for his love life, that is. Feeling distant and lost, Gwen has journeyed to Atlantis, a tolerant and benevolent kingdom governed by the Sorceresses, and a place known to be a safe haven to all female time-travelers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThankfully, Martin and Philip are invited to a summit in Atlantis for all of the leaders of the time-traveler colonies, and now Martin thinks this will be a chance to try again with Gwen. Of course, this is Martin Banks we’re talking about, so murder, mystery, and high intrigue all get in the way of a guy who just wants one more shot to get the girl.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe follow-up to the hilarious Off to Be the Wizard, Scott Meyer’s Spell or High Water proves that no matter what powers you have over time and space, you can’t control rotten luck.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2014 Scott Meyer (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Spell or High Water: Magic 2.0"},{"content":"Y: The Last Man is the story of Yorick, the last living man on earth. Something has wiped out all of the males on earth, except Yorick and his pet monkey. The following years are a roller coaster ride that forces Yorick to grow up, face reality, be a man, and stay a kid at heart.\nNote: this comic is intended for a mature audience, it contains nudity, sex, violence, and profanity.\nThe story is available as a series of 60 comic books that are also available in collected editions and books.\nI have been reading more comic books lately, just taking my time and reading a bit here and there. At DragonCon this year during the panel Marvel NOW! with Chris Brennaman, Peter David, Mark Bagley, and Kelly Sue DeConnick, they were asked about what comics they were reading now and what they would recommend. The 2 comics I heard were \u0026ldquo;Atlantis\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Y: The Last Man\u0026rdquo;. As soon as I got home I started collecting them.\nI really enjoyed the story, the humor, the pacing, and the art. It was a very solid read full of a lot of things to think about. And like the protagonist, Yorick, there are no answers here, not a lot of deep thought, that is left up to the reader.\nIf you are looking to read a good apocalyptic comic with a sense of humor and a lot of monkey feces then this is the book for you.\nFrom Vertigo Comics:\nTHE LAST MAN, winner of three Eisner Awards and one of the most critically acclaimed, best-selling comic books series of the last decade, is that rare example of a page-turner that is at once humorous, socially relevant and endlessly surprising. Written by Brian K. Vaughan (Lost, PRIDE OF BAGHDAD, EX MACHINA) and with art by Pia Guerra, this is the saga of Yorick Brown—the only human survivor of a planet-wide plague that instantly kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome. Accompanied by a mysterious government agent, a brilliant young geneticist and his pet monkey, Ampersand, Yorick travels the world in search of his lost love and the answer to why he’s the last man on earth.\nI rate Y: The Last Man a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who loves comic books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/y-last-man-vertigo-comics/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Y: The Last Man by Vertigo Comics\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://media.dcentertainment.com/sites/default/files/styles/covers192x291/public/comic-covers/2013/08/VERT_YLME_Cv1.r1_caza5idfy3_.jpg\"\u003eY: The Last Man is the story of Yorick, the last living man on earth. Something has wiped out all of the males on earth, except Yorick and his pet monkey. The following years are a roller coaster ride that forces Yorick to grow up, face reality, be a man, and stay a kid at heart.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNote:\u003c/strong\u003e this comic is intended for a mature audience, it contains nudity, sex, violence, and profanity.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Y: The Last Man by Vertigo Comics"},{"content":"The Missing Files is considered the third-and-a-half book in Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger series of novels. It is a collection of short stories that take place in the spaces between the previous books.\nThere are only 5 stories here so it is a very short listen, only 4 hours and 5 minutes long, and for me it felt even shorter than that. I listened to the whole thing in one day of working around the house and running errands.\nBut they are 5 good stories that fill in some gaps like the origin of Ghost the dog and the hunting down of the bad guy that got away at the end of The Dragon Factory.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn this collection of five short stories, Jonathan Maberry fills in the blanks in his action-thriller Joe Ledger novels.\nCountdown\nIn this prequel to Patient Zero, meet Joe Ledger, Baltimore PD, attached to a Homeland Security task force … who’s about to get a serious promotion.\nZero Tolerance\n“Zero Tolerance” picks up a few weeks after the close of Patient Zero. Dropping back into the world of former Baltimore cop Joe Ledger, the Department of Military Sciences, and flesh-eating zombies, fans of the series will finally get closure on a few loose ends.\nDeep, Dark\nBefore former Baltimore cop Joe Ledger goes up against competing geneticists looking to continue the master-race program in The Dragon Factory, he must battle another foe using human test subjects for his sinister plans.\nMaterial Witness\nThis short thriller takes Joe Ledger into the mysterious, troubled town of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, the setting for Maberry’s chilling Pine Deep Trilogy. In Pine Deep, nothing is what it seems.\nDog Days\nJoe Ledger returns in this tale that follows the tragic conclusion of The Dragon Factory. In the wake of a devastating personal loss, Joe Ledger and his new canine partner, Ghost, go hunting for the world’s deadliest assassin.\n© Countdown 2008 by Jonathan Maberry. Zero Tolerance 2010 by Jonathan Maberry. Deep, Dark 2009 by Jonathan Maberry. Material Witness 2011 by Jonathan Maberry. Dog Days 2011 by Jonathan Maberry. (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.\nI rate The Missing Files a 7 out of 10, a must for Joe Ledger fans but not really necessary.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/joe-ledger-missing-files-jonathan-maberry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Joe Ledger: The Missing Files by Jonathan Maberry\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61CIxFI96AL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Joe-Ledger-The-Missing-Files-Audiobook/B005IPR6WC\"\u003eThe Missing Files\u003c/a\u003e is considered the third-and-a-half book in Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger series of novels. It is a collection of short stories that take place in the spaces between the previous books.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are only 5 stories here so it is a very short listen, only 4 hours and 5 minutes long, and for me it felt even shorter than that. I listened to the whole thing in one day of working around the house and running errands.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Joe Ledger: The Missing Files by Jonathan Maberry"},{"content":"The King of Plagues is the third novel in the Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry and the audiobook is narrated by Ray Porter.\nThe continuing adventures of Joe Ledger… More of the same shoot-em-up goodness full of bio-tech threats and mysterious bad guys in the shadows.\nFrom the publisher:\nSaturday, 0911 hours — A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured.\n1009 hours — Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen.\nCompelled by grief and rage, Ledger rejoins the Department of Military Sciences, and within hours he’s attacked by a hit team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak.\nSoon Ledger and the DMS begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Ledger meets this powerful new enemy on its own terms as he fights terror with terror.\nTake another thrill ride with Joe Ledger.\n©2011 Jonathan Maberry (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.\nI rate The King of Plagues an 8 out of 10 and think it may be the best overall Joe Ledger book yet.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-king-of-plagues-joe-ledger-by-jonathan-maberry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The King of Plagues: The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 3 by Jonathan Maberry\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SqsjhQFFL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/The-King-of-Plagues-Audiobook/B004VMOH9S\"\u003eThe King of Plagues\u003c/a\u003e is the third novel in the Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry and the audiobook is narrated by Ray Porter.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe continuing adventures of Joe Ledger… More of the same shoot-em-up goodness full of bio-tech threats and mysterious bad guys in the shadows.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSaturday, 0911 hours — A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1009 hours — Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCompelled by grief and rage, Ledger rejoins the Department of Military Sciences, and within hours he’s attacked by a hit team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSoon Ledger and the DMS begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Ledger meets this powerful new enemy on its own terms as he fights terror with terror.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTake another thrill ride with Joe Ledger.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2011 Jonathan Maberry (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"The King of Plagues: The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 3 by Jonathan Maberry"},{"content":"DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS VERSION OF NEVERWHERE!\nI love Neil Gaiman’s writing, and I have loved every Neil Gaiman audiobook and dramatic performance I have heard until this one.\nThis version of Neverwhere is overproduced with sound effects and over acting that make following the story almost impossible. I am shocked by the positive ratings it has received on Audible, so apparently someone likes it.\nRead or listen to the unabridged story first then maybe give this one a try, I got it as a special offer on Audible for $1.95 but even at that price I feel like I was ripped off.\nFrom the publisher:\nA BBC Radio six-part adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s best-selling novel, starring James McAvoy as Richard and Natalie Dormer as Door.\nBeneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere….\nAn act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into the strange world of London Below. There he meets the Earl of Earl’s Court, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with the Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel called Islington.\nAdapted for radio by the award-winning Dirk Maggs, this captivating dramatisation features a stellar cast including David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head and David Schofield.\nContains over 25 minutes of additional unbroadcast material, including extended scenes, bloopers and outtakes.\nThe full list of narrators includes: James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbens, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet, and Abdul Salis.\n©2013 AudioGO Ltd (P)2013 AudioGO Ltd\nI rate the story of Neverwhere a 10 out of 10 but this production of it is a 2 out of 10. Read or listen to the unabridged version.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/neverwhere-adaptation-bbc-radio/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Neverwhere Adaptation by BBC Radio\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51amebjWx1L._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eDO NOT LISTEN TO THIS VERSION OF NEVERWHERE!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI love Neil Gaiman’s writing, and I have loved every Neil Gaiman audiobook and dramatic performance I have heard until this one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis version of \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Radio-TV/Neverwhere-Adaptation-Audiobook/B00ELIREBK\"\u003eNeverwhere\u003c/a\u003e is overproduced with sound effects and over acting that make following the story almost impossible. I am shocked by the positive ratings it has received on Audible, so apparently someone likes it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRead or listen to the unabridged story first then maybe give this one a try, I got it as a special offer on Audible for $1.95 but even at that price I feel like I was ripped off.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Neverwhere Adaptation by BBC Radio"},{"content":"In Fool Christopher Moore takes on William Shakespeare’s King Lear with his usual flair and heavy use of foul language. It is a retelling that only Christopher Moore would do.\nI thoroughly enjoyed the sense of humor, lots of dry British-esque wit and sarcasm, with a pace that really kept the story moving along.\nEuan Morton narrates with a fast paced English accent that I really enjoyed. I am looking forward to listening to more books read by Mr. Morton.\nFrom the publisher:\nChristopher Moore, much beloved scrivener and peerless literary jester, now takes on no less than the legendary Bard himself (with the utmost humility and respect) with a twisted and insanely funny tale of a moronic monarch and his deceitful daughters, as seen through the eyes of a man wearing a codpiece and bells on his head.\nPocket has been Lear’s cherished fool for years. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege’s side when Lear demands that his kids swear to him their undying love and devotion. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father’s request is kind of…well…stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot.\nWell now the bangers and mash have really hit the fan. And the only person who can possibly make things right . . . is Pocket. Now he’s going to have do some very fancy maneuvering: cast some spells, start a war or two – the usual stuff – to get Cordelia back into Daddy Lear’s good graces, to derail the fiendish power plays of Cordelia’s twisted sisters, and to shag every lusciously shaggable wench who’s amenable to shagging along the way.\nPocket may be a fool…but he’s definitely not an idiot.\n©2009 Christopher Moore; (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers\nI rate Fool a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind a lot of foul language and some fun butchering of Shakespeare’s work.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/fool-novel-christopher-moore/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Fool: A Novel By Christopher Moore\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AP%2B-nD1xL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eIn \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Fool-Audiobook/B002V1O3S6\"\u003eFool\u003c/a\u003e Christopher Moore takes on William Shakespeare’s King Lear with his usual flair and heavy use of foul language. It is a retelling that only Christopher Moore would do.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI thoroughly enjoyed the sense of humor, lots of dry British-esque wit and sarcasm, with a pace that really kept the story moving along.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEuan Morton narrates with a fast paced English accent that I really enjoyed. I am looking forward to listening to more books read by Mr. Morton.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Fool: A Novel By Christopher Moore"},{"content":"As a volunteer at DragonCon one of my current responsibilities is getting the computers setup for use by the photographers and the librarians. This year I had to re-learn a lot of what worked so well last year as my notes were not complete, so I decided to write them up more thoroughly this year and post them hear so that I will not loose them.\nAt the 2014 DragonCon we used a total of 5 computers, 3 for the photographers to drop off photographs at and 2 for the librarians to use for key wording. The computers were running Windows 7 and required a lot of Windows updates and video driver updates before they were ready to use, luckily the internet connection at the show was fairly fast on Thursday afternoon when I was setting them up.\nWe call the 2 librarian computers A and B; each computer has 2 external hard drives which we call the Piles, a primary drive and a backup drive. The primary drive on each library computer is shared on the network as Pile A and Pile B.\nI don’t know a lot about Windows networking, so I winged it and believe I set up a Windows home network with file sharing turned on. I wasted a lot of time before I figured out that all 5 computers had the same network name so they could not share files, giving each computer a unique name fixed all of the sharing issues I was having.\nOn the desktop of each computer I made a shortcut to the shared Pile A and Pile B folders so that the photographers could easily find the correct place to copy their pictures to. At this point I was done with the 3 photographers computers, by the end of the show photographers had installed Infranview and other tools to help them edit and cull their photos.\nOn the librarian computer we install the latest version of Adobe Lightroom and use it in the 30-day trial mode. Next up is importing the keyword list provided by the show into Lightroom, this gives us a controlled vocabulary for keywording making pictures easy to find later on.\nThen in Lightroom install the latest version of Jeffrey Friedl’s Folder Watch Plugin, this is the tool that automatically imports any new pictures found in watched folders into Lightroom, it is really amazing how quickly and reliably this works.\nThen we use the Windows Sync Toy and Windows Task Manager to keep the primary and secondary drives in sync so that at the end of the show we can turn over the primary A and B drives to the show and keep the backup A and B drives for the photography team’s use.\nHere is my updated checklist:\nVerify that each computer has a unique network name/id Run Windows Update and install all updates Update video card drivers if they are separate from Windows Update Verify that all computers are using the same type of networking so they can see each other, in Windows 7 a homegroup network is easiest http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/start-here-to-set-up-a-home-network-in-windows-7 External Drives Attach the primary and backup drives to the librarian computers Format and name the external drives and name them Pile A Pile A Back iPile B iv. Pile B Back On the Pile A drive make new directories named Pile A and Lightroom A On the Pile B drive make new directories named Pile B and Lightroom B Sync’ing Here is a great article that walks through setting up sync’ing\nhttps://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-consultant/configure-automated-backups-using-synctoy-and-windows-7s-scheduled-task/ Install the latest version of Sync Toy https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155 Set up a New Folder Pair in Sync Toy to keep the primary and backup drives in sync, use Echo so that changes to the primary drive are copied to the backup drive but not from the backup to primary Use Windows Task Manager to run Sync Toy every 10 minutes Verify at least once a day that the sync’ing is occurring successfully, but the primary and backup drive should have the same number of files in the Pile directories Lightroom Install the latest version of Lightroom and choose the 30-day version when launching it Preferences – “Lightroom \u0026gt; Preferences” General Uncheck “Automatically check for updates” Unchesk “Show splash screen during startup” Choose the correct DragonCon default library Uncheck the “Select the “Current/Previous Import”” Turn off all completion sounds Remove all of the modules except for Library and Develop. Right-click the top toolbar and uncheck the unneeded modules. Then import keywords, “Metadata \u0026gt; Import Keywords”. Verify that the full keyword list is available in the “Keyword List” panel. More information about keywording in Lightroom is available at https://adobe.ly/148Icbo Setup Jeffrey Friedl’s Folder Watch Plugin https://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/folder-watch Lightroom “File \u0026gt; Plug-in Manager” Choose “jf Folder Watch” Choose the parent folder on the Pile Defaults are good with the following exceptions (If desired “Apply meta data preset, covered elsewhere) Choose “Watch” Choose “Restart on Launch” Choose “Show Splash on Launch” f. Then create a new library named “dragoncon-2014-pile-a” or “dragoncon-2014-pile-b” and save it into the “lightroom a” or “lightroom b” folder on the attached primary external drive Testing Use a non-librarian computer to drop a couple of pictures into Pile A and Pile B Verify these pictures appear in Lightroom on the expected librarian computer After a period of time verify that the pictures and updated Lightroom library appear on the backup drives At least once a day check the primary and secondary drives to verify that they are in sync We are always looking for better ways to handle the 30,000 plus pictures we collect at DragonCon, if you have any big ideas please let me know.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragoncon-photography-team-computer-setup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs a volunteer at DragonCon one of my current responsibilities is getting the computers setup for use by the photographers and the librarians. This year I had to re-learn a lot of what worked so well last year as my notes were not complete, so I decided to write them up more thoroughly this year and post them hear so that I will not loose them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the 2014 DragonCon we used a total of 5 computers, 3 for the photographers to drop off photographs at and 2 for the librarians to use for key wording. The computers were running Windows 7 and required a lot of Windows updates and video driver updates before they were ready to use, luckily the internet connection at the show was fairly fast on Thursday afternoon when I was setting them up.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"DragonCon Photography Team Computer Setup"},{"content":"Joe Ledger at it again, kicking butt, taking names, and saving the world from bad guys.\nThe Dragon Factory is the second book in the Joe Ledger series and picks up a short time after Patient Zero https://davenelson.com/patient-zero-by-jonathan-maberry/ ended.\nI am enjoying these stories and Ray Porter is doing a fantastic job narrating them.\nFrom the publisher:\nEx-Baltimore cop turned special-ops shooter Joe Ledger is back in action.\nIn The Dragon Factory, Ledger and his team from the Department of Military Sciences square off against two separate groups of corrupt scientists. The beautiful but twisted Jakoby Twins are creating transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenaries for sale to the highest bidder. Their father, who takes evil to an entirely new level, is using cutting-edge science to complete the Nazi master-race program.\nJoe must elude the NSA who are gunning for him, fight his way past rogue Spetsnaz teams, and stop these madmen before the Extinction Clock runs out. And when the bloodbath claims one of his own, Joe Ledger declares total war on those people who would burn down the world in order to reshape it in their own dark image.\nTake another thrill ride with Joe Ledger.\n©2010 Jonathan Maberry (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.\nI rate The Dragon Factory an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes crime, action, or medical mystery novels.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragon-factory-joe-ledger-jonathan-maberry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Dragon Factory: The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 2 by Jonathan Maberry\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61hE9CuPNPL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eJoe Ledger at it again, kicking butt, taking names, and saving the world from bad guys.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/The-Dragon-Factory-Audiobook/B004QPJZW4\"\u003eThe Dragon Factory\u003c/a\u003e is the second book in the Joe Ledger series and picks up a short time after Patient Zero \u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/patient-zero-by-jonathan-maberry/\"\u003ehttps://davenelson.com/patient-zero-by-jonathan-maberry/\u003c/a\u003e ended.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am enjoying these stories and Ray Porter is doing a fantastic job narrating them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEx-Baltimore cop turned special-ops shooter Joe Ledger is back in action.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn The Dragon Factory, Ledger and his team from the Department of Military Sciences square off against two separate groups of corrupt scientists. The beautiful but twisted Jakoby Twins are creating transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenaries for sale to the highest bidder. Their father, who takes evil to an entirely new level, is using cutting-edge science to complete the Nazi master-race program.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJoe must elude the NSA who are gunning for him, fight his way past rogue Spetsnaz teams, and stop these madmen before the Extinction Clock runs out. And when the bloodbath claims one of his own, Joe Ledger declares total war on those people who would burn down the world in order to reshape it in their own dark image.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTake another thrill ride with Joe Ledger.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2010 Jonathan Maberry (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"The Dragon Factory: The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 2 by Jonathan Maberry"},{"content":"We had a great time at DragonCon this year. The costumes were amazing, the photography staff did a great job capturing the event, and we actually got some sleep. Our son Eli stayed with the grandparents where he got to run wild and play with new toys.\nMy favorite costumes were How to Train Your Dragon, the Music Box Dolls from Chitty Bang Bang, and The Dreamer.\n[![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-GhZts9v/0/S/dave-nelson-20140831-213907-0560-S.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-w6CtMvx) [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-Rp4Fdrh/0/S/dave-nelson-20140831-221323-0610-S.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-Rp4Fdrh) Bobbie made a great costume from a lost episode of [Doctor Who named \u0026quot;The Celestial Toymaker\u0026quot;](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestial_Toymaker). [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-RwbJvgZ/0/S/dave-nelson-20140830-222916-0382-S.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-RwbJvgZ) [![](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/944x531_b/p0122yzw.jpg)](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p0122z2l) My favorite panels were Colin Baker, [Ron Glass](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zPHCpsX), [Jeri Ryan](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zHs3Q82), [Terri Gilliam](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-B5Kn4d4), [Evanna Lynch](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-PhcGgxm), and [Sparkfun](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-CqQCkVD). [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-hJQ4TB7/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140829-164028-0052-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zPHCpsX) [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zHs3Q82/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140830-122222-0234-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zHs3Q82) [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-B5Kn4d4/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140831-131623-0425-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-B5Kn4d4) [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-PhcGgxm/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140831-110613-0405-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-PhcGgxm) [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-CqQCkVD/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140831-121641-0414-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-CqQCkVD) ","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragoncon-2014-recap/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe had a great time at DragonCon this year. The costumes were amazing, the photography staff did a great job capturing the event, and we actually got some sleep. Our son Eli stayed with the grandparents where he got to run wild and play with new toys.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy favorite costumes were \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-3SH2Bsg\"\u003eHow to Train Your Dragon\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-w6CtMvx\"\u003ethe Music Box Dolls from Chitty Bang Bang\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-Rp4Fdrh\"\u003eThe Dreamer\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-3SH2Bsg\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-4kdtpVF/0/S/dave-nelson-20140829-213932-0197-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cpre\u003e\u003ccode\u003e[![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-GhZts9v/0/S/dave-nelson-20140831-213907-0560-S.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-w6CtMvx)\n\n\n\n[![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-Rp4Fdrh/0/S/dave-nelson-20140831-221323-0610-S.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-Rp4Fdrh)  \n\n\n\n\n\n  Bobbie made a great costume from a lost episode of [Doctor Who named \u0026quot;The Celestial Toymaker\u0026quot;](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestial_Toymaker).\n\n\n\n  [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-RwbJvgZ/0/S/dave-nelson-20140830-222916-0382-S.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-RwbJvgZ) \n  \n  \n    [![](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/944x531_b/p0122yzw.jpg)](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p0122z2l) \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n      My favorite panels were Colin Baker, [Ron Glass](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zPHCpsX), [Jeri Ryan](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zHs3Q82), [Terri Gilliam](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-B5Kn4d4), [Evanna Lynch](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-PhcGgxm), and [Sparkfun](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-CqQCkVD).\n    \n    \n    \n      [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-hJQ4TB7/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140829-164028-0052-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zPHCpsX) \n      \n      \n        [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zHs3Q82/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140830-122222-0234-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-zHs3Q82)\n      \n      \n      \n        [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-B5Kn4d4/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140831-131623-0425-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-B5Kn4d4)\n      \n      \n      \n        [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-PhcGgxm/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140831-110613-0405-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-PhcGgxm)\n      \n      \n      \n        [![](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-CqQCkVD/0/Th/dave-nelson-20140831-121641-0414-Th.jpg)](http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2014/i-CqQCkVD) \n\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/pre\u003e","title":"DragonCon 2014 Recap"},{"content":"In Gormenghast, book 2 in the series, we get to dive deeper into the characters that live in and around the castle. Titus really comes into his own and Fuchsia becomes a woman all the while our knowledge of the castle grows.\nI really don’t like the comparison of these novels with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. They are so very different that it is not fair to either of them. I have enjoyed reading LotR but I find much of the writing to be tedious but the language used in the Gormenghast novels makes me smile and laugh out loud.\nRobert Whitfield does a wonderful job with the narration of the audiobook, his ability to give the words life makes me very happy.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn Volume 2 of the classic Gormenghast Trilogy, a doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of Gormenghast Castle. This trilogy, along with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of everything is the 77th Earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom.\nIn this second volume, Titus comes of age within the walls of Gormenghast Castle and discovers various family intrigues. His twin aunts, Cora and Clarice, have been imprisoned in their own apartments, believing that they alone among the castle inhabitants were free of a hideous disease referred to as \u0026ldquo;Weasel plague.\u0026rdquo; Titus has discovered secret hiding places in abandoned parts of the castle from which he can watch and learn, unobserved: for he has been \u0026ldquo;exiled\u0026rdquo; to grow up with the common children until the age of 15. And so, not feeling connected to his future responsibilities, Titus drifts back and forth between the complicated social world he will grow up to govern, and a world of fantasy and daydream.\n©2000 Mervyn Peake; (P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks\nI rate Gormenghast a 9 out of 10 and hope every fan of fantasy literature give it a read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/gormenghast-volume-2-gormenghast-trilogy-mervyn-peake/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Gormenghast: Volume 2 of the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61FI6T2BhzL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eIn \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Gormenghast-Audiobook/B0036N9OCS\"\u003eGormenghast\u003c/a\u003e, book 2 in the series, we get to dive deeper into the characters that live in and around the castle. Titus really comes into his own and Fuchsia becomes a woman all the while our knowledge of the castle grows.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really don’t like the comparison of these novels with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. They are so very different that it is not fair to either of them. I have enjoyed reading LotR but I find much of the writing to be tedious but the language used in the Gormenghast novels makes me smile and laugh out loud.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Gormenghast: Volume 2 of the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake"},{"content":"I needed a break from the science fiction and action/spy books I had been listening to so I decided to through in something completely different and you can get much more different that Titus Groan.\nTitus Groan is the first book in the Gromenghast series of book written by Mervyn Peake who was an amazing illustrator and writer. The Wikipedia article on Mr. Peake is full of really interesting information about his life and works.\nThe language in this book is absolutely astonishing. I have never heard anything else like it. I highly recommend reading or listening to this book to experience the use of the English language alone. So stop what you are doing and go do that now!\nRobert Whitfield does an amazing job bringing all of the characters to life and making the language of the book the star.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn Volume 1 of the classic Gormenghast Trilogy, a doomed lord, an emergent hero, and an array of bizarre creatures haunt the world of Gormenghast Castle. This trilogy, along with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, reigns as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of everything is the 77th Earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom.\nIn this first volume, the Gormenghast Castle, and the noble family who inhabits it, are introduced, along with the infant firstborn son of the Lord and Countess. Titus Groan is sent away to be raised by a wet nurse, with only a gold ring from his mother, and ordered to not be brought back until the age of six. By his christening, he learns from his much older sisters that epileptic fits are \u0026ldquo;common at his age.\u0026rdquo; He also learns that they don’t like his mother. And then, he is crowned, and called, \u0026ldquo;Child-inheritor of the rivers, of the Tower of Flints and the dark recesses beneath cold stairways and the sunny summer lawns. Child-inheritor of the spring breeze that blow in from the jarl forests and of the autumn misery in petal, scale, and wing. Winter’s white brilliance on a thousand turrets and summer’s torpor among walls that crumble…\u0026rdquo;\nIn these extraordinary novels, Peake has created a world where all is like a dream – lush, fantastical, vivid; a symbol of dark struggle.\n©1967 Mervyn Peake; (P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks\nI rate Titus Groan a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone fascinated by the English language.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/titus-groan-gormenghast-trilogy-mervyn-peake/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Titus Groan: Volume 1 of the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/616JravFjtL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eI needed a break from the science fiction and action/spy books I had been listening to so I decided to through in something completely different and you can get much more different that Titus Groan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Titus-Groan-Audiobook/B002V1OMVE\"\u003eTitus Groan\u003c/a\u003e is the first book in the Gromenghast series of book written by Mervyn Peake who was an amazing illustrator and writer. The \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_Peake\"\u003eWikipedia article on Mr. Peake\u003c/a\u003e is full of really interesting information about his life and works.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Titus Groan: Volume 1 of the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake"},{"content":"I burnt myself out trying to learn to many JavaScript frameworks, build tools, unit testing, Debian eccentricities and BeagleBone Black programming so I decided to take a break and play a video game. Steam was having their summer sale and Skyrim happened to be a great deal. I bought \u0026ldquo;The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Legendary Edition\u0026rdquo; and have been playing it for a couple weeks now.\nBack in 2011 when The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released I remember reading and hearing from a lot of friends, acquaintances, and internet personalities who played it and talked about it for weeks on end. So my interest was peeked, but I didn’t have time or the desire to play it then.\nThe world of Skyrim is amazingly large. I was shocked by the sheer size of it. The developers have a done a great job making traveling from place to place very fast and easy. You can walk, run, take a carriage, ride a horse, or if you have been to your destination before you can \u0026ldquo;fast travel\u0026rdquo; to it. When fast traveling even though you get there very quickly the time in the game passes as though you had walked or ridden a horse that same distance, so the sun may be down or the shops may be closed.\nTime plays a really large roll in the game, night and day is a big deal and change a lot of what is going on. Vendors are only available between 8am and 8pm, vampires are roaming around in the dark, werewolves are prowling the night, thieves and assassins abound.\nIndulging in the role-playing aspects of the game I have tried to do my usual straight-and-narrow play through. When playing old-school pen-and-paper games I enjoy being the paladin, in this game I played a Wood Elf with a strong right hand wielding a sharp sword and bow for fighting at a distance.\nAnything is allowed in this game, there are opportunities to be a goodie two-shoes (how I play) or to be a total scoundrel, there are even rewards for both. You can even choose to be a cannibal by completing a quest, personally I ended that quest short with an arrow to her head as soon as possible.\nI really enjoyed the dungeon crawling, bandit fighting, dragon slaying, vampire hunting, and exploring Skyrim. I did not enjoy all of the bugs, dead ends, and lack of help in the game.\nNo matter how hard I tried not to, I ended up going to The Elder Scrolls Wiki and The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages to figure out what was going on and how to work around bugs in the game. And man there are a lot of bugs, I pity the people who are playing on Playstation and Xbox machines where they do not have the luxury of entering console commands to fix things.\nNow I am 135 hours into with my Wood Elf Bowman and having a great time with it. I have played through most of the main quests that do not require me to do anything that would tarnish my good guy reputation. I have not been a werewolf , an imperial or stormcloak soldier, or a vampire. I have adopted 2 orphans, have nice houses in Whiterun and Solstheim and have built a wonderful lakehouse outside of Falkreath that I call home.\nI am level 99 out of 100 with a single-handed weapon and around 85 with the bow. Enchanting and Smithing are both at 100 with lots of perks that have allowed me to construct some awesome dragon armor and weapons with tons of helpful enchantments that have made all but the toughest opponents easy to set right. I started out the game kind of wobbly and found it very hard, I had to rely on a lot of potions and scrolls to stay alive, but with my crafted armor and weapons I now only carry a handful of healing potions and no scrolls at all. Dragonbone arrows with a paralyze/health absorbing bow is an awesome combination.\nBefore I stop plying Skyrim I plan on getting married, buying all of the available hold houses, building the other 2 available country houses, and clearing more of the dungeons and mines in Solstheim.\nI am playing Skyrim on a 27\u0026quot; iMac running Windows 8 in Bootcamp. This computer is so amazing, the mSATA drive is so fast that I rarely got to see the loading screens, which was kind of annoying because the loading screens contain a lot of information that adds to the game… hahaha, first-world problems abound.\nFrom the publisher:\nEPIC FANTASY REBORN\nThe next chapter in the highly anticipated Elder Scrolls saga arrives from the makers of the 2006 and 2008 Games of the Year, Bethesda Game Studios. Skyrim reimagines and revolutionizes the open-world fantasy epic, bringing to life a complete virtual world open for you to explore any way you choose.\nLIVE ANOTHER LIFE, IN ANOTHER WORLD\nPlay any type of character you can imagine, and do whatever you want; the legendary freedom of choice, storytelling, and adventure of The Elder Scrolls is realized like never before.\nALL NEW GRAPHICS AND GAMEPLAY ENGINE\nSkyrim’s new game engine brings to life a complete virtual world with rolling clouds, rugged mountains, bustling cities, lush fields, and ancient dungeons.\nYOU ARE WHAT YOU PLAY\nChoose from hundreds of weapons, spells, and abilities. The new character system allows you to play any way you want and define yourself through your actions.\nDRAGON RETURN\nBattle ancient dragons like you’ve never seen. As Dragonborn, learn their secrets and harness their power for yourself.\nI rate The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim a 9 out of 10 even with the bugs and dead ends, the overall experience is just that good. I recommend it to any who enjoys fantasy role-playing but also first-person-shooter fans.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI burnt myself out trying to learn to many JavaScript frameworks, build tools, unit testing, Debian eccentricities and BeagleBone Black programming so I decided to take a break and play a video game. Steam was having their summer sale and Skyrim happened to be a great deal. I bought \u0026ldquo;The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Legendary Edition\u0026rdquo; and have been playing it for a couple weeks now.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack in 2011 when \u003ca href=\"http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/72850/\"\u003eThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim\u003c/a\u003e was released I remember reading and hearing from a lot of friends, acquaintances, and internet personalities who played it and talked about it for weeks on end. So my interest was peeked, but I didn’t have time or the desire to play it then.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim"},{"content":"I do not like Zombie books or movies, I have read some of the more mainstream books and have seen all of the mainstream zombie movies, but in general, I do not like them. Although I make an exception for The Walking Dead comic book series which unlike the TV show continues to be amazingly fantastic (the TV show is merely good).\nI chose to listen to the Patient Zero audiobook because the publisher’s summary did not make it sound like the run of the mill zombie book. More like a Jason Bourne meets Dawn of the Dead, plus I saw that it was the beginning of a series of books instead of a single book, sign me up.\nJoe Ledger is a great character, and author Jonathan Maberry does a great job of making him the hero while leaving room for the other characters in the story to have their moments. He strikes a really nice balance that many other authors miss.\nRay Porter does a great job narrating; he brings the story to life while the strength and forcefulness of his voice are perfect for the Joe Ledger character.\nFrom the publisher:\nFrom multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author Jonathan Maberry comes a major new thriller that combines the best of the New York Times best-selling books World War Z by Max Brooks and James Rollins’ Sigma Force Series to kick off the start of a new series featuring Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences.\nWhen you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there’s either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills – and there’s nothing wrong with Joe Ledger’s skills. And that’s both a good and a bad thing. It’s good because he’s a Baltimore detective who has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new task force created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can’t handle. This rapid-response group is called the Department of Military Sciences, or the DMS for short. It’s bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bioweapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance.\nJonathan Maberry is the New York Times best-selling and multiple Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Ghost Road Blues, the first of a trilogy of thrillers with a supernatural bite. A professional writer and writing teacher, he has sold more than 1.000 articles, 17 nonfiction books, six novels, and two plays.\n©2009 Jonathan Maberry (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.\nI rate Patient Zero a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to people who love military/police thrillers.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/patient-zero-by-jonathan-maberry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Patient Zero: The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 1 by Jonathan Maberry\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61LVYKu9MJL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eI do not like Zombie books or movies, I have read some of the more mainstream books and have seen all of the mainstream zombie movies, but in general, I do not like them. Although I make an exception for The Walking Dead comic book series which unlike the TV show continues to be amazingly fantastic (the TV show is merely good).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Patient Zero: The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 1 by Jonathan Maberry"},{"content":"Wow, this is a long audiobook. Just looking at the length of it at 36 hours 27 minutes, I know that sounds long but it is nothing compared to just how long this book feels. I repeatedly thought the story was winding down and coming to an end only to have it pick back up again and go on for hours longer. But don’t let that fool you.\nThis is a really good book and an amazing story. The Great North Road is an epic story spanning multiple worlds, aliens that are truly alien, and a human race that is in fear of extinction.\nThe Angela character and her story really got me, she was easily my favorite character in the story with Sid being a close second. People doing the hard thing because they think it is the only choice they have that will result in a better life for their family. Really good stuff.\nToby Longworth does an admirable job trying to give each character a unique voice, but there are so many characters that it is an impossible task and from time-to-time I was quite confused about who was speaking and even where the speakers were, what world they were on.\nDon’t let any of that stop you from reading or listening to this book though. If you have the patience for really long space operas, this is Peter F. Hamilton after all, you will really like this one.\nFrom the publisher:\nA century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family – composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone “brothers” have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies.\nOr maybe not so friendly. At least that’s what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who’d like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he’ll make enough enemies to ruin his career. Yet Sid’s case is about to take an unexpected turn: Because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood.\nThe convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime. Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster.\nNow Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world’s political and economic elite…all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one.\n©2012 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2013 Tantor\nI rate Great North Road an 8 out of 10 and recommend to anyone who loves a good space opera.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/great-north-road-peter-f-hamilton/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51n5KrWU6PL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eWow, this is a long audiobook. Just looking at the length of it at 36 hours 27 minutes, I know that sounds long but it is nothing compared to just how long this book feels. I repeatedly thought the story was winding down and coming to an end only to have it pick back up again and go on for hours longer. But don’t let that fool you.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton"},{"content":"I wasn’t sure what to expect from Off to Be the Wizard. The 8-bit artwork on the cover and the fact I recently re-listened to Ready Player One had me in a certain mindset that didn’t match this story at all.\nBut just a little ways into this book I found myself really enjoying it. And the more I listened the more I liked it. By the end of the book I was cheering and laughing out loud.\nLuke Daniels does a fantastic job bringing the characters to life and giving each one of them a unique voice.\nThe entire story is full geeky goodness with pop-culture references throughout along with plenty of dry humor. I can’t wait to listen to Spell or High Water the sequel to Off to Be the Wizard.\nFrom the publisher:\nIt’s a simple story. Boy finds proof that reality is a computer program. Boy uses program to manipulate time and space. Boy gets in trouble. Boy flees back in time to Medieval England to live as a wizard while he tries to think of a way to fix things. Boy gets in more trouble.\nOh, and boy meets girl at some point.\nOff to Be the Wizard is a light, comedic novel about computers, time travel, and human stupidity, written by Scott Meyer, the creator of the internationally known comic strip Basic Instructions.\nMagic will be made! Legends will be created! Stew will be eaten!\n©2013 Scott Meyer (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.\nI rate Off to Be the Wizard a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun geeky comedy.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/wizard-scott-meyer/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51l6HDPmK8L._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eI wasn’t sure what to expect from \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Off-to-Be-the-Wizard-Audiobook/B00IIS32NI\"\u003eOff to Be the Wizard\u003c/a\u003e. The 8-bit artwork on the cover and the fact I recently re-listened to Ready Player One had me in a certain mindset that didn’t match this story at all.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut just a little ways into this book I found myself really enjoying it. And the more I listened the more I liked it. By the end of the book I was cheering and laughing out loud.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer"},{"content":"It is finally time to upgrade from a second generation Drobo to a Drobo 5N.\nI bought my first Drobo in January of 2009 and it has been in constant use for the intervening 5 and a half years. I have only had 2 issues with it, the fan died about a year ago, and it now feels really slow.\nWhen the fan died I went to my local Microcenter computer store and bought a whisper quiet 120mm fan. With a bit of Googling and some wire snipping followed by a bit of solder the Drobo has been much quieter and cooler ever since. In fact I can’t hear it over my home office noise at all.\nAbout the speed of it… I am not sure, I think it is slower than it was a couple of years ago, but in that time I have upgraded all of my machines to using SSDs so my idea of how fast files should copy has changed a lot. I plan on running XBench on the 2nd Gen, the 5N, and a couple of external USB drives to get an idea of the \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo; speed differences.\nHere are the numbers The 2nd Gen currently has 2×3.0TB and 2×2.0TB drives in it for a total size of 6.35TB of usable space.\nThe 5N will have those drives plus a 4.0TB fifth drive for 9.07TB of space.\nThe 5N maxes out with 4×4.0TB drives at 14.52TB of usable space with single disc redundancy and 10.89TB with dual disk redundancy. I hope that will last me a couple of years.\nI am currently backing everything up on the 2nd for the move to the 5N, copying files from the old Drobo to external discs using a MacBook Pro has gone amazingly well. In the past I have had issues with the computer going to sleep and breaking the download, or one of the drives experiencing a hiccup, or just gremlins getting in the way.\nWish me luck.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/updating-drobo/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://drobo.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/drobo5n-front.png\"\u003eIt is finally time to upgrade from a second generation Drobo to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.drobo.com/storage-products/5n/\"\u003eDrobo 5N\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought my first Drobo in January of 2009 and it has been in constant use for the intervening 5 and a half years. I have only had 2 issues with it, the fan died about a year ago, and it now feels really slow.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the fan died I went to my local Microcenter computer store and bought a whisper quiet 120mm fan. With a bit of Googling and some wire snipping followed by a bit of solder the Drobo has been much quieter and cooler ever since. In fact I can’t hear it over my home office noise at all.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Updating the Drobo"},{"content":"Skin Game is the 15th book in the Harry Dresden series and James Marsters turns in another amazing job with the narration.\nI enjoyed the whole breaking into the vault part of the story, but the rest of it left me a little dry. It s a good story, but it doesn’t rise to the kind of greatness that I have come to expect from the Desden series. Having said that, I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the next book in the series.\nFrom the publisher:\nHarry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, is about to have a very bad day.…\nBecause as Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Harry never knows what the scheming Mab might want him to do. Usually, it’s something awful.\nHe doesn’t know the half of it.…\nMab has just traded Harry’s skills to pay off one of her debts. And now he must help a group of supernatural villains – led by one of Harry’s most dreaded and despised enemies, Nicodemus Archleone – to break into the highest-security vault in town, so that they can then access the highest-security vault in the Nevernever.\nIt’s a smash-and-grab job to recover the literal Holy Grail from the vaults of the greatest treasure hoard in the supernatural world – which belongs to the one and only Hades, Lord of the freaking Underworld and generally unpleasant character. Worse, Dresden suspects that there is another game afoot that no one is talking about. And he’s dead certain that Nicodemus has no intention of allowing any of his crew to survive the experience. Especially Harry.\nDresden’s always been tricky, but he’s going to have to up his backstabbing game to survive this mess – assuming his own allies don’t end up killing him before his enemies get the chance.…\n©2014 Jim Butcher (P)2014 Penguin Audio\nI rate Skin Game 7 out of 10 and recommend you read Storm Front and the other Harry Dresden books before this one.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/skin-game-jim-butcher/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Skin Game by Jim Butcher\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61rdn5WudXL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Skin-Game-Audiobook/B00JDQ99IQ/\"\u003eSkin Game\u003c/a\u003e is the 15th book in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_pd_Sci-Fi_c2__1_sa?asin=B005NB2IG0\"\u003eHarry Dresden series\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_pd_Sci-Fi_c2_1_narr?searchNarrator=James+Marsters\"\u003eJames Marsters\u003c/a\u003e turns in another amazing job with the narration.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI enjoyed the whole breaking into the vault part of the story, but the rest of it left me a little dry. It s a good story, but it doesn’t rise to the kind of greatness that I have come to expect from the Desden series. Having said that, I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the next book in the series.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Skin Game by Jim Butcher"},{"content":"I absolutely love this audiobook, I think this is my third time listening to it. The combination of Ernest Cline’s writing and Wil Wheaton are an amazing geeky combination of greatness.\nA co-worker recently commented that Ready Player One was pandering to geeks like me, my response was that I DON’T CARE! If I could get more people to pander to me the way this book does my life would be wonderful.\nIf you are a geek of the 80’s you NEED to read or listen to this book ASAP.\nI rate this book an 11 out of 10 and recommend it to all geeks and nerds.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ready-player-one-ernest-cline-re-listen/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Ready Player One by Ernest Cline\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LLFoUAVyL._SL300_.jpg\"\u003eI absolutely love this audiobook, I think this is my third time listening to it. The combination of Ernest Cline’s writing and Wil Wheaton are an amazing geeky combination of greatness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA co-worker recently commented that Ready Player One was pandering to geeks like me, my response was that I DON’T CARE! If I could get more people to pander to me the way this book does my life would be wonderful.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Re-Listen"},{"content":"After finishing American Assassin I jumped straight into Kill Shot: An American Assassin Thriller to continue with the Mitch Rapp series.\nI really enjoyed the first book and I think this second one is even better. There is more spy-like action with double-crossing and backstabbing.\nWhat I liked most about this story is that the ancillary characters are well fleshed out and I found myself caring for them and excited about their part in the story. I would love to read a series of books with the lead police detective from Paris as the protagonist.\nGeorge Guidall does a great job reading the book with his usual fatherly pace and timbre.\nFrom the publisher:\n#1 New York Times best-selling author Vince Flynn is back with another nail-biting political thriller that follows the young Mitch Rapp on a deadly mission to hunt down the men responsible for the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack.\nFor months, Mitch Rapp has been steadily working his way through a list of men, bullet by bullet. With each kill, the tangled network of monsters responsible for the slaughter of 270 civilians becomes increasingly clear. He is given his next target: a plump Libyan diplomat who is prone to drink and is currently in Paris without a single bodyguard.\nRapp finds him completely unprotected and asleep in his bed. With confidence in his well-honed skills and conviction of the man’s guilt, he easily sends a bullet into the man’s skull. But in the split second it takes the bullet to leave the silenced pistol, everything changes. The door to the hotel room is kicked open and gunfire erupts all around Rapp. In an instant the hunter has become the hunted. Rapp is left wounded and must flee for his life.\nThe next morning, the news breaks in Washington that Libya’s Oil Minister has been killed along with three innocent civilians and four unidentified men. The French authorities are certain that the gunman is wounded and on the loose in Paris. As the finger pointing begins, Rapp’s handlers have only one choice – deny any responsibility for the incident and pray that their newest secret weapon stays that way, avoiding capture and dying quietly. One person in the group, however, is not prone to leaving things to chance. Rapp has become a liability, and he absolutely cannot be allowed to be taken alive by the French authorities. But it will soon become clear that nothing is more dangerous than a wounded and cornered Mitch Rapp.\n©2012 Vince Flynn (P)2012 Simon \u0026amp; Schuster Audio\nI rate Kill Shot a 7 out of 10 and recommend to fans of spy thrillers.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/kill-shot-vince-flynn/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Kill Shot by Vince Flynn\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519GEFy36RL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eAfter finishing American Assassin I jumped straight into Kill Shot: An American Assassin Thriller to continue with the Mitch Rapp series.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed the first book and I think this second one is even better. There is more spy-like action with double-crossing and backstabbing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat I liked most about this story is that the ancillary characters are well fleshed out and I found myself caring for them and excited about their part in the story. I would love to read a series of books with the lead police detective from Paris as the protagonist.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Kill Shot by Vince Flynn"},{"content":"Learning Adobe Edge Animate CC training video from Infinite Skills Inc. featuring Tony Ross is a great place to start learning Adobe Edge Animate.\nI found Tony’s voice easy to listen to, his explanations easy to understand, and the video of the computer screen easy to read and follow.\nHalf way through the video I built my first animation, it’s good stuff.\nEdge Animate has a lot of problems as an application, it is definitely going to improve as new versions are released, and this video does nothing to highlight those problems and steer you clear of them. But the video is definitely worth watching closely. You can learn about the bugs and limitations somewhere else.\nI think Tony Ross and Infinite Skills did a great job making a training video that can get anyone familiar with other Adobe applications up and running in Adobe Edge Animate.\nI rate Learning Adobe Edge Animate CC an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking to learn how to use Adobe Edge Animate.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/learning-adobe-edge-animate-cc-tony-ross/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Learning Adobe Edge Animate CC by Tony Ross\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2014/04/01/11724769/gI_91779_01916.png\"\u003eLearning Adobe Edge Animate CC training video from Infinite Skills Inc. featuring Tony Ross is a great place to start learning Adobe Edge Animate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI found Tony’s voice easy to listen to, his explanations easy to understand, and the video of the computer screen easy to read and follow.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHalf way through the video I built my first animation, it’s good stuff.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEdge Animate has a lot of problems as an application, it is definitely going to improve as new versions are released, and this video does nothing to highlight those problems and steer you clear of them. But the video is definitely worth watching closely. You can learn about the bugs and limitations somewhere else.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Learning Adobe Edge Animate CC by Tony Ross"},{"content":"This Tips from a Pro book from Nicole S. Young (Nicolesy) about Travel Photography.\nI have known about Nicolesy for awhile now, she has been on various Leo Laporte podcasts and radio shows that I listen to, and I have always liked what she has had to say.\nI read this book using Safari Books Online as a part of my subscription but at only $8 it is an easy one to pick up. It is very short with only 67 pages. I read it while eating lunch and watching my son play at a Chic-fil-A playground, probably an hour-and-a-half altogether.\nI enjoyed it and think it is well worth the money.\nI rate Tips from a Pro: Travel Photography a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for some quick photography tips.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/tips-pro-travel-photography-nicole-s-young/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Tips from a Pro: Travel Photography by Nicole S. Young\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://www.peachpit.com/ShowCover.aspx?isbn=0133549429\"\u003eThis Tips from a Pro book from Nicole S. Young (Nicolesy) about Travel Photography.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have known about Nicolesy for awhile now, she has been on various Leo Laporte podcasts and radio shows that I listen to, and I have always liked what she has had to say.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI read this book using Safari Books Online as a part of my subscription but at only $8 it is an easy one to pick up. It is very short with only 67 pages. I read it while eating lunch and watching my son play at a Chic-fil-A playground, probably an hour-and-a-half altogether.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tips from a Pro: Travel Photography by Nicole S. Young"},{"content":"There are currently 4 books in the Monster Hunter International series and each one is as great as the last. This was my second time listening to all 4 of the audiobooks. Really it was my first time listening to them consecutively, man what a ride.\nBook 5: Monster Hunter Nemesis is coming out in July and is available for pre-order now, I expect to listen to or read it as soon as it comes out.\nThese books are full of action but unlike so many others there is a lot of character building and depth. Both the protagonists and antagonists get a real chance to shine.\nI rate the Monster Hunter International series a 9 out of 10 and recommend them to anyone looking for a science fiction/fantasy series full of action.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/monster-hunter-international-series-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Monster Hunter International Series by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://larrycorreia.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/cover-jpeg-version.jpg?w=468\"\u003eThere are currently 4 books in the Monster Hunter International series and each one is as great as the last. This was my second time listening to all 4 of the audiobooks. Really it was my first time listening to them consecutively, man what a ride.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBook 5: Monster Hunter Nemesis is coming out in July and is available for pre-order now, I expect to listen to or read it as soon as it comes out.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Monster Hunter International Series by Larry Correia"},{"content":"There are currently 3 books in the Grimnoir Chronicles, Hard Magic, Spellbound, and Warbound written by Larry Correia and they are all fantastic.\nThis was my second listen-through of these three audiobooks, I have listened to first two more than that, but my second time to listen to them all consecutively. What an amazing ride.\nThe hardboiled universe of The Grimnoir Chronicles that Jake Sullivan and Faye Vierra inhabit is a mix of our world circa 1920s and a world full of magic, coming together to create an amazing experience.\nI absolutely love these books and they are on my list of books that I will read again-and-again for the rest of my life.\nI rate The Grimnoir Chronicles a 10 out of 10 and recommend them to anyone who likes mystery, science fiction, or fantasy.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/grimnoir-chronicles-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120620052605/grimnoirchronicles/images/0/0e/The-grimnoir.jpg\"\u003eThere are currently 3 books in the Grimnoir Chronicles, Hard Magic, Spellbound, and Warbound written by Larry Correia and they are all fantastic.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis was my second listen-through of these three audiobooks, I have listened to first two more than that, but my second time to listen to them all consecutively. What an amazing ride.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe hardboiled universe of The Grimnoir Chronicles that Jake Sullivan and Faye Vierra inhabit is a mix of our world circa 1920s and a world full of magic, coming together to create an amazing experience.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia"},{"content":"This is about my fifth re-read of The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett. Man I love these books so much and I look forward to reading them along with the rest of the Discworld series over-and-over again. And I can’t wait to introduce them to my son.\nThese two books combined are the story that introduces our feeble world to Discworld and the multitude of characters that it contains. Rincewind is the protagonist of these books, but Sir Pratchett does such an amazing job of giving the other characters a chance to stand out and be compelling in their own right, I absolutely love the tourist Twoflower and his luggage (especially the luggage!)\nI highly recommend the entire Discworld series and anything else that Terry Pratchett has written or will ever write.\nI read these books on my old-school “Keyboard Kindle”.\nI rate The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic 11 out of 10 and recommend everybody give them a try.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/color-magic-light-fantastic-terry-pratchett/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Rincewind\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c5/Rincewind.png\"\u003eThis is about my fifth re-read of The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett. Man I love these books so much and I look forward to reading them along with the rest of the Discworld series over-and-over again. And I can’t wait to introduce them to my son.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese two books combined are the story that introduces our feeble world to Discworld and the multitude of characters that it contains. Rincewind is the protagonist of these books, but Sir Pratchett does such an amazing job of giving the other characters a chance to stand out and be compelling in their own right, I absolutely love the tourist Twoflower and his luggage (especially the luggage!)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett"},{"content":"Dead Eye is the fourth Gray Man series of novels and is narrated by Jay Snider who nails his performance.\nCourt Gentry is taking a break while recuperating from the happenings in Ballistic when a man approaches him who has same training as Court. I found a lot of this story to be obvious, there were very few surprises for me, but that may have been Mark Greaney’s intention when he wrote it. It may have been his intention to keep the story very straightforward with the action flowing along at a steady pace.\nI really like the combination of characters in this novel. The killer named Dead Eye is contrasted by Ruth the Mossad agent. Dead Eye thinks his skills match Court’s point-for-point and his overconfidence is his downfall. While Ruth’s quick evaluation of who Court really is and the risks she takes to do the right thing in all things makes her a polar opposite to Dead Eye. I think it is great story telling technique.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\nFrom the publisher:\nEx-CIA master assassin Court Gentry has always prided himself on his ability to disappear at will, to fly below the radar and exist in the shadows – to survive as the near-mythical Gray Man. But when he takes revenge upon a former employer who betrayed him, he exposes himself to something he’s never had to face before.\nA killer who is just like him.\nCode-named Dead Eye, Russell Whitlock is a graduate of the same ultra-secret Autonomous Asset Program that trained and once controlled Gentry. But now, Whitlock is a free agent who has been directed to terminate his fellow student of death. He knows how his target thinks, how he moves, and how he kills. And he knows the best way to do the job is to make Gentry run for his life – right up until the moment Dead Eye finally ends it.\n©2013 Mark Strode Greaney (P)2013 Audible, Inc.\nI rate Dead Eye a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who enjoys spy and action novels.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dead-eye-by-mark-greaney/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dead Eye: A Gray Man Novel by Mark Greaney\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PqViiyhmL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Dead-Eye-Audiobook/B00FW2B3H0/ref=a_series_c2_4_saTtl\" title=\"Dead Eye at Audible\"\u003eDead Eye\u003c/a\u003e is the fourth \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_lib_c3D__vsml_1_12?asin=B007CJHPS2\" title=\"Gray Man Series at Audible\"\u003eGray Man series\u003c/a\u003e of novels and is narrated by Jay Snider who nails his performance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCourt Gentry is taking a break while recuperating from the happenings in Ballistic when a man approaches him who has same training as Court. I found a lot of this story to be obvious, there were very few surprises for me, but that may have been Mark Greaney’s intention when he wrote it. It may have been his intention to keep the story very straightforward with the action flowing along at a steady pace.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dead Eye: A Gray Man Novel by Mark Greaney"},{"content":"Ballistic is easily my favorite Gray Man novel. The flashback story about how he met Eddie and formed a deep friendship with him is amazing writing. The pictures Mark Greaney paints of the large gun fights in this story blow me away, I really felt like I was watching it all inside my head and could picture everything like I was watching it in a movie theater or in a really great video game.\nIn fact I was playing the PC video game Far Cry 3 at the same time I was playing this game. I think the Gray Man really affected how approached playing the video game and made it an even better experience. There are a couple of places in the game that loosely fit in with some of the locales in the book, that combination took both the book and video game to another level for me.\nFor the third time in a row Jay Snider hits a home run and brings all of the characters to life. I was amazed to learn that Jay Snider has recorded 112 programs on Audible, that is an amazing body of work and I look forwarded to listening to more of them.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nEx-CIA assassin Court Gentry thought he could find refuge living in the Amazon rain forest. But his bloody past finds him when a vengeful Russian crime lord forces him to go on the run once again. Court makes his way to one of the only men in the world he can trust – and arrives too late. His friend is dead and buried.\nYears before, Eddie Gamboa had saved Court’s life. Now, Eddie has been murdered by the notorious Mexican drug cartel he fought to take down. And Court soon finds himself drawn into a war he never wanted. But in this war, there are no sides – only survivors….\n©2011 Mark Strode Greaney (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and highly recommend it to any fans of spy and action stories.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ballistic-gray-man-novel-mark-greaney/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Ballistic: A Gray Man Novel by Mark Greaney\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51m-QbcmfkL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Ballistic-Audiobook/B005R1BMAY/ref=a_series_c2_3_saTtl\" title=\"Ballistic at Audible\"\u003eBallistic\u003c/a\u003e is easily my favorite \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_lib_c3D__vsml_1_12?asin=B007CJHPS2\" title=\"Gray Man Series at Audible\"\u003eGray Man\u003c/a\u003e novel. The flashback story about how he met Eddie and formed a deep friendship with him is amazing writing. The pictures Mark Greaney paints of the large gun fights in this story blow me away, I really felt like I was watching it all inside my head and could picture everything like I was watching it in a movie theater or in a really great video game.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ballistic: A Gray Man Novel by Mark Greaney"},{"content":"This is the second book in Larry Correia and Mike Kupari’s \u0026ldquo;Dead Six\u0026rdquo; series and it packs all of the punch and kick as the first Dead Six book.\nHoly Cow! I am loving these books.\nLorenzo and Valentine are such great characters and the team of Correia and Kupari keep adding more and more depth to them. I really love these characters.\nIn this story the ancillary characters step-up in a big way. We get to learn more about them as they take on larger roles in the story. It is characters like these that make stories raise above being just good to being GREAT!\nFrom the publisher:\nThe hard-hitting sequel to groundbreaking military adventure Dead Six.\nOn the far side of the world, deep in former Soviet Central Asia, lies a stronghold called the Crossroads. It is run with an iron fist by a brutal warlord calling himself Sala Jihan. He is far more than a petty dictator, for Jihan holds the fate of nations in his grasp. To save a world slipping into chaos, Jihan must either fall or be controlled.\nOne secret military organization called Exodus plans to see that this happens. For this mission, they need the best of the best. Unfortunately the man they need is rotting in an almost unassailable foreign prison.\nEnter Lorenzo, thief extraordinaire. Lorenzo is now retired, happily married, and living in paradise. His Achilles heel: an FBI-agent brother who has gone missing – disappeared into the stronghold of warlord Jihan. Exodus promises to give Lorenzo his chance to rescue his brother if and only if Lorenzo will perform one service for them: break Michael Valentine out of a captivity from which no one has ever emerged alive.\nAnd if Lorenzo can accomplish that – well then, the Crossroads awaits the sword of Exodus.\n©2013 Larry Correia, Mike Kupari (P)2014 Audible Inc.\nI rate Swords of Exodus a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who love a good action story.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/swords-exodus-larry-correia-mike-kupari/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Swords of Exodus by Larry Correia and Mike Kupari\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ooYndgJWL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eThis is the second book in Larry Correia and Mike Kupari’s \u0026ldquo;Dead Six\u0026rdquo; series and it packs all of the punch and kick as the first Dead Six book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHoly Cow! I am loving these books.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLorenzo and Valentine are such great characters and the team of Correia and Kupari keep adding more and more depth to them. I really love these characters.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Swords of Exodus by Larry Correia and Mike Kupari"},{"content":"I am a spy/thriller rampage!\nDead Six is another excellent book from Larry Correia along with Mike Kupari. As with all Larry Correia stories the characters in this one are absolutely amazing.\nWith two lead characters, Valentine and Lorenzo, the story bounces back and forth between the two with amazing timing leaving me on the edge of my seat time and time again. An amazing juggling act that could have easily fallen apart at any time but Larry and Mike keep all of the balls in the air throughout the entire story. Such great writing.\nBronson Pinchot turns-in yet another amazing performance bringing all of the characters to life. I did have a few flashbacks to other books I have listened to recently that were also narrated by Bronson, but it wasn’t all that distracting, more like hearing from a long lost friend.\nI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nMichael Valentine, veteran and former member of an elite private military company, has been recruited by the government to conduct a secret counter-terror operation in the Persian Gulf nation of Zubara. The unit is called Dead Six. Their mission is to take the fight to the enemy and not get caught. Lorenzo, assassin and thief extraordinaire, is being blackmailed by the world’s most vicious crime lord. His team has to infiltrate the Zubaran terrorist network and pull off an impossible heist or his family will die. When Dead Six compromises his objective, Lorenzo has a new job: Find and kill Valentine. As allegiances are betrayed and the nation descends into a bloody civil war, Lorenzo and Valentine must face off. Two men. Two missions. Only one will win.\n©2011 Larry Correia, Mike Kupari (P)2014 Audible Inc.\nI rate Dead Six a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to fans of spy/thriller and action novels.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dead-six-larry-correia-mike-kupari/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dead Six by Larry Correia and Mike Kupari\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61S5HWkaVYL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI am a spy/thriller rampage!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDead Six is another excellent book from Larry Correia along with Mike Kupari. As with all Larry Correia stories the characters in this one are absolutely amazing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith two lead characters, Valentine and Lorenzo, the story bounces back and forth between the two with amazing timing leaving me on the edge of my seat time and time again. An amazing juggling act that could have easily fallen apart at any time but Larry and Mike keep all of the balls in the air throughout the entire story. Such great writing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dead Six by Larry Correia and Mike Kupari"},{"content":"\nBoris, the BeagleBoard Logo MascotI initially bought an Edimax EW-7811Un Dongle for use with my BeagleBone Black (BBB), but after a lof of fiddling and frustration I gave up on it. Turns out that I may have been using the wrong setting in the interfaces file, but after some research I found many instances of people complaining about the Edimax dongles in general, so I started looking for solutions that others were having good luck with.\nAlong with a lot of email threads I found WiFi Adapter http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#WIFI_Adapters recommendations on the Embedded Linux Wiki BBB page. http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack After searching Amazon for the listed adapters I chose the NETGEAR N150 Wi-Fi USB Adapter (WNA1100) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0036R9XRU/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;psc=1 for $17.50, not the cheapest of the bunch but it comes with a \u0026ldquo;Desktop Dock\u0026rdquo; that is basically an USB extension cable which sounds good to me as it will let me place the adapter a distance away from the BBB to get the best WiFi signal.\nWith the latest build of Debian I was able to get the WNA1100 adapter to work just by editing the interfaces file and rebooting the BeagleBone. Pretty awesome!\nSteps Plugged the BBB into the computer with a USB cable and plugged in a power supply. Logged into the BBB with the root account with my “fish” \u0026ldquo;ssh fish@192.168.7.2\u0026rdquo; # sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces and edited the \u0026ldquo;WiFi Example\u0026rdquo; to match my network ID and password This is what the finished WiFi part of the file looks like:\n# WiFi Example auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet dhcp wpa-ssid \u0026#34;ssid\u0026#34; wpa-psk \u0026#34;password\u0026#34; And BANG! it worked. I am now enjoying WiFi with my BeagleBone Black!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/beaglebone-black-wifi-adapter-wna1100/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Boris, the BeagleBoard Logo Mascot\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2014/03/boris-bone.png\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoris, the BeagleBoard Logo MascotI initially bought an Edimax EW-7811Un Dongle for use with my BeagleBone Black (BBB), but after a lof of fiddling and frustration I gave up on it. Turns out that I may have been using the wrong setting in the interfaces file, but after some research I found many instances of people complaining about the Edimax dongles in general, so I started looking for solutions that others were having good luck with.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BeagleBone Black WiFi Adapter (WNA1100)"},{"content":"Larry Correia knocks it out of the park yet again with his tale of war in a fantasy setting full of technology mingled with magic. For the first time I really enjoyed a story full of steampunk motifs and hard sci-fi based war.\nIt appears that this story is set in a WarMachine, WarHammer, Iron Kingdoms miniature gaming setting. Normally this would not work for me, I took a look at some of the WarHammer books awhile back and they are not the type of book I would read. But Larry Correia has brought this type of story to a new level.\nInto the Storm is character driven with lots of insight into the drives and desires of the characters who are all doing their best to fight for what they believe in. Great stuff.\nThe narration by Ray Porter is very good, his voice easily transitions from a gravely old man to a young soldier bringing all of the characters to life.\nI bought this audiobook on Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nA knight of Cygnar follows a strict moral code. His integrity is beyond reproach. He holds himself to the highest standards whether dealing with friend or foe. And he values honor above all.\nThe year is 606 AR, and Cygnar has been sorely pressed by its enemies both at home and abroad. In Caspia, the conflict with the Protectorate is about to erupt into full war with the looming invasion of Sul. The Cygnaran military is desperate for soldiers with the skill, strength, and bravery to take up the devastating galvanic weaponry of the new Storm Division. In this climate, every soldier is valuable, even those fallen from the honor expected of a Storm Knight. A group of such men – thieves, drunkards, and worse – comprise the Sixth Platoon. All they need is someone to lead them.\nLieutenant Hugh Madigan, a peerless warrior knighted during the reign of deposed King Vinter IV, has spent years in obscurity, punished for his loyalty to the former king. Now he has been ordered back to the front and given command of the Sixth, his task to turn a platoon of miscreants into elite soldiers fit to be called Storm Knights. Time is short, and war is coming. One way or another, Lieutenant Madigan must lead his men into the storm….\n©2013 Privateer Press (P)2014 Audible Inc.\nI rate Into the Storm an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to fans of books based on miniature gaming universes and anyone who needs a little more Larry Correia in their life.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/storm-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Into the Storm by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61cvQsy3GjL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eLarry Correia knocks it out of the park yet again with his tale of war in a fantasy setting full of technology mingled with magic. For the first time I really enjoyed a story full of steampunk motifs and hard sci-fi based war.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt appears that this story is set in a WarMachine, WarHammer, Iron Kingdoms miniature gaming setting. Normally this would not work for me, I took a look at some of the WarHammer books awhile back and they are not the type of book I would read. But Larry Correia has brought this type of story to a new level.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Into the Storm by Larry Correia"},{"content":"Unable to Connect to BeagleBone Black via Ethernet\nEverything works fine when the BeagleBone Black is connected to a computer via USB but when connected to the network via Ethernet it does not work. I ran into this issue when I first started using my BeagleBone Black out-of-the-box and again when I updated the OS to Debian.\nHere is the solution:\nConnect the BBB to your computer via USB and give it time to boot In a web browser open the Cloud9 IDE by going to https://192.168.7.2:3000/. You may be prompted to choose some settings, I like the defaults. Create a new file, paste in the script below, and run it var fs = require(\u0026#34;fs\u0026#34;); var destroyed_key_file = \u0026#34;/etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key\u0026#34;; fs.readFile(destroyed_key_file, function (err, data) { if (err) throw err; if( data===null || data.length===0 ) { console.log(\u0026#34;we have a corrupted host key file... try do delete it\u0026#34;); fs.unlink(destroyed_key_file, function (err) { if (err) throw err; console.log(\u0026#34;successfully deleted \u0026#34; + destroyed_key_file); console.log(\u0026#34;you should now reboot your beaglebone.\u0026#34;); console.log(\u0026#34;the /etc/init.d/dropbear script will create a new rsa host key file for you.\u0026#34;); console.log(\u0026#34;after the reboot you should be able to login over ssh\u0026#34;); }); } else { console.log(\u0026#34;it seems that you have another problem, sorry\u0026#34;); } }); Now shutdown, I like to sudo shutdown -hP now, the USR lights will all go out when it is shut down Now you can unplug the BBB from USB and plug in an Ethernet cable and power adapter. You should now be able to access the BBB from anywhere on your network using https://beaglebone.local or ssh beaglebone.log. Thanks to httpss://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/beagleboard/Ya2qE4repSY/u4lvOjF66JEJ\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/unable-connect-beaglebone-black-via-ethernet/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eUnable to Connect to BeagleBone Black via Ethernet\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEverything works fine when the BeagleBone Black is connected to a computer via USB but when connected to the network via Ethernet it does not work. I ran into this issue when I first started using my BeagleBone Black out-of-the-box and again when I updated the OS to Debian.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere is the solution:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eConnect the BBB to your computer via USB and give it time to boot\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIn a web browser open the Cloud9 IDE by going to \u003ca href=\"https://192.168.7.2:3000/\"\u003ehttps://192.168.7.2:3000/\u003c/a\u003e. You may be prompted to choose some settings, I like the defaults.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCreate a new file, paste in the script below, and run it\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"highlight\"\u003e\u003cpre tabindex=\"0\" class=\"chroma\"\u003e\u003ccode class=\"language-javascript\" data-lang=\"javascript\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"kd\"\u003evar\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003efs\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"o\"\u003e=\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003erequire\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u0026#34;fs\u0026#34;\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e);\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"kd\"\u003evar\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003edestroyed_key_file\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"o\"\u003e=\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u0026#34;/etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key\u0026#34;\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e;\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003efs\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003ereadFile\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003edestroyed_key_file\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e,\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"kd\"\u003efunction\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003eerr\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e,\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003edata\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e)\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e{\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"k\"\u003eif\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003eerr\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e)\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"k\"\u003ethrow\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003eerr\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e;\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e  \n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"k\"\u003eif\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003edata\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"o\"\u003e===\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"kc\"\u003enull\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"o\"\u003e||\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003edata\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003elength\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"o\"\u003e===\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mi\"\u003e0\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e)\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e{\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e    \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003econsole\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003elog\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u0026#34;we have a corrupted host key file... try do delete it\u0026#34;\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e);\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e    \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003efs\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003eunlink\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003edestroyed_key_file\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e,\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"kd\"\u003efunction\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003eerr\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e)\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e{\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e    \u003cspan class=\"k\"\u003eif\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003eerr\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e)\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"k\"\u003ethrow\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003eerr\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e;\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e        \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003econsole\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003elog\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u0026#34;successfully deleted \u0026#34;\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"o\"\u003e+\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003edestroyed_key_file\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e);\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e        \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003econsole\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003elog\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u0026#34;you should now reboot your beaglebone.\u0026#34;\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e);\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e        \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003econsole\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003elog\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u0026#34;the /etc/init.d/dropbear script will create a new rsa host key file for you.\u0026#34;\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e);\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e        \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003econsole\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003elog\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u0026#34;after the reboot you should be able to login over ssh\u0026#34;\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e);\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e    \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e});\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e}\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"k\"\u003eelse\u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e{\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e      \u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003econsole\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"nx\"\u003elog\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e(\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u0026#34;it seems that you have another problem, sorry\u0026#34;\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e);\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e}\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"line\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"cl\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"p\"\u003e});\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/pre\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003col start=\"4\"\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNow shutdown, I like to \u003ccode\u003esudo shutdown -hP now\u003c/code\u003e, the USR lights will all go out when it is shut down\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNow you can unplug the BBB from USB and plug in an Ethernet cable and power adapter.\nYou should now be able to access the BBB from anywhere on your network using \u003ca href=\"https://beaglebone.local\"\u003ehttps://beaglebone.local\u003c/a\u003e or \u003ccode\u003essh beaglebone.log\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThanks to \u003ca href=\"httpss://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/beagleboard/Ya2qE4repSY/u4lvOjF66JEJ\"\u003ehttpss://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/beagleboard/Ya2qE4repSY/u4lvOjF66JEJ\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Unable to Connect to BeagleBone Black via Ethernet"},{"content":"After updating the operating system to Debian and plugging in your BeagleBone Black via USB you may receive the error message:\nWARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!\nThis is normal as the RSA key has changed when you updated the OS.\nThe easiest way to fix it is to run ssh-keygen -R then try connecting again.\nWhen connected via USB\nssh-keygen -R 192.168.7.2\nssh debian@192.168.7.2\nWhen connected via Ethernet\nssh-keygen -R beaglebone.local\nssh debian@beaglebone.local\nYou should then be asked to add the new fingerprint to your \u0026ldquo;known hosts\u0026rdquo;, say yes and you should then be asked for your Debian password who’s default is temppwd.\nAnd your in debian@beaglebone:~$.\nThanks to https://blog.tinned-software.net/ssh-remote-host-identification-has-changed/\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/remote-host-identification-changed/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAfter updating the operating system to Debian and plugging in your BeagleBone Black via USB you may receive the error message:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ccode\u003eWARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is normal as the RSA key has changed when you updated the OS.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe easiest way to fix it is to run \u003ccode\u003essh-keygen -R\u003c/code\u003e then try connecting again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen connected via USB\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ccode\u003essh-keygen -R 192.168.7.2\u003c/code\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ccode\u003essh debian@192.168.7.2\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen connected via Ethernet\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ccode\u003essh-keygen -R beaglebone.local\u003c/code\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ccode\u003essh debian@beaglebone.local\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Remote Host Identification Has Changed!"},{"content":"After reading the Gray Man series of books I still had a desire for more spy action. In one of the review of Dead Eye Vince Flynn was mentioned so I looked him up and found the Mitch Rapp series. The first book in the series is American Assassin so I picked it up from Audible and gave it a listen.\nAmerican Assassin is the first novel in the Mitch Rapp series written by Vince Flynn. This is a traditional superagent spy novel with more action than intrigue. I think it would make for a fantastic movie, especially if shot like the spy action-thriller movies of the 70’s. Mitch Rapp is a likable character with flaws that make him human.\nThe narrator George Guidall is such an amazing talent. His style with this book is different from many of the other books I have listened to recently, instead of acting out the story it feels more like having someone reading a bedtime story. It has taken some adjusting, but I like it well enough.\nI look forward to listening to more Mitch Rapp novels.\nFrom the publisher:\nBefore he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist’s worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world… and then tragedy struck.\nTwo decades of cutthroat, partisan politics has left the CIA and the country in an increasingly vulnerable position. Cold War veteran and CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield knows he must prepare his people for the next war. The rise of Islamic terrorism is coming, and it needs to be met abroad before it reaches America’s shores. Stansfield directs his protégé, Irene Kennedy, and his old Cold War colleague, Stan Hurley, to form a new group of clandestine operatives who will work outside the normal chain of commandmen who do not exist.\nWhat type of man is willing to kill for his country without putting on a uniform? Kennedy finds him in the wake of the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack. Two-hundred and seventy souls perished that cold December night, and thousands of family and friends were left searching for comfort. Mitch Rapp was one of them, but he was not interested in comfort. He wanted retribution.\nSix months of intense training has prepared him to bring the war to the enemy’s doorstep, and he does so with brutal efficiency. Rapp starts in Istanbul, where he assassinates the Turkish arms dealer who sold the explosives used in the Pan Am attack. Rapp then moves onto Hamburg with his team and across Europe, leaving a trail of bodies. All roads lead to Beirut, though, and what Rapp doesnt know is that the enemy is aware of his existence and has prepared a trap. The hunter is about to become the hunted, and Rapp will need every ounce of skill and cunning if he is to survive the war-ravaged city and its various terrorist factions.\n©2010 Vince Flynn (P)2010 Simon and Schuster Audio\nI rate American Assassin a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a spy adventure.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/american-assassin-vince-flynn/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"American Assassin by Vince Flynn\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ntV3YwJFL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eAfter reading the \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_lib_c3D__vsml_1_16?asin=B007CJHPS2\"\u003eGray Man\u003c/a\u003e series of books I still had a desire for more spy action. In one of the review of \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Dead-Eye-Audiobook/B00FW2B3H0/ref=a_series_c2_4_saTtl\"\u003eDead Eye\u003c/a\u003e Vince Flynn was mentioned so I looked him up and found the Mitch Rapp series. The first book in the series is American Assassin so I picked it up from Audible and gave it a listen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/American-Assassin-Audiobook/B0044UOB2K\"\u003eAmerican Assassin\u003c/a\u003e is the first novel in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_lib_c3D__vsml_1_7?asin=B005NAT9YK\"\u003eMitch Rapp series\u003c/a\u003e written by \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_pd_Myster_c2_1_auth?searchAuthor=Vince+Flynn\u0026amp;ie=UTF8\u0026amp;pf_rd_r=1VATFPX6FEW6FCTYA8ZZ\u0026amp;pf_rd_m=A2ZO8JX97D5MN9\u0026amp;pf_rd_t=101\u0026amp;pf_rd_i=detail-page\u0026amp;pf_rd_p=1407849922\u0026amp;pf_rd_s=center-2\"\u003eVince Flynn\u003c/a\u003e. This is a traditional superagent spy novel with more action than intrigue. I think it would make for a fantastic movie, especially if shot like the spy action-thriller movies of the 70’s. Mitch Rapp is a likable character with flaws that make him human.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"American Assassin by Vince Flynn"},{"content":"This post is about installing Debian (BeagleBone Black – 2GB eMMC) 2014-03-27 and Flashing the eMMC using a Mac running OSX 10.9 Mavericks.\nI decided to get a head start on using Debian with the BBB which is soon to tbe the default OS installed on them.\nThese are the steps I used today to get up and running:\nDownload image from http://beagleboard.org/latest-images\n– BBB-eMMC-flasher-debian-7.4-2014-03-27-2gb.img.xz\nUse Unarchiver to extract disk image\n– BBB-eMMC-flasher-debian-7.4-2014-03-27-2gb.img\nDownload PiFiller to copy the disk image to the SD card\n– https://ivanx.com/raspberrypi/\nstyle=\u0026ldquo;padding:4px;background:#000;display:inline-block;margin: 4px 0;\u0026rdquo;\nRun PiFiller and follow the directions\nChoose the disk image Insert the SD card Verify that PiFiller has found the correct device Some more verifying, click OK a couple of times Now wait awhile, it took about 20 minutes on my MacBook Pro Holy Cow! The dialog box opening and closing gets really annoying to watch! All set when you get the “Your SD card is ready” message Eject the SD from the Mac OS then remove it from the computer\nWith the BBB unplugged, no network, USB, video, power cables, insert the SD card into the BBB\nstyle=\u0026ldquo;padding:4px;background:#000;display:inline-block;margin: 4px 0;\u0026rdquo;\nGet ready: When plugging in the BBB you will need to hold down the Boot button until all 4 USR lights turn on\n– While holding down the Boot button insert a 5V 2A power supply, release the Boot button when all 4 USR lights turn on\nNow the USR buttons should start blinking in a seemingly random pattern, this should go on for 20 to 60 minutes depending on the OS and SD card\nWhen the USR lights all light-up again the eMMC has been flashed with Debian\nRemove the power adapter\nRemove the SD card\nYou are now ready to plug-in the devices you want to work with and enjoy Debian\nMore information about installing operating systems on the BeagleBone Black:\nhttps://beagleboard.org/Getting%20Started#update\nhttps://learn.adafruit.com/beaglebone-black-installing-operating-systems/overview\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/setting-debian-beaglebone-black/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis post is about installing \u003cstrong\u003eDebian (BeagleBone Black – 2GB eMMC) 2014-03-27\u003c/strong\u003e and Flashing the eMMC using a Mac running OSX 10.9 Mavericks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI decided to get a head start on using Debian with the BBB which is soon to tbe the default OS installed on them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are the steps I used today to get up and running:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDownload image from \u003ca href=\"http://beagleboard.org/latest-images\"\u003ehttp://beagleboard.org/latest-images\u003c/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n – BBB-eMMC-flasher-debian-7.4-2014-03-27-2gb.img.xz\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-unarchiver/id425424353?mt=12\"\u003eUnarchiver\u003c/a\u003e to extract disk image\u003cbr\u003e\n – BBB-eMMC-flasher-debian-7.4-2014-03-27-2gb.img\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDownload PiFiller to copy the disk image to the SD card\u003cbr\u003e\n – \u003ca href=\"https://ivanx.com/raspberrypi/\"\u003ehttps://ivanx.com/raspberrypi/\u003c/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\nstyle=\u0026ldquo;padding:4px;background:#000;display:inline-block;margin: 4px 0;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRun PiFiller and follow the directions\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChoose the disk image\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eInsert the SD card\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eVerify that PiFiller has found the correct device\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSome more verifying, click OK a couple of times\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNow wait awhile, it took about 20 minutes on my MacBook Pro \u003cstrong\u003eHoly Cow!\u003c/strong\u003e The dialog box opening and closing gets really annoying to watch!\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAll set when you get the “Your SD card is ready” message\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEject the SD from the Mac OS then remove it from the computer\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith the BBB unplugged, no network, USB, video, power cables, insert the SD card into the BBB\u003cbr\u003e\nstyle=\u0026ldquo;padding:4px;background:#000;display:inline-block;margin: 4px 0;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGet ready: When plugging in the BBB you will need to hold down the Boot button until all 4 USR lights turn on\u003cbr\u003e\n – While holding down the Boot button insert a 5V 2A power supply, release the Boot button when all 4 USR lights turn on\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow the USR buttons should start blinking in a seemingly random pattern, this should go on for 20 to 60 minutes depending on the OS and SD card\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the USR lights all light-up again the eMMC has been flashed with Debian\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRemove the power adapter\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRemove the SD card\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e","title":"Setting up Debian on a BeagleBone Black"},{"content":"These academic things always have such ridiculously long titles \u0026lt;sigh\u0026gt;, the full title is \u0026quot; The Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond \u0026ldquo;.\nI was looking for a non-fiction book to give a listen-to and I always give The Great Courses on Audible a look when searching for such a thing. I have listened to some of the Great Course lectures that I did not enjoy but a couple of them have been surprisingly good, so I am always willing to give them a try.\nAt 12 hours and 20 minutes this is one of the shorter lectures in the Great Courses, and that is a good thing. This course get right to the point and does a good job of keeping on track. The amount of self referential babble is minimal compared to most other lectures. I do not understand the need to constantly tell the listener about what will be talked about in later lectures, it is distracting and counter productive.\nProfessor Michael Dues does a great job presenting the material. I found his voice easy to listen to, easy to understand, and he kept my attention throughout the lectures.\nI enjoyed the way that multiple styles of conflict management were presented instead of trying to propose a one-size fits-all approach.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn 24 lectures brimming with practical tips, tools, and techniques everyone can use to better manage conflict in his or her professional and personal lives, gain the essential skills of conflict management. As presented by Professor Dues, these lectures will show you how to effectively deal with conflicts of all kinds, using the “win-win” model that has dominated the field for the past six decades.\nYou’ll gain effective techniques for handling conflicts in your workplace, other organizational settings, or your personal life, whether you’re dealing with supervisors, coworkers, acquaintances, close friends, or family members. You’ll learn the best ways to analyze conflicts and work through the steps toward resolving them, including clarifying goals, handling difficult emotions, and negotiating agreements. And you’ll grasp the fundamental tricks of the trade that experienced negotiators have long used to deal with even the most seemingly intractable moral and cultural conflicts.\nWhile drawing on the latest groundbreaking research, Professor Dues has designed these lectures to be as practical as possible. Requiring no background in conflict management, negotiation, or psychology, they offer you not just knowledge, but strategies and tactics you can put to work in your own life right now. Best of all, you’ll be able to see those strategies and tactics in action through 70 professionally acted dramatizations that illustrate different conflict situations at home and in the workplace.\nYou don’t have a choice about becoming involved in conflict. You do, however, have a choice about learning to manage it successfully by using the invaluable tools these lectures can give you.\n©2010 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2010 The Great Courses\nI rate The Art of Conflict Management a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking to improve their conflict management skills.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/art-conflict-management-great-courses/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Art of Conflict Management by The Great Courses\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514QfHJKa3L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eThese academic things always have such ridiculously long titles \u0026lt;sigh\u0026gt;, the full title is \u0026quot; \u003cstrong\u003eThe Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond\u003c/strong\u003e \u0026ldquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was looking for a non-fiction book to give a listen-to and I always give \u003cstrong\u003eThe Great Courses\u003c/strong\u003e on Audible a look when searching for such a thing. I have listened to some of the Great Course lectures that I did not enjoy but a couple of them have been surprisingly good, so I am always willing to give them a try.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Art of Conflict Management by The Great Courses"},{"content":"I recently bought a BeagleBone Black (BBB) and am having a great time with it.\nFrom the website beaglebord.org:\nBeagleBone Black is a $45 MSRP community-supported development platform for developers and hobbyists. Boot Linux in under 10 seconds and get started on development in less than 5 minutes with just a single USB cable.\nWhat I Bought I bought my BBB from Makershed as a part of a kit which included the book Getting Started with BeagleBone by Matt Richardson and a handful of electronic components. The kit is not bad, but I feel like it is overpriced, especially for someone who has a lot of components already.\nI recommend the book as a good starting point, it does a great job of introducing the basics of the board and using Python and JavaScript to program it. There aren’t many other books out there, but I am not sure there needs to be.\nI also bought a power supply, a very cool case, and a wi-fi dongle from Amazon.\nThe power supply is very basic one that provides the 2 amps necessary to power the BBB with a Wi-Fi dongle attached. Power Adapter DC 5V, 2A, 10W for BeagleBone Black at Amazon\nI don’t have much to say about the Wi-Fi dongle yet as I haven’t tried to use it, I will write more about it when I do. It is small and was only $10 so I happy with it so far. Edimax EW-7811Un 150 Mbps Wireless 11n Nano Size USB Adapter with EZmax Setup Wizard\nThe case is pretty awesome. It is very well made and lets you see right into the board with risers for the buttons that make it much easier to press them. The BegaleBone Black should ship with a case like this. It looks like Laser Goodies has pulled their products from Amazon, or maybe they are just out of stock, here is the page on their website Beaglebone Black Slim Case – Clear\nLaser Goodies Beaglebone Black Slim Case – Clear\nWhy I Bought It I regularly attend the wonderful Atlanta JavaScript Meetup group and a couple of weeks ago Tim Kadom of Thoughtworks showed us his Telepresence robot built with a BeagleBone black and an iPhone. All of the code was written on the BBB with the Cloud9 IDE in JavaScript. I was seriously intrigued.\nI have been playing with Ardunio microcontrollers for awhile now and really like them. But they require that you program in their own C like language which I can muddle through but don’t really like. And it is not easy getting an Ardunio on a network, the code to make Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth to work doesn’t leave much space for your own ideas.\nThe Rasberry Pi on the other hand just doesn’t speak to me. I am more interested in them now that I have spent some time with a BeagleBoard, but I still don’t think I have much of a use for a Rasberry Pi right now.\nWith the BeagleBone it appears that I get all of the inputs and outputs of an Arduino while having all of the network abilities of a Rasberry Pi that I can program using JavaScript. That really gets me excited!\nIn the coming weeks I will be posting more about the BeagleBone Black and the project I am working towards.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/beaglebone-black-microcontroller/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://beagleboard.org/\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Boris, the BeagleBoard Logo Mascot\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2014/03/boris-bone.png\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI recently bought a \u003ca href=\"http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone%20Black\"\u003eBeagleBone Black (BBB)\u003c/a\u003e and am having a great time with it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the website beaglebord.org:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeagleBone Black is a $45 MSRP community-supported development platform for developers and hobbyists. Boot Linux in under 10 seconds and get started on development in less than 5 minutes with just a single USB cable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"what-i-bought\"\u003eWhat I Bought\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought my BBB from \u003ca href=\"http://www.makershed.com/Make_Getting_Started_with_the_BeagleBone_Black_Ki_p/msgsbbk.htm\"\u003eMakershed as a part of a kit\u003c/a\u003e which included the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-BeagleBone-Linux-Powered-Electronic/dp/1449345379\"\u003eGetting Started with BeagleBone by Matt Richardson\u003c/a\u003e and a handful of electronic components. The kit is not bad, but I feel like it is overpriced, especially for someone who has a lot of components already.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BeagleBone Black Microcontroller"},{"content":"After seeing a really cool telepresence robot using a BeagleBone at an Atlanta JavaScript Meetup I just had to get one.\nI ended up buying a Beagle Bone Black (BBB) from MakerShed in a kit that included some components and a paperback of Getting Started with BeagleBone.\nWhile waiting for the BBB to arrive I started reading the book on Safari Books Online and ended up never reading more than a couple of pages from the printed book. I was more comfortable reading the book on an iPad using the Safari Books Online app.\nThis is a very good “Getting Started” book. Its purpose is to build familiarity and confidence for someone who has not used a BBB before, and it does that very well. So well that even before I was done with it I had a ton of plans for my BBB including updating the OS from Angstrom to Debian, adding an NTP server, and a lot more.\nNow I am planning on creating a remote home automation system for our garage doors.\nFrom the publisher:\nMany people think of Linux as a computer operating system, running on users’ desktops and powering servers. But Linux can also be found inside many consumer electronics devices. Whether they’re the brains of a cell phone, cable box, or exercise bike, embedded Linux systems blur the distinction between computer and device.\nMany makers love microcontroller platforms such as Arduino, but as the complexity increases in their projects, they need more power for applications, such as computer vision. The BeagleBone is an embedded Linux board for makers. It’s got built-in networking, many inputs and outputs, and a fast processor to handle demanding tasks. This book introduces you to both the original BeagleBone and the BeagleBone Black and gets you started with projects that take advantage of the board’s processing power and its ability to interface with the outside world.\nI rate Getting Started with BeagleBone a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone as a first exposure to the BBB.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/getting-started-beaglebone-matt-richardson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Getting Started with BeagleBone by Matt Richardson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XTkuVVwrL._SY300_.jpg\"\u003eAfter seeing a really cool \u003ca href=\"http://skiptree.com/100-days-of-hardware-entry/\"\u003etelepresence robot\u003c/a\u003e using a BeagleBone at an \u003ca href=\"http://www.meetup.com/AtlantaJavaScript/events/162447872/\"\u003eAtlanta JavaScript Meetup\u003c/a\u003e I just had to get one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI ended up buying a \u003ca href=\"http://www.makershed.com/Make_Getting_Started_with_the_BeagleBone_Black_Ki_p/msgsbbk.htm\"\u003eBeagle Bone Black (BBB) from MakerShed in a kit\u003c/a\u003e that included some components and a paperback of Getting Started with BeagleBone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile waiting for the BBB to arrive I started reading the book on \u003ca href=\"http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/operating-systems-and-server-administration/embedded-linux/9781449345365\"\u003eSafari Books Online\u003c/a\u003e and ended up never reading more than a couple of pages from the printed book. I was more comfortable reading the book on an iPad using the Safari Books Online app.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Getting Started with BeagleBone by Matt Richardson"},{"content":"On Target is the second book in the Gray Man Series.\nThis book has many more thoughtful moments than the first book of the series but is still chock-full of action and a bit of suspense. Jay Snider returns as narrator and does a great job once again, I can’t imagine anyone else being the voice of Court Gentry.\nI don’t have a lot more to say about On Target, it is a very good spy/assassin story and it left me wanting more, much more.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nCourt Gentry, aka the Gray Man, is back – and once again on the run from old friends and foes.\nFour years ago, Gentry was betrayed by his handlers in the CIA. Now, an old comrade, Russian arms merchant Sidorenko, returns to force him on a mission against his will: kill Sudan’s President Abboud, the supposed trigger for the Darfur genocide. But the CIA has its own plans for Abboud. With his ruthless employers on one side, his blackmailing former friends on the other, and a doomed mission ahead, Gentry would kill just to get out of this one alive.\nEvery bit as thrilling, informed, and addictive as The Gray Man, and once again skillfully narrated by Jay Snyder, On Target is sure to hit the mark for thriller fans.\n©2010 Mark Strode Greaney (P)2010 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any fans of Spy and Action novels.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/on-target-by-mark-greaney/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"On Target: A Gray Man Novel by Mark Greaney\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F-zq7tTFL.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/On-Target-Audiobook/B0043BUG3I/ref=a_series_c2_2_saTtl\" title=\"On Target at Audible\"\u003eOn Target\u003c/a\u003e is the second book in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_pd_Myster_c2__1_sa?asin=B007CJHPS2\u0026amp;ie=UTF8\u0026amp;pf_rd_r=1HGKYEGEWM2YRRFJ0788\u0026amp;pf_rd_m=A2ZO8JX97D5MN9\u0026amp;pf_rd_t=101\u0026amp;pf_rd_i=detail-page\u0026amp;pf_rd_p=1407849922\u0026amp;pf_rd_s=center-2\" title=\"Gray Man Series at Audible\"\u003eGray Man Series\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book has many more thoughtful moments than the first book of the series but is still chock-full of action and a bit of suspense. Jay Snider returns as narrator and does a great job once again, I can’t imagine anyone else being the voice of Court Gentry.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"On Target: A Gray Man Novel by Mark Greaney"},{"content":"The Gray Man novels begin with Court Gentry on the outs with the CIA and working as a killer for hire with a conscious. If that sounds familiar and derivative it is because it is. But the Gray Man is his own character with is own emotions and beliefs.\nThis is Mark Greaney’s first novel and it is a winner, full of action, intrigue, and twists Gray man does not disappoint.\nJay Snyder’s narration is wonderful; he brings both Gentry and the other characters to life. I very quickly cannot imagine any other voice as being Court Gentry.\nThis book is not about thinking, it is not literature, it is fast-paced action that doesn’t require much work on the reader’s imagination, but it was just what I was looking for.\nThere are now 4 books in the Gray Man series and I can’t wait to listen to them all.\nI bought this audiobook on Audible and listened to it with the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nGet ready for white-knuckled listening. Greaney’s debut novel – and future feature film – introduces the enigmatic and elusive Court Gentry, a former CIA operative and a legendary hired gun. With a terrifying ability to vaporize targets and a strict moral code, he stalks the gray margins of the world, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, then fading away. When his government and former employers turn on him, there is no safehouse to run to, no way to lie low. In a constant state of escape and pursuit, Gentry tears through the Middle East and Europe in a riveting life-or-death race against time.\n©2009 Mark Greaney (P)2010 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to fans of fast-paced spy and assassin action.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/gray-man-mark-greaney/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Gray Man by Mark Greaney\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VZsc74W5L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/The-Gray-Man-Audiobook/B003UNYZ7I\"\u003eThe Gray Man\u003c/a\u003e novels begin with Court Gentry on the outs with the CIA and working as a killer for hire with a conscious. If that sounds familiar and derivative it is because it is. But the Gray Man is his own character with is own emotions and beliefs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is Mark Greaney’s first novel and it is a winner, full of action, intrigue, and twists Gray man does not disappoint.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Gray Man by Mark Greaney"},{"content":"Written and set in the 1980’s, Footfall is a science fiction novel about the Earth being attacked by aliens from Space. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle do an amazing job of story telling, character development, and language.\nA big part of the story is the language used by the aliens; which is something I generally do not like in science fiction books. A bit of foreign language or difficult slang is ok for flavor, but a lot of it just makes a story very hard to read and follow. If I had bought this book as a paperback and tried to read it, there is a good chance I would not have made it all the way through, but as an audiobook it was fantastic.\nMacLeod Andrews does an amazing job narrating the story and bringing both the earthlings and aliens to life. He gives them all unique voices and really brings their emotions to life.\nI enjoyed this book immensely and look forward to listening to more Niven/Pournelle books.\nI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nThey first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world’s frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods. Now the conquerors are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender – or death for all humans.\n©1986 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2010 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to any science fiction fan.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/footfall-by-niven-pournelle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512UuFFPO5L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eWritten and set in the 1980’s, \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Footfall-Audiobook/B003NTPCJE\"\u003eFootfall\u003c/a\u003e is a science fiction novel about the Earth being attacked by aliens from Space. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle do an amazing job of story telling, character development, and language.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA big part of the story is the language used by the aliens; which is something I generally do not like in science fiction books. A bit of foreign language or difficult slang is ok for flavor, but a lot of it just makes a story very hard to read and follow. If I had bought this book as a paperback and tried to read it, there is a good chance I would not have made it all the way through, but as an audiobook it was fantastic.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle"},{"content":"For a 39-year-old story this one holds up pretty well and it is fun to see the origin of many of the themes in more modern science fiction stories.\nI really enjoyed the idea that every time they get in a ship and head off to war they return hundreds of years later; it is an intriguing idea. So after one battle they return to find earth a very different place and the most experience veterans in the war even though they do not feel like it.\nI think any fan of science fiction should take the time to read the classics of the genres and understand more about the origins of the themes and plot elements that we take for granted today. And the Forever War is one of those classics that every fan should take the time to read.\nGeorge Wilson’s voice has such a classic storyteller timbre to it; he really brought the story to life for me.\nI bought The Forever War audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nWhen it was first published over 20 years ago, Joe Haldeman’s novel won the Hugo and Nebula awards and was chosen Best Novel in several countries. Today, it is hailed a classic of science fiction that foreshadowed many of the futuristic themes of the 1990s: bionics, sensory manipulation, and time distortion.\nWilliam Mandella is a soldier in Earth’s elite brigade. As the war against the Taurans sends him from galaxy to galaxy, he learns to use protective body shells and sophisticated weapons. He adapts to the cultures and terrains of distant outposts. But with each month in space, years are passing on Earth. Where will he call home when (and if) the Forever War ends?\nNarrator George Wilson’s performance conveys all the imaginative technology and human drama of The Forever War. Set against a backdrop of vivid battle scenes, this absorbing work asks provocative questions about the very nature of war.\n©1974 Joe W. Haldeman; (P)1999 Recorded Books\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for great classic science fiction.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/forever-war-joe-haldeman/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Forever War by Joe Haldeman\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515HOuoJR8L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eFor a 39-year-old story this one holds up pretty well and it is fun to see the origin of many of the themes in more modern science fiction stories.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed the idea that every time they get in a ship and head off to war they return hundreds of years later; it is an intriguing idea. So after one battle they return to find earth a very different place and the most experience veterans in the war even though they do not feel like it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Forever War by Joe Haldeman"},{"content":"I want so much more!\nRoadside Picnic is a collection of stories, they contain the same characters, but they happen at different times, sometimes decades apart. They are great stories, great beginnings of larger stories…\nI would love to read a much longer story about Red Schuhart, he is such a great character and his story in this universe is so appealing to me.\nRobert Forster does a great job narrating the audiobook.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nRed Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a \u0026ldquo;full empty\u0026rdquo;, something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.\n©1972 Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (P)2012 Random House\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who loves science fiction.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/roadside-picnic-by-arkady-strugatsky/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Roadside Picnic\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518QONeJw%2BL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI want so much more!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Roadside-Picnic-Audiobook/B009K7SEJI/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1386650497%EF%BF%BDsr=1-1\"\u003eRoadside Picnic\u003c/a\u003e is a collection of stories, they contain the same characters, but they happen at different times, sometimes decades apart. They are great stories, great beginnings of larger stories…\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI would love to read a much longer story about Red Schuhart, he is such a great character and his story in this universe is so appealing to me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRobert Forster does a great job narrating the audiobook.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky , Boris Strugatsky , and Olena Bormashenko"},{"content":"Man-o-man, I like me some Bill Bryson. I think I would buy audio recordings of his compilations of the nightly news…\nOh wait, I think I just did.\n\u0026ldquo;One Summer\u0026rdquo; really does feel like a compilation of newspaper articles from around 1927 sprinkled with insights and ideas that only come from hindsight.\nI enjoyed this book more than At Home, but less than A Short History of Nearly Everything.\nIf you enjoy learning about history, about the United States, and about trivia then I think you will love this book. Bill Bryson does a wonderful job narrating the book, bringing history to life, and making it interesting.\nFrom the publisher:\nOne of the most admired nonfiction writers of our time retells the story of one truly fabulous year in the life of his native country – a fascinating and gripping narrative featuring such outsized American heroes as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and yes Herbert Hoover, and a gallery of criminals (Al Capone), eccentrics (Shipwreck Kelly), and close-mouthed politicians (Calvin Coolidge). It was the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things and came of age in a big, brawling manner. What a country. What a summer. And what a writer to bring it all so vividly alive for us in this certain best-seller.\n©2013 Bill Bryson (P)2013 Random House Audio\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone interested in history.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/one-summer-america-1927-bill-bryson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51g1xBpU19L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eMan-o-man, I like me some Bill Bryson. I think I would buy audio recordings of his compilations of the nightly news…\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOh wait, I think I just did.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;One Summer\u0026rdquo; really does feel like a compilation of newspaper articles from around 1927 sprinkled with insights and ideas that only come from hindsight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI enjoyed this book more than \u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/at-home-by-bill-bryson/\"\u003eAt Home\u003c/a\u003e, but less than \u003ca href=\"https://davenelson.com/a-short-history-of-nearly-everything-by-bill-bryson/\"\u003eA Short History of Nearly Everything\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson"},{"content":"I played the first Metro game, Metro 2033, and thought it was pretty good so when I saw Metro: Last light on sale at Steam I decided to give it a try.\nThe Metro games are based on books written by Dmitry Glukhovsky; which I have not read. After playing both of these video games I will probably not read them… It is not my kind of story. I am not really a big fan of the Horror-Survival genre but somehow I have found myself playing a few of them.\nMetro: Last Light was ok but nothing great, I am surprised that it received Gamespot’s Editor’s Choice Award in 2013. I guess there weren’t that many good games in 2013.\nIn both of the games I was seriously annoyed by all of the cut-scenes and times that I was not in control of the character. It felt like there was very little time spent playing with a lot of time just watching, BORING!\nTo top it off there were no guns in the game that really excited me, they were mostly ok, but nothing special at all.\nIn 9 hours I played through the entire game at Normal settings and I really do feel like I spent as much time passively watching cut-scenes as I spent playing.\nThe graphics are gorgeous though, I played it on a Late 2013 27\u0026quot; iMac with very high settings and it was smooth and beautiful throughout.\nFrom the publisher:\nIt Is the Year 2034.\nBeneath the ruins of post-apocalyptic Moscow, in the tunnels of the Metro, the remnants of mankind are besieged by deadly threats from outside – and within. Mutants stalk the catacombs beneath the desolate surface, and hunt amidst the poisoned skies above.\nBut rather than stand united, the station-cities of the Metro are locked in a struggle for the ultimate power, a doomsday device from the military vaults of D6. A civil war is stirring that could wipe humanity from the face of the earth forever.\nAs Artyom, burdened by guilt but driven by hope, you hold the key to our survival – the last light in our darkest hour…\nI rate this game a 6 out of 10 and only recommend it to the desperate.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/metro-last-light-4a-games/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://enterthemetro.com/us/\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Metro: Last Light by 4A Games\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://mll-cms-live.5x5digital.com/img/uploads/229_crop290x180.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI played the first Metro game, Metro 2033, and thought it was pretty good so when I saw Metro: Last light on sale at Steam I decided to give it a try.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Metro games are based on books written by \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Dmitry-Glukhovsky/e/B003X0960E/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1\"\u003eDmitry Glukhovsky\u003c/a\u003e; which I have not read. After playing both of these video games I will probably not read them… It is not my kind of story. I am not really a big fan of the Horror-Survival genre but somehow I have found myself playing a few of them.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Metro: Last Light by 4A Games"},{"content":"This is book 3 of the Gentleman Bastard Sequence books featuring the exploits of Locke and Jean. I really enjoyed the first 2 books, The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies, and have been looking forward to the next in the series.\nIn this adventure we learn more about Locke and Sabetha’s history, I really enjoyed that part, for me it deepened Locke’s character and gave insight into his motivations and desires. But the Sabetha character felt kind of flat to me, like she was not as well thought out, or maybe that she was a very simple character when I was hoping for a complex character with a lot of depth and complex reasons for her beliefs and actions. In the dialog Sabetha spends a lot of time talking about being complex, but in action she comes across as being very simple and flat.\nI also did not appreciate the story being split between 2 different timelines. The jumping back and forth is common to this series, but for some reason in this story I didn’t like it very much.\nMichael Page turns in another wonderful performance. I will always think of Locke and Jean when I hear his voice.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nAfter their adventures on the high seas, Locke and Jean are brought back to earth with a thump. Jean is mourning the loss of his lover, and Locke must live with the fallout of crossing the all-powerful magical assassins the Bonds Magi. It is a fall-out that will pit both men against Locke’s own long-lost love.\nSabetha is Locke’s childhood sweetheart, the love of Locke’s life, and now it is time for them to meet again. Employed on different sides of a vicious dispute between factions of the Bonds, Sabetha has just one goal-to destroy Locke forever. The Gentleman Bastard sequence has become a literary sensation in fantasy circles, and now, with the third book, Scott Lynch is set to seal that success.\n©2008 Scott Lynch (P)2013 Tantor\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and bet that if you read the first 2 books in the series you will not be able to pass this one up.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/republic-thieves-scott-lynch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51URR1B5HzL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eThis is book 3 of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_pd_Sci-Fi_c2__1_sa?asin=B006K1SORE%EF%BF%BDie=UTF8%EF%BF%BDpf_rd_r=12G860VKT5K1463DC4RB%EF%BF%BDpf_rd_m=A2ZO8JX97D5MN9%EF%BF%BDpf_rd_t=101%EF%BF%BDpf_rd_i=detail-page%EF%BF%BDpf_rd_p=1407849922%EF%BF%BDpf_rd_s=center-2\"\u003eGentleman Bastard Sequence\u003c/a\u003e books featuring the exploits of Locke and Jean. I really enjoyed the first 2 books, \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Lies-of-Locke-Lamora-Audiobook/B002V8MNG8/ref=a_series_c2_1_saTtl\"\u003eThe Lies of Locke Lamora\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Red-Seas-Under-Red-Skies-Audiobook/B002VA9P9O/ref=a_series_c2_2_saTtl\"\u003eRed Seas Under Red Skies\u003c/a\u003e, and have been looking forward to the next in the series.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this adventure we learn more about Locke and Sabetha’s history, I really enjoyed that part, for me it deepened Locke’s character and gave insight into his motivations and desires. But the Sabetha character felt kind of flat to me, like she was not as well thought out, or maybe that she was a very simple character when I was hoping for a complex character with a lot of depth and complex reasons for her beliefs and actions. In the dialog Sabetha spends a lot of time talking about being complex, but in action she comes across as being very simple and flat.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch"},{"content":"I believe that critical thinking is going to be the most important skill my son will ever have. The ability to think for himself and make good decisions quickly based upon what he knows while being able to change his decisions based upon new information when it is available.\n[Your Deceptive Mind](http://www.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Your-Deceptive-Mind-A-Scientific-Guide-to-Critical-Thinking-Skills-Audiobook/B00D9473WC\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Your Deceptive Mind at Audible) is a part of [The Great Courses: Professional](http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_pd_Scienc_c2__sa?asin=B00DNBDOUG\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;The Great Courses: Professional Series at Audible) series and is made up of 24 lectures given by Professor Steven Novella.\nThere are some nuggets of wisdom in these lectures, but I do not feel like there were any breakthrough ideas or innovations. Just a lot of reasons why most people have such a hard time thinking critically and being rational in their decision-making.\nThe contents are interesting and the professor is a very good speaker, but I do not feel like my ability to think critically has been much improved by listening to these lectures.\nFrom the publisher:\nNo skill is more important in today’s world than being able to think about, understand, and act on information in an effective and responsible way. What’s more, at no point in human history have we had access to so much information, with such relative ease, as we do in the 21st century. But because misinformation out there has increased as well, critical thinking is more important than ever.\nThese 24 rewarding lectures equip you with the knowledge and techniques you need to become a savvier, sharper critical thinker in your professional and personal life. By immersing yourself in the science of cognitive biases and critical thinking, and by learning how to think about thinking (a practice known as metacognition), you’ll gain concrete lessons for doing so more critically, more intelligently, and more successfully.\nThe key to successful critical thinking lies in understanding the neuroscience behind how our thinking works – and goes wrong; avoiding common pitfalls and errors in thinking, such as logical fallacies and biases; and knowing how to distinguish good science from pseudoscience. Professor Novella tackles these issues and more, exploring how the (often unfamiliar) ways in which our brains are hardwired can distract and prevent us from getting to the truth of a particular matter.\nAlong the way, he provides you with a critical toolbox that you can use to better assess the quality of information. Even though the world is becoming more and more saturated information, you can take the initiative and become better prepared to make sense of it all with this intriguing course.\nDisclaimer: Please note that this recording may include references to supplemental texts or print references that are not essential to the program and not supplied with your purchase.\n©2012 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2012 The Great Courses\nI rate this audiobook a 6 out of 10 and only recommend it to those who are looking for a scientific take on the mistakes people make when making decisions.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/your-deceptive-mind-by-steven-novella/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Your Deceptive Mind by Professor Steven Novella\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41OVSt2CftL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI believe that critical thinking is going to be the most important skill my son will ever have. The ability to think for himself and make good decisions quickly based upon what he knows while being able to change his decisions based upon new information when it is available.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[Your Deceptive Mind](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Your-Deceptive-Mind-A-Scientific-Guide-to-Critical-Thinking-Skills-Audiobook/B00D9473WC%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Your-Deceptive-Mind-A-Scientific-Guide-to-Critical-Thinking-Skills-Audiobook/B00D9473WC\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Your Deceptive Mind at Audible) is a part of [The Great Courses: Professional](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_pd_Scienc_c2__sa?asin=B00DNBDOUG%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_pd_Scienc_c2__sa?asin=B00DNBDOUG\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;The Great Courses: Professional Series at Audible) series and is made up of 24 lectures given by Professor Steven Novella.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills by Professor Steven Novella"},{"content":"\nI really enjoyed the first 2 Farcry games and this third installment is the best of them all!\nAccording to Steam I spent 68 hours playing through Farcry 3 at the Normal difficulty level and unlike most games it felt like a lot less than that. It felt like I blew right through it even though I completed almost every side quest and collected most of the Runes and Letters. I look forward to playing it through later on a harder difficulty level.\nThe most enjoyable aspects of the game for me were the challenge of taking over the Pirate and Mercenary held encampments. I would scout them out then formulate a plan which would work perfectly about half the time, the other half the plan would fall apart spectacularly leaving me to deal with multiple waves of bad guys and even helicopters a couple of times. Good times :)\nI didn’t like the scenes where all of my control was taken away or when the graphics were played with to give the impression of being drugged or in a rage… those just didn’t work. Also, climbing the towers got kind of old, the twitchy jumping and climbing became very tedious.\nFor around $30 I think Farcry 3 is a great game and with its low system requirements I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a FPS fix.\nI bought this game on sale from Steam and played it in Windows 8 using a MacBook Pro in Bootcamp.\nFrom the publisher:\nFar Cry 3 is an open world first-person shooter set on an island unlike any other. A place where heavily armed warlords traffic in slaves. Where outsiders are hunted for ransom. And as you embark on a desperate quest to rescue your friends, you realize that the only way to escape this darkness… is to embrace it\nI rate this game a 9 out of 10, very close to a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who love first-person shooters.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/farcry-3-ubisoft/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Farcry 3 by Ubisoft\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://static9.cdn.ubi.com/en-US/images/fc_portal_game-info_US_single_01tcm1972263.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed the first 2 Farcry games and this third installment is the best of them all!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to Steam I spent 68 hours playing through Farcry 3 at the Normal difficulty level and unlike most games it felt like a lot less than that. It felt like I blew right through it even though I completed almost every side quest and collected most of the Runes and Letters. I look forward to playing it through later on a harder difficulty level.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Farcry 3 by Ubisoft"},{"content":"[Griffin’s Story](http://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/Jumper-Audiobook/B002V0K9JE/ref=sa_4\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Jumper: Griffin\u0026rsquo;s Story at Audible) is NOT the fourth book in the [Jumper series](http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;The Jumper Series at Audible), nor is it the novelization of the movie, it is a stand-alone story that takes place in the Jumper universe. To be correct it takes place in the Jumper universe as portrayed by the movie and not the one by the 3 books in the series with Davy.\nThis story is quite a bit different from the previous 3, to me it feels darker and bolder with more fantasy and drama. That probably has to do with its connection to the movie. That didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book, but it is different.\nTed Barker does a great job with the narration and his voice eventually becomes that of Griffin to me, but I miss Macleod Andrews.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nGriffin has a secret. It’s a secret that he’s sworn to his parents to keep and never tell. Griffin is a Jumper: a person who can teleport to any place he has ever been. The first time was when he was four, and his parents crossed an ocean to protect the secret. The most important time was when he was nine. That was the day that the men came to his house and murdered his parents. Griffin knows that the men were looking for him, and he must never let them find him.\nGriffin grows up with only two goals: to survive, and to kill the people who want him dead. And a jumper bent on revenge is not going to let anything stand in his way.\nJumper is a major motion picture released by 20th Century Fox in February 2008.\n©2007 Steven C. Gould; (P)2008 Macmillan Audio\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and superpower stories.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/jumper-griffins-story-steven-gould/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Jumper: Griffin’s Story by Steven Gould\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51iXv3hdg2L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e[Griffin’s Story](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/Jumper-Audiobook/B002V0K9JE/ref=sa_4%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/Jumper-Audiobook/B002V0K9JE/ref=sa_4\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Jumper: Griffin\u0026rsquo;s Story at Audible) is NOT the fourth book in the [Jumper series](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;The Jumper Series at Audible), nor is it the novelization of the movie, it is a stand-alone story that takes place in the Jumper universe. To be correct it takes place in the Jumper universe as portrayed by the movie and not the one by the 3 books in the series with Davy.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Jumper: Griffin’s Story by Steven Gould"},{"content":"[Impulse](http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Impulse-Audiobook/B00AZ60ATU/ref=sa_3\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Impulse at Audible) is the third book in the [Jumper series](http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;The Jumper Series at Audible) and continues 10 years after Reflex ends.\nDavy and Millie have a teenage daughter named Cent who desperately wants to go to a \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; high school and be around people her own age. She is around the same age Davy was when he first discovered his abilities and fears for his daughter’s safety, and with everything that happened in the Reflex story, who could blame him.\nEmily Rankin does a fine job narrating this story, it took me a long time to get used to her voice and cadence, by the end of the book I could only think of her voice as being Cent’s voice. But every time she was reading as Davy or Millie it really hurt my brain.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nCent has a secret. She lives in isolation, with her parents, hiding from the people who took her father captive and tortured him to gain control over his ability to teleport, and from the government agencies who want to use his talent. Cent has seen the world, but only from the safety of her parents’ arms. She’s teleported more than anyone on Earth, except for her mother and father, but she’s never been able to do it herself. Her life has never been in danger. Until the day when she went snowboarding without permission and triggered an avalanche. When the snow and ice thundered down on her, she suddenly found herself in her own bedroom. That was the first time.\n©2013 Steven Gould (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who like science fiction and superpower books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/impulse-steven-gould/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Impulse by Steven Gould\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51H00fRVp-L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e[Impulse](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Impulse-Audiobook/B00AZ60ATU/ref=sa_3%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Impulse-Audiobook/B00AZ60ATU/ref=sa_3\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Impulse at Audible) is the third book in the [Jumper series](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;The Jumper Series at Audible) and continues 10 years after Reflex ends.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDavy and Millie have a teenage daughter named Cent who desperately wants to go to a \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; high school and be around people her own age. She is around the same age Davy was when he first discovered his abilities and fears for his daughter’s safety, and with everything that happened in the Reflex story, who could blame him.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Impulse by Steven Gould"},{"content":"[Reflex](http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Reflex-Audiobook/B0057YHU0M/ref=sa_2\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Reflex at Audible) is the second book in the [Jumper series](http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;The Jumper Series at Audible) by Steven Gould.\nThis story has a split focus. One half of the story follows Davy and what he goes through while held captive by the mysterious bad guys and the other half follows his wife Millie and her… Whoops, almost let some major spoilers go there.\nThis story is as good if not better than the first one. We get to dive more into who Davy has chosen to be as a person and get to know Millie a lot better. A very nice read indeed.\nMacleod Andrews does a very fine job narrating the story and I will always think of he voice as being Davy’s.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nDavy has always been alone. He believes that he’s the only person in the world who can teleport. But what if he isn’t?\nA mysterious group of people has taken Davy captive. They don’t want to hire him, and they don’t have any hope of appealing to him to help them. What they want is to own him. They want to use his abilities for their own purposes, whether Davy agrees to it or not. And so they set about brainwashing him and conditioning him. They have even found a way to keep a teleport captive.\nBut there’s one thing that they don’t know. No one knows it, not even Davy. And it might save his life….\n©2004 Steven Gould (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and superpower books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/reflex-steven-gould/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Reflex by Steven Gould\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Dz-nQlzML._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e[Reflex](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Reflex-Audiobook/B0057YHU0M/ref=sa_2%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Reflex-Audiobook/B0057YHU0M/ref=sa_2\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Reflex at Audible) is the second book in the [Jumper series](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;The Jumper Series at Audible) by Steven Gould.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis story has a split focus. One half of the story follows Davy and what he goes through while held captive by the mysterious bad guys and the other half follows his wife Millie and her… Whoops, almost let some major spoilers go there.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis story is as good if not better than the first one. We get to dive more into who Davy has chosen to be as a person and get to know Millie a lot better. A very nice read indeed.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Reflex by Steven Gould"},{"content":"I enjoyed the [movie Jumper](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Jumper at IMDB) when it came out in 2008, but man did it have some HUGE plot holes. So when I ran out fiction books in my Audible wish list I decided to check the Jumper books out.\n[Jumper](http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Jumper-Audiobook/B0058J2F42/ref=sa_1\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Jumper at Audible) is the [first book in a series](http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Jumper Series at Audible) of 3 by Steven Gould. The story in the movie is similar to the story in the series of books, but is not the same story.\nI enjoyed this book, the character Davy is likeable and believable, the narration by Macleod Andrews is good, and the story is good science fiction.\nWhen I was in my teens I spent a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to have superpowers. Most of the time the ability to be invisible was at the top of my list, but now I think that being able to teleport or jump may be an even better power.\nI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nFrom the publisher:\nWhat if you could go anywhere in the world, in the blink of an eye? Where would you go? What would you do?\nDavy can teleport. To survive, Davy must learn to use and control his power in a world that is more violent and complex than he ever imagined. But mere survival is not enough for him. Davy wants to find others like himself, others who can Jump.\n©1992 Steven Gould (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction/superpower books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/jumper-steven-gould/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Jumper by Steven Gould\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V3%2BkTV8oL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI enjoyed the [movie Jumper](\u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1%22\"\u003ehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Jumper at IMDB) when it came out in 2008, but man did it have some HUGE plot holes. So when I ran out fiction books in my Audible wish list I decided to check the Jumper books out.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[Jumper](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Jumper-Audiobook/B0058J2F42/ref=sa_1%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Jumper-Audiobook/B0058J2F42/ref=sa_1\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Jumper at Audible) is the [first book in a series](\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO%22\"\u003ehttp://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_8?asin=B0080JL0NO\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Jumper Series at Audible) of 3 by Steven Gould. The story in the movie is similar to the story in the series of books, but is not the same story.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Jumper by Steven Gould"},{"content":"I received this hardcover book from Zappos while on the Zappos Insights Tour.\nOutliers has been on my reading list for a long time and I am really glad that I finally got around to reading it. There are a lot of great insights in this book and I feel like I learned a lot.\nMy plans for my child’s education have changed significantly because of this book. The information about the differences in learning among children that are taught year-round versus children that take a long summer break makes a lot of sense to me and I now plan on teaching our child year-round.\nThere has been some negative talk about the findings in this book, many that attack Malcolm Gladwell on a personal level. I don’t understand why, most of the content in the book is more of a reporting on other people’s research and not Mr. Gladwell claiming ownership of those ideas or even an interpretation of the findings. If you feel there is something being wrongly analyzed in the book take a closer look at where that information is coming from, I think your time would be better spent reading the reports and studies that brought those ideas to the author’s attention.\nI really like Outliers and feel like I learned a lot from it. I agree that success, as measured by our culture, takes good timing, being in the right-place at the right-time, recognizing an opportunity and taking advantage of it, and a lot of very hard work.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?\nHis answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.\nBrilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend to anyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/outliers-the-story-of-success-by-malcolm-gladwell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Outliers Book\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.humboldt.edu/gamma/NOW_images/2012-0824-BookOfYearCover.jpg\"\u003eI received this hardcover book from \u003ca href=\"http://www.zappos.com/\"\u003eZappos\u003c/a\u003e while on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.zapposinsights.com/\"\u003eZappos Insights Tour\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOutliers has been on my reading list for a long time and I am really glad that I finally got around to reading it. There are a lot of great insights in this book and I feel like I learned a lot.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy plans for my child’s education have changed significantly because of this book. The information about the differences in learning among children that are taught year-round versus children that take a long summer break makes a lot of sense to me and I now plan on teaching our child year-round.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI was looking for something non-fiction and stumbled upon The Great Courses on Audible. After browsing around a bit I found The Great Courses: Ancient History which led to \u0026ldquo;The Other Side of History.\u0026rdquo; I was intrigued by the idea of learning about the lives of everyday people in medieval times.\nThis audiobook consists of 48 half-hour lectures given by Professor Robert Garland in a classroom environment. He does a fantastic job conveying the material to the listener with a voice that really resonated with me; he comes across as a professor I would enjoy learning history from.\nOne of the highlights of the book are the examples professor Garland provides of what we don’t know due to the lack of surviving records and the ideas and beliefs that have changed in recent years due to new discoveries. What we know of ancient history is always changing due to new findings and re-interpretations, but not all professors or historians will openly acknowledge that as readily as professor Garland does.\nFrom the publisher:\nLook beyond the abstract dates and figures, kings and queens, and battles and wars that make up so many historical accounts. Over the course of 48 richly detailed lectures, Professor Garland covers the breadth and depth of human history from the perspective of the so-called ordinary people, from its earliest beginnings through the Middle Ages.\nThe past truly comes alive as you take a series of imaginative leaps into the world of history’s anonymous citizens, people such as a Greek soldier marching into battle in the front row of a phalanx; an Egyptian woman putting on makeup before attending an evening party with her husband; a Greek citizen relaxing at a drinking party with the likes of Socrates; a Roman slave captured in war and sent to work in the mines; and a Celtic monk scurrying away with the Book of Kells during a Viking invasion.\nPut yourself in the sandals of ordinary people and discover what it was like to be among history’s 99%. What did these everyday people do for a living? What was their home like? What did they eat? What did they wear? What did they do to relax? What were their beliefs about marriage? Religion? The afterlife?\nThis extraordinary journey takes you across space and time in an effort to be another person – someone with whom you might not think you have anything at all in common – and come away with an incredible sense of interconnectedness. You’ll see the range of possibilities of what it means to be human, making this a journey very much worth taking.\n©2012 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2012 The Great Courses\nI rate this audiobook a 9 out of 10 and recommend it highly to anyone interested in learning more about medieval history.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-other-side-of-history-by-robert-garland/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Other Side of History by Robert Garland\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51R53dpGn4L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was looking for something non-fiction and stumbled upon \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/search/ref=det_auth_1?searchAuthor=The+Great+Courses\"\u003eThe Great Courses\u003c/a\u003e on Audible. After browsing around a bit I found \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=sr_1_2_sa?asin=B00DJUK5GW\"\u003eThe Great Courses: Ancient History\u003c/a\u003e which led to \u0026ldquo;\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/History/The-Other-Side-of-History-Daily-Life-in-the-Ancient-World-Audiobook/B00DDVPXJG/ref=sa_1\"\u003eThe Other Side of History\u003c/a\u003e.\u0026rdquo; I was intrigued by the idea of learning about the lives of everyday people in medieval times.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World by Robert Garland"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible.com and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI am not sure why I purchased this book, on the surface it sounds like a book I would enjoy, I guess…\nI think if I had read it as a paperback I picked up from somewhere I may have enjoyed it much more, but as an audio book it just didn’t work for me.\nThe narration by MacLeod Andrews is full of character, maybe too much character. I found his speech patterns and accent distracting and interesting at the same time. It just never clicked for me, I was distracted enough that I never got into the story.\nThe story itself is pretty good, the plot is anyways, the details are kind of boring though…\nFrom the publisher:\nWhen he was 19, James Stark was considered to be one of the greatest natural magicians, a reputation that got him demon-snatched and sent downtown – to Hell – where he survived as a gladiator, a sideshow freak entertaining Satan’s fallen angels.\nThat was 11 years ago. Now, the hitman who goes only by Stark has escaped and is back in L.A. Armed with a fortune-telling coin, a black bone knife, and an infernal key, Stark is determined to destroy the magic circle – led by the conniving and powerful Mason Faim – that stole his life.\nThough nearly everything has changed, one constant remains: his friend Vidocq, a 200-year-old Frenchman who has been keeping vigil for the young magician’s return. But when Stark’s first stop saddles him with an abusive talking head that belongs to the first of the circle, a sleazy video store owner named Kasabian, Stark discovers that the road to absolution and revenge is much longer than he counted on, and both Heaven and Hell have their own ideas for his future.\n©2009 Richard Kadrey; (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.\nI rate this book a 5 out of 10 and recommend it only to those who have run out of other books to read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/sandman-slim-by-richard-kadrey/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513dm5KwuuL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible.com and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am not sure why I purchased this book, on the surface it sounds like a book I would enjoy, I guess…\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think if I had read it as a paperback I picked up from somewhere I may have enjoyed it much more, but as an audio book it just didn’t work for me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone, but it looks like Audible is no longer selling it.\nMETAtropolis is a collection of stories from multiple authors set in the same universe that they agreed upon before writing. It is a fine idea, but most of the stories are kind of a bore.\nJohn Scalzi and Michael Hogan were the big draw for me, I love those guys, and they both did a fine job for their part, but the book as a whole does not pay off.\nMy favorite story is John Scalzi’s \u0026ldquo;Utere Nihil non Extra Quiritationem Suis\u0026rdquo; which means something like \u0026ldquo;Everything but the Squeal\u0026rdquo; which is about being a slacker and a pig farmer. The rest of the stories spend way to much time explaining everything, sometime in painful and useless detail.\nFrom the publisher:\nFive original tales set in a shared urban future—from some of the hottest young writers in modern SF\nA strange man comes to an even stranger encampment…a bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement…a courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city…a slacker in a \u0026ldquo;zero-footprint\u0026rdquo; town gets a most unusual new job…and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes.\nWelcome to the future of cities. Welcome to Metatropolis.\nMore than an anthology, Metatropolis is the brainchild of five of science fiction’s hottest writers—Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder, and project editor John Scalzi—-who combined their talents to build a new urban future, and then wrote their own stories in this collectively-constructed world. The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you’ve had before.\nI rate this book a 4 out of 10 while the one story, John Scalzi’s \u0026ldquo;Utere Nihil non Extra Quiritationem Suis\u0026rdquo;, is a 9 out of 10. I recommend only if you have run out of other things to read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/metatropolis-edited-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Qmru3Fl1L.SL250.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone, but it looks like Audible is no longer selling it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMETAtropolis is a collection of stories from multiple authors set in the same universe that they agreed upon before writing. It is a fine idea, but most of the stories are kind of a bore.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Scalzi and Michael Hogan were the big draw for me, I love those guys, and they both did a fine job for their part, but the book as a whole does not pay off.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"METAtropolis edited by John Scalzi"},{"content":"\nBite Me: A Love Story by Christopher MooreI bought this hardcover book used from the Book Nook in Marietta Georgia.\nI loved Dirty Jobs so much that I keep hoping that Christopher Moore’s other books would be as good, but sadly the ones I have read are not. Don’t get me wrong, this book is OK, I enjoyed it overall, although some of the narration in supposed gothy-teenage slang really got on my nerves, the story itself is solid.\nBut it just didn’t have the zing or depth of Dirty Jobs.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe city of San Francisco is being stalked by a huge shaved vampyre cat named Chet, and only I, Abby Normal, and my manga-haired love monkey stand between the ravenous monster and a bloody massacre of the general public.\nWhoa. And this is a love story?\nYup. ‘Cept there’s no whining. But there is everybody’s favorite undead couple, Tommy and Jody, who’ve just escaped from imprisonment in a bronze statue. And now that they’re out they’ve joined forces with Abby, her boyfriend Steve, the frozen-turkey-bowling Safeway crew, the Emperor of San Francisco and his trusty dogs Lazarus and Bummer, gay Goth guy Jared, and SF’s finest Cavuto and Rivera to hunt big cat and save the city. Really.\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10 and recommend it to Christopher Moore fans.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/bite-me-a-love-story-by-christopher-moore/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2013/08/bite-me-christopher-more.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/08/bite-me-christopher-more.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBite Me: A Love Story by Christopher MooreI bought this hardcover book used from the Book Nook in Marietta Georgia.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI loved Dirty Jobs so much that I keep hoping that Christopher Moore’s other books would be as good, but sadly the ones I have read are not. Don’t get me wrong, this book is OK, I enjoyed it overall, although some of the narration in supposed gothy-teenage slang really got on my nerves, the story itself is solid.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nSo this is the last Paolo Bacigalupi book I will be reading/listening to for a long while. I liked Windup Girl but everything else has not excited me, and this book is no exception.\nIf you have read Windup Girl you have already read one of the best stories in this book, go read Windup Girl instead of this one.\nFrom the publisher:\nPaolo Bacigalupi’s debut collection demonstrates the power and reach of the science-fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo’s work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.\nThe 11 stories in Pump Six represent the best of Paolo’s work, including the Hugo nominee \u0026ldquo;Yellow Card Man\u0026rdquo;, the Nebula-and Hugo-nominated story \u0026ldquo;The People of Sand and Slag\u0026rdquo;, and the Sturgeon Award-winning story \u0026ldquo;The Calorie Man\u0026rdquo;. The title story is original to this collection.\nWith this book, Paolo Bacigalupi takes his place alongside SF short-fiction masters Ted Chiang, Kelly Link and others, as an important young writer that directly and unabashedly tackles today’s most important issues.\n©2010 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2010 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 5 out of 10 and only recommend it to Bacigalupi fans.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/pump-six-and-other-stories-by-paolo-bacigalupi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bPb%2BQA65L._SL225_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo this is the last Paolo Bacigalupi book I will be reading/listening to for a long while. I liked Windup Girl but everything else has not excited me, and this book is no exception.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you have read Windup Girl you have already read one of the best stories in this book, go read Windup Girl instead of this one.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi"},{"content":"\nDutch AudiobookI bought this audiobook on a sale at Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nDutch is an angry story about an angry young black man from an angry place. Not being an angry young black man myself this book misses the mark for me. It does not speak to me and was not meant to.\nThis is not a mainstream story targeted at a widespread audience, but is targeted squarely at an urban teen African American audience, whether that was the author’s intention or not. As a movie it would probably have wider appeal.\nIt is well written and if you like stories about angry young black men getting over on the system at the cost of other people’s lives, usually the lives of other young black men, then you will enjoy this story.\nThe performance by Ezra Knight is very good, I hope to hear more from him.\nFrom the publisher:\nTeri Woods has built a considerable literary legacy thanks to her compelling urban novels. The first volume of a trilogy, Dutch follows the criminal career of street hood James Bernard Jr., a.k.a. Dutch.\nEven while stealing cars, Dutch knew he was destined for more, and it wasn’t long before he saw his chance to seize power in New Jersey. Now a Jersey kingpin, Dutch is coming under fire from an upstart DA—but it won’t be easy to take down this streetwise criminal.\n\u0026amp;copy2003, 2009 Teri Woods (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC\nMy rating is a 5 out of 10 and think African American teens would rate it much higher.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dutch-by-teri-woods/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B003N8O098\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dutch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514zW-AlJYL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDutch AudiobookI bought this audiobook on a sale at Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDutch is an angry story about an angry young black man from an angry place. Not being an angry young black man myself this book misses the mark for me. It does not speak to me and was not meant to.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not a mainstream story targeted at a widespread audience, but is targeted squarely at an urban teen African American audience, whether that was the author’s intention or not. As a movie it would probably have wider appeal.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dutch by Teri Woods"},{"content":"I bought this game from [Steam](http://store.steampowered.com/app/42700/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Call of Duty: Black Ops at Steam) and played it in Windows 8 on a MacBook Pro.\nI love me some Call of Duty. Most of the games in this franchise have been very good even if a little bit mindless. Solid shoot-em-up entertainment. I am sorry to say that Black Ops does not rise up to that level, in fact it falls WAY short.\nI finished the entire game in 7 hours and feel very ripped off.\nCOD has always been a \u0026ldquo;rails\u0026rdquo; driven game, meaning that you cannot wander about freely but must follow a prescribed path to complete each mission, but in Black Ops that rail is ridiculously thin allowing no thought and very little tactics by the player. Most missions have to be completed in very specific ways. That gets old very fast.\nI should have read the reviews on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Call-Duty-Black-Ops-Download/dp/B0062Q5K5G/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Call of Duty: Black Ops at Amazon) before buying this game, and you can bet before I buy another COD title I will be reading those reviews closely. I think the only reason it currently has 2.5 stars at Amazon is because someone paid for positive reviews at some point.\nFrom the publisher:\nCall of Duty: Black Ops is a first-person shooter with stealth and tactical play aspect that puts players in the role of a shadow soldier fighting in a variety of historically representative fictional Black Ops missions of the Cold War era. Created with the input of actual Black Ops soldiers from the time, the game mixes traditional Call of Duty tactical shooter gameplay with new gameplay options designed to expand the players’ experience. Additional features include extensive multiplayer options, along with new vehicles and explosive new weapons.\nI rate this game a 1 out of 10 and do not recommend it. If you can pick it up for $5.00 and are a fan of the COD series then give it a try.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/call-of-duty-black-ops-by-activision/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Call of Duty: Black Ops Cover Art\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81yVxJ2iLBL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this game from [Steam](\u003ca href=\"http://store.steampowered.com/app/42700/%22\"\u003ehttp://store.steampowered.com/app/42700/\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Call of Duty: Black Ops at Steam) and played it in Windows 8 on a MacBook Pro.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI love me some Call of Duty. Most of the games in this franchise have been very good even if a little bit mindless. Solid shoot-em-up entertainment. I am sorry to say that Black Ops does not rise up to that level, in fact it falls WAY short.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Call of Duty: Black Ops by Activision"},{"content":"I bought this game on sale at [Steam](http://store.steampowered.com/app/203160/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Tomb Raider at Steam) and played it in Windows 8 on a MacBook Pro.\nI remember first finding the PC video game Tomb Raider in 1996, I was hanging out with a friend and I had just download the demo and was eager to give it a try.\nWe were immediately mesmerized, at the time most games were based on comical over-the-top characters doing wildly fantastical things that no human could ever do, except jump or climb. But here was a game with a female lead with a realistic name that could not only jump and climb but she could jump high in the air and draw a pair of pistols and start firing at the same time. Wow, that was amazing.\nTomb Raider is now “quot;old hat”quot; we have had many games based upon the character, some were good and some were absolutely awful. I have only played 2 or 3 all of the way through, but I have always like the mechanics of the game.\nThis new Tomb Raider is one of the better ones.\nLaura is young and just starting out, the game is supposed to show a progression of her life from college student to hardened survivor and tomb raider. But for me the transition is so fast that I missed it, the character goes from being timid to using a bow to kill bad guys in the blink of an eye. So the story is a bit flawed, but the game play is pretty good.\nThere are a LOT of cut-scenes in the game and a lot of times that you cannot look where you want to look, the game takes over and will only let you view a very limited area. Also there were many times that I felt like she was on a rail that I could not escape from, that really killed the overall feeling of freedom that most of the game had. That frustrated me, but it did not ruin the game.\nIt took me about 21 hours to complete the game with a 90% complete score which I am very proud of.\nAfter finishing the game, I played multi-player for about an hour, getting a game going was frustrating with very little feedback on what was going on, how may participants were required for each type of game, nothing at all to tell me which game types people were playing, really just a mess in trying to find a group to play.\nAfter awhile I finally got into a match of “quot;Rescue”quot; with a group of around 8 players, and it was ok, but not great. And again, much of the interface was really confusing. There were multiple people asking how to do certain actions because it is far from obvious how to do them.\nOverall, I feel like I got my money out of the game and I may even go back and play it a little more at some point.\nFrom the publisher:\nTomb Raider explores the intense and gritty origin story of Lara Croft and her ascent from a young woman to a hardened survivor. Armed only with raw instincts and the ability to push beyond the limits of human endurance, Lara must fight to unravel the dark history of a forgotten island to escape its relentless hold.\nI rate this game an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to fans of Lara and first-person shooters.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/tomb-raider-survival-edition-by-square-enix/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Tomb Raider Cover Art\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91si8jkgkmL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this game on sale at [Steam](\u003ca href=\"http://store.steampowered.com/app/203160/%22\"\u003ehttp://store.steampowered.com/app/203160/\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Tomb Raider at Steam) and played it in Windows 8 on a MacBook Pro.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI remember first finding the PC video game Tomb Raider in 1996, I was hanging out with a friend and I had just download the demo and was eager to give it a try.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe were immediately mesmerized, at the time most games were based on comical over-the-top characters doing wildly fantastical things that no human could ever do, except jump or climb. But here was a game with a female lead with a realistic name that could not only jump and climb but she could jump high in the air and draw a pair of pistols and start firing at the same time. Wow, that was amazing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tomb Raider: Survival Edition by Square Enix"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\nI absolutely love Neil Gaiman and can’t get enough of his stories, not only did he write this one but he also narrates it. I really enjoy hearing stories as read by their author. The author is able to put more inflection and emotion into the characters than any other narrator could and Neil Gaiman is a fantastic narrator.\nWhile listening to this book I went out of my way to find opportunities to listen to it. I don’t think I can give any audiobook a higher compliment.\nFrom the publisher:\nSussex, England: A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. He is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet sitting by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean), the unremembered past comes flooding back. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie – magical, comforting, wise beyond her years – promised to protect him, no matter what.\nA groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. A stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.\n©2013 Neil Gaiman (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-a-novel-by-neil-gaiman/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00CRKR77U\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51fM5FYV0QL._SL225_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI absolutely love Neil Gaiman and can’t get enough of his stories, not only did he write this one but he also narrates it. I really enjoy hearing stories as read by their author. The author is able to put more inflection and emotion into the characters than any other narrator could and Neil Gaiman is a fantastic narrator.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\nThis is book 2 in the Shipbreaker series, the first being \u0026ldquo;Shipbreaker\u0026rdquo;.\nI did not really get into Shipbreaker, but I did like some of the characters enough to give the second book a try. The half-man Tool was my favorite character in the first book and it was great getting so much time with him in Drowned Cities.\nBut again, this story didn’t really draw me in. Mahlia and Mouse are very good characters, and their stories are compelling, but… I don’t know, just not for me I guess.\nJoshua Swanson delivers another wonderful performance bringing the characters to life. I can’t point at the narration for my feelings about this book.\nFrom the publisher:\nSoldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.\nIn a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man – a bioengineered war beast named Tool – who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.\nThis thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi’s highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.\nApocalypse now: also listen to Ship Breaker.\n©2012 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10 and recommend it to fans of Paolo Bacigalupi.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-drowned-cities-by-paolo-bacigalupi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B007I7G1I8\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/610a5JGFvsL._SL225_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is book 2 in the Shipbreaker series, the first being \u0026ldquo;Shipbreaker\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI did not really get into Shipbreaker, but I did like some of the characters enough to give the second book a try. The half-man Tool was my favorite character in the first book and it was great getting so much time with him in Drowned Cities.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI really enjoyed Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and decided to give his other books a try.\nThis book is a solid story. The pacing is good; the characters have clear motivations and believable emotions. But meh…\nI’m not sure why but this book just didn’t reach me. It is very post-cyberpunk, I should like it a lot, but I don’t. I like it some, just not a lot.\nJoshua Swanson does a great job narrating the story, he does bring the characters to life and does a great job conveying their emotions.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn America’s Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota – and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it’s worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life.\nIn this powerful novel, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set in a vivid and raw, uncertain future.\n©2010 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2009 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10 and only recommend to fans of Paolo Bacigalupi.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ship-breaker-by-paolo-bacigalupi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B003KPGV00\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61N1eQ99MRL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and decided to give his other books a try.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book is a solid story. The pacing is good; the characters have clear motivations and believable emotions. But meh…\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI’m not sure why but this book just didn’t reach me. It is very post-cyberpunk, I should like it a lot, but I don’t. I like it some, just not a lot.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi"},{"content":"I have been playing a lot of Borderlands 2 lately and my favorite place in Pandora has been Dragon Keep.\nAfter you and the merry band have defeated The Warrior you all sit down to a game of \u0026quot; Bunkers \u0026amp; Badasses\u0026quot; together… haha.\nSo basically it is a first-person-shooter inside an old-school role-playing game full of orcs, dwarves, dragons, wizards, and even a unicorn.\nFull of humor, action, violence and a touch of compassion Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep delivers a solid 10-20 hours of great Borderlands game play. The ending of last quest tears me up, the developers have done such an amazing job bringing these characters to life and the performance by Tiny Tina is absolutely fantastic. This is the best downloadable content released after a games initial release that I have ever played.\nNow if I could find a multiplayer group to defeat the raid boss with everything would awesome!\nFrom the developer\nSorcerers, Wizards and Crumpets, oh my! Join vault hunters, old and new, in Tiny Tina epic quest of revenge and redemption. Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, the biggest and most inspired add-on content in Borderlands history, features a game within a game, as Tiny Tina takes on the role of Bunker Master in a game of \u0026ldquo;Bunkers \u0026amp; Badasses\u0026rdquo;. Travel through a dark and ever changing world of castles, dungeons and magic forests as you fight off skeletons, orcs, dragons and more. Explore side missions and answer riddles as you roll your insight stat to gain new and amazing loot. Join with friends to save the queen and restore peace and order to the world once more.\nI rate this DLC a 10 out 10 and HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who plays Borderlands 2.\nI bought Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep on Steam and have been playing it on my MacBook Pro. I have also reviewed Borderlands 2.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/borderlands-2-tiny-tinas-assault-dragon-keep-gearbox-software/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/10/borderlands-2-tiny-tina-s-assault-on-dragon-keep-pc-dlc.jpg\"\u003eI have been playing a lot of Borderlands 2 lately and my favorite place in Pandora has been Dragon Keep.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter you and the merry band have defeated The Warrior you all sit down to a game of \u0026quot; Bunkers \u0026amp; Badasses\u0026quot; together… haha.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo basically it is a first-person-shooter inside an old-school role-playing game full of orcs, dwarves, dragons, wizards, and even a unicorn.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep by Gearbox Software"},{"content":"Just how important is it to concatenate and optimize your javascript? In reading this article about the healthcare.gov article \u0026ldquo;Analysis: IT experts question architecture of Obamacare website\u0026rdquo; it is apparently extremely important.\nAmong other problems it was found that a large number of JavaScript files were being requested and then parsed by the customer’s web browsers causing an overload of requests from the server and an overtaxing of the web browser.\n\u0026ldquo;Of the 92 he found, 56 were JavaScript files, including plug-ins that make it easier for code to work on multiple browsers (such as Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer and Google Inc’s Chrome) and let users upload files to HealthCare.gov.\u0026rdquo;\nI bet that the majority of the other 36 files are CSS files.\nAt a minimum those 56 JavaScript files should have been optimized and concatenated in such a way as there would only be 1 request to the server followed by 1 response.\nThere are many ways to do this, I really like the idea of doing it during the build process but it could also be more dynamic and done as required by the server. Whichever way you choose it will always be better than serving a huge number of separate files.\nHere is a screencast walking you through how to set up a build process for JavaScript and CSS files using Ant.\nAnother option is to use \u0026ldquo;minify\u0026rdquo; instead of optimizing during the build process.\nNo matter how you do it, if you build web sites you have no excuse not to use some method to optimize your JavaScript and CSS to improve your customer’s experience.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/concatenate-optimize-javascript-css/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJust how important is it to concatenate and optimize your javascript? In reading this article about the healthcare.gov article \u0026ldquo;\u003ca href=\"http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-experts-architecture-obamacare-website-154731693--sector.html\"\u003eAnalysis: IT experts question architecture of Obamacare website\u003c/a\u003e\u0026rdquo; it is apparently extremely important.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmong other problems it was found that a large number of JavaScript files were being requested and then parsed by the customer’s web browsers causing an overload of requests from the server and an overtaxing of the web browser.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Concatenate and Optimize Your JavaScript \u0026 CSS"},{"content":"Looking to hone my SEO skills I poked around inside of Safari Books Online for just the right book to show me the light.\nI have been building web sites for 17 years now and know a fair amount about how the search engines work. By \u0026ldquo;Search Engines\u0026rdquo; I mean Google of course, as most of the others have fallen to the wayside. But I have not actively studied SEO techniques in a long time and I figure now is the time to brush up.\nI really liked this book, it is 336 pages of no-nonsense advice and direction on the why and how of SEO including a lot of relevant information that the other books have left out.\nFrom the publisher:\nYour visual, step-by-step guide to search engine optimization, from an Internet marketing expert\nTechniques and best practices for search engine optimization are constantly evolving. This visual guide to SEO is fully updated with information on the latest and most effective ways to move your website up in the search engine rankings. Internet marketing guru Kristopher Jones, a frequent keynote speaker at interactive marketing conferences, explains all the key concepts in a visual format so you can see how they work and what to do. Learn about keyword generation, internal linking, URL structure, content creation, using social media, and more.\nMore than 70 percent of businesses today have websites; search engine optimization is a vital factor in growing a business by gaining new customers while increasing business from existing customers This two-color book is the only guide to search engine optimization that is presented in a visual format Presents search engine marketing principles including keyword generation, on-site optimization involving website structure, internal linking, URL structure, content creation, off-site optimization, social media optimization and more Author is a popular keynote speaker and panelist at interactive marketing and technology conferences Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing, Third Edition helps visual learners master and maximize SEO techniques. I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking to learn more about search engine optimization and pay-per-click search engine advertising.\nI read Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing on Safari Books Online using their app on my iPad.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/search-engine-optimization-kristopher-jones-jim-boykin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"SEO Book\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/10/seo-book.jpg\"\u003eLooking to hone my SEO skills I poked around inside of Safari Books Online for just the right book to show me the light.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have been building web sites for 17 years now and know a fair amount about how the search engines work. By \u0026ldquo;Search Engines\u0026rdquo; I mean Google of course, as most of the others have fallen to the wayside. But I have not actively studied SEO techniques in a long time and I figure now is the time to brush up.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing by Kristopher B. Jones and Jim Boykin"},{"content":"I bought Borderlands 2 on Steam and play it on my MacBook Pro.\nI have been playing Borderlands 2 for a long time now and have mostly been loving I, there have been some parts of it that really frustrated me and I am beginning to get burned out on it again.\nAfter 250 hours or so of playing I have completed the main storyline 5 times, played all of the downloadable content, completed almost every quest available at least once, and have leveled up a Sniper to 52 and a Commando to 64. My current plan is to get the commando up to the highest level, which is currently level 72.\nLately I have been playing a lot more multiplayer. It is a great way to level really fast, it is not uncommon for me to gain an entire level every hour-and-a-half or so even at levels as high as 60+. But it is really hard to find a good group, there are so many \u0026ldquo;Squids\u0026rdquo; that just run around drawing agro and dying that all sense of fun is drained out of the game.\nSome of the most fun I have had recently has been with a group of mixed characters all within a level of each other that work closely together as a team. With one such team we completed the last couple of quests of Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep and it was amazingly fantastic.\nOne part of the game I have missed out on so far is group raids. There are a bunch of them in the game but I have not found a group to do any of them with.\nFrom the developer:\nBorderlands 2 furthers the distinct blending of First Person Shooter and Role Playing genres to create the true evolution of the Role Playing Shooter. Team up with up to three other players for four-player online goodness or go old-school with two-player split-screen couch sharing mayhem as you spend hours leveling up your character and equipping them with one of the millions of badass weapons. Borderlands 2 features a new visually stunning array of procedurally generated guns, shields, grenades, artifacts, enemies and more. Choose one of the four new character classes to be taken through a carefully crafted and connected story to all new and surprising environments across the living planet of Pandora. Make new friends, arm them to the teeth and fight alongside them on your relentless quest for revenge and redemption.\nI rate this game a 9 out of 10 and think that 250+ hours of playing a game is crazy!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/borderlands-2-gearbox-software/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2013/10/game-picture-banner.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Borderlands 2\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/10/game-picture-banner.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI bought \u003ca href=\"http://store.steampowered.com/app/49520/\"\u003eBorderlands 2 on Steam\u003c/a\u003e and play it on my MacBook Pro.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have been playing Borderlands 2 for a long time now and have mostly been loving I, there have been some parts of it that really frustrated me and I am beginning to get burned out on it again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter 250 hours or so of playing I have completed the main storyline 5 times, played all of the downloadable content, completed almost every quest available at least once, and have leveled up a Sniper to 52 and a Commando to 64. My current plan is to get the commando up to the highest level, which is currently level 72.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Borderlands 2 by Gearbox Software"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app and my iPhone.\nThis book did not impress me. To me the narrator, James Adams, sounds really bored throughout the book.\nMaybe it has to do with my own opinion that \u0026ldquo;Science\u0026rdquo; knows a lot less than it thinks it does and that much of what is currently accepted as irrefutable truth will soon be recognized as being wrong. So a book of 13 things that science does not know is not very impressive to me.\nI am not sure why I bothered buying this book, it is obviously not something that I would be interested in, but for some reason I thought it would be.\nFrom the publisher:\nScience starts to get interesting when things don’t make sense.\nScience’s best-kept secret is that there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. In the past, similar \u0026ldquo;anomalies\u0026rdquo; have revolutionized our world, as in the 16th century, when a set of celestial anomalies led Copernicus to realize that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the reverse, and in the 1770s, when two chemists discovered oxygen because of experimental results that defied the theories of the day. If history is any precedent, we should look to today’s inexplicable results to forecast the future of science.\nIn 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet 13 modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow’s breakthroughs.\n©2008 Michael Brooks; (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.\nI rate this book a 4 out of 10 and don’t recommend it to anyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/13-things-that-dont-make-sense-by-michael-brooks/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B002V0QQUU\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"13 Things That Don’t Make Sense by Michael Brooks\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41itFGL5KEL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app and my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book did not impress me. To me the narrator, James Adams, sounds really bored throughout the book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMaybe it has to do with my own opinion that \u0026ldquo;Science\u0026rdquo; knows a lot less than it thinks it does and that much of what is currently accepted as irrefutable truth will soon be recognized as being wrong. So a book of 13 things that science does not know is not very impressive to me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"13 Things That Don’t Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time by Michael Brooks"},{"content":"I bought the 14 books of the Dresden Files from Audible.com and listened to them using the Audible iPhone app and my iPhone.\nI ran out of books in my waiting list and decided it was time to re-listen to all of the Dresden Files books, one after the other as quickly as time would allow.\nWhat a ride. Taking the series in like this was great, it was like having one extremely large book to listen to with no interruptions. Butcher has created a universe and characters that I will never forget.\nThe 14 books are not of equal quality, but all of them are very good with a few of them rising to real greatness.\nThe audiobooks are narrated by James Marsters, with one glaring exception, and now when I read a printed book I hear all of the characters, as they are portrayed by Marsters. James Marsters IS Harry Dresden!\n\u0026ldquo;Ghost Story: Book 13\u0026rdquo; is narrated by John Glover, he does an admirable job, but he sounds to much like the guy who used to narrate the Disney movies trying to be something that he isn’t. I hope one day Marsters is able to re-record the book as it should have been done in the first place.\nI look forward to reading another 14 books in the Dresden Files and hope that they come quick!\nFrom [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dresden\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Wikipedia):\nHarry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a fictional detective and wizard. He was created by Jim Butcher and is the protagonist of the contemporary fantasy series The Dresden Files. The series blends magic and hardboiled detective fiction. In addition to the fourteen The Dresden Files novels, he has appeared in five published short stories and several unpublished short stories, as well as a limited series comic and an unlimited series comic. He was also adapted into a character by the same name for the TV series version of the novel series, also called The Dresden Files.\nI rate the first 14 books in the series as a 9 and recommend them to ANYONE!\nStorm Front, the first in the series, is a masterpiece.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-dresden-files-by-jim-butcher/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://bibliosnark.blogspot.com/2013/02/thursday-crush-harry-dresden.html\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RSMWtjfP0_w/URcWXZ8DumI/AAAAAAAABjk/XZ3e0ERQAvg/s1600/harry.jpg?w=250\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI bought the 14 books of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/series/ref=ml_1_4?asin=B005NB2IG0\"\u003eDresden Files from Audible.com\u003c/a\u003e and listened to them using the Audible iPhone app and my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI ran out of books in my waiting list and decided it was time to re-listen to all of the Dresden Files books, one after the other as quickly as time would allow.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat a ride. Taking the series in like this was great, it was like having one extremely large book to listen to with no interruptions. Butcher has created a universe and characters that I will never forget.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher"},{"content":"I bought this signed hardback from Powell’s Book Store in Portland Oregon.\nI have been hearing a lot about this book from every direction. Audible, Amazon, and a lot of friends have pushed it at me. But I wasn’t impressed by any of them; most of the time when a writer is unable to get a story published it is for a good reason. Wool is an exception, at least the story as a whole is, I am not sure I would have made it much past the first section of the book if I had to wait for the next section to come out. I want to say a big thanks to all of the people that encouraged Hugh Howey to keep writing.\nI enjoyed reading Wool, enough so that I stayed up all night reading it.\nThe entire time I was reading Wool I couldn’t stop thinking about the \u0026ldquo;Fallout\u0026rdquo; series of video games. In Fallout the player begins in a \u0026ldquo;Vault\u0026rdquo; which is like the Silo in Wool, the similarity is impossible to ignore if you have played the game.\nIt was not a book that blew me away. I really enjoyed it, but it didn’t have a lot of \u0026ldquo;WOW\u0026rdquo; factor. Nothing that got me really excited.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.\nHis fateful decision unleashes a drastic series of events. An unlikely candidate is appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law, whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly her world is broken. The silo is about to confront what its history has only hinted about and its inhabitants have never dared to whisper. Uprising.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a solid science-fiction apocalypse story.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/wool-by-hugh-howey/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Wool-Hugh-Howey/dp/1476733953/\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Wool by Hugh Howey\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/06/61bOJkwcVCL._.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI bought this signed hardback from Powell’s Book Store in Portland Oregon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have been hearing a lot about this book from every direction. Audible, Amazon, and a lot of friends have pushed it at me. But I wasn’t impressed by any of them; most of the time when a writer is unable to get a story published it is for a good reason. Wool is an exception, at least the story as a whole is, I am not sure I would have made it much past the first section of the book if I had to wait for the next section to come out. I want to say a big thanks to all of the people that encouraged Hugh Howey to keep writing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Wool by Hugh Howey"},{"content":"I am not sure where I bought this hardback book, probably Amazon or Barnes \u0026amp; Noble. I read it here and there over a couple of months, it took awhile between everything else that has been going on.\nWetworld features 2 of my favorite characters, David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.\nThe story itself is really cookie-cutter. The companion wants to go some where/some when, the Doctor agrees while totally misinterpreting the where and when, and the TARDIS takes them to someplace that neither one of them expects. Something is wrong endangering the locals of where they land. The companion gets in trouble, the Doctor runs around acting manic, and with the help of the locals everything gets straightened out.\nBut I still enjoy reading these stories, especially the Dave Tennant stories. If you like Doctor Who novels, this one will not disappoint.\nFrom the publisher:\nWhen the TARDIS makes a disastrous landing in the swamps of the planet Sunday, the Doctor has no choice but to abandon Martha and try to find help. But the tranquillity of Sunday’s swamps is deceptive, and even the TARDIS can’t protect Martha forever.\nThe human pioneers of Sunday have their own dangers to face: homeless and alone, they’re only just starting to realise that Sunday’s wildlife isn’t as harmless as it first seems. Why are the native otters behaving so strangely, and what is the creature in the swamps that is so interested in the humans, and the new arrivals?\nThe Doctor and Martha must fight to ensure that human intelligence doesn’t become the greatest danger of all.\nFeaturing the Tenth Doctor and Martha as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the hit Doctor Who series from BBC Television.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any fans of Doctor Who.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-wetworld-by-mark-michalowski/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Wetworld-Doctor-Who-Mark-Michalowski/dp/1846072719\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Doctor Who: Wetworld\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/06/51eGirc-f6L.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI am not sure where I bought this hardback book, probably Amazon or Barnes \u0026amp; Noble. I read it here and there over a couple of months, it took awhile between everything else that has been going on.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWetworld features 2 of my favorite characters, David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story itself is really cookie-cutter. The companion wants to go some where/some when, the Doctor agrees while totally misinterpreting the where and when, and the TARDIS takes them to someplace that neither one of them expects. Something is wrong endangering the locals of where they land. The companion gets in trouble, the Doctor runs around acting manic, and with the help of the locals everything gets straightened out.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Doctor Who: Wetworld by Mark Michalowski"},{"content":"I read this book on Safari Books Online using the Safari Books app on an iPad.\nI am not a big fan of using flash in the type of photography I usually do, but I am trying to improve my skills with speedlites and strobes. I have an old Canon 550EX and a pair of Yongnuo cheapo flashes with Yongnuo wireless triggers.\nThe Yongnuo flashes work great when I have a lot of time to set them up and experiment with settings since everything is manual with them. But where the Canon flash is 95% reliable the Yungnuo flashes are more like 75% reliable, so they get the job done, I just have to pay closer attention to them and double-check every exposure.\nSo that is where my interest in this book began, but this book delivers so much more than what to do with your flash. The first 5 chapters are about how to see and capture light and are absolutely fantastic, a must read. It is so well written, where the book \u0026ldquo;Light Science and Magic\u0026rdquo; feels like reading a schoolbook, the Speedliter’s Handbook is much friendlier and more conversational. I really enjoyed it and expect to read it again and again until I have soaked it all up.\nIn the appendix of the book is a great resource of websites about photography, I filled up my news reader with more than a dozen of them.\nFrom the publisher:\nGetting your Canon Speedlite to produce the light you need can be a real challenge. For those new to flash photography—or for anyone who has previously given up out of frustration—Speedliter’s Handbook is a revelation. Photographer Syl Arena takes you on a journey that begins with an exploration of light and color, moves through a comprehensive discussion of the Canon Speedlite family and all of the accessories and equipment available to the Speedliter, then settles down to crafting great light in one photo shoot after another. Whether you want to create a classical portrait, shoot an event, or simply add a little fill light to a product shot, Speedliter’s Handbook shows you how.\nA fantastic in-depth resource illustrated with over 500 images, Speedliter’s Handbook covers:\nhow to see the various characteristics and properties of light itself, as well as the differences between how your camera sees versus how you see all the buttons and dials of the entire Canon Speedlite family the basics of on-camera flash…and the necessity of getting your flash off the camera how to beautifully balance flash with the existing ambient light all the equipment necessary for great Speedlite shots how to get amazing shots with just one Speedlite how and when to use E-TTL versus manual flash the use of color gels to balance color, as well as create dramatic effects how to tame the sun—or any really bright light—with hi-speed sync and much, much more Whether you’re shooting portraits, events, or sports, Speedliter’s Handbook is an essential resource that teaches you how to craft the light you need for any type of shot you want.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to any photographer.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/speedliters-handbook-by-syl-arena/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Speedliter’s Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites by Syl Arena\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www-fp.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/images/bigcovers/032171105X.jpg\"\u003eI read this book on Safari Books Online using the Safari Books app on an iPad.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am not a big fan of using flash in the type of photography I usually do, but I am trying to improve my skills with speedlites and strobes. I have an old Canon 550EX and a pair of Yongnuo cheapo flashes with Yongnuo wireless triggers.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speedliter’s Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites by Syl Arena"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nWith such high ratings and the endorsement from Neil Gaiman, how could I pass this one up.\nI am not sure why, but this book just didn’t work for me. It started out with many small technical problems with the audio, small chirps and crackling, that really distracted me. But even after those issues went away later in the book I still just couldn’t get into it.\nThe lead character, Tom Carmody, never appealed to me… The book just feels pretentious to me with all the armchair philosophy, puns, and forced wordplay. I can see how this book would be viewed as a precursor to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series, but Mr. Adams was able to do it without pretension, he did it in a way that made it feel natural in a way I do not feel like this book does.\nJohn Hodgman does a good job narrating the book, but it is hard for me to judge as I never could get really involved with the storyline.\nI really respect Neil Gaiman and Audible for making audiobooks like this one of stories and authors that many of us have never heard of and look forward to many more of them.\nFrom the publisher:\nAward-winning author, narrator, and screenwriter Neil Gaiman personally selected this book, and, using the tools of the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), produced this work for his audiobook label, Neil Gaiman Presents.\nA few words from Neil on Dimension of Miracles: “Dimension of Miracles is probably not [Sheckley’s] most famous book…. but I think it’s probably his best-loved book. It’s about the joys and tribulations (mostly the tribulations) of winning the lottery—the galactic lottery—accidentally. And wrongly. Tom Carmody is awarded a remarkable prize, is taken half way across the universe to collect it, finds himself hopelessly lost, and needs to find his way home again to Earth…to this Earth, not an alternate, weirdo Earth. He’s got to get back. And the price is high.\nIn its style of humor—and even in some of the jokes—Dimension of Miracles is very obviously a precursor of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas actually hadn’t read Dimension of Miracles until very shortly after Hitchhiker came out, when people pointed him to it, and he told me that he found the experience almost shocking—it was like reading himself. He was a huge admirer of Bob Sheckley and a huge admirer of this book, and in later life, I had the privilege of introducing both of them.\nNow the challenge for me with a book this funny, this strange, this perceptive was to try and find a narrator who was as iconic, somebody who could deliver the goods, somebody who could give you a book like this as it deserved to be given. And the first, and the last, and actually the only person to come to mind was John Hodgman. So I asked John, and he said yes! And he did it; he pulled it off. Listening to John—not just the suave, sensible, sane narrator of this book, but all the peculiar accents and incarnations that he is forced to adopt through here—he does it delightfully, he does it brilliantly, he’s really, really funny. And so is this book. Enjoy your journey through a Dimension of Miracles.”\nDimension of Miracles is a satirical science fiction novel first published by Dell in 1968. It’s about Tom Carmody, a New Yorker who, thanks to a computer error, wins the main prize in the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. Tom claims his prize before the error is discovered and is allowed to keep it. However, since Tom is a human from Earth without galactic status and no space traveling experience, he has no homing instinct that can guide him back to Earth once his odyssey begins – and the galactic lottery organizers cannot transport him home. Meanwhile, his removal from Earth has caused a predatory entity to spring into existence – one that pursues and aims to destroy him. Carmody is on the run, and he ends up transporting from Earth to Earth – different phases and realities of the planet, which of course is not the time or condition he expects.\n\u0026amp;copy1968 Robert Sheckley (P)2013 Robert Sheckley\nI rate this book a 5 out 10, it just didn’t work for me.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dimension-of-miracles-by-robert-sheckley/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516LCcKER3L._SL225_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith such high ratings and the endorsement from Neil Gaiman, how could I pass this one up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am not sure why, but this book just didn’t work for me. It started out with many small technical problems with the audio, small chirps and crackling, that really distracted me. But even after those issues went away later in the book I still just couldn’t get into it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley"},{"content":"I read this book on Safar Books Online using an iPad and the Safari Books Online App.\nThis is the 4th Scott Kelby Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for Photographers book I have read, and they all have been worth the time.\nThese books have been where I have gotten most of my personal photography workflow from and why I made the switch from doing all of my post-production in Photoshop to doing it all in Lightroom. In fact I only open up Photoshop to do quick panoramas (I have other software I use for large intricate panos) and for extensive retouching or composites.\nAbout Stars, Labels, and Flags I do not use stars at all, I have no reason to rate pictures on a scale. I use labels only to identify pictures that are part of panoramas or composites. I am a firm believer in using flags exclusively to identify the value of pictures.\nA picture is either “Rejected” and deleted forever, not flagged because it is an ok picture that I may need at some point in the future, or it is a “Pick” and I have big plans for it.\nScott does a much better job of explaining why than I do and I hope he doesn’t take offense at me quoting him here:\n“When you boil it down, our real goal is to find the best photos from our shoot, but we also want to find the worst photos (those photos where the subject is totally out of focus, or you pressed the shutter by accident, or the flash didn’t fire, etc.), because there’s no sense in having photos that you’ll never use taking up hard drive space, right? Lightroom gives you three ways to rate (or rank) your photos, the most popular being the 1-to-5-star rating system. To mark a photo with a star rating, just click on it and type the number on your keyboard. So, to mark a photo with a 3-star rating, you’d press the number 3, and you’d see three stars appear under the photo (shown here at the top). To change a star rating, type in a new number. To remove it altogether, press 0 (zero). The idea is that once you’ve got your 5-star photos marked, you can turn on a filter that displays only your 5-star photos. You can also use that filter to see just your 4-star, 3-star, etc., photos. Besides stars, you can also use color labels, so you could mark the worst photos with a Red label, slightly better ones with Yellow, and so on. Or, you could use these in conjunction with the stars to mark your best 5-star photo with a Green label (as shown here at the bottom).”\n“Now that I’ve mentioned star ratings and labels, I want to talk you out of using them. Here’s why: they’re way too slow. Think about it—your 5-star photos would be your very best shots, right? The only ones you’ll show anybody. So your 4-star ones are good, but not good enough. Your 3-star ones are just so-so (nobody will ever see these). Your 2-star ones are bad shots—not so bad that you’ll delete them, but bad—and your 1-star shots are out-of-focus, blurry, totally messed up shots you’re going to delete. So what are you going to do with your 2- and 3-star photos? Nothing. What about your 4-star photos? Nothing. The 5-stars you keep, the 1-stars you delete, the rest you pretty much do nothing with, right? So, all we really care about are the best shots and the worst shots, right? The rest we ignore.”\n“So instead, I hope you’ll try flags. You mark the best shots as Picks and the really bad ones (the ones to be deleted) as Rejects. Lightroom will delete the Rejects for you when you’re ready, leaving you with just your best shots and the ones you don’t care about, but you don’t waste time trying to decide if a particular photo you don’t care about is a 3-star or a 2-star. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people sitting there saying out loud, “Now, is this a 2-star or a 3-star?” Who cares? It’s not a 5-star; move on! To mark a photo as a Pick, just press the letter P. To mark a photo as a Reject, press the letter X. A little message will appear onscreen to tell you which flag you assigned to the photo, and a tiny flag icon will appear in that photo’s grid cell. A white flag means it’s marked as a Pick. A black flag means it’s a Reject.”\nI really love Lightroom and I think this book is one of the best ways to learn how to use it.\nFrom the publisher:\nSince Lightroom 1.0 first launched, Scott’s Kelby’s The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers has been the world’s #1 best-selling Lightroom book (it has been translated into a dozen different languages), and in this latest version for Lightroom 5, Scott uses his same award-winning, step-by-step, plain-English style and layout to make learning Lightroom easy and fun.\nScott doesn’t just show you which sliders do what (every Lightroom book will do that). Instead, by using the following three simple, yet brilliant, techniques that make it just an incredible learning tool, this book shows you how to create your own photography workflow using Lightroom:\nThroughout the book, Scott shares his own personal settings and studiotested techniques. Each year he trains thousands of Lightroom users at his live seminars and through that he’s learned what really works, what doesn’t, and he tells you flat out which techniques work best, which to avoid, and why. The entire book is laid out in a real workflow order with everything step by step, so you can begin using Lightroom like a pro from the start. What really sets this book apart is the last chapter. This is where Scott dramatically answers his #1 most-asked Lightroom question, which is: “Exactly what order am I supposed to do things in, and where does Photoshop fit in?” You’ll see Scott’s entire start-to-finish Lightroom 5 workflow and learn how to incorporate it into your own workflow. Plus, this book includes a downloadable collection of some of the hottest Lightroom Develop module presets to give you a bunch of amazing effects with just one click! Scott knows first-hand the challenges today’s digital photographers are facing, and what they want to learn next to make their workflow faster, easier, and more fun. He has incorporated all of that into this major update for Lightroom 5.\nIt’s the first and only book to bring the whole process together in such a clear, concise, and visual way. Plus, the book includes a special chapter on integrating Adobe Photoshop seamlessly right into your workflow, and you’ll also learn some of Scott’s latest Photoshop portrait retouching techniques and special effects, which take this book to a whole new level. There is no faster, more straight-to-the-point, or more fun way to learn Lightroom than with this groundbreaking book.\nI rate this book and its predecessors as a 9 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-5-book-for-digital-photographers-by-scott-kelby/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/hugo/images/2013/08/9780321934314_p0_v1_s260x420.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 5 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/08/9780321934314_p0_v1_s260x420.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI read this book on Safar Books Online using an iPad and the Safari Books Online App.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the 4th \u003ca href=\"http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/photo-and-graphic-manipulation/9780133441178\"\u003eScott Kelby Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for Photographers book\u003c/a\u003e I have read, and they all have been worth the time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese books have been where I have gotten most of my personal photography workflow from and why I made the switch from doing all of my post-production in Photoshop to doing it all in Lightroom. In fact I only open up Photoshop to do quick panoramas (I have other software I use for large intricate panos) and for extensive retouching or composites.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 5 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby"},{"content":"\nSoft Target by Stephen HunterI bought this audiobook on sale from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI absolutely love Stephen Hunter’s Bob Lee Swagger series of books, but after so many books they got very stale to me. It started feeling like Mr. Hunter was not trying very hard to come up with something new, so I have not read any Stephen Hunter books in a long time. When I saw this audiobook on sale at Audible I decided to give it a try.\nSoft Target is not a Bob Lee book but is instead about Ray Cruz, a Marine sniper who was introduced in Bob Lee books.\nThis story just didn’t work for me, the technical descriptions of computer systems are incorrect, annoyingly so. Mr. Hunter obviously has an experts level of understanding when it comes to firearms, but until his understanding of computers reaches the same level he should avoid writing about them.\nThe entire book feels like he is struggling to write a script for a 45 minute long TV show.\nFrom the publisher:\nNew York Times best-selling author Stephen Hunter is back with another breakneck thriller, in which ex-Marine sniper, Ray Kruz, must outwit a group of murderous Somali terrorists who’ve laid siege to the Mall of America.\nRecently retired marine sergeant Ray Kruz has been talked into a mall trip by his fiancé, the beautiful Molly Chan. For Ray, Molly represents a way to reconnect with normal life, something his 20 years in the service and five tours in two combat zones have prevented. But now he finds himself in the middle of the softest target of all, a huge consumer mall where a self-styled \u0026ldquo;Mumbai Brigade\u0026rdquo; has come to bring massive death to the heartland. They just didn’t know Ray Cruz was in the building….\n©2011 Stephen Hunter (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.\nI rate this book a 3 out of 10 and do not recommend it to anyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/soft-target-by-stephen-hunter/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B006IB7HJ2\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Soft Target by Stephen Hunter\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511cBG%2BxSlL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSoft Target by Stephen HunterI bought this audiobook on sale from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI absolutely love Stephen Hunter’s Bob Lee Swagger series of books, but after so many books they got very stale to me. It started feeling like Mr. Hunter was not trying very hard to come up with something new, so I have not read any Stephen Hunter books in a long time. When I saw this audiobook on sale at Audible I decided to give it a try.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Soft Target by Stephen Hunter"},{"content":"I bought this book from Safari Books Online and read it using the Kindle app on my iPad.\nI really like Zack Arias as a photographer and a person. He is very open about what he does, why he does it, his triumphs, and his troubles.\nPhotography Q\u0026amp;A is full of questions that amateur and professional photographers have asked Zack with his honest and heartfelt answers. So much good information here, it is an amazing amount of information.\nIf you don’t know who Zack is, take a look at his website at http://zackarias.com/ and really take a hard look at this video \u0026ldquo;Transform.\u0026rdquo; I think after watching the video you will want to hear much more from Zack.\nI really enjoyed reading \u0026ldquo;Photography Q\u0026amp;A\u0026rdquo;, I learned a lot, I laughed a lot, and have decided I need to buy a light meter pronto!\nFrom the publisher:\nFor years, editorial and commercial photographer Zack Arias has been a respected and trusted voice in the photography industry. Known for his photography, his teaching, and his ability to connect with photographers, Zack has long had an \u0026ldquo;open door\u0026rdquo; approach to discussing his career–the ups and the downs–and in so doing has provided a straightforward and candid look inside the industry. By consistently showing great work and offering helpful advice, he has built a large, loyal readership that looks to him for guidance in navigating the currents of a difficult and dynamic industry. Now, Zack finds yet another way to cut through the noise and offer truly valuable information to those struggling to make their way through the twists and turns of an ever-changing landscape.\nIn Photography Q\u0026amp;A, Zack answers over 100 questions that he fielded directly from the public. These are questions that range across all aspects of the photo industry: gear, marketing, street photography, vision, pricing, branding, light, models, work/life balance, technical advice, and much more. From how to \u0026ldquo;put yourself out there\u0026rdquo; and start to get jobs, to how to get paid for those jobs when the client is slow to cut the check–and everything in between– Photography Q\u0026amp;A answers many of the pressing questions that photographers are asking, but until now have not been addressed. The book also includes intermittent \u0026ldquo;Visual Intermission\u0026rdquo; sections–where Zack discusses individual images that were milestones in his development as a photographer–as well as worksheets on topics such as pricing and costs that help photographers to \u0026ldquo;know their numbers.\u0026rdquo;\nWith all this material, and with insightful, honest answers that come straight from Zack’s experience as a photographer who has seen it all (or at least a lot of it), Photography Q\u0026amp;A is an essential resource for any photographer looking for the real answers to the real questions in the industry today.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10. It would have been a 10 if there had been more photographs.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/photography-qa-real-questions-real-answers-by-zack-arias/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Photography Q\u0026amp;A: Real Questions. Real Answers. By Zack Arias\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SU4qDNXNL.SL225.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from \u003ca href=\"http://my.safaribooksonline.com/\"\u003eSafari Books Online\u003c/a\u003e and read it using the Kindle app on my iPad.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really like Zack Arias as a photographer and a person. He is very open about what he does, why he does it, his triumphs, and his troubles.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780133434644\"\u003ePhotography Q\u0026amp;A\u003c/a\u003e is full of questions that amateur and professional photographers have asked Zack with his honest and heartfelt answers. So much good information here, it is an amazing amount of information.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Photography Q\u0026A: Real Questions. Real Answers. By Zack Arias"},{"content":"I bought this book on audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app while traveling from Atlanta to Portland.\nI have been working on loosing weight and getting in better shape over the last year. So far I have lost around 30 pounds, I am very happy about that. As a part of getting in shape I have been doing some running, mostly the run/walk/run thing, but for now I only average a 15-minute mile, a bit slower in the summer heat. So this is where my interest in running has come from.\n\u0026ldquo;Born to Run\u0026rdquo; popped up in an email about new books from Audible and the rating and reviews were so high that I couldn’t pass it up. A lot of the reviews stressed that the book would be enjoyed by anyone, even those who do not run, and boy were they right.\nMany years ago I went through a lot of books about mountaineering, I enjoy hiking, but never really had any intention on doing anything close to real mountaineering, but I really enjoyed the books. John Krakauer’s \u0026ldquo;Into Thin Air\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills\u0026rdquo;, and \u0026ldquo;The Burgess Book of Lies\u0026rdquo; are some of my favorites. I put \u0026ldquo;Born to Run\u0026rdquo; right up there with those books.\nIt is a great read. There is a lot of information for those who love to run, relationships and emotions for those looking for a good story, and controversy for those who like that sort of thing.\nAfter reading this book I have decided to give barefoot or minimalist running a try. When I was in the Navy, many years ago, I spent a year running on a regular basis and injured my left foot. After that I was told to always wear stiff soled shoes and not to run so much. Lately I have been running in New Balance running shoes with high-end insoles and have not had any foot problems, but this book has me excited to give a try at strengthening my feet by wearing minimal footwear. I’ll let you know how that goes.\nFrom the publisher:\nFull of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt?\nIn search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.\nIsolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence.\nWith the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a 50-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.\nWith a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons.\nBorn to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.\n©2009 Knopf; (P)2009 Random House\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend to anyone who is interested in running or enjoys travel stories.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/born-to-run-by-christopher-mcdougall/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Born to Run\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FQN9C9ViL._SL225_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book on \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B002V8KTYG\"\u003eaudible\u003c/a\u003e and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app while traveling from Atlanta to Portland.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have been working on loosing weight and getting in better shape over the last year. So far I have lost around 30 pounds, I am very happy about that. As a part of getting in shape I have been doing some running, mostly the run/walk/run thing, but for now I only average a 15-minute mile, a bit slower in the summer heat. So this is where my interest in running has come from.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall"},{"content":"I bought this hardcover book from Amazon.\nI really enjoy these cheesy Doctor Who novels, they are great fast reads that deepen the mythology and add a lot of depth to the characters.\nThis story is about the Eleventh Doctor, as played by Matt Smith and Amy Pond romping around New York saving the earth from an invading army of doll-sized aliens. Good stuff.\nFrom the publisher:\n‘Let me tell you a story. Long ago, in the frozen Arctic wastes, an alien army landed. Only now, 10,000 years later, it isn’t a story. And the army is ready to attack.’\nNew York – one of the greatest cities on 21st century Earth… But what’s going on in the Museum? And is that really a Woolly Mammoth rampaging down Broadway? An ordinary day becomes a time of terror, as the Doctor and Amy meet a new and deadly enemy. The vicious Army of the Vykoid are armed to the teeth and determined to enslave the human race. Even though they’re only seven centimetres high.\nWith the Vykoid army swarming across Manhattan and sealing it from the world with a powerful alien force field, Amy has just 24 hours to find the Doctor and save the city. If she doesn’t, the people of Manhattan will be taken to work in the doomed asteroid mines of the Vykoid home planet. But as time starts to run out, who can she trust? And how far will she have to go to free New York from the Forgotten Army?\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any fans of Doctor Who and cheesy sci-fi.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-the-forgotten-army-by-brian-minchin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Doctor Who: The Forgotten Army by Brian Minchin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JKaSy%2BGOL._SX200_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this hardcover book from Amazon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoy these cheesy Doctor Who novels, they are great fast reads that deepen the mythology and add a lot of depth to the characters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis story is about the Eleventh Doctor, as played by Matt Smith and Amy Pond romping around New York saving the earth from an invading army of doll-sized aliens. Good stuff.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Doctor Who: The Forgotten Army by Brian Minchin"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone. This is the 4th book in the Retrieval Artist series.\nJay Snyder turns in another great performance; to bad the story is not up to snuff.\nThis story took the politics to far, I seriously lost interest in this story many times. I feel like there is very little action and entirely to much explanation and whining. This is not why I have been reading these books.\nI will now be taking a break from reading the Retrieval Artist series for awhile, it looks like the next book in the series may have more action and less politics so I will eventually listen to/read it, but it wont be anytime soon.\nFrom the publisher:\nForensic anthropologist Aisha Costard has been summoned to Mars to examine skeletal remains recently discovered beneath a building erected by the Disty aliens. The bones belong to a human woman who vanished 30 years ago with her children. She is believed to have been one of the Disappeared, outlaws wanted for crimes against alien civilizations.\nTo investigate the mystery of the skeleton, Aisha turns to Retrieval Artist Miles Flint. Following the trail back three decades and seeking the whereabouts of the victim’s missing children, Miles discovers a deadly secret that could threaten the stability of the entire solar system.\n©2005 White Mist Mountain, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 5 out of 10 and only recommend it to people who are invested in the Retrieval Artist series.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/buried-deep-a-retrieval-artist-novel-by-kristine-kathryn-rusch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Buried Deep: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ep-ZPR2oL._SL225_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone. This is the 4th book in the Retrieval Artist series.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJay Snyder turns in another great performance; to bad the story is not up to snuff.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis story took the politics to far, I seriously lost interest in this story many times. I feel like there is very little action and entirely to much explanation and whining. This is not why I have been reading these books.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Buried Deep: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nThis is book 3 in the Retrieval Artist series.\nI really liked this one. So far it is the best book in the series. The tension between Noelle and Flint continues to grow as they try to sort out how they feel about each other.\nI liked the mystery aspect and the depth in which it was explored by Flint. His honor and ability to sleep at night are seriously on the line. It is this aspect that made the story interesting to me, I could use a lot more of that type of story. Action, conflict, mystery and more action.\nThe politics in this book did get on my nerves; I could do without all the back and forth about alien politics.\nFrom the publisher:\nOfficer Noelle DeRicci is investigating a murder in Armstrong, the domed colony on the Moon. The victim was one of the Disappeared – outlaws in hiding who are wanted for crimes against alien civilizations – whose family had her brought home, believing she was no longer in danger.\nRetrieval Artist Miles Flint is responsible for putting the dead woman in harm’s way. He may be the only one with the information needed to solve the case. Now, with DeRicci pressing him for answers he’s not ready to give, he must relive the events that led up to his client’s death, including her role in a war between humans and a mysterious alien race. And that ongoing war continues to escalate, threatening to consume the entire solar system.\n©2004 White Mist Mountain, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who is reading the Retrieval Artist series.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/consequences-by-kristine-kathryn-rusch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Consequences: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KFMpjcRxL._SL225_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is book 3 in the Retrieval Artist series.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really liked this one. So far it is the best book in the series. The tension between Noelle and Flint continues to grow as they try to sort out how they feel about each other.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Consequences: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nThis is the second book in the Retrieval Artist series of books and is a great continuation of the storyline.\nIn this book Flint and Noelle are no longer working together and Flint is learning that he really can’t trust anyone, which is very hard for him as he really wants to trust Noelle with everything he knows, but telling her to much will endanger his clients and their families.\nThe tension between Noelle and Flint is growing; they are trying to figure out what there new relationship is and how it will work in the future. It is not something that will be resolved anytime soon. It is this tension between the characters along with the crime-mystery drama that makes these books enjoyable for me.\nJay Snyder continues doing a great job bringing the characters to life.\nFrom the publisher:\nHis name: Miles Flint. His occupation: Retrieval Artist. His job: find the Disappeared – outlaws on the run, wanted for crimes against alien cultures. The catch: Flint isn’t working on the side of the law anymore.\nOne simple mistake and a Disappeared could end up dead. But this time, the death of an ailing Retrieval Artist has caught Flint’s attention. He suspects it was foul play, not a viral infection. Equally suspicious is a young woman’s sudden demise during the Moon’s prestigious Extreme Marathon. As Flint investigates, he finds an ominous connection. Both deaths lead back to a scientist – a scientist who is now one of the Disappeared.\n©2003 White Mist Mountain, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi crime drama stories.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/extremes-by-kristine-kathryn-rusch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ynAjCjWmL._SL225_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the second book in the Retrieval Artist series of books and is a great continuation of the storyline.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this book Flint and Noelle are no longer working together and Flint is learning that he really can’t trust anyone, which is very hard for him as he really wants to trust Noelle with everything he knows, but telling her to much will endanger his clients and their families.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI chose this book based upon the reviews at Audible and they were right, it is a very good listen. Jay Snyder turns in a very good performance bringing the characters to life and giving each one a uniqueness that makes them come alive.\nThis is the first book in a series that is currently up to 9 books, there is a lot of good reading here and it is a nice step away from the John Scalzi books I have been listening to.\nWhat I like most about this book is how clear the main characters motives are, they are driven by things that make sense to me, their emotions feel real and easy to understand. They are very human.\nIn this universe Human’s have agreed to respect and uphold the laws of many different alien cultures. This has created a lot of problems for the police and the court systems because many of the alien laws, punishable in amazingly horrible ways, are not obvious to the humans who regularly break those laws accidentally by doing things that are not considered illegal by the humans.\nThose that find themselves in trouble disappear; they change their identities and their lives to escape the alien punishments that await them. They spend the rest of their lives on the run from both the human and alien courts.\nThere are bounty hunters known as \u0026ldquo;Trackers\u0026rdquo; who hunt down the disappeared to bring them back to the courts while \u0026ldquo;Retrieval Artists\u0026rdquo; who search for the disappeared to help them in different ways.\nFrom the publisher:\nRetrieval Artists help the lost find their way back home, whether they like it or not. Specialized private detectives, they investigate the most unusual crimes in the galaxy. But Miles Flint isn’t a Retrieval Artist. He’s just a cop, trying to do his job.\nIn a stolen space yacht, three people have been found eviscerated, the grisly signature of an alien vengeance killing. Moments later, the border patrol halts another ship launched out of the moon’s orbit. Its passengers are two human children, kidnapped by the most ruthless aliens in the universe. Both ships are linked to a woman on the run: a Disappeared relocated to the inhospitable landscape of Mars. A reluctant outlaw with a bounty on her head and a detective on her case, she’s about to teach all of them a lesson: it’s dangerous to gamble with your life in a universe that rigs the game.\n©2002 White Mist Mountain, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend to anyone who likes mystery, detective and sci-fi novels.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-disappeared-by-kristine-kathryn-rusch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Disappeared: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eyOf9E-oL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI chose this book based upon the reviews at Audible and they were right, it is a very good listen. Jay Snyder turns in a very good performance bringing the characters to life and giving each one a uniqueness that makes them come alive.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Disappeared: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch"},{"content":"I bought this used hardcover book from The Book Nook II in Marietta.\nAfter reading \u0026ldquo;A Dirty Job\u0026rdquo; also be Christopher Moore I was determined to read more of his stories, so I bought 2 of them as used hardcovers.\nThe Stupidest Angel was a very quick read, it only took me two nights of reading to finish it and I enjoyed every minute. It is a fun romp through a small town where everyone is in everyone’s business.\nThis book makes me want to read more of Moore’s work and I already have a second hardback just waiting to be read.\nFrom the publisher:\n‘Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.\nBut not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he’s not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn’t run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead.\nBut hold on! There’s an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It’s none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel’s not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say “Kris Kringle,” he’s botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen.\nMove over, Charles Dickens — it’s Christopher Moore time.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10. It is a fun quick read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-stupidest-angel-by-christopher-moore/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41m1nIW6eqL.jpg\"\u003eI bought this used hardcover book from The Book Nook II in Marietta.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter reading \u0026ldquo;A Dirty Job\u0026rdquo; also be Christopher Moore I was determined to read more of his stories, so I bought 2 of them as used hardcovers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Stupidest Angel was a very quick read, it only took me two nights of reading to finish it and I enjoyed every minute. It is a fun romp through a small town where everyone is in everyone’s business.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore"},{"content":"My wife and I read a lot of books. Now that our son has gotten a little older and needs less attention, I go through more than a book a week on average, Bobbie doesn’t go through as many books in number, but she is reading much larger non-fiction books and taking copious amounts of notes.\nMany years ago I bought Delicious Library 2 (DL2) as a part of a bundle deal. Bobbie and I used it to catalog all of our fiction and collectable books. It worked well enough and with some simple PHP and YUI coding I built a simple web page we could use on our phones to check our library while out and about.\nThen disaster struck, I reformatted/re-installed all of our computers and updated them to the latest version of the Mac OS. I thought I had backed everything up, but apparently Delicious Library’s database was not.\nLately Bobbie has been asking me about how to update the Library page with the new books we have purchased. I did another round of research for library software and came to the decision to buy and use Delicious Library 3 (DL3).\nI bought it from the Apple App Store, which means it can run on all of our machines and it will stay up-to-date via the App Store app.\nThe great news is that even though I had lost the DL2 database, DL3 was able to import the CSV file I was using on our website and retrieve the information for the 450+ plus books that were in it from Amazon. That was pretty amazing and made me very happy.\nAlso, the iPhone app Delicious Scanner worked great for me successfully scanning about 75% of the books that had barcodes in our library. I was kind of surprised how well it worked, DL2 was not nearly as successful using the iSight camera on a laptop. I was also surprised by how many books we have that do not have any kind of bar code or even an ISBN code, a lot of Bobbie’s antique books predate ISBN.\nThe good news is that scanning the rest of the books went faster than I expected and DL3 did a good job of finding the books on Amazon with a little bit of manual help. DL3 is not fully automatic; I don’t think any book library app could be, there is always going to be manual work involved. Adding the meta-data that is important to us like the name of the Series that a book is a part of, the book’s number in the series, and the character name’s that appear in the book is always going to be manual because what is important to us is not going to be important to everyone.\nThe bad news is the DL3 is still burying its database in a proprietary format in a deeply hidden corner of your computer. There is still no way for multiple people to collaborate on a single library, you can export/import libraries but it is very klunky and if every book does not have an associated ISBN or Amazon code you are bound to have duplicate entries. And the templates for exporting an HTML version of your library are absolutely useless!\nThe HTML output and even the default interface of DL3 makes me very sad and frustrated. The developers/designers of the app spent all this time on graphics, 3D effects, and a multitude of wood grains instead of on the usability of the app.\nThis is what we need from a library app:\nEasy book entry Easy to find a book in the library Delicious Library 3 is awesome at book entry, that part fits my needs almost perfectly. The only thing that would make it better is integration with data sources other than Amazon.\nWhen it comes to finding a previously entered book, the DL3 app on the desktop works ok. The default 3D Bookshelf view with the books on a shelf (duh) is absolutely worthless for this, it makes it almost impossible to scan through the books and the cover from Amazon may not match the cover of the real book on your shelf making it counter-productive.\nSwitching to List view improves the situation a lot. You can control what fields/columns are visible and sort the columns.\nOh wait; right there in the top left is search box. Well that should help right? WRONG, when you enter text in that box it displays the results in a pop-up with a fixed width that truncates the book titles to the point that they are useless.\nI am going to stop complaining right there. Delicious Library has a lot of usability issues that will apparently never be addressed, lets move on to why it is still a very useful app.\nYou can output a CSV file! I have written a little PHP file that takes the CVS file that DL3 outputs and makes a very simple HTML table with the data. Then I use jQuery and a couple libraries to make the table sortable, searchable, and filterable.\nThe PHP is not very efficient, if we had many more books the JavaScript/jQuery would be to slow to be useful, and having it all in a database would make it easier to do some other cool stuff with the data. But for now the simple PHP and JavaScript fit our needs and give us a great interface into our book library.\nMy Simple Library\nIf you are looking for a way to keep track of your books, give Delicious Library 3 a try. So far it is working well for us.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/delicious-library-3/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://delicious-monster.com/\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Delicious Library 3 Website\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/06/Screen-Shot-2013-06-25-at-5.53.06-PM.png\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eMy wife and I read a lot of books. Now that our son has gotten a little older and needs less attention, I go through more than a book a week on average, Bobbie doesn’t go through as many books in number, but she is reading much larger non-fiction books and taking copious amounts of notes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany years ago I bought Delicious Library 2 (DL2) as a part of a bundle deal. Bobbie and I used it to catalog all of our fiction and collectable books. It worked well enough and with some simple PHP and YUI coding I built a simple web page we could use on our phones to check our library while out and about.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Delicious Library 3"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI enjoyed the movie Payback with Mel Gibson, even though I think John Myhre ruined the theatrical release, which got me interested in reading the book that it was based on. This is that book. But before reading this book, forget the theatrical release of the movie entirely.\nThis is a dark book with a lead character that is not likeable in any way. I suspect there are plenty of people out in the world that would like to think of themselves as being a lot like Parker, hard, mean, uncaring and as tough as nails. But if they are like Parker they do not have any friends and will lead a very lonely and hard life.\nI enjoyed this book but it did not make me want to read the rest of the 25 books in the series. Yes, you read that right, there are currently 25 books in the series, so obviously someone likes them a lot.\nJohn Chancer does an amazing job narrating this book, he gives Parker a hard edge delivering his lines in a flat emotionless way that makes him very believable.\nYou’ll have to excuse me now, I am going to go watch \u0026ldquo;Payback: Straight Up: The Director’s Cut\u0026rdquo; which is much closer to the original story than the theatrical release.\nFrom the publisher:\nYou probably haven’t noticed them. But they’ve noticed you. They notice everything. That’s their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers’ work habits. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack. They’re heisters. They’re pros, and Parker is far and away the best of them. Tough, smart, hardworking, and relentlessly focused on his trade, he is the heister’s heister, the robber’s robber, the heavy’s heavy. You don’t want to cross him, and you don’t want to get in his way, because he’ll stop at nothing to get what he’s after.\nIn The Hunter, the first volume in the series, Parker roars into New York City, seeking revenge on the woman who betrayed him and on the man who took his money, stealing and scamming his way to redemption.\n©1962 Richard Stark (P)2010 AudioGO\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who enjoys crime novels or felt disappointed by the theatrical release of Payback.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-hunter-by-richard-stark/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Hunter by Richard Stark\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41-K6kHznzL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI enjoyed the movie Payback with Mel Gibson, even though I think John Myhre ruined the theatrical release, which got me interested in reading the book that it was based on. This is that book. But before reading this book, forget the theatrical release of the movie entirely.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a dark book with a lead character that is not likeable in any way. I suspect there are plenty of people out in the world that would like to think of themselves as being a lot like Parker, hard, mean, uncaring and as tough as nails. But if they are like Parker they do not have any friends and will lead a very lonely and hard life.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Hunter by Richard Stark"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI bought this book based on reviews at Audible and my love of Star Wars. As a kid I read the novelizations and Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, which were all great.\nTimothy Zhan does a good job of adding depth to the Star Wars universe and giving us a little more insight into the relationships between Han, Chewbacca, and Lando.\nMarc Thompson does a great job with the narration. He gives Han a voice that is about half way between Harrison Ford and Patrick Warburton as The Tick. I really like it.\nOverall it is not a very \u0026ldquo;Epic\u0026rdquo; story, it is more of a peek into the lives of Han, Chewbacca and Lando. It is limited by the Star Wars canon and does a very good job within those limitations.\nFrom the publisher:\nTo make his biggest score, Han’s ready to take even bigger risks.\nBut even he can’t do this job solo.\nHan Solo should be basking in his moment of glory. After all, the cocky smuggler and captain of the Millennium Falcon just played a key role in the daring raid that destroyed the Death Star and landed the first serious blow to the Empire in its war against the Rebel Alliance. But after losing the reward his heroics earned him, Han’s got nothing to celebrate. Especially since he’s deep in debt to the ruthless crime lord Jabba the Hutt. There’s a bounty on Han’s head – and if he can’t cough up the credits, he’ll surely pay with his hide. The only thing that can save him is a king’s ransom. Or maybe a gangster’s fortune?\nThat’s what a mysterious stranger is offering in exchange for Han’s less-than-legal help with a riskier-than-usual caper. The payoff will be more than enough for Han to settle up with Jabba – and ensure he never has to haggle with the Hutts again.\nAll he has to do is infiltrate the ultra-fortified stronghold of a Black Sun crime syndicate underboss and crack the galaxy’s most notoriously impregnable safe. It sounds like a job for miracle workers…or madmen. So Han assembles a gallery of rogues who are a little of both – including his indispensable sidekick Chewbacca and the cunning Lando Calrissian. If anyone can dodge, deceive, and defeat heavily armed thugs, killer droids, and Imperial agents alike – and pull off the heist of the century – it’s Solo’s scoundrels. But will their crime really pay, or will it cost them the ultimate price?\n©2012 Timothy Zahn (P)2012 Random House Audio\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who loves the Star Wars universe.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/scoundrels-by-timothy-zahn/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Scoundrels: Star Wars by Timothy Zahn\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51woH2qmv2L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought this book based on reviews at Audible and my love of Star Wars. As a kid I read the novelizations and Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, which were all great.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTimothy Zhan does a good job of adding depth to the Star Wars universe and giving us a little more insight into the relationships between Han, Chewbacca, and Lando.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Scoundrels: Star Wars by Timothy Zahn"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nThis book was fun, there are a couple of stand-out stories here, but overall it didn’t really wow me.\nIt is definitely worth listening to if you have any favorite authors with stories in it.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn Rip-Off!, 13 of today’s best and most honored writers of speculative fiction face a challenge even they would be hard-pressed to conceive: Pick your favorite opening line from a classic piece of fiction (or even non-fiction) – then use it as the first sentence of an entirely original short story.\nIn the world of Rip-Off!, \u0026ldquo;Call me Ishmael\u0026rdquo; introduces a tough-as-nails private eye – who carries a harpoon; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz inspires the tale of an aging female astronaut who’s being treated by a doctor named Dorothy Gale; and Huckleberry Finn leads to a wild ride with a foul-mouthed riverboat captain who plies the waters of Hell.\nOnce you listen to Rip-Off! you’ll agree: If Shakespeare or Dickens were alive today, they’d be ripping off the authors in this great collection.\nThe stories included in Rip-Off! are:\n\u0026ldquo;Fireborn\u0026rdquo; by Robert Charles Wilson \u0026ldquo;The Evening Line\u0026rdquo; by Mike Resnick \u0026ldquo;No Decent Patrimony\u0026rdquo; by Elizabeth Bear \u0026ldquo;The Big Whale\u0026rdquo; by Allen M. Steele \u0026ldquo;Begone\u0026rdquo; by Daryl Gregory \u0026ldquo;The Red Menace\u0026rdquo; by Lavie Tidhar \u0026ldquo;Muse of Fire\u0026rdquo; by John Scalzi \u0026ldquo;Writer’s Block\u0026rdquo; by Nancy Kress \u0026ldquo;Highland Reel\u0026rdquo; by Jack Campbell \u0026ldquo;Karin Coxswain\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Death as She Is Truly Lived\u0026rdquo; by Paul Di Filippo \u0026ldquo;The Lady Astronaut of Mars\u0026rdquo; by Mary Robinette Kowal \u0026ldquo;Every Fuzzy Beast of the Earth, Every Pink Fowl of the Air\u0026rdquo; by Tad Williams \u0026ldquo;Declaration\u0026rdquo; by James Patrick Kelly As a bonus, the authors introduce their stories, explaining what they ripped-off – and why.\nRip-Off! was produced in partnership with SFWA – Science Fiction \u0026amp; Fantasy Writers of America. Gardner Dozois served as project editor.\nFor more books from the authors of Rip-Off! click here.\n©2012 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10, a couple of the stories were very nice but most of them were just OK.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/rip-off-a-collection-of-short-stories/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/613HgZRkR-L._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book was fun, there are a couple of stand-out stories here, but overall it didn’t really wow me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is definitely worth listening to if you have any favorite authors with stories in it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Rip-Off!, 13 of today’s best and most honored writers of speculative fiction face a challenge even they would be hard-pressed to conceive: Pick your favorite opening line from a classic piece of fiction (or even non-fiction) – then use it as the first sentence of an entirely original short story.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the world of Rip-Off!, \u0026ldquo;Call me Ishmael\u0026rdquo; introduces a tough-as-nails private eye – who carries a harpoon; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz inspires the tale of an aging female astronaut who’s being treated by a doctor named Dorothy Gale; and Huckleberry Finn leads to a wild ride with a foul-mouthed riverboat captain who plies the waters of Hell.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnce you listen to Rip-Off! you’ll agree: If Shakespeare or Dickens were alive today, they’d be ripping off the authors in this great collection.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe stories included in Rip-Off! are:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;Fireborn\u0026rdquo; by Robert Charles Wilson\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;The Evening Line\u0026rdquo; by Mike Resnick\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;No Decent Patrimony\u0026rdquo; by Elizabeth Bear\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;The Big Whale\u0026rdquo; by Allen M. Steele\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;Begone\u0026rdquo; by Daryl Gregory\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;The Red Menace\u0026rdquo; by Lavie Tidhar\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;Muse of Fire\u0026rdquo; by John Scalzi\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;Writer’s Block\u0026rdquo; by Nancy Kress\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;Highland Reel\u0026rdquo; by Jack Campbell\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;Karin Coxswain\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Death as She Is Truly Lived\u0026rdquo; by Paul Di Filippo\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;The Lady Astronaut of Mars\u0026rdquo; by Mary Robinette Kowal\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;Every Fuzzy Beast of the Earth, Every Pink Fowl of the Air\u0026rdquo; by Tad Williams\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u0026ldquo;Declaration\u0026rdquo; by James Patrick Kelly\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs a bonus, the authors introduce their stories, explaining what they ripped-off – and why.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRip-Off! was produced in partnership with SFWA – Science Fiction \u0026amp; Fantasy Writers of America. Gardner Dozois served as project editor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor more books from the authors of Rip-Off! click here.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2012 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Rip-Off!: A Collection of Short Stories"},{"content":"\nMaintainable JavaScript by Nicholas C. ZakasI read this book using Safari Books Online using various laptops and an iPad.\nThis is an amazing book.\nFollowing a style guide while programming is common in many languages, but for me it is a new idea in JavaScript. Reading Douglas Crockford’s Style Guide http://javascript.crockford.com/code.html can teach you a lot, but Maintainable JavaScript teaches you not only the how, but also the why.\nThis book does focus on following a style guide but it also includes how to set-up and use a build system with your JavaScript. I can’t wait to start putting that information to use. As a front-end developer I have not used a build system.\nNicholas also has a great presentation available that covers many of the topics in the book on SlideShare at http://www.slideshare.net/nzakas/maintainable-javascript-2012\nFrom the publisher:\nYou may have definite ideas about writing code when working alone, but team development requires that everyone use the same approach. With the JavaScript practices in this book—including code style, programming tips, and automation—you’ll learn how to write maintainable code that other team members can easily understand, adapt, and extend. Author Nicholas Zakas assembled this collection of best practices as a front-end tech leader at Yahoo!, after completing his own journey from solo hacker to team player.\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who has moved beyond beginner JavaScript.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/maintainable-javascript-by-nicholas-c-zakas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/programming/javascript/9781449328092\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Maintainable JavaScript by Nicholas C. Zakas\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201306-7275-my/images/9781449328092/9781449328092_s.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMaintainable JavaScript by Nicholas C. ZakasI read this book using Safari Books Online using various laptops and an iPad.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is an amazing book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFollowing a style guide while programming is common in many languages, but for me it is a new idea in JavaScript. Reading Douglas Crockford’s Style Guide \u003ca href=\"http://javascript.crockford.com/code.html\"\u003ehttp://javascript.crockford.com/code.html\u003c/a\u003e can teach you a lot, but Maintainable JavaScript teaches you not only the how, but also the why.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Maintainable JavaScript by Nicholas C. Zakas"},{"content":"I bought these books from Audible and listened to them using the Audible App on my iPhone.\nThe Human Division is something different, it is a collection of 13 short stories that take place in the \u0026ldquo;Old Man’s War\u0026rdquo; universe. This review is of the first 10 books in the series as the last 3 are not yet available.\nI am a huge fan of John Scalzi’s writing and the first two books from Old Man’s War were pretty great. But now I have grown tired of the series and don’t feel like it is doing much anymore. My guess is that I will continue to listen to any new \u0026ldquo;Old Man’s War\u0026rdquo; books that come out in the future, but they will not be my first choice, if something else is available, I will read that first.\nAbout \u0026ldquo;The B-Team\u0026rdquo; the first book in the series:\nColonial Union Ambassador Ode Abumwe and her team are used to life on the lower end of the diplomatic ladder. But when a high-profile diplomat goes missing, Abumwe and her team are last-minute replacements on a mission critical to the Colonial Union’s future. As the team works to pull off their task, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson discovers there’s more to the story of the missing diplomats than anyone expected… a secret that could spell war for humanity.\nThe B-Team is a tale from John Scalzi’s The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man’s War universe.\n©2012 John Scalzi (P)2013 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this series a 5 out of 10. If you like \u0026ldquo;Old Man’s War\u0026rdquo; or are an undying fan of John Scalzi then you will want to read them.\nP.S.\nThis series is the first time the Audible App has really let me down. They have updated the user interface in the app and I don’t like it much. They are truncating file names and the file names in the app do not match the file names on the web site.\nWhen looking at the individual books in this series in the iPhone app I could not tell which book was next. My solution was to send myself an email that listed the names of the books in the correct order.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-human-division-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Human Division by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51fnDFbY-sL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought these books from Audible and listened to them using the Audible App on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Human Division is something different, it is a collection of 13 short stories that take place in the \u0026ldquo;Old Man’s War\u0026rdquo; universe. This review is of the first 10 books in the series as the last 3 are not yet available.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am a huge fan of John Scalzi’s writing and the first two books from Old Man’s War were pretty great. But now I have grown tired of the series and don’t feel like it is doing much anymore. My guess is that I will continue to listen to any new \u0026ldquo;Old Man’s War\u0026rdquo; books that come out in the future, but they will not be my first choice, if something else is available, I will read that first.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Human Division by John Scalzi"},{"content":"\nCodecademyI first learned about Codecademy last year and I immediately jumped into it and completed a few of the JavaScript courses and promptly forgot about it.\nLately I have been writing more and more JavaScript and jQuery to make interactive prototypes for work. I rate my JavaScript skills somewhere around intermediate and I am challenging myself to work my way up to expert by the end of the year. As a part of that personal challenge I have been reading a lot of JavaScript, jQuery, and Git books and websites, this is how I ended up back on the Codecademy website.\nCompared to last year, Codecademy has made many improvements. The JavaScript courses have been updated, they still have plenty of ambiguous wordings that makes completing the lesson harder than it should be and many of the lessons don’t teach much more than how to cut-and-paste. But with some help from the available Forums, I finished the JavaScript courses in 4 days without too much trouble.\nI really enjoyed the courses on inheritance and constructors. I am going to put that to use immediately and refactor a lot of code and use courses to make my code much easier to maintain, modify and re-use.\nAll that said, I did have some issues while working through the lessons. A handful of times, I thought I understood the task but just couldn’t get it to accept my answer. The forums were helpful but it was not easy to find questions/answers related to the exact lesson/task I was having trouble with. I would appreciate it if the forums were broken down by individual lessons instead of by whole class.\nThe in-browser coding environment is very slick, but in many of the lessons there were warnings from JSHint. Those warning were very distracting when I was starting out, after awhile I learned to ignore most of them.\nOverall I enjoyed the Codecademy experience and I plan on continuing participating on the courses offered there. In between reading books and writing code, probably while on the couch in front of the TV, I will work my way through the Web Fundamentals, jQuery, JavaScript (done), Projects, Python, Ruby, PHP, and APIs lessons.\nFrom Codecademy:\nCodecademy is an education company. But not one in the way you might think. We’re committed to building the best learning experience inside and out, making Codecademy the best place for our team to learn, teach, and create the online learning experience of the future.\nEducation is old. The current public school system in the US dates back to the 19th century and wasn’t designed to scale the way it has. Lots of companies are working to \u0026ldquo;disrupt\u0026rdquo; education by changing the way things work in the classroom and by bringing the classroom online.\nWe’re not one of those companies. We are rethinking education from the bottom up. The web has rethought nearly everything – commerce, social networking, healthcare, and more. We are building the education the world needs – the first truly net native education. We take more cues from Facebook and Zynga in creating an engaging educational experience than we do from the classroom.\nWe do not want to open up universities. We want to open up knowledge. Everyone knows something they can teach someone else and we want to help them do it. Our community has created tens of thousands of courses and taken millions of courses. At this point, more than a billion lines of code have been submitted to Codecademy.\nEducation is broken. Come help us build the education the world deserves.\nI rate Codecademy a 9 out of 10 and it wouldn’t take many improvements to make it a 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/codecademy-javascript-courses/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://codecademy.com\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Codecademy Web Site\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/05/Screen-Shot-2013-05-17-at-11.52.25-PM.png\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCodecademyI first learned about Codecademy last year and I immediately jumped into it and completed a few of the JavaScript courses and promptly forgot about it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLately I have been writing more and more JavaScript and jQuery to make interactive prototypes for work. I rate my JavaScript skills somewhere around intermediate and I am challenging myself to work my way up to expert by the end of the year. As a part of that personal challenge I have been reading a lot of JavaScript, jQuery, and Git books and websites, this is how I ended up back on the Codecademy website.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Codecademy JavaScript Courses"},{"content":"I read this book on O’Reilley’s Safari Books Online using personal and work laptops along with the Safari Books app on an iPad.\nI really like the Adobe Classroom in a Book series and have read many of them. They are great because they are based on real-world use and come with all of the files needed to build the projects used in them.\nBack in the day I did the Photoshop Classroom in a Book and completed all of the tutorials, followed every step, and wrote out the answers to the quizzes at the end of each chapter. Since then I pretty much just read through the book and absorb as much as I can, returning to the book when I get stuck in the project I am working on.\nI am working with a designer that uses Fireworks to build his web site designs and was completely befuddled by Fireworks. Getting the images I needed to build a demo web site seemed incredibly hard and inefficient. So I grabbed this book and spent a couple of days reading it.\nThis book did not disappoint, it has already helped me figure out how to get the content out of Fireworks more efficiently. It still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me just how hard it is, but most of that is just how Fireworks functions and I am still not a fan of it. Fireworks is a through-back to the Macromedia days and I don’t feel like it has been updated the way it should be for modern web design. It may be a good tool for designers to build prototypes and designs to show clients, but for the people trying to implement those designs it kinda sucks.\nOne of the cool features of Fireworks I learned form the book is the creation of CSS3 properties that closely mimic the Live Filters such as drop-shadows, with some tweaking this has worked great for us and really saved a lot of time.\nI only have one real complaint about this book, the design used in the tutorials feels very Y2K to me, it is very dated. It is not Web 2.0, responsive, or anything that I would consider \u0026ldquo;modern.\u0026rdquo;\nFrom the publisher:\nThose creative professionals seeking the fastest, easiest, most comprehensive way to learn Adobe Fireworks choose Adobe Fireworks CS6 Classroom in a Book from the Adobe Creative Team. The 14 project-based lessons in this book show readers step-by-step the key techniques for working in Fireworks.\nReaders will learn what they need to know to design and mock up Web pages or interfaces for rich Internet applications or tablet apps. In addition readers will learn how to demo a design for a client in real time, export the design as an interactive PDF, and export vector design elements as CSS3-only markup for use in websites. This edition, fully revised for CS6, covers CSS extraction using the CSS Properties panel, jQuery Mobile skinning, and sprite creation. It also includes instruction on working with the Styles panel and several new enhancements to the Properties panel, including the new color selection and gradient editing features. The companion DVD includes lesson files so readers can work along with the book.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10, anyone who needs to or wants to learn Adobe Fireworks can learn a lot from it in a short time.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/adobe-fireworks-cs6-classroom-in-a-book/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Adobe Fireworks CS6 Classroom in a Book\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201303-7140-my/images/9780133005509/9780133005509_s.jpg\"\u003eI read this book on O’Reilley’s Safari Books Online using personal and work laptops along with the Safari Books app on an iPad.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really like the Adobe Classroom in a Book series and have read many of them. They are great because they are based on real-world use and come with all of the files needed to build the projects used in them.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Adobe Fireworks CS6 Classroom in a Book: The official training workbook from Adobe Systems"},{"content":"I read this book on [Safari Books Online](http://www.safaribooksonline.com\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;http://www.safaribooksonline.com) using Firefox.\nI am doing more and more with jQuery and went looking for a book that could show me the ins-and-outs of it and \u0026ldquo;Pro jQuery\u0026rdquo; is definitely that book.\nI do not agree that this is a “Pro” book as it does not cover professional techniques for programming in JavaScript using the current best practices that you would find in a production environment, but this book is a great reference for jQuery and I could find none that were better.\nThis book has taken my jQuery skills from advanced newbie to a solid understanding of what I would use jQuery for and what I would not. I expect to use it as a reference for a long time to come.\nFrom the publisher:\nQuery is one of the most popular and powerful JavaScript libraries available today. It’s widely used to create rich user experiences and to simplify website and application development. It is the tool of choice for web developers everywhere and sets the standard for simplicity, flexibility and extensibility.\nIn Pro jQuery, seasoned author Adam Freeman explains how to get the most from jQuery by focusing on the features you need for your project. He starts with the nuts and bolts and shows you everything through to advanced features, going in depth to give you the knowledge you need. Getting the most from jQuery is essential to truly mastering web development.\nWhat you’ll learn\nUnderstand the capabilities of jQuery and why it is special Use the core of jQuery to enrich HTML, including tables, forms and data displays Use jQuery UI to create rich and fluid user experiences Use rich interactions such as drag and drop, sortable data and touch sensitivity Use jQuery Mobile to create touch-enabled interfaces for mobile devices and tablets Extend jQuery by creating custom plugins and widgets Each topic is covered clearly and concisely, and is packed with the details you’ll need to learn to be truly effective with jQuery. The most important features are given a no-nonsense, in-depth treatment, and chapters contain examples that demonstrate both the power and the subtlety of jQuery.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about jQuery.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/pro-jquery-by-adam-freeman/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Pro jQuery by Adam Freeman\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.freeebooktemple.net/wp-content/uploads/blogger/-qgM2b1O1Zlo/T1EB9zN2DEI/AAAAAAAABgo/DMknVgsx-2c/s1600/Pro%2BjQuery%2BBy%2BAdam%2BFreeman.jpeg\"\u003eI read this book on [Safari Books Online](\u003ca href=\"http://www.safaribooksonline.com\"\u003ehttp://www.safaribooksonline.com\u003c/a\u003e\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;\u003ca href=\"http://www.safaribooksonline.com\"\u003ehttp://www.safaribooksonline.com\u003c/a\u003e) using Firefox.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am doing more and more with jQuery and went looking for a book that could show me the ins-and-outs of it and \u0026ldquo;Pro jQuery\u0026rdquo; is definitely that book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI do not agree that this is a “Pro” book as it does not cover professional techniques for programming in JavaScript using the current best practices that you would find in a production environment, but this book is a great reference for jQuery and I could find none that were better.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Pro jQuery by Adam Freeman"},{"content":"What the heck does \u0026ldquo;Repsonsive\u0026rdquo; mean when it comes to a web site?\nFor my own practical purposes it means that I have a single web site with one set of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript being served to all web browsers, but the appearance of the website changes based upon the width of the web browser’s window to give a great viewing experience to everyone.\nHaha, that is a mouthful.\nSo here it is in action:\nDesktop Web Browser\niPad\ndavenelson.com iPhone Screen Shot\nThe great thing is I did not need to build three different websites, no \u0026ldquo;mobile\u0026rdquo; version, just \u0026ldquo;The Website.\u0026rdquo; Another great thing is that I was able to start with a WordPress theme that someone else spent a lot of time an effort in building. I just tweaked it to fit my needs.\nSunspot WordPress Theme Screen ShotThe theme is called Sunspot by Automattic and I really like the way my content looks when using it.\nFrom the author:\nA sharp theme with subtle grid lines and sun-splashed accents, Sunspot is a great all-purpose blogging canvas, especially for those who prefer a dark color scheme. Sunspot offers two arrangements for posts on the front page. Additional features include a custom header and a custom background, two optional widget areas, and a responsive layout that adapts gracefully to smaller screen sizes.\nResponsive design is not a fit for all web sites, content and interactions that work great in a desktop web browser are not always appropriate for the really small screens of smartphones and conversely content made for smartphones does not always scale well for big screens. But for a blog or any site that is primarily text-based I think responsive design is a great way to reach a broader audience.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/responsive-design-in-practice/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWhat the heck does \u0026ldquo;Repsonsive\u0026rdquo; mean when it comes to a web site?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor my own practical purposes it means that I have a single web site with one set of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript being served to all web browsers, but the appearance of the website changes based upon the width of the web browser’s window to give a great viewing experience to everyone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHaha, that is a mouthful.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Responsive Design in Practice"},{"content":"I read this book on Safari Books Online using a web browser and an iPad.\nI have read the \u0026ldquo;From Snapshots to Great Shots\u0026rdquo; for the 7D and the G12 and they were pretty good. So I decided to give the one for the 5D Mark III a try and it did not disappoint.\nUnlike the books \u0026ldquo;Canon EOS 5D Mark III by James Johnson\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital Field Guide by Charlotte K. Lowrie\u0026rdquo; this book tells you not only about the features and functions of the Canon 5D Mark III but also tells you why you may choose one setting over another.\nThis book, and the series in general, did not blow me away or provide any mind-blowing insights. But it does contain a lot of information to get you starting working with your camera.\nI really like the idea of the assignments at the end of each chapter, anyone who works through each of them will have a very solid understanding of their camera.\nFrom the publisher:\nNow that you’ve bought the amazing Canon 5D Mark III, you need a book that goes beyond a tour of the camera’s features to show you exactly how to use the 5D Mark III to take great pictures. With Canon 5D Mark III: From Snapshots to Great Shots, you get the perfect blend of photography instruction and camera reference that will take your images to the next level! Beautifully illustrated with large, vibrant photos, this book teaches you how to take control of your photography to get the image you want every time you pick up the camera.\nWith Canon 5D Mark III: From Snapshots to Great Shots, you’ll learn not only what makes a great shot work–you’ll learn how to get that shot using your 5D Mark III.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone interested in reading about the Canon 5D Mk III, especially beginning photographers who want to get the most out of their camera.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/canon-5d-mark-iii-from-snapshots-to-great-shots-by-ibarionex-perello/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Canon 5D Mark III: From Snapshots to Great Shots by Ibarionex Perello\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201302-7094-my/images/9780133086836/9780133086836_s.jpg\"\u003eI read this book on Safari Books Online using a web browser and an iPad.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have read the \u0026ldquo;From Snapshots to Great Shots\u0026rdquo; for the 7D and the G12 and they were pretty good. So I decided to give the one for the 5D Mark III a try and it did not disappoint.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike the books \u0026ldquo;Canon EOS 5D Mark III by James Johnson\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital Field Guide by Charlotte K. Lowrie\u0026rdquo; this book tells you not only about the features and functions of the Canon 5D Mark III but also tells you why you may choose one setting over another.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Canon 5D Mark III: From Snapshots to Great Shots by Ibarionex Perello"},{"content":"\nDreamhost’s Web SiteAfter 4 years at my previous host I had become pretty unhappy with them.\nI was running a WordPress blog and a PHP/MySQL based app to track an office football pool along with a handful of pictures for clients to download and prototype websites for conducting usability tests. But I was regularly having issues, mostly based around the web site being really slow.\nSo after reading a post in Lifehacker about the best personal web host which highlighted Dreamhost as the best option, I decided to make the jump.\nThe Dreamhost discount from the article was no longer valid, but I was able to find a $50 off coupon when signing up for a year or more. It made my first year cost less than $70. And after that the cost will be within $20 of what I was paying my previous host.\nIt took about 2 days for the DNS entries to be updated, to make my tweaks, and to get WordPress up and running with my imported content.\nA big shout-out to the folks that make WordPress happen, exporting the content from my old provider then importing it into the new one worked like a charm. I had to tweak some settings and add some information in widgets and plug-ins, but overall it was amazingly easy.\nI’ve spent some time over the last 2 weeks picking a Responsive theme, Sunspot by Automattic, that works great on a desktop at any width, smartphone, and tablet. It took some tweaking based on the heading and navigation, but it is clean and easy to modify.\nThen I started with the basic plugins, Akismet and Jetpack by WordPress.com which are great and easy to install and setup.\nThen I tried a bunch of different plugins that were all awful. For any WordPress install I highly recommend you go to a site like Pingdom Website Speed Test and check your speed with no plugins installed and then run it again after you add each plug-in. Also check it again anytime you make big changes to any plugins. Using Pingdom I was able to see that the “SmugMug for WordPress” plugin was absolutely killing the speed of my website, even when it was not displaying content on my website, so I am not using that anymore.\nIn the end I am using SmugMug Widget to display some of my most recent photos uploaded to my photography website. With some tweaking to the CSS I have the widget working great in the Sunspot theme and is now a part of the responsive design. Best of all the SmugMug Widget did not negatively affect the speed of my website.\nThen I tried W3 Total Cache and after a day of fiddling with it decided it was not for me. If you are not running some type of minification and caching system on your WordPress website I do suggest giving it a try, but I chose to go a simpler route.\nI am using WP Minify to remove all of the extra white space and combine separate files for JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. Running YSlow using minification made a difference, but not a big one.\nThe big performance improvement for my website comes from WordPress Super Cache which makes dynamic pages static. On my server the pages are still served by PHP, but they are so much faster!\nNow my website includes the content I want, has a responsive design that looks great on desktop web browsers, iPads, and iPhones, and is faster than I could have ever hoped for.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/i-changed-web-site-hosts/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://dreamhost.com\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"web site screen shot\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/hugo/images/2013/05/dreamhost-small.png\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDreamhost’s Web SiteAfter 4 years at my previous host I had become pretty unhappy with them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was running a \u003ca href=\"http://wordpress.org/\"\u003eWordPress\u003c/a\u003e blog and a PHP/MySQL based app to track an office football pool along with a handful of pictures for clients to download and prototype websites for conducting usability tests. But I was regularly having issues, mostly based around the web site being really slow.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo after reading a post in \u003ca href=\"http://lifehacker.com/5546722/best-personal-web-host-dreamhost\"\u003eLifehacker about the best personal web host\u003c/a\u003e which highlighted Dreamhost as the best option, I decided to make the jump.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"I Changed Web Site Hosts"},{"content":"I read both of these books using Safari Books Online by O’Reilly Media.\nThey are very similar books and both of them are very similar to the owners manual that comes with the Canon 5D Mk III. But they do present the information in a way that is much easier to understand and retain than the manual.\nWhat is missing here is an answer to the question, “Why would I use that setting instead of the other?” You will have to find some other book or better yet books to explain that. Even better, get out there and experiment like crazy. Buy a cheap mannequin off eBay to use as a practice subject and take pictures until your camera stops working.\nCanon EOS 5D Mark III by James Johnson\nFrom the publisher:\nThe Canon EOS 5D Mark III is the latest in Canon’s line of full-frame DSLR cameras. Its impressive array of capabilities and advanced controls allow the photographer ever more influence over the final image. With this comes more menus, buttons, and dials that the photographer must learn how to use to take full advantage of the camera.\nThis book explores the features and capabilities of the 5D Mark III in a way that far surpasses the user’s manual. It guides readers through the camera features with step-by-step setting adjustments; color illustrations; and detailed how, when, and why explanations for each option. Every button, dial, switch, and menu configuration setting is explored in a user-friendly manner, with suggestions for setup. The informative text is illustrated with screenshots and example images throughout, making it easy to follow along.\nAuthor James Johnson covers everything from the basic features of the camera to the numerous advanced photographic options as he discusses topics such as focus and exposure, lenses, lighting, custom settings, and more. With this book as your guide, you’ll learn how to get the most out of this powerful camera.\nCanon EOS 5D Mark III Digital Field Guide by Charlotte K. Lowrie\nFrom the publisher:\nGuides readers step-by-step through the functions on their new Canon EOS 5D Mark III\nThe Canon EOS 5D Mark III features an impressive 22.3 megapixels, a 3.2-inch LCD screen, 6 fps continuous shooting, Live View, an ISO range of 50 to 102,400 and full HD 1080 resolution movie shooting. Here to help you get the most out of these remarkable features?\nOffering you more in-depth coverage than the standard manual, this full-color Canon 5D Mark III Digital Field Guide provides you with a better understanding of your camera. Delivering information in an easy-to-understand format, this portable guide features more than 200 inspirational photos by acclaimed photographer and veteran author Charlotte Lowrie. The handy trim size allows this guide to go where you go, allowing you easy access to information quickly so you can get the exact shot you want when you want it.\nHelps you make the most of your Canon 5D Mark III and get the shots you want\nOffers inspiration with more than 200 lavish photos from the author’s own portfolio\nProvides step-by-step explanations on techniques and tips, all aimed at getting you comfortable and confident with your new Canon 5D Mark III\nIdeal reading for both amateur and professional photographers alike, you’ll reference Canon 5D Mark III Digital Field Guide again and again.\nI rate both of these books a 7 out of 10 and recommend either one of them, no need for both, to anyone who finds the owners manual of the 5D Mk III hard to read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/two-books-about-the-canon-5d-mark-iii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI read both of these books using Safari Books Online by O’Reilly Media.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey are very similar books and both of them are very similar to the owners manual that comes with the Canon 5D Mk III. But they do present the information in a way that is much easier to understand and retain than the manual.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat is missing here is an answer to the question, “Why would I use that setting instead of the other?” You will have to find some other book or better yet books to explain that. Even better, get out there and experiment like crazy. Buy a cheap mannequin off eBay to use as a practice subject and take pictures until your camera stops working.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Two books about the Canon 5D Mark III"},{"content":"Last weekend I attended the Vintage Computer Festival and Apple Pop-Up Museum at the empty CompUSA store off of Holcomb Bridge Road. It was nice to see someone doing something with one of these abandoned storefronts.\nIt was great fun seeing all of the old Apple, Commodore, Atari, and other computers and gaming consoles. It all made me very nostalgic, but not so much as I would trade in any of my current computers for any of them. It was really amazing what we were able to produce using those old machines.\nAnd good news, the Apple Pop-Up Museum is going to be open 2 additional Saturdays, May 18 and June 8.\nAbout the [Vintage Computer Festival](http://www.vintage.org/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;http://www.vintage.org/):\nThe Vintage Computer Festival is an international event that celebrates the history of computing.\nThe mission of the Vintage Computer Festival is to promote the preservation of \u0026ldquo;obsolete\u0026rdquo; computers by offering folks a chance to experience the technologies, people and stories that embody the remarkable tale of the computer revolution.\nThrough our event and the Vintage Computer Festival Archives—our publicly accessible archive of computer hardware, software, literature and ephemera—we promote interest in researching and documenting the history of the computer. Above all, we promote the fun of playing with old computers.\nAbout the [Apple Pop-Up Museum](http://applepopupmuseum.com/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;http://applepopupmuseum.com/):\nThe exhibit displays an exclusive collection of game-changing Apple personal computers and consumer electronics products while presenting the history of the company since its founding in 1976 to the present. An Apple I, the first disk II and controller card, an original Apple II, an original Lisa and a Xerox Alto are among the rare artifacts to be displayed.\nCheck out more pictures from the Museum and Festival: http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/2013-Apple-Pop-Up-Museum/29080622_ZnCzzN\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/apple-pop-up-museum-and-vintage-computer-festival/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/2013-Apple-Pop-Up-Museum/29080622_ZnCzzN\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Apple Pop-Up Museum and Vintage Computer Festival\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Events/2013-Apple-Pop-Up-Museum/i-3qTqzQ8/0/S/dave-nelson-20130420-113954-0004-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eLast weekend I attended the Vintage Computer Festival and Apple Pop-Up Museum at the empty CompUSA store off of Holcomb Bridge Road. It was nice to see someone doing something with one of these abandoned storefronts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was great fun seeing all of the old Apple, Commodore, Atari, and other computers and gaming consoles. It all made me very nostalgic, but not so much as I would trade in any of my current computers for any of them. It was really amazing what we were able to produce using those old machines.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Apple Pop-Up Museum and Vintage Computer Festival"},{"content":"I read this book using Safari Books Online from O’Reilly Media.\nBrian Smith is an amazing photographer and has a personality to match. He is able to quickly make a personal connection with people from all walks of life and create photographs that highlight their personality and emotion.\n\u0026ldquo;Secrets of Great Portrait Photography\u0026rdquo; gives us insight to the methods Brian uses to get close to his subjects and capture images that make the client, usually magazine creative directors, and the subject happy with the results.\nThis is not a book about how to use your camera, how to pose a subject, or how to make them feel comfortable. It is a book about many of Brian’s favorite pictures and what he did or did not do to achieve them. It does not go very deep into anything, instead choosing to keep things light and easy. The only thing that bugged me was the amount of repetition, definitions and ideas are often repeated.\nThis photography in the book is fantastic and the writing is very conversational. I read the entire book in a few hours and spent much of that time dissecting the pictures.\nI plan on taking his challenge of taking 50 portraits of total strangers seriously and maybe some time in spring or fall setting myself up somewhere very public and making myself ask strangers to let me take their portrait. Interacting with people like that is very hard for me; maybe doing that will give me some sort of insight to myself and make it easier for me in the future.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn this sexy, bold book, Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer Brian Smith tells the stories behind the photos and lessons learned in 30 years of photographing celebrities and people from all walks of life. Smith’s long list of famous and infamous subjects includes pro basketball players Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O’Neal; billionaires Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Donald Trump; tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams; actors Anne Hathaway, Antonio Banderas, Christopher Walken, Taye Diggs, Jane Krakowski, and William H. Macy; and many more.\nYou’ll get the inside scoop on what goes on at a celebrity photo shoot in this gorgeous guide to making professional portraits. Smith has mastered how to make a meaningful portrait on a magazine’s budget and on a celebrity’s schedule, which can sometimes be 15 minutes or less. Smith reveals his tips on connecting with people, finding the perfect location, telling a great story through portraiture, getting the ideal pose, capturing emotion and gestures, arranging unique group shots, and lighting the scene just right. You might not be photographing the rich and famous, but after reading Smith’s tell-all guide, you’ll know how to give everyone who makes their way in front of your camera the star treatment.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone with an interest in taking photographs of people.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/secrets-of-great-portrait-photography-by-brian-smith/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Secrets of Great Portrait Photography by Brian Smith\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201302-7094-my/images/9780132867733/9780132867733_s.jpg\"\u003eI read this book using Safari Books Online from O’Reilly Media.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBrian Smith is an amazing photographer and has a personality to match. He is able to quickly make a personal connection with people from all walks of life and create photographs that highlight their personality and emotion.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Secrets of Great Portrait Photography\u0026rdquo; gives us insight to the methods Brian uses to get close to his subjects and capture images that make the client, usually magazine creative directors, and the subject happy with the results.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Secrets of Great Portrait Photography: Photographs of the Famous and Infamous by Brian Smith"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nThis is a short story that is part of a series of Old Man’s War stories.\nWilliam Dufris does a great job with these stories, but his performance was the highlight of this one.\nI am feeling bored of the Old Man’s War universe and this story will be the last one I listen to for awhile, in fact I may never revisit it. All of the characters have become stereotypes to me and it feels like there is nothing new here. Nothing suprising, nothing deep and thoughtful, none of what drew me into John Scalzi’s worlds and stories to begin with. That was also my problem with Last Colony.\nFrom the publisher:\nColonial Union Ambassador Ode Abumwe and her team are used to life on the lower end of the diplomatic ladder. But when a high-profile diplomat goes missing, Abumwe and her team are last-minute replacements on a mission critical to the Colonial Union’s future. As the team works to pull off their task, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson discovers there’s more to the story of the missing diplomats than anyone expected… a secret that could spell war for humanity.\nThe B-Team is a tale from John Scalzi’s The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man’s War universe.\nTo download Episodes 2-13 in The Human Division, click here.\n©2012 John Scalzi (P)2013 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this story a 5 out of 10 and only recommend it to fans of the Old Man’s War series who can’t get enough.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-human-division-ep-1-the-b-team-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Human Division, Episode 1: The B-Team by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EPfqfXXCL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a short story that is part of a series of Old Man’s War stories.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWilliam Dufris does a great job with these stories, but his performance was the highlight of this one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am feeling bored of the Old Man’s War universe and this story will be the last one I listen to for awhile, in fact I may never revisit it. All of the characters have become stereotypes to me and it feels like there is nothing new here. Nothing suprising, nothing deep and thoughtful, none of what drew me into John Scalzi’s worlds and stories to begin with. That was also my problem with Last Colony.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Human Division, Episode 1: The B-Team by John Scalzi"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nThis is the second book in the Gentleman Bastard series.\nI really enjoyed the The Lies of Locke Lamora and really looked forward to listening to this one and it did not disappoint.\nMichael Page turns in another fantastic performance with subtle accents and speech patterns galore.\nFrom the publisher:\nAfter a brutal battle with the underworld that nearly destroyed him, Locke Lamora and his trusted sidekick, Jean, fled the island city of their birth and landed on the exotic shores of Tal Verrar to nurse their wounds. But even at this westernmost edge of civilization, they can’t rest for long—and they are soon back doing what they do best: stealing from the undeserving rich and pocketing the proceeds for themselves.\nThis time, however, they have targeted the grandest prize of all: the Sinspire, the most exclusive and heavily guarded gambling house in the world. Its nine floors attract the wealthiest clientele – and to rise to the top, one must impress with good credit, amusing behavior…and excruciatingly impeccable play. For there is one cardinal rule, enforced by Requin, the house’s cold-blooded master: it is death to cheat at any game at the Sinspire.Brazenly undeterred, Locke and Jean have orchestrated an elaborate plan to lie, trick, and swindle their way up the nine floors…straight to Requin’s teeming vault. Under the cloak of false identities, they meticulously make their climb – until they are closer to the spoils than ever.\nBut someone in Tal Verrar has uncovered the duo’s secret. Someone from their past who has every intention of making the impudent criminals pay for their sins. Now it will take every ounce of cunning to save their mercenary souls. And even that may not be enough.\n©2008 Scott Lynch; (P)2009 Tantor\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and highly recommend it to anyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/red-seas-under-red-skies-by-scott-lynch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-kXbA3uOL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the second book in the Gentleman Bastard series.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed the The Lies of Locke Lamora and really looked forward to listening to this one and it did not disappoint.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMichael Page turns in another fantastic performance with subtle accents and speech patterns galore.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it with the Audible app on an iPhone.\nI really like Seth Godin, but I don’t like this book. The message is lost on me; it feels very repetitive; and it feels a lot like something I have heard before.\nI recommend Re-reading Linchpin instead of reading this book.\nFrom the publisher:\nWhat are you afraid of?\nThe old rules: Play it safe. Stay in your comfort zone. Find an institution, a job, a set of rules to stick to. Keep your head down. Don’t fly too close to the sun.\nThe new truth: It’s better to be sorry than safe. You need to fly higher than ever.\nIn his bravest and most challenging book yet, Seth Godin shows how we can thrive in an economy that rewards art, not compliance. He explains why true innovators focus on trust, remarkability, leadership, and stories that spread. And he makes a passionate argument for why you should be treating your work as art.\nArt is not a gene or a specific talent. It’s an attitude, available to anyone who has a vision that others don’t, and the guts to do something about it. Steve Jobs was an artist. So were Henry Ford and Martin Luther King, Jr. To work like an artist means investing in the things that scale: creativity, emotional labor, and grit. The path of the artist isn’t for the faint of heart – but Godin shows why it’s your only chance to stand up, stand out, and make a difference.\nThe time to seize new ground and work without a map is now. So what are you going to do?\n©2012 Seth Godin (P)2012 Random House Audio\nI rate this book a 3 out of 10. Go find something else to read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-icarus-deception-by-seth-godin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? by Seth Godin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51os5wPrQtL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it with the Audible app on an iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really like Seth Godin, but I don’t like this book. The message is lost on me; it feels very repetitive; and it feels a lot like something I have heard before.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI recommend Re-reading \u003cstrong\u003eLinchpin\u003c/strong\u003e instead of reading this book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? by Seth Godin"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using my iPhone and the Audible app.\nThis is the third book in John Scalzi’s series Old Man’s War.\nThis story did not work for me, there were to many GLARING plot holes and things left half-baked. This is the first of Scalzi’s books that I didn’t really enjoy. It was ok, just not as original a story I have come to expect from him.\nWilliam Dufris does a great job of narrating, he is one of my favorite performers.\nFrom the publisher:\nRetired from his fighting days, John Perry is now village ombudsman for a human colony on distant Huckleberry. With his wife, former Special Forces warrior Jane Sagan, he farms several acres, adjudicates local disputes, and enjoys watching his adopted daughter grow up.\nThat is, until his and Jane’s past reaches out to bring them back into the game – as leaders of a new human colony, to be peopled by settlers from all the major human worlds, for a deep political purpose that will put Perry and Sagan back in the thick of interstellar politics, betrayal, and war.\n©2007 John Scalzi; (P)2008 Macmillan Audio\nI rate this book a 6 out 10 and recommend it only to those who are following the Old Man’s War series.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-last-colony-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Last Colony by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61clbbKs5cL._SL225_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using my iPhone and the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the third book in John Scalzi’s series Old Man’s War.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis story did not work for me, there were to many GLARING plot holes and things left half-baked. This is the first of Scalzi’s books that I didn’t really enjoy. It was ok, just not as original a story I have come to expect from him.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Last Colony by John Scalzi"},{"content":"I am not sure how this book ended up on my shelf, it was probably on one of my \u0026ldquo;Dave Ramsey Recommends\u0026rdquo; buying sprees.\nPoke the Box is all about getting started and executed on your ideas. For me it is kind of like having a personal cheerleader. This book picked up my spirits at a time when I was feeling down, now I hope I am able to put some of it to good use.\nThis is a short book, I read it in 2 sittings while taking lots of notes.\nHere is a quote from the book that describes how I often act when it comes to many projects.\n\u0026quot; The person who constantly asks questions, interrupts, takes endless notes, and is always in your face isn’t just annoying — she’s self-sabotaging, a form of hiding. This hypergo mindset is just as safe as the more prevalent kind of under-shipping, because if you’re the kind of person who’s always dreaming and riffing, of course you can’t be held responsible for your work. First, because you’re crazy, and second, because you’re too busy doing the next thing to be held responsible for the last one.\u0026quot;\nI hope to put what I read in the book into practice and break out of the hypergo mentality.\nHere is my favorite quote from the book:\n\u0026quot; Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.\u0026quot;\nFrom the publisher:\nWe send our kids to school and obsess about their test scores, their behavior and their ability to fit in.\nWe post a help wanted ad and look for experience, famous colleges and a history of avoiding failure.\nWe invest in companies based on how they did last quarter, not on what they’re going to do tomorrow.\nSo why are we surprised when it all falls apart?\nOur economy is not static, but we act as if it is. Your position in the world is defined by what you instigate, how you provoke, and what you learn from the events you cause. In a world filled with change, that’s what matters — your ability to create and learn from change.\nPoke the Box is a manifesto about producing something that’s scarce, and thus valuable. It demands that you stop waiting for a road map and start drawing one instead. You know how to do this, you’ve done it before, but along the way, someone talked you out of it.\nWe need your insight and your dreams and your contributions. Hurry.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who needs a push to get started.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/poke-the-box-by-seth-godin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Poke the Box by Seth Godin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347742814l/10368067.jpg?w=250\"\u003eI am not sure how this book ended up on my shelf, it was probably on one of my \u0026ldquo;Dave Ramsey Recommends\u0026rdquo; buying sprees.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePoke the Box is all about getting started and executed on your ideas. For me it is kind of like having a personal cheerleader. This book picked up my spirits at a time when I was feeling down, now I hope I am able to put some of it to good use.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Poke the Box by Seth Godin"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone with the Audible app.\nMy friend Rod mentioned this book in a Tweet a while back and I thought I would give it a try and I am glad I did.\nScott Lynch creates a fantastical world reminiscent of renaissance Venice Italy full of royalty and thieves. I feel that it is written more like modern fiction than it is traditional fantasy, magic is present but not over-explained.\nMichael Page does an amazing job with his performance, he brings all of the characters to life and gives them accents and speech patterns that I would have totally missed if I’d have read a printed book.\nI really liked this story and now can’t wait to read the second book in the series.\nFrom the publisher:\nAn orphan’s life is harsh—and often short—in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains—a man who is neither blind nor a priest. A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected “family” of orphans—a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards.\nUnder his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting. Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld’s most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful—and more ambitious—than Locke has yet imagined. Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi’s most trusted men—and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr’s underworld.\nWith a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game—or die trying.\n©2008 Scott Lynch; (P)2009 Tantor\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes good fiction or adult fantasy. This book is full of foul language, but not so much that it distracted me from the story.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-lies-of-locke-lamora-by-scott-lynch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513-HCxCRXL._SL275_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone with the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy friend Rod mentioned this book in a Tweet a while back and I thought I would give it a try and I am glad I did.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eScott Lynch creates a fantastical world reminiscent of renaissance Venice Italy full of royalty and thieves. I feel that it is written more like modern fiction than it is traditional fantasy, magic is present but not over-explained.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nSuch an interesting story, a mystery sci-fi inter-dimensional romp. I find it hard to write about without giving major parts of the story away.\nTry it, I think you’ll like it.\nFrom the publisher:\nPadlocked doors. Strange light fixtures. Mutant cockroaches.\nThere are some odd things about Nate’s new apartment. Of course, he has other things on his mind. He hates his job. He has no money in the bank. No girlfriend. No plans for the future. So while his new home isn’t perfect, it’s livable. The rent is low, the property managers are friendly, and the odd little mysteries don’t nag at him too much. At least, not until he meets Mandy, his neighbor across the hall, and notices something unusual about her apartment. And Xela’s apartment. And Tim’s. And Veek’s. Because every room in this old Los Angeles brownstone has a mystery or two. Mysteries that stretch back over a hundred years. Some of them are in plain sight. Some are behind locked doors. And all together these mysteries could mean the end of Nate and his friends. Or the end of everything….\n©2012 Peter Clines and Permuted Press (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 9 out of 10 and recommend it to any geeks who like a good mystery.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/14-by-peter-clines/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61SVHUSztpL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch an interesting story, a mystery sci-fi inter-dimensional romp. I find it hard to write about without giving major parts of the story away.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTry it, I think you’ll like it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePadlocked doors. Strange light fixtures. Mutant cockroaches.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are some odd things about Nate’s new apartment. Of course, he has other things on his mind. He hates his job. He has no money in the bank. No girlfriend. No plans for the future. So while his new home isn’t perfect, it’s livable. The rent is low, the property managers are friendly, and the odd little mysteries don’t nag at him too much. At least, not until he meets Mandy, his neighbor across the hall, and notices something unusual about her apartment. And Xela’s apartment. And Tim’s. And Veek’s. Because every room in this old Los Angeles brownstone has a mystery or two. Mysteries that stretch back over a hundred years. Some of them are in plain sight. Some are behind locked doors. And all together these mysteries could mean the end of Nate and his friends. Or the end of everything….\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e©2012 Peter Clines and Permuted Press (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"14 by Peter Clines"},{"content":" I bought this book from Audible and listened to it with the Audible app on my iPhone.\nThis book is made up of two stories, one of them is the original Little Fuzzy short story by H. Beam Piper and the other is John Sclazi’s re-imagining.\nI really like both of them for different reasons. The new version fits into what I think of as modern sci-fi and the original is good solid old-school science fiction. This is the only \u0026ldquo;re-imagining\u0026rdquo; that I can think of that I would recommend.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn John Scalzi’s re-imagining of H. Beam Piper’s 1962 sci-fi classic Little Fuzzy, written with the full cooperation of the Piper Estate, Jack Holloway works alone for reasons he doesn’t care to talk about. On the distant planet Zarathustra, Jack is content as an independent contractor for ZaraCorp, prospecting and surveying at his own pace. As for his past, that’s not up for discussion.\nThen, in the wake of an accidental cliff collapse, Jack discovers a seam of unimaginably valuable jewels, to which he manages to lay legal claim just as ZaraCorp is cancelling their contract with him for his part in causing the collapse. Briefly in the catbird seat, legally speaking, Jack pressures ZaraCorp into recognizing his claim, and cuts them in as partners to help extract the wealth.\nBut there’s another wrinkle to ZaraCorp’s relationship with the planet Zarathustra. Their entire legal right to exploit the verdant Earth-like planet, the basis of the wealth they derive from extracting its resources, is based on being able to certify to the authorities on Earth that Zarathustra is home to no sentient species. Then a small furry biped – trusting, appealing, and ridiculously cute – shows up at Jack’s outback home. Followed by its family. As it dawns on Jack that despite their stature, these are people, he begins to suspect that ZaraCorp’s claim to a planet’s worth of wealth is very flimsy indeed and that ZaraCorp may stop at nothing to eliminate the fuzzys before their existence becomes more widely known.\nBONUS CONTENT: Includes the unabridged audiobook of H. Beam Piper’s original Little Fuzzy, the novel that inspired Fuzzy Nation. In your Library, Part 1 will be the complete audio of Fuzzy Nation and Part 2 will be the complete Little Fuzzy.\n©2011 John Scalzi (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/fuzzy-nation-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61UXEEKJovL.%5C_SL250%5C_.jpg\"\u003e\nI bought this book from Audible and listened to it with the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book is made up of two stories, one of them is the original Little Fuzzy short story by H. Beam Piper and the other is John Sclazi’s re-imagining.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really like both of them for different reasons. The new version fits into what I think of as modern sci-fi and the original is good solid old-school science fiction. This is the only \u0026ldquo;re-imagining\u0026rdquo; that I can think of that I would recommend.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi"},{"content":"This is book 2 of the Old Man’s War series and I bought it from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\nThis book takes a deeper dive into what it would be like to be cloned special forces marine who has the body and knowledge of an adult while having the emotional growth of a child.\nI liked this story more than Old Man’s War, but rate them the same as they really do go together even though they do not contain many of the same characters. It is also narrated by William Dufris who continues to turn-in fantastic performances.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces, elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect soldiers for the CDF’s toughest operations. They’re young, they’re fast and strong, and they’re totally without normal human qualms.\nFor the universe is a dangerous place for humanity – and it’s about to become far more dangerous. Three races that humans have clashed with before have allied to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat military scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF’s biggest military secrets. To prevail, the CDF most find out why Boutin did what he did.\nJared Dirac is the only human who can provide answers – a superhuman hybrid, created from Boutin’s DNA, whose brain is uniquely able to access Boutin’s electronic memories. But when the memory transplant appears to fail, Jared is given over to the Ghost Brigades.\nJared begins as one of these perfect soldiers, but as memories begin to surface, he begins to intuit the reason’s for Boutin’s betrayal.\nAs Jared desperately hunts for his “father”, he must also come to grips with his own choices. Time is running out: the alliance is preparing its offensive, and some of them plan worse things than humanity’s mere military defeat.\n©2006 John Scalzi; (P)2008 Macmillan Audio\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to John Sclazi and military science fiction fans. I recommend you read book 1, Old Man’s War, before reading this one.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-ghost-brigades-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51UKgXipTyL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eThis is book 2 of the Old Man’s War series and I bought it from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book takes a deeper dive into what it would be like to be cloned special forces marine who has the body and knowledge of an adult while having the emotional growth of a child.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI liked this story more than Old Man’s War, but rate them the same as they really do go together even though they do not contain many of the same characters. It is also narrated by William Dufris who continues to turn-in fantastic performances.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi"},{"content":"I have finally upgraded to a new camera body. I have been shooting with a Canon EOS 7D for a long time now, well… a long time for me. I only hold onto a camera body until the new version of it comes out, then I sell the old one and buy the new one.\nI started with inexpensive point-and-shoots, I never owned a film based SLR, and worked my way very slowly up to where I am today. I had the Canon 10D, 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D, and 7D. Out of those only the 20D and 40D were really great cameras for me, those two cameras did everything I wanted at the time and produced images that made me very happy. The other cameras were lacking in some significant way, that is not to say they were bad or that I did not create some great pictures with them, but they did not make me want to get out there and take pictures every day that I owned them.\nI have been stuck with the 7D for a long time now waiting for Canon to come out with a new camera in the “less than $2,000” range. After going to the “Image” conference recently, I don’t think they will be coming out with a replacement for the 7D for some time. Maybe not this year. That makes me very sad. For me, the 7D kind of sucks.\nIntellectually I know the 7D is a great camera. It has a ton of awesome features that make it the perfect camera for a lot of photographers. But I don’t like the quality of the images that come out of it, they feel extra “grainy” and “gritty” to me. Its not really noise, I am not sure what it is. But I prefer images to have a “smooth” and “creamy” feel to them while being tack sharp. When I take a picture using the Canon 70-200 2.8 L IS lens at f2.8 and ISO 200, the out of focus background should have a creamy smooth bokeh, and I do not feel like the 7D gives me that type of result.\nI am lucky enough to have married someone who not only appreciates me, but also appreciates the photographs I take and enjoys taking photographs herself. For Valentine’s day this year she helped me work out a way to finally upgrade from the 7D to the 5D Mk III.\nFinancially moving from the 7D to the 5D Mk III is a big step, for us it was not an easy one. I actually thought of selling my motorcycle, which my wife and I both really enjoy, just to get out from under the 7D. But this year we have been really blessed and the upgrade was possible without having to sell anything. I am very grateful for my wife’s understanding and feel more blessed than I can express.\nI am really looking forward to using the 5D Mk III this year.\nSoon-ish I will have another post about the features that I think make the 5D Mk III a great camera followed later by a post about how it has performed for me.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-new-camera/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have finally upgraded to a new camera body. I have been shooting with a Canon EOS 7D for a long time now, well… a long time for me. I only hold onto a camera body until the new version of it comes out, then I sell the old one and buy the new one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI started with inexpensive point-and-shoots, I never owned a film based SLR, and worked my way very slowly up to where I am today. I had the Canon 10D, 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D, and 7D. Out of those only the 20D and 40D were really great cameras for me, those two cameras did everything I wanted at the time and produced images that made me very happy. The other cameras were lacking in some significant way, that is not to say they were bad or that I did not create some great pictures with them, but they did not make me want to get out there and take pictures every day that I owned them.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A New Camera"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\nJohn Scalzi loves to dig into the idea of a person being able to change bodies like they change underwear. In this book changing bodies is not quite that easy, but it is a prominent element of this story. It just so happens that I really like the philosophical ideas that it brings up, it is very post human and appeals to me.\nNarrated by William Dufris Old Man’s War presents some very cool ideas. Taking old people from Earth and moving their minds into young genetically enhanced space marines and then dealing with all of the repercussions of doing that. Good stuff.\nMr. Dufris delivers a great performance and gives all of the characters individual voices and emotions.\nFrom the publisher:\nJohn Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.\nThe good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce – and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So, we fight, to defend Earth and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.\nEarth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity’s resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You’ll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you’ll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.\nJohn Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea of what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine. And what he will become is far stranger.\n©2007 John Scalzi; (P)2007 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes John Scalzi and/or military science fiction.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/old-mans-war-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Old Man’s War by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KIDZm3dhL._SL250_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Scalzi loves to dig into the idea of a person being able to change bodies like they change underwear. In this book changing bodies is not quite that easy, but it is a prominent element of this story. It just so happens that I really like the philosophical ideas that it brings up, it is very post human and appeals to me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Old Man’s War by John Scalzi"},{"content":"I bought this book on Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nJohn Scalzi and Wil Wheaton do it again. Redshirts is good fun in a goofy sci-fi story that I am surprised has not been made into a TV mini-series. Maybe someone will make a web series out of it one day.\nFrom the publisher:\nEnsign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the facts that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces; (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations; and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.\nNot surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.\n\u0026ldquo;2012 John Scalzi (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a funny sci-fi romp.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/redshirts-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mpS-QttdL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book on Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Scalzi and Wil Wheaton do it again. Redshirts is good fun in a goofy sci-fi story that I am surprised has not been made into a TV mini-series. Maybe someone will make a web series out of it one day.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEnsign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the facts that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces; (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations; and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;2012 John Scalzi (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it with the Audible app on my iPhone.\nI have heard about this book many times but have never read it or watched one of the movies or TV shows based on it, but I decided it was about time that I did. Written originally as a short story in 1958 and later in 1966 as a novel it is an amazing tale of a mentally challenged man who science turns into a genius with an incalculably high IQ even though he still has the emotions of a child.\nAs narrator Jeff Woodman brings this story to life, he does an incredible job presenting Charlie through his many changes and growth along with the people around him that I regularly forgot that only one actor was conveying the story. Not many narrators have done that for me and this performance is the best I have heard in an audio book so far.\nFrom the publisher:\nCharlie Gordon knows that he isn’t very bright. At 32, he mops floors in a bakery and earns just enough to get by. Three evenings a week, he studies at a center for mentally challenged adults. But all of this is about to change for Charlie. As part of a daring experiment, doctors are going to perform surgery on Charlie’s brain. They hope the operation and special medication will increase his intelligence, just as it has for the laboratory mouse, Algernon. Meanwhile, each day Charlie keeps a diary of what is happening to him. This is his poignant record of the startling changes in his mind and his life.\nFlowers for Algernon was first published as a short story, but soon received wide acclaim as it appeared in anthologies, as a television special, and as an award-winning motion picture, Charly. In its final, expanded form, this haunting story won the Nebula Award for the Best Novel of the Year. Through Jeff Woodman’s narration, it now becomes an unforgettable audio experience.\n©1966 Daniel Keyes; (P)1998 Recorded Books, LLC\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to any adult. The story is very intense and the subject matter is inappropriate for children. I do not think I would have reacted well to this story in primary school, maybe as a senior in high school I would have been able to appreciate it, but not before.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/flowers-for-algernon-by-daniel-keyes/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wy6xp8jML._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it with the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have heard about this book many times but have never read it or watched one of the movies or TV shows based on it, but I decided it was about time that I did. Written originally as a short story in 1958 and later in 1966 as a novel it is an amazing tale of a mentally challenged man who science turns into a genius with an incalculably high IQ even though he still has the emotions of a child.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes"},{"content":"I bought this book on Audible and listened to it using the Audible App for iPhone.\nJames Marsters is back and as great as ever, in my opinion he IS the voice of Harry Dresden, no other will do. His performance is great.\nIn his new role as the Winter Knight Harry Dresden leaves me feeling flat. I plan on listening to it again in a couple of months to see if I feel this way after a second listen and will update this review.\nFrom the publisher:\nHarry Dresden lives!\nAfter being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad – because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard. He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness.\nAfter Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long. And now, her word is his command, no matter what she wants him to do, no matter where she wants him to go, and no matter who she wants him to kill. Guess which one Mab wants first?\nOf course, it won’t be an ordinary, everyday assassination. Mab wants her newest minion to pull off the impossible: kill an immortal. No problem there, right? And to make matters worse, there exists a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could land Harry in the sort of trouble that will make death look like a holiday.\nBeset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent the annihilation of countless innocents, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own… his soul.\n©2012 Jim Butcher (P)2012 Penguin Audio\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10 and consider it a must read for Harry Dresden fans. Hopefully the next book will be better.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/cold-days-the-dresden-files-by-jim-butcher/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Cold Days: The Dresden Files, Book 14 by Jim Butcher\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61f0p3oKpSL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book on Audible and listened to it using the Audible App for iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJames Marsters is back and as great as ever, in my opinion he IS the voice of Harry Dresden, no other will do. His performance is great.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn his new role as the Winter Knight Harry Dresden leaves me feeling flat. I plan on listening to it again in a couple of months to see if I feel this way after a second listen and will update this review.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Cold Days: The Dresden Files, Book 14 by Jim Butcher"},{"content":"I bought a bundle of Crysis games from Steam while they were on sale and am playing them on a MacBook Pro using Bootcamp and Windows 8. It was developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts.\nCrysis was released way back in 2007 and at the time it really punished the PC hardware that was available. It took a very solid gaming rig to play the game at anything other than its lowest settings.\nI played through the single-player game of Crysis using an Apple MacBook Pro laptop with an Intel i7 2.3GHz processor, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, and an AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1 GB of memory on Windows 8 Pro 64-bit. And even with all that hardware, unbelievable specs back in 2007, the fans on the computer ran at full speed even on the main menu screen, so it is still a punishing app.\nThe game played well though, I let the game automatically choose its settings which is always a nice feature, and the only time I experienced some stuttering was in the endgame when there were a lot of very large object on the screen at once.\nI liked Crysis quite a bit, it only took me 11 hours of sporadic playing to make my way through the storyline, but for the most part it was a fun experience. I ran into some bugged places where I had to be very careful to avoid places where I would get stuck time and time again. Flying the “plane” was a chore for me, I didn’t like that part very much, but it was over fairly quickly.\nAs a straight-up first-person-shooter I liked it, but in 2012 there is nothing here I have not seen before.\nCheck out some [screenshots I took](http://photo.davenelson.com/Video-Games/Crysis/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Screenshots from Crysis) while playing the game.\nFrom the publisher:\nAdapt to Survive — An epic story thrusts players into an ever-changing environment, forcing them to adapt their tactics and approach to conquer battlefields ranging from newly frozen jungle to zero-gravity alien environments. Suit up!\nI rate this game a 7 out of 10 and recommend it as a cheep FPS fix.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/crysis-by-crytek/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Crysis by Crytek\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e9/Crysis_Cover.jpg/256px-Crysis_Cover.jpg\"\u003eI bought a bundle of Crysis games from Steam while they were on sale and am playing them on a MacBook Pro using Bootcamp and Windows 8. It was developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrysis was released way back in 2007 and at the time it really punished the PC hardware that was available. It took a very solid gaming rig to play the game at anything other than its lowest settings.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Crysis by Crytek"},{"content":"I bought this book on Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nJohn Scalzi and Wil Wheaton knock another one out of the park. I am not listening to their books in any particular order so I am not sure if they are getting better or if I am learning to enjoy the writing and performance more and more.\nThis is a great story with a handful of plot holes that distracted me a bit in the second half, but not so much as to ruin the book. I really enjoyed how the alien changes as his form changes, keeping some of his original personality while picking up a lot of the new forms personality. Very well played.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe space-faring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity’s first interstellar friendship. There’s just one problem: They’re hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. So getting humanity’s trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal. Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He’s one of Hollywood’s hottest young agents. But although Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it’s quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he’s going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.\n©2005 John Scalzi (P)2010 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone that likes funny sci-fi.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/agent-to-the-stars-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ALQwpJyawMk/TZ8LJy2zdNI/AAAAAAAAD6g/qQFMYDwxyFA/s1600/agent%2Bto%2Bthe%2Bstars%2Bby%2Bjohn%2Bscalzi.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book on Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Scalzi and Wil Wheaton knock another one out of the park. I am not listening to their books in any particular order so I am not sure if they are getting better or if I am learning to enjoy the writing and performance more and more.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi"},{"content":"I bought this book on Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\nThis is the first book I have gotten lately from Audible that left me very disappointed. It is a highly rated book, but it didn’t work for me.\nPaul Boehmer does a good job with Doctor Impossible’s portion of the story but Coleen Marlo comes across as flat and lifeless, just dull and a little bored.\nI got really tired of hearing \u0026ldquo;origin\u0026rdquo; stories over and over again which make up the majority of the story. Maybe I just don’t like superhero stories very much and maybe this story is a stereotypical superhero story with the only twist being that it is presented in both a superhero and supervillain’s viewpoint.\nAnyway, it did not work for me at all.\nFrom the publisher:\nDoctor Impossible, evil genius, diabolical scientist, wannabe world dominator, languishes in a federal detention facility. He’s lost his freedom, his girlfriend, and his hidden island fortress.\nOver the years, he’s tried to take over the world in every way imaginable, using doomsday devices of all varieties (nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological) and mass mind control. He’s traveled backwards in time to change history, forward in time to escape it. He’s commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. A fungus army. An army of fish. Of rodents. Aliens. All failures. But not this time. This time it’s going to be different.\nFatale is a rookie superhero on her first day with the Champions, the world’s most famous superteam. She’s a patchwork woman of skin and chrome, a gleaming technological marvel built for the next generation of warfare. Filling the void left by a slain former member, we watch as Fatale joins a team struggling with a damaged past, having to come together in the face of unthinkable evil.\nSoon I Will Be Invincible is a thrilling first novel, a fantastical adventure that gives new meaning to notions of power, glory, responsibility, and (of course) good and evil.\n©2007 Austin Grossman; (P)2007 HighBridge Company\nI rate this book a 3 out of 10 and do not recommend the audiobook.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/soon-i-will-be-invincible-by-austin-grossman/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yDaZrTGJL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book on Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the first book I have gotten lately from Audible that left me very disappointed. It is a highly rated book, but it didn’t work for me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePaul Boehmer does a good job with Doctor Impossible’s portion of the story but Coleen Marlo comes across as flat and lifeless, just dull and a little bored.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\nThis book was a big surprise for me, the story is fantastic and the performance is top notch. Fisher Stevens does an amazing job bringing every character to life and delivering the dry humor in a way that makes it crack me up.\nI have always loved stories about Death, Terry Pratchett’s Mort and Neil Gaiman’s various incarnations of Death are some favorites. And now Christopher Moore has added the Death Merchants Minty Fresh and Charlie Asher to my list.\nWARNING: This book contains a fair amount of foul language, but I did not find it offensive or distracting. There is a scene in the book where Charlie’s daughter, maybe 3 or 4 years old, overhears something maybe she shouldn’t have and end up running around and saying in a sing-song voice, quot;not in the butt, not in the butt.quot; That made me laugh out loud and makes me smile ever time I think about it. But if you are easily offended by foul language, the seven dirty words really offends you, you should find something else to read.\nFrom the publisher:\nCharlie Asher is a pretty normal guy. A little hapless, somewhat neurotic, sort of a hypochondriac. He’s what’s known as a Beta Male: the kind of fellow who makes his way through life by being careful and constant, you know, the one who’s always there to pick up the pieces when the girl gets dumped by the bigger/taller/stronger Alpha Male.\nBut Charlie’s been lucky. He owns a building in the heart of San Francisco, and runs a secondhand store with the help of a couple of loyal, if marginally insane, employees. He’s married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. And she, Rachel, is about to have their first child.\nYes, Charlie’s doing okay for a Beta. That is, until the day his daughter, Sophie, is born. Just as Charlie, exhausted from the birth, turns to go home, he sees a strange man in mint-green golf wear at Rachel’s hospital bedside, a man who claims that no one should be able to see him. But see him Charlie does, and from here on out, things get really weird.\nPeople start dropping dead around him, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death. It’s a dirty job. But hey, somebody’s gotta do it.\n©2006 Christopher Moore; (P)2006 HarperCollinsPublishers\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good story about death and does not mind a dose of foul language.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-dirty-job-by-christopher-moore/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51rMI3ZQL8L._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book was a big surprise for me, the story is fantastic and the performance is top notch. Fisher Stevens does an amazing job bringing every character to life and delivering the dry humor in a way that makes it crack me up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have always loved stories about Death, Terry Pratchett’s Mort and Neil Gaiman’s various incarnations of Death are some favorites. And now Christopher Moore has added the Death Merchants Minty Fresh and Charlie Asher to my list.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone. Todd McLaren does a fine job in narrating the audiobook.\nThis is a solid science fiction who-done-it story. I enjoyed the lead character Takeshi Kovacs and his loose morals and ethics. I look forward to reading the other books soon.\nThe publisher appears to not have read the story, in the summary it says \u0026ldquo;assuming one can afford the expensive procedure\u0026rdquo; while in the story everyone has their mind stored as part of basic healthcare that everyone receives, but the wealthy are able to update what is stored more often so that if they die they will loose a lot fewer memories. Also the wealthy are able to have clones of themselves available so they may transfer themselves to a younger body on a whim and be perpetually young.\nI enjoyed the exploration of what a culture would be like when the death of a physical body held very little negative consequences and how terrible a true death, where a persons mind and all backups are destroyed, really is.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn the 25th century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person’s consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or \u0026ldquo;sleeve\u0026rdquo;) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.\nEx-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched 180 light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats \u0026ldquo;existence\u0026rdquo; as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning.\nAltered Carbon is the first Takeshi Kovacs novel. Don’t miss the sequels Broken Angels and Woken Furies.\n©2003 Richard K. Morgan; (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to people who enjoy science fiction and crime books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/altered-carbon-by-richard-k-morgan/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ghl5aK%2BuL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone. Todd McLaren does a fine job in narrating the audiobook.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a solid science fiction who-done-it story. I enjoyed the lead character Takeshi Kovacs and his loose morals and ethics. I look forward to reading the other books soon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe publisher appears to not have read the story, in the summary it says \u0026ldquo;assuming one can afford the expensive procedure\u0026rdquo; while in the story everyone has their mind stored as part of basic healthcare that everyone receives, but the wealthy are able to update what is stored more often so that if they die they will loose a lot fewer memories. Also the wealthy are able to have clones of themselves available so they may transfer themselves to a younger body on a whim and be perpetually young.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan"},{"content":"\nI really enjoyed the first Portal video game, it was a much needed break from the first person shooters I had been playing that were focused on violence.\nPortal did not disappoint, the levels grew progressively harder as the game went on and the payoff at the end was spectacular. The GLaDOS song at the end of the game is fantastic.\nNow we have Portal 2, I played it using Steam from Valve on a MacBook Pro. There were no slowdowns, frame-drops, or stutters during the game, and the audio was great.\nIt took me about 50 hours to play through the game, there were only a couple of levels where I got stuck and spent more than 20 minutes trying to get past. There were also plenty of levels where I died a number of time, but death in Portal is no big deal, you start over in the same puzzle close to the place where you dies, you even get to keep a lot of your progress in many of them.\nAnother great feature of Portal 2 is that it is easy to create your own puzzles and share them with the world. There are tons of player created levels available to play and they are a great way to add re-playability to the game.\nFrom the Portal 2 web site:\nThe sequel to 2007’s Game of the Year, Portal 2 is a hilariously mind-bending adventure that challenges you to use wits over weaponry in a funhouse of diabolical science.\nUsing a highly experimental portal device, you’ll once again face off against a lethally inventive, power-mad A.I. named GLaDOS. And this time you won’t be alone. Meet an expanded cast of characters as you think your way through dangerous, never-before-seen areas of Aperture Laboratories.\nBreak the laws of spatial physics in ways you never thought possible, with a wider variety of portal puzzles and an expansive story that spans a single player and co-operative game mode.\nI rate this game a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who loves first person shooters and puzzle games.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/portal-2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Portal 2 Video Game\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://media.steampowered.com/apps/portal2/perpetual.jpg?w=560\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed the first Portal video game, it was a much needed break from the first person shooters I had been playing that were focused on violence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePortal did not disappoint, the levels grew progressively harder as the game went on and the payoff at the end was spectacular. The GLaDOS song at the end of the game is fantastic.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow we have Portal 2, I played it using Steam from Valve on a MacBook Pro. There were no slowdowns, frame-drops, or stutters during the game, and the audio was great.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Portal 2 Video Game"},{"content":"I bought this book on Audible and filled every free minute with it until it was over.\nA tour-de-force for Wil Wheaton, easily the best performance I have every heard or seen from him.\nIf Cory Doctorow and William Gibson wrote a book together, I imagine that it would be a lot like this one. It has the fun and pacing of a Doctorow book with the environment and physical elements of a Gibson novel. But I am not saying that this story is derivative in any way, it is its own story in its own world with fantastic characters that I am going to remember for a long time.\nThis story really works for me because it is character driven with the science fiction elements playing important roles without getting in the way of the character’s lives. By the end of the book the protagonists are our friends and antagonists are the hated enemy, just as it should be in any great story.\nI can’t wait to share this book with my 2-year-old son when he gets older, hopefully it will help create an appreciation of the video games and movies I grew up playing.\nFrom the publisher:\nAt once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.\nIt’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.\nLike most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of 10,000 planets.\nAnd like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.\nFor years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late 20th century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.\nAnd then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.\nSuddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.\nA world at stake.\nA quest for the ultimate prize.\nAre you ready?\n©2011 Ernest Cline (P)2011 Random House Audio\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and video games, especially those from the 80’s.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ready-player-one-by-ernest-cline/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Ready Player One by Ernest Cline\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LLFoUAVyL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book on Audible and filled every free minute with it until it was over.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA tour-de-force for Wil Wheaton, easily the best performance I have every heard or seen from him.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf Cory Doctorow and William Gibson wrote a book together, I imagine that it would be a lot like this one. It has the fun and pacing of a Doctorow book with the environment and physical elements of a Gibson novel. But I am not saying that this story is derivative in any way, it is its own story in its own world with fantastic characters that I am going to remember for a long time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ready Player One by Ernest Cline"},{"content":"And now for something completely different by Terry Pratchett…\nI bought this book from Audible and used the Audible iPhone app to listen to it.\nThis is a great story from the creator of Discworld, Tiffany Aching, The Bromeliad Trilogy, Nation, and The Amazing Maurice. It is very different from those other stories, but it is full of his humor and voice.\nStephen Briggs does a fantastic job bringing the characters to life. His acting gives each character great depth.\nThe only Charles Dickens I have read was the minimum I could get away with in school as a kid, but after listening to Dodger I have a desire to give his works a closer look.\nI hope to read many more Terry Pratchett books like this one.\nFrom the publisher:\nA storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he’s…Dodger.\nSeventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street urchin, but he gleans a living from London’s sewers, and he knows a jewel when he sees one. He’s not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl – not even if her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England.\nFrom Dodger’s encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery.\nBeloved and best-selling author Sir Terry Pratchett combines high comedy with deep wisdom in this tale of an unexpected coming-of-age and one remarkable boy’s rise in a complex and fascinating world.\n©2012 Terry and Lyn Pratchett (P)2012 Harper Collins Publishers\nI rate Dodger a 9 out of 10, it is not a Discworld novel but it is a great read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dodger-by-terry-pratchett/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dodger by Terry Pratchett\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61QZzRHUFUL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eAnd now for something completely different by Terry Pratchett…\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought this book from Audible and used the Audible iPhone app to listen to it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a great story from the creator of Discworld, Tiffany Aching, The Bromeliad Trilogy, Nation, and The Amazing Maurice. It is very different from those other stories, but it is full of his humor and voice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStephen Briggs does a fantastic job bringing the characters to life. His acting gives each character great depth.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dodger by Terry Pratchett"},{"content":"I read this book out of sequence, I read Monster Hunter Legion before reading this one, but it wasn’t that big a deal. In Legion they mention what happens in Alpha but most of it is kept a secret from the rest of the team, there are a few things that did not make sense, but not enough to make it awkward.\nThis story shows just how smart Larry Correia is, the first 2 books (and the 4th one) focused on the trials and tribulations of Owen Pitt, but the 3rd one focuses on Earl Harbinger for a change of pace and a chance to delve deeply into a different character. If he wants to, Larry Correia will be able to write Monster Hunter books forever changing the focus of each book at will.\nI am now really excited to read the book that ends the Owen and Julie line and begins a new focus for the series, if that ever happens.\nGo Earl!\nFrom the publisher:\nDirty Harry meets Twilight. Number 3 in the break-out series and a follow-up to Monster Hunter International and Monster Hunter Vendetta.\nEarl Harbinger may be the leader of Monster Hunter International, but he’s also got a secret. Nearly a century ago, Earl was cursed to be a werewolf. When Earl receives word that one of his oldest foes, a legendarily vicious werewolf that worked for the KGB, has mysteriously appeared in the remote woods of Michigan, he decides to take care of some unfinished business. But another force is working to bring about the creation of a whole new species of werewolf. When darkness falls, the final hunt begins, and the only thing standing in their way is a handful of locals, a lot of firepower, and Earl Harbinger’s stubborn refusal to roll over and play dead.\n©2011 Larry Correia (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10, fast-reading pulpy fun.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/monster-hunter-alpha-by-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Monster Hunter Alpha by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CJLQWg-0L._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI read this book out of sequence, I read Monster Hunter Legion before reading this one, but it wasn’t that big a deal. In Legion they mention what happens in Alpha but most of it is kept a secret from the rest of the team, there are a few things that did not make sense, but not enough to make it awkward.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis story shows just how smart Larry Correia is, the first 2 books (and the 4th one) focused on the trials and tribulations of Owen Pitt, but the 3rd one focuses on Earl Harbinger for a change of pace and a chance to delve deeply into a different character. If he wants to, Larry Correia will be able to write Monster Hunter books forever changing the focus of each book at will.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Monster Hunter Alpha by Larry Correia"},{"content":"OK, I screwed up and listened to this one out of order, it is the fourth book in the series when I should have been reading the third, Monster Hunter Alpha. Luckily the third book focuses on Earl so much that reading them out of order didn’t mess up the story line for me too much. But when you read them, I highly recommend reading them in the correct order.\nOliver Wyman continues to narrate the audio book and does so with great success.\nIf you are the type that does not trust the government and believes that they would do anything to create bigger and better weapons, even human experimentation, then this book is for you.\nI am amazed at the amount of character development Larry Correia is able to slip in between the high-speed action of his stories. Owen and Julie’s relationship continues to grow and Mosh even gets to grow all while the action never pauses to take a breath. Great stuff.\nFrom the publisher:\nMonster Hunter International might be the premier monster eradication company in the business, but they’ve got competition.\nWhen hunters from around the world gather in Las Vegas for a conference, a creature left over from a World War Two weapons experiment wakes up and goes on a rampage across the desert. A not-so-friendly wager between the rival companies turns into a race to see who can bag the mysterious creature first. Only there is far more to this particular case than meets the eye, and as Hunters fall prey to their worst nightmares, Owen Zastava Pitt and the staff of Monster Hunter International have to stop an ancient god from turning Sin City into a literal hell on earth.\n©2012 Larry Correia (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10, why aren’t you reading these already? They are great fun and quick reads.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/monster-hunter-legion-by-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Monster Hunter Legion by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ZlrW4-sOL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eOK, I screwed up and listened to this one out of order, it is the fourth book in the series when I should have been reading the third, Monster Hunter Alpha. Luckily the third book focuses on Earl so much that reading them out of order didn’t mess up the story line for me too much. But when you read them, I highly recommend reading them in the correct order.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Monster Hunter Legion by Larry Correia"},{"content":"Oliver Wyman returns to narrate the second book in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter Vendetta, book 2 in the Monster Hunter series of books. He continues doing a great job with all of the accents and odd speech patterns.\nThe bad guys in this book take a huge jump up the scary scale. Owen and the other Monster Hunters of MHI are up for the challenge.\nI am really enjoying these books and am looking forward to more.\nFrom the publisher:\nAccountant turned professional monster hunter Owen Zastava Pitt managed to stop the nefarious Old Ones’ invasion plans last year, but as a result made an enemy out of one of the most powerful beings in the universe. Now an evil death cult known as the Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition wants to capture Owen in order to gain the favor of the great Old Ones. The Condition is led by a fanatical necromancer known as the Shadow Man. The government wants to capture the Shadow Man and has assigned the enigmatic Agent Franks to be Owen’s full-time bodyguard, which is a polite way of saying that Owen is monster bait.\nWith supernatural assassins targeting his family, a spy in their midst, and horrific beasties lurking around every corner, Owen and the staff of Monster Hunter International don’t need to go hunting, because this time the monsters are hunting them. Fortunately, this bait is armed and very dangerous.\n©2010 Larry Correia (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10, read the Monster Hunter International and then go right into this one.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/monster-hunter-vendetta-by-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Monster Hunter Vendetta by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61-XZNj5SiL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eOliver Wyman returns to narrate the second book in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter Vendetta, book 2 in the Monster Hunter series of books. He continues doing a great job with all of the accents and odd speech patterns.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bad guys in this book take a huge jump up the scary scale. Owen and the other Monster Hunters of MHI are up for the challenge.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Monster Hunter Vendetta by Larry Correia"},{"content":"After listening to the 2 available Grimnoir Chronicles books I decided to give the Monster Hunter International books a try. In many ways they are very similar to each other, they both have lots of action, monsters, hardboiled fighting men, and a lot of action.\nBut unlike the Grimnoir Chronicles, the Monster Hunter books have very little magic and the setting is more in line with our mundane reality. It definitely gives the books a different feel. But even so, they are very similar.\nOliver Wyman does a good job narrating the book, he falters on the accents every now and then but he really nails some of the characters and I now can’t imagine anyone else doing a better job.\nThe reviews for this book are through the roof on both Audible and Amazon for a good reason, it is a really good monster action book. Once I started listening to it, I did not want to stop.\nFrom the publisher:\nFive days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a 14th story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer.\nIt turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Officially secret, some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. On the other side are the people who kill monsters for a living. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit.\nIt’s actually a pretty sweet gig, except for one little problem. An ancient entity known as the Cursed One has returned to settle a centuries-old vendetta. Should the Cursed One succeed, it means the end of the world, and MHI is the only thing standing in his way.\nWith the clock ticking towards Armageddon, Owen finds himself trapped between legions of undead minions, belligerent federal agents, a cryptic ghost who has taken up residence inside his head, and the cursed family of the woman he loves. Business is good…. Welcome to Monster Hunter International.\n©2009 Larry Correia (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it highly for lovers of pulp, monster, and modern fantasy.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/monster-hunter-international-by-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MXLFYvRPL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eAfter listening to the 2 available Grimnoir Chronicles books I decided to give the Monster Hunter International books a try. In many ways they are very similar to each other, they both have lots of action, monsters, hardboiled fighting men, and a lot of action.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut unlike the Grimnoir Chronicles, the Monster Hunter books have very little magic and the setting is more in line with our mundane reality. It definitely gives the books a different feel. But even so, they are very similar.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia"},{"content":"This is the follow-up to Hard Magic and shows that Larry Correia is able to keep the action steaming along.\nFaye has really taken off as a character and has become my favorite of the bunch. Bronson Pinchot does a great job of making her come to life.\nIf you read the first book I highly recommend you jump into this one and if you have not read Hard Magic, what are you waiting for, get to it already.\nFrom the publisher:\nDark fantasy goes hardboiled in Book II of the hard-hitting Grimnoir Chronicles by the New York Times best-selling creator of Monster Hunter International. The Grimnoir Society’s mission is to protect people with magic, and they’ve done so successfully and in secret since the mysterious arrival of the Power in the 1850s, but when a magical assassin makes an attempt on the life of President Franklin Roosevelt, the crime is pinned on the Grimnoir. The knights must become fugitives while they attempt to discover who framed them. Things go from bad to worse when Jake Sullivan, former P.I. and knight of the Grimnoir, receives a telephone call from a dead man—a man he helped kill. Turns out the Power jumped universes because it was fleeing from a predator that eats magic and leaves destroyed worlds in its wake. That predator has just landed on Earth.\n©2012 Larry Correia (P)2012 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10, even better than Hard Magic with even more insight into the characters and a lot of action.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/spellbound-book-ii-of-the-grimnoir-chronicles-by-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Spellbound: Book II of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61YsynHHcIL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eThis is the follow-up to Hard Magic and shows that Larry Correia is able to keep the action steaming along.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFaye has really taken off as a character and has become my favorite of the bunch. Bronson Pinchot does a great job of making her come to life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you read the first book I highly recommend you jump into this one and if you have not read Hard Magic, what are you waiting for, get to it already.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Spellbound: Book II of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia"},{"content":"I read this book in a web browser, on an iPhone and on an iPad using [Safari Books Online](http://www.safaribooksonline.com/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Safari Books Online Website) website and app.\nAccording to this book \u0026ldquo;Mental models are simply affinity diagrams of behaviors made from ethnographic data gathered from audience representatives.\u0026rdquo; This book does a great job describing how to create a detailed mental model.\nAs a front-end developer with a deep interest in usability I have talked a lot about customer mental models, but my understanding of what the term meant was very limited. Now as a UX designer it is more important for me to have a more in-depth understanding, including how to discover, document, and share what our customer’s mental models are for our industry.\nI learned a lot of that from this book and hope to participate in a mental model exercise at some point in the future, but I do not necessarily want it to be a focus of my career. I like the idea of conducting the interviews to develop the model, but the analysis portion holds no interest for me.\nMental Models did cement my belief that establishing a clear mental model of your customer’s tasks can lead to better design, features, functionality, and focus to your products.\nFrom the Mental Models book website:\nThere is no single methodology for creating the perfect product—but you can increase your odds. One of the best ways is to understand users’ reasons for doing things. Mental Models gives you the tools to help you grasp, and design for, those reasons. Adaptive Path co-founder Indi Young has written a roll-up-your-sleeves book for designers, managers, and anyone else interested in making design strategic, and successful.\n\u0026ldquo;Indi Young’s mental models are the perfect way for your team to integrate your user’s perspective into your design. Indi has written a comprehensive guide for anyone who wants to make use of this power design technique. I’ll be giving this book out to all of our important clients and insisting they make it part of their process.\u0026rdquo;\n-Jared Spool, CEO \u0026amp; Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any UX designer who needs to develop a mental model to inform the creation of a website or app.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/mental-models-by-indi-young/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Mental Models by Indi Young\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201210-6873-my/images/9781457102370/9781457102370_s.jpg\"\u003eI read this book in a web browser, on an iPhone and on an iPad using [Safari Books Online](\u003ca href=\"http://www.safaribooksonline.com/%22\"\u003ehttp://www.safaribooksonline.com/\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;Safari Books Online Website) website and app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to this book \u0026ldquo;Mental models are simply affinity diagrams of behaviors made from ethnographic data gathered from audience representatives.\u0026rdquo; This book does a great job describing how to create a detailed mental model.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs a front-end developer with a deep interest in usability I have talked a lot about customer mental models, but my understanding of what the term meant was very limited. Now as a UX designer it is more important for me to have a more in-depth understanding, including how to discover, document, and share what our customer’s mental models are for our industry.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Mental Models by Indi Young"},{"content":"The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity.\nWorking my way backwards:\nScott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk and the pictures I took in Little Five Points (L5P)\nNorcross 9th Graders had a great game against North Gwinnett. As an experiment I posted a lot more pictures of this game than I normally would. I left in a lot of slightly out of focus and poorly framed shots to give more context to the story the pictures tell.\nAnime Weekend Atlanta was a lot of fun as usual, the Moonlit Forest Gala Ball and Costume Contest were great.\nDragonCon was good, nothing really stood out for me this year. But Sylvester McCoy and John Rhys-Davies were a lot of fun.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-lot-going-on/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWorking my way backwards:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://worldwidephotowalk.com/\"\u003eScott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk\u003c/a\u003e and the \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/2012-Scott-Kelby-Worldwide/\"\u003epictures I took in Little Five Points (L5P)\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Sports/2012-Norcross-v-North-Gwinnett/\"\u003eNorcross 9th Graders\u003c/a\u003e had a great game against North Gwinnett. As an experiment I posted a lot more pictures of this game than I normally would. I left in a lot of slightly out of focus and poorly framed shots to give more context to the story the pictures tell.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnime Weekend Atlanta was a lot of fun as usual, the \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Anime-Weekend-Atlanta-AWA/2012-AWA-Ball/\"\u003eMoonlit Forest Gala Ball\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Anime-Weekend-Atlanta-AWA/2012-AWA-Costumes/\"\u003eCostume Contest\u003c/a\u003e were great.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2012/\"\u003eDragonCon\u003c/a\u003e was good, nothing really stood out for me this year. But \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2012/25185466_WLpf6B#!i=2069351775%EF%BF%BDk=mbRKNn8\"\u003eSylvester McCoy\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2012/25185466_WLpf6B#!i=2066978298%EF%BF%BDk=G3CfK8L\"\u003eJohn Rhys-Davies\u003c/a\u003e were a lot of fun.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/2012-Scott-Kelby-Worldwide/\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Events/2012-Scott-Kelby-Worldwide/i-3GRfcsL/0/Th/dave-nelson-20121013-211718-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Sports/2012-Norcross-v-North-Gwinnett/\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Sports/2012-Norcross-v-North-Gwinnett/i-DZkrW64/0/Th/dave-nelson-20121011-184928-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Anime-Weekend-Atlanta-AWA/2012-AWA-Ball/\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Anime-Weekend-Atlanta-AWA/2012-AWA-Ball/i-ZQD7fkL/0/Th/dave-nelson-20120928-215641-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Anime-Weekend-Atlanta-AWA/2012-AWA-Costumes/\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Anime-Weekend-Atlanta-AWA/2012-AWA-Costumes/i-Z454B2D/0/Th/dave-nelson-20120929-133002-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2012/25185466_WLpf6B#!i=2066978298%EF%BF%BDk=G3CfK8L\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2012/i-G3CfK8L/2/Th/dave-nelson-20120831-120229-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2012/25185466_WLpf6B#!i=2069351775%EF%BF%BDk=mbRKNn8\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2012/i-mbRKNn8/1/Th/dave-nelson-20120901-132026-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"A Lot Going On"},{"content":"I got this book from audible after someone at DragonCon recommended it to me; I think. Actually it may have been on sale and recommended to me by Audible. I am not sure. Either way it was a good recommendation.\nThis is the first book in a new series of books by Larry Correia.\nNarrated wonderfully by Bronson Pinchot, yes Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers, narrates this book bringing the characters to life, it is a wonderful performance.\nI am not usually into books about magic, when I was a kid there were a couple that I really enjoyed because of their humor, but as a rule I did not get into many magic or fantasy books. But this book is very different from anything I had read before with the exception of Mike Resnick’s \u0026ldquo;Stalking the Unicorn.\u0026rdquo;\nThe publisher’s summary confuses me, I think it is written by someone who did not read the book, Jake is not a private eye, in fact he is a convict that is blackmailed by J. Edgar Hoover to hunt down people who are using magic in ways that the FBI does not like. Anyway…\nWhat makes this book great for me is that even though magic is the main focus of the book it is written more in the fashion of a science fiction book than a fantasy one. It also includes many elements of a pulp-fiction mystery from the 50’s. Doesn’t that sound great?\nAdding to that there is a delicate balance struck between explaining how the magic works, day-to-day living, and personal relationships that give the reader deep insight into the characters that many stories completely miss. Even though Jake Sullivan may be the \u0026ldquo;hero\u0026rdquo; of the story the other character all get moments to shine, I believe some reader will pick characters other than Jake to be their \u0026ldquo;hero.\u0026rdquo;\nFighting is a regular feature of this book, there are long sections of the story that are detailing the battles between the characters. He does a good job with these but every now and then they do get a little tedious, but overall I do not think they hurt the story more than they add a feeling of action.\nFrom the publisher:\nJake Sullivan is a licensed private eye with a seriously hardboiled attitude. He also possesses raw magical talent and the ability to make objects in his vicinity light as a feather or as heavy as depleted uranium, all with a magical thought. It’s no wonder the G-men turn to Jake when they need someone to go after a suspected killer who has been knocking off banks in a magic-enhanced crime spree.\nProblems arise when Jake discovers the bad girl behind the robberies is an old friend, and he happens to know her magic is just as powerful as his. And the Feds have plunged Jake into a secret battle between powerful cartels of magic-users – a cartel whose ruthless leaders have decided that Jake is far too dangerous to live.\n©2011 Larry Correia (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes pulp-fiction and action/adventure books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/hard-magic-book-i-of-the-grimnoir-chronicles-by-larry-correia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lMU9dp2WL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI got this book from audible after someone at DragonCon recommended it to me; I think. Actually it may have been on sale and recommended to me by Audible. I am not sure. Either way it was a good recommendation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the first book in a new series of books by Larry Correia.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNarrated wonderfully by Bronson Pinchot, yes Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers, narrates this book bringing the characters to life, it is a wonderful performance.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible and used the Audible app on an iPhone to listen to it.\nWhat a great surprise. This book was recommended to me by Audible a couple of times before I finally took the bait. I think that it is narrated by John Hodgman was part of the draw for me. I don’t really like John Hodgman’s sense of humor, I have listened to excerpts from his book \u0026ldquo;The Areas of My Expertise\u0026rdquo;, and didn’t find it funny, but as an actor I think he is great. And he does a fantastic job narrating this story.\nI am very tempted to rant about how much I despise the RIAA and the way they treat the people, or the ridiculous laws that have been passed in the last dozen years or so regarding music. But I am not going to do that, lets just say that I feel like this book expresses most of my feelings pretty clearly.\nThis story is great fun, I recommend you read it as soon as you get the chance.\nFrom the publisher:\nAn alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet.\nWorse, they were lawyering up….\nIn the hilarious tradition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Rob Reid takes you on a headlong journey through the outer reaches of the universe – and the inner workings of our absurdly dysfunctional music industry.\nLow-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it’s a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news.\nThe entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity’s music ever since \u0026ldquo;Year Zero\u0026rdquo; (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything – and the aliens are not amused.\nNick Carter has just been tapped to clean up this mess before things get ugly, and he’s an unlikely galaxy-hopping hero: He’s scared of heights. He’s also about to be fired. And he happens to have the same name as a Backstreet Boy. But he does know a thing or two about copyright law. And he’s packing a couple of other pencil-pushing superpowers that could come in handy.\nSoon he’s on the run from a sinister parrot and a highly combustible vacuum cleaner. With Carly and Frampton as his guides, Nick now has 48 hours to save humanity, while hopefully wowing the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.\n©2012 Robert Reid (P)2012 Random House Audio\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 for lovers of humorous science fiction and think the RIAA are a bunch of crooks.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/year-zero-a-novel-by-rob-reid/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Year Zero: A Novel by Rob Reid\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416iCdXrnhL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B008CGS0WO\"\u003ethis audiobook\u003c/a\u003e from \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/\"\u003eAudible\u003c/a\u003e and used the \u003ca href=\"http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/audible-digital-audiobooks/id379693831?mt=8\"\u003eAudible app\u003c/a\u003e on an iPhone to listen to it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat a great surprise. This book was recommended to me by Audible a couple of times before I finally took the bait. I think that it is narrated by John Hodgman was part of the draw for me. I don’t really like John Hodgman’s sense of humor, I have listened to excerpts from his book \u0026ldquo;\u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_4?asin=B002V02A96\u0026amp;qid=1346273632\u0026amp;sr=1-4\"\u003eThe Areas of My Expertise\u003c/a\u003e\u0026rdquo;, and didn’t find it funny, but as an actor I think he is great. And he does a fantastic job narrating this story.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Year Zero: A Novel by Rob Reid"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app for iPhone.\nThis is the second book in Mike Resnick’s Starship series.\nThis book is much better than the first book Starship Mutiny, Mike Resnick’s sense of humor sneaks its way in, not as much as I would like, but it is present.\nEven though I found this book not quite in the same league as Santiago or Widowmaker, it is a good read.\nFrom the publisher:\nCaptain Wilson Cole’s latest exploit saved millions of lives but embarrassed his superiors. He is a man with a reputation for exceeding orders but getting results. Cole has found himself the victim of a media feeding frenzy, a political scapegoat despite years of dedicated military service. Faced with a court martial, he is rescued by the loyal crew of his ship, the Theodore Roosevelt. Now branded mutineers, the crew of the Teddy R. has quit the Republic, never to return.\nSeeking to find a new life for themselves, Cole and comrades remake the Teddy R. as a pirate ship and set sail for the lawless Inner Frontier. There, powerful warlords, cut-throat pirates, and struggling colonies compete for survival in a game where you rarely get a second chance to learn the rules.\nBut military discipline is poor preparation for a life of pillaging and plundering, and Cole’s principles limit his targets. Seeking an education on the nature of piracy, Cole hunts more knowledgeable players: the beautiful but deadly Valkyrie, the enigmatic alien fence David Copperfield, and the fearsome alien pirate known as the Hammerhead Shark.\nBONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Mike Resnick.\n© 2006 by Mike Resnick; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend reading it after reading Mike’s Santiago, Widowmaker, and Galactic Midway books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/starship-pirate-by-mike-resnick/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Starship: Pirate by Mike Resnick\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172941599l/231922.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app for iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the second book in Mike Resnick’s Starship series.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book is much better than the first book Starship Mutiny, Mike Resnick’s sense of humor sneaks its way in, not as much as I would like, but it is present.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven though I found this book not quite in the same league as Santiago or Widowmaker, it is a good read.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Starship: Pirate by Mike Resnick"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible iPhone app.\nThe Starship collection of novels are Mike Resick’s go at military science fiction, it is along the lines of Honor Harrington.\nThis book did not blow me away, it held my attention, but I am a big fan of Mike Resnick and I felt a little let down by this book. It doesn’t have the sense of humor or suspense that I enjoy so much from him and I found much of the story to be obvious and uninspired.\nBut… there is a reason to read this book, so that you can move on to the second book in the series Starship: Pirate which a solid work of fiction and brings in a little more of Resnick’s sense of humor.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe date is 1966 of the Galactic Era, almost three thousand years from now, and the Republic, created by the human race – but not yet dominated by it – finds itself in an all-out war.\nThey stand against the Teroni Federation, an alliance of races that resent Man’s growing military and economic power. The main battles are taking place in the Spiral Arm and toward the Core. But far out on the Rim, the Theodore Roosevelt is one of three ships charged with protecting the Phoenix Cluster – a group of 73 inhabited worlds.\nOld, battered, some of its weapon systems outmoded, the Teddy R. is a ship that would have been decommissioned years ago if weren’t for the war. Its crew is composed of retreads, discipline cases, and a few raw recruits. But a new officer has been transferred to the Teddy R. His name is Wilson Cole, and he comes with a reputation for heroics and disobedience. Will the galaxy ever be the same?\nBONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Mike Resnick.\n©2005 by Mike Resnick; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 5 out of 10 and recommend you read it for the background of Starship: Pirate.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/starship-mutiny-by-mike-resnick/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Starship: Mutiny by Mike Resnick\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://mikeresnick.com/wp-content/gallery/covers_us/starship-mutiny-cover.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible iPhone app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Starship collection of novels are Mike Resick’s go at military science fiction, it is along the lines of Honor Harrington.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book did not blow me away, it held my attention, but I am a big fan of Mike Resnick and I felt a little let down by this book. It doesn’t have the sense of humor or suspense that I enjoy so much from him and I found much of the story to be obvious and uninspired.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Starship: Mutiny by Mike Resnick"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible.\nThe world that Paolo Bacigalupi has created is a fantastical one, capturing the world in the midst of great change. In it we are shown how even though everything is changing culture does not change as fast as the world around it.\nJonathan Davis does an amazing job narrating this story; I am totally blown away by his performance. He fills the characters with so much life, making them each a vivid character with their own desires and fears. His ability to create a palpable difference between the different Asian cultures is fantastic.\nI really enjoyed the science fiction aspects of this story, the new words, the blending of different languages, new creatures, and most of all interaction between the different characters. Every character expresses their desires and fears as the story moves along at a perfect pace, almost all of the characters are both hero and villain, living in some shade of gray. Good stuff.\nThere are some very brutal scenes in this book where I feel the author went WAY overboard, to the point that I almost stopped listening and deleted the book, but instead I turned the player up to 3x speed and got past them, it was worth it (but I think it would be a better story leaving some things to the imagination instead of spelling them out in horrifying detail.)\nFrom the publisher:\nAnderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories.\nThere, he encounters Emiko…Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.\nWhat happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism’s genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? In The Windup Girl, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the world of The Calorie Man (Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winner, Hugo Award nominee, 2006) and Yellow Card Man (Hugo Award nominee, 2007) in order to address these poignant questions.\n©2009 Paolo Bacigalupi; (P)2009 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and the performance a 10 out of 10. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys science fiction.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-windup-girl-by-paolo-bacigalupi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://craphound.com/images/the-windup-girl-by-paolo-bacigalupi.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe world that Paolo Bacigalupi has created is a fantastical one, capturing the world in the midst of great change. In it we are shown how even though everything is changing culture does not change as fast as the world around it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJonathan Davis does an amazing job narrating this story; I am totally blown away by his performance. He fills the characters with so much life, making them each a vivid character with their own desires and fears. His ability to create a palpable difference between the different Asian cultures is fantastic.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi"},{"content":"I listened to this from an old recording narrated by John Polk.\nHarry Harrison died on August 15, 2012 at 87 years old. I decided to listen to The Stainless Steel Rat in his memory.\nHarry Harrison is one of the few writers who I would seek out and buy every book they produced. Harry never disappointed me. From The Stainless Steel Rat to Make Room! Make Room! to Bill the Galactic Hero to The Turing Option. I love them all and re-read many of them every couple of years.\nI think I am going to sprinkle in the rest of the Stainless Steel Rat series into my reading and listening over the next 6 months.\nAbout the most recent recording available on Audible:\nDiGriz is caught during one of his crimes and recruited into the Special Corps. Boring, routine desk work during his probationary period results in his discovering that someone is building a battleship, thinly disguised as an industrial vessel. In the peaceful League no one has battleships anymore, so the builder of this one would be unstoppable.\nDiGriz’ hunt for the guilty becomes a personal battle between himself and the beautiful but deadly Angelina, who his planning a coup on one of the feudal worlds. DiGriz’ dilemma is whether he will turn Angelina over to the Special Corps, or join with her, since he has fallen in love with her.\n©2010 Harry Harrison (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 for lovers of humorous science fiction.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-stainless-steel-rat-by-harry-harrison/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2748/4129683310_1e273cb852.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this from an old recording narrated by John Polk.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHarry Harrison died on August 15, 2012 at 87 years old. I decided to listen to The Stainless Steel Rat in his memory.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHarry Harrison is one of the few writers who I would seek out and buy every book they produced. Harry never disappointed me. From The Stainless Steel Rat to Make Room! Make Room! to Bill the Galactic Hero to The Turing Option. I love them all and re-read many of them every couple of years.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible.\nI got this book because Wil Wheaton narrates it and it is rated extremely high on the Audible.com web site; there are not many books that are rated so high, 4.5 stars in \u0026ldquo;Overall,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Performance,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Story,\u0026rdquo; with around 500 total reviews.\nI like that Wil Wheaton narrated this story. I was surprised to learn how many books he has narrated, 18 of them currently listed on Audible. But I feel that his performance did not really bring the story to life, it left me kind of flat.\nThe story is a good one though, full of humor, politics, and action. It was a fun read that I would have listened to in one sitting if I had the time.\nI look forward reading more John Scalzi books, I have my eye on Fuzzy Nation.\nFrom the Publisher:\nA human diplomat creates an interstellar incident when he kills an alien diplomat in a most unusual way. To avoid war, Earth’s government must find an equally unusual object: A type of sheep (\u0026ldquo;The Android’s Dream\u0026rdquo;), used in the alien race’s coronation ceremony.\nTo find the sheep, the government turns to Harry Creek, ex-cop, war hero and hacker extraordinaire, who with the help of Brian Javna, a childhood friend turned artificial intelligence, scours the earth looking for the rare creature. And they find it, in the unknowing form of Robin Baker, pet store owner, whose genes contain traces of the sheep DNA. But there are others with plans for the sheep as well: Mercenaries employed by the military. Adherents of a secret religion based on the writings of a 21st century science-fiction author. And alien races, eager to start a revolution on their home world and a war on Earth.\nTo keep our planet from being enslaved, Harry will have to pull off the greatest diplomatic coup in history, a grand gambit that will take him from the halls of power to the lava-strewn battlefields of alien worlds. There’s only one chance to get it right, to save the life of Robin Baker – and to protect the future of humanity.\n\u0026amp;copy2006 John Scalzi (P)2010 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10, a very good read for lovers of humorous science fiction.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/androids-dream-by-john-scalzi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://jacketupload.macmillanusa.com/jackets/high_res/jpgs/9780765348289.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI got this book because Wil Wheaton narrates it and it is rated extremely high on the \u003ca href=\"http://Audible.com\" title=\"Audible.com\"\u003eAudible.com\u003c/a\u003e web site; there are not many books that are rated so high, 4.5 stars in \u0026ldquo;Overall,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Performance,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Story,\u0026rdquo; with around 500 total reviews.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI like that \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/search/ref=pd_narr_1?searchNarrator=Wil+Wheaton\" title=\"Wil Wheaton's Books at Audible\"\u003eWil Wheaton narrated\u003c/a\u003e this story. I was surprised to learn how many books he has narrated, 18 of them currently listed on Audible. But I feel that his performance did not really bring the story to life, it left me kind of flat.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi"},{"content":"I bought this book from Amazon after reading a blog post by Jeff Atwood. Jeff does not mention this book in his post; he talks about the book “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen \u0026amp; Listen So Kids Will Talk” by Adele Faber; which is based upon the research and lessons taught in the P.E.T book. So after reading the post I bought copies of both books and the P.E.T. book is the one I chose to read first.\nParent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children is a fairly technical book, it tries hard not to be, but I feel like it is.\nThe book focuses on two techniques that are effective ways to communicate and work with everyone around you, no matter your relationship or age difference.\nThe first technique is Active Listening. I believe correctly applying active listening to your daily communications is great, I think it helps open up others to really talk to you and to create a deeper understanding of what is being discussed. To me active listening means really listening to the person and then telling them what it is I heard them say in my own words. It is not parroting what they said back to them or rephrasing what they said, it is more about making sure that you both are on the same page and letting them know that you really heard what they are trying to communicate. It is a lot deeper than that, but that covers what I see as the basics.\nThe second technique is the “No-Lose” method of conflict resolution. This one is much harder to describe in a single paragraph, but the basics are working together to find a single solution that makes both parties happy. It is not another name for compromising, but actually looking for a good solution where everyone wins. Big stuff there, I am not sure I understand it well enough to describe it well, but I hope I am able to put it into practice with my child and everyone else.\nFrom the publisher:\nP.E.T., or Parent Effectiveness Training, began almost forty years ago as the first national parent-training program to teach parents how to communicate more effectively with kids and offer step-by-step advice to resolving family conflicts so everybody wins. This beloved classic is the most studied, highly praised, and proven parenting program in the world — and it will work for you. Now revised for the first time since its initial publication, this groundbreaking guide will show you:\nHow to avoid being a permissive parent How to listen so kids will talk to you and talk so kids will listen to you How to teach your children to “own” their problems and to solve them How to use the “No-Lose” method to resolve conflicts Using the timeless methods of P.E.T. will have immediate results: less fighting, fewer tantrums and lies, no need for punishment. Whether you have a toddler striking out for independence or a teenager who has already started rebelling, you’ll find P.E.T. a compassionate, effective way to instill responsibility and create a nurturing family environment in which your child will thrive.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it for any parent.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/parent-effectiveness-training-the-proven-program-for-raising-responsible-children-by-thomas-gordon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Parent Effectiveness Training\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320417838l/165548.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Amazon after reading a \u003ca href=\"http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/how-to-talk-to-human-beings.html\"\u003eblog post by Jeff Atwood\u003c/a\u003e. Jeff does not mention this book in his post; he talks about the book “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen \u0026amp; Listen So Kids Will Talk” by Adele Faber; which is based upon the research and lessons taught in the P.E.T book. So after reading the post I bought copies of both books and the P.E.T. book is the one I chose to read first.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children by Thomas Gordon"},{"content":"I read this book as a PDF bought from O’Reily Media’s Safari Books Online mostly using an iPad and iBooks but also using the Preview app on a MacBook Pro.\nI really dislike showing any photographs without the minimum of rotate, crop, exposure correct, color correct, and export at the needed sizes and Lightroom allows me to do that very quickly.\nI have been using Lightroom since the beta of Lightroom 3 and I read Scott Kelby’s version of this book back then. I loved the book and Lightroom so much that I lent the book out until it didn’t come back, and that’s ok, I like to think that it is still floating out there somewhere being read by a photographer that has been stuck using some antiquated tools to manage and edit their photos.\nThis book for version 4 is a lot like the one for version 3, but it is well worth the read as many new chapters have been added and Lightroom 4 has enough new features and behaviors that the new book is a great help for getting the most from it. Scott does a great job pointing out the places that Lightroom 4 differs from previous versions but doesn’t dwell on those differences to the point that a person just starting out with version 4 would be distracted by them.\nThe only content in the book that I found not useful is the chapter pages, I would prefer that Scott went back to being funny or leaving the space blank.\nFrom the publisher:\nSince Lightroom first launched, Scott Kelby’s The Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers has been the world’s #1 best-selling Lightroom book. In this latest version for Lightroom 4, Scott uses his same step-by-step, plain-English style and layout to make learning Lightroom easy and fun. Scott doesn’t just show you which sliders do what, and he doesn’t just cover the newest features of Lightroom (though, of course, he does that, too, with discussions of the improved Clarity feature, White Balance adjustment brush, photo book capabilities, and much more). Instead, by using the following three simple, yet brilliant, techniques that make it just an incredible learning tool, this book shows you how to create your own photography workflow using Lightroom…\nAbout My Workflow I like the workflow that Scott covers in the book with the exception of using collections. I prefer to not use collections because they are only internal to the Lightroom database, I prefer to have my files organized in the computers file system so that I will be able to easily find them if I stop using Lightroom one day.\nMy current workflow looks like this:\nGet out there and take a lot of pictures Remove the memory card from the camera and use a card reader to get the images into the computer. My file structure looks like “Dave Import / 2012 / 20120725_eli-playground” which is “my import/year/yyyymmdd_name-of-event” then when I export I use the same structure but begin with “Dave Export”. Import the images into Lightroom adding my IPTC copyright information along with generic keywords from the shoot. Quickly look through all of the images and identify obvious rejects by flagging them by typing “x” which identifies them as rejects and get an overall feel for them. Now I take a break, at least 15 minutes long. This allows my thought about the images to gel and take shape. Upon coming back I will use “Flags” to identify the photos I never want to see again by typing “x” which marks them as rejected, and “p” which marks them as a pick. Photos that do not get a flag are kept, but they do not get exported. Then I delete all of the rejected photos, from the Lightroom database and also from the hard drive. Now I use “Filters” to work with just the picks and I switch to the “Develop” module. In the develop module I work my way through the images using the techniques that Scott covers in his book. Many images that were marked as picks may become not-picked or even rejected based on the results of being edited. Now that all of the picks are edited I add captions that describe each image and keywords that can be used to search for each image. This takes a long time and a lot of thought, but it is also what will make your images valuable in the future, if you cannot find a photo you cannot sell that photo. Then I export the picks as original size JPGs with an sRGB colorspace and my naming convention of “dave-nelson-20120725-112317-0001.jpg” which is “my-name-yyyymmdd-hhmmss-####.jpg”. At my SmugMug web site I create a new gallery giving it a name, caption, and pricing list then use MacDaddy to upload the exported images to that directory. Lastly I send out emails and post on various web sites that I have some new photos available for viewing and purchase. This particular process has worked well for me but it has been tweaked many times over the years. Also keep in mind that I am a hobbiest photographer and that the money I do make from photography does not come close to paying for itself.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and a must read for anyone interested in using Lightroom to manage and edit photographs.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-4-book-for-digital-photographers-by-scott-kelby/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"e Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kelbytraining.com/wp-content/uploads/LR4_3D_thumb-220x276.png\"\u003eI read this book as a PDF bought from O’Reily Media’s Safari Books Online mostly using an iPad and iBooks but also using the Preview app on a MacBook Pro.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really dislike showing any photographs without the minimum of rotate, crop, exposure correct, color correct, and export at the needed sizes and Lightroom allows me to do that very quickly.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby"},{"content":"I played this game on a MacBook Pro using OnLive and had no technical difficulties.\nThis first person shooter has a lot of problems, it starts out slow, takes a long time to get going, and then at the very end throws some odd control issues at you. It is definitely “on a rail” and appears to only offer one pretty flat story to tell.\nMaybe its biggest problem is that it is trying to tell a story. It may have been a better game if there was more than one way to get to the end and something in all the dialog that let me know that the end was coming.\nBut for all that, it is not a half bad shooter and it is available for less than $10 when on sale.\nFrom the publisher:\nSet in the shattered subway of a post apocalyptic Moscow, Metro 2033 is a story of intensive underground survival where the fate of mankind rests in your hands. In 2013 the world was devastated by an apocalyptic event, annihilating almost all mankind and turning the earth’s surface into a poisonous wasteland. A handful of survivors took refuge in the depths of the Moscow underground, and human civilization entered a new Dark Age. The year is 2033. An entire generation has been born and raised underground, and their besieged Metro Station-Cities struggle for survival, with each other, and the mutant horrors that await outside. You are Artyom, born in the last days before the fire, but raised Underground. Having never ventured beyond your Metro Station-City limits, one fateful event sparks a desperate mission to the heart of the Metro system, to warn the remnants of mankind of a terrible impending threat. Your journey takes you from the forgotten catacombs beneath the subway to the desolate wastelands above, where your actions will determine the fate of mankind. Metro 2033 is a gripping, atmospheric first person shooter experience powered by cutting edge technology to deliver incredible visuals. Witness the everyday horrors of a broken society living in constant fear. Brave the darkness of the tunnels, where mutants hunt their prey and ghostly spirits lurk. Explore the desolate city-surface, trusting your gas mask and rifle to protect you from a poisoned world and the creatures that roam there. Steel your nerve and prepare to face the terrors that await.\nI rate this game a 7 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/metro-2033-video-game/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Metro 2033 Video Game\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://drh1.img.digitalriver.com/DRHM/Storefront/Company/thq/images/product/detail/metro_2033_167234300_190x270.jpg\"\u003eI played this game on a MacBook Pro using OnLive and had no technical difficulties.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis first person shooter has a lot of problems, it starts out slow, takes a long time to get going, and then at the very end throws some odd control issues at you. It is definitely “on a rail” and appears to only offer one pretty flat story to tell.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMaybe its biggest problem is that it is trying to tell a story. It may have been a better game if there was more than one way to get to the end and something in all the dialog that let me know that the end was coming.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Metro 2033 Video Game"},{"content":"I read this audiobook written by Thomas Sowell and narrated by Tom Weiner from Audible.\n\u0026ldquo;Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.\u0026rdquo;\nRead that sentence above a couple of times, it took me awhile to realize just how true and important it is. I learned from this book that government interference in a free and open market is the source of most of the world’s economic pain. I believe the world would be a much better place if everyone understood the lessons contained in this book.\nDo yourself a favor, find this book and read the summary that is the last chapter of the book. You owe it to yourself and the community you live in.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe fourth edition of Basic Economics is both expanded and updated. A new chapter on the history of economics itself has been added, and the implications of that history examined. A new section on the special role of corporations in the economy has been added to the chapter on government and big business, among other additions throughout the book.Basic Economics, which has now been translated into six languages, has grown so much that a large amount of material in the back of the book in previous editions has now been put online instead, so the book itself and its price will not have to expand. The central idea of Basic Economics, however, remains the same: that the fundamental facts and principles of economics do not require jargon, graphs, or equations, and can be learned in a relaxed and even enjoyable way.\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and a must read for anyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/basic-economics-by-thomas-sowell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Basic Economics, Fourth Edition\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VvxXbwkFL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI read this audiobook written by Thomas Sowell and narrated by Tom Weiner from Audible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRead that sentence above a couple of times, it took me awhile to realize just how true and important it is. I learned from this book that government interference in a free and open market is the source of most of the world’s economic pain. I believe the world would be a much better place if everyone understood the lessons contained in this book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Basic Economics, Fourth Edition: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell"},{"content":"I bought this game on Steam and played it in Windows 7 in Bootcamp on a MacBook Pro.\nThere were a lot of crashing with the game initially; apparently the default install is a horrible experience full of crashes and blue screens for many, many players. It took a lot of searching and a lot of fiddling around to get the game to play for more than 10 minutes without crashing but eventually I found the right combination of settings and the game played great.\nWhen the developers say that this is an open world game, they are not kidding. You can go almost anywhere at any time and while wondering around can be solid fun, later in the game I found it annoying. I would stumble upon things that were obviously a part of some quest but I had not found the guy that would give me the quest yet.\nFor example I found a violin in one of the Vaults (a place where people lived to get away from the radiation), it was definitely part of a quest as I had found nothing else like it in my travels, but I had no idea what to do with it or who could possible give me such a quest. With the help of the Fallout Wiki I found out where to get the appropriate quest and the game did a great job of giving me a good option to complete the quest easily once I found the right person.\nThat is one of the most impressive parts of this game, how it compensates for the user not following the main quest arc. I did all kinds of things trying to see how I could break the game and felt that I never did.\nI really enjoyed this game and look forward to playing the next in the series, Fallout: New Vegas.\nFrom the official web site:\nVault-Tec engineers have worked around the clock on an interactive reproduction of Wasteland life for you to enjoy from the comfort of your own vault. Included is an expansive world, unique combat, shockingly realistic visuals, tons of player choice, and an incredible cast of dynamic characters. Every minute is a fight for survival against the terrors of the outside world – radiation, Super Mutants, and hostile mutated creatures. From Vault-Tec, America’s First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation.\nI rate this game an 8 out of 10\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/fallout-3-game-of-the-year-edition/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Fallout 3\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://fallout.bethsoft.com/images/topstory/topstory-bos.jpg\"\u003eI bought this game on Steam and played it in Windows 7 in Bootcamp on a MacBook Pro.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere were a lot of crashing with the game initially; apparently the default install is a horrible experience full of crashes and blue screens for many, many players. It took a lot of searching and a lot of fiddling around to get the game to play for more than 10 minutes without crashing but eventually I found the right combination of settings and the game played great.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition"},{"content":"Bobbie and I traveled to Las Vegas in June and had a great time. Part of the trip was the Usability Professional’s Association conference, which was really cool, and the other part was pure vacation.\nWe spent 4 days at the [M Resort](http://www.themresort.com/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;The M Resort) well South of the strip. The M is an interesting casino; they focus on the locals while catering to conferences. We ate at Anthony’s where we had an amazing steak and at Anthony’s Burgers and Brews, which was just ok. Their buffet is award winning and a couple of locals highly recommended it to us, but we did not eat there.\nOur room was very nice with a King sized bed and a large soaking tub, but the view was not very appealing.\nWhile I was at the conference, Bobbie took advantage of the beautiful swimming pool and spa. She came back each day raving about how wonderful the spa was with people waiting on her hand and foot. One day she had her hands “done” and the next her feet. I think she really enjoyed herself.\nFor the weekend we moved downtown to the [Golden Nugget](http://www.goldennugget.com/lasvegas/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;The Golden Nugget) on Fremont Street. I chose this hotel because of their amazing swimming pool and their wide array of poker tournaments.\nWe spent a lot of time at [the pool](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded\u0026amp;#038;v=jjgWB6p8-Nc#!\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Video of the Tank pool at the Golden Nugget) and I must have gone down the slide 20 times or more. In the middle of the pool is an aquarium full of fish and a handful of sharks, and if that is not cool enough, there is a water slide that twists its way down through the middle of it. A few times I was able to slow myself down and actually see the sharks swimming around me on my way down. It was a lot of fun.\nOn Saturday morning I played in a sit-and-go poker tournament with 10 players, I placed 5th, which was ok as it was my first time playing poker with strangers. Sadly I did not get a chance to play any other poker.\nIn between we visited the strip and spent time at New York New York, where I played some blackjack; the MGM, which is undergoing remodeling and is a total mess; Caesar’s, where we watched the animatronic show; the Bellagio, where we watched the fountain, ate at the buffet, and had some desert. Bobbie also visited the Coca-Cola store and the M\u0026amp;M museum.\nWe also visited the Pinball Museum where I got to play Xenon, my favorite game from middle school, and Getaway, a game that I played for many hours while in boot camp. Bobbie found a Doctor Who pinball machine that was a lot of fun.\nSaturday night we got to see the Penn \u0026amp; Teller show at the Rio, it was an amazing show and we had a great time. We even got our program signed and pictures taken after the show.\nAnd, we also stumbled onto the World Series of Poker at the Rio. We watched some game play from afar, took some pictures of the final table, and bought some souvenirs. Didn’t see anyone I recognized, but I didn’t look very hard.\nThe Smoking! The only really negative thing about our trip was the amount of cigarette smoke. Everywhere we went we were assaulted by the overpowering stench of cigarette smoke. I laughed pretty hard when I saw the non-smoking section in the M Resort casino, in total it was 9 slot machines placed between a wall and bar area that allowed smoking.\nThe only non-smoking places we found all week were our hotel rooms and the room at the Golden Nugget where they held the tournament.\nThe smoke was so bad that I would think real hard about returning to Las Vegas for a vacation.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/2012-trip-to-las-vegas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"2012 Trip To Las Vegas\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Travel/2012-Las-Vegas/i-bKFD2Vk/0/S/dave-nelson-20120609-194617-S.jpg\"\u003eBobbie and I traveled to Las Vegas in June and had a great time. Part of the trip was the Usability Professional’s Association conference, which was really cool, and the other part was pure vacation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe spent 4 days at the [M Resort](\u003ca href=\"http://www.themresort.com/%22\"\u003ehttp://www.themresort.com/\u0026quot;\u003c/a\u003e title=\u0026ldquo;The M Resort) well South of the strip. The M is an interesting casino; they focus on the locals while catering to conferences. We ate at Anthony’s where we had an amazing steak and at Anthony’s Burgers and Brews, which was just ok. Their buffet is award winning and a couple of locals highly recommended it to us, but we did not eat there.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"2012 Trip To Las Vegas"},{"content":"I listened to this story as an audiobook and it took a very long time, like 3 weeks.\nI made the mistake of reading reviews of this book on Amazon before listening to it, for the most part they were very negative, and they tainted my expectations. What I expected was an even slower telling with even less forward momentum.\nBut what I got was a bit different, it is true that this book and the following book do move slower. Mr. Martin decided to make the individual chapters longer and cover fewer characters in the 4th and 5th books. So it does slow the story down considerably, and I have to say that I do not like it, but the plot does move forward and the events that take place held my interest.\nI plan on listening to the 5th book in a month or so, hopefully I will still remember what happened in this book.\nFrom Wikipedia:\nThe War of the Five Kings is coming to an end. Robb Stark, Joffrey Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, and Balon Greyjoy are all dead, and King Stannis Baratheon has gone to the aid of the Wall, where Jon Snow has become Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. King Tommen Baratheon, Joffrey’s eight-year-old brother, now rules in King’s Landing under the watchful eye of his mother, the Queen Regent Cersei Lannister. Cersei’s father Tywin is dead, murdered by his son Tyrion, who has fled the city. With these two men gone, as well as no longer having to deal with Joffrey, there are no more checks on Cersei and she is essentially Ruling Queen of the Seven Kingdoms in all but name. Now that Cersei finally stands at the height of power and her enemies are scattered to the winds, in a grim irony it quickly becomes clear that she is incapable of wielding the power she has killed and manipulated so many to acquire, and she spirals into self-destruction.\nMeanwhile, Sansa Stark is still in hiding in the Vale, protected by Petyr Baelish, who has secretly murdered his wife Lysa Arryn and named himself Protector of the Vale and guardian of eight-year-old Lord Robert Arryn.\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10 as long as you have read the first 3 books, don’t read it without reading the others first.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-feast-for-crows-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-book-4-by-george-r-r-martin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"A Feast for Crows\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090615013831/iceandfire/images/thumb/c/cc/AFFC_US_Current.jpg/150px-AFFC_US_Current.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this story as an audiobook and it took a very long time, like 3 weeks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI made the mistake of reading reviews of this book on Amazon before listening to it, for the most part they were very negative, and they tainted my expectations. What I expected was an even slower telling with even less forward momentum.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut what I got was a bit different, it is true that this book and the following book do move slower. Mr. Martin decided to make the individual chapters longer and cover fewer characters in the 4th and 5th books. So it does slow the story down considerably, and I have to say that I do not like it, but the plot does move forward and the events that take place held my interest.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Feast for Crows: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4 by George R. R. Martin"},{"content":"I have watched the Walking Dead TV show for a while now, it is a guilty pleasure that neither my wife nor child will to watch, kind of a “dad’s time” thing.\nI am not a “zombie” or horror film/book fan. I do not like gory movies or detailed gore filled descriptions in books. But after hearing friends talk about how much they liked The Walking Dead I decided to give the TV show a try. I was hooked right from the first episode. The acting is good, the location is my hometown of Atlanta, and the gore is usually not over the top.\nAt DragonCon 2011 I attended a couple of panels where actors from the show discussed their experiences. Questions from the audience referred to the comic book a lot, as in almost all of the questions were either about what it was like to film the show in the Atlanta area or about how the show differs from the comic book’s story line.\nAs a part of my iPad comic book exploration I decided to give The Walking Dead comic a try and see if the story is as good in comic form as it is on TV. To my delight the comic is even better than the TV show.\nThe plot and premise of the comic and TV show are the same, but I think the comic book is a lot more realistic. The most glaring point to me is that the comic does not shy away from the “Z” word like the show does, the show calls them “walkers” which is just silly and painful to hear.\nAlso, the comic book is much more open about the day-to-day frustrations felt by the characters. They show a lot more stress, have many more mental breakdowns, and are reacting to their situation in a way that I find more realistic than the aimless wandering they appear to be doing on the TV show.\nThe comic books are well illustrated, the dialog is great, the pacing is near perfection, and the tension feels real.\nP.S.\nI recently attended Timegate, a Dr. Who and Stargate fan convention in Atlanta. I attended a panel on The Walking Dead with Michael Cowart, Mike Faber, Leo Thompson who opened my eyes to the idea that the comic and TV shows diverging is not a bad thing. It will provide opportunities for surprises and allow characters to develop in different and hopefully interesting ways.\nFrom AMC:\nBased on one of the most successful and popular comic books of all time, written by Robert Kirkman, AMC’s The Walking Dead captures the ongoing human drama following a zombie apocalypse. The series follows a group of survivors, led by police officer Rick Grimes, played by Andrew Lincoln (Love Actually, Teachers, Strike Back), who are traveling in search of a safe and secure home. However, instead of the zombies, it is the living who remain that truly become the walking dead. Jon Bernthal (The Pacific, The Ghost Writer) plays Shane Walsh, Rick’s sheriff’s department partner before the apocalypse, and Sarah Wayne Callies (Prison Break), is Rick’s wife, Lori Grimes. Additional cast include: Laurie Holden, Steven Yeun, Norman Reedus, Jeffrey DeMunn, Chandler Riggs, Iron E. Singleton and Melissa McBride. Guest stars include: Lauren Cohan, Scott Wilson and Pruitt Taylor Vince.\nFrom Image Comics:\nAn epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.\nI rate the TV show a 7 out of 10 and the comic books a 9 out of 10. Both are a must for fans of the zombie genre.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-walking-dead-comic-books-and-tv-show/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Walking Dead Comic Books and TV Show\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://media.screened.com/uploads/0/384/430540-the_walking_dead_04_large.jpg\"\u003eI have watched the Walking Dead TV show for a while now, it is a guilty pleasure that neither my wife nor child will to watch, kind of a “dad’s time” thing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am not a “zombie” or horror film/book fan. I do not like gory movies or detailed gore filled descriptions in books. But after hearing friends talk about how much they liked The Walking Dead I decided to give the TV show a try. I was hooked right from the first episode. The acting is good, the location is my hometown of Atlanta, and the gore is usually not over the top.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Walking Dead Comic Books and TV Show"},{"content":"I bought this book used from Powell’s Book Store in Portland, it is a bit beat up but I think that is fitting condition for this story.\nI was lucky enough to meet Rudy Rucker at a DragonCon years ago. At the time I did not know who he was but he was on a panel with William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Anton Wilson talking about the future of the future. Out of all the panelist what he had to say the most interesting. Shortly after that panel I made my way through his Software, Wetware, Hardware books, along with a horror story that gave me a week of nightmares.\nA couple of years later I found a book named “Gnarl!” which is full of short stories that combine fiction, science, and. Several of the stories I had to reread over and over again to feel like I understood them, a few I eventual gave up on ever understanding. I really enjoyed being challenged by those stories; it may have been the first time my mind was stretched in that way by a book of fiction. Good stuff.\nThe easiest way I can describe Hollow Earth is Tom Sawyer meets Edgar Allen Poe in a story written by Jules Vern. At its heart this is an adventure book about a boy in 1800’s America traveling with his boyhood companion who happens to be a family slave beginning in rural Virginia, making their way to Richmond, and then into the center of the Earth and back out the other side.\nI enjoyed reading this book, but it did not draw me in the way other Rudy Rucker books have. The pacing was slow, the dialog did not always flow, it just didn’t work for me.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn 1836, Mason Algiers Reynolds leaves his family’s Virginia farm with his father’s slave, a dog, and a mule. Branded a murderer, he finds sanctuary with his hero, Edgar Allan Poe, and together they embark on an extraordinary expedition to the South Pole, and the entrance to the Hollow Earth. It is there, at the center of the world, where strange physics, strange people, and stranger creatures abound, that their bizarre adventures truly begin.\nI rate this book a 5 out of 10 and recommend it to any fans of Rudy Rocker, for those unfamiliar with him I recommend reading Gnarl!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/hollow-earth-by-rudy-rucker/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Hollow Earth by Rudy Rucker\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7040/6884269358_f0fbab4f4f_z.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book used from Powell’s Book Store in Portland, it is a bit beat up but I think that is fitting condition for this story.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was lucky enough to meet Rudy Rucker at a DragonCon years ago. At the time I did not know who he was but he was on a panel with William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Anton Wilson talking about the future of the future. Out of all the panelist what he had to say the most interesting. Shortly after that panel I made my way through his Software, Wetware, Hardware books, along with a horror story that gave me a week of nightmares.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Hollow Earth by Rudy Rucker"},{"content":"I put off reading this book for what felt like a long time. I heard a lot of negative things about it from various podcasts and blogs when it first came out and I figured I would read it later. After awhile coworkers were referring to passages of the book and quoting it a lot, so I decided I finally needed to read it.\nI got it as an audiobook from Audible narrated by Dylan Baker and it took me two weeks to listen to all 25 hours of it. Mister Baker did a great job narrating the book, I really enjoyed his performance.\nWalter Isaacson had unprecedented access to Steve Jobs, his family, his friends, employees at Apple, and a lot of other people in Steve’s life. I don’t think any author has ever had that kind of access to a person like Jobs.\nThe details in the book are amazing, if you have an interest in the history of Apple and want to know much of its history, then this book is for you. If you are looking for a memoir, I don’t that will ever happen. Steve Jobs just wasn’t that kind of person. Maybe he didn’t have the type of personality that would let him share many of his real emotions. And maybe he just didn’t have the emotions and feelings that many people do.\nThere is so much in this book, I am still processing a lot of it.\nAt the moment my favorite insight from the book is about how Jobs used prototypes and mockups to determine what would work best. It was done with the iPhone, iPad, and even the Apple stores. I hope companies everywhere listen to that, quick prototypes put in front of users and decision makers early and often will save time and money and lead to better products every single time.\nFrom the publisher:\nBased on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.\nAt a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.\nAlthough Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.\nDriven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10, anyone interested in biographies, computer history, Apple Computer, or Steve Jobs will absolutely love this book.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/steve-jobs-by-walter-isaacson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51c2ojegumL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI put off reading this book for what felt like a long time. I heard a lot of negative things about it from various podcasts and blogs when it first came out and I figured I would read it later. After awhile coworkers were referring to passages of the book and quoting it a lot, so I decided I finally needed to read it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI got it as an audiobook from Audible narrated by Dylan Baker and it took me two weeks to listen to all 25 hours of it. Mister Baker did a great job narrating the book, I really enjoyed his performance.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson"},{"content":"With the “new iPad”, aka iPad 3 I decided to give digital comic books a try. As a rule, comics and in fact any graphics that have enough resolution look amazing on the iPad 3, type is super crisp, colors are ultra-vibrant, and the detail is incredible.\nAfter some research I decided to buy a subscription to the “Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited” which offers over 10,000 comics for an annual fee. Wow, that sounds great. But sadly it does not work on the iPad, in fact it requires Adobe Flash to work on any machine.\nMy next stop was “Comics” by Comixology, who also makes the mobile apps for most of the comic book publishers, which has a very cool feature called “Guided View(tm)” which zooms in and out around the comic to make reading easier. But with the new iPad and its incredibly hi-resolution screen I found all that unnecessary and prefer to view an entire page in portrait mode or “fit” the page width in landscape mode.\nA great thing about Comixology is all of the free comics offered in their store. For the most part I am able to get enough free comics to satiate my desire to read comics. Even better, free comics have introduced me to some series I had never heard of before.\nAnother great aspect of Comixology is the large number of publishers that are available, they are not just limited to Marvel and DC but have comics from Archaia Entertainment, BOOM! Studios, DC Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, IDW Publishing, Image Comics and Marvel Comics which amounts to a great selection of genres and titles.\nBut Comixology does not make me happy, buying a ton of comics that I plan on reading once and never again doesn’t make sense to me, I do not want to be a collector, just a reader. I would rather rent my comics than buy them.\nThe cost of comics and graphic novels are out of control. It seems to me that they are priced for collectors and not for the masses to enjoy. Using The Walking Dead as an example, issues 1 through 48 are available in a compendium for $60 (currently $35.14 at Amazon), compared to the price of buying individual comics that is a bargain, but for someone like me who just wants to read them and not collect them it is a very steep price. Compared to the price of a novel, movie, or video game and it is outrageous.\nHopefully Comixology will have some type of subscription model worked out in the near future. I am really looking forward to it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/digital-comic-books-on-an-ipad/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Digital Comic Books on an iPad\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://blog.comixology.com/wp-content/themes/clean-home/images/Blog_logoArt.jpg\"\u003eWith the “new iPad”, aka iPad 3 I decided to give digital comic books a try. As a rule, comics and in fact any graphics that have enough resolution look amazing on the iPad 3, type is super crisp, colors are ultra-vibrant, and the detail is incredible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter some research I decided to buy a subscription to the “Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited” which offers over 10,000 comics for an annual fee. Wow, that sounds great. But sadly it does not work on the iPad, in fact it requires Adobe Flash to work on any machine.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Digital Comic Books on an iPad"},{"content":"Tony Hsieh is an amazing guy with an amazing vision who has surrounded himself with really amazing people.\nIf you have any interest in how a business should be run please read this book. The way Zappos functions really is how I believe a company should be run, not just retail business but all businesses. It can change the way you think at a very deep level and make you very unhappy with the way things are being run by almost every other business out there.\nI am so impressed by this book that I am visiting the Zappos offices in June to get a first hand look at what the cult of Zappos is really like.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn this, his first audiobook, Tony Hsieh – the widely admired CEO of Zappos, the online shoe retailer – explains how he created a unique culture and commitment to service that aims to improve the lives of employees, customers, vendors, and backers. Using anecdotes and stories from his own life experiences, and from other companies, Hsieh provides concrete ways that companies can achieve unprecedented success. Even better, he shows how creating happiness and record results go hand-in-hand.\nHe starts with the “Why” in a section where he narrates his quest to understand the science of happiness. Then he runs through the ten Zappos “Core Values” – such as “Deliver WOW through Service”, “Create Fun and A Little Weirdness”, and “Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit” – and explains how you and your colleagues should come up with your own.\nHsieh then details many of the unique practices at Zappos that have made it the success it is today, such as their philosphy of allocating marketing money into the customer experience, thereby allowing repeat customers and word-of-mouth be their true form of marketing. He also explains why Zappos’s number-one priority is company culture and his belief that once you get the culture right, everything else – great customer service, long-term branding – will happen on its own.\nFinally, Delivering Happiness explains how Zappos employees actually apply the Core Values to improving their lives outside of work – and to making a difference in their communities and the world.\n©2010 Tony Hsieh (P)2010 Hachette\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone interested in books about corporate culture and how to treat customers.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/delivering-happiness-by-tony-hsieh/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Delivering Happiness\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ysl-BDgGL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eTony Hsieh is an amazing guy with an amazing vision who has surrounded himself with really amazing people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you have any interest in how a business should be run please read this book. The way Zappos functions really is how I believe a company should be run, not just retail business but all businesses. It can change the way you think at a very deep level and make you very unhappy with the way things are being run by almost every other business out there.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh"},{"content":"This book popped up in my Audible recommendations and it intrigued me.\nWritten by a former FBI agent with business professor and psychologist Marvin Karlins the book is like a quick guide to reading people’s body language.\nI enjoyed the contents of this book and do recommend it for everyone, not just business people and card players, but if the book was properly edited it wouldn’t be much more than a pamphlet. The audiobook is 7 hours and 24 minutes long and I think it would be about 2 and a half hours long if all the useless repetition and rambling was removed. That would make it a much better book.\nThe narrator, Paul Costanzo, turned in an absolutely terrible performance. His voice sounded a lot like a computer voice in an underpowered gadget with lousy speakers. It does not sound like he had ever read the material before reading it for the recording. It appears that this is a common problem for him and I will be actively avoiding any books that he is involved in.\nFrom the publisher:\nHe says that’s his best offer. Is it? She says she agrees. Does she? The interview went great – or did it? He said he’d never do it again. But he did.\nListen to this book and send your nonverbal intelligence soaring. Joe Navarro, a former FBI counterintelligence officer and a recognized expert on nonverbal behavior, explains how to “speed-read” people: decode sentiments and behaviors, avoid hidden pitfalls, and look for deceptive behaviors. You’ll also learn how your body language can influence what your boss, family, friends, and strangers think of you.\nYou will discover:\nThe ancient survival instincts that drive body language Why the face is the least likely place to gauge a person’s true feelings What thumbs, feet, and eyelids reveal about moods and motives The most powerful behaviors that reveal our confidence and true sentiments Simple nonverbals that instantly establish trust Simple nonverbals that instantly communicate authority Filled with examples from Navarro’s professional experience, this definitive book offers a powerful new way to navigate your world.\n©2008 Joe Navarro (P)2011 HarperCollinsPublishers\nI rate the book a 6 out of 10 for content and the performance of the audiobook a ZERO out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/what-every-body-is-saying-by-joe-navarro/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"What Every BODY Is Saying\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pGxBl05eL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eThis book popped up in my Audible recommendations and it intrigued me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWritten by a former FBI agent with business professor and psychologist Marvin Karlins the book is like a quick guide to reading people’s body language.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI enjoyed the contents of this book and do recommend it for everyone, not just business people and card players, but if the book was properly edited it wouldn’t be much more than a pamphlet. The audiobook is 7 hours and 24 minutes long and I think it would be about 2 and a half hours long if all the useless repetition and rambling was removed. That would make it a much better book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"What Every BODY Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People by Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins"},{"content":"I listened to this audiobook narrated by Roy Dotrice while commuting and working out.\nWow, these books are long, this one is 47 hours and 40 minutes! That is almost 2 full days of audio. According to Amazon the paperback is 1216 pages long.\nI wont go into any details about the story because I don’t want to spoil anything and if you have not read the second book I recommend you don’t read the publisher’s summary below.\nI am still enjoying these books and overall found this one riveting. I caught myself parked in the driveway listening to it a little longer each night when I got home or to work. Good stuff.\nFrom the publisher:\nOf the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of the jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King’s Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world…\nBut as opposing forces maneuver for the final titanic showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost line of civilization. In their vanguard is a horde of mythical Others, a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords….\n©2000 George R.R. Martin, (P)2004 Books On Tape, Inc., published in arrangement with Random House Audio Group, a division of Random House, Inc.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and a must read if you have read the first two Song of Ice and Fire books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-storm-of-swords-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-book-3-by-george-r-r-martin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"A Storm of Swords\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://cdn.audiobooksonline.com/media/ss_size1/Song-Ice-Fire-Storm-Swords-George-R-R-Martin-Random-House-Audio-books.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this audiobook narrated by Roy Dotrice while commuting and working out.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWow, these books are long, this one is 47 hours and 40 minutes! That is almost 2 full days of audio. According to Amazon the paperback is 1216 pages long.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI wont go into any details about the story because I don’t want to spoil anything and if you have not read the second book I recommend you don’t read the publisher’s summary below.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3 by George R. R. Martin"},{"content":"I listened to this audiobook from Audible while commuting and working out.\nI love me some Google. I use Gmail as my only email, I use Google Voice as my main phone number, I use Google search exclusively, I love Google Maps and use it almost daily, I use Google Earth to geotag my photographs, and I watch videos on YouTube almost every day.\nI think this book does a great job teaching us about how Google thinks as a company and how its founders see the purpose and direction of the company. I also think the book is a very honest look into Google, it exposes many of the rough spots the company has experienced in more detail than many of us know.\nI do not like the way the book was written, it does not follow a single timeline but instead chooses to devote each chapter to a different topic and restarting the timeline at the beginning of the topic covered. And because the topics do not begin an end within the same time period I felt confused about when things were happening in relation to each other throughout most of the book.\nOn the other hand, Steven Levy is an amazing writer with a great voice, each chapter can stand on its own and maybe should have.\nFrom the publisher:\nFew companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes listeners inside Google headquarters – the Googleplex – to explain how Google works.\nWhile they were still students at Stanford, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin revolutionized Internet search. They followed this brilliant innovation with another, as two of Google’s earliest employees found a way to do what no one else had: make billions of dollars from Internet advertising. With this cash cow (until Google’s IPO, nobody other than Google management had any idea how lucrative the company’s ad business was), Google was able to expand dramatically and take on other transformative projects: more efficient data centers, open-source cell phones, free Internet video (YouTube), cloud computing, digitizing books, and much more.\nThe key to Google’s success in all these businesses, Levy reveals, is its engineering mind-set and adoption of such Internet values as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk taking. After it’s unapologetically elitist approach to hiring, Google pampers its engineers with free food and dry cleaning, on-site doctors and masseuses, and gives them all the resources they need to succeed. Even today, with a workforce of more than 23,000, Larry Page signs off on every hire.\nBut has Google lost its innovative edge? It stumbled badly in China. And now, with its newest initiative, social networking, Google is chasing a successful competitor for the first time. Some employees are leaving the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups. Can the company that famously decided not to be “evil” still compete?\nNo other book has turned Google inside out as Levy does with In the Plex.\nThis edition of In the Plex includes an exclusive interview with Google’s Marissa Mayer, one of the company’s earliest hires and most visible executives, as well as the youngest woman to ever make Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” list. She provides a high-level insider’s perspective on the company’s life story, its unique hiring practices, its new social networking initiative, and more.\n©2011 Steven Levy (P)2011 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 6 out 10 and recommend it to any techie that is interested in Google and its leaders.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/in-the-plex-by-steven-levy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"In The Plex\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.stevenlevy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/in-the-plex.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this audiobook from Audible while commuting and working out.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI love me some Google. I use Gmail as my only email, I use Google Voice as my main phone number, I use Google search exclusively, I love Google Maps and use it almost daily, I use Google Earth to geotag my photographs, and I watch videos on YouTube almost every day.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think this book does a great job teaching us about how Google thinks as a company and how its founders see the purpose and direction of the company. I also think the book is a very honest look into Google, it exposes many of the rough spots the company has experienced in more detail than many of us know.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy"},{"content":"I listened to this book from Audible.\nI really like Zig Ziglar’s message, I find it positive and inspiring.\nThis audiobook is a part of a larger series, but here is the rub, Audible does not make it clear what books make-up the entire series and what order they should be read in. So listening to just this book makes me feel incomplete, like there is something important missing, like I don’t have the entire story.\nAlthough I feel unsatisfied with this book, I did enjoy listening to it and will probably get another book or two that will hopefully be a part of the series, maybe someday I will actually get the entire message.\nPublisher’s summary:\nHow to Stay Motivated provides you with clear and proven techniques to use to enhance relationships, improve your self-image, set and achieve goals, and so much more! Setting and achieving your life goals are among the most important activities in which you can apply yourself, as your goals will set the course of your most important decisions.\nApply these winning steps from the motivational master himself to build a better, more productive, satisfying life for yourself and your family. Change your picture and change every facet of your life.\n©2008 Zig Ziglar; (P)2008 Made For Success\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10, would probably be an 8 with all the pieces.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/how-to-stay-motivated-the-goals-program-by-zig-ziglar/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"How to Stay Motivated\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wfyEBCz6L._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this book from Audible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really like Zig Ziglar’s message, I find it positive and inspiring.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis audiobook is a part of a larger series, but here is the rub, Audible does not make it clear what books make-up the entire series and what order they should be read in. So listening to just this book makes me feel incomplete, like there is something important missing, like I don’t have the entire story.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"How to Stay Motivated: The Goals Program by Zig Ziglar"},{"content":"Susan Cain: The power of introverts (TED Talk) I listened to this as an audiobook from Audible.\nI have always known that I am an introvert, but this book taught me so much about myself that I don’t know where to begin. This book really blew me away and I look forward to sharing it with a lot of friends and co-workers.\nI think the publisher’s summary below does a great job, give it a read and if it speaks to you I can’t recommend the book highly enough. If you manage people, have a spouse that is shy or introverted, are introverted yourself, just anyone at all, you should do yourself a favor and read this book.\nKathe Mazur does a wonderful job bringing the subject to life narrates it, I look forward to listening to her again soon.\nWhat has impressed me the most is that I have discovered many of my behaviors are actually done in an attempt to overcome or hide just how introverted I really am. I believe that trying to hide my introverted-ness has been a large negative influence on my entire life; it has left me tired, frustrated, and often angry. Quiet has given me some tools and ideas of how to handle my feelings and desires in much more productive ways. Now it is up to me to use what I have learned to improve the life of myself, me family, and those around me.\nFrom the publisher:\nAt least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they are often labeled \u0026ldquo;quiet,\u0026rdquo; it is to introverts that we owe many of the great contributions to society–from van Gogh’s sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer.\nPassionately argued, impressively researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing so. Taking the reader on a journey from Dale Carnegie’s birthplace to Harvard Business School, from a Tony Robbins seminar to an evangelical megachurch, Susan Cain charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in the 20th century and explores its far-reaching effects. She talks to Asian-American students who feel alienated from the brash, backslapping atmosphere of American schools. She questions the dominant values of American business culture, where forced collaboration can stand in the way of innovation, and where the leadership potential of introverts is often overlooked. And she draws on cutting-edge research in psychology and neuroscience to reveal the surprising differences between extroverts and introverts.\nPerhaps most inspiring, she introduces us to successful introverts–from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Finally, she offers invaluable advice on everything from how to better negotiate differences in introvert-extrovert relationships to how to empower an introverted child to when it makes sense to be a \u0026ldquo;pretend extrovert.\u0026rdquo;\nThis extraordinary book has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how introverts see themselves.\n©2012 Susan Cain (P)2012 Random House\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to everyone!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/quiet-the-power-of-introverts-in-a-world-that-cant-stop-talking-by-susan-cain/","summary":"\u003ch2 id=\"susan-cain-the-power-of-introverts-ted-talk\"\u003eSusan Cain: The power of introverts (TED Talk)\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Quiet\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tQUjlhZ1L._SL175_.jpg\"\u003e I listened to this as an audiobook from Audible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have always known that I am an introvert, but this book taught me so much about myself that I don’t know where to begin. This book really blew me away and I look forward to sharing it with a lot of friends and co-workers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think the publisher’s summary below does a great job, give it a read and if it speaks to you I can’t recommend the book highly enough. If you manage people, have a spouse that is shy or introverted, are introverted yourself, just anyone at all, you should do yourself a favor and read this book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain"},{"content":"I listened to this as an audiobook narrated by Ray Porter.\nI have to tell you that I only made it a little over half-way through listening to this book before I gave up on it, I really wanted to stop much earlier than that. Ray Porter does an excellent job narrating this book, but he did not have much to work with.\nThere just isn’t much useful here, his assumptions about why certain decisions and outcomes came about strike me as being very wrong. It doesn’t feel like any research or fact checking was done. The killer questions he extolls do not feel useful to me; in fact they feel counterproductive. Ugh… that is enough.\nI am not including anything from the publisher.\nI rate this book a 0 out of 10 and I recommend you do not waste your time.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/beyond-the-obvious-by-phil-mckinney/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Beyond the Obvious\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sFXhaRy7L._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this as an audiobook narrated by Ray Porter.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have to tell you that I only made it a little over half-way through listening to this book before I gave up on it, I really wanted to stop much earlier than that. Ray Porter does an excellent job narrating this book, but he did not have much to work with.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere just isn’t much useful here, his assumptions about why certain decisions and outcomes came about strike me as being very wrong. It doesn’t feel like any research or fact checking was done. The killer questions he extolls do not feel useful to me; in fact they feel counterproductive. Ugh… that is enough.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation by Phil McKinney"},{"content":"I received this book after 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.\nWith only 91 pages of content Simple and Usable is more of a pamphlet than a book and did not include much that I found to be original, but I have read a lot of books on the subject of usability over the years.\nI like the presentation of the material and each even numbered page covers a single subject with a smattering of references and quotes while the odd numbered pages are relegated to photos that may or may not be relevant to the facing page.\nIf you want a quick read to get your head around the idea of \u0026ldquo;Simple and Usable\u0026rdquo; and how it applies to design, this book is a good choice. If you are looking for a book about usability and web design there are other books that are more thorough and practical.\nFrom the book’s website https://www.simpleandusable.com/:\nHave you ever set out to simplify a user experience and found that everyone around you was trying to add more complexity and detail? Have you ever found yourself caught between customers who demand simplicity and competitors who out gun you with exciting features? Designing simplicity can be complex.\nSimple and usable offers examples and stories that break the subject down into tips, strategies and guidelines you can follow to create websites, software or mobile apps which have a compelling simplicity.\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10, if you are looking for a quickie this may be your book.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/simple-and-usable-by-giles-colborne/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Simple and Usable\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://img2.imagesbn.com/images/102560000/102565152.jpg\"\u003eI received this book after 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.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith only 91 pages of content Simple and Usable is more of a pamphlet than a book and did not include much that I found to be original, but I have read a lot of books on the subject of usability over the years.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Simple and Usable: web, mobile, and interaction design by Giles Colborne"},{"content":"I read this book as an Audible audio book.\nI enjoyed listening to this book, Tom Weiner does a great job narrating it and bringing a lot of emotion and depth. Depth that I am not sure exists in the book’s written form.\nThis is not a spy novel nor is it the memoirs of a spy; it is more of a collection of events as seen from the author’s perspective arranged in a chronological order. There are plenty of passages that let us see deeper into the person that is \u0026ldquo;Fred Burton\u0026rdquo; and we get to learn some of what makes him tick, but I do not feel like I got the whole picture at any point. Part of that is the fact that most of the events the book covers have many elements that cannot be shared and part of it is the format of narration chosen by the author.\nWhat the book does make clear is that terrorism is here to stay. We would all be a lot better off with more people like Fred Burton in the world.\nFrom the publisher:\nFor decades, Fred Burton was a key figure in international counterterrorism and domestic spy craft. As a member of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service in the mid 1980s, he was on the front lines of America’s first campaign against terror. Now, in this hard-hitting memoir, Burton emerges from the shadows to reveal who he is, what he has accomplished, and the threats that lurk unseen except by an experienced, world-wise few. Told in a no-holds-barred, gripping, nuanced style, this behind-the scenes account of one counterterrorism agent’s life and career is a riveting listen.\n©2008 Fred Burton; (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10, if you are fan of spy novels I think this is a good read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ghost-by-fred-burton/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent by Fred Burton\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://i43.tower.com/images/mm112185714/ghost-fred-burton-cd-cover-art.jpg\"\u003eI read this book as an Audible audio book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI enjoyed listening to this book, Tom Weiner does a great job narrating it and bringing a lot of emotion and depth. Depth that I am not sure exists in the book’s written form.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not a spy novel nor is it the memoirs of a spy; it is more of a collection of events as seen from the author’s perspective arranged in a chronological order. There are plenty of passages that let us see deeper into the person that is \u0026ldquo;Fred Burton\u0026rdquo; and we get to learn some of what makes him tick, but I do not feel like I got the whole picture at any point. Part of that is the fact that most of the events the book covers have many elements that cannot be shared and part of it is the format of narration chosen by the author.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent by Fred Burton"},{"content":"I read this book on Safari Books Online using Firefox on a MacBook.\nI am updating the Football Pool app that I built last year and want to make the database side of it more sophisticated and optimized so I searched Safari Books for some insight. After reading the overview of a handful of books I decided on Head First PHP \u0026amp; MySQL because it appeared to cover everything I was looking for.\nThe Head First series from O’Reilly tend to be a good blend of beginner level and intermediate level information. It is presented in a style that I think many will find helpful to the learning process with quizzes, crossword puzzles, and connect the phrases that go together to help reinforce what you have read. The series is much more than a \u0026ldquo;Dummies\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;24 hours\u0026rdquo; but less dry than book you may use to study for certification.\nThis book gave me almost all of the information I needed without too much trouble. I think there are many security issues that are not addressed that should be and the information about separating the zip code in a database schema did not make a lot of sense to me.\nOverall I got what I expected from this book and will now read a book that is more focused on MySQL.\nFrom the publisher:\nIf you’re ready to create web pages more complex than those you can build with HTML and CSS, Head First PHP \u0026amp; MySQL is the ultimate learning guide to building dynamic, database-driven websites using PHP and MySQL. Packed with real-world examples, this book teaches you all the essentials of server-side programming, from the fundamentals of PHP and MySQL coding to advanced topics such as form validation, session IDs, cookies, database queries and joins, file I/O operations, content management, and more.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10, I would have like more information about designing databases.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/head-first-php-mysql-by-lynn-beighley-and-michael-morrison/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Head First PHP \u0026amp; MySQL by Lynn Beighley and Michael Morrison\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201201-6359-my/images/9780596157739/9780596157739_s.gif\"\u003eI read this book on Safari Books Online using Firefox on a MacBook.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am updating the Football Pool app that I built last year and want to make the database side of it more sophisticated and optimized so I searched Safari Books for some insight. After reading the overview of a handful of books I decided on  \u003cstrong\u003eHead First PHP \u0026amp; MySQL\u003c/strong\u003e because it appeared to cover everything I was looking for.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Head First PHP \u0026 MySQL by Lynn Beighley and Michael Morrison"},{"content":"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.\nIf 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.\nI 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.\nFrom the Susan Weinschenk’s web site:\nYou 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.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 as a reference and as a source of inspiration.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/100-things-every-designer-needs-to-know-about-people-by-susan-weinschenk-ph-d/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.whatmakesthemclick.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/cover1.jpg\"\u003eI 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.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf 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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D."},{"content":"I read this book as an ebook on an iPhone using eReader Pro.\nIn the second book of the series we get some more time with Thaddeus, Gloria and the new magician nicknamed Houdini.\nMy 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.\nFrom the authors web site:\nThe 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.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and the complete series as a 9 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/three-legged-hootch-dancer-by-mike-resnick/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Three Legged Hootch Dancer by Mike Resnick\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.mikeresnick.com/82nslqbxcQ2JS5gacd/midway/hootchdancer.jpg\"\u003eI read this book as an ebook on an iPhone using eReader Pro.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the second book of the series we get some more time with Thaddeus, Gloria and the new magician nicknamed Houdini.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy 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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Three Legged Hootch Dancer (Tales of the Galactic Midway, Book 2) by Mike Resnick"},{"content":"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.\nWow, these books are long. It took me a few weeks to make it through this one. But it was a great ride.\nThe 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.\nI 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.\nFrom Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clash_of_Kings):\nA 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.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10, it is even better then the first book.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-clash-of-kings-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-book-two-by-george-r-r-martin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two by George R.R. Martin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/AClashOfKings.jpg\"\u003eLike 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.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWow, these books are long. It took me a few weeks to make it through this one. But it was a great ride.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two by George R.R. Martin"},{"content":"This story is a first for me; I both listened to the audiobook and read the ebook interchangeably.\nThe audiobook is narrated by Roy Dotrice who does an amazing job performing all of the characters in this novel.\nThis 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.)\nBut, 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.\nIt 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?\nFrom the publisher:\nIn 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.\n©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.\nI 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.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-game-of-thrones-by-george-r-r-martin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One by George R.R. Martin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://ravereader.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/agot-cover.jpg\"\u003eThis story is a first for me; I both listened to the audiobook and read the ebook interchangeably.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe audiobook is narrated by Roy Dotrice who does an amazing job performing all of the characters in this novel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis 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.)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One by George R.R. Martin"},{"content":"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.\nI 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.\nThe 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.\nAlso, 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.\nFrom the game’s web site:\nYou 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\nBadly 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.\nYou 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.\nI rate this game a 8 out of 10 and recommend it for any fans of first person shooters.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/deus-ex-human-revolution-the-game/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Deus Ex: Human Revolution – The Game\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.originalsoundversion.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Deus-Ex-Human-Revolution-logo.jpg\"\u003eI 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.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI 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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Deus Ex: Human Revolution – The Game"},{"content":"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.\nThe 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.\nFrom the [author’s website](http://www.nealstephenson.com/reamde/\u0026quot; title=\u0026ldquo;Neal Stephensons Web Site):\nNeal 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.\nIn 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.\nRacing 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.\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10. I highly recommend it for any fan of action, cyberpunk, or thriller genres.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/reamde-a-novel-by-neal-stephenson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Reamde: A Novel by Neal Stephenson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://images.indiebound.com/961/977/9780061977961.jpg\"\u003eI 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.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Reamde: A Novel by Neal Stephenson"},{"content":"I bought the entire Galactic Midway series many years ago to read on my PalmPilot. This is probably my 5th time reading them.\nSideshow is the first book in a series of 4 novels following a most unusual carnival.\nFrom Mike Resnick’s web site:\nCarny 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.\nI 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.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/sideshow-tales-of-the-galactic-midway-1-by-mike-resnick/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Sideshow (Tales of the Galactic Midway #1) by Mike Resnick\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.mikeresnick.com/82nslqbxcQ2JS5gacd/midway/sideshow.jpg\"\u003eI bought the entire Galactic Midway series many years ago to read on my PalmPilot. This is probably my 5th time reading them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSideshow is the first book in a series of 4 novels following a most unusual carnival.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom \u003ca href=\"http://mikeresnick.com/\"\u003eMike Resnick’s web site\u003c/a\u003e:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCarny 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.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Sideshow (Tales of the Galactic Midway #1) by Mike Resnick"},{"content":"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.\nUnlike 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.\nI did enjoy the new weapons, a few new mechs, and loads of new mobs.\nI 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.\nFrom the Red Faction web site:\nHalf 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.\nWhen 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.\nFive 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.\nWhen 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.\nI rate this game a 6 out of 10 and recommend it for anyone looking for a quick FPS on rails fix.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/red-faction-armageddon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.redfaction.com/sites/redfaction.com/files/imagecache/game-image-full/rfa_ps3fob_vf_rgb_0.jpg\"\u003eRecently 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.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike 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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Red Faction: Armageddon"},{"content":"I bought this audiobook from Audible.com.\nBoy-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.\nThis 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.\nThe 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.\nFrom the publisher:\nThere 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.\n©2006 Mike Resnick (P)2010 Audible, Inc.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and a must read for all Mike Resnick fans.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/775/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"A Gathering of Widowmakers by Mike Resnick\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sdi%2Bz5FdL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this audiobook from Audible.com.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoy-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.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis 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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Gathering of Widowmakers by Mike Resnick"},{"content":"I bought Trine as part of the Humble Bundle 3 and played it on a Mac using Steam.\nI 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.\nThe 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.\nI 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.\nIf 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.\nFrom the game’s web site:\nTrine 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!\nI 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.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/trine-the-game-by-frozenbyte-inc/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Trine, The Game by Frozenbyte, Inc.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k-sLV5P6iLw/TdtC4a5tX5I/AAAAAAAAACA/s7DITCWoHjY/s1600/Trine2.jpg\"\u003eI bought Trine as part of the Humble Bundle 3 and played it on a Mac using Steam.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed \u003ca href=\"http://trine-thegame.com\"\u003eTrine\u003c/a\u003e, it is my favorite game from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.humblebundle.com/\"\u003eHumble Bundle\u003c/a\u003e 3 package, it is the only one I have had enough interest in to play all the way through.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Trine, The Game by Frozenbyte, Inc."},{"content":"I read the hard cover version of this book purchased from Amazon.com.\nThe 39th book in the Discworld series of which I have read them all, most of them multiple times, and loved each and every one. In this novel we follow Commander Vimes on vacation with his wife Lady Sybil in her family’s palatial estate.\nGoblin’s, river boats, tobacco, drugs, beautiful music, and a heard of others join together to create a great story as seen from Sam’s hard-boiled point of view as a policeman, as a duke, as a husband, as a father, and as a blackboard monitor.\nThe words chosen for the telling of this story bothered me a bit though. I do not recall any other Discworld novel having so many “four letter words”. The cussing felt unnecessary and out of place. I consciously now choose to ignore that feature of the book and substitute all of the dialog that I felt objectionable with words and phrases that I find to be more in line with the previous novels of Discworld. And so my review is for my own edited version of this book and not as it was delivered to my door.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and highly recommend it to any fan of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, but this is not the book to begin with. I recommend Guards, Guards or The Color of Magic as your first.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/snuff-by-terry-pratchett/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Snuff by Terry Pratchett\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f5/Snuff_cover_low.jpg\"\u003eI read the hard cover version of this book purchased from Amazon.com.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 39th book in the Discworld series of which I have read them all, most of them multiple times, and loved each and every one. In this novel we follow Commander Vimes on vacation with his wife Lady Sybil in her family’s palatial estate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGoblin’s, river boats, tobacco, drugs, beautiful music, and a heard of others join together to create a great story as seen from Sam’s hard-boiled point of view as a policeman, as a duke, as a husband, as a father, and as a blackboard monitor.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Snuff by Terry Pratchett"},{"content":"I loved listening to this book. It is a collection of short stories about working in space, on the moon, and what it is like on earth in the far future of the mid 1980’s.\nWith the stories written in the late 1930’s up through the late 1940’s they are very different from most of the current science fiction I read these days.\nThis book includes the short stories “Delilah and the Space-Rigger,” “Space-Jockey,” “The Long Watch,” “Gentlemen Be Seated,” “The Black Pits of Luna,” “It’s Great to Be Back,” “We Also Walk Dogs,” “Ordeal in Space,” “The Green Hills of Earth,” and “Logic of Empire.”\nFrom Wikipedia:\nThe Green Hills of Earth is a collection of science fiction short stories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1951, although it includes short stories published as early as 1941. The stories are part of Heinlein’s Future History. The title story is the tale of an old space mariner reflecting upon his planet of birth. According to an acknowledgement at the beginning of the book, the phrase “the green hills of Earth” is derived from a C.L. Moore story.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who loves science fiction and classic stories of space.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/759/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Green Hills Of Earth by Robert A. Heinlein\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT6ekXH4Q-tWerAPkfValJEoDdMkKmd1iY31jYgMNULeAIJTRg68Q\"\u003eI loved listening to this book. It is a collection of short stories about working in space, on the moon, and what it is like on earth in the far future of the mid 1980’s.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith the stories written in the late 1930’s up through the late 1940’s they are very different from most of the current science fiction I read these days.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Green Hills Of Earth by Robert A. Heinlein"},{"content":"I was thinking about it this week and even though I am a casual gamer I have been playing a lot of different games. Between playing Steam games on both Mac and Windows, OnLive games on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad games I realized I have been playing a lot of different games. Here are my thoughts on some of them.\nTrine I bought Trine as a part of the latest Humble Bundle and play it on the Mac through Steam.\nThis is such a great side-scroller. You play the rolls of a thief with a bow, a fighter with armor and a sword, and a wizard with the ability to create and move objects. You can switch between the three party members at any time, only one character is on the screen at a time, to complete the tasks presented.\nThe graphics are amazing, the music is mesmerizing, the voice acting sets the mood wonderfully, and the challenges presenting are a lot of fun.\nI am not finished with it, only played for 4 hours so far, but am really looking forward to finishing it.\nRed Faction: Guerrilla I bought this game as one of OnLive’s $5 Friday deals and play it on Macs.\nI am enjoying this game, it is ok, and it was a good value at $5, but… it is not great. After about 5 hours of gameplay I am getting a bit bored at the repetition of it.\nIt is a first person shooter (FPS) with drivable vehicles and multiplayer support. I am playing through the single player campaign. The single-player story has you on Mars as a miner turned rebel fighting to free the planet from the rule of the EDF who treat the miners poorly.\nFor an FPS the plot is ok, the mechanics are ok, the weapons are ok, but I am finding the effort to get new weapons and upgrades tedious.\nI am not sure I will finish this game, but I plan on playing it at least another couple of hours before dropping it.\niPhone and iPad I am playing the usual games of Sol Free, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Infinity Blade, ReBounce, Rage, and Azkend.\nMore than any other game though I am playing Zynga Poker. It is ok on the iPhone and very cluttered/confusing in a web browser, but on the iPad it is great.\nTrine I rate a 9 out of 10\nRed Faction: Guerilla I rate a 5 out of 10\nZynga Poker for the iPad I rate a 9 out of 10, on the iPhone a 7 out of 10, and in a web browser a 4 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/games-ive-been-playing/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI was thinking about it this week and even though I am a casual gamer I have been playing a lot of different games. Between playing Steam games on both Mac and Windows, OnLive games on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad games I realized I have been playing a lot of different games. Here are my thoughts on some of them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"trine\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://trine-thegame.com/site/\"\u003eTrine\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought Trine as a part of the latest \u003ca href=\"http://www.humblebundle.com/\"\u003eHumble Bundle\u003c/a\u003e and play it on the Mac through Steam.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Games I’ve Been Playing"},{"content":"I read this book on Safari Books Online.\nI bought my wife \u0026ldquo;Canon PowerShot G12: From Snapshots to Great Shots\u0026rdquo; by Jeff Carlson and decided to read the version for the 7D after flipping through it.\nI think I first heard about Nicolesy, the aurthor’s online moniker, while listening to a podcast with Leo Laporte. According to her web site she is lifestyle photographer that sells images through iStockphoto and Getty Images along with being the author of 3 books; Canon 7D: From Snapshots to Great Shots, EOS Canon 60D: From Snapshots to Great Shots and Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots and a \u0026ldquo;Help Desk Specialist\u0026rdquo; with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. I remember enjoying her conversations on Leo’s podcasts and thinking that she had an interesting point of view.\nCanon 7D: From Snapshots to Great Shots appears to be targeted at the beginner photographer but as an experienced photographer I enjoyed reading it. For the beginner it does a great job of explaining the mechanics of the camera and techniques for capturing photographs as they are envisioned. I really appreciate the quality of the example photographs along with the explanations that point out why they would be considered good pictures, I think such information is vital to all photographers and something we need more of.\nFrom the publisher:\nThis book has one goal: to teach Canon 7D owners how to make great shots using your camera. Starting with the top ten things you need to know about the 7D — charging your battery, setting your ISO, reviewing your photos, and more — professional photographer Nicole S. Young then carefully guides you through the modes of the camera, offering practical advice on choosing your settings, expert shooting tips, and end-of-chapter \u0026ldquo;challenges\u0026rdquo; to get you up and running with your 7D. This book is for anyone who has upgraded from a point-and-shoot, or who wants to jump right into photography with the control and capabilities of a powerful DSLR.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to all 7D owners.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/canon-7d-from-snapshots-to-great-shots-by-nicole-s-young/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Canon 7D: From Snapshots to Great Shots by Nicole S. Young\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201109-2191-my/images/9780132118163/9780132118163_s.jpg\"\u003eI read this book on Safari Books Online.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI bought my wife \u0026ldquo;Canon PowerShot G12: From Snapshots to Great Shots\u0026rdquo; by Jeff Carlson and decided to read the version for the 7D after flipping through it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think I first heard about Nicolesy, the aurthor’s online moniker, while listening to a podcast with Leo Laporte. According to her web site she is lifestyle photographer that sells images through iStockphoto and Getty Images along with being the author of 3 books; Canon 7D: From Snapshots to Great Shots, EOS Canon 60D: From Snapshots to Great Shots and Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots and a \u0026ldquo;Help Desk Specialist\u0026rdquo; with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. I remember enjoying her conversations on Leo’s podcasts and thinking that she had an interesting point of view.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Canon 7D: From Snapshots to Great Shots by Nicole S. Young"},{"content":"The Compact Field Guide for the Canon® EOS® 7D is better than the user manual but not by much. It is written in clearer language and many settings are better explained than in the manual, but it is not very thorough, does not include examples, nor go into details about why you may choose one setting over another. The author has also written a much larger book entitled “David Busch’s Canon EOS 7D: Guide to Digital SLR Photography” which is said to cover the 7D in much greater detail.\nFrom the author:\nJust the essentials for your Canon EOS 7D\nWhen a command card doesn’t provide enough information, and a small camera guide has too much padding, pull this Compact Field Guide for your Canon 7D out of your camera bag and get the advice and recommendations you need quickly.\nI don’t believe you can have too much of a good thing, but readers who have been using my 500-page in-depth guide to master their Canon 7D have asked me to distill the most essential information into a portable field guide for on-the-go reference. In the approximately 150 pages of this lay-flat, spiral-bound book, you’ll find in-depth descriptions of every control, menu option, and capability of the Canon 7D. Each choice is accompanied by my recommendations and a description of when you should or should not use a particular setting.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and useful for Canon 7D users who need a replacement for the user’s manual.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/david-buschs-compact-field-guide-for-the-canon-eos-7d/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"David Busch’s Compact Field Guide for the Canon EOS 7D\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://books.google.com/books?id=rCWhcQAACAAJ\u0026#038;printsec=frontcover\u0026%23038;img=1\u0026%23038;zoom=1\"\u003eThe Compact Field Guide for the Canon® EOS® 7D is better than the user manual but not by much. It is written in clearer language and many settings are better explained than in the manual, but it is not very thorough, does not include examples, nor go into details about why you may choose one setting over another. The author has also written a much larger book entitled “David Busch’s Canon EOS 7D: Guide to Digital SLR Photography” which is said to cover the 7D in much greater detail.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"David Busch’s Compact Field Guide for the Canon EOS 7D"},{"content":"I read this book as a hardcover bought from Borders before they went under.\nI love the Bob Lee Swagger books and this one, the 5th, is no exception. I feel that it does not stand well on its own and requires the reader to have read other Bob the Nailer books to keep their interest in this book.\nNight of Thunder is a fast paced action movie rolled into a relatively short book, and just like an action movie there is very little character development, just action, action, and more action. It kept my attention throughout the short time it took me to read it.\nFrom the publisher:\nWoe unto he who crosses Bob Lee Swagger, especially when his daughter’s life is at stake. Forced off the road and into a crash that leaves her in a coma, clinging to life, reporter Nikki Swagger had begun to peel back the onion of a Southernfried conspiracy bubbling with all the angst, resentment, and dysfunction that Dixie gangsters can muster. An ancient, violent crime clan, a possibly corrupt law enforcement structure, gunmen of all stripes and shapes, and deranged evangelicals rear their ugly heads and will live to rue the day they targeted the wrong man’s daughter. It’s what you call your big-time bad career move. All of it is set against the backdrop of excitement and insanity that only a weeklong NASCAR event can bring to the backwoods of a town as seemingly sleepy as Bristol, Tennessee.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and a good read for Bob Lee Swagger Fans.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/night-of-thunder-by-stephen-hunter/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Night of Thunder by Stephen Hunter\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255634771l/2990651.jpg\"\u003eI read this book as a hardcover bought from Borders before they went under.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI love the Bob Lee Swagger books and this one, the 5th, is no exception. I feel that it does not stand well on its own and requires the reader to have read other Bob the Nailer books to keep their interest in this book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNight of Thunder is a fast paced action movie rolled into a relatively short book, and just like an action movie there is very little character development, just action, action, and more action. It kept my attention throughout the short time it took me to read it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Night of Thunder by Stephen Hunter"},{"content":"I read this book on Safari Books Online and followed along with Adobe Photoshop.\nThe full name of the book is a riduclously long “Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Unlocking the Key to Perfect Selections and Amazing Photoshop Effects for Totally Realistic Composites by Matt Kloskowski” that would guess was chosen to increase its chance of being found in Google.\nThis is a great book if you need to do compositing. The book consists of a collection of tutorials that give real world examples of how to do many different types of composites. All of the images used in the book are available for download so that you may follow along. I found the repetitive nature of the book annoying and yet helpful, repetition helps me remember how to do something but after many many times I just want to move on to something else.\nFrom the publisher\nCompositing is one of the hottest trends in Photoshop and photography today for portrait photographers, designers of all walks of life, and even retouchers. Everywhere you look, from group photos, to school graduation or sports portraits, to magazines, movie posters, and DVD covers, chances are, you’ve seen compositing.\nIn Photoshop Compositing Secrets, Matt Kloskowski takes you through the entire process behind creating convincing, well-executed, and captivating composites. You’ll see how to create images that run the gamut from real-world portraits for corporate, graduation, or group photos to sports portraits, templates, and collages, and even the surreal, dramatic composites that clients clamor for.\nYou’ll learn:\n- One of the most important secrets to compositing: how to master selections in Photoshop (yes, even wispy hair), - What background color, and camera and lighting setups work best for compositing, - How to move a subject from one background to another, and the Photoshop lighting and shadowing techniques to make it look real, - And all the Photoshop tips, tricks, and special effects you need to pull off a convincing, professional composite. No matter if you’re a professional, an aspiring professional, or a hobbyist, Photoshop Compositing Secrets will sharpen your skills and open up a whole new avenue of photographic expression in an easy-to-understand way that will have you creating your own composites in no time.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 if you are interested in doing composites in Photoshop.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/photoshop-compositing-secrets-by-matt-kloskowski/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Photoshop Compositing Secrets by Matt Kloskowski\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201109-2181-my/images/9780132882934/9780132882934_s.jpg\"\u003eI read this book on Safari Books Online and followed along with Adobe Photoshop.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe full name of the book is a riduclously long “Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Unlocking the Key to Perfect Selections and Amazing Photoshop Effects for Totally Realistic Composites by Matt Kloskowski” that would guess was chosen to increase its chance of being found in Google.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a great book if you need to do compositing. The book consists of a collection of tutorials that give real world examples of how to do many different types of composites. All of the images used in the book are available for download so that you may follow along. I found the repetitive nature of the book annoying and yet helpful, repetition helps me remember how to do something but after many many times I just want to move on to something else.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Photoshop Compositing Secrets by Matt Kloskowski"},{"content":"I read this BBC book as a hardcover bought from Amazon.\nSting of the Zygons features the 10th Doctor and Martha Jones as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman. It takes place in a small English village in 1909 with the Doctor and Martha trying to stop the Zygon aliens from taking over the earth.\nThis is not the fastest paced Doctor who book, but it does have plenty of action. I always enjoy learning more about the different aliens in the Doctor Who universe and this book does not disappoint.\nAnother thing I enjoyed about this book is just how British it is, many of the new Doctor Who books do not contain a lot of uniquely British words, spellings, and meanings, but this one sure does. I think it partially has to do with the author but also with the time period the story takes place in.\nFrom the publisher\nThe TARDIS lands the Doctor and Martha in the Lake District in 1909, where a small village has been terrorized by a giant, scaly monster. The search is on for the elusive ‘Beast of Westmorland’, and explorers, naturalists and hunters from across the country are descending on the fells. King Edward VII himself is on his way to join the search, with a knighthood for whoever finds the beast.\nBut there is a more sinister presence at work in the Lakes than a mere monster on the rampage, and the Doctor is soon embroiled in the plans of an old and terrifying enemy. As the hunters become the hunted, a desperate battle of wits begins – with the future of the entire world at stake…\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-sting-of-the-zygons-by-stephen-cole/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Doctor Who Sting of the Zygons by Stephen Cole\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/36/Sting_of_the_Zygons.jpg/200px-Sting_of_the_Zygons.jpg\"\u003eI read this BBC book as a hardcover bought from Amazon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting of the Zygons features the 10th Doctor and Martha Jones as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman. It takes place in a small English village in 1909 with the Doctor and Martha trying to stop the Zygon aliens from taking over the earth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not the fastest paced Doctor who book, but it does have plenty of action. I always enjoy learning more about the different aliens in the Doctor Who universe and this book does not disappoint.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Doctor Who Sting of the Zygons by Stephen Cole"},{"content":"We had a great time at DragonCon this year. It was the 25th anniversary for the convention and it was done right. See all of my photos at https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2011/\nMy favorite guest was Ernest Borgnine who regaled us with stories about working with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Lee Marvin. At 94 years old he is now voice acting as Mermaid Man on SpongeBob SquarePants and filmed three movies in 2011.\n![Jim Steranko](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2011/i-2M95BXV/0/M/dave-nelson-20110904-182033-M.jpg\u0026quot; style=\u0026ldquo;float:left;margin:0 15px 15px 0;)I also enjoyed listening to Jim Steranko who shared stories about the motorcycles of his youth, how he started a career with Stan Lee, and how he helped create Indiana Jones. I walked into the room expecting to take a couple of pictures and leave but ended up staying for the entire panel.\n![Winner of the Comic Book Babes costume contest](https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2011/i-55z5d3Q/0/M/dave-nelson-20110903-205819-M.jpg\u0026rdquo; style=\u0026ldquo;float:right;margin:0 0 15px 15px;)A change was made to this years costume contests, instead of a Dawn costume contest there is now a Comic Book Babes costume contest. There were some great costumes in the inaugural event and I agreed with the judges choice for the winner.\nSee all of my photos at https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2011/\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragoncon-2011/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe had a great time at DragonCon this year. It was the 25th anniversary for the convention and it was done right. See all of my photos at \u003ca href=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2011/\"\u003ehttps://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2011/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2011/18927677_rTj8sS#1468664103_nNRKfS9\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Ernest Borgnine\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2011/i-gBzcGLb/0/M/dave-nelson-20110902-151320-M.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eMy favorite guest was Ernest Borgnine who regaled us with stories about working with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Lee Marvin. At 94 years old he is now voice acting as Mermaid Man on SpongeBob SquarePants and filmed three movies in 2011.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"DragonCon 2011"},{"content":"I listened to this as an audio book.\nThis book really disturbed me; the serial killer villain was not what I was expecting when I decided to listen to this book. The writing of the story is great, Spider Robinson can really write, but I did not find the subject matter to be appealing.\nIf you love Callahan’s and don’t like detailed descriptions of what a serial killer who thrives on causing others great mental and physical pain, then this book is not for you! If you like thrillers and books about serial killers then I think you would really like this book, especially if you have not been exposed to Spider Robinson before.\nFrom the Author and Publisher\nAging baby-boomer Russell Walker wants only to retreat from the world and the shattering death of his wife, into the woods of British Columbia. Instead the hermit finds himself thrust into a frightening predicament, as the only possible intermediary between a telepath called Smelly, so sensitive he can’t stand to be near most people, and Constable Nika, a skeptical police officer who needs to hear – and believe – what Smelly knows about a particularly monstrous sadist and serial killer.\n\u0026ldquo;This book is a departure for me,\u0026rdquo; Spider says, \u0026ldquo;a kind of SF/thriller. The title is meant to cue readers that it’s considerably darker than the Callahan’s Place stories. My intention was to make the hair stand up on the back of the reader’s neck. This is my first (well, maybe second) foray into Stephen King country. Present day setting; just enough sf and mystery content to liven up the thriller genre a little; rated R for massive (but never quite graphic) violence and startling (but never quite explicit) sex.\n\u0026ldquo;I envision it as merely the first in a long and hopefully popular series of sf thrillers about this Odd Couple-Plus-One – this strange and twisted crime-fighting trio who can barely stand one another: the young cop, the old hippie, and the telepath.\u0026rdquo;\nI rate this book a 2 out of 10 based only on my distaste for the subject matter. It is a really well written book, just not a story type that I enjoy.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/very-bad-deaths-by-spider-robinson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Very Bad Deaths by Spider Robinson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.sffaudio.com/images/large/BAVeryBadDeaths500.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this as an audio book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book really disturbed me; the serial killer villain was not what I was expecting when I decided to listen to this book. The writing of the story is great, Spider Robinson can really write, but I did not find the subject matter to be appealing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you love Callahan’s and don’t like detailed descriptions of what a serial killer who thrives on causing others great mental and physical pain, then this book is not for you! If you like thrillers and books about serial killers then I think you would really like this book, especially if you have not been exposed to Spider Robinson before.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Very Bad Deaths by Spider Robinson"},{"content":"I read this book using Safari Books Online web site and Firefox 5.\nIn my new position as a user experience designer I have the need to create flows, diagrams, wireframes, and mockups very quickly while keeping them attractive and polished. I have chosen OmniGraffle as my tool to do all of this and have been very happy with my choice.\n“OmniGraffle 5 Diagramming Essentials” is a good place to learn the ins and outs of OmniGraffle and includes many of the hidden treasures that make the software easy to use. It includes everything you need to know to create great looking diagrams and wireframes quickly.\nI found the coverage of keyboard shortcuts to be very helpful in laying out flows and diagrams very quickly, it is something I think I will use a lot.\nFrom the publisher:\nIf a picture is worth a thousand words, why settle for anything less? Creating good visualizations to substantiate your ideas is essential in today’s corporate environment. Use OmniGraffle’s remarkably powerful and flexible features to get your diagrams right. Although fun to use, it can get cumbersome to find out exactly how to get what you want.\nThis book will teach you how to make stunning diagrams without spending much time and energy. No matter if you have never used OmniGraffle, or if you are using it on a daily basis, this book will teach you how to get the most out of this splendid diagramming tool. It will first teach you the basics of the program and then extend your knowledge to a higher level.\nThe book will teach you to make eye-popping visuals using a lot of useful, step-by-step examples. It begins with covering concepts that beef up your basics of using OmniGraffle. The earlier chapters will teach you to prepare dazzling diagrams from scratch with the many stencils, shapes, and fonts that are included in OmniGraffle. As your understanding of OmniGraffle broadens, the book will go even deeper to explain the less understood features of the software. It also covers some handy time-saving techniques such as workspaces and keyboard shortcuts.\nBy the time you reach the end of this book, you will have mastered OmniGraffle to turn your ideas into diagrams.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it for anyone using OmniGraffle. If you have been using OmniGraffle for a while you may not get a lot out of it, but I recommend giving it a skim if you get the chance.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/omnigraffle-5-by-ruben-olsen/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"OmniGraffle 5 Diagramming Essentials by Ruben Olsen\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/0768_MockupCover_0.jpg?ssl=1\"\u003eI read this book using Safari Books Online web site and Firefox 5.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn my new position as a user experience designer I have the need to create flows, diagrams, wireframes, and mockups very quickly while keeping them attractive and polished. I have chosen OmniGraffle as my tool to do all of this and have been very happy with my choice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“OmniGraffle 5 Diagramming Essentials” is a good place to learn the ins and outs of OmniGraffle and includes many of the hidden treasures that make the software easy to use. It includes everything you need to know to create great looking diagrams and wireframes quickly.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OmniGraffle 5 Diagramming Essentials by Ruben Olsen"},{"content":"This is a collection of short stories published in 1959 that I listened to as an audiobook.\nI found these stories to be kind of slow and mediocre. Maybe if I had listened to them in 1959 my opinion would be very different, but listening to them now they do not come across like they were written by a writer as great as Robert Heinlein.\nIf you are a time travel fan the story “By His Bootstraps” is a must read.\nI recommend this book only to Heinlein fans and rate it a 4 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/menace-from-earth/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Menace from Earth by Robert A. Heinlein\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/olid/OL7661291M-M.jpg\"\u003eThis is a collection of short stories published in 1959 that I listened to as an audiobook.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI found these stories to be kind of slow and mediocre. Maybe if I had listened to them in 1959 my opinion would be very different, but listening to them now they do not come across like they were written by a writer as great as Robert Heinlein.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Menace from Earth by Robert A. Heinlein"},{"content":"Recently a book that I had been eagerly anticipating, “Dresden Files Book 13: Ghost Story” by Jim Butcher, was published and I immediately jumped over to Audible.com to buy the audio book. Just before clicking the “Add to Cart” button I noticed that the customer reviews for the book were really low.\nSurprised by this I started reading the reviews and found out that James Marster’s was not the narrator. WOW!!! How could that happen? James Marster’s IS Harry Dresden. I cannot imagine anyone else living up to the incredible job that he has done narrating and acting the first 12 books and “Side Jobs”.\nBased on the reviews I decided that I did not want to hear even a sampling of the new guy and decided to buy the book and read it instead of listen to it.\nAfter some thinking I decided to buy it as an ebook from Amazon to be read with the Kindle software on the iPhone 3GS, iPad 1, and various Apple laptops. Even though the price of $14.99 feels REALLY high to me for an ebook especially when the hardback is only a dollar more I bought it anyways. The book was delivered to my iPhone very quickly and I was able to start reading in a matter of minutes.\nBut, the font on the iPhone Kindle app is a terrible serif font that you cannot change to any other font. Every study ever done on the readability of text on a backlit computer screen has found that a sans-serif font like Helvetica, Arial, or Verdana is much easier and faster to read. I am not sure why, but the font made the book unreadable to me.\nThen I noticed that the text was being fully justified so that the spacing between words is different on every line. I am unable to create a rhythm in my reading because my eyes have to jump a different amount between every word. That plus the font issue makes reading a chore.\nA co-worker pointed out to me that Amazon has refurbished Kindle’s available for $99 so I decided that owning a Kindle was an experience I needed to have. A few clicks and 24 hours later the ninja UPS guy who never knocks dropped it off.\nAfter an easy setup that required plugging the Kindle into a computer and registering it then leaving the Kindle alone for 3 or more hours to charge I was ready to read with it.\nThe device itself is nice and solid, the buttons give a decent amount of feedback when pushed, and the screen has enough contrast to be easy on the eyes.\nI can choose from multiple fonts which include a sans serif one, I can change the spacing between lines of text, but I still cannot change the justification to be left aligned.\nReading on the Kindle is a decent experience; with its reflective screen it causes noticeably less eyestrain than the iPhone, iPad, or laptop screen, and when dropped into a Ziploc freezer bag it is comfortable to read from in the bathtub. The battery life is great, the selection of books is great, support for Audible is cool, and being able to listen to MP3s while reading is neat.\nI find the device to be so thin that it is uncomfortable to hold, that the locations of the back and forward buttons still confuse me after reading a novel, the keyboard is tough to type on when playing word games, the web browser does not handle very many web sites well, and it is yet another device to drag around and worry about losing or breaking.\nI doubt I will keep the Kindle; I will be giving it to someone as a gift unless my wife falls in love with it. I will continue to read ebooks using eReader on the iPhone and iPad as it allows a lot more customization than the Kindle app.\nI rate the Kindle a 7 out of 10 and thing it is good for someone interested in ebooks and not in gadgets.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/how-i-ended-up-buying-a-kindle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"How I Ended Up Buying a Kindle\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/shasta/photos/big-viewer-3G-01-lrg._V188696038_.jpg\"\u003eRecently a book that I had been eagerly anticipating, “Dresden Files Book 13: Ghost Story” by Jim Butcher, was published and I immediately jumped over to Audible.com to buy the audio book. Just before clicking the “Add to Cart” button I noticed that the customer reviews for the book were really low.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSurprised by this I started reading the reviews and found out that James Marster’s was not the narrator. WOW!!! How could that happen? James Marster’s IS Harry Dresden. I cannot imagine anyone else living up to the incredible job that he has done narrating and acting the first 12 books and “Side Jobs”.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"How I Ended Up Buying a Kindle"},{"content":"I read this book on a Kindle. There will be a review next week of the process I went through in deciding to buy a Kindle and what I think about it.\nIt feels like I was waiting for this book for a very long time. When I last saw Harry he was in big trouble. I think the previous book, “Changes”, is one of the best Dresden books and it ended with a real cliffhanger.\n“Ghost Story” disappointed me a little bit, I felt like I knew what was coming next throughout the entire story. I was wrong a couple of times, which was nice, but most of the time the story unfolded exactly how I thought it would with very few surprises.\nI enjoyed the book and am looking forward to the next one but it did not reach me the way many of the other books in the series did.\nFrom the publisher:\nWhen we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn’t doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin.\nBut being dead doesn’t stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has no body, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own.\nTo save his friends — and his own soul — Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic…\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10. If you are a Dresden Files fan you will read this book, if not then you should begin with Book 1: Storm Front.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dresden-files-ghost-story/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dresden Files Book 13: Ghost Story by Jim Butcher\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.jim-butcher.com/pics/gsCoverSm.jpg\"\u003eI read this book on a Kindle. There will be a review next week of the process I went through in deciding to buy a Kindle and what I think about it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt feels like I was waiting for this book for a very long time. When I last saw Harry he was in big trouble. I think the previous book, “Changes”, is one of the best Dresden books and it ended with a real cliffhanger.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dresden Files Book 13: Ghost Story by Jim Butcher"},{"content":"I listened to this book as an audiobook.\nPublished in 1961, Stranger in a Strange land is one of science fiction’s most influential stories. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith born during the first manned mission to Mars and the only survivor. He grows up on Mars where he is learns to be a Martian and does not learn how to be an earthling.\nOver the length of the story Michael learns what it means to be an earthling and what it means to human. It is such a great story of growth and change.\nThere are a lot of elements in this story that have shaped the science fiction we know today. From terminology like “grokking” to ideas like “sharing water” this story is one of the most important science fiction stories ever written.\nInstead of including something from the publisher I am going to include the text from the beginning of the Wikipeidia article located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land\nStranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who has come to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and the eventual transformation of—Earth culture. The title seems to be an allusion to the phrase in Exodus 2:22 (in the Biblical Book of Exodus). According to Heinlein, the novel’s working title was The Heretic. Several later editions of the book have promoted it as “The most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written.”\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10. Not so much because it is masterfully written or a story that I want to re-read but because of the influence it has had on science fiction and our culture.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/stranger-in-a-strange-land/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/b4/37/89d2810ae7a053d7298bb110.L.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this book as an audiobook.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublished in 1961, Stranger in a Strange land is one of science fiction’s most influential stories. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith born during the first manned mission to Mars and the only survivor. He grows up on Mars where he is learns to be a Martian and does not learn how to be an earthling.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein"},{"content":"We bought this book from Amazon to get our Martha Jones fix. I read this book in one day, I guess I was really in the mood for Doctor Who and Martha. It features David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.\nThis is not a deep book diving into the characters and exposing their souls, it is full of action, angry computer intelligence run amok, and running, a lot of running.\nPeople are people, even if they do dispense soggy crisps or their lights flicker and spark.\nFrom the publisher:\nTiermann’s World: a planet covered in wintry woods and roamed by sabre-toothed tigers and other savage beasts. The Doctor is here to warn Professor Tiermann, his wife and their son that a terrible danger is on its way. The Tiermann’s live in luxury, in a fantastic, futuristic, fully-automated Dreamhome, under an impenetrable force shield. But that won’t protect them from the Voracious Craw. A gigantic and extremely hungry alien creature is heading remorselessly toward their home. When it gets there everything will be devoured. Can they get away in time? With the force shield cracking up, and the Dreamhome itself deciding who should or should not leave, things are looking desperate…\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to all Doctor Who fans.\nP.S.\nThe cover of this book does not represent the story very well at all.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-sick-building/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Doctor Who: Sick Building by Paul Magrs\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://images.wikia.com/tardis/images/e/ec/Sick_Building.jpg\"\u003eWe bought this book from Amazon to get our Martha Jones fix. I read this book in one day, I guess I was really in the mood for Doctor Who and Martha. It features David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not a deep book diving into the characters and exposing their souls, it is full of action, angry computer intelligence run amok, and running, a lot of running.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Doctor Who: Sick Building by Paul Magrs"},{"content":"I have loved every book written by Terry Pratchett that I have read and “I Shall Wear Midnight” is no exception. I read the hardback version of this book.\nThis is the 4th Tiffany Aching book, which is preceded by “The Wee Free Men”, “A Hat Full of Sky”, and “Wintersmith”, all great books.\nThe story did not initially grab me the way many Discworld books do, but it builds momentum as it goes and has a fantastic ending.\nFrom the publisher:\nIt starts with whispers.\nThen someone picks up a stone.\nFinally, the fires begin.\nWhen people turn on witches, the innocents suffer. . . .\nTiffany Aching has spent years studying with senior witches, and now she is on her own. As the witch of the Chalk, she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: She does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.\nBut someone—or something—is igniting fear, inculcating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Aided by her tiny blue allies, the Wee Free Men, Tiffany must find the source of this unrest and defeat the evil at its root—before it takes her life. Because if Tiffany falls, the whole Chalk falls with her.\nChilling drama combines with laugh out-loud humor and searing insight as beloved and bestselling author Terry Pratchett tells the high-stakes story of a young witch who stands in the gap between good and evil.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend anyone who loves humorous fiction read any and all of the Discworld novels.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/i-shall-wear-midnight-by-terry-pratchett/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/large/7/9780061433047.jpg\"\u003eI have loved every book written by Terry Pratchett that I have read and “I Shall Wear Midnight” is no exception. I read the hardback version of this book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the 4th Tiffany Aching book, which is preceded by “The Wee Free Men”, “A Hat Full of Sky”, and “Wintersmith”, all great books.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story did not initially grab me the way many Discworld books do, but it builds momentum as it goes and has a fantastic ending.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett"},{"content":"I read this book using Safari Books Online. Note that Mr. Schwertly does have something to sell with this book. He is founder of Ethos3 under which he provides presentation training and design services.\nMy goal when I started reading this book was to improve my ability to reach people through traditional slide presentations. I had recently given a presentation to a room fool of people and felt that I could have done better.\nJust a couple of pages into “How to be a Presentation God” Scott Schwertly changed my goals. Now I want to change lives by helping people find their own excellence. The goal of my presentations may not change, I am still selling a service, but now I want to bring my presentation to a whole new level that transcends the sale. I am not totally sure what that means right now, but I plan on having fun figuring it out.\nHere is just a little bit of what I am taking away from this book:\nHow can I help the audience? How can I meet their greatest needs and desires? Creativity is about solving a problem while execution is about implementation. Failure is not permanent, be ready to fail. Simplicity is king. The message should be inspirational to the catatonic; understandable to the dumb; legible to the illiterate; and logical to the crazy. As a presenter you have a certain amount of authority solely because you are the only one allowed to speak. To be remembered do the unexpected and don’t be normal. Do and be. Do everything right, and be absolutely incredible. Focus on the little things that make us big things. Nothing is accomplished without first accomplishing simple, everyday tasks. Go forth and dominate. From the publisher:\nLearn how to build, design, and deliver a fire-breathing, wing-flapping, roar-bellowing behemoth of a presentation.\nUnlike most presentation books that say the same things regarding presentation design and delivery (less is more, get rid of bullets and use images, emulate Steve Jobs, and so on), How to Be a Presentation God actually divulges step-by-step secrets for how to build, design, and deliver blockbuster presentations.\nBy providing entertaining and clever presentation insights, veteran presenter Scott Schwertly gives you the in’s and out’s for presenting yourself, your business, and your cause with an easy-to-implement approach.\nFocuses on content, design, and delivery Author is a regular speaker at national and regional industry conferences such as PowerPoint Live and Presentation Camps, and is the founder of the award-winning Ethos3 Communications Author is the creator of an app, Present, that landed in the top-20 iPhone apps in the Business category on iTunes How to be a Presentation God will ensure that your presentations reach a new level of effectiveness.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who has a need to give presentations and change the world.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/how-to-be-a-presentation-god-by-scott-schwertly/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"How to be a Presentation God\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201107-2198-my/images/9780470915844/9780470915844_s.gif\"\u003eI read this book using Safari Books Online. Note that Mr. Schwertly does have something to sell with this book. He is founder of Ethos3 under which he provides presentation training and design services.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy goal when I started reading this book was to improve my ability to reach people through traditional slide presentations. I had recently given a presentation to a room fool of people and felt that I could have done better.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"How to be a Presentation God: Build, Design, and Deliver Presentations that Dominate! by Scott Schwertly"},{"content":"Rory finally gets a time to shine. I read this book while on vacation and it was a great read. It was a very fast and funny read while adding depth to Rory and Amy’s love for him.\nFrom the publisher\n‘Why are you here? I mean – who are you, exactly?’ An archaeological dig in 1936 unearths relics of another time… And – as the Doctor, Amy and Rory realise – another place. Another planet. But if Enola Porter, noted adventuress, has really found evidence of an alien civilisation, how come she isn’t famous? Why has Rory never heard of her? Added to that, since Amy’s been travelling with him for a while now, why does she now think the Doctor is from Mars? As the ancient spaceship reactivates, the Doctor discovers that nothing and no one can be trusted. The things that seem most real could actually be literal fabrications – and very deadly indeed. Who can the Doctor believe when no one is what they seem? And how can he defeat an enemy who can bend matter itself to their will? For the Doctor, Amy and Rory – and all of humanity – the buried secrets of the past are very much a threat to the present…\nAbout Gary Russell\nGary Russell is one of the script editing team for Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the author of many novels and reference books in the Doctor Who range. A former editor of Doctor Who Magazine, he also was the producer of Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish Productions for eight years. He lives in Cardiff.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it for all Doctor Who fans.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-the-glamour-chase/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Doctor Who: The Glamour Chase by Gary Russell\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://i43.tower.com/images/mm115155642/doctor-who-glamour-chase-russell-gary-hardcover-cover-art.jpg?w=150\"\u003eRory finally gets a time to shine. I read this book while on vacation and it was a great read. It was a very fast and funny read while adding depth to Rory and Amy’s love for him.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Why are you here? I mean – who are you, exactly?’ An archaeological dig in 1936 unearths relics of another time… And – as the Doctor, Amy and Rory realise – another place. Another planet. But if Enola Porter, noted adventuress, has really found evidence of an alien civilisation, how come she isn’t famous? Why has Rory never heard of her? Added to that, since Amy’s been travelling with him for a while now, why does she now think the Doctor is from Mars? As the ancient spaceship reactivates, the Doctor discovers that nothing and no one can be trusted. The things that seem most real could actually be literal fabrications – and very deadly indeed. Who can the Doctor believe when no one is what they seem? And how can he defeat an enemy who can bend matter itself to their will? For the Doctor, Amy and Rory – and all of humanity – the buried secrets of the past are very much a threat to the present…\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Doctor Who: The Glamour Chase by Gary Russell"},{"content":"I listened to this audiobook from Audible on my iPhone over vacation and while commuting.\nAt Home is a wonderful collection of trivia about the objects in and around our home and our homes themselves. It does not delve into the type of details that A Short History of Nearly Everything does, but includes a lot of interesting Tidbits.\nI don’t have much else to say about the book, I found it interesting and a good listen but it did not wow me.\nFrom the publisher:\nBill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.\nAs an audiobook I rate this 6 out of 10 and recommend it to people that enjoy trivia about the origin of things in and around their home.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/at-home-by-bill-bryson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"At Home\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2010/10/06/2013087098.gif?w=150\"\u003eI listened to this audiobook from Audible on my iPhone over vacation and while commuting.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAt Home\u003c/strong\u003e is a wonderful collection of trivia about the objects in and around our home and our homes themselves. It does not delve into the type of details that \u003cstrong\u003eA Short History of Nearly Everything\u003c/strong\u003e does, but includes a lot of interesting Tidbits.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI don’t have much else to say about the book, I found it interesting and a good listen but it did not wow me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson"},{"content":"I read The Kings Dragon while on vacation recently and really enjoyed it. Written by Una McCormack and featuring the Mat Smith Doctor with Amy and Rory.\nThe Doctor’s curiosity is peaked when he discovers the town of Geath covered in gold even though gold does not exist naturally on the planet. And to top it off Geath now has a king after thousands of years of self-rule.\nThe pace of this book is a little slower that other recent Doctor Who books, it was kind of nice slowing down a bit.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn the city-state of Geath, the King lives in a golden hall, and the people want for nothing. Everyone is happy and everyone is rich. Or so it seems. When the Doctor and Amy look beneath the surface, they discover a city of secrets. In dark corners, strange creatures are stirring. At the heart of the hall, a great metal dragon oozes gold. Then the Herald appears, demanding the return of her treasure – the ‘glamour’ – and next come the gunships. The battle for possession of the glamour has begun, and only the Doctor and Amy can save the people of the city from being destroyed in the crossfire of an ancient civil war. But will the King surrender his new-found wealth? Or will he fight to keep it? A thrilling, all new adventure featuring the Doctor and Amy, as played by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan in the spectacular hit series from BBC Television.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and a good read for any Doctor Who fan.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-the-kings-dragon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yKAxZm9Y_wg/TBf2VUAXipI/AAAAAAAAGrY/dWQYp2LR4ZI/s1600/getimage-2.jpg?w=150\"\u003eI read The Kings Dragon while on vacation recently and really enjoyed it. Written by Una McCormack and featuring the Mat Smith Doctor with Amy and Rory.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Doctor’s curiosity is peaked when he discovers the town of Geath covered in gold even though gold does not exist naturally on the planet. And to top it off Geath now has a king after thousands of years of self-rule.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pace of this book is a little slower that other recent Doctor Who books, it was kind of nice slowing down a bit.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Doctor Who: The King’s Dragon"},{"content":"I had a great time at the workshop and learned a lot. I have posted a few more pictures.\nThis is Dana posing on a Steamer trunk.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/kevin-ames-and-sigma-day-workshop/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI had a great time at the workshop and learned a lot. I have posted \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/Kevin-Ames-Workshop/17559208_X65zH2#1337003763_SQPwJ2Z\"\u003ea few more pictures\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dana on a steamer trunk\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Events/Kevin-Ames-Workshop/i-jTK8VGC/0/L/Dave-Nelson-20110611-211442-L.jpg\"\u003e This is Dana posing on a Steamer trunk.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Kevin Ames and Sigma Day Workshop"},{"content":"I have finally finished reading this book after loosing it in a piece of luggage for a couple of months.\nI did not have LEGOs as a child; my interest in them began as a means to build robots and prototype enclosures for electronic gadgets. My interest grew quickly after buying a couple of small kits and now I am putting kits together on a regular basis. I am currently in the middle of building the 8070 Supercar.\nLEGO: A Love Story is a first hand account of Jonathan Bender’s journey into LEGO as an Adult Fan of Lego (AFOL) and the people he meets along the way. He attends conventions devoted to lego, travels to LEGO headquarters in Denmark and Connecticut, to Legoland in California, and meets great fans of LEGO everywhere he goes. Jon’s passion for LEGO is clear and the way it brings him closer to his wife and father are inspirational.\nFrom the publisher:\nThere are 62 LEGO bricks for every person in the world, and at age 30, Jonathan Bender realized that he didn’t have a single one of them. While reconsidering his childhood dream of becoming a master model builder for The LEGO Group, he discovers the men and women who are skewing the averages with collections of hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks. What is it about the ubiquitous, brightly colored toys that makes them so hard for everyone to put down?\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend to any AFOL.\nJonathan also shares some of his family’s difficulties with getting pregnant and having a child. My wife and I went through a similar experience and I found myself feeling very emotional during that part of the book. One of the situations they experience mirrored ours and it really hit me hard. Also similar to our experience, they were eventually blessed with a baby. I wish them the best of everything and hope they enjoy JEGO for a long time to come.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/lego-a-love-story/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"LEGO: A Love Story by Jonathan Bender\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.forevergeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/legolovestory.jpg?w=150\"\u003eI have finally finished reading this book after loosing it in a piece of luggage for a couple of months.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI did not have LEGOs as a child; my interest in them began as a means to build robots and prototype enclosures for electronic gadgets. My interest grew quickly after buying a couple of small kits and now I am putting kits together on a regular basis. I am currently in the middle of building the \u003ca href=\"http://technic.lego.com/en-US/Products/default.aspx#8070\"\u003e8070 Supercar\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"LEGO: A Love Story by Jonathan Bender"},{"content":"Written by Neal Bascomb and Narrated by Kirby Heyborne the audiobook version of The New Cool from Audible is absolutely incredible. After a number of books that fell flat for various reasons this one really came through as a great listen.\nOver the last few years I have been getting into electronics, micro-controlers, and robotics and in 2010 my wife and I were able to catch the very end of the FIRST championship at the Georgia Dome. We didn’t really get to see much and what I saw didn’t make a lot of sense to me, after listening to this book it does now.\nThis book is the story of a school in California and its FIRST robotics team made up of rookie high-school seniors competing in the annual FIRST competition. If you don’t know about FIRST check out http://www.usfirst.org/\nI really like the mission statement of FIRST found on the web site:\nOur mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.\nI hope that stories like the ones told in this book are being repeated all over the country and that by reading this book will encourage more people to get involved. I hope that I can work in time to volunteer for some FIRST activities this year even if it is just a couple hours taking pictures or helping to setup.\nPublisher’s Summary\nThat Monday afternoon, in high-school gyms across America, kids were battling for the only glory American culture seems to want to dispense to the young these days: sports glory. But at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, in a gear-cluttered classroom, a different type of “cool” was brewing. A physics teacher with a dream – the first public high-school teacher ever to win a MacArthur Genius Award — had rounded up a band of high-I.Q. students who wanted to put their technical know-how to work. If you asked these brainiacs what the stakes were that first week of their project, they’d have told you it was all about winning a robotics competition – building the ultimate robot and prevailing in a machine-to-machine contest in front of 25,000 screaming fans at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.\nBut for their mentor, Amir Abo-Shaeer, much more hung in the balance.\nThe fact was, Amir had in mind a different vision for education, one based not on rote learning — on absorbing facts and figures — but on active creation. In his mind’s eye, he saw an even more robust academy within Dos Pueblos that would make science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) cool again, and he knew he was poised on the edge of making that dream a reality. All he needed to get the necessary funding was one flashy win – a triumph that would firmly put his Engineering Academy at Dos Pueblos on the map. He imagined that one day there would be a nation filled with such academies, and a new popular veneration for STEM – a “new cool” – that would return America to its former innovative glory.\nIt was a dream shared by Dean Kamen, a modern-day inventing wizard – often-called “the Edison of his time” – who’d concocted the very same FIRST Robotics Competition that had lured the kids at Dos Pueblos. Kamen had created FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) nearly twenty years prior. And now, with a participant alumni base approaching a million strong, he felt that awareness was about to hit critical mass.\nIn The New Cool, Neal Bascomb manages to make even those who know little about – or are vaguely suspicious of – technology care passionately about a team of kids questing after a different kind of glory. In these kids’ heartaches and headaches – and yes, high-five triumphs — we glimpse the path not just to a new way of educating our youth but of honoring the crucial skills a society needs to prosper. A new cool.\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it for anyone and everyone.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-new-cool-by-neal-bascomb/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The New Cool\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.bookswim.com/images_books/large/The_New_Cool_A_Visionary_Teacher_His_FIRST_Robotics_Team_and_the_Ultimate_Battle_of_Smarts-69448.jpg?w=125\"\u003eWritten by Neal Bascomb and Narrated by Kirby Heyborne the audiobook version of The New Cool from Audible is absolutely incredible. After a number of books that fell flat for various reasons this one really came through as a great listen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOver the last few years I have been getting into electronics, micro-controlers, and robotics and in 2010 my wife and I were able to catch the very end of the FIRST championship at the Georgia Dome. We didn’t really get to see much and what I saw didn’t make a lot of sense to me, after listening to this book it does now.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The New Cool: A Visionary Teacher, His FIRST Robotics Team, and the Ultimate Battle of Smarts by Neal Bascomb"},{"content":"Written by Tim Wu and narrated by Marc Vietor “The Master Switch” is about the past and present of the United States communication industries. I bought this audio book from Audible.com.\nThe information contained in this book is wonderful and enlightening. I learned a lot about the history of the telephone, movies, radio and the Internet.\nI am keeping this review really short to contrast how terribly long and drawn out this book is. I would estimate that half of the words in the book are unnecessary and do nothing but make the book longer and harder to read. I found it very boring and frustrating because of this. But the information you walk away with if you make it through the book is really great stuff.\nPublisher’s Summary\nA secret history of the industrial wars behind the rise and fall of the 20th century’s great information empires – Hollywood, the broadcast networks, and AT\u0026amp;T – asking one big question: Could history repeat itself, with one giant entity taking control of American information?\nMost consider the Internet Age to be a moment of unprecedented freedom in communications and culture. But as Tim Wu shows, each major new medium, from telephone to cable, arrived on a similar wave of idealistic optimism only to become, eventually, the object of industrial consolidation profoundly affecting how Americans communicate. Every once-free and open technology was in time centralized and closed, a huge corporate power taking control of the master switch. Today, as a similar struggle looms over the Internet, increasingly the pipeline of all other media, the stakes have never been higher. To be decided: who gets heard, and what kind of country we live in. Part industrial exposé, part meditation on the nature of freedom of expression, part battle cry to save the Internet’s best features, The Master Switch brings to light a crucial drama rife with indelible characters and stories, heretofore played out over decades in the shadows of our national life.\n©2010 Tim Wu (P)2010 Audible, Inc\nIf you do not currently believe that Net Neutrality laws should be passed immediately I beg you to read this book.\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10 because of how wordy it is, cut it in half and it would be a 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-master-switch-by-tim-wu/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Master Switch\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Oao%2BJcyOL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eWritten by Tim Wu and narrated by Marc Vietor “The Master Switch” is about the past and present of the United States communication industries. I bought this audio book from Audible.com.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe information contained in this book is wonderful and enlightening. I learned a lot about the history of the telephone, movies, radio and the Internet.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am keeping this review really short to contrast how terribly long and drawn out this book is. I would estimate that half of the words in the book are unnecessary and do nothing but make the book longer and harder to read. I found it very boring and frustrating because of this. But the information you walk away with if you make it through the book is really great stuff.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu"},{"content":"\nThe Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm by Tom Kelley was written in 2001 and it is amazing how just 10 years can make a book’s examples feel so dated. IDEO is one of the greatest ‘idea’ companies of all time, but technology examples in this book made it feel very dated and out of touch to me.\nI bought this book from Audible and listened to it during my commute. The production quality is absolutely horrible. It may have to do with the production standards of audio books in 2001 versus the current standards. I was not impressed by the audio quality or the narrator’s method for identifying chapters and sections.\nIf you can get past all that, this is a really good book. The methods described on how to be innovative, how to brainstorm, how get creative ideas flowing, and how to have a company that is focused on creating great products for customers are all great and I believe they would be effective at any company.\nI really enjoyed hearing how IDEO uses prototyping to fail early. Failing early is a philosophy I have been interested in for a couple of months now and the idea of using quick prototypes that can be shared with the team and with customers has become a recurring theme in the books I have been reading. Web design and development books are encouraging user centered designs that use prototypes and quick usability tests to discover what works and what doesn’t work quickly and cheaply.\nAlso, the content on brainstorming was good; it reinforced the format and rules for holding useful sessions that I have learned elsewhere. I really like the idea of having a room with the brainstorming rules painted on the walls. I may make some banners to hang on the walls before my team holds our sessions.\nFrom the publisher:\nThere isn’t a business in America that doesn’t want to be more creative in their thinking, products, and processes. At many companies, being first with a concept and first to market are critical just to survive. In The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley, general manager of the Silicon Valley-based design firm IDEO, takes readers behind the scenes of this wildly imaginative and energized company to reveal the strategies and secrets it uses to turn out hit after hit.\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10 keeping in mind that it includes sections that I would rate a 9.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-art-of-innovation-by-tom-kelley/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/ba/21/fcdc228348a0573f14fa7110.L.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm by Tom Kelley was written in 2001 and it is amazing how just 10 years can make a book’s examples feel so dated. IDEO is one of the greatest ‘idea’ companies of all time, but technology examples in this book made it feel very dated and out of touch to me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley"},{"content":"I have been listening to Dave Ramsey for about 5 years now. I started listening before getting, Dave’s radio show and his book “The Total Money Makeover” were a revelation.\nWhen I met my wife money was one of the first things we talked seriously about, I believe that money is the number one cause of fights and divorce among couples, so being on the same page about money is a big deal. For a couple of months we listened to the show’s free daily hour-long podcast for ideas and inspiration.\nBy our 1-year anniversary we were debt free. I got the opportunity to help host a Financial Peace University class at our church, our friend Neal took the lead and Bobbie and I helped out where we could. It was a great success and it helped people both from our church and our community.\nI still listen to the radio show during my commute or when I go on long motorcycle rides and the radio show really enforces what we learned in FPU. Hearing Dave give financial advice day after day using the same principles he outlines in all of his books and classes is great, it is rare to hear someone be so consistent in thought and deed.\nI rate the free podcast and the 3-hour radio show a 9 out of 10 for those interested in living debt free.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-dave-ramsey-radio-show/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.daveramsey.com/media/image/press_room/pr_main_pressph_0409.png\"\u003eI have been listening to \u003ca href=\"http://www.daveramsey.com/category/show/\"\u003eDave Ramsey\u003c/a\u003e for about 5 years now. I started listening before getting, Dave’s radio show and his book “The Total Money Makeover” were a revelation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen I met my wife money was one of the first things we talked seriously about, I believe that money is the number one cause of fights and divorce among couples, so being on the same page about money is a big deal. For a couple of months we listened to the show’s free daily hour-long podcast for ideas and inspiration.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Dave Ramsey Radio Show"},{"content":"I bought this lecture on Audble.com and listened to it during my morning and afternoon commutes.\nThe Modern Scholar series are recorded college-level lectures. I enjoyed listening to this lecture and feel like I learned something, but not a lot. Maybe I will listen to it again and spend more time with the 82-page course guide while listening. I think there is a lot to learn from this lecture, but like most classes you only get out of it what you put in. In other words, it is going to take some work to get the most from this lecture.\nI enjoyed listening to Professor Drout, and look forward to listening to more of his lectures that are a part of the same series.\nFrom the publisher:\nEsteemed professor Michael D. C. Drout brings his expertise in literary studies to the subject of rhetoric. From history-altering political speeches to friendly debates at cocktail parties, rhetoric holds the power to change opinions, spark new thoughts, and ultimately change the world.\nThe study of rhetoric not only leads to a greater understanding of how personages such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Winston Churchill elevated the power of speech to majestic heights, but also to a stronger proficiency in using rhetoric in anyone’s day-to-day life.\nProfessor Drout examines the types of rhetoric and their effects, the structure of effective arguments, and how subtleties of language can be employed to engage in more successful rhetoric. Drout also ponders the role of rhetoric in our world and the age-old question of whether it is just a tool for convincing people of things that aren’t true, or whether it is indeed a force for good that will ultimately lead to truth.\nI rate this lecture a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone interested in rehetoric, political speeches, and public speaking.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/way-with-words-by-michael-d-c-drout/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Modern Scholar: Way with Words by Professor Michael D. C. Drout\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510vEt1W7DL._SL175_.jpg\"\u003eI bought this lecture on \u003ca href=\"http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B002VA3LIA%EF%BF%BDqid=1299546375%EF%BF%BDsr=1-1\"\u003eAudble.com\u003c/a\u003e and listened to it during my morning and afternoon commutes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Modern Scholar series are recorded college-level lectures. I enjoyed listening to this lecture and feel like I learned something, but not a lot. Maybe I will listen to it again and spend more time with the 82-page course guide while listening. I think there is a lot to learn from this lecture, but like most classes you only get out of it what you put in. In other words, it is going to take some work to get the most from this lecture.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Modern Scholar: Way with Words by Professor Michael D. C. Drout"},{"content":"I read this book using iBooks on an iPad; this review is for the first edition of the book printed in 2007. There is an updated \u0026ldquo;Second Edition\u0026rdquo; available that appears to have some additional content.\nThis book is a really quick read at around 180 pages. I appreciate the format of the author walking through the process of creating the design for a web site from the ground up.\nI really liked the chapter on color theory and the proper use of a color wheel, I always struggle with choosing colors that \u0026ldquo;work.\u0026rdquo;\nThe new edition of the book appears to be a nice upgrade to the first edition and I look forward to reading it sometime soon.\nFrom the publisher:\nTired of making web sites that work absolutely perfectly but just don’t look nice?\nIf so, then The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is for you. A simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples, this book will lead you through the process of creating great designs from start to finish. Good design principles are not rocket science, and using the information contained in this book will help you create stunning web sites.\nUnderstand the design process, from discovery to implementation Understand what makes \u0026ldquo;good design\u0026rdquo; Developing pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance and symmetry Use color effectively, develop color schemes and create a palette Use textures, lines, points, shapes, volumes and depth Learn how good typography can make ordinary designs look great Effective imagery: choosing, editing and placing images And much more\nThroughout the book, you’ll follow an example design, from concept to completion, learning along the way. The book’s full-color layout and large format (8\u0026quot; x 10\u0026quot;) make The Principles Of Beautiful Wed Design a pleasure to read.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend the second edition of the book to anyone beginning web design.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-principles-of-beautiful-web-design-by-jason-beaird/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/9e/07/0e71793509a0d4b9d2032110.M.jpg\"\u003eI read this book using iBooks on an iPad; this review is for the first edition of the book printed in 2007. There is an updated \u0026ldquo;Second Edition\u0026rdquo; available that appears to have some additional content.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book is a really quick read at around 180 pages. I appreciate the format of the author walking through the process of creating the design for a web site from the ground up.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird"},{"content":"I got this book from Audible.com, it is narrated by the author.\nI usually love stories by Neil Gaiman and this one is no exception. The story of Nobody Owens told in The Graveyard Book has its dark moments but falls just short of being scary.\nYou can watch videos of Mr. Gaiman reading chapters from the book at his web site for young readers “Mr. Bobo’s Remarkable Mouse Circus” where you can also find his other YA books and games.\nFrom the publisher\nBod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place-he’s the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians’ time as well as their timely ghostly teachings-like the ability to Fade. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? And then there are things like ghouls that aren’t really one thing or the other. This chilling tale is Neil Gaiman’s first full-length novel for middle-grade readers since the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Coraline. Like Coraline, this book is sure to enchant and surprise young readers as well as Neil Gaiman’s legion of adult fans.\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who likes dark fantasy stories.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-graveyard-book-by-neil-gaiman/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.neilgaiman.com/works/images/TheGraveyardBook_Hardcover_1218248432.jpg\"\u003eI got this book from Audible.com, it is narrated by the author.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI usually love stories by Neil Gaiman and this one is no exception. The story of Nobody Owens told in The Graveyard Book has its dark moments but falls just short of being scary.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou can watch \u003ca href=\"http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx\"\u003evideos of Mr. Gaiman reading\u003c/a\u003e chapters from the book at his web site for young readers “Mr. Bobo’s Remarkable Mouse Circus” where you can also find his other YA books and games.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman"},{"content":"This book was recommended to me as the “Bible” for interaction design. I am in the midst of changing my career focus and doing more designerish work. I am not sure exactly where my new job will lead me, but I figured reading “Designing for the Digital Age” could give me a head start.\nI read this book using Safari Books Online and bought a physical copy from Amazon. The physical copy was because I figured I could read it faster if I had both electronic and print versions.\nAfter reading this book I have to agree that it could be the Bible of interaction design as it appears to cover every topic of modern design. But overall I found the book hard to read, repetitive, and very textbook like. I think I would have gotten a lot more out of it with the help of a classroom setting, which is a very rare thing for me indeed as I do not enjoy structured learning at all.\nFrom the publisher:\nWhether you’re designing consumer electronics, medical devices, enterprise Web apps, or new ways to check out at the supermarket, today’s digitally-enabled products and services provide both great opportunities to deliver compelling user experiences and great risks of driving your customers crazy with complicated, confusing technology.\nDesigning successful products and services in the digital age requires a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in interaction design, visual design, industrial design, and other disciplines. It also takes the ability to come up with the big ideas that make a desirable product or service, as well as the skill and perseverance to execute on the thousand small ideas that get your design into the hands of users. It requires expertise in project management, user research, and consensus-building. This comprehensive, full-color volume addresses all of these and more with detailed how-to information, real-life examples, and exercises. Topics include assembling a design team, planning and conducting user research, analyzing your data and turning it into personas, using scenarios to drive requirements definition and design, collaborating in design meetings, evaluating and iterating your design, and documenting finished design in a way that works for engineers and stakeholders alike.\nI rate this book a 6 out of 10 because of its textbook like nature, but the information in the book is very valuable and I am glad that I have read it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/designing-for-the-digital-age-by-kim-goodwin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Designing for the Digital Age by Kim Goodwin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://media.wiley.com/product_data/coverImage/01/04702291/0470229101.jpg\"\u003eThis book was recommended to me as the “Bible” for interaction design. I am in the midst of changing my career focus and doing more designerish work. I am not sure exactly where my new job will lead me, but I figured reading “Designing for the Digital Age” could give me a head start.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI read this book using Safari Books Online and bought a physical copy from Amazon. The physical copy was because I figured I could read it faster if I had both electronic and print versions.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Designing for the Digital Age by Kim Goodwin"},{"content":"I listened to this book from Audible, it is narrated by James Marsters.\nSide Jobs is a collection of short stories that take place between the other books in the Dresden Files series including a story from before Dresden has a P.I. license. I really enjoyed every one of these stories as they lend further depth and breadth to the characters I have grown to love.\nJames Marsters gives an amazing performance portraying not only Harry as a lead role, but also Thomas and Murphy in their own stories. Mr. Marsters is an incredible actor!\nThe publisher does not appear to have a synopsis for this book, but the editorial reviews on Amazon do a good job.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 overall, but a must read for Dresden fans.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/side-jobs-by-jim-butcher/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Side Jobs, Stories from the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.jim-butcher.com/pics/products/sideJobs120.jpg\"\u003eI listened to this book from Audible, it is narrated by James Marsters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSide Jobs is a collection of short stories that take place between the other books in the Dresden Files series including a story from before Dresden has a P.I. license. I really enjoyed every one of these stories as they lend further depth and breadth to the characters I have grown to love.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Side Jobs, Stories from the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher"},{"content":"I read this book using Safari Books Online using an iPhone and a MacBook Pro with Firefox. I was most comfortable reading on a 22\u0026quot; screen rotated vertically so that I could easily read an entire page without scrolling with a font large enough to read while sitting back in an office chair.\n\u0026ldquo;Rocket Surgery Made Easy\u0026rdquo; is about doing usability testing with a small budget, little time, and not a lot of support. I think it does a great job fulfilling that purpose and more. It is very focused and does not stray from the subject it covers. I feel empowered by what I have learned and have a lot more confidence that I will be able to conduct usability tests that will result in knowing what should be worked on next.\nThis is a short book compared to others on the market; in fact I read this book as a break from reading another much larger and broader-in-scope book.\nFrom the publisher:\nIt’s been known for years that usability testing can dramatically improve products. But with a typical price tag of $5,000 to $10,000 for a usability consultant to conduct each round of tests, it rarely happens.\nIn this how-to companion to Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Steve Krug spells out an approach to usability testing that anyone can easily apply to their own web site, application, or other product. (As he said in Don’t Make Me Think, \u0026ldquo;It’s not rocket surgery\u0026rdquo;.)\nIn this new book, Steve explains how to:\n- Test any design, from a sketch on a napkin to a fully-functioning web site or application - Keep your focus on finding the most important problems (because no one has the time or resources to fix them all) - Fix the problems that you find, using his \u0026quot;The least you can do\u0026quot; approach By paring the process of testing and fixing products down to its essentials (A morning a month, that’s all we ask ), Rocket Surgery makes it realistic for teams to test early and often, catching problems while it’s still easy to fix them. Rocket Surgery Made Easy adds demonstration videos to the proven mix of clear writing, before-and-after examples, witty illustrations, and practical advice that made Don’t Make Me Think so popular.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 for those interested in usability testing.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/rocket-surgery-made-easy-by-steven-krug/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Rocket Surgery Made Easy\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201101-2117-my/images/9780321702821/9780321702821_s.jpg\"\u003eI read this book using Safari Books Online using an iPhone and a MacBook Pro with Firefox. I was most comfortable reading on a 22\u0026quot; screen rotated vertically so that I could easily read an entire page without scrolling with a font large enough to read while sitting back in an office chair.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Rocket Surgery Made Easy\u0026rdquo; is about doing usability testing with a small budget, little time, and not a lot of support. I think it does a great job fulfilling that purpose and more. It is very focused and does not stray from the subject it covers. I feel empowered by what I have learned and have a lot more confidence that I will be able to conduct usability tests that will result in knowing what should be worked on next.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems by Steven Krug"},{"content":"I bought this book as a hardcover from Amazon along with \u0026ldquo;I Shall Wear Midnight\u0026rdquo; which I hope to read soonish.\nI absolutely love everything Terry Partchett. The Discworld series is so incredible with its depth and breadth of characters, locations, plot-lines, and pure awesomeness. I have read all of them multiple times.\nTerry Pratchett also writes amazing children’s books like the Tiffany Aching series, which takes place in the Discworld universe, \u0026ldquo;Nation\u0026rdquo;, the award winning \u0026ldquo;The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;The Bromeliad Trilogy.\u0026rdquo;\nThe \u0026ldquo;The Bromeliad Trilogy\u0026rdquo; consists of \u0026ldquo;Truckers,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Diggers\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Wings\u0026rdquo; which are adventures of the \u0026ldquo;nomes,\u0026rdquo; little people similar to garden gnomes but don’t dare say that to them.\nFrom the publisher about Truckers:\nFor years the Store has been home to hundreds of four-inch-tall nomes, until the day they discover devastating news: The Store is going to be demolished. Now the nomes need a new way of thinking, a daring escape plan, and a whole lot of luck …\nFrom the publisher about Diggers:\nJust as the nomes are settling into their new home, they discover they have to move again. That is, unless they can find a way to fight back …\nFrom the publisher about Wngs:\nThe powerful conclusion to the trilogy, wherein the nomes search for a way back to their original home and learn more than they ever could have imagined about airports, humans, outer space, geese, and Floridian sandwiches.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10, it is not as fast a read as most Discworld books, but it a satisfying story full of Terry Pratchett’s unique sense of humor.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-bromeliad-trilogy-by-terry-pratchett/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Bromeliad Trilogy by Terry Pratchett\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.bookotron.com/agony/images/2003/03-columns/11-08-03/pratchett-bromeliad.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book as a hardcover from Amazon along with \u0026ldquo;I Shall Wear Midnight\u0026rdquo; which I hope to read soonish.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI absolutely love everything Terry Partchett. The Discworld series is so incredible with its depth and breadth of characters, locations, plot-lines, and pure awesomeness. I have read all of them multiple times.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTerry Pratchett also writes amazing children’s books like the Tiffany Aching series, which takes place in the Discworld universe, \u0026ldquo;Nation\u0026rdquo;, the award winning \u0026ldquo;The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;The Bromeliad Trilogy.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Bromeliad Trilogy by Terry Pratchett"},{"content":"Hey, one of my pictures has been published in Roy Lantz’s Ebenezer Scrooge’s Good Tyme Gazette newsletter.\nYou can also see more photos of Roy on my website https://photo.davenelson.com/Events/Roy-Lantz.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/roy-lantz/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/Roy-Lantz\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Roy Lantz\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Events/Roy-Lantz/dave-nelson20101120-1548200002/1123010359_XF4Mn-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eHey, one of my pictures has been published in Roy Lantz’s \u003ca href=\"http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=oftw69dab\u0026amp;v=001-jHgZ8K8LRLqu2mAHQNGAjb3b1GRIg6I43XQrGjaihTeQWCsnA616WHwGRCaxjtF73t2Jdch067oK8OVE9zQ0hdSjmvGaQ9O-pfurgWZEPQ%3D\"\u003eEbenezer Scrooge’s Good Tyme Gazette newsletter\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou can also see more photos of Roy on my website \u003ca href=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Events/Roy-Lantz\"\u003ehttps://photo.davenelson.com/Events/Roy-Lantz\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Roy Lantz"},{"content":"I listened to these books from Audible.com which are narrated by James Marsters. As always the production values are excellent and the characters are portrayed by Marsters in a way that really brings them to life.\nThe series is really taking off with big changes for the characters and intensifying plot lines that leave me wanting more and more. I really like how every book surprises me with plot twists and character bends that deepen my interest in Harry Dresden and the people that surround him.\nTurn Coat We get to learn more about Morgan and what motivates him to do the things he does in \u0026ldquo;Turn Coat.\u0026rdquo;\nFrom the publisher:\nThe Warden Morgan has been accused of treason against the Wizards of the White Council–and there’s only one, final punishment for that crime. He’s on the run, wants his name cleared, and needs someone with a knack for backing the underdog. Someone like Harry Dresden.\nNow, Harry must uncover a traitor within the Council, keep a less-than-agreeable Morgan under wraps, and avoid coming under scrutiny himself. And a single mistake may cost someone his head–someone like Harry.\nChanges Wow! Just WOW!\nI do not want to give anything away about this book, so I wont. It is not a book that you should read without reading all of the other Harry Dresden books first, but as the 12th book in the series it is the best of the bunch.\nI have edited the description from the publisher because I feel it gives away important plot points of the story that should be left as a surprise.\nFrom the publisher:\nLong ago, Susan Rodriguez was Harry Dresden’s lover-until she was attacked by his enemies, leaving her torn between her own humanity and the bloodlust of the vampiric Red Court. Susan then disappeared to South America, where she could fight both her savage gift and those who cursed her with it.\nNow Arianna Ortega, Duchess of the Red Court, has discovered a secret Susan has long kept, and she plans to use it-against Harry. To prevail this time, he may have no choice but to embrace the raging fury of his own untapped dark power.\nI rate Turn Coat 8 out of 10 and Changes as a 10 out of 10 for those who have read the preceding books.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dresden-files-book-11-turn-coat-and-book-12-changes/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI listened to these books from Audible.com which are narrated by James Marsters. As always the production values are excellent and the characters are portrayed by Marsters in a way that really brings them to life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe series is really taking off with big changes for the characters and intensifying plot lines that leave me wanting more and more. I really like how every book surprises me with plot twists and character bends that deepen my interest in Harry Dresden and the people that surround him.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dresden Files: Book 11 “Turn Coat” and Book 12 “Changes”"},{"content":"In the last year I set a goal for myself to write a short book review every week. I love to read and go through almost a book a week either in print, on an electronic device, or as an audio book.\nI also decided to focus the first half of the year on non-fiction books and the second half of the year reading fiction. Many of the fiction books I have written reviews for are part of a series and the reviews are for more than one book in the series.\nI really enjoyed these books and look forward to even more reading in 2011.\nNon-Fiction Books The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich 8 out of 10 Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend 10 out of 10 Creative Black \u0026amp; White by Harold Davis Unrated Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex by John Gray 9 out of 10 The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson 9 out of 10 Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin 4 out of 10 No More Mondays: Fire Yourself — And Other Revolutionary Ways to Discover Your True Calling at Work by Dan Miller 8 out of 10 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know 8 out of 10 How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins 8 out of 10 A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson 8 out of 10 Around the World in 80 Days by Michael Palin 7 out of 10 Storming Las Vegas: How a Cuban-Born, Soviet-Trained Commando Took Down the Strip 8 out of 10 iWoz: How I Invented the Personal Computer and Had Fun Along the WaY 7 out of 10 Blink: The Power of Thinking Without by Malcolm Gladwell 5 out of 10 Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw 4 out of 10 The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children by Wendy Mogel, Ph.D. 10 out of 10 Influencer: The Power to Change Anything 7 out of 10 National Geographic Photo Books 8 out of 10 iPad: The Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer 7 out of 10 High Performance JavaScript by Nicholas C. Zakas 8 out of 10 Firebug 1.5: Editing, Debugging, and Monitoring Web Pages by Chandan Luthra and Deepak Mittal 8 out of 10 The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide by Allan Bedford 8 out of 10 Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food By Jeff Potter 8 out of 10 Fiction Books Maximum Ride: Books 1, 2, and 3 by James Patterson Unrated Ender’s Game: Special 20th Anniversary Edition by Orson Scott Card 9 out of 10 The Callahan Chronicals by Spider Robinson 9 out of 10 Doctor Who: The Sands of Time By Justin Richards 8 out of 10 A Hat Full of Sky, An Adventure of Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett 9 out of 10 Doctor Who: The Taking of Chelsea 426 by David Llewellyn 8 out of 10 Dresden Files: Storm Front \u0026amp; Fool Moon by Jim Butcher 9 out of 10 Dresden Files Book 3: Grave Peril by Jim Butcher 8 out of 10 Dresden Files Books 4 through 8 by Jim Butcher 8 out of 10 Dresden Files: Books 9 \u0026ldquo;White Night\u0026rdquo; and Book 10 \u0026ldquo;Small Favor\u0026rdquo; 8 out of 10 Doctor Who: Night of the Humans By David Llewellyn 8 out of 10 ","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/book-reviews-for-2010/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the last year I set a goal for myself to write a short book review every week. I love to read and go through almost a book a week either in print, on an electronic device, or as an audio book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI also decided to focus the first half of the year on non-fiction books and the second half of the year reading fiction. Many of the fiction books I have written reviews for are part of a series and the reviews are for more than one book in the series.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Book Reviews for 2010"},{"content":"My current workflow focuses on future-proofing my photos so that I can take advantage of any new software that comes along. I do not want to be dependent upon any piece of software to work with my photos, so I stick to formats like JPG and Canon’s raw.\nThis post covers how I get the images onto my computer and begin the editing process. I currently use Apple Macintosh computers with Adobe Lightroom but it wasn’t to long ago that I used Windows XP, ACDSee, and Photoshop for the same results.\nSetting Up the File System NOTE: Instead of creating a “My Pictures” directory you can use the directory created by your computer such as “Pictures” on Mac and “My Pictures” on Windows, I prefer to keep this folder on an external hard drive or Storage Area Network device so create my own “My Pictures” directory. I also create a “Not My Pictures” directory where I store images that I get from other sources.\nCreate a “My Pictures” directory; inside that directory create an “import” directory and an “export” directory.\nNow get out there and take some photos.\nCopying Photos to Your Computer I never plug a camera into my computer to transfer images. Use a quality memory card reader, not a no-name generic one, but one from Lexar, Sandisk, or other major memory manufacturer. If you have a card reader built into your computer you are all set. Plug the memory card reader into the computer first, then the memory card into the reader.\nPut the memory card into the card reader and wait for it to appear then go to the directory on the memory card that contains your photos. Now open a second window and navigate to the “import” directory that you created earlier. Then create a new directory named with the date and a short description of the event. Use the format of 4 digit year, 2 digit month, and 2 digit day so that the folders will sort correctly and be very easy to find. For the description I use one or two words trying to keep the name short but easy to understand, it only needs to be enough information to jog your memory.\nFor example, Christmas family photos would go under “20101225-christmas-family”. But the word “family” is unnecessary if those are the only photos you took that day.\nNow copy all of the photos from the memory card to the folder you have just created. Once the copy is complete eject the memory card from the reader. On a Mac it is very important that you do this first from the operating system before removing the card, I have permanently damaged a card by pulling it out of the reader before the computer was done with it.\nDo not delete files or format memory cards using your computer, let the camera do all of that to keep your cards in good shape. I format my memory cards in the camera only after I have finished processing them, that way I have a quick backup if something goes wrong while I am working on them. It would be even smarter to make two copies of the photos when I move them to my computer on separate hard drives.\nImporting into Lightroom Now I fire up Lightroom and import all of the photos using my default meta data and add keywords that are applicable to them all. I am not covering meta information in this post, but cannot stress enough how important it is to properly tag your images with keywords, descriptions, locations, and anything else that would make it easier to find in the future.\nOnce in Lightroom I use the “Library \u0026gt; Rename Photo” to rename all the photos with the format of “dave-nelson-Date (YYYYMMDD)-HourMinuteSecond-Sequence # (0001)” which will result in filenames like “dave-nelson-20101225-191521-0001.jpg” which guarantees a unique filename even when I am shooting 6 frames a second. It may look like a ridiculously long filename, but it makes it really easy to see who took the photo and when it was taken.\nSummary Now that everything is set-up it is realy simple to import and rename new photos.\nCreate import and export directories Create new directory for images “YYYYMMDD-name” Copy images from memory card Rename files using LIghtroom The next step is going through the photos and flagging them as “selects” and “rejects”, adding keywords and descriptions, color correcting, rotating, cropping, and exporting.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/photography-workflow-part-1/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eMy current workflow focuses on future-proofing my photos so that I can take advantage of any new software that comes along. I do not want to be dependent upon any piece of software to work with my photos, so I stick to formats like JPG and Canon’s raw.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis post covers how I get the images onto my computer and begin the editing process. I currently use Apple Macintosh computers with Adobe Lightroom but it wasn’t to long ago that I used Windows XP, ACDSee, and Photoshop for the same results.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dave’s Photography Workflow (Part 1)"},{"content":"Cooking has never been interesting to me, after reading this book I am still not very interested, but I do want to learn how to cook well enough to feed my family a nice balanced meal.\nI read this book using Safari Books Online an iPad, a MacBook, and an iPhone. Reading using HTML view in mobile Safari works ok, it is not as good an experience as a proper eBook that is correctly formatted, but it is a lot better than trying to read a PDF that is formatted with all the wasted space of a print book.\nCooking for Geeks approaches cooking from a scientific and computer geek point of view. I enjoyed the information about what makes food taste the way it does, why we like the taste, how to bring out the best taste, how our taste buds work, and some of the basic recipes to get me started cooking.\nI used the information in the book to buy kitchen tools like a non-stick frying pan, an iron skillet, probe and oven thermometers, and a kitchen scale. I look forward to using them to cook my family some great meals.\nOne of my favorite features of this book are the vignettes from celebrity chefs, celebrity geeks, and food scientists. From Adam Savage talking about cooking eggs to Jeff Varasano of Atlanta’s Varasano’s Pizzeria hacking his home oven to get temperatures hot enough to cook a proper pizza they were all great.\nFrom the publisher:\nMore than just a cookbook, Cooking for Geeks applies your curiosity to discovery, inspiration, and invention in the kitchen. Why is medium-rare steak so popular? Why do we bake some things at 350° F/175° C and others at 375° F/190° C? And how quickly does a pizza cook if we overclock an oven to 1,000° F/540° C? Author and cooking geek Jeff Potter provides the answers and offers a unique take on recipes — from the sweet (a “mean” chocolate chip cookie) to the savory (duck confit sugo).\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10. I highly recommend this book to any geek that has an interest in cooking. It is not the only book needed to go from a non-cook to a great cook but I think it is a great first step.\nP.S.\nMy next cooking book is Alton Brown’s “I’m Just Here for the Food: Version 2.0” or “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman from which I hope to learn basic kitchen skills.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/cooking-for-geeks/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food By Jeff Potter\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201012-2114-my/images/9781449389543/9781449389543_s.jpg\"\u003eCooking has never been interesting to me, after reading this book I am still not very interested, but I do want to learn how to cook well enough to feed my family a nice balanced meal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI read this book using Safari Books Online an iPad, a MacBook, and an iPhone. Reading using HTML view in mobile Safari works ok, it is not as good an experience as a proper eBook that is correctly formatted, but it is a lot better than trying to read a PDF that is formatted with all the wasted space of a print book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food By Jeff Potter"},{"content":"I am currently in the process of reading How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman and am really enjoying it. Bobbie has already used three of the recepies to make meatloaf and a coconut cake.\nThe more I read about cooking from different chefs the more I hear about this book. It sounds like every chef has this book and has used it extensively.\nThe book is broken into different types of food and each section begins with great information and tips about that type of food and how to prepare it. I feel like I am learning a lot from this book and hope to put it to good use.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/how-to-cook-everything/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI am currently in the process of reading How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman and am really enjoying it. Bobbie has already used three of the recepies to make meatloaf and a coconut cake.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe more I read about cooking from different chefs the more I hear about this book. It sounds like every chef has this book and has used it extensively.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe book is broken into different types of food and each section begins with great information and tips about that type of food and how to prepare it. I feel like I am learning a lot from this book and hope to put it to good use.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman"},{"content":"Ten months ago I purchased an Audible.com AudibleListener® Platinum Annual Membership which gave me 24 “credits” to buy audio books with. All of the books I purchased were only one credit but there are books that cost more. Buying 24 credits at once lowered the cost to under $10 a book, which is a great deal when most audiobooks are $25 or more. The subscription is meant to last a year, but I used all my credits in 10 months. I could buy another 24 credits right now but have decided to listen to podcasts for a little while.\nI downloaded the “Enhanced” format for most books and imported them into iTunes then listened to them using my iPhone. This worked really great for me as my car has an auxiliary jack that I am able to use to play audio directly from the iPhone through the car stereo system. The enhanced format is such a high quality that I am able to hear the edit points in the audio of many of the books.\nThe only really big problem I have when listening to audio books is not an issue with Audible but the TERRIBLE iPod interface on the iPhone. The next and previous chapter buttons are really close to the play/pause button and I regularly click them by accident, which is horrible when on a motorcycle, driving in traffic, or working in the garage. Recovering from jumping a chapter or two forward in a book is a real pain that can spoil a twist in the story.\nSince January 2009 I have listened to 59 different books from Audible, they have ranged from terrible to incredible and my wishlist always has more books waiting for me to purchase and listen to.\nOver the past year I have to say that the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher and narrated by James Marsters have been my favorite books. James Marsters is an incredible actor that brings every character to life and draws me into the books in a way that reading print would not. The next best book was Storming Las Vegas by John Huddy and narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. It is a great account of armored car robberies in Las Vegas.\nIf you like audiobooks, have a long commute, like to jog/walk/exercise, or would like to read books in the dark I highly recommend Audible.com as a source of great audiobooks.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/audible-com-subscription/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Audible.com Subscription\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2789/4188868074_ca101ee4a9_o.png\"\u003eTen months ago I purchased an Audible.com AudibleListener® Platinum Annual Membership which gave me 24 “credits” to buy audio books with. All of the books I purchased were only one credit but there are books that cost more. Buying 24 credits at once lowered the cost to under $10 a book, which is a great deal when most audiobooks are $25 or more. The subscription is meant to last a year, but I used all my credits in 10 months. I could buy another 24 credits right now but have decided to listen to podcasts for a little while.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Audible.com Subscription"},{"content":"In August I read Taking of Chelsea 426 also from David Llewellyn, which I really enjoyed, and now after a lot of starts and stops I have finally finished Night of the Humans. The time it took me to finish the book is no fault of the writing it is because I have so many books and projects going on, oh yeah, and a new baby at home.\nNight of the Humans puts the eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond on a planet made of trash inhabited by a team Sittuun and a camp of Humans. The Sittuun have come to destroy the planet before it is hit by a comet that would result in the destruction of many surrounding planets and the loss of millions of lives. The humans believe they are living on Earth and wont listen to the Sittuun declaring them enemies.\nLike all of the new Doctor Who books, Night of the Humans is paced like an action movie without adding a lot of depth to the characters. The nail biting ending is very “Doctor Who” and stays very true to the history of the series. David Llewellyn has a lot to be proud of with this story.\nFrom the publisher:\n”This is the Gyre – the most hostile environment in the galaxy.’ 250,000 years’ worth of junk floating in deep space, home to the shipwrecked Sittuun, the carnivorous Sollogs, and worst of all – the Humans. The Doctor and Amy arrive on this terrifying world in the middle of an all-out frontier war between Sittuun and Humans, and the clock is already ticking. There’s a comet in the sky, and it’s on a collision course with the Gyre…When the Doctor is kidnapped, it’s up to Amy and “galaxy-famous swashbuckler” Dirk Slipstream to save the day. But who is Slipstream, exactly? And what is he really doing here? A thrilling, all new adventure featuring the Doctor and Amy, as played by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan in the spectacular hit series from BBC Television\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and think all Doctor Who fans would love it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-night-of-the-humans-by-david-llewellyn/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Doctor Who: Night of the Humans By David Llewellyn\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/books-nighthumansxt.jpg\"\u003eIn August I read Taking of Chelsea 426 also from David Llewellyn, which I really enjoyed, and now after a lot of starts and stops I have finally finished Night of the Humans. The time it took me to finish the book is no fault of the writing it is because I have so many books and projects going on, oh yeah, and a new baby at home.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Doctor Who: Night of the Humans By David Llewellyn"},{"content":"I am working my way through the Dresden Files books purchased from Audible.com and narrated by James Marsters. Book 9 is named “White Night” and book 10 is “Small Favor.”\nThe pacing in these books is very similar, there is a lot of great action with a little bit of character building in each one to keep them growing. I really appreciate that about this series, none of the characters have become stale for me and I am still interested in each character’s life and want to see how they evolve.\nThe only thing getting on my nerves the number of times the basics are explained and re-explained in the books. I understand that it is important for each book to be accessible to a new reader who has not read the previous books, but does the entire system for how magic works really need to be explained in great detail in every book?\nFrom the author’s web site for White Night:\nSomeone is targeting the city’s magic practitioners, the members of the supernatural underclass who don’t possess enough power to become full-fledged wizards. Many have vanished. Others appear to be victims of suicide. But the murderer has left a calling card at one of the crime scenes–a message for Harry Dresden, referencing the book of Exodus and the killing of witches.\nHarry sets out to find the killer before he can strike again, but his investigation turns up evidence pointing to the one suspect he cannot possibly believe guilty: his half brother, Thomas. Determined to bring the real murderer to justice and clear his brother’s name, Harry attracts the attention of the White Court of vampires, becoming embroiled in a power struggle that renders him outnumbered, outclassed, and dangerously susceptible to temptation.\nHarry knows that if he screws this one up, a lot of people will die–and one of them will be his brother.\nFor Small Favor:\nNo one’s tried to kill Harry Dresden for almost an entire year, and his life finally seems to be calming down. For once, the future looks fairly bright. But the past casts one hell of a long shadow.\nAn old bargain has placed Harry in debt to Mab, monarch of the Winter Court of the Sidhe, the Queen of Air and Darkness-and she’s calling in her marker. It’s a small favor he can’t refuse…one that will trap Harry Dresden between a nightmarish foe and an equally deadly ally, and one that will strain his skills-and loyalties-to their very limits.\nIt figures. Everything was going too well to last…\nI rate these books an 8 out of 10 and look forward to listening to the next books in the series.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dresden-files-books-9-10/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI am working my way through the Dresden Files books purchased from Audible.com and narrated by James Marsters. Book 9 is named “White Night” and book 10 is “Small Favor.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pacing in these books is very similar, there is a lot of great action with a little bit of character building in each one to keep them growing. I really appreciate that about this series, none of the characters have become stale for me and I am still interested in each character’s life and want to see how they evolve.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dresden Files: Books 9 “White Night” and Book 10 “Small Favor”"},{"content":"I found The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide on Amazon on a Tuesday night, on Wednesday I decided I wanted to buy the book during lunch hour. I was on a full impulse need to buy and read the book ASAP.\nAfter searching borders.com and finding the local stores did not have the book I searched barnesandnoble.com who had the book online for about $18 and a local store had it in stock. Wahoo!\nSo I hopped into the car and ran of to the store where I found the book along with two other Lego themed books. Sweet! After perusing through the other two books I headed to the cashier with a copy of The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide in hand with a big smile on my face.\nAt the cash register I was told the book was going to cost me $27! What the Frak! I was ready to pay $5 or $6 dollars more due to taxes and such but how could I be expected to pay $10 more than the online price for the same book from the same store.\nI said “no thank you” and left the book on the counter in front of the sales clerk and walked out of the store.\nIn the car on the way back to work I ordered the book from Amazon via my iPhone and the Amazon app for $17 and it arrived at my house on Thursday two days later.\nI am afraid that retail brick-and-mortar book stores are now dead to me. I expect I will continue visiting thrift stores and use book stores from time to time, but Barnes \u0026amp; Noble and Borders are dead to me.\nWith an Amazon Prime subscriptions, an iPad with eReader, Stanza, Kindle, and the iBook app I have no reason to put up with the prices that retail book stores are asking. At some point I will rant more about the ridiculous prices that are being asked for eBooks and the childish games that the publishers and eBook vendors are playing with each other.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-book-buying-experience/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI found The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide on Amazon on a Tuesday night, on Wednesday I decided I wanted to buy the book during lunch hour. I was on a full impulse need to buy and read the book ASAP.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter searching borders.com and finding the local stores did not have the book I searched barnesandnoble.com who had the book online for about $18 and a local store had it in stock. Wahoo!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Book Buying Experience"},{"content":"I have really gotten into Lego lately. I am an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) and really enjoy putting the kits together as a way to wind down and relax. I also like the challenge of taking a handful of bricks and creating something totally original.\nThe Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide is a great starting point for someone getting into Lego building with tips on how to build solid and stable structures with a minimum of bricks, how to calculate scale so your models look “real” or at least recognizable, tips on sorting and storing, and a brickopedia to help with describing and categorizing different bricks.\nWith what I learned in this book I hope to build bigger and better models that include more realistic details. It has already helped with ideas for my current project, a chassis dynamometer that spins the wheels of other models so you can watch the internals moving.\nAlthough I do like this book and feel that I got my money’s worth from it, I feel like there is a lot missing for a book with 344 pages. There was a lot of content I have no interest in, like how to build models of large pieces and how to build a sphere, and the sections I was interested in were not very satisfying.\nI did like this book, but I guess the reviews and testimonials on Amazon hyped it up to a point that no one book could ever actually be that good.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 for those who are interested in building with Lego.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-unofficial-lego-builders-guide/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide by Allan Bedford\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://rsindex.pictures-hosting.com/2010-02-13/201002131644112881.jpeg\"\u003eI have really gotten into Lego lately. I am an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) and really enjoy putting the kits together as a way to wind down and relax. I also like the challenge of taking a handful of bricks and creating something totally original.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide is a great starting point for someone getting into Lego building with tips on how to build solid and stable structures with a minimum of bricks, how to calculate scale so your models look “real” or at least recognizable, tips on sorting and storing, and a brickopedia to help with describing and categorizing different bricks.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide by Allan Bedford"},{"content":"I have continued listening to the Dresden Files books from Audible narrated by James Marsters.\nThe series continues to be a great mixture of adventure, action, paranormal and mystery genres. I have enjoyed every book and look forward to listening to the next while dreading the day that I finish the last book.\nHarry Dresden is maturing as the story progresses and the other characters in the series are growing with him. I find that a rare quality among series like this. Seeing Charity and Michael’s children grow and change draws me deeper into the story line and makes me want to continue reading until the very last word.\nI highly recommend the series and rate it as an 8 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dresden-files-books-4-through-8-by-jim-butcher/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have continued listening to the Dresden Files books from Audible narrated by James Marsters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe series continues to be a great mixture of adventure, action, paranormal and mystery genres. I have enjoyed every book and look forward to listening to the next while dreading the day that I finish the last book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHarry Dresden is maturing as the story progresses and the other characters in the series are growing with him. I find that a rare quality among series like this. Seeing Charity and Michael’s children grow and change draws me deeper into the story line and makes me want to continue reading until the very last word.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dresden Files Books 4 through 8 by Jim Butcher"},{"content":"Firebug is a debugging tool for the Firefox web browser and as I continue ramping up my JavaScript skills knowing how to quickly find and correct bugs is essential.\nA lot of what is in this book can be learned by using Firebug to deconstruct other people’s web sites, I find it very educational to see how others are coding their web sites, and Firebug is great for that. It is so easy to use that I have been unaware of advanced features even after years of using it.\nFrom this book I learned that it is possible to place a breakpoint on an HTML element that will stop the browser if anything about that element is changed and show you the JavaScript that made the change. I also learned a lot of useful features I did not know about the console, like using “console.debug” and “console.dir” to learn more about what is going on with an object.\nThe section on extensions was also helpful as it introduced me to “Firecookie” and “Firefinder” which I have not used before. Firefind appears to be really useful for finding elements that match a particular CSS selector on a web page.\nIt didn’t take me very long to read Firebug 1.5: Editing, Debugging, and Monitoring Web Pages as I was already familiar with Firebug, I skimmed over quite a bit of it. But the sections that covered features I did not know about were great and I feel like I learned a lot that will help me be a better developer.\nI read Firebug 1.5: Editing, Debugging, and Monitoring Web Pages by Chandan Luthra and Deepak Mittal using Safari Books Online.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to all web developers that use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build web sites. If you are a longtime user of Firebug you may get by with skimming it in a bookstore.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/firebug-1-5-editing-debugging-and-monitoring/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Firebug 1.5\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://my.safaribooksonline.com/static/201010-1063-my/images/9781847194961/9781847194961_s.jpg\"\u003eFirebug is a debugging tool for the Firefox web browser and as I continue ramping up my JavaScript skills knowing how to quickly find and correct bugs is essential.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lot of what is in this book can be learned by using Firebug to deconstruct other people’s web sites, I find it very educational to see how others are coding their web sites, and Firebug is great for that. It is so easy to use that I have been unaware of advanced features even after years of using it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Firebug 1.5: Editing, Debugging, and Monitoring Web Pages by Chandan Luthra and Deepak Mittal"},{"content":"I read this book from Safari Books Online using various computers and an iPad, which worked great for me. I used Evernote to take notes and have them available in all the computers I used.\nOf the programming languages I have used JavaScript is the one that I currently use the most. I chose to read this book hoping to learn techniques that will make me a better programmer, make my code execute faster in a web browser, speed-up page rendering and the snappiness of my interfaces, and to use the latest coding conventions.\nHigh Performance JavaScript did not disappoint. The book covers the topics that I expected to see and a few that I didn’t. The techniques that I have been reading about on “expert” blogs are all there along with great insight as to why the techniques work.\nLooking through my notes I learned a lot about data access, batching DOM changes, types of loops, if/else versus switch, regular expression optimization, lazy loading, using bitwise operators, and various tools available.\nI give this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any JavaScript developer that has moved beyond the basics and is looking to write fast clean code.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/high-performance-javascript/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"High Performance JavaScript by Nicholas C. Zakas\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://covers.oreilly.com/images/9780596802806/cat.gif\"\u003eI read this book from \u003ca href=\"http://safaribooksonline.com/\" title=\"http://safaribooksonline.com/\"\u003eSafari Books Online\u003c/a\u003e using various computers and an \u003ca href=\"http://www.apple.com/ipad/\" title=\"http://www.apple.com/ipad/\"\u003eiPad\u003c/a\u003e, which worked great for me. I used \u003ca href=\"http://www.evernote.com/\" title=\"http://www.evernote.com/\"\u003eEvernote\u003c/a\u003e to take notes and have them available in all the computers I used.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf the programming languages I have used JavaScript is the one that I currently use the most. I chose to read this book hoping to learn techniques that will make me a better programmer, make my code execute faster in a web browser, speed-up page rendering and the snappiness of my interfaces, and to use the latest coding conventions.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"High Performance JavaScript by Nicholas C. Zakas"},{"content":"I read this book using a trial subscription with Safari Books Online. I recently decided that I want to use Safari Books Online to expand my knowledge of JavaScript and other web technologies that will help me build great web sites. I bought an Apple iPad with the idea that it will be a great reading device for Safari Books, eBooks, web sites, and even audio books. I will review both Safari Books Online and the iPad in future posts.\nAfter using the iPad for a week there was a handful of things I had questions about, mainly interface elements that appear to be different between the iPad and the iPhone.\niPad: The Missing Manual went a long way towards making me a power user of both the iPad and the iPhone. The largest leap for me was learning that pausing on many of the keys on the keyboard will present other keys, sometimes they are accents and sometimes they are shortcuts to totally different keys. Very cool.\nI like the way the book is organized, it is easy to find information you have already skimmed, and easy to use as a reference with clear table of contents.\nI really appreciate the iTunes coverage, I would not initially think about this in a book about the iPad, but for users who are not familiar with iOS these sections are invaluable. iTunes is an integral part of working with and enjoying any iOS device like the iPad, iPhone, or iPod, and this book does a great job of explaining how the iPad and iTunes interoperate.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 and highly recommend this book for iPad users that are new to iOS devices, but if you are an iPhone user you may want to skim the book in a store before paying for it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ipad-the-missing-manual/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"iPad: The Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://covers.oreilly.com/images/0636920010142/cat.gif\"\u003eI read this book using a trial subscription with Safari Books Online. I recently decided that I want to use Safari Books Online to expand my knowledge of JavaScript and other web technologies that will help me build great web sites. I bought an Apple iPad with the idea that it will be a great reading device for Safari Books, eBooks, web sites, and even audio books. I will review both Safari Books Online and the iPad in future posts.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"iPad: The Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer"},{"content":"I am really enjoying these books by Jim Butcher as read by James Marsters for Buzzy Multimedia and purchased from Audible.\nThis is the book where the pace of the novels changes; there is a lot more action and sexual content. The book reads more like a good action movie than the previous novels. For me the involvement of Michael’s wife in this book ads a lot of emotion to the story which balanced out the action.\nFrom the publisher:\nHarry Dresden’s faced some pretty terrifying foes during his career. Giant scorpions. Oversexed vampires. Psychotic werewolves. It comes with the territory when you’re the only professional wizard in the Chicago area phone book.\nBut in all Harry’s years of supernatural sleuthing, he’s never faced anything like this: the spirit world’s gone postal. All over Chicago, ghosts are causing trouble — and not just of the door-slamming, boo-shouting variety. These ghosts are tormented, violent, and deadly. Someone — or something — is purposely stirring them up to wreak unearthly havoc.\nBut why? And why do so many of the victims have ties to Harry? If Harry doesn’t figure it out soon, he could wind up a ghost himself….\nI rate this book an 8 out 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dresden-files-book-3-grave-peril-by-jim-butcher/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dresden Files Book 3: Grave Peril by Jim Butcher\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.jim-butcher.com/pics/dresden3.jpg\"\u003eI am really enjoying these books by Jim Butcher as read by James Marsters for Buzzy Multimedia and purchased from Audible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the book where the pace of the novels changes; there is a lot more action and sexual content. The book reads more like a good action movie than the previous novels. For me the involvement of Michael’s wife in this book ads a lot of emotion to the story which balanced out the action.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dresden Files Book 3: Grave Peril by Jim Butcher"},{"content":" A few years ago I asked some science fiction authors at DragonCon what book they had read recently that they really enjoyed. I was surprised when more than one of them said “Storm Front” by Jim Butcher. I am sorry it has taken me so long to begin reading the Dresden Files series; I should have taken their advice and read Storm Front much sooner.\nI am reviewing these books together as I listened to them as audio books from Audible one right after another; I am currently listening to book three.\nThe audio books are read by James Marsters who also played Spike on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. James is such a great actor that I could not picture him being the reader even though I have met him at DragonCon a couple of times. He creates voices for the characters that really bring them to life for me.\nThe Dresden Files centers around a Wizard named Harry Dresden that lives in a world very much like ours but where magic, spirits, demons, werewolves, vampires, and such walk the street and cause all sorts of trouble. He offers his services to the public similar to a private investigator but also works as a consultant for the Chicago police. I think of them as modern paranormal detective fantasies.\nFrom Jim Butcher’s web site:\nStorm Front\nHarry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he’s the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the “everyday” world is actually full of strange and magical things — and most of them don’t play well with humans. That’s where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a — well, whatever.\nThere’s just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry’s seeing dollar signs. But where there’s black magic, there’s a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry’s name. And that’s when things start to get… interesting.\nMagic. It can get a guy killed.\nFool Moon\nBusiness has been slow. Okay, business has been dead. And not even of the undead variety. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry Dresden hasn’t been able to dredge up any kind of work — magical or mundane.\nBut just when it looks like he can’t afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise.\nA brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses — and the first two don’t count…\nI rate these books a 9 out of 10 and recommend them for anyone who enjoys any of these genres: paranormal, detective, or fantasy.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/storm-front-fool-moon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Dresden Files: Storm Front\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.jim-butcher.com/pics/dresden1.jpg\"\u003e \u003cimg alt=\"Dresden Files: Fool Moon\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.jim-butcher.com/pics/dresden2.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA few years ago I asked some science fiction authors at DragonCon what book they had read recently that they really enjoyed. I was surprised when more than one of them said “Storm Front” by Jim Butcher. I am sorry it has taken me so long to begin reading the Dresden Files series; I should have taken their advice and read Storm Front much sooner.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dresden Files: Storm Front \u0026 Fool Moon by Jim Butcher"},{"content":" I believe that to be a great photographer I should study a lot of images created by other people, especially those considered great by a consensus. So I spend a lot of time looking at books about art history that contain photos of paintings by “The Masters” and photo books like the two I am writing about here.\nI found these books at a local thrift store and could not pass them up. “Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs” and “Wide Angle: National Geographic Greatest Places” are both full of great photographs that any photographer could learn from.\nI think after reading these two books what I came away with is a better insight into what makes a great photograph. It is not always the lighting, the shadows, focus, color, contrast, and/or framing, but it can also be purely the subject matter. Of course keeping in mind that all those things can enhance a photo of a special subject.\nThese two books and books similar to them can be a good education about what makes a great photography for any photographer and they are very inexpensive, “Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs” is available at Amazon for less than $12 right now with used copies available for under $6.\nI give these books a combined 8 out of 10 and highly recommend them for any photographer.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/national-geographic-photo-books/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://a3.vox.com/6a00ccff97c2ad6ea500ccff9939636ea5-500pi\"\u003e \u003cimg alt=\"Wide Angle: National Geographic Greatest Places\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61T-fnoI7hL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI believe that to be a great photographer I should study a lot of images created by other people, especially those considered great by a consensus. So I spend a lot of time looking at books about art history that contain photos of paintings by “The Masters” and photo books like the two I am writing about here.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"National Geographic Photo Books"},{"content":"I bought this book from audible.com. It is written by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, and Ron McMillan and narrated by Eric Conger.\nI struggled to make it through the fist half of this book, I am not sure why, but somewhere around the halfway point it really started to speak to me. In my opinion this is not a great book, but it is a very good book.\nIt contains many insights into what influences our behaviors and decisions. I guess I really don’t have a lot to say about this book. I feel like I learned something from it and that it was worth my time listening to it, but it did not make a significant impression on me.\nFrom the publisher:\nEveryone wants to be an influencer. We all want to learn how to help ourselves and others change behavior. And yet, in spite of the fact that we routinely attempt to do everything from lose weight to improve quality at work, few of us have more than one or two ideas about how to exert influence. For the first time, Influencer brings together the breakthrough strategies of contemporary influence masters. By drawing from the skills of hundreds of successful influencers and combining them with five decades of the best social-science research, Influencer shares eight powerful principles for changing behaviors – principles almost anyone can apply to change almost anything.\nRelated Links:\nhttps://www.delanceystreetfoundation.org/\nI rate this book an 7 out of 10 for those interested in books that research influence and behavior.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/influencer/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Influencer\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/high/000356/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from audible.com. It is written by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, and Ron McMillan and narrated by Eric Conger.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI struggled to make it through the fist half of this book, I am not sure why, but somewhere around the halfway point it really started to speak to me. In my opinion this is not a great book, but it is a very good book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Influencer: The Power to Change Anything"},{"content":"Man I love these Doctor Who novels; they are like munching on great candies.\nThe Taking of Chelsea 426 involves the Doctor as played by David Tennant without any companions facing the Sontarans and Rutans on a space station full of humans from Earth. Written by David Llewellyn who has also written 2 Torchwood novels and 2 Doctor Who novels including Night of the Humans featuring the new Doctor and Amy Pond.\nThis book is a fairly standard Doctor Who romp through a space station with a pair of old enemies and human stuck in the crossfire. It is very well written and the story moves along at a pace very similar to the TV episodes featuring David Tennant and the 10th Doctor.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10. If you love the 10th Doctor and enjoy fast paced sci-fi then I think you will really like this book.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-the-taking-of-chelsea-426/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Doctor Who: The Taking of Chelsea 426 by David Llewellyn\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f3/Taking_of_Chelsea_426.jpg\"\u003eMan I love these Doctor Who novels; they are like munching on great candies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Taking of Chelsea 426 involves the Doctor as played by David Tennant without any companions facing the Sontarans and Rutans on a space station full of humans from Earth. Written by David Llewellyn who has also written 2 Torchwood novels and 2 Doctor Who novels including Night of the Humans featuring the new Doctor and Amy Pond.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Doctor Who: The Taking of Chelsea 426 by David Llewellyn"},{"content":" Terry Pratchett is my favorite writer and Discworld is my favorite fictional universe. I find the Discworld novels to be incredibly fun reads and the Young Adult Tiffany Aching series is no exception. The main body of Discworld novels are targeted at adults while Tiffany Aching books are in the same universe they are targeted at YA readers and I believe they really hit the mark.\nThere are three Tiffany Aching novels and A Hat Full of Sky is the second in the series. I really enjoy all three books, but this is my favorite of the three, it includes insight into more characters of Discworld and adds a lot to the history of the universe.\nIn A Hat Full of Sky Tiffany is pursued by a great and ancient danger and the Wee Free Men along with Granny Weatherwax step in to help Tiffany in their own special ways.\nFrom the Author’s web site:\nThe boldest heroine ever to confront the Forces of Darkness with a frying pan is back. Tiffany Aching, incipient witch and cheese maker extraordinaire is off to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She leaves behind her the green, familiar hills of her home and the blue, tattooed faces of her allies, the sword-wielding, six-inch-high Nac Mac Feegle. But something is following Tiffany …\nI bought this book from a bookstore in 2007 and have read it multiple times.\nI would rate this book a 9 out of 10 and highly recommend it to anyone who like humorous fiction although I would recommend reading Wee Free Men first.\nTerry Pratchett YA books A Hat Full of Sky on Amazon Wee Free Men at Amazon ","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-hat-full-of-sky-by-terry-pratchett/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"A Hat Full of Sky\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/medium/1/9780060586621.jpg\"\u003e Terry Pratchett is my favorite writer and Discworld is my favorite fictional universe. I find the Discworld novels to be incredibly fun reads and the Young Adult Tiffany Aching series is no exception. The main body of Discworld novels are targeted at adults while Tiffany Aching books are in the same universe they are targeted at YA readers and I believe they really hit the mark.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Hat Full of Sky, An Adventure of Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett"},{"content":"Wendy Mogel is a clinical psychologist and Jewish educator who discovered that her treatment of children in her practice was not yielding the results or insight that she desired. After delving into her Jewish heritage and the teaching of Judaism she has found a much more effective and rewarding ways to help both children and their parents.\nI was recommended this book during a Bootcamp for New Dads class a couple weeks before Eli was born, and I am so glad I have read it. I expect the knowledge and ideas contained within to be a huge help with parenting.\nI am not Jewish and this book has a lot of Jewish references and content, but please do not let that stop you from reading it. There is so much wisdom offered by hundreds of years of experience that it would be a shame to discount due to religious views.\nAs a new father I am amazed at how hard it is to slow down when my baby cries instead of speeding up and making mistakes. The ideas in The Blessing of a skinned Knee have helped me immensely when it comes to being patient and understanding that my baby’s crying is not an emergency that I need to rush to fix but the only way the baby currently has to communicate.\nI look forward to putting more of what I have learned from the book into practice as Eli gets older.\nWe borrowed this book from our local library.\nI rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to all parents of children of any age.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-blessing-of-a-skinned-knee/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Blessing of a Skinned Knee\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5175XN86J1L.jpg\"\u003eWendy Mogel is a clinical psychologist and Jewish educator who discovered that her treatment of children in her practice was not yielding the results or insight that she desired. After delving into her Jewish heritage and the teaching of Judaism she has found a much more effective and rewarding ways to help both children and their parents.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was recommended this book during a \u003ca href=\"http://www.bootcampfornewdads.org/\"\u003eBootcamp for New Dads\u003c/a\u003e class a couple weeks before Eli was born, and I am so glad I have read it. I expect the knowledge and ideas contained within to be a huge help with parenting.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children by Wendy Mogel, Ph.D."},{"content":"Eli had a check-up yesterday and he is up to 4 lbs. 9 oz. and is doing great. He is a bit fussy at night but we have a new plan to keep him awake a bit longer during the day so he will hopefully spend more time sleeping at night. If anyone has tips for helping him sleep more at night we would love to hear them.\nBecause he is a preemie we have to wait 4 to 6 weeks after his original due date before taking him out in public. His due date was August 22nd so we cannot take him out until October. Wow that is a long time.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/eli-is-doing-great/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eEli had a check-up yesterday and he is up to 4 lbs. 9 oz. and is doing great. He is a bit fussy at night but we have a new plan to keep him awake a bit longer during the day so he will hopefully spend more time sleeping at night. If anyone has tips for helping him sleep more at night we would love to hear them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBecause he is a preemie we have to wait 4 to 6 weeks after his original due date before taking him out in public. His due date was August 22nd so we cannot take him out until October. Wow that is a long time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Eli is doing great!"},{"content":"In this adventure the Fifth Doctor as played by Peter Davidson travels with companions Nyssa and Tegan to London and Egypt to thwart the Osiran Nephthys.\nI really enjoyed reading this book using eReader on my iPhone. It is available free from the BBC’s Doctor Who Classic web site along with 8 other books.\nThe story moves along at a good pace, not a fast as some Doctor Who novels, but this is book meant for more mature readers than the new series. I really enjoyed the way the Doctor plays with time in this book taking Atkins back and forth through time even having his past and future selves in London at the same time.\nI also really like the Author’s notes where Justin Richards shares his thoughts on the book and the Artwork gallery with drawings from the story. Also under the aurthor’s notes are two flowcharts that show the Doctor’s timeline and the Main timeline of the story. Real inside baseball stuff that makes a fan like me happy.\nI rate this book an 8 out of 10 for fans of the series. It is a great read especially when you take into account that it is free!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/doctor-who-the-sands-of-time/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Doctor Who: The Sands of Time By Justin Richards\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/ebooks/sandsoftime/images/cover_art_med.jpg\"\u003eIn this adventure the Fifth Doctor as played by Peter Davidson travels with companions Nyssa and Tegan to London and Egypt to thwart the Osiran Nephthys.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed reading this book using eReader on my iPhone. It is available free from the BBC’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/\"\u003eDoctor Who Classic\u003c/a\u003e web site along with 8 other books.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story moves along at a good pace, not a fast as some Doctor Who novels, but this is book meant for more mature readers than the new series. I really enjoyed the way the Doctor plays with time in this book taking Atkins back and forth through time even having his past and future selves in London at the same time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Doctor Who: The Sands of Time By Justin Richards"},{"content":"I find Andrew Carnegie was a fascinating man, born into poverty in Scotland during a time of economic upheaval to a hardworking mother and a father who was not. In his lifetime he made and gave away millions of dollars. I learned that he was a very hard worker who appeared to intuitively know what he needed to do to take himself to the next level of success.\nI bought this book from Audible and found its 32 hour and 45 minute length to be way to long. I began the book with a high level of interest and really enjoyed the first third of the book, but the remainder of the book just seemed to drone on and on. The reading of letters written by Carnegie and the people in his life held no interest for me.\nAndrew’s later life of marriage and fatherhood are not covered well by this book, but that is probably because there is not a lot of information available about that part of his life. The information that is available focuses on his philanthropic pursuits, business dealings and political machinations.\nI have to admit that I fast forwarded through most of this book playing it at 2x speed and toward the end I scrubbed past chunks of it that were boring me to tears.\nFrom the publisher:\nThe Scottish-born son of a failed weaver and a mother who supported the family by binding shoes, Andrew Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream. In his rise from a job as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory to being the richest man in the world, he was single-minded, relentless, and a major player in some of the most violent and notorious labor strikes of the time. The prototype of today’s billionaire, he was a visionary in the way he earned his money and in the way he gave it away.\nI rate this book a 4 out of 10 as a whole, but I would rate the first third of the book a 7 out of 10. If you are interested in Andrew Carnegie and have an available credit on Audible I think the first third of this book is worth listening to or reading and then scrubbing through the rest.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/andrew-carnegie-by-david-nasaw/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/gdan/000106/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eI find Andrew Carnegie was a fascinating man, born into poverty in Scotland during a time of economic upheaval to a hardworking mother and a father who was not. In his lifetime he made and gave away millions of dollars. I learned that he was a very hard worker who appeared to intuitively know what he needed to do to take himself to the next level of success.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw"},{"content":"Baby Eli Myers Nelson was born at 9:12 this morning. He is 4.9 lbs and 18.75 inches.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/eli-nelson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eBaby Eli Myers Nelson was born at 9:12 this morning. He is 4.9 lbs and 18.75 inches.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Eli Nelson"},{"content":"I enjoyed the side stories and insight into the way we make decisions and form opinions. I found this book interesting but it really didn’t excite me. I had a hard time writing this review because the book left me with no strong feelings about it.\nThere are some insights into human nature in this book, but nothing that really jumped out at me and changed the way way I think or challenged my perceptions.\nFrom the publisher:\nIn Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of “blink”: the election of Warren Harding; “New Coke”; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren’t those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of “thin-slicing”, filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.\nI bought this book from Audible and listened to it while painting our nursery.\nI give the book a 5 out of 10, right in the middle.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/blink-the-power-of-thinking-without-by-malcolm-gladwell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Blink\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/time/000382/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eI enjoyed the side stories and insight into the way we make decisions and form opinions. I found this book interesting but it really didn’t excite me. I had a hard time writing this review because the book left me with no strong feelings about it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are some insights into human nature in this book, but nothing that really jumped out at me and changed the way way I think or challenged my perceptions.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blink: The Power of Thinking Without by Malcolm Gladwell"},{"content":"This book is the personal memoir of Steve Wozniak, one of the founders of Apple Computers.\nWoz fascinates me, he is an engineer at heart but he is also a teacher, a humanitarian, and a jokester. In this book he recounts his childhood experiences at science fairs, his teenage years with neighborhood friends plying practical jokes and making cool electronics, on to college, the creation of Apple, creating the US festival, becoming a 5th grade teacher, having children, and everything in between.\nI got this book from Audible and Patrick Lawlor does a great job inserting passion and excitement into the text narrates the book. My limited knowledge of Woz is that he is a very excitable guy with huge passions for what he does, and that really comes across in the book.\nFrom the publisher:\nWozniak’s life before and after Apple is a “home-brew” mix of brilliant discovery and adventure, as an engineer, a concert promoter, a fifth-grade teacher, a philanthropist, and an irrepressible prankster. From the invention of the first personal computer to the rise of Apple as an industry giant, iWoz presents a no-holds-barred, rollicking, firsthand account of the humanist inventor who ignited the computer revolution.\nI rate this book a 7 out of 10 because I am a fan of Woz, but if you do not know who Woz is or have a deep interest in computers and electronics I am not sure you would enjoy this book.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/iwoz/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"iWoz\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/tant/000306/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eThis book is the personal memoir of Steve Wozniak, one of the founders of Apple Computers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWoz fascinates me, he is an engineer at heart but he is also a teacher, a humanitarian, and a jokester. In this book he recounts his childhood experiences at science fairs, his teenage years with neighborhood friends plying practical jokes and making cool electronics, on to college, the creation of Apple, creating the US festival, becoming a 5th grade teacher, having children, and everything in between.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"iWoz: How I Invented the Personal Computer and Had Fun Along the Way"},{"content":"The audiobook is made up of the novels Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, Time Travelers Strictly Cash, and Callahan’s Secret. These three books contain the stories of Mike Callahan and the visitors to his bar somewhere in the Northeast. It is the type of place with the type of people that all of us would like to find. Where no one is a stranger for long and people are willing to lend a helping hand.\nI first read paperback versions of these books years ago and could not get enough of Spider Robinson’s writing after that. His sense of humor fits perfectly into what I find funny and the audiobook does a great job of conveying it.\nWarning: if you do not like dry humor and puns, this series is not for you.\nI give this book, as an audiobook are as a printed book a 9 out of 10 and recommend to those who enjoy a dry sense of humor, science fiction from the late 60’s, and short stories.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-callahan-chronicals-by-spider-robinson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Callahan Chronicals by Spider Robinson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/7124T3VTW4L._SX200_.gif\"\u003eThe audiobook is made up of the novels Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, Time Travelers Strictly Cash, and Callahan’s Secret. These three books contain the stories of Mike Callahan and the visitors to his bar somewhere in the Northeast. It is the type of place with the type of people that all of us would like to find. Where no one is a stranger for long and people are willing to lend a helping hand.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Callahan Chronicals by Spider Robinson"},{"content":"Written by John Huddy and narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, “Storming Las Vegas” is about Jose Vigoa and the robberies that he an his crew committed in Las Vegas.\nI really enjoyed this book and even went on extra walks just to have more time to listen to it. It is a true-crime drama with all of the elements of a Hollywood action flick.\nThe author spends a great deal of time taking us through the preparations of each robbery, the lives of the victims, and the aftermath.\nFrom the publisher:\nImmediately gripping and thoroughly harrowing, Storming Las Vegas tells the story of a remarkable true-life crime spree – a story that was previously squashed so as not to disturb tourism, in the ultimate proof of “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”.\nOn September 20, 1998, a Cuban-born former Red Army lieutenant named Jose Vigoa launched a series of raids on the Las Vegas Strip. During a 16-month spree, Vigoa robbed five world-class hotels, three armored cars, and one department store. The casinos hit were the MGM; the Desert Inn; the New York, New York; the Mandalay Bay; and the Bellagio.\nLieutenant John Alamshaw, a 23-year-old veteran in charge of robbery detectives, was ordered to stop the robberies at all costs. He knew he was up against a mastermind. What he didn’t know was that he was running out of time.\nI bought this book from Audible.\nOn a scale of 1 to 10 I give this book an 8 and think that anyone who enjoys true-crime and actions books will like it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/storming-las-vegas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Storming Las Vegas\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/blak/002567/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eWritten by John Huddy and narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, “Storming Las Vegas” is about Jose Vigoa and the robberies that he an his crew committed in Las Vegas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI really enjoyed this book and even went on extra walks just to have more time to listen to it. It is a true-crime drama with all of the elements of a Hollywood action flick.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe author spends a great deal of time taking us through the preparations of each robbery, the lives of the victims, and the aftermath.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Storming Las Vegas: How a Cuban-Born, Soviet-Trained Commando Took Down the Strip"},{"content":"Michael Palin of Monty Python fame has done a number of shows for the BBC and this book is based on one of those series.\nFrom the publisher:\n“In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier.\nThe rules were simple. He had to make the journey in 80 days using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg. And so, complete with visas, running shoes, an inflatable globe, and sound advice from Alan Whicker, Michael Palin began his incredible journey.\nCrossing 17 borders and meeting innumerable challenges, he saw Venice from the back of a rubbish barge, rode around the Pyramids on a camel called Michael, and was attacked by a cockatoo in Hong Kong, amongst many other adventures.”\nAround the World in 80 Days is one of my favorite Jules Verne stories, so when I saw this on Audible I jumped on it. Michael Palin is a funny guy and a great story teller. The only let down in this book is how fast he travels through some areas, I really wanted to hear more about many of the places he visited.\nI did not appreciate many of his views on America and found almost his entire time in America to be tedious and un-enjoyable, but overall I liked the book.\nOn a scale of 1 to 10 I give this book a 7 and recommend it to those who like travel stories and/or Michael Palin.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/around-the-world-in-80-days-by-michael-palin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Around the World in 80 Days by Michael Palin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/bbcw/000135/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eMichael Palin of Monty Python fame has done a number of shows for the BBC and this book is based on one of those series.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003cbr\u003e\n“In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Around the World in 80 Days by Michael Palin"},{"content":"What an amazing book. Bill Bryson manages to cover enough of the world’s history to make it really feel like you have learned a little something about everything.\nFrom the publisher:\n“Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn’t know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world’s leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant. Even the most pointy-headed, obscure scientist succumbs to the affable Bryson’s good nature, and reveals how he or she figures things out. Showing us how scientists get from observations to ideas and theories is Bryson’s aim, and he succeeds brilliantly. It is an adventure of the mind, as exciting as any of Bryson’s terrestrial journeys.”\nI really enjoyed this book; it may be responsible for my acceptance of the idea of listening to books as opposed to reading written words. The narrator Richard Matthews brought this book to life for me; I don’t think I would have enjoyed this book if I had read the printed book.\nThe best thing I learned was that early scientists were laymen with very little if any formal training. Many of them were minor royalty who could have lived a life of leisure without contributing anything to mankind; instead they chose to pursue science and to share what they learned freely.\nAnd the part about interns in Yosemite taking baths in hot springs that are off limits is kind of gross, but also fascinating.\nI give this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone with an interest in science and history. I bought this book on Audible.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/a-short-history-of-nearly-everything-by-bill-bryson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/bkot/000131/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eWhat an amazing book. Bill Bryson manages to cover enough of the world’s history to make it really feel like you have learned a little something about everything.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003cbr\u003e\n“Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn’t know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world’s leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant. Even the most pointy-headed, obscure scientist succumbs to the affable Bryson’s good nature, and reveals how he or she figures things out. Showing us how scientists get from observations to ideas and theories is Bryson’s aim, and he succeeds brilliantly. It is an adventure of the mind, as exciting as any of Bryson’s terrestrial journeys.”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson"},{"content":"I really liked this book. The author Jim Collins and his team research findings uncovered 5 steps that many companies follow on their path of decline. Full of examples, the book does a great job disseminating their findings in an easy to understand way.\nA fun note, if you listen to this audio book at 2x speed the author sounds a lot like a young William Shatner, which also helped to hold my attention.\nFrom the authors web site:\n“How the Mighty Fall presents the well-founded hope that leaders can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course – in part by understanding the five step-wise stages of decline uncovered in the four year research project behind the book.”\nI give this book an 8 out of 10 rating. It is an interesting exploration of how companies fail.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/how-the-mighty-fall-and-why-some-companies-never-give-in-by-jim-collins/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41OqEoGjifL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\"\u003eI really liked this book. The author Jim Collins and his team research findings uncovered 5 steps that many companies follow on their path of decline. Full of examples, the book does a great job disseminating their findings in an easy to understand way.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA fun note, if you listen to this audio book at 2x speed the author sounds a lot like a young William Shatner, which also helped to hold my attention.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins"},{"content":"This book is a part of O\u0026rsquo;Reilly\u0026rsquo;s 97 Things series where individuals contribute short entries to a wiki, which are then edited, from which 97 items are selected for a book.\nI found this book on the shelf at Fry\u0026rsquo;s and after paging through it a bit decided buying it and having a hard copy to let others borrow was worth the cover price as opposed to reading it online. The series is different from most books as the entire contents are available to read for free at https://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/\nI feel like I got a lot out of this book, maybe the most valuable was that I need to read the book \u0026ldquo;The Pragmatic Programmer\u0026rdquo; ASAP.\nHere are links to entries that I found the most interesting, they are really short so give a couple of them a look and let me know what you think:\nComment Only What the Code Cannot Say \u0026ldquo;…comments should be treated as if they were code. Each comment should add some value for the reader, otherwise it is waste that should be removed or rewritten.\u0026rdquo;\nContinuous Learning \u0026ldquo;Follow the advice of The Pragmatic Programmers and learn a new language every year.\u0026rdquo;\nDo Lots of Deliberate Practice \u0026ldquo;Deliberate practice does not mean doing what you are good at; it means challenging yourself, doing what you are not good at. So it\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily fun.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Deliberate practice is about learning. About learning that changes you; learning that changes your behavior.\u0026rdquo;\nDon\u0026rsquo;t Be Cute with Your Test Data \u0026ldquo;…when writing any text in your code — whether comments, logging, dialogs, or test data — always ask yourself how it will look if it becomes public.\u0026rdquo;\nThe Professional Programmer \u0026ldquo;Professionals are responsible. They take responsibility for their own careers. They take responsibility for making sure their code works properly. They take responsibility for the quality of their workmanship. They do not abandon their principles when deadlines loom. Indeed, when the pressure mounts, professionals hold ever tighter to the disciplines they know are right.\u0026rdquo;\nRead Code \u0026ldquo;…don\u0026rsquo;t read another book. Read code.\u0026rdquo;\nSimplicity Comes from Reduction \u0026ldquo;The code should be simple. There should be a minimal number of variables, functions, declarations, and other syntactic language necessities. Extra lines, extra variables… extra anything, really, should be purged. Removed immediately. What\u0026rsquo;s there, what\u0026rsquo;s left, should only be just enough to get the job done, completing the algorithm or performing the calculations. Anything and everything else is just extra unwanted noise, introduced accidentally and obscuring the flow. Hiding the important stuff.\u0026rdquo;\nTwo Heads Are Often Better than One \u0026ldquo;When pairing, we each bring our collective programming experiences — domain as well as technical — to the problem at hand and can bring unique insight and experience into writing software effectively and efficiently.\u0026rdquo;\nUbuntu Coding for Your Friends \u0026ldquo;I get better because you make me better through your good actions.\u0026rdquo;\nI hope to put what I have learned into practice immediately and look forward to reading more of the entries that did not make it into the book.\nI rate this book a 8 out of 10 and believe that anyone who programs will get something out of it. Remember that the entire book and more are available for free via a Creative Commons License at https://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/97-things-every-programmer-should-know/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"97 Things Every Programmer Should Know\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://covers.oreilly.com/images/9780596809492/cat.gif\"\u003eThis book is a part of O\u0026rsquo;Reilly\u0026rsquo;s 97 Things series where individuals contribute short entries to a wiki, which are then edited, from which 97 items are selected for a book.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI found this book on the shelf at Fry\u0026rsquo;s and after paging through it a bit decided buying it and having a hard copy to let others borrow was worth the cover price as opposed to reading it online. The series is different from most books as the entire contents are available to read for free at \u003ca href=\"https://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/\"\u003ehttps://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"97 Things Every Programmer Should Know"},{"content":"Wow, what a long title. This is a book that I have heard Dave Ramsey recommend time and time again to listeners of his radio show when they have job issues.\nFrom the publisher:\n“For everyone who dreads going to work on Monday mornings, inspiring advice on how to find fulfilling work in an uncertain age. Do you hate Mondays? If so, what’s keeping you at your current job? If you said a steady paycheck and the promise of a secure retirement, then you’re in for a big disappointment. In today’s volatile economy, there is nothing safe about punching the clock for a job you hate.”\nI really enjoyed this book; I found it to be very motivating even though I am not looking for a new job or career. Looking at my job as a part of my calling and not just a grind that I do to make ends meet has become really important to me.\nRealizing that the only job security you have is your ability to find your next one is very important in the world we now live in. It is now very rare for anyone to have the same job or even vocation for 20 years or more much less retiring from a company with a meaningful pension, so it is up to us to fund our own retirement and provide financial security for our families. Working at something you love will make that a lot easier and increase your chance of success and happiness. This book may give you some ideas of how to accomplish that goal.\nI rate this book as a 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone that is unhappy in their current job. I purchased this book at Audible.\nP.S.\nDan Miller has also written a book name “48 Days to the Work You Love” which may be more appropriate for people trying to find a job they can be passionate about.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/no-more-mondays-by-dan-miller/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"No More Mondays: Fire Yourself\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/oasi/000304/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eWow, what a long title. This is a book that I have heard Dave Ramsey recommend time and time again to listeners of his radio show when they have job issues.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003cbr\u003e\n“For everyone who dreads going to work on Monday mornings, inspiring advice on how to find fulfilling work in an uncertain age. Do you hate Mondays? If so, what’s keeping you at your current job? If you said a steady paycheck and the promise of a secure retirement, then you’re in for a big disappointment. In today’s volatile economy, there is nothing safe about punching the clock for a job you hate.”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"No More Mondays: Fire Yourself — And Other Revolutionary Ways to Discover Your True Calling at Work by Dan Miller"},{"content":"I have been listening to and reading some business books this year, and have heard a lot of good things about Seth Godin. When I looked at the books available on Audible by Mr. Godin most of them were focused on marketing which I do not have a lot of interest in. But “Linchpin” sounded really interesting.\nFrom the publisher:\n“Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom. Have you ever found a shortcut that others missed? Seen a new way to resolve a conflict? Made a connection with someone others couldn’t reach? Even once? Then you have what it takes to become indispensable, by overcoming the resistance that holds people back.”\nDoesn’t that sound good? I want to be a Linchpin, who wouldn’t want to be a Linchpin as described above?\nBut I don’t think I got a whole lot out of the book. I remember thinking more about how much was left to listen too than about what was being said. I agree with a lot of what is said in the book, but the way it is being said left me bored and inattentive.\nOn a scale of 1 to 10 I give this book a 4, I think that low score has more to do with the style of writing or the voice of the book than the quality of the content. I bought this book on Audible.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/linchpin-by-seth-godin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/rand/002182/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eI have been listening to and reading some business books this year, and have heard a lot of good things about Seth Godin. When I looked at the books available on Audible by Mr. Godin most of them were focused on marketing which I do not have a lot of interest in. But “Linchpin” sounded really interesting.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher:\u003cbr\u003e\n“Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom. Have you ever found a shortcut that others missed? Seen a new way to resolve a conflict? Made a connection with someone others couldn’t reach? Even once? Then you have what it takes to become indispensable, by overcoming the resistance that holds people back.”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin"},{"content":"I bought this book on Audible.\nThis is the story of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the murderous Dr. Henry H. Holmes.\nFrom the publisher’s summary:\n“The White City (as it became known) was a magical creation constructed upon Chicago’s swampy Jackson Park by Daniel H. Burnham, the famed architect who coordinated the talents of Frederick Olmsted, Louis Sullivan, and others to build it. Dr. Henry H. Holmes combined the fair’s appeal with his own fatal charms to lure scores of women to their deaths. Whereas the fair marked the birth of a new epoch in American history, Holmes marked the emergence of a new American archetype, the serial killer, who thrived on the very forces then transforming the country.”\nThis story grabbed me and would not let me go. I took a lot of walks and sat in the car in the driveway a lot so that I could listen to it. Learning about the work that went into creating the White City, the personalities involved, and the problems that they faced along with the horrible crimes of a 19th century serial killer held my attention to the very end.\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and a great non-fiction read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-devil-in-the-white-city-by-erik-larson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"The Devil in the White City by  Erik Larson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/bkot/000116/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book on Audible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the story of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the murderous Dr. Henry H. Holmes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher’s summary:\u003cbr\u003e\n“The White City (as it became known) was a magical creation constructed upon Chicago’s swampy Jackson Park by Daniel H. Burnham, the famed architect who coordinated the talents of Frederick Olmsted, Louis Sullivan, and others to build it. Dr. Henry H. Holmes combined the fair’s appeal with his own fatal charms to lure scores of women to their deaths. Whereas the fair marked the birth of a new epoch in American history, Holmes marked the emergence of a new American archetype, the serial killer, who thrived on the very forces then transforming the country.”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Devil in the White City by  Erik Larson"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible, it is narrated by the Author.\nIt turns out that there are differences between men and women, who knew. After listening this book the differences are much clearer and now I have some ideas how those differences can be approached in a positive way. I expect what I have learned to make a real difference in my relationships with both men and women.\nMy wife has told me that she read this book years ago, and now that I have also read it I really appreciate the things my wife does for me that may have been learned from the book. Her understanding that I need to spend time alone in my man cave to recharge has really made our relationship strong. Now I need to giver her more time to talk and express herself without being interrupted or given “solutions.”\nI rate this book a 9 out of 10 and a must read.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-venus-by-john-gray/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/harp/000547/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible, it is narrated by the Author.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt turns out that there are differences between men and women, who knew. After listening this book the differences are much clearer and now I have some ideas how those differences can be approached in a positive way. I expect what I have learned to make a real difference in my relationships with both men and women.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy wife has told me that she read this book years ago, and now that I have also read it I really appreciate the things my wife does for me that may have been learned from the book. Her understanding that I need to spend time alone in my man cave to recharge has really made our relationship strong. Now I need to giver her more time to talk and express herself without being interrupted or given “solutions.”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex by John Gray"},{"content":"Harold Davis’ new book on taking digital color photos and transforming them into creative black and white pictures is an inspiring read with a lot of examples and many ways to achieve your vision.\nA focus of the book is to help you learn how to pre-visualize what the world of color that surrounds us in blank \u0026amp; white. To se the contrasts of light and shadow that are left when the color is removed from an image and I think the book does a good job of describing how to do that.\nI really like the different ways that are covered in the book to transform your color images into blank \u0026amp; white, Photoshop, Lightroom, Silver Efex Pro, and Photomatix are all covered. Creating images with high-hey, low-key, split toning, HDR, hand coloring, and noise are all explored with examples and tips.\nI found the HDR example especially interesting, using HDR methods to create a photo with a extraordinary range of shadows is really appealing to me and I plan on giving it a try soon.\nI highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in making amazing black \u0026amp; white photos.\nI want to thank the author for the chance to review this book before its release.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/creative-black-white-by-harold-davis/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Creative Black \u0026amp; White by Harold Davis\u0026rsquo;\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41gzKdkVeFL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\"\u003eHarold Davis’ new book on taking digital color photos and transforming them into creative black and white pictures is an inspiring read with a lot of examples and many ways to achieve your vision.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA focus of the book is to help you learn how to pre-visualize what the world of color that surrounds us in blank \u0026amp; white. To se the contrasts of light and shadow that are left when the color is removed from an image and I think the book does a good job of describing how to do that.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Creative Black \u0026 White by Harold Davis"},{"content":"I bought this book on Audible and it is narrated by Dick Fredricks.\nI have not read a lot of self-help books, but hearing Dave Ramsey describe this book and on his recommendation I decided to give it a try. Let me tell you, it is an amazing book full of ideas.\nI think the biggest thing I learned from the book is how my childhood experiences shaped the way I expect to be treated by others and how that affects my reactions and attitude. It really has given me a lot to think about and work on every day.\nI look forward to litening to this book again and again. I give it a 10 out of 10 and recommend it to everyone!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/boundaries-by-dr-henry-cloud-and-dr-john-townsend/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/zond/000145/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book on Audible and it is narrated by Dick Fredricks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have not read a lot of self-help books, but hearing Dave Ramsey describe this book and on his recommendation I decided to give it a try. Let me tell you, it is an amazing book full of ideas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think the biggest thing I learned from the book is how my childhood experiences shaped the way I expect to be treated by others and how that affects my reactions and attitude. It really has given me a lot to think about and work on every day.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend"},{"content":"I bought this book from Audible to listen to during a road trip to Florida for William and Lucky’s wedding.\nI am a huge fan of Ender’s Game and all of the related books. Ender’s Shadow is probably my favorite of the books, but Ender’s Game should be read first.\nThis is a very special recording of the story with Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison, Orson Scott Card and others. I really enjoyed the high quality of voice acting and production. The postscript by the author is fantastic and in it he expresses the opinion that this recording is the way the story should be experienced, that it is a preferable experience to reading a printed version of the book and I agree.\nI rate this recording as a 9 out of 10, the only thing I could imagine being better would be hearing the book as a radio-play.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/enders-game-special-20th-anniversary-edition-by-orson-scott-card/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/alit/000164/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eI bought this book from Audible to listen to during a road trip to Florida for William and Lucky’s wedding.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am a huge fan of Ender’s Game and all of the related books. Ender’s Shadow is probably my favorite of the books, but Ender’s Game should be read first.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a very special recording of the story with Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison, Orson Scott Card and others. I really enjoyed the high quality of voice acting and production. The postscript by the author is fantastic and in it he expresses the opinion that this recording is the way the story should be experienced, that it is a preferable experience to reading a printed version of the book and I agree.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ender’s Game: Special 20th Anniversary Edition by Orson Scott Card"},{"content":"The ignite event at the Georgia Aquarium was a great success. We learned about super babies, how to build a hackintosh, rapid brainstorming, and how to keep a happy septic tank among other things.\nEighteen were given 5 minutes to present there ideas using 15 slides that automatically forward every 15 seconds. It makes for quick presentations that can leave the presenter breathless.\nI have been watching ignite presentations on the interwebs and really enjoy them. The opportunity to see an event in person was a real treat.\nMore information:\nignite videos at igniteshow.com ignite at O’Reilly ignite Atlanta Meetup group ","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/ignite-atlanta-at-the-georgia-aquarium/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Other/Miscellaneous/IMG0179/842560072_HBvXy-S.jpg\"\u003eThe ignite event at the Georgia Aquarium was a great success. We learned about super babies, how to build a hackintosh, rapid brainstorming, and how to keep a happy septic tank among other things.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEighteen were given 5 minutes to present there ideas using 15 slides that automatically forward every 15 seconds. It makes for quick presentations that can leave the presenter breathless.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have been watching ignite presentations on the interwebs and really enjoy them. The opportunity to see an event in person was a real treat.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"ignite Atlanta at the Georgia Aquarium"},{"content":"We had a great time at Lynnette Howard’s fundraiser this weekend. Javier Lopez spent a lot of time conversing with fans, answering questions, signing baseballs, and hanging out. It was such a beautiful day with a cool breeze and blue skies. Check out the photos.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-elect-lynette-fundraiser-was-a-blast/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe had a great time at Lynnette Howard’s fundraiser this weekend. Javier Lopez spent a lot of time conversing with fans, answering questions, signing baseballs, and hanging out. It was such a beautiful day with a cool breeze and blue skies. \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/elect-lynette\"\u003eCheck out the photos.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/elect-lynette\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Events/elect-lynette/DaveNelson201004171309060058/839485424_ZAKwd-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/Events/elect-lynette\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Events/elect-lynette/DaveNelson201004171233410040/839480469_3LEYh-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Elect Lynette Fundraiser was a Blast"},{"content":"This weekend in Norcross, come meet baseball great Javier Lopez and candidate for Gwinnett County Commissioner District 2 Lynette Howard for a fundraiser cookout.\nEveryone is welcome to come out and have a great time, there will be food, a silent auction, and a lot of family fun.\nWhen: Saturday April 17th, 11:00am – 2:00pm\nWhere: The horse farm at\n4685 S Berkeley Lake Rd, Norcross, GA 30071\nHow Much: $10 per person\nCheck out Lynette’s election web site at https://electlynette.com/ and read up on Javier at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javy_L%C3%B3pez.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/javier-lopez-and-lynette-howard/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Javier Lopez\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://mlb.mlb.com/images/2008/01/03/vNn2RYTx.jpg\"\u003eThis weekend in Norcross, come meet baseball great Javier Lopez and candidate for Gwinnett County Commissioner District 2 Lynette Howard for a fundraiser cookout.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEveryone is welcome to come out and have a great time, there will be food, a silent auction, and a lot of family fun.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhen\u003c/strong\u003e: Saturday April 17th, 11:00am – 2:00pm\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWhere\u003c/strong\u003e: The horse farm at\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q\u0026amp;source=s_q\u0026amp;hl=en\u0026amp;geocode=\u0026amp;q=S.+Old+Peachtree+RD+NW+and+S.+Berkeley+Lake+Road,+norcross\u0026amp;sll=33.968865,-84.180765\u0026amp;sspn=0.009414,0.01929\u0026amp;gl=us\u0026amp;ie=UTF8\u0026amp;hq=\u0026amp;hnear=S+Berkeley+Lake+Rd+%26+S+Old+Peachtree+Rd+NW,+Norcross,+Gwinnett,+Georgia+30071\u0026amp;ll=33.969114,-84.181323\u0026amp;spn=0.004707,0.009645\u0026amp;t=h\u0026amp;z=17\" title=\"Google Maps\"\u003e4685 S Berkeley Lake Rd, Norcross, GA 30071\u003c/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eHow Much\u003c/strong\u003e: $10 per person\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Meet Javier Lopez and Lynette Howard this Saturday"},{"content":"From the writer of “Bringing Down the House” comes the story of the founding of Facebook. I listened to the unabridged version of this book purchased on Audible.\nLike “Bringing Down the House” this book is a very conversational accounting of historical events. I find it similar to Hunter S. Thompson’s style of gonzo journalism without the drugs or bombastic language. I like the writing style and believe it makes the story interesting and listenable.\nI found it an interesting listen even though it doesn’t really contain any insights that could be used to create a successful web business, but I guess that ties into the title “The Accidental Billionaires.” I believe that Mark Zuckerberg’s personality is fundamental to the things I like most and like least about Facebook.\nI now believe that Facebook’s initial success was mainly due to Mark’s ability to quickly build a web site that copied the best of what other social networking sites were already doing using a simpler interface. Other people have had similar ideas, but Mark was able to execute and get the idea into the hands of the public when others failed.\nThe Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook is a good read but I don’t consider it a business book, I’ll give it a 6 out of 10. If you haven’t read “Bringing Down the House” I highly recommend it as an 8 out of 10.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-accidental-billionaires-the-founding-of-facebook-by-ben-mezrich/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.audible.com/audiblewords/content/bk/rand/001858/t4_image.jpg\"\u003eFrom the writer of “Bringing Down the House” comes the story of the founding of Facebook. I listened to the unabridged version of this book purchased on Audible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike “Bringing Down the House” this book is a very conversational accounting of historical events. I find it similar to Hunter S. Thompson’s style of gonzo journalism without the drugs or bombastic language. I like the writing style and believe it makes the story interesting and listenable.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich"},{"content":"The “Maximum Ride” series from James Patterson is a “Young Adult” series that is intended for grades 7 through 9.\nFrom the James Patterson web site about the first book:\n“Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel. Six kids who are pretty normal in most ways—except that they’re 98 percent human, 2 percent bird. They grew up in a lab, living like rats in cages, but now they’re free. Aside, of course, from the fact that they’re prime prey for Erasers – wicked wolflike creatures with a taste for flying humans.”\nThe defacto leader and namesake of the series is 14-year-old Max. She is the narrator for much of the story and spends a lot of time addressing the reader directly, I find this tedious and it may be what I dislike most about the series.\nI struggled through the first book, The Angel Experiment. The writing is far from inspiring and a little condescending, but I found many of the ideas in the story interesting and felt that it could really go somewhere.\nIn the second book, School’s Out, the writing is a bit better and the flock’s desire for family is touching.\nIn the third book, Saving the World, the story is getting repetitive. It feels like there are multiple voices writing the book and they have diverging ideas. I like the action but I am growing a bored with the series. But I would like to continue reading and learn the fate of the flock.\nI have been buying these books from Fictionwise, the eBook seller now owned by Barnes \u0026amp; Noble and all of the Maximum Ride books have been pulled from their catalog. In a response to an email they have said, “Due to industry changes, our content suppliers are currently unable to offer certain titles from several large publishers. We are working with our content partners to resolve this.” So no more James Patterson for me. I guess I will never know what becomes of the Flock. To the credit of Fictionwise, the James Patterson books I have previously purchased are still available in my library.\nTo all you book publishers out there, get over yourselves and remember that some money is better than no money.\nTo the authors out there, I am sorry you feel the need to use publishers that force terrible contracts on you that give away your rights to get your material into the hands of those who want to buy it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/maximum-ride-books-1-2-and-3-by-james-patterson/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe “Maximum Ride” series from James Patterson is a “Young Adult” series that is intended for grades 7 through 9.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the James Patterson web site about the first book:\u003cbr\u003e\n“Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel. Six kids who are pretty normal in most ways—except that they’re 98 percent human, 2 percent bird. They grew up in a lab, living like rats in cages, but now they’re free. Aside, of course, from the fact that they’re prime prey for Erasers – wicked wolflike creatures with a taste for flying humans.”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Maximum Ride: Books 1, 2, and 3 by James Patterson"},{"content":"Here is a picture of our baby boy who is growing bigger every day. The launch date is August 22nd.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/baby-picture/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Baby Nelson\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/Other/Miscellaneous/baby-1/831146654_gKnJX-S.jpg\"\u003eHere is a picture of our baby boy who is growing bigger every day. The launch date is August 22nd.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Baby Picture"},{"content":"We had a doctors apppointment this morning and have been told that we are having a baby boy. Pictures and such coming soon!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/we-are-having-a-baby-boy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe had a doctors apppointment this morning and have been told that we are having a baby boy. Pictures and such coming soon!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"We Are Having A Baby Boy!"},{"content":" It was a great game at Shiloh High this weekend.\nIt was great to get out and take my first sports photos of the year. I have a lot of open days left on my schedule, if you have an event you would like photographed please let me know.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/basketball-norcross-vs-mountainview/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/Sports/norcross-basketball-01/11107517_t5xyx#777980626_hAyn8\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"blocked shot\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/Sports/norcross-basketball-01/DaveNelson201001311453390001/777980626_hAyn8-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e It was a great game at Shiloh High this weekend.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was great to get out and take my first sports photos of the year. I have a lot of open days left on my schedule, if you have an event you would like photographed please let me know.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Basketball: Norcross vs. Mountainview"},{"content":"The rain did put a damper on things, but it was a great weekend with a lot of vintage motorcycles, racing, stunting, and talking.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/barber-vintage-festival/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe rain did put a damper on things, but it was a great weekend with a lot of vintage motorcycles, racing, stunting, and talking.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Barber-Vintage-Festival-09/9884395_X6kim/1/683327873_hbvGG\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/683327873_hbvGG-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Barber-Vintage-Festival-09/9884395_X6kim/1/683330383_k3yDe\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/683330383_k3yDe-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Barber-Vintage-Festival-09/9884395_X6kim/1/683332680_PiXS4\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/683332680_PiXS4-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Barber Vintage Festival"},{"content":"The Gallery is at https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/.\nHere are some quick highlights\nShatner \u0026amp; Nimoy on Friday Costume Contest on Friday Night Parade on Saturday Morning Adam Savage of Mythbusters Dawn Costume Contest on Saturday Nimoy \u0026amp; Shatner on Sunday Masquerade on Sunday Arc Attack on Sunday Here are some cool searches\nBattlestar Galactica Draco Malfoy, AKA Tom Felton of Harry Potter Felicia Day (includes other Buffy guests) Terry Gilliam ","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragoncon-2009-pictures-are-up/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe Gallery is at \u003ca href=\"https://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/\"\u003ehttps://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/\u003c/a\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\nHere are some quick highlights\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/9569220_vUwrL#643602355_tJnVx\"\u003eShatner \u0026amp; Nimoy on Friday\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/9569220_vUwrL#643643541_7Xqdb\"\u003eCostume Contest on Friday Night\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/9569220_vUwrL#645004464_vaPNS\"\u003eParade on Saturday Morning\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/9569220_vUwrL#645027748_Nxm3B\"\u003eAdam Savage of Mythbusters\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/9569220_vUwrL#645029033_qLj5U\"\u003eDawn Costume Contest on Saturday\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/9569220_vUwrL#645003371_4Ht8h\"\u003eNimoy \u0026amp; Shatner on Sunday\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/9569220_vUwrL#645053170_upqjR\"\u003eMasquerade on Sunday\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/DragonCon/DragonCon-2009/9569220_vUwrL#645064689_NA5u5\"\u003eArc Attack on Sunday\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere are some cool searches\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=bsg+2009\u0026amp;searchType=UserImage\u0026amp;NickName=davenelson\u0026amp;start=0\u0026amp;SortBy=Recent\"\u003eBattlestar Galactica\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=tom+felton+2009\u0026amp;searchType=UserImage\u0026amp;NickName=davenelson\u0026amp;SortBy=Recent\"\u003eDraco Malfoy, AKA Tom Felton of Harry Potter\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=felicia\u0026amp;searchType=InUser\u0026amp;NickName=davenelson\"\u003eFelicia Day (includes other Buffy guests)\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://photo.davenelson.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=terry+gilliam\u0026amp;searchType=UserImage\u0026amp;NickName=davenelson\u0026amp;SortBy=Recent\"\u003eTerry Gilliam\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"DragonCon 2009 pictures are up!"},{"content":"Please do not let this happen to you. If you have the time and stubbornness please push the issue of Photographer’s rights as far as you can.\nTrey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs was harassed recently in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park trying to take photos of the World of Coca-Cola museum and told that he was not allowed to take photos of the building.\nI will be getting in contact with management of the museum and see if I can find out what their policy actually is.\nHere is a link to Trey’s blog post: https://www.stuckincustoms.com/2009/08/09/nearly-getting-arrested-in-downtown-atlanta/\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/photography-is-not-a-crime/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ePlease do not let this happen to you. If you have the time and stubbornness please push the issue of Photographer’s rights as far as you can.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.stuckincustoms.com/trey-ratcliff/\" title=\"Trey's Bio\"\u003eTrey Ratcliff\u003c/a\u003e of \u003ca href=\"http://www.stuckincustoms.com/\" title=\"Stuck in Customs Home Page\"\u003eStuck in Customs\u003c/a\u003e was harassed recently in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park trying to take photos of the World of Coca-Cola museum and told that he was not allowed to take photos of the building.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI will be getting in contact with management of the museum and see if I can find out what their policy actually is.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Photography is not a Crime"},{"content":"Price: EUR 19.99\nWeb Site: https://www.macility.com/products/typinator/\nThis is a great application that watches as you type and can fix your spelling mistakes in any application. It is a real life saver for me and my terrible typing/spelling. You can also set up shortcuts so that you can type a short bit of text and it gets replaced with much more text. I like to use “dt “, that is a “d” and a “t” followed by a space to insert the date, fantastic. And it will do this in any application, even the finder.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/typinator-mac-software/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePrice\u003c/strong\u003e: EUR 19.99\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWeb Site\u003c/strong\u003e: \u003ca href=\"https://www.macility.com/products/typinator/\"\u003ehttps://www.macility.com/products/typinator/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a great application that watches as you type and can fix your spelling mistakes in any application. It is a real life saver for me and my terrible typing/spelling. You can also set up shortcuts so that you can type a short bit of text and it gets replaced with much more text. I like to use “dt “, that is a “d” and a “t” followed by a space to insert the date, fantastic. And it will do this in any application, even the finder.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Typinator Mac Software"},{"content":"Over the next couple of weeks I am going to write about the software I have found for the Mac OS to make my transition from the world of Windows complete.\nI am finally comfortable spending all of my computer time inside of the Mac OS. I still have WindowsXP in Bootcamp for playing games on Steam, and a couple virtual machines using VMWare and Parallels for the occasional Microsoft Outlook need or using Garmin Mapsource to upload maps and waypoints to my GPS, but I rarely miss Windows or proprietary applications that only run on Windows.\nFirst up is BBEdit.\nBBEdit Price: $125\nWeb Site: https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit\nThe only real negative thing I can say about BBEdit is the price, $125 for a text editor just seems excessive. UltraEdit, which is still my favorite text editor is only $49.95, but on the Mac OS BBEdit is hands down the best text editor available in my opinion. I tried all of the free solutions and most of the payed solutions that have trials available and they all fall well short of BBEdit.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/software-for-mac-os-x/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOver the next couple of weeks I am going to write about the software I have found for the Mac OS to make my transition from the world of Windows complete.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am finally comfortable spending all of my computer time inside of the Mac OS. I still have WindowsXP in Bootcamp for playing games on Steam, and a couple virtual machines using VMWare and Parallels for the occasional Microsoft Outlook need or using Garmin Mapsource to upload maps and waypoints to my GPS, but I rarely miss Windows or proprietary applications that only run on Windows.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Software for Mac OS X"},{"content":"On Thursday April 9th I participated in a “Painting with Light Workshop” at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, GA. Judith Pishnery of Pisconeri Studio \u0026amp; Workshops brought us together for a night of photography and learning.\nWe began the night around 7pm filling out releases and donning nametags on the porch of the visitor’s center. After an introduction by Judith and some words from the cemetery staff we were left to wander the cemetery to get acquainted and take some pre-nightfall photos.\nAround 8:30 Judith gave a presentation explaining how to paint with light. Although I had done some small experiments with a handheld speedlight and have written my name in the air with a flashlight before I had never “painted with light” to create a “real” photograph and I was looking forward to giving it a try.\nRight away I learned that using a camera flash handheld really doesn’t put out as much light as I thought it did. Multiple flashes, 5 or 6, produced very little extra light even though each flash felt blindingly bright to me. A 6-volt camping flashlight slowly passed over a subject produces a much brighter image than a flash.\nI was also surprised by the results of a small but very bright LED flashlight, which to my eyes appears very bright even if it is on the blue side of the spectrum, but to the camera’s sensor it was very dim indeed. The camping flashlight with its old-school style bulb was brighter and whiter than either LED flashlight I tried.\nMy best results were with using the 6-volt lantern panning it slowly first horizontally and then vertically to ensure total coverage of the subject(s) while the camera’s shutter was held open in bulb mode for as short as 20 seconds and as long as 3 minutes. Then in Lightroom I did some quick tweaking only spending some real effort on two of the photos to knock down some distracting lights.\nThis workshop was a lot of fun and I look forward to using what I learned in the future.\nLinks:\nMy Painting with Light Workshop Photo Gallery Oakland Cemetery – Night Shoot Flickr Group Pisconeri Studio \u0026amp; Workshops ","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/painting-with-light-workshop/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOn Thursday April 9th I participated in a “Painting with Light Workshop” at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, GA. Judith Pishnery of Pisconeri Studio \u0026amp; Workshops brought us together for a night of photography and learning.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/7870830_NqoCD/1/510228573_5o2y3#510232487_BsSmc\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Photo: Our Confederate Dead\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/510232487_BsSmc-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe began the night around 7pm filling out releases and donning nametags on the porch of the visitor’s center. After an introduction by Judith and some words from the cemetery staff we were left to wander the cemetery to get acquainted and take some pre-nightfall photos.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Painting with Light Workshop"},{"content":"Awhile back I got a flat rear tire caused by a damaged wheel, I must have hit a pot hole a lot harder than I remember, and it took me a couple months to get the wheel repaired and a new tire. Last weekend I took the bike out for a couple shake down runs checking the torque of the bolts keeping the tire on and brake caliper in place. After a two hour ride in the bitter cold I got home and gave the bike a good once over.\nThis Saturday the forecast was for a perfect riding day reaching the low seventies and I spent all week day-dreaming about riding up to Suches Georgia and break in that new tire.\nAfter a week that felt more like a year Saturday finally came along and I got out of the house around Noon. There was still a bite to the air with the temperature somewhere in the low sixties, at eighty miles an hour the wind cut through my jeans and long-johns leaving my knees achingly cold.\nBy the time I get to Dahlonega though I am feeling great and can feel my face stuck in a big grin. Once I get to Porter Springs there is no traffic in front of me and it is surprisingly free riding for the next hour. Riding from Porter springs to Two Wheels Only, Vogel State Park, Turners Corner, Porter Springs, and back up to T.W.O. for lunch.\nBy this point I am pretty tired, but it is a very good feeling. In a couple of months a 120 mile ride like this will not tire me out so much and hopefully I will be more comfortable pushing it a little harder, leaning a little farther and getting those chicken strips off of my rear tire.\nAt T.W.O I eat a BBQ sandwich that fills me up for the ride home and gives me the opportunity to read an old motorcycle magazine in the dining room and a chance to sit out on the porch in a rocking chair for a bit. After eating I take a walk around the grounds to stretch my legs and take a look at the bikes parked out front. This day most of the bikes are Harleys but there are also a handful of BMWs and a couple Ducatis. As I walk up a Ducati fires up with a musical growl and I stand transfixed and just enjoy the sound for a bit. I smile large as he pulls up onto the road and away.\nThe ride home is uneventful; I spend much of it behind cagers putting down the road. I take the time to smell some roses and watch some of the beautiful Georgia mountain scenery roll by. The temperature is great, some of the trees are in bloom, and the traffic is lighter than expected.\nAll in all it is a great beginning to the riding season with many more rides to look forward to. I hope to see you out there.\nSuches, GA\nTwo Wheels Only Motorcycle Resort\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/first-ride-of-the-season/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAwhile back I got a flat rear tire caused by a damaged wheel, I must have hit a pot hole a lot harder than I remember, and it took me a couple months to get the wheel repaired and a new tire. Last weekend I took the bike out for a couple shake down runs checking the torque of the bolts keeping the tire on and brake caliper in place. After a two hour ride in the bitter cold I got home and gave the bike a good once over.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"First Ride of the Season"},{"content":"Adobe Lightroom I first wrote about using Lightroom on September 7th, 2008 after using it to process photos for DragonCon. Since then I have read Scott Kelby’s book “The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers” and used Lightroom to process all of my images. I am still amazed at how fast I am able to process photos that of a more consistent and higher quality than ever before.\nI recently shot a youth basketball game where I took around 300 pictures and using Lightroom culled that down to 97 good shots with meta-data, color correction, noise reduction, rotating and cropping all in under 2 hours.\nI no longer use stars or labels to sort through images and rely on “P” for Pick and “X” for Reject to sort through images and delete rejects. Now that I have plenty of hard drive space available with the Drobo I am keeping more images than ever.\nSwitching to Apple On January 2nd, 2009 I wrote about My Mac Experience So Far. Three months later and I am still enjoying the iMac. I have found more MacOS applications to replace Windows applications and in most cases am very happy with them.\nI reformatted the Bootcamp partition and have set it to be solely used for gaming; I am currently playing Left4Dead a lot. All other windows use is relegated to VMWare and one of 4 virtual machines I have set up for specific purposes.\nI have added an HP 22” widescreen monitor in a vertical orientation, which has really boosted my production in web development and photo processing.\nDrobo January 11th, 2009 I shared my Drobo First Impressions with the world. The device is still running great and serving its purpose. I have only had a couple of minor issues with it.\nThe fan noise while I am sitting at the computer working is not really noticeable to me, but after I turn the computer off the fan in the Drobo continues to run for a very long time. With everything else in the room turned off the Drobo seems really loud. I am glad that the Drobo is not in our bedroom or even close to it.\nAnother issue is that GarageBand does not read the free space on the Drobo correctly and always thinks the drive is full. As I use GarageBand more, this may become a real issue for me as I try not to put anything on the internal hard drive.\nGetting Organized Then on January 14th, 2009 I wrote about Getting Organized with a Franklin Covey planner. After three months of using the planner almost every day I have to say that it has made a real difference with how organized I feel. Having a date based notebook where I am able to make notes to read in the future and having notes from the past that I can refer to has been a great help.\nFor the first couple of months I was planning my days one at a time in the morning, but I have been reading the “7 Habits” book and the quotes in the planner and am beginning to look at a week at a time with some real planning on Monday mornings. I still spend 15 minutes each morning planning that day, but because of the 30 minutes I spend on Monday looking at the week the daily planning goes very quickly and usually doesn’t contain any surprises.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/updates-to-previous-posts/","summary":"\u003ch2 id=\"adobe-lightroom\"\u003eAdobe Lightroom\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI first wrote about using Lightroom on September 7th, 2008 after using it to process photos for DragonCon. Since then I have read Scott Kelby’s book “The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers” and used Lightroom to process all of my images. I am still amazed at how fast I am able to process photos that of a more consistent and higher quality than ever before.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI recently shot a youth basketball game where I took around 300 pictures and using Lightroom culled that down to 97 good shots with meta-data, color correction, noise reduction, rotating and cropping all in under 2 hours.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Updates to Previous Posts"},{"content":"If you love motorcycles you will love this museum.\nMy wife was kind enough last year to give me a gift certificate for a weekend at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. I finally got to cash in on that gift this January and spent a Saturday touring the museum. I have always loved motorcycles, a Honda Shadow, while in the Navy and now ride my BMW R850R every chance I get.\nAccording to an employee Barber Museum is currently home to around 1200 motorcycles with around 750 of them on display at any given time and they are acquiring more all the time. Located just outside of Birmingham Alabama, the museum is located on the grounds of the Barber Motorsports Park, which hosts both motorcycle and auto racing.\nOn display are bikes going back to the earliest days when they resembled bicycles with tiny motors attached up to the latest sportbikes and recent model racing bikes. I especially enjoyed seeing the scramblers and enduros from the late 70’s along with the 2 stroke motoGP bikes.\n1923 Scott Sprint Special. This was my favorite bike in the museum. It smelled of leather, oil, and gasoline. Just wonderful!\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/barber-vintage-motorsports-museum/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIf you love motorcycles you will love this museum.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/7172787_VRdjF#460488135_wjQ25\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"motorcycle\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/460488135_wjQ25-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eMy wife was kind enough last year to give me a gift certificate for a weekend at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.barbermuseum.org\"\u003eBarber Vintage Motorsports Museum\u003c/a\u003e. I finally got to cash in on that gift this January and spent a Saturday touring the museum. I have always loved motorcycles, a Honda Shadow, while in the Navy and now ride my BMW R850R every chance I get.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum"},{"content":"I have recently received a promotion that has left me feeling disorganized and a bit overwhelmed. I spent time with my manager discussing how I could better prioritize my time and how to get and keep a clearer understanding of what my team is working on. I noticed that my manager uses a Franklin Covey Planner and it appears to work well for her so I have decided to follow in her footsteps and do the same.\nI spent some time on the https://shopping.franklinplanner.com/ web site learning about the different page sizes, formats, binders, and add-ons then drove over to the Franklin Covey store at Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody Georgia. Once in the store and getting to hold the binders in my hands and experiment with writing on the different page sizes I made my choices.\nI bought the Ryder Unstructured Binder in black because of its relatively small size and I really like the feel of the leather. It holds two months of pages along with notes pages and a little more. I use the flaps and slots that are built into the binder to hold extra lined notes pages, business cards, 3×5 cards, and receipts.\nThe planner pages I chose are “The 7 Habits Daily Master Planner Pages “ that includes two quotes each day that pertain to living the 7 Habits from Stephen R. Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” book which I am currently reading.\nI have only been using the system for 2 weeks now but I am finding it very helpful. Being able to place tasks, notes, and meetings on pages for future dates along with progressive task lists and lined notes pages has increased my confidence and helped me stay on track. I also plan on taking a course in the Franklin Covey system this year to help me get the most out of it.\nI will post again this time next year to let you know how the system has worked over the year and if I am going to continue using it.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/getting-organized/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have recently received a promotion that has left me feeling disorganized and a bit overwhelmed. I spent time with my manager discussing how I could better prioritize my time and how to get and keep a clearer understanding of what my team is working on. I noticed that my manager uses a Franklin Covey Planner and it appears to work well for her so I have decided to follow in her footsteps and do the same.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Getting Organized"},{"content":"I purchased a Drobo from Newegg.com and three days later the UPS man dropped it off at my door. My previous post to the blog outlines the reasons why I chose the Drobo as a storage solution.\nSetup was very easy, the top of the box full of cables shows the three steps to getting started and it really is that easy.\nI took the Drobo out of the box Removed the packaging material Inserted 4 Samsung 1TB hard drives Put the Drobo on my desk Plugged in the Firewire 800 cable Inserted the Drobo disc and installed the Drobo Dashboard Plugged in the power cable to the Drobo Here began my only snag, the Drobo appeared to go into a loop of restarting which it did not recover from. So unplugged the Firewire cable and then the power cable and restarted the computer. Once the computer cam back up I plugged in the Firewire cable and then the power cable and the Drobo jumped to life. The computer warned about the drive being unreadable and the Drobo began the process of walking me through partitioning and formatting the drive. I used a 16TB partition and HFS+ formatting. It was done in about 5 minutes and popped up on my desktop just like any external hard drive would. I immediately began copying my music library to the Drobo from an external USB drive This really is an amazing device; I was able to start using it within 15 minutes of opening the box. It is almost invincible on my desk; its sleek black case and solid construction give me confidence. Not having to install rails on the individual drives is also a plus.\nI have been using the Drobo for just over a week now and have copied just over a terabyte of data to the device now and am using it as my main photo and iTunes libraries.\nPerformance has not been an issue; the drive is plenty fast for audio, video, and working on 15 megapixel images in Photoshop and Lightroom.\nNoise could be an issue for some users but not for me, my previous computer had 6 fans and sounded like a jet when fully overclocked, so the fan and drive noise from the Drobo is tame in comparison. I can hear the fan noise and I can hear each of the drives unpark, spin-up and park but it doesn’t bother me and can barely be heard over any game or music I am playing.\nThe lights on the front of the devise are not blindingly bright like the D-Link router and are actually dimmer than the lights on the Linksys router but are visible from a wide range of viewing angles.\nSo far I give the Drobo a 5 out of 5 across the board.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/drobo-first-impressions/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI purchased a Drobo from Newegg.com and three days later the UPS man dropped it off at my door. My previous post to the blog outlines the reasons why I chose the Drobo as a storage solution.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSetup was very easy, the top of the box full of cables shows the three steps to getting started and it really is that easy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eI took the Drobo out of the box\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRemoved the packaging material\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eInserted 4 Samsung 1TB hard drives\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePut the Drobo on my desk\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePlugged in the Firewire 800 cable\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eInserted the Drobo disc and installed the Drobo Dashboard\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePlugged in the power cable to the Drobo\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHere began my only snag, the Drobo appeared to go into a loop of restarting which it did not recover from. So unplugged the Firewire cable and then the power cable and restarted the computer. Once the computer cam back up I plugged in the Firewire cable and then the power cable and the Drobo jumped to life.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe computer warned about the drive being unreadable and the Drobo began the process of walking me through partitioning and formatting the drive.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eI used a 16TB partition and HFS+ formatting. It was done in about 5 minutes and popped up on my desktop just like any external hard drive would.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eI immediately began copying my music library to the Drobo from an external USB drive\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis really is an amazing device; I was able to start using it within 15 minutes of opening the box. It is almost invincible on my desk; its sleek black case and solid construction give me confidence. Not having to install rails on the individual drives is also a plus.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Drobo First Impressions"},{"content":"I believe I first heard about the Drobo on This Week in Tech (TWiT) with Leo Laporte, but it may have been on This Week in Photography (TWiP) which is a podcast with members who are also on TWiT, but it is the photographers on TWiP that really convinced me that the Drobo is worth its price.\nI have always belived in making regular backups, for years I used CDs and then DVDs to backup my photos, documents, music, and all work related files. I even went as far as making three sets of discs, 1 for the office, one at home, and one at my parents house. My parents thought it was funny that I was giving them stacks of 20 or more DVDs every couple months.\nA few years ago I bought a Buffalo Terrastation Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. It is a Redundant array of Independent Disks (RAID) that contains 4 Parallel ATA Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) drives, I have it configured as RAID 5 with 4 250 GB dives giving me around 750GB of usable storage space. The advantage of RAID 5 is that the data on the discs is redundant, any one drive can fail without actually loosing any data. But RAID has a lot of limitations.\nA RAID array requires that all of the drives be the same size, same speed, and same manufacturer to work reliably. It is even recommended to use drives from the same manufacturing lot if possible. The practical result of all of these limitations is that RAID arrays are hard to upgrade, time consuming to replace failed drives, and if the drives in the array are no longer available… What are you supposed to do?\nSo to backup the Terrastation I bought a series of external hard drives and copied bits and pieces from the NAS to individual drives. I have had a couple of them fail and each time it really freaks me out and makes me nervous about the drives in the Terrastation failing. The drives in the NAS are IDE drives, a standard that was introduced in 1986! Amazingly these drives are still available, but they are not the same model, may not be the same speed, and I wouldn’t trust them to work reliably.\nHere comes Data Robotics and the Drobo to the rescue. The Drobo version 2 is not a NAS, it is more like an external hard drive that happens to be up to 4 physical hard drives pretending to be one big redundant drive. Instead of RAID with all of its limitations Data Robotics has come up with a system that allows any combination of Serial ATA drives to be used in the array. Speed, size, and manufacturer do not matter to the Drobo, it will run as fast as it can and provide as much storage space as it can with the combination of drives you have installed.\nWhen a drive dies and its light on the front of the Drobo turns red, you pull out that drive and replace it with one of equal or larger size. What makes this really amazing is that you can do all of this while the Drobo is still running and actively being used. One of the anecdotes on the TWiP podcast is pulling out one of the drives while someone is in the process of editing a video, and nothing happens. The Drobo keeps running and the user is able to continue to edit the video. Amazing stuff, of course the data on the drive is not protected when that drive is missing but in contrast with a RAID solution where the device cannot be used at all with a missing drive or while the drive is being rebuilt.\nYes, the Drobo is expensive at around $400 for an empty box and $800 with 4 1TB drives install for a total of 2.7 TB of usable space. But I decided that the peace of mind is worth it to me, not having to manage a bunch of external drives, having one drive with all of my files including the Mac Time Machine backups will be great.\nComing soon, the unboxing and a full report of getting started with the Drobo.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/feeling-drooby/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI believe I first heard about the Drobo on This Week in Tech (TWiT) with Leo Laporte, but it may have been on This Week in Photography (TWiP) which is a podcast with members who are also on TWiT, but it is the photographers on TWiP that really convinced me that the Drobo is worth its price.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have always belived in making regular backups, for years I used CDs and then DVDs to backup my photos, documents, music, and all work related files. I even went as far as making three sets of discs, 1 for the office, one at home, and one at my parents house. My parents thought it was funny that I was giving them stacks of 20 or more DVDs every couple months.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Feeling Drooby"},{"content":"In the mid 90’s I had a Mac, a Performa 600, and used System 7.5. I worked at a couple different pre-press printing jobs where the primary computers used were Mac’s. This is where I learned Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, and a lot of little utility applications. But by 2000 I had moved on to Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, and finally Windows XP SP3.\nBack in the day I did not expect much from my computers, they were pretty process specific and even though they did many different tasks, their main purpose was either printing or the creation of multimedia. But as time goes by I have begun to demand a lot from my computers and the software that runs on them. My computers get used for everything from hard-core gaming to editing 200-megabyte images, managing a music collection with tens of thousands of files to instant messaging, from building dynamic web sites to hosting multiple virtual machines. I have no less than 100 different third-party applications installed on any computer I use regardless of operating system or the computer’s main purpose.\nThere was a time where computer hardware was a limiting factor, but now it is the software that is holding us back. The biggest problem that the launch of Windows XP and then Windows Vista faced was that the OS was written to take advantage of hardware that didn’t exist; now that the hardware does exist they run great and in general stay out of the user’s way.\nApple has avoided that problem by building the hardware along with the software to ensure that the user experience is as smooth as possible. It has held Apple back to some degree because the hardware they use is always at least a generation behind the PC manufacturers, but the Apple user does have as many negative experiences as the average PC user.\nIn Early 2008 I returned to the Mac. I had instant buyer’s remorse due to the cost of the computer. I could have built a truly awesome Windows box with every bell and whistle along with a home theatre PC for LESS than the cost of the iMac.\nBut I now love the iMac, even though I am still not a big fan of the MacOS, the hardware is really fantastic. The 1980×1200 screen is just brilliant, the glossy finish makes blacks appear very black and the screen is bright enough that reflections are not an issue. With 4GB of RAM, the current limit for the iMac, the software is responsive and I rarely experience any real slowdowns.\nThe beauty of the current Apple hardware is that you can have one computer that runs Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, and the MacOS all simultaneously using VMware Fusion or Parallels. This is the Killer Feature of the Apple Macintosh.\nIn any given day I will use Lightroom (Mac), iTunes (Mac), UltraEdit (Win), Firefox (Mac \u0026amp; Win), Internet Explorer 6 \u0026amp; 7 (Win), Photoshop (Mac), Games using the Valve Steam Client (Win), Google Earth (Mac \u0026amp; Win), Last.fm (Mac \u0026amp; Win), Microsoft Office (Mac \u0026amp; Win), and a lot of other small utilities. At home I use VMware and at work I use Parallels and find that both are good solid products that let me get my work done.\nGames are usually played using Bootcamp and booting into Windows XP. I recently finished Bioshock, which I was able to play at 1980×1200 with the frame rate rarely dropping, it was truly a beautiful thing. Next up is probably Crysis just to push the limits and see how good of a gaming machine it really is.\nI am now over my buyer’s remorse, but I am still not sure that buying the Mac was the best “bang-for-the-buck” available.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/my-mac-experience-so-far/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the mid 90’s I had a Mac, a Performa 600, and used System 7.5. I worked at a couple different pre-press printing jobs where the primary computers used were Mac’s. This is where I learned Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, and a lot of little utility applications. But by 2000 I had moved on to Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, and finally Windows XP SP3.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack in the day I did not expect much from my computers, they were pretty process specific and even though they did many different tasks, their main purpose was either printing or the creation of multimedia. But as time goes by I have begun to demand a lot from my computers and the software that runs on them. My computers get used for everything from hard-core gaming to editing 200-megabyte images, managing a music collection with tens of thousands of files to instant messaging, from building dynamic web sites to hosting multiple virtual machines. I have no less than 100 different third-party applications installed on any computer I use regardless of operating system or the computer’s main purpose.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"My Mac Experience So Far"},{"content":"I have been using SmugMug to host and sell my photography and seeing their participation in the photography community is one of the reasons I continue to use them.\nVincent was one of the first people chosen to test and stretch the limits of the Canon EOS 5D Mk III which he did wonderfully with “Reverie.” SmugMug hosts the video of “The Making of Reverie” along with other content from Vincent, here is his SmugMug home page.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/smugmug-sponsoring-vincent-laforets-next-big-project/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have been using SmugMug to host and sell my photography and seeing their participation in the photography community is one of the reasons I continue to use them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVincent was one of the first people chosen to test and stretch the limits of the Canon EOS 5D Mk III which he did wonderfully with “\u003ca href=\"http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2008/10/10/without-further-ado-reverie/\"\u003eReverie\u003c/a\u003e.”  SmugMug hosts the video of “\u003ca href=\"http://vincentlaforet.smugmug.com/gallery/6021407_xEg87/1/#378608891_Jd2CT-A-LB\"\u003eThe Making of Reverie\u003c/a\u003e”  along with other content from Vincent, here is his \u003ca href=\"http://vincentlaforet.smugmug.com/\"\u003eSmugMug home page\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"SmugMug Sponsoring Vincent Laforet’s Next Big Project"},{"content":"Had a great time at the 2008 Wings over Marietta Open House \u0026amp; Airshow. This was my first opportunity to see the USAF Thunderbirds. It was a beautiful day with a wide variety of aircraft to see.\nPhotos of the 2008 Wings over Marietta Open House \u0026amp; Airshow Gallery or you can view the photos as a slideshow.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/2008-wings-over-marietta-open-house-airshow/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHad a great time at the 2008 Wings over Marietta Open House \u0026amp; Airshow. This was my first opportunity to see the USAF Thunderbirds.  It was a beautiful day with a wide variety of aircraft to see.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePhotos of the \u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/6364148_Zx4ST#402175363_s48MC\"\u003e2008 Wings over Marietta Open House \u0026amp; Airshow Gallery\u003c/a\u003e or you can view the photos as a \u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=6364148\u0026amp;AlbumKey=Zx4ST\"\u003eslideshow\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/6364148_Zx4ST#402181828_weEne\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/402181828_weEne-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/6364148_Zx4ST#402180696_bfrSD\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/402180696_bfrSD-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/6364148_Zx4ST#402191678_fpLUC\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/402191678_fpLUC-M.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/6364148_Zx4ST#402188264_fXkJX\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/402188264_fXkJX-M.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"2008 Wings over Marietta Open House \u0026 Airshow"},{"content":"Today was a beautiful day for baseball. I had a great time photgraphing the Red Sox and Dodgers playing a great game at Pinckneyville Park. Photographs of the game are now available.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/red-sox-vs-dodgers/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eToday was a beautiful day for baseball. I had a great time photgraphing the Red Sox and Dodgers playing a great game at Pinckneyville Park. \u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/6140474_hGZdg#386474193_725ec\"\u003ePhotographs of the game\u003c/a\u003e are now available.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Red Sox vs. Dodgers"},{"content":"For DragonCon this year I decided to give Lightroom 2 a try. I have changed a lot of things in my photo processing procedures, not the least of which has been the change from Windows to Macintosh OS X, and Lightroom sounded like a good fit.\nOn Thursday evening I installed the Lightroom 2 30-day trial on the Apple PowerBook G4 laptop that I would be using for the weekend. Chris [insert last name] helped me get started with Lightroom showing me some of the basics. The biggest thing that got me excited about Lightroom is the ease that metadata could be added to images and the ability to easily search for and filter images making it really easy to find images that have been tagged.\nDuring DragonCon I would be out shooting from about 9:30 AM until around midnight at which time I would go to the hotel room fire up the laptop and spend 3 or 4 hours process all of the images in Lightroom. I would first copy the memory cards to my image bank and then onto the laptop so that there would always be two copies of every image.\nThen I would import the images into Lightroom with my default metadata, which included a basic set of keywords, copyright information, and my contact information. Once in Lightroom I flagged the images that were unacceptable and should never be seen again and when I had made my way through all of the image I deleted the rejects.\nThe next pass took a lot longer as I went through and rated every image using 1 through 5 stars with the idea being that all images with 3 or more stars would be turned in as keepers.\nOn the third pass I visited each one of the keepers and used Lightroom to color correct, rotate, and crop where necessary. Luckily the Canon EOS 40D auto white balance is very accurate for this type of photography and with the lenses in my kit I am able to get the shots I am looking for with much cropping or rotating.\nThe final step is to export the images from Lightroom with my custom file naming convention of “Firstname_Lastname_YYYYMMDDHHMMSS_####.jpg” and I used a thumbrive to transport the images to the show computer to copy them over to the Director of photography.\nBy the end of the show I shot around 3,600 images over the four days of DragonCon and turned in 717 keepers. For my personal use I had about 3,800 pictures and published 1,181 onto my SmugMug web site.\nLightroom 2 is a really amazing tool. This is the first event where I did not spend hours in Photoshop pouring over each and every image that was designated a keeper. It is also the first event where I had every keeper tagged with keywords that will allow me to search for images later. In the past I would add keywords and captions to the images in SmugMug, but that did nothing to help me find images on my hard drive.\nMy next goals for Lightroom are to read a good book on the subject and then spend the next year or so going through my entire image library adding keywords and other meta data.\nResources:\nAdobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers by Martin Evening ","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/using-lightroom-for-the-first-time/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor DragonCon this year I decided to give Lightroom 2 a try. I have changed a lot of things in my photo processing procedures, not the least of which has been the change from Windows to Macintosh OS X, and Lightroom sounded like a good fit.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn Thursday evening I installed the Lightroom 2 30-day trial on the Apple PowerBook G4 laptop that I would be using for the weekend. Chris [insert last name] helped me get started with Lightroom showing me some of the basics. The biggest thing that got me excited about Lightroom is the ease that metadata could be added to images and the ability to easily search for and filter images making it really easy to find images that have been tagged.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Using Lightroom for the First Time"},{"content":"I had a great time at DragonCon this year, the costume contests were fantastic, the guests told wonderful stories, and the fans were a lot of fun.\nHere are some links to take you directly into the gallery:\nGallery Homepage Costume Contest Parade Dawn Contest Masquerade I hope to write a post about how I processed images this year. Lightroom 2 is really fantastic, I did not use Photoshop to edit any of the 1,181 images in the gallery.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragoncon-2008-photographs/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI had a great time at DragonCon this year, the costume contests were fantastic, the guests told wonderful stories, and the fans were a lot of fun.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere are some links to take you directly into the gallery:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5872466_Rm8t9\"\u003eGallery Homepage\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5872466_Rm8t9/1/365118142_JhpPR#365152391_ZUZXS\"\u003eCostume Contest\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5872466_Rm8t9/1/365118142_JhpPR#365152032_2qgwP\"\u003eParade\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5872466_Rm8t9/1/365118142_JhpPR#365178213_vLFdH\"\u003eDawn Contest\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5872466_Rm8t9/1/365118142_JhpPR#365207027_MCcHV\"\u003eMasquerade\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI hope to write a post about how I processed images this year. Lightroom 2 is really fantastic, I did not use Photoshop to edit any of the 1,181 images in the gallery.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"DragonCon 2008 Photographs"},{"content":"On Saturday August 23rd I spent a beautiful night participating in Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk in Atlanta Georgia around the Buckhead – Lenox area. At 7:00 pm about 45 photographers gathers in front of the Terminus 100 building at the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont eager to attack the neighborhood.\nI did not really feel inspired until I got to Dante’s Down the Hatch where I stepped inside and got a couple pics of the crocodiles inside. The energy inside the restaurant and seeing the reptiles fired me up to get out there and take a lot of photos.\nBut even then I did not start capturing photos that made me happy until the light started to fade and the street lights turned on. Using a tripod very close to the ground along with a remote shutter release I took many photos with the lights from cars and trucks blurring across the image.\nI think may favorite image is of the fire hydrant. It is an atypical image for me, just not the kind of image I think about.\nAfter being rained on for a bit and another trip up and around a parking deck I returned to where we started and entered the restaurant Bricktops where many of the photographers were enjoying food, drinks, and conversation.\nWe spent about an hour talking about scanning services (http://www.scancafe.com/) Microsoft Pro Photo Tools (http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/tools.aspx) and one of us spent the night taking photos of the food and drink.\nI would like to thank Judith Pishnery for leading our band of photographers. She can be found at www.pisconeri.com and her blog is at www.pisconeriworkshops.blogspot.com.\nIt was a great experience and I hope to participate in another photowalk soon.\nLinks\nScott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk: [Atlanta/Buckhead] Flickr Group Scott Kelby’s Blog Dave Nelson’s Photos from the Photo Walk ","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/scott-kelbys-worldwide-photo-walk/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOn Saturday August 23rd I spent a beautiful night participating in \u003ca href=\"http://www.photoshopuser.com/photowalk/\"\u003eScott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk\u003c/a\u003e in Atlanta Georgia around the Buckhead – Lenox area. At 7:00 pm about 45 photographers gathers in front of the Terminus 100 building at the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont eager to attack the neighborhood.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5786847_73Wqj#358190155_a5738\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/358190155_a5738-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI did not really feel inspired until I got to Dante’s Down the Hatch where I stepped inside and got a couple pics of the crocodiles inside. The energy inside the restaurant and seeing the reptiles fired me up to get out there and take a lot of photos.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk"},{"content":"It is almost that time again, DragonCon is less than a month away. I am a staff photographer for DragonCon and have 7 years of DragonCon photographs on my web site.\nThis year I am most excited about meeting Hayden Panettiere, James Kyson Lee, and George Takei of Heroes, Sean Astin and Brad Dourif from The Lord of the Rings, Gareth David Lloyd and James Marsters from Torchwood, Beau Bridges from the upcoming Max Payne movie, Joel Hodgson the creator and host of MST3K, James Callis, Aaron Douglas, Michael Hogan, Tahmoh Penikett, and Katee Sackhoff, from Battlestar Galactica, Jewel Staite and Morena Baccarin from Firefly and Serenity, Randal L. Schwartz computer geek extroidinaire, and my favorite science fiction author Mike Resnick.\nCome back after September 2$^nd$ to see pictures of the guests listed above along with costumes, fans, and events from DragonCon 2008.\nBelow are some of my favorite pics from previous years.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/dragoncon-is-coming/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt is almost that time again, DragonCon is less than a month away. I am a staff photographer for DragonCon and have \u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/DragonCon\"\u003e7 years of DragonCon photographs\u003c/a\u003e on my web site.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis year I am most excited about meeting \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1870\"\u003eHayden Panettiere\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1854\"\u003eJames Kyson Lee\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1270\"\u003eGeorge Takei\u003c/a\u003e of \u003cem\u003eHeroes\u003c/em\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1633\"\u003eSean Astin\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=412\"\u003eBrad Dourif\u003c/a\u003e from \u003cem\u003eThe Lord of the Rings\u003c/em\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1826\"\u003eGareth David Lloyd\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=826\"\u003eJames Marsters\u003c/a\u003e from \u003cem\u003eTorchwood\u003c/em\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1905\"\u003eBeau Bridges\u003c/a\u003e from the upcoming \u003cem\u003eMax Payne\u003c/em\u003e movie, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1933\"\u003eJoel Hodgson\u003c/a\u003e the creator and host of \u003cem\u003eMST3K,\u003c/em\u003e \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=19\"\u003eJames Callis\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1505\"\u003eAaron Douglas\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1939\"\u003eMichael Hogan\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1777\"\u003eTahmoh Penikett\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1836\"\u003eKatee Sackhoff\u003c/a\u003e, from \u003cem\u003eBattlestar Galactica,\u003c/em\u003e \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1225\"\u003eJewel Staite\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=119\"\u003eMorena Baccarin\u003c/a\u003e from \u003cem\u003eFirefly\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSerenity\u003c/em\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1135\"\u003eRandal L. Schwartz\u003c/a\u003e computer geek extroidinaire, and my favorite science fiction author \u003ca href=\"http://www.dragoncon.org/dc_guest_detail.php?id=1621\"\u003eMike Resnick\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"DragonCon is Coming"},{"content":"I have had my suspicions for a couple of years that Photoshop had been stripping out the EXIF data that I inserted into my images with Exifer, and now after a bit of testing I have discovered that Photoshop CS3 does indeed remove EXIF data when saving JPG files.\nHere is the workflow that I have been trying out lately.\nTake pictures in JPG format Use Exifer to add EXIF and select IPTC data Use Microsoft Pro Photo Tools to add GPS and address information (geotagging) Copy all images into an “Originals” folder Edit the images being very selective as to what pictures are to be Photoshopped and shared with the public Publish to SmugMug, Facebook, Flickr, and/or my blog. Copy images to the Storage Area Network device Meta data in the form of EXIF and IPTC information makes it much easier to search for files years later and web sites like SmugMug will take the EXIF data and use them for descriptions, locations, and more on their web site.\nBut I now have proof that during step 5 Photoshop is replacing the EXIF description with the IPTC description and if there is not an IPTC description then the EXIF description is now blank. If the IPTC Description and Author Name are filled out they will be copied to the EXIF fields when the file is saved in Photoshop.\nI originally thought that this issue also affected the geotagging location set using Microsoft Pro Photo Tools, but after testing it on a couple images that does not appear to be the case.\nEXIF data is very important to me and is used to search through thousands of files using web based and software based tools. I find it very disappointing that Photoshop would manipulate the EXIF data without the user explicitly requesting to make a change. From now on I will be adding both EXIF and IPTC data in Step 2.\nRelated Reading\nhttp://www.exif.org/\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchangeable_image_file_format\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPTC\nhttp://www.iptc.org/pages/index.php\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/photoshop-and-meta-data/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have had my suspicions for a couple of years that Photoshop had been stripping out the EXIF data that I inserted into my images with Exifer, and now after a bit of testing I have discovered that Photoshop CS3 does indeed remove EXIF data when saving JPG files.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere is the workflow that I have been trying out lately.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTake pictures in JPG format\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse Exifer to add EXIF and select IPTC data\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse Microsoft Pro Photo Tools to add GPS and address information (geotagging)\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCopy all images into an “Originals” folder\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEdit the images being very selective as to what pictures are to be Photoshopped and shared with the public\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePublish to SmugMug, Facebook, Flickr, and/or my blog.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCopy images to the Storage Area Network device\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMeta data in the form of EXIF and IPTC information makes it much easier to search for files years later and web sites like SmugMug will take the EXIF data and use them for descriptions, locations, and more on their web site.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Photoshop and Meta Data"},{"content":"Almost every day I use Google Reader to read RSS feeds from many different web sites, 44 of them today, and I would like to share the photography feeds.\nThe Big Picture The Big Picture is a blog over at boston.com where they post some of the most amazing pictures of the week. These picture regularly inspire me to get out there and do that thing that I do.\nhttp://www.boston.com/bigpicture/\nBlue Pixel Musings Blue pixel is a site billed as “Inspiring and Educating Photographers Worldwide” and I learn something from them every post.\nhttp://www.bluepixel.net/\nHyperphocal Hyperphocal posts tend to be pretty basic stuff, but I like the subjects they choose and I find something interesting in every post.\nhttp://hyperphocal.com/\nNews: Digital Photography Review DPReview covers everything that is new in photography. It is a great place to learn about new and upcoming cameras.\nhttp://www.dpreview.com/\nPhoto Attorney Photo Attorney is written by Carolyn E. Wright is an attorney who works for photographers. The posts are always relevant to photographers and photography. This is a great source of information on the war against photography.\nhttp://www.photoattorney.com/\nPhoto-Resoures.org Photo-Resources is full of posts similar to this one, bringing attention to other web sites and resources with every post.\nhttp://photo-resources.org\nPhoto Permit Photo Permit is a great blog to keep you on top of what is happening in the war on photography.\nhttp://www.photopermit.org/\nPhotoshop Insider This is Scott Kelby’s blog about Photoshop and photography. It is also where you can keep track of the worldwide photo walk (http://www.photoshopuser.com/photowalk/).\nhttp://www.scottkelby.com/\nRob Galbraith DPI This blog is usually very short posts about anything that may be happening in the world of photography from photo slideshows to new equipment reviews and announcements.\nhttp://www.robgalbraith.com/\nSisters Jason Lee is a great wedding photographer who has made a project out of taking and manipulating photos of his two daughters. The results are amazing an fantastic!\nhttp://kristinandkayla.blogspot.com/\nStrobist The Strobist has a cult-like following for the great posts about lighting and photography. There is a lot to learn as it is not just a blog but also includes tutorials about off-camera lighting.\nhttp://strobist.blogspot.com\nStudioLighting.net Studio lighting dot net contains a lot of tutorials and the blog feed contains new camera and accessory announcements.\nhttp://www.studiolighting.net/\nTWIP I have written about This Week In Photography as a podcast before, but it is also a great blog with tutorials, product reviews, and more.\nhttp://twipphoto.com/\nZack Arias Zack is an Atlanta based editorial and music photographer who also produces DVD tutorials. I like the photos that Zack shares via his blog and the local Atlanta flair appeals to me.\nhttp://www.zarias.com/\nVincent Laforet’s Blog Vincent is in China shooting the Olympics and is planning to blog about it all along the way. Including an awesome post about what he has packed to capture the event.\nhttp://vincentlaforet.wordpress.com/\nSports Shooter I do not look at Sports Shooter every day and do not subscribe to a feed from them, but I do recommend checking the site out on a regular basis for lots of great information about being a professional photographer.\nhttp://www.sportsshooter.com\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/photogrpahy-blogs/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAlmost every day I use Google Reader to read RSS feeds from many different web sites, 44 of them today, and I would like to share the photography feeds.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"the-big-picture\"\u003eThe Big Picture\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Big Picture is a blog over at boston.com where they post some of the most amazing pictures of the week. These picture regularly inspire me to get out there and do that thing that I do.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/\"\u003ehttp://www.boston.com/bigpicture/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Photogrpahy Blogs"},{"content":"The Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) is a web based stock trading game that trades in the success and failure of movies. The game is free to play and can provide some real insight into how a stock exchange works and what makes for a successful movie.\nBy creating an account you receive $2 million HSX dollars to buy and sell stocks, bonds, and funds with. It is plenty of money to jump right in and create a portfolio that can take off but not so much money that you cannot lose most of it in one bad weekend.\nOn HSX you can trade in stocks, bonds, and funds. Stocks are holdings in specific movies, bonds are holdings in credited actors, and funds are managed groups of stocks and bonds that have been brought together to create a single investment.\nThe most powerful feature of HSX is the community forums, here you can learn about what movies are in development, who’s career is taking off, what the next big movie is going to be, and more about movies than anywhere else.\nI really enjoy playing the Hollywood Stock Exchange game. It keeps me informed about upcoming movies and how well the HSX community thinks they will do at the box office.\nMy Username is Phrop, look me up and let me know what you think about the game.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/hollywood-stock-exchange/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"http://www.hsx.com\"\u003eHollywood Stock Exchange (HSX)\u003c/a\u003e is a web based stock trading game that trades in the success and failure of movies. The game is free to play and can provide some real insight into how a stock exchange works and what makes for a successful movie.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy creating an account you receive $2 million HSX dollars to buy and sell stocks, bonds, and funds with.  It is plenty of money to jump right in and create a portfolio that can take off but not so much money that you cannot lose most of it in one bad weekend.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Hollywood Stock Exchange"},{"content":"We really enjoyed ourselves at Stone Mountain Park Thursday night with the laser light show and fireworks display. I get excited about any opportunity to take pictures of fireworks and this night proved to be exceptional. I didn’t get a lot of pictures, but having the carving at Stone Mountain as a backdrop to the fireworks makes for some wonderful pictures.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/stone-mountain-park-fantastic-fourth-celebration/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5324761_KGGw5\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Fireworks at Stone Mountain\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/325296254_DfXsP-S.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eWe really enjoyed ourselves at \u003ca href=\"http://www.stonemountainpark.com/\"\u003eStone Mountain Park\u003c/a\u003e Thursday night with the laser light show and fireworks display. I get excited about any opportunity to take pictures of fireworks and this night proved to be exceptional. I didn’t get a lot of pictures, but having the carving at Stone Mountain as a backdrop to the fireworks makes for some \u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5324761_KGGw5\" title=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5324761_KGGw5\"\u003ewonderful pictures\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Stone Mountain Park Fantastic Fourth Celebration"},{"content":"About four years ago I found myself deep in debt to the point that I spent many nights laying awake worrying about it. I was making enough money to pay the bills that came in the mail every month, but there wasn’t a lot of money left over for having fun. I was fed up and sick of it all.\nI sat down with my computer and worked out a written budget, I included everything I spent money on every month, all of the bills, food, gas, rent, etc… Putting everything in a spreadsheet where I could see exactly where the money was going made it much easier for me to funnel more money to my largest bills. After two years I had made a very nice dent in the mountain of debt.\nThen I heard this guy on the radio telling people that they needed to have a written budget and to spend every dollar on purpose. This rang true enough with me that I started to really listen to him and tweaking the way I was working my plan.\nHis name is Dave Ramsey and over the last couple of years his plan has helped thousands of people make a real difference in their lives, including mine. Dave’s message is now available on the radio, television, multiple best selling books, and Financial Peace University.\nAbout a year ago I married my beautiful wife; we owed money on two cars, credit cards, and a student loan. Over the past year, following what we learned by reading “The Total Money Makeover” and “Financial Peace Revisited” along with taking the “Financial Peace University Online” course, we not only paid off all those loans, but we were also able to pay cash for our wedding, buy a new camera, pay for a broken timing belt, and many other surprises that were no big deal because we had a plan.\nWhat we have learned from Dave Ramsey over the last two years has not only changed our lives but will have repercussions for our entire family tree for generations to come.\nFor more information about Dave Ramsey and FPU:\nhttp://www.daveramsey.com The Truth About Debt Scriptures on Finance Financial Peace University We are holding FPU at St. Michaels in Brookhaven August 19th to November 11th on Tuesday nights. Contact Neal Marwitz at class=\u0026ldquo;ldacoc\u0026rdquo; for more information or to sign up.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/financial-peace/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAbout four years ago I found myself deep in debt to the point that I spent many nights laying awake worrying about it. I was making enough money to pay the bills that came in the mail every month, but there wasn’t a lot of money left over for having fun. I was fed up and sick of it all.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI sat down with my computer and worked out a written budget, I included everything I spent money on every month, all of the bills, food, gas, rent, etc… Putting everything in a spreadsheet where I could see exactly where the money was going made it much easier for me to funnel more money to my largest bills. After two years I had made a very nice dent in the mountain of debt.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Financial Peace"},{"content":"It was a great game and want to thank Sam for the opportunity to come out and take photos. Head on over to SmugMug and check out the pictures of Raptors T-Ball action.\nWhen taking pictures of children playing sports I prefer to be at eye level or lower to the players, with the Raptors I was able to sit on the field and get the type of shots that I really like. I am making a lot more pictures available than I normally would since I probably won’t have a chance to shoot another game this season.\nPlease don’t get to distracted by the slideshow, there are much larger versions for viewing and for sale over at SmugMug.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/raptors-t-ball/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt was a great game and want to thank Sam for the opportunity to come out and take photos. Head on over to SmugMug and check out the \u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/5251620_GxULD\"\u003epictures of Raptors\u003c/a\u003e T-Ball action.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen taking pictures of children playing sports I prefer to be at eye level or lower to the players, with the Raptors I was able to sit on the field and get the type of shots that I really like. I am making a lot more pictures available than I normally would since I probably won’t have a chance to shoot another game this season.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Raptors T-Ball"},{"content":"I learned about Microsoft Pro Photo Tools a couple of months ago when researching ways to geotag my photos. Version 1.0 of the software allows you to easily edit the EXIF and IPTC meta data of your JPG images.\nAfter using the tool for a couple of months I have reverted to using the tried-and-true Exifer to add copyright, contact, and descriptions to my images. I feel like Microsoft Pro Photo Tools does not make it clear exactly what it is I am editing, EXIF or IPTC.\nBut what this software does excel at is geotagging. Under the Map Browse tab is an interface to Microsoft Virtual Earth that allows you to select one or more images and place them on the map which assigns latitude and longitude coordinates to the EXIF data. Very quick and easy compared to other tools I have tried on WindowsXP.\nThe geo info tagged in the EXIF data allows services such as Picassa, SmugMug, Flickr, Panoramio, and many more to place your photos on maps for users to find them by browsing maps. I highly recommend checking out the new “More… Photos” option in a Google Maps search.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/microsoft-pro-photo-tools-for-geotagging/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI learned about \u003ca href=\"http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/tools.aspx\"\u003eMicrosoft Pro Photo Tools\u003c/a\u003e a couple of months ago when researching ways to geotag my photos. Version 1.0 of the software allows you to easily edit the EXIF and IPTC meta data of your JPG images.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter using the tool for a couple of months I have reverted to using the tried-and-true \u003ca href=\"http://www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer/\"\u003eExifer\u003c/a\u003e to add copyright, contact, and descriptions to my images. I feel like Microsoft Pro Photo Tools does not make it clear exactly what it is I am editing, EXIF or IPTC.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Microsoft Pro Photo Tools for Geotagging"},{"content":"I’ll give the new Hulk movie a 6 out of 10, better than average. I really enjoyed it, it was nice that it was a continuation of the first movie without feeling like a sequel. The action was clean and plentiful but not relentless and the slower parts were full of character development. The tie-in with the Avengers movie was awesome.\nThe Incredible Hulk (2008) 6 out of 10\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-incredible-hulk-2008/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI’ll give the new Hulk movie a 6 out of 10, better than average. I really enjoyed it, it was nice that it was a continuation of the first movie without feeling like a sequel. The action was clean and plentiful but not relentless and the slower parts were full of character development. The tie-in with the Avengers movie was awesome.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Incredible Hulk (2008) 6 out of 10\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Incredible Hulk (2008)"},{"content":"There is a new war being waged, at a time when more people have access to more cameras of all types there is wave a fear, hysteria, and doubt washing over the world. It is only in the last couple of months that this war has come to light, more and more people are being affected by it and getting thier voices heard on TV and the internet.\nYou can begin reading with this article and video about a New Mexico photographer who is detained by police for trying to do his job. His claim is that the police did not make it clear to him where he could safely work and then attacked him AFTER he left the area.\nThen this photographer who regularly visits Coney Island who had an unreasonable mother get the police involved because she believes he may have taken photos of her child.\nBruce Schneier of The Guardian has written a great piece that points out the fact that no known terrorists have photographed thier intended targets.\nUnion Station in Washington D. C. has become a beacon highlighting the issues at hand, during a video interview with the Chief Spokesperson for Union Station who was in the middle of explaining that photography was indeed allowed in Union Station a security guard interrupts to tell them they cannot photograph there.\nAs a follow up Joel Lawson has written a posts about “The Union Station Flap” and a follow-up “She’s Serious About Those Hearings” about how Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) is getting involved to ensure that photographers will have the right to take photos in Union Station.\nIn Seattle it appears that after several incidents something has been done and the police have been given clearer instruction about photographers rights.\nI hope that as photographers we can respect the people around us and get the photos we want without upsetting anyone. But we must also stand up to the people that are trying to take away our rights. There is a great document that you can use that outlines your right at Bert P. Krages web site known as “The Photographers Rights.” Keeping a copy of it handy may help answer questions for law enforcement and security guards.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/war-on-photography/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThere is a new war being waged, at a time when more people have access to more cameras of all types there is wave a fear, hysteria, and doubt washing over the world. It is only in the last couple of months that this war has come to light, more and more people are being affected by it and getting thier voices heard on TV and the internet.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou can begin reading with this article and video about a \u003ca href=\"http://kob.com/article/stories/S460300.shtml?cat=500\"\u003eNew Mexico photographer who is detained\u003c/a\u003e by police for trying to do his job. His claim is that the police did not make it clear to him where he could safely work and then attacked him AFTER he left the area.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"War on Photography"},{"content":"TWIP is my favorite photgraphy podcast and has a great blog to go along with it. The community that has formed around TWIP is amazing with many great photographers who are happy to critique and share wonderful photos and ideas.\nAlex Lindsay and Scott Bourne really bring the show to life with regular contributors Steve Simon, Ron Brinkmann, and Fred Johnson, you can find more details about each of them on the TWIP Staff page. Thier combined knowledge of photgraphy, computer software, and the technology that surronds photography makes TWIP a fantastic show that covers the world of photography.\nThe TWIP crew uses Flickr to host a photo group, a critique group, and contests. The attitudes in the flickr groups remains uniquely positive and the prizes for the contests always result in great photos and even better prizes.\nI highly recommend the TWIP podcast, video podcast, and blog to anyone who has an interest in photography and technology.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/this-week-in-photography-twip/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://twipphoto.com/\"\u003eTWIP\u003c/a\u003e is my favorite photgraphy podcast and has a great blog to go along with it. The community that has formed around TWIP is amazing with many great photographers who are happy to critique and share wonderful photos and ideas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlex Lindsay and Scott Bourne really bring the show to life with regular contributors Steve Simon, Ron Brinkmann, and Fred Johnson, you can find more details about each of them on the \u003ca href=\"http://twipphoto.com/index.php/about\"\u003eTWIP Staff\u003c/a\u003e page. Thier combined knowledge of photgraphy, computer software, and the technology that surronds photography makes TWIP a fantastic show that covers the world of photography.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"This Week in Photography (TWIP)"},{"content":"This movie left me bored. I am a fan of M. Night Shyamalan, I even think Lady in the Water was not a terrible movie, but this movie really was a let down. I think it was the script that was the weakest link, the actors appeared rushed, and Mark Wahlberg came across as a whiner, but none of the actors were bad. So it boils down to a very slow horror movie that has no action and no real plot.\nThe Happening 4 out of 10\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-happening/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis movie left me bored. I am a fan of \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0796117/\"\u003eM. Night Shyamalan\u003c/a\u003e, I even think Lady in the Water was not a terrible movie, but this movie really was a let down. I think it was the script that was the weakest link, the actors appeared rushed, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000242/\"\u003eMark Wahlberg\u003c/a\u003e came across as a whiner, but none of the actors were bad. So it boils down to a very slow horror movie that has no action and no real plot.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Happening"},{"content":"After a lot of consideration we have decided to buy a second Palm Centro instead of an iPhone.\nThere many reasons I would really like a 3G iPhone, iTunes support, a beautiful screen, a decent camera, great web browser, and now with the App store about to open I am sure there will be a lot of great applications available. But I have been a PalmOS user for many years, right from the begining actually with the Palm Personal.\nI have a lot of software for the PalmOS including Chapura Express, Documents to Go, Mobipocket, Jmileage, a handful of games, and some productivity tools. I have the phone sync’d with my Yahoo! calendar which is sync’d with both my personal calendar and my office calendar.\nI find the real keyboard on the centro much easier to type on, it works for me even with motorcycle gloves when I enter my mileage. In fact, I typed this into Word To Go before posting it.\nCost is another consideration, with a 2-year extension the Centro is only $99 and add $20 for a 4GB microSD card. Compared to the cost of the $299 iPhone it is a real bargain. And with the Centro you can choose from different providers instead of being stuck with AT\u0026amp;T not to mention a wider choice of plans than the iPhone.\nOh yeah, with the Centro I can cut-and-paste, even between apps.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/why-not-an-iphone/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAfter a lot of consideration we have decided to buy a second Palm Centro instead of an iPhone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere many reasons I would really like a 3G iPhone, iTunes support, a beautiful screen, a decent camera, great web browser, and now with the App store about to open I am sure there will be a lot of great applications available. But I have been a PalmOS user for many years, right from the begining actually with the Palm Personal.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Why not an iPhone"},{"content":"\nRobert Asprin, Yang the Nauseating, has passed away. I will miss him dearly. The Mythadventures web site has a very nice eulogy and the Everything New Orleans web site has an obituary.\nWikipedia has a nice entry for Robert along with a bibliography of his work.\n","permalink":"https://davenelson.com/the-first-post-is-a-sad-post/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/3415437_w2qDC/36/191354454_FnCht/Medium\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Robert Asprin\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://davenelson.smugmug.com/photos/191354454_FnCht-Th.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRobert Asprin, Yang the Nauseating, has passed away. I will miss him dearly. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.mythadventures.net/\" title=\"http://www.mythadventures.net/\"\u003eMythadventures\u003c/a\u003e web site has a very nice eulogy and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nola.com/\" title=\"http://www.nola.com/\"\u003eEverything New Orleans\u003c/a\u003e web site has an \u003ca href=\"http://www.nola.com/obituaries/t-p/index.ssf?/base/obits-33/1211779298168830.xml\" title=\"http://www.nola.com/obituaries/t-p/index.ssf?/base/obits-33/1211779298168830.xml\"\u003eobituary\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Asprin\" title=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Asprin\"\u003eWikipedia\u003c/a\u003e has a nice entry for Robert along with a bibliography of his work.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The First Post is a Sad Post"}]