Dave Nelson Posts

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.

Night 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.

Like 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.

From the publisher:

”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

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and think all Doctor Who fans would love it.

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.”

The 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.

The 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?

From the author’s web site for White Night:

Someone 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.

Harry 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.

Harry knows that if he screws this one up, a lot of people will die–and one of them will be his brother.

For Small Favor:

No 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.

An 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.

It figures. Everything was going too well to last…

I rate these books an 8 out of 10 and look forward to listening to the next books in the series.

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.

After 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!

So 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.

At 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.

I said “no thank you” and left the book on the counter in front of the sales clerk and walked out of the store.

In 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.

I 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 & Noble and Borders are dead to me.

With 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.

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.

The 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.

With 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.

Although 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.

I 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.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 for those who are interested in building with Lego.

I have continued listening to the Dresden Files books from Audible narrated by James Marsters.

The 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.

Harry 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.

I highly recommend the series and rate it as an 8 out of 10.

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.

A 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.

From 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.

The 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.

It 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.

I read Firebug 1.5: Editing, Debugging, and Monitoring Web Pages by Chandan Luthra and Deepak Mittal using Safari Books Online.

I 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.

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.

Of 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.

High 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.

Looking 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.

I 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.

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.

I 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.

The 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.

The 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.

From Jim Butcher’s web site:
Storm Front

Harry 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.

There’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.

Magic. It can get a guy killed.

Fool Moon

Business 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.

But just when it looks like he can’t afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise.

A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses — and the first two don’t count…

I rate these books a 9 out of 10 and recommend them for anyone who enjoys any of these genres: paranormal, detective, or fantasy.

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.

I 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.

It 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.

From the publisher:

Everyone 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.

Related Links:
http://www.delanceystreetfoundation.org/

I rate this book an 7 out of 10 for those interested in books that research influence and behavior.

Man I love these Doctor Who novels; they are like munching on great candies.

The 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.

This 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.

I 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.