Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1) by Hugh Howey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hugh Howey does a masterful job in this book. It is definitely a contender for my favorite book of 2015. So much of what makes this book great is how Howey subverts all of our expectations. It is technically a dystopian book, but it is unlike any I’ve read before. One of the ways in which it’s unique, for example, is how the dystopian element is almost irrelevant to the story. I found early on that it reminded me of the video games Analogue: A Hate Story and Hate Plus with many of its elements. The video games take place on a generation ship that’s had so many generations removed from its initial launch that some of its early history is viewed as perhaps just stories. Additionally, there’s the erasure of a previous uprising from the computers. There’s also a dictator-like government masquerading as a democracy. That’s not to say that it’s entirely irrelevant to the story. After all, it is essentially the MacGuffin, in a way, setting the story into motion. But the story is more a character study than a treatise on the dystopia.

Because of grad school, my work on Snap in Time has been quite halting - my last commit was 8 months ago. So I haven’t finished the quarterly and yearly culling part of my script. Since I’ve been making semi-hourly snapshots since March 2014, I had accumulated something like 1052 snapshots. While performance did improve a bit after I turned on the autodefrag option, it’s still a bit suboptimal, especially when dealing with database-heavy programs like Firefox, Chrome, and Amarok. At least that is my experience - it’s entirely possible that this is correlation and not causation, but I have read online that when btrfs needs to figure out snapshots and what to keep, delete, etc it can be a performance drag to have lots of snapshots. I’m not sure, but I feel like 1052 is a lot of snapshots. It’s certainly way more than I would have if my program were complete and working correctly.

1. I Fight Dragons (179 plays) - Over this quarter I have continued to really enjoy the B Side to The Near Future and listened to them a lot after work. Scarlett likes quite a few of those songs as well.

2. Anberlin (74 plays) - For the concert last year I put all their albums on my phone. So when I listen to my music already on the phone, Anberlin comes up a lot.

A mixture of a growing Ebook library, tracking my goals in Goodreads, and Calibre’s ability to generate a catalog have made me decide to start tracking things quarterly in the book dimension as well. I’ll start off with a simple set of stats and we’ll see what comes to me as time goes by. (Ebook will include both books and Magazines such as SF&F anthologies)

Total Ebooks: 363

The Witcher (15 hours)

Assassin’s Creed was the first game series Vinnie of Giant Bomb convinced me to try by talking about it endlessly on the Bombcast. The Witcher is the second. (This is why I miss his voice on that podcast so much) It has turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would. It’s based on the Bioware engine of the time, so it plays a lot like Mass Effect 1. The story is good so far and full of nice little jokes. You can watch my progress (I’ve been recording it for Extra Life) on this Youtube playlist.

Civilization V (13 hours)

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 Dyer, Chopra, Tony Robbins, Maxwell Maltz, and Stephen Covey. But this is the first time I’ve read a touchy feel-y management improvement book since finish my first assignment as a manager.

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 ur experience. Every game, from real platformers to games with platforming life Uncharted, is judged in my mind against Mario. It is not a mere history lesson for me.

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 revolutionary games these companies made. However, it still ended up being pretty interesting in two main ways for me. First, seeing how much money was needed to start up changed through the decades. Second, seeing that there is no one right way to run a company. Some were family-friendly and others were time-sucks. But all of them made innovative games and were successful. One other takeaway is that some companies lasted a long time and others were closer to one-hit wonders before they either closed or were bought.

As a parent you are constantly wondering if you’re doing the right thing - are you being too nice or too mean? Is this a time to give in or stand your ground? But recently I heard a great story of something Scarlett did while I was at work. When Danielle’s birthday came around, Scarlett took her toys and wrapped them up in her blanket. She gave it to Danielle and said, “It’s your present! Open it! Open it!” That just made me beam.

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 the way I view Project Management. On the next project I start (or inherit), I want to make sure I try out the diamond principles mentioned here. Even if they aren’t a panacea, they appear to change the way everyone involved thinks about the project. Often perspective changes like this can have huge knock-on effects in large companies. Results that previously seemed random now make sense when viewed in this framework.