Books I've Read This Week

Whoops forgot to put this down as a schedule post.

Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick is his memoir of his time as the World's Most Wanted Hacker. While I must say that it is an entertaining book and I don't think there is any harm in Mr. Mitnick but I had a hard time feeling bad for some of the things he went through. Certainly when he started his hacking activities the actions he was taking were not illegal but they certainly were immoral. So while I feel he got a raw deal a lot of the time he brought it on himself.

The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma is a really inventive Victorian era time travel book. There are three intertwined stories all with some connection to Time Machine's author H.G. Wells.

Fables Vol. 14: Witches to me is a return to form for Bill Willingham and the Fables universe. Volume 13 was the great Fables crossover with Jack of Fables. Now that, that debacle is behind us we once again get the story moving forward. The Fables have a new "adversary"in the form of Mr. Dark. In this volume we get to learn a lot more about Mr. Dark and the challenges that our favourite Fables are currently facing. All in all it's got me very excited about volume 15.

See you next Friday for real this time.

The Matrix Has Given Up

Today I have irrefutable proof that we are actually living in a giant computer simulation. I'm in Denver, Colorado to give a workshop at the Interlab conference on Monday. When I landed at the airport I was walking down the concourse where I noticed a gentleman ordering a sandwich. I was pretty sure that it was the author J.C. Hutchins. Since I have no problem chatting people up I decided to ask the guy, "Hey are you J.C. Hutchins?" and of course it was.

I spent about ten minutes chatting up the affable Mr. Hutchins before heading out to get my rental car. All the way to my hotel I was wondering what the odds of such a meeting would be. Since Dever is a city of approximately 2.5 million people I'll have to assume that it was a pretty slim chance.

Anyway, that's unlikely but it isn't really proof that we are all living in a simulation, that is until you factor in the next coincidence. I popped out of the hotel to grab a bite to eat and pick up a book for the plan rides home. Once I got to the counter I recognized the guy working the cash. I immediately said, "I know you!" to which started a bit of back and forth only to discover that he moved to Denver 7 years ago from Ottawa where he worked at the Pinecrest Chapters store. That's the book store of which I'm a life time member of their discount club since I shop their so damn much.

So one unlikely meeting is a co-incidence two means we are all figments of a computers imagination. An imagination which must be taxed as I keep meeting the same programs over and over again.

Books I've Read This Week

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True by Richard Dawkins is a very interesting book that does a great job explaining everyday phenomenon in a clear and concise manner. Learn the scientific magic behind rainbows, earthquakes, tsunamis , etc.

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld is the third book in this alternate history series set in World War 1. I don't want to give too many details away about this book since it is the third in the series so go read my review of the first book, Leviathan or the second book Behemoth.

We Are All Weird by Seth Godin is a great book about niche marketing. With the advent of the internet there is no need to target the mean or the average consumer. It is now possible to find your target niche and sell directly to them.

See you next Friday.

Guest Review of Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X over at the Signal Watch

Hey, once again my buddy Ryan has put up another one of my comic reviews at his site The Signal Watch. This time I'm talking about the latest Atomic Robo mini series.

Books I've Read This Week

Well this has been a very manga week as a glut of books showed up from my library pull list.

Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 8 This is an oddly compelling book for me. Sure this is a bunch of fun ninja fighting but there is something poignant about one brother searching for a way to get his younger brother his body back. Part of the mystery of this series is you are never quite sure if that suit of armour really is animated by the soul of Alphonse animating that hunk of metal or not.

B.P.R.D. Volume 3: Plague of Frogs okay I know it isn't manga and sadly my local library doesn't have volume 2 but that's okay, I guess. This is where B.P.R.D. really starts getting going as it evolves from a bunch of one or two issue hits into a full 5 to 6 issue storyline. There is some great callbacks for folks who are also fans of Hellboy and we finally get the secret origin of Abe Sapien.

One Piece, Vol. 24 marks the end of the Baroque Works saga and the beginning of Skypiea. It's and island in the sky! Good jumping on point for new readers.

Naruto, Vol. 49 We catch up with Naruto after his traumatic battle with Pain. There is some real character development in this volume as the normally hot headed Naruto is learning that you don't always need to fight.

See you next Friday for a decidedly less manga'ish week.

Coffee Snobs from Funny or Die

This is too hilarious not to share immediately:

Coffee Snobs from Frankie Shaw

Ottawa Android PhoneGap Droidhack

On Saturday the Ottawa Android group was having our latest Droidhack. This months Droidhack was sponsored by the fine folks at Nitobi who may be better know to you as the guys who started the PhoneGap project. They sent out some nice swag in the form of shirts and stickers that were well received by the group. Since this was a themed event on PhoneGap Android Plugins I did a quick presentation to get everyone up to speed and then we got to hacking.

Most of the day I spent helping others setup their environments and getting them going with their first PhoneGap application. I was able to provide some helpful hints to Chris Saunders who works for Shopify and put together an Android Shopify plugin. I was able to spend sometime on working on my DropBox plugin for Android. So far I can login and logout of DropBox but there is still a bunch of stuff to do that I hope to get to in the next few weeks.

All in all it was a pretty good day of hacking and I think a bunch of people learned some new ways to think and got exposed to PhoneGap. Also, huge shout out to Macadamian for providing us with the office space, wifi and food for this event. I know that I and the other Ottawa Android organizers really appreciate it.