STG's

The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life, by Thomas M. Sterner is an interesting book, that mostly focus on how to approach learning in a way that is pleasurable. Overall, though, it seems to me that the advice is a little too generic to be truly useful. Still somewhat interesting, but much less helpful than it could have been.

The Little Book of Talent , by Daniel Coyle, cover 52 tips to improve your skills. The book is short, clear, and to the point, and the tips are usually actionable and very useful. Research shows that just practicing isn't enough - practicing at the edge between what you can do and what you can't do (yet) is where you can get the most improvement. And many of the tips cover just this. Well worth checking out.

I recently finished Shadow of Mordor. One thing that took me a while to figure out is how to finish the mission "Brand the Warchiefs". That is because two of my branded chiefs had killed one while I was away. This is very easy to solve, though. Just go to one of the towers of light and speed up time, the problem will correct itself with some other chief taking the warchief's place. If you brand all chiefs before that is even better, as you might just have the mission complete itself automatically (as it happened to me).

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life - by Scott Adams - is a very interesting self-help book/biography by Scott Adams. The book is full of interesting advice in how to approach projects - and how to learn from failures and accept them as part of learning. One piece of advice that I have seen in many places and that I feel deserves some attention is the idea of not relying on goals, but on a process. For example, if your goal is to lose N pounds every day you didn't reach the weight you are failing at it.  However, if your process is exercising a little daily and eating right, you can succeed on a daily basis.  The book is filled with useful advice like this (and much more specific), plus interesting stories from Scott's life. Recommended.

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is an open world game based on Middle Earth stories. You are a ranger that got melded with an elf wraith through a blood sacrifice, and now you have powers that will help you kill a whole lot of orcs. The last game I played was Far Cry 3, and it feels really, really similar in many ways. Besides the main missions, you go around attacking places - not bases, though, mostly small interventions where you kill captains in interesting ways. The most interesting part about captains is that you can interrogate other orcs to get information on them - and it is immensely helpful. For example, a mission that I gave up was killing a particularly warchief, as I couldn't figure out how to kill him and his escort. Then on a second time I just managed to sneak up on him, and as he was vulnerable to stealth attacks, I killed him in seconds. There are also plenty of abilities and upgrades you can buy - either with Experience or cash. Really fun stuff, includin...

Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is shaping our Future - by Ashlee Vance - is a very entertaining biography about Elon Musk (which as the title says, is the biggest drive behind SpaceX and Tesla, and is also involved in SolarCity - all companies with possible huge effects in the world).  The story half reads as a bigger-than-life fictional account of what a genius industrialist goes through to save the world from pollution (with Tesla and SolarCity) and to get us into space. The fact that it all happened makes it even more interesting. It also made me really want to get a Tesla. Well, kind of... The triumphs really do, but the listings of problems don't (irrelevant either way as they are not available here)... Less revisions and "free" gas would be great, though. I'd also love to get cheap solar from SolarCity! Overall, very entertaining, and pretty much recommended for anyone interested in any of the companies.

Video War - by Stephen Manes - is seriously old - 1983. I actually got it into a video game related bundle at StoryBundle, and was fairly sure it was a new book that was very retro :-) The main story is about an attempt to ban arcades in a small town. Of course, the story also veers into the political organization create to avoid this, and the personal life of the protagonists. The book is pretty light and very "young adult", but was still very enjoyable.

The Aeronaut's Windless, by Jim Butcher, was a wonderful surprise to me. I don't always like the steampunk style, but since I knew the author from the Dresden files, I decided to try the sample. After finishing, I immediately bought it, and proceeded to sleep much, much, later than usual - I just couldn't put it down. The story setting is certainly off the beaten path - people live on huge spires because the ground and mist are full of very dangerous predators. The tech level is mostly steampunk, and the Builders are constantly referred to, which clearly implies that the spires were created by much more advanced tech. Weapons are mostly based on crystals that can deliver huge blasts of energy, edged weapons or rarely, gunpowder based guns, because rust is pretty common and dangerous here. There are huge airships, which are of course a large part of the focus on the story. They stay aloof using lift crystals and power crystals, which take their energy from the "ae...

BrainWeb, by Douglas E. Richards, is the sequence to Mind's Eye - where a man gets kidnapped and experimented on, and as a result gets implants that allow him to use the web and read minds. In this sequel, he is working for the government when an impressive terrorist attacks takes place. The idea for it is pretty awesome, and it is unstoppable. The action here is great. You might assume that the books end with the attack being stopped. But no, this is just the beginning of the book. The rest is still good, but this start was a tough act to follow. It is still pretty good, however. Recommended, but read the first novel before reading this one - it is not really required but it will be much more enjoyable.

The Shepherd's Crown is the last book by Terry Pratchett in the Discworld. I've read a ton of the novel, mostly a few years ago when I first started following the series. I haven't read most of the latest. The book is good, as usual, although not really in the scale it'd need to truly be a satisfying end for the series - which could only be possible if it was an epic. Still, very enjoyable. I'd like to see the series continue with other writers, but that seems unlikely right now. It reminds me of the trilogy of new Foundation books by Bear, Brin and Benford which were pretty good and took it on innovative paths... I imagine a lot of people will instead think of the new books in the Dune series by his son - some of which I personally liked but that were really battered for not being as good as the original...

Prompt Me, by W.P. Kimball, is a harder book than usual to define. It is a set of many short stories inspired by Reddit's WritingPrompts subreddit - where the post authors send writing prompts and people can write their own stories as comments. I got it because I occasionally read these (when they end up on the Front Page for me, usually), and I've grow to notice how many good stories the author posted. There are plenty of great stories in this book, in several genres. Some are touching, some are clever, and some made me LOL hard. Very much recommended.

Windows 8.1 Missing Manual - by David Pogue - is a nice view into many ways of doing things in Windows 8.1 that you probably ignored. Pretty good, and full of useful tidbits. Obviously less relevant with Windows 10 already out.

Aftermath: Star Wars: Journey to The Force Awakens - by Chuck Wendig - is a book in the Star Wars universe. It takes place after the last movie in the original trilogy, and is itself part of a trilogy. The book mostly covers a tiny bit of the aftermath - an Empire meeting, and the people who stumble on them - Captain Wedge Antilles, a Y-Wing pilot returning home, her son and a bounty hunter. On other words, mostly the minor characters. Chewie and Han Solo do appear, but it is just like there was a checkbox that demanded they appeared in the book. Maybe they will do more in the rest of the trilogy. People seem to really have disliked the book (2 and a half stars on Amazon right now). Personally, I enjoyed it, but it is definitely nothing memorable.

Fate of Ten is the latest - and penultimate - book in the I am number Four series. This takes part just after the invasion begins, and people start getting powers. Overall, pretty good, but somewhat short - as usual.

The Phoenix Code, by Catherise Asaro, is a SF book about a group trying to make the first sentient android. It is somewhat entertaining, but it mostly moves a little too slowly, and I was expecting the final twist from the beginning of the book. The twist takes so much time to appear and is so clearly hinted at that I was actually bothered by how long it took. Overall, OK. I've read some other books by the author (long, long ago) and they were both better and more innovative.

RocketsRocketsRockets is a shooter with (you guessed it) rockets. It looks OK and everything, but I just hate the control scheme (press the direction you want to go - feels MUCH MUCH worse than the alternate Thrust/Left/Right/Brake), and the constant zoom in/out is very annoying. The music is OK, though :-)

Steam Marines is a turn-based tactical rogue-like shooter with retro graphics. I have played other turn-based games before and enjoyed them, but for some reason the turn based aspect here is just getting on my nerves. I might try again later, but so far I really didn't enjoy the gameplay at all...

Reassembly is an interesting ship shooter, where ship building is a big component. In Reassembly, your ship is made of smaller, vector components - pieces such as hull, thrusters or weapons - such as lasers, plasma cannons, missile/torpedo/drone launchers. You can see the building screen below - you just drag and rotate the components in place. Yes, that is awful looking ship I designed, but it isn't half bad in combat! You go around destroying ships of the other factions. The neatest part is that you can just put together 4 different ships design, and every time you press F (and if you have enough resources), a new ship is built by your factory. And soon you can have a huge fleet of ships fighting for you. You start with a small ship, but as you collect stuff around in space and leftovers of destroyed ships, you accumulate resources, which can be exchanged for credits - which allow you to get unlock extra pieces for your ship and to make it larger and larger. ...

You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir - by Felicia Day - is a book her upbringing, work and production company. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of her work. I liked her appearances on Buffy, Supernatural and Eureka, but I'm not a fan of The Guild (I watched just a couple of episodes) or anything by her own production company (maybe the Dragon Age videos). Still, the reviews were pretty good, so I went along and bought it on release day. I'm glad I did, it was fairly entertaining, specially the old reminiscing on old tech - I too had a Geocities page! I felt a little tense about the parts about her depression and other problems, but there were plenty of LOL moments. And the whole Gamergate thing is just crazy. Most notable quote on the book: "...don't study!". There was some more text on the line, but I feel that was the most relevant part. :-) Overall, fun, with some dramatic moments and a somewhat uplifting finish, but I imagine i...

The Annihilation Score, by Charles Stross, is a book on the Laundry Files series. The laundry series is about a group of the UK government (The Laundry) that protects the country against Lovecraftian horrors. In this volume, the narration is for the first time by Mo O'Brien - the wife of the usual main character. What she faces is the start of a breakdown in reality, where common people start getting occult powers, which naturally they view and frame as superpowers and start being supervillans and superheroes. This is a very, very different path from the usual Laundry series, and tends to be more humorous, with use of slight slapstick comedy in places. I didn't really like it as much as the rest of the series, and it seemed to drag a little around the middle. It does pick up around the end, which is quite satisfying (and avoids the "it all ends well" with everyone being saved that so many books follow).

I recently was suggested Diaspora, by Greg Egan. It is an older book (1997) which is about societies of software-generated sentient entities and uploaded humans, which are called polis. The beginning of the book goes into an interesting view of how intelligent entities could be generated, and  including how they would be created, learn, and achieve sentience. This was probably the most interesting part of the book. Most of the rest concerns how the polis decide to spread beyond the solar system after a major cosmological event. It is pretty good at pieces, but Egan seems to get a little carried away explaining the details of the theory upon which the tech on the book depends. Personally this wasn't very interesting to me. Overall, the book is good and the view of human uploads and how their societies would be is excellent, but the pace is marred by an excess of details. Still very much worth reading if you like th etopic.

I have been using Apple Music since shortly after it became available. I have used it on an iPad Air, and on my PC. My smartphone uses Android and there is support for it so far. I have only used it at home, with a 60 Mbps internet connection. Apple Music has a great selection. Still, there are clearly some restrictions, at least for Brazil, as some music will appear with a faded title and isn't available to play. That is not very common, though. The playlists on For You are usually excellent, and a good portion are very relevant to what I like. In that aspect, the service is pretty good. The playlists on New tend to be good though, but they are clearly not as focused on what I like. Overall, this seems much better than my (relatively short) experience with Spotify. The iPad app is, quite simply, spectacularly bad. It will crash again and again, and not while doing complex things - just returning to a playing music will sometimes crash it. Adding a music will crash it, starti...

Hitman:Sniper is a new version, mobile version of the pre-sale game for Hitman:Absolution. In both, the plot is very simple - you are Agent 47, carrying out an assignment, sniping from a distance. You get challenges - headshots, number of guard kills, kills that look like an accident and so on. The game is pretty fun, but it can feel a little repetitive because you only get the one level. You can also unlock new weapons as the missions go by. The game has an unwelcome pay-to-win component as you can buy some of the better weapons outright. They aren't cheap either - US$9,99 for the best one. Personally, I feel the interface is acceptable, given the mobile possibilities. Shooting felt much more precise and fast when using a mouse, though. Maybe they will release a PC version as the pre-sell of the next Hitman game... Overall, pretty good, but a little too repetitive.

I 'm   was going to keep this brief (but got carried away), because Far Cry 3 is pretty old. But I only got around to trying it a few weeks ago, way after the Steam sale where I got it. I really liked the original Far Cry. The engine was great, but the nicest thing is that the game didn't care how you accomplished objectives. You could come up with plenty of ways to do things, many of them nowhere near being imagined by the designers. Far Cry 2 had the annoying malaria part (which is jokingly mentioned in 3), and for these and other reasons I never played more than the start. I am mostly enjoying Far Cry 3. I like the whole open world style, and the "destroy enemy bases" mechanism. Speaking about those, I really like how the whole stealth thing goes, but that you are still not forced to be stealthy (it is just much easier). Also, the bases have very nice varieties, so every approach can be a little different. Some are a bit too easy, though. Graphics are prett...

Armada, by Ernest Cline, is a science fiction book with lot of eighties pop culture references - just like his previous book - Ready Player One  . The books are not related, and while Armada is pretty good, I recently re-read Ready Player One and it wins easily. Armada is clearly inspired by The Last Starfighter, and quite mildly by Ender's Game. I imagine most people who have seen both movies or read the books already have a pretty good idea where this is going. The main character is Zack, who is 18, still at high school, and on a class he suddenly sees an alien spaceship - which looks exactly like one from his favorite game. Is he losing his mind? His father had a crazy notebook with theories about aliens... Personally I felt that it felt too derivative until the middle, but then things pick up and it is pretty good till the end (which allows for continuations). There is also heavy mentions of mix tapes left by Zack father - which certainly reminds me of Guardians of th...

Seveneves - by Neal Stephenson - is a SF novel. I'm already a big fan of the author - specially because of Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, so once I saw the blurb that was distributed some weeks before the release I just had to get it. The main event that starts the story is that somehow, the moon is destroyed and break ups in several pieces. Which are constantly bumping into each other and breaking up. Soon enough they realize that Earth is going to get a nice set of rings, like Saturn. However, a lot of those pieces are going to start falling and the whole is planet is going to burn for thousands of years. Now their only chance is to Exit Earth into space... or go deep underground or in the ocean. The whole thing reminds me a lot of Exit Earth by Martin Caidin, where the solar system passed through a slightly denser cloud of dust, which just happens to make the sun burns hotter and gets you the same effect - i.e. scorched Earth. The ways they use to try to escape is simil...

The Turing Exception - by William Hertling - is the fourth book in the Singularity series, which starts with an AI being created , has an AI war , AIs and humans (mostly) coexisting and prospering , and now goes to a full dystopia. After a really bad incident, AIs are considered a major threat and many are shut down. The others are not happy with how this is going and are ready to go full Skynet... A lot of interesting tech and ideas here. The previous books started with reasonable, minor advances on today's tech but this went almost full singularity on us. Plenty of nanotech doing a whole lot of stuff, multiple existences through mind uploads, and much more. Overall, really good, with a very reasonable and exciting ending that is not the easy way out (minor spoiler: wait, the AIs design a lot of crazy stuff and build it almost instantly with nanotech, but have to request real rockets? WTF?) (on a funny note, searching the title in Amazon gets you C++ and Object-Oriented Nu...

An Unwelcome Quest - by Scott Meyer - is the third novel in the Magic 2.0 series. In the series, some people discover a file that proves that the world is a computer simulation, and end up traveling to the dark ages to use manipulations of the file as magic (sounds silly, I know - but in the novels it goes a lot better than in my summary). In this installment, another of the wizards that were banned without powers get his powers back, and creates a deadly quest for the wizards that banned him. Overall, pretty good, although a bit short and not as good as the first book. Still, if you liked the series it is well worth reading.

Imminence - Highland World in Crisis - by David Trump - is an SF novel with an interesting mix of high and low tech. The novel starts with a cute premise - using an asteroid with uploaded people to colonize new worlds. I can't recall seeing a hyper drive where you actually moved back in time, though. After an accident, a colony is created, which leads to a society that is low tech except for some elements that most people don't understand (such as transports between the separate worlds). I usually prefer more high tech, but this worked well, and overall I found it interesting, although it feels like the writing could be better.

The Last Firewall - by William Hertling - is the third book in the Singularity series - which covers AIs. I have really liked and reviewed the first two books in the series Avogrado Corp  and AI Apocalypse . It actually took me this long to read the third novel because I simply forgot I had it, and it got lost in the large number of unread Kindle book I have. When I was reminded by Amazon suggesting the fourth book, I read it under a day. The Last Firewall continues the series deeper in the future, after AIs became commonplace and have now replaced humans for most work. Because jobs are so rare and goods produced by AIs are so cheap, people in the US get an stipend. Everyone has an implant. AIs are strictly regulated in how much processing they can have and a social index has been created to judge them. But now humans are being killed through their implants, and a girl with a unique implant is discovering her powers... Really liked this one. The tech is way more fictional t...

Gray Justice - by Alan McDermott - is a very clever techno thriller. An ex-soldier loses his wife and child because of the actions of a thief - which is soon back on the street. And then decides to abduct him and a few criminals to make a show out of it where the country votes if they should live or die - while making the authorities let him do it because he placed a device that can kill thousands somewhere... Not only isn't everything what it seems, but also at the same time a terrorist group takes an interest in the situation. Very good, and I kind of liked some of the measures that are suggested to make the justice system more effective.

Hunters of the Dead is a Tower Defense (kind of) and strategic game where you fight several monsters while trying to kill Dracula. You start with a single building and defender, and you can at each day (turn) try to clear another building. There is a chance of a battle, and if you survive it you get the benefits of the screen below - such as a new defender, faster healing, new guns, etc. Except for the battles, you might have seen this as a flash game (using a zombie wasteland) before. Battle takes place with a grid where you put your defenders - which might remind you of Plants vs Zombies, except that you can actually move your defenders a few times. Every defender has experience that rises when it kills an enemy, and can receive guns you collect at guns stores. They also need to heal and to rest every few rounds, which can be very bad (i.e.: at starting levels it is very easy to have all your defenders resting). The game grid is random, and the game itself is very hard...

The Martian, by Andy Weir, is a SF novel - a very popular one, which appeared the New York Times best seller list and the top of Amazon's SF section. Even with those credentials, I didn't really have high expectations for it. I was quite wrong - it is very, very good. The story covers an astronaut that is left for dead by his team on Mars, and has to use his wits to survive. However, the obvious care for the research of reasonable tech, problems and solutions is what makes the novel really shine. Very, very good and strongly recommended.

The Peripheral, by William Gibson, is a SF novel that takes place mostly in the near future - where drones and 3D printing are very common. I say mostly because it has an interesting little time travel component, in which paradoxes are nicely avoided. The peripherals are telepresence machines that you can use the experience other places, instantly, in a human-like package or various other similar forms. I thought the beginning was a bit slow, but overall a pretty good read. The near tech in particular is very convincing.

For no good reason, I keep posting these early on every year. So I am doing it again. This year, almost every stat went down (counting my professional blog, restaurant blog and microsites): Posts: 81 (last year 152) Fiction Book Reviews: 34 (last year 39) Technical Book Reviews: 7 (last year 13 - this year had some 1000+ page books on, though) Game Reviews: 27 (last year 53) Visitors:  18030 (last year  24712 ) This year I am not happy with my posting habits. I am also fairly sure I completely skipped reviewing some books I read, and reviewed some so many months after reading that the review was more of a blurb. M y newest microsite,  Directory Printer  , had 4 times as much traffic! (all of the microsites did very well, but I neglected posting on my main professional blog and that had an effect) Nice, specially considering they had no  new posts last year... Thanks for reading!