Category: Misc

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Books Podcasts Roleplaying

Books, Podcasts, and Such

Books

Lord of Chaos (Wheel of Time 6)– It had a few lulls, but the developing action was compelling and kept me interested throughout. Wow, the ending. The world is dramatically different as the book closes.

A Crown of Swords (Wheel of Time 7) — Much stronger than I remembered, thrown off by a weak confrontation at the end of the book. I think that must have soured the whole book in my memory, undeservedly. Mat’s story feels like filler too, until it finally isn’t near the book’s end. Oh, the Seanchan’s return is well telegraphed, and scary.

The Path of Daggers (Wheel of Time 8) — The series is still going pretty strong, though the Rand channeling sickness is a weird development I hadn’t remembered. The guerrilla war with the Seanchan continues strong; so far, all of the plots are holding up. [I’m currently about 2/3rd through.] In this book it becomes clear that there are enough major characters that just updating everyone’s story slows the advancement of the overall story substantially–even when it’s not diluted with “who was that again?” extraneous characters.

Overall, the books are holding up when read straight through. I do remember the next book [Winter’s Heart] being painful, but maybe with momentum it’ll also be good!

Podcasts

Fear the Boot 318, 319: About “PAUS” [precious and unique snowflakes]. Interesting discussion so far. I’m looking forward to the third (and final) part on my drive home tonight.

Independent Insurgency 31 — A little less focus; Robert had a goal, but didn’t get enough engagement.

This American Life 477 was a repeat that I enjoyed enough to listen to all through.

TAL 511 –The 7 things you’re not supposed to talk about. It’s a good guideline; the show may have revealed a corner case or two, but also reaffirmed the wisdom of the rules. Six boring stories; a good rule about polite conversation, and stories to contradict the rule.

Dice Tower 329 — Lots of discussion of good kids games. We should stock our store with these…

Dice Tower 330 — A more conventional episode; good, balanced, not terribly memorable.

Ken and Robin 64-66: Interesting as always.

TJ Hour 1048– An interesting examination of wealth concentration, and Jefferson’s musings inspired by the French Revolution… how do you keep accumulation of wealth from stealing the subsistance from the poorest? Delves in Lockian state of nature… interesting.

TJ Hour 1049– Jefferson’s interaction and life in Paris; how it affects him.

TJ Hour 1050– Founding Fathers; Jefferson’s opinions of the other founding fathers. Not a lot of surprises, but a good restatement of his opinions.

Movies and TV

Talking with Chris, it sounds like there are several more series that would be great to catch. In particular, Arrow sounds well done and actually interesting.

Cloud Atlas also sounds like a great movie for me; I’ll have to Netflix it with Jennifer one of these nights.

We also discussed Ender’s Game, which he recommends as a theater only experience, mostly for great special effects. So, if I’m going to see it, it sounds like the clock is ticking. (He expressly advised against it as a watch at home movie due to the truncation of the story.)

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Books Podcasts

Onward with the Wheel of Time

(4) The Shadow Rising was a strong continuation of the series. I really liked the focus on Perrin and home; it made for an excellent counterpoint. Similarly, Rand’s story and interaction with the Aiel was handled well. The Thom, Julian, Elayne and Nynaeve story line was a little less interesting, in part because of the focus on conflict between the girls. It’s also more clearly a “B” plot… important, but not as important.

In the end, this book was a nice recovery from the non-Rand focus of The Dragon Reborn.

(5) The Fires of Heaven was also a solid book. Elayne and Nynaeve continued to be a misstep, and the “join the circus” seemed like a writer’s fancy instead of fitting the characters, but the interaction with Brigitte and Moghedien made this storyline feel more central.

Mat earned his role in this book; he’s interesting and has lots of issues to play with–as well as some solid development.

Perrin’s absence was felt more in retrospect than as reading. Rand’s continuing development was well handled–as was Morraine’s alteration. The “first ending” at the wagons was dramatic and very well done. The “second ending”, was rushed and blurred; the battle was handled pretty well, and balefire’s risks (and benefits) came clear.

The big misstep seems to be the tucking in of the final few pages. Really, that’s how Asmodean is going to end? Just a rough paragraph or two? The “chosen” disappeared awfully quickly this time.

(6) Lord of Chaos I’m a few chapters into the book. The initial 70 pages of prologue felt long, but the action advanced nicely with Bashere fitting in and Rand’s amnesty shaking things up.

Podcasts

TJ Hour 1044: Interventions — About America intervening abroad. No surprises, but a useful corrective to our meddling impulse.

TJ Hour 1045: Leith — About the intersection between free speech and accepting speech we hate. Specifically about Hate Speech and its boundaries, and Leith, ND, and white supremacists.

Dice Tower 327 & 328 continued strong.

Fear the Boot 317 was good; I didn’t realize that the short shows were due to resting a throat. That’s too bad… I enjoy the short run time.

TAL #509: It Says So Right Here — Interesting tales about identities, documentation and who we are. The first story, about identity theft, stuck with me.

Ask me Another 1310304: How Punk Is This? — Pretty cool; I hadn’t heard of the guest, but will look for some of his music now.

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Books Podcasts

Recent Books (including WoT reread) and ‘casts

Books:

Republic, Lost by Lawrence Lessig. I think this would interest Bryan; it points out the fundamental corruption of our system. The capture of legislators by special interests is more interesting and more subtle than “here’s a sack of cash”– the dance of influence, the importance of indirectly signaling, and the prominence of lobbyists and connectors were all important notes that altered my thinking. The particular thought that legislator is one step on a career path: aide -> legislator -> lobbyist, was revealing… as was the note that our “underpaying” legislators (versus what else they can do with their degree and experience) probably plays into their desire to tap extra income. After all, it’s expensive to keep two households.

I agree that the solutions are somewhat far-fetched, but necessary. I hate the idea of trying to square that circle. Probably the best point made is the systemic slow deviation towards prioritizing what the people they talk to and interact with care about most–more “dividing the pie” taking their time and effort. The corruption of tax extenders was a great specific example of the overall thesis.

The Great Wheel of Time (re)Read:

After a few disappointing books dispirited me, I decided not to read the Wheel of Time until the series was complete. I’ve heard very good things about Sanderson’s wrap up of Jordan’s series, and I do want to see how it all ends. Reading a book in the middle, years after the previous book’s publication, left me cold–too much of my time was spent trying to remember who had done what and where they were when I left off. So this will be a full series reread and read.

The Eye of the World: This is a great book, introducing a vibrant world. For the first half of the book, the voice is Rand’s alone. It’s Rand who introduces us to the world, exposes the relations between the characters, and whose voice is charming.

In the middle of the book, we get a few new points of view when the characters are separated. These new POV chapters are true complements to Rand’s adventure– with interesting character development for the others. I think we top out at 4 points of view (Rand, Perrin, Nynaeve… and Egwene?), and the story moves. It feels like a breathless race at the very end–stumbling a bit as the final, built up “battle” was disposed of so quickly.

The Great Hunt: Another strong book, far more evenly distributed in viewpoint character chapters. The men and women spend the book doing entirely separate things. Visiting locations for the first time is rewarding; Tar Valon feels sculpted and beautiful–and very in contrast with its contents.

The number of view point characters increases substantially–even including Moraine for a chapter. I like the characters’ continued development; Rand’s struggle feels real and difficult, Perrin’s beating himself up feels authentic, Egwene’s development and voice becomes strong–even more so post leashing. Politics is tricky to write; both Cairhien and tower politics are (appropriately) difficult to understand from traveling teenagers’ points of view.

The book ends strongly, with everyone reunited and a victory… though lots of doubts about that victory, and consequences clearly telegraphed.

The Dragon Reborn: In memory this was one of the stronger books; now that I’ve reread it, it’s much less good. Rand gets almost no POV time and his actions are both distant and difficult to understand. Perrin is the star of this book, and Mat comes into his own–Mat really becomes interesting, doubling down on “rascally”, and showing tremendous competence with his quarterstaff out of nowhere.

The girls don’t get much time in the tower; it’s pretty jarring to see how quickly they cycle through and set off on another adventure. (There’s no real classroom time on screen, and few interactions with the other novices and accepted–it’s broad brush strokes, and well done, but feels way too slight given the tower’s centrality to their lives.)

The book structure feels overly deliberate by the end. The last quarter of the book draws everyone together–geographically–they only overlap and interact with each other in the final chapters. (Those chapters involve frequent POV changes, which really picks up the pace.) In this read through, this book first tickles my “wait, why are they doing that?” characterization problems button.

Podcasts

The Dice Tower 325: Returned to the show after a long break, and really enjoyed it. They talked about three games that I think our gamers would appreciate–at least one of which I wouldn’t mind trying.

TAL 506: Secret Identity — An interesting look at masks and roles. Diana sounds amazing but scary, as a vigilante should. It makes you think about what goes on when society, law, and order have broken down.a

Wait Wait and Ask Me Another were both good–as was getting to listen to it with Jennifer.

Roll for News: Enjoyable; I love the 5 minute interview podcast format. I’ve been going through old episodes, as it’s been a while since new ones were released.

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Books Misc

Recent Media 7/15

The biggest change to my listening comes from importing a wide swath of CDs over to my memory stick. There are lots of singers I haven’t really listened to in years… there’s been a fun process of rediscovery.

Beyond that, I’ve been enjoying the Rain Wilds Chronicles that Dad lent me. The first book was a slow start–probably because it appears to mirror and build on events from other related books (like Liveship Traders) that built in an interest that the author didn’t replicate as well from scratch. Still, by 1/3rd of the way into the first book, I had my “party”, all come together and exploring. The second book was good, though I did catch myself noticing how the big setback thoroughly derailed progress. While it felt logical, it also drew out the third quarter of the book. All in all, it’s been a fun read; earlier tonight I finished the second book. The third beckons… tomorrow, if I have sense.

I’m in the process of downloading Shogun 2 from Steam’s summer sale. This sale is made for connections faster than my hotel room connection can handle; currently 23%. Maybe I’ll hit 30% by morning.

Podcasts
Ken and Robin talk about stuff 41-44: The last two featured a very interesting look into Ken’s most recent project. It’s interesting to see what strange history he had to work with, and where he created. Let’s see where the series goes…

Roleplay DNA 22: A good episode, but too much “local interest only” stuff to slog through to get at it. For me, I’d be better served if they started with their topic, then devolved into banter, Colorado news, and what’s going on in their groups lately. As the reverse, I keep wishing for a fast forward…

Ask me Another 216: Fun, uncomplicated. I don’t ask more of it.

This American Life 498: Doing foolish things. The first story worked out so well… a fascinating look at stolid bravery.

Thomas Jefferson Hour 1029 and 1030: Bright episodes about science, learning, the enlightenment, and education. Solid, interesting episodes that play to Jefferson’s unique strengths.

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Misc

Recent Media 6/25

Prepping Dash-Dot-Dot-Dash, my article about the brainstorming stages of my minicon scenario.

I didn’t mention a few shows last time and I’ve listened to a few more. I wanted to listen to even more, but forgot to update my memory stick. Today I’ll fix that…

Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff #37 and 38: Solid shows and interesting topics, but I don’t think I retained much. Robin did discuss Hillfolk, and I appreciated the podcast. Speaking of which…

Hillfolk Actual Play, Part 1: Genesis by Nyerd. A fun session covering character generation for Hillfolk. Another rules light engine I’ll have to investigate.

The Jefferson Hour, Show 1026 Writing Styles. An interesting discussion about the craft of writing, both in 1800 and 2010.

The Jefferson Hour, Show 1027 Higgeldy Piggledy. A very interesting discussion about Thomas Jefferson and his rivalry with Alexander Hamilton. They are each interesting, and their interactions are even more so.

The Jefferson Hour, Show 1028 So Much to Know (6-9-13). A better episode with Kristen Hedger, veering into very North Dakota specific topics and histories but still interesting.

Categories
Books Misc Roleplaying Trips

Recent Media 6/10

I’ve listened to less than you’d think, and the episodes have been less impressive than I’ve come to expect. The books, on the other hand, have been wonderful.

Books
A genuinely good, provocative book was The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A history of steam, industry, and invention. A very interesting book that ties a number of elements together as necessary preconditions for the industrial revolution. I particularly appreciated the details on pre-coke patents and how the change in standards–especially moving from “secrecy” to “legal protection” as the framework for patents.

The details of the development of the various improvements was fascinating; I hadn’t realized how inefficient the original engine was, and how many different improvements went into making the combustion energy efficient enough to drive a train or steamship.

For pure pleasure, it’s hard to beat Scalzi’s new Old Man’s War book, The Human Division. The world advanced interestingly; the perils of negotiation and diplomacy are a great way to expand the universe beyond a grunt’s eye view. (This follows the trend from the previous few books.) Jennifer warned me that the book ends on a cliffhanger… and threatened poor Scalzi’s life if he wasn’t at his desk writing the next episodes. So, hopefully he’s doing that. [I enjoyed the book and am intrigued by the mysterious opponents… I’m also looking forward to the finding out more.]

Podcasts
The Jefferson Hour, Show 1024 Etiquette (5-12-13). A conversation about a perennial thorn in democracy’s discussions. While the historical bits were interesting, the conversation never really escaped grumpy old men and “get off my lawn”.

The Jefferson Hour, Show 1025 Political Process (5-19-13). An odd mismatch; the guest host played up techno-wonder at our problems and solutions, never really addressing Jefferson’s (very predictable) counterpoints. Unfortunately, the net effect was to make the guest host look terminally naive and Jefferson look 200 years out of date. The problem came from both ends; Ms. Hedger has a great deal of practical experience with governing that didn’t come through as she delved into technological capabilities and the role of money bought too into the insiders’ perspective. To have a better debate, Jefferson might have been better playing up the inventor side, discussing with wonder the idea of observing the far side of the globe, etc. As it stood, he was able to dismiss modern complexities convincingly, but had no where to go after his “victory”.

This American Life 495: Hot In My Backyard About getting discussion of climate change “unstuck”; interesting, but not captivating.

Categories
Books Misc

Recent media 5/24

Books
Currently Reading: The Lost Art of Real Cooking. Discussion and persuasion about cooking and how we choose to view it.

Liberty’s Blueprint: How Madison and Hamilton Wrote the Federalist Papers A good solid overview of the Federalist Papers, with interesting insight into both Madison and Hamilton. It made me interested in Madison; maybe I’ll read a biography about him.

Podcasts
Dice Tower 303 & 304: I remember enjoying them, but retained nothing. That’s been true of many espisodes of late. While enjoyable, are they a waste of my time? I’ll experiment with the voice recorder and see if that helps.

Master Plan 57&58: Both episodes were about editing and word choice. 57 was a panel on editing, while 58 was a dialogue with a fellow Fate editor. Both were interesting but very inside baseball.

TJ Hour 1022, Boston: A calm discussion about terrorism, with analogies to revolutionary war atrocities and protests, such as the Boston massacre and Boston tea party.

TJ Hour 1023, Human Progress: An optimistic look at science and progress that did a great job of underscoring the improvements in medicine and transportation since the early 1800s.

Other
The most influential thing in recent weeks was the theft of my laptop. It was a painful blow, not really for the shiny silicon box, but for the 10 years of emails, pictures that I hadn’t yet uploaded, etc. that I’ve been transferring forward. I’ve lost several evenings to resetting and changing passwords and installing software on the new system. There’s much worse in the world, but it’s annoying at worst.

Interestingly, both Starcraft and Windows 8 wound up preserving more information than I’d expected. I was looking forward to repeating Starcraft–I’d made it to the final mission, but thought I’d have to start from scratch. Nope! The saved game was online, so I got to restart at the final battle. [Still having trouble making it past 70%…]

Categories
Books Misc

Recent Media 5/7

It’s been a while, so I’ve listened to quite a bit and read a few books.

Books
Thomas Jefferson The Art of Power by Jon Meacham. A good book with a good thesis to organize things around. Early in the book it seemed like he was trying too hard to hook everything into power, but it all fit by the end. A good overview. I learned a lot about Jefferson’s early life.

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. A nice fantasy novel, with magic that’s costly. The setting achieves its goal; it doesn’t feel ‘exotic’, instead, everything just makes sense with a middle eastern flair.

Currently Reading: Are you my Mother? by Alison Bechdel.

Dice Tower 301 and 302–Fine as always; though the top 10 list of 302 was blah… in part due to the wide divergence in what counts as a “political game”.

Play on Target
Episode 8, Table Management Strategies– Wandering, but a good group of guys (yeah, all guys). Their solutions stay in the center and seem pitched towards traditional GM/player splits. Their positions are completely reasonable, if not broad.

Special 1– Great interview; Rite Publishing re: Lords of Gossamer & Shadow. It also had a good segment where Steve Russell admitted that kickstarter really does cut retailers out of the loop, threatening them.

Roleplay DNA Episode 21– Lots of filler to start the show. The topic was “Balancing Act”, balancing gaming and life. Unfortunately, over-gaming’s not an issue at the moment. The solutions discussed seemed tangential to the problem as my friends and I experience them.

This American Life
493: “Picture Show”. On “Mapping” as an intimidation strategy in the occupied West Bank and Painter Schandra Singh on fame and the world of wealthy artists. Interesting views; mapping’s intimidating force seems real and chilling.

104: “Music Lessons.” Okay, but forgettable.

Thomas Jefferson Hour
1020: Archaic and Evil. A discussion about Jefferson’s “tear up the constitution every 19 years” comment. Interestingly, that was tied to the length of 50% of the population changing over–it’s much slower now. I wonder if he’d stick to ~20 years, or still go with “half the population is new”?

1021: Military industrial complex. A threat foreshadowed by Jefferson’s fear of standing armies as a threat to free republics. The show wandered widely, but interestingly.

Categories
Books Misc

Recent Media 4/7

Book: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
A great experience; I picked it up Friday night and read through it from an early bedtime straight through to completion. It’s been a very long time since I got a chance to just read that way…

The book is fun and light. It’s quite heavy on 80s nostalgia, which is a bit over the top (to me), but it’s there with reason. Benign dictators for the win.

The Dice Tower: 295 & 296 (Live at Total Con)– Fun episodes that felt gimmicky due to the live audience. It was fun and mostly formula; nothing particularly stood out.

Roleplay DNA Ep 20: A lot on gamer ettiquette; an expansion of their earlier Social Contract episode. It paralleled my Gaming Charters and Social Contracts in Detail article in noticing that there’s a lot that goes on that may be technically social contract… but is treated differently at the table.

The rest of the episode was a good look at “dream games”–stretching and trying something new and exotic, getting out of ruts.

Ask Me Another (w/ Jad Abumrad, host of WNYC’s Radiolab)– Fun, good puzzles, no thought required after the episode’s end.

This American Life Ep 490: The Disability Show. Though provoking, this was an excellent beginning of a discussion. Hopefully the discussion will continue; Kevin Drum’s post today was an excellent continuation of the discussion. [He illustrated that the disability trend matches 15 year old projections, which makes it unlikely that ‘gaming the system’ or recalculation of qualifications is that big an explanation.

The Thomas Jefferson Hour:
Show 1017 Lesser Known (3-24-13): This week host Steven Jager speaks with President Thomas Jefferson about some of the lesser known individuals of the American Revolution.

I was already interested in Abigail Adams, and this did a great job of reminding me to follow up with more about her and Thomas Paine. It also introduced me to a female author [Wolcott?] who wrote a history of the revolution during Jeffersons’ presidencies. Google isn’t helping me find her; it would be interesting to see what the American Revolution looked like less than a generation later.

Show 1016 Up the Missouri (3-17-13): This week host David Borlaug speaks with President Jefferson about Lewis and Clark.

Less big picture; this episode was two people enjoying a discussion about topics that interest them.

Show 1015 Interview (3-10-13): This week host Steven Jager interviews Clay Jenkinson and asks about his about his career as a writer.

This was a very interesting article, about writing versus being a writer, and introduced me to a man the both appreciate as a writer: though, again, google fails me.

Categories
Books Misc

Recent Media

Currently Reading: The Roman Forum by David Watkin. He’s opinionated, but that makes less inherently interesting topics (architecture and archaeology) engaging, encouraging you to form your own opinion even if only in opposition to his hobby-horse.

Dice Tower 294: A decent episode. I was amazed at how many of the games I like were from 1998–including Jennifer’s old favorite, Cities and Knights. (I think Suburbia may have passed it recently…)

Ken and Robin talk about stuff 25-28: All solid, all interesting… but not a lot stuck. I do remember realizing how erudite they seem… their vocabularies are extensive in a way I haven’t experienced publicly in a long while.

Roleplay DNA #19: Only two podcasters this episode, which worked well as a natural format. The topic was a straightforward one, Bank Heists–specifically, how little you can prep, how to prep flexibly, etc. A good topic mix.

Ask Me Another, Special Pundits Unit: Fun, as always.

This American Life 487 & 488. A big two part episode about Harper High School. The interviewers probably had several more episodes of material on the cutting room floor–there was a lot of interesting discussion, and some clearly sculpted storylines that could have gone very different directions with different viewpoint characters. The idea was simple–go to Harper High for a semester, which had 29 current and recent students shot last year, and see what life is like. The details, particularly the “auto-signup” nature of local gangs, and the chilling history of Terrance Green. It’s an amazing world–horrific on the edges, but understandable and empathy inducing. It’s crazy that the surrounding neighborhood situation exists, is understood, acknowledged… and insolvable.

TAL 489- Coincidences. A very light episode, particularly in contrast to the last two.

Wait Wait 03/02– A guilty pleasure, and much like Daily Show, about as close as I get to politics most weeks.