Books I Read Last Week

Whoops, sorry was traveling last week and didn't get a chance to pull together a post.

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan is not my favourite book by the author. In this one he learns how to cook by working with some incredible chefs that are out of the realm of a mere mortals ability to contact.There is some interesting info on how to cook but it is certainly not a cookbook. I'd probably take a pass on this one if I had the chance to do it over again.

The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian by Jack Campbell. In this third book of his Beyond the Frontier trilogy the fleet is on their way home. On their way they have to defend the Midway star system from an attempted takeover by the Syndicate Empire who want to bring Midway back into the fold. Check out my post from last week to see how I feel about the second book in this series.

Books I've Read This Week

You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney is an extension of his popular blog also called You Are Not So Smart. The book catalogs all of the different ways in which we lie to ourselves. It's a pretty interesting book but I felt like I've read quite a bit of the topics that he covered in books by Dan Ariely.

Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible is the continuation of the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell. In this second book of his Beyond the Frontier trilogy the fleet is escaping a battle with the Enigma race when the run headlong into another alien race that they need to quickly determine if they are friend or foe. If they are hostile how does the fleet get out of this star system without being wiped out. I always like these Lost Fleet novels. They are like popcorn, quick and enjoyable reads. They are fun for anyone who enjoys military sci-fi.

Book's I've Read This Week

The Evolutionary Void by Peter F Hamilton concludes his Void trilogy. I really, really loved this book and series. It is a big commitment in terms of page count but it is worth it. I hesitate to get into it in too much detail for fear of spoiling anything. You are probably better off going back and checking my review of the first or second book.

Revival Volume 1: You're Among Friends TP with story by Tim Seeley and art by Mike Norton is a rural noir story. It is set in small town Wisconsin where the dead have come back to life but they are not brain eating zombies instead they are rational thinking human beings that are not really different than you and I other than they are dead. The residents of the town have to deal with their loved ones coming back to life. The government quarantining the town to prevent the "possible" infection from spreading. It seems like the government has watched a lot of George Romero movies and that has informed their opinion of what to do. As well the religious calamity arising from the dead walking. This is a really creepy feeling graphic novel and another great work from Seeley and Norton.

Books I've Read This Week

Wonder is the concluding chapter of Robert J Sawyer's Wake, Watch, Wonder trilogy where a young girl discovers an emerging intelligence on the internet. In this volume the world now is aware of webmind and we see how we'd react to a non human intelligence. The reactions run the full gamut where some folks treat webmind like god while others see it as a threat and make moves to kill it. I enjoyed the book but I did get skived out at one point where the female lead, Caitlin a 15 year old girl, is about to become "sexually active". I'm not sure why it bothered me so much but it may have something to do with that 8 year old daughter I have and wanting to stick my head in the sand.

The Daylight War by Peter V Brett is another third volume but in this case it does not conclude the series. In this volume we get more of the background of Ahmann Jardir who is possibly the Deliverer reborn. Could this be the man fated to deliver this world from the tyranny of the demons that plague it nightly. The book does a nice job of filling in the background of the man who is so important to the story but I did feel like it stalled the narrative a bit. By the end of the book we are ready for the fight to between Jardir and Arlen Bales. Only one of they can be the Deliverer and it rightly identifies that the world will remain split as you can't have two generals so one of them has to go.

My SpeechShim for Desktop Development of Speech Recognition and TTS Apps

So I've been working on some plugins for PhoneGap to enable people to develop their apps with Speech Recognition and Text to Speech functionality. I've been following this specification and while it isn't on track to be adopted by the W3C anytime soon it does have two big benefits:

1) The speech recognition bit is already available in Chrome.
2) The specification is "sane". I guess it helps when only a couple of people are credited as authors instead of a committee.

One of the things that has been bugging me for awhile is the inability to develop these type of apps on the desktop using the same API. Yes, as I said above the speech rec bit is available in Chrome but the objects have the "webkit" prefix and there is not TTS support. So during one of the Ottawa Ruby project nights I set out to write a shim that would give everyone the ability to use the same API that will be available from the PhoneGap plugins on their desktop.

Basically that is what SpeechShim is in a nutshell. When you add speechshim.js into your web app you will be able to access the "SpeechRecogntion" object instead of needing to prefix it like "webkitSpeechRecognition". As well if you combine it with the speak.js project the speechshim.js code will add the methods necessary so you can use the SpeechSynthesis interface.

To get up and running you will need:

1. A copy of Google Chrome version 29 or higher.
2. A copy of the speak.js project from github.
3. A copy of my speechshim.js from github.

Here's an example HTML page:

and you can run the live demo here. It's nothing fancy. Just click the big button then say something. It should get updated under the button and you will hear it spoken out by the TTS. More on plugin availability for PhoneGap is coming soon.

Books I've Read This Week

It's an all graphic novel catch up week. Back with sci-fi and fantasy books next week.

Mind The Gap Volume 2: Wish You Were Here story by Jim McCann and art by Rodin Esquejo is the continuation of the "murder mystery" from volume one. Unlike some other books or shows in this volume we start to get answers from all of the questions that were originally raised. But like any good story the answers just open up some new questions. This is just a great series and more people should be buying it.

Batwoman Vol. 2: To Drown the World is a book I was apprehensive about buying. I've really loved JH Williams III art but in this volume he's not contributing to the art duties. Instead we get Amy Reeder (who I love) for a short period of time before she left the book under the ominous creative differences label. Then Trevor McCarthy picks up the rest of the issues. The art is good but not as amazing as when JHW3 handles the layouts. The story is a confusing mess. JHW3 and Haden Blackman you are not Alan Moore so while I applaud your attempt at telling a cohesive narrative from six different point of view characters while jumping back and forth the timeline I can't really say you did a good job as the whole thing is confusing as hell. Apparently the next volume is set to guest star Wonder Woman and supposedly it is better but I'm not sure I'll shell out the bucks to pick it up in hard cover.

Saga Volume 2 story by Bryan K Vaughn and art by Fiona Staples. Okay, here's my elevator pitch, Romeo and Juliet in Space! Wait you need more details, okay then. In volume 2 of this space epic we get more background on how Marko and Alana fell in love and decided to run away from the conflict between their two species. We also get more Price Robot IV, more Izabel the ghost baby sitter, more The Will, more Slave Girl, and the repercussions of Marko's parents visit. Plus, Marko's ex Gwendolyn gets involved. Oh and more of the break out star, Lying Cat... Best. Cat. Ever. This is really some great writing and phenomenal art make this book a standout. One of the best things about it is Staples really lets her imagination go wild when drawing the aliens. Think the Star Wars Mos Eisley cantina scene amped up to 11.

Sweet Tooth Vol. 6: Wild Game by Jeff Lemire who is everywhere in DC right now. You could make a case that he is there second most important writer next to Geoff Johns, but I digress. The final volume of Sweet Tooth has our band of humans and hybrids travelling north to Alaska in order to find out where Sweet Tooth originally came from, the initial cause of the disease and maybe even a cure? Lemire is on fire here tugging out our heart strings and eliciting a strong emotional response as we see the ultimate fates of characters we've been following for years. I strongly recommend this whole series to anyone.

Books I've Read This Week

The Blade Itself, Before They are Hanged and Last Argument Of Kings are all part of the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. Previously I'd read a couple of stand along novels set in the same universe but I finally had a chance to jump into this trilogy and I was not disappointed. This is a fantastic grim and gritty fantasy series. There are a lot of memorable characters in these books including a couple of my favourites the northern beserker Logan Ninefingers and Inquisitor Glotka. None of the characters that you encounter in these novels are purely altruistic or purely evil. The first book starts off with the Magus Bayaz putting together a group of adventurers to go off on a quest including Logan Ninefingers, the vain fencer Jezal dan Luthar among others. While this sounds like a typical fantasy setup Abercrombie eschews the normal traps of epic fantasy. The three books are a long read but well worth it especially if you like you fantasy novels to be more like George R R Martin instead of J R R Tolkien.