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Archives for February, 2015 - Page 2
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Book Review – The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I picked this one up, in paperback, some time ago because I had enjoyed The Men Who Stare at Goats. It sat on the shelf for ages, a victim of the ease of the kindle. I started reading it as my at home book in late 2014 but only finished it earlier today. I'm not sure what to make of Jon Ronson. He's a sort of gonzo journalist, although perhaps a less extremist version. He seems to have a knack of making people tell him stuff that is ridiculous and that anyone sensible wouldn't say in front of another person, let alone a journalist who was going to publish it. Perhaps it's just my prejudice against journalists and media handling training coming out. It's car crash stuff. You…
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Book Review – Cronix by James Hider
Cronix by James Hider My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is near future post human science fiction. The premise is that humanity works out how to upload consciousness to virtual worlds and this results in amazing breakthroughs of scientific knowledge and an effective end to death. Almost everyone chooses to join the exodus from fleshy existence to living eternally in the comfort of virtual worlds. The story is set several hundred years after the break through. Told from multiple points of view, including flashbacks to the pre uploading memories of one of the protagonists. It takes a while to build to sound engagement because you need to get engaged with each of the viewpoints, but when you get there you really are engaged. There is a clear sense of a believable future world, it sort of makes sense given…
Half Trained
I am now a half trained cub scout leader. I spent the weekend at Bentley Copse scout centre in Surrey doing the first two days of the four day adult leader training course. When I'm done I'll have earnt the wood badge worn by thousands of scout leaders worldwide. The course exceeded my expectations, although those started fairly low. I was expecting two days of death by powerpoint being fed the party line, however unrealistic it may be. However what I got was a training team that understood that we were all thinking adults and that we were involved in scouting because we wanted children to have fun trying out new things in a safe environment. As well as that the theory was well interleaved with practical activities and discussion for us both to get to know each other…
Release! A game about building software
I got my kickstarter reward from funding Release! The game arrived the other day, I've not yet had a chance to play it but I thought I'd share these photos with you of the box and it's contents. Game Blurb RELEASE! is a light card game about software and the people who make it. It takes modern development methodologies and crams them into a trick taking card game that is fast paced, easy to pick up, and has a lot of room for strategy. The Kickstarter edition contains the base game and 14 new plug-ins and expansions. What's in the box? Lots of stuff, mainly game cards, some notepads for recording your score and bits to keep the expansions etc separate. Here are some pictures. The contents of the Release! box spread out …
Coffee on Keyboard
Not a C|N>K event sadly. Somehow I managed to let go of a full cup of coffee two inches above the side table while talking to my daughter yesterday morning about what we were going to do. The laptop took some collateral spillage from the back. It was hibernating at the time and didn't initially look like it was in danger, being on the sofa arm rather than the adjacent side table. After I'd mopped up from the floor I realised that there were splashes on the machine and when I opened it up to check inside the keyboard was wet. So was the inside of the battery compartment. The good news is that I didn't lose any data, although my reserve machine (my 2009 vintage netbook) can't be described as a hot fail over. So I have copied some of the…