It's A Binary World 2.0

Category: Culture & Entertainment

  • Review: Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing Others

    Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing Others by James M. Kouzes My rating: 2 of 5 stars I received this book as part of a manager training seminar I attended. It’s not my first management improvement book and it’s not my first touchy feel-y self-improvement book. My dad had me read…

  • Review: The Anatomy of Super Mario Vol. 1

    The Anatomy of Super Mario Vol. 1 by Jeremy Parish My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is a matter class on Mario. I thought I knew all there was to know about Mario. Not only have I read a lot of the histories, but I was there. Mario was my first game; the…

  • Review: Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play

    Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play by Morgan Ramsay My rating: 2 of 5 stars On the negative side, I didn’t realize beforehand this was written by a venture capitalist guy from the point of view of running companies. That made it less fun than if it’d been about the amazing and…

  • Review: Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach To Successful Growth And Innovation

    Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach To Successful Growth And Innovation by Aaron J. Shenhar My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’ve been involved in projects from all levels: developer, Project Manager, Manager of PM, and customer of project (technically this is everyone everywhere, but I’m talking about at work). This book has really changed…

  • Review: Gamers

    Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter My rating: 3 of 5 stars For some reason, I’ve found myself reading a lot of YA fiction over the last couple years. On the negative side, it appears that Dystopias are the genre du jour. Nothing wrong with them, and I think something about them speaks to teens. When…

  • Review: Irregular Creatures

    Irregular Creatures by Chuck Wendig My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was my first Chuck Wendig book. If I’m thinking of the right author, all I knew about him before going into this is that he apparently likes to use a lot of profanity in his books. This one had more than most, but…

  • For (hopefully) obvious reasons, we didn’t listen to Prince when I was a kid. (Which was when almost all his albums came out). After hearing about him a few times on Giant Bomb and today’s AV Club article, I hit Spotify to see what the fuss is all about.

  • February Video Games

    Civilization V (30 minutes) – We got a few turns in our multiplayer games, but other important things (like planning weddings, perhaps) have kept my brothers from sending me new turns. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ (38 minutes) – I got it as part of a Humble Bundle because eventually my PS3 will die or be…

  • Ebooks – Five Years Later

    Just a little under five years ago, I started looking at the possibility of Ebooks again. Two months later I bought a Barnes and Noble Nook. For a long time I was very casual with my Ebook reading. I had the Cory Doctorow books and several months worth of free Nook books which more than…

  • Review: Shambling Towards Hiroshima

    Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James K. Morrow My rating: 4 of 5 stars That is definitely not what I thought it was going to be. I was sure that somehow this actor would be transformed into a monster. What we got instead was a short, witty, and fun book that posited an alternate World War…

  • Review: Pirate Cinema

    Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow My rating: 4 of 5 stars In my Homeland review, I mentioned that many of Doctorow’s novels post-Eastern Standard Tribe are depressing reads; especially Little Brother, Homeland, and For the Win. Since he’s trying to spur people to action by making them realize how the world works, they can be…

  • Review: Raising Steam

    Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett My rating: 3 of 5 stars I don’t know what’s different this time. Maybe it’s me; maybe it’s Sir Pratchett. This book just never seemed to have a climax. Had the journey not been sufficiently fun I might have scored it 2 stars. This book reminds me of what was…

  • 3 Things I don’t like about Gone Girl

    I haven’t seen Gone Girl, but my wife condensed the 2 hour movie into a 30 minute play-by-play summary. There are three things I don’t like about the plot. (In case it’s not obvious….spoilers ahoy) In a world in which women already have a hard time getting their rape allegations believed, the plot point in…

  • I Fight Dragons on completing The Near Future

    I Fight Dragons on completing The Near Future

    At the end of my interview about starting the Kickstarter project, Brian Mazzaferri of I Fight Dragons opened the door to speaking with him about the process when it was all done. It was, as is the case with many Kickstarter projects, very exhausting and we only recently had time to actually do the interview.…

  • January Video Games Report

    Civilization: Beyond Earth (7 hrs): This game was a great evolution on Civ V. I enjoyed that they continued with the same sense of humor. I also thought they did a good job evolving things so that it felt different enough. It’ll probably take a few games before I get the hang of all the…