Meet Thursday Next

Today all I’ve felt like doing is sitting and reading. I’m revisiting a series of books I first read years ago, and I’m enjoying them just as much second time round. They are by Jasper Fforde. They are about a time travelling crime fighter who can also go and live in books. She’s called Thursday Next (all the character names are fantastic) and she lives in a parallel reality (I probably should have mentioned that first).

Anyhoo, the books are a riot and incredibly clever. If you are missing Douglas Adams or Harry Harrison you really should take a look. You can find the first episode here. Jasper Fford also has a splendid website (all hand coded by the author in HTML - respect) which you can find here.

Apollo Remastered

One of the Christmas presents that I bought myself (you can’t be too careful) was the Apollo Remastered book. The author took all the high quality images taken during the Apollo moon missions and scanned them. Then he made a beautiful book of them which tells the story of the great adventure. It is a huge book. It’s a coffee table book that you could put legs on and actually use as a coffee table. But you won’t do that because the pictures are so stunning. The printing and presentation does them justice too. I’d strongly advise you to get a copy. I got vivid memories of the actual missions being covered at the time, but if you’ve never seen just what we managed to achieve fifty years ago you’ll find it even more impressive.

Kitsy Bitsy's Noisy Neighbours

This is a great kid’s book. Lots of detail. Neat rhymes and a cake recipe at the end.

Plus, it contains this picture. Which I’m thinking of having made into a poster (not really, but it is tempting).

Ghost Blitz will make your brain come out of your ears

We found the German version to be slightly cheaper

Ghost Blitz is a game for all the family. The rules are quick to learn and just about anyone can pick it up. You get five nicely made little wooden pieces: green bottle, grey mouse, red chair, blue book and of course a white ghost. There is also a deck of cards with pictures of the objects on them.

To play the game you shuffle the deck and then turn over one card at a time. The card shows a bunch of pieces and players must identify either the piece that is correctly shown (for example if the picture shows a blue mouse on a red chair the correct answer is red chair) or the piece that isn’t shown (for example if the picture shows a red mouse holding a blue bottle the correct piece is a white ghost because it can’t be anything blue, red or a mouse or a bottle). If you get it right you get to keep the card. After a run through all the cards the player holding the most cards wins.

These simple rules make for fiendish and brain bending gameplay as you struggle to force your grey cells to reach the answer before anyone else. I wouldn’t want to play it for too long. I think my head would overheat or something, but for a quick blast, especially with kids, it is a hoot. The components are very compact and it would make a great travel game.

Read Ask Iwata

Satoru Iwata was a corporate president who disproved the notion that heads of large companies must have egos to match their salaries. After running his own software company for a while he became Chief Executive Officer of Nintendo at a time when the company was not at its best. He transformed their fortunes by launching a bunch of ground breaking products including the 3DS and the Wii.

He was taken from us at the tragically young age of 55, but not before he had inspired a whole generation of engineers with his constructive and empathic leadership. The good news, for us, is we can get a copy of Ask Iwata, a set of essays and musings from the man himself. I got one today as a Father’s Day present and it is a lovely read for anyone interested in working with people and achieving great things.

Read "Moonflower Murders"

If you’ve got an Amazon Prime account you can read “Moonflower Murders” by Anthony Horowitz for free. And you should. It’s the second book in a series.

You’ll have to buy the first one (and you probably will). Both are a good read in an Agatha Christie kind of way. I don’t want to spoil your experience by telling you what happens but if you like traditional murder mysteries I think you’ll rather like it.

Thursday Murder Club on BBC Sounds

I’ve waxed lyrical about the Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman before.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get someone to read it out to you?

Turns out that you can. It’s been serialised on Radio 4 (read by the wonderful Haydn Gwynne (who I remember from Drop the Dead Donkey).

You can listen to it on BBC Sounds here.

Maketober Day 23: Make a good book purchase

There are two reasons why I wish I’d written The Nature of Code by Daniel Shiffman. The first is that it is really nicely put together and covers a whole range of useful topics in a very readable style. It’s really a book to be proud of. The second reason I wish I’d written it is that if I had I’d know all the content. Which I don’t - yet.

I think it would be especially useful to game developers as it covers a whole bunch of topics that you can use to make your code more organic and interesting.

All the programming examples are written using the Proccesing language. Don’t let this put you off. Processing has a lot in common with Java and JavaScript and the techniques can all be mapped over to these and other languages. I made a purchase of the book today. Strongly recommended.

Read "The Thursday Murder Club"

Richard Osman is a very clever bloke. He’s known in the UK for various quiz shows and whatnot, but now he’s written a book. And it’s really, really good. It’s about murder and amateur sleuthing. There are dead bodies, confused coppers and clues galore. It’s a really enjoyable read. And I didn’t figure out who dunnit, despite being convinced at various points in the text that I was on the right track. If you like your sleuthing gentle and very English then you’ll love this.

You must read "Hello World" by Hannah Fry

If computers, big data, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars confuse you, you should read Hello World by Hannah Fry. Hannah is a proper scientist with a wonderful writing style and she makes the technology easy to understand. She also isn’t afraid to muse on the dark side of all this shiny stuff.

There is no assumed computer knowledge, everything is clearly explained and put into context and subjects are introduced with engaging real-life stories. Everything is also properly referenced so that you can follow up on things that you find especially interesting. Excellent stuff.

Recursive purchasing

I was in HMV today and they had a couple of books that I really fancied. It turns out that reduced “with any purchase” works with another book that is also reduced “with any purchase”.

Oh, and the “Damn Fine Cherry Pie” book is excellent. It is a cookbook based on “Twin Peaks”. It has a whole bunch of very unhealthy but totally awesome looking recipes, along with dressing tips for the perfect Twin Peaks gathering and even some origami. Amazing value at less than three quid.

Absurd scientific advice is good reading

This book is a fun read. There’s some really nice science in with the absurd questions, along with the quirky illustrations that Randall Munroe is so good at. I got it at a very good price. And mine is signed too.

A long time ago I wondered about getting a blowlamp and selling singed copies of my books.

A book of things that nobody knows...

If you think about it (and I have) there are more things that we don’t know than things that we do. This book identifies 1001 questions and then tries to find reasons why we can’t answer them. It’s actually three books in one and there is loads of stuff in there.

It’s not the kind of thing you read from cover to cover, but it is rather nice to dive in and stretch your thoughts in strange directions. The unknowns are spread across a wide range of categories and the writing style is very approachable.

If I have an issue with this book it is only that it doesn’t provide any answers. There’s a distinct lack of closure. However, I can’t complain too much, since it is only doing what it says on the tin.

I got the book in WH Smiths for six pounds. At that prices it is a nice diversion.

Read "Midnight in Chernobyl"

You really should read this book. It’s not a happy tale, although there are moments of pure heroism.

It tells the story of the worst nuclear accident the world has ever seen, when a Russian nuclear reactor exploded in April 1986. I can vividly remember seeing news footage of helicopters swarming over the doomed reactor building, along with reports that everything was under control. It was not, and this book tells why and how. The level of detail, and the access to those directly involved, is hugely impressive.

The book serves as a cautionary tale of what can happen if you let economics and political expediency ride roughshod over safety. It has eerie parallels with some recent events. Read it.

Zed book review

Zed by Joanna Kavenna s not a happy tale in the same way that 1984 is not a happy tale. However, it is a very relevant one in the same way that 1984 is very relevant.

Zed is set in the near enough to be scary future and tells of the travails of Beetle, an all encompassing tech company that is in no way similar in reach and vision to companies like Facebook and Google. Not at all.

Beetle is everywhere, and is using its everywhereness to provide everyone with a handy “lifechain” which is able to predict what you might do before you do it. The story explores what happens when pesky humans start behaving in ways which the lifechain doesn’t predict and how Beetle is forced to come up with the idea of “Zed”, an imaginary quantity that defines this unfortunate characteristic. Mitigating Zed becomes a company priority with bad results for just about everyone.

It’s a lovely description of how people, companies and governments can justify, rationalise and institutionalise evil without anyone being consciously malicious. You’re never quite sure where the evil is coming from. Bad things seem to happen to good people as an emergent behaviour of the system, rather than having been mandated by any particular person.

If you have any interest in the future you should read this book. It won’t leave you with a warm feeling that things are all going to be OK with our benevolent corporate overlords, but it will give you a lot to think about.

Get Coding! A great book to start programming

I found this book in a library. But, given that it represents really good value for such a well written text with full colour pages, you should buy your own copy.

The title is a tiny bit misleading though. There is coding in the book, but there is also a lot of HTML and CSS type stuff which is not really programming, but you need as a framework to hold the JavaScript that readers end up writing. The context of the code exercises is beautifully set out, with lovely illustrations and and engaging characters being used to build a fun narrative. It also has a few things that a kid learning to program could use to “impress mum”, always a good thing.

If you’ve got kids this who fancy a go at coding this would be a great starting point. There is also a follow on text (called Get Coding 2!) which has more coding and a focus on game development.

Programming books for kids

I was in the lovely Little Bookshop in Leeds today and I noticed that they had a display filled with books about engineering and coding for kids. Lovely stuff. I’ve bought a couple of books from the shop, and I thought I’d mention them in ye olde blogge.

I’ve put these in the blog post as Amazon items because I’m lazy and its easy to do (which is, in a nutshell why I use Amazon) but what I really want to you to do is go to Leeds, visit the bookshop and buy them there. There’s something really nice about browsing through interesting books in a pleasant environment (and they do great coffee and their Rocky Road cake is fantastic).

Cool Coding: Filled with Fantastic Facts for Kids of All Ages

By Rob Hansen

This is a beautifully presented book and makes lots of really good points about the what software development really is.

For my money it would have benefited slightly from a bit more detail about some of the topics covered, and a bit more programming context for each, but is a very pleasant read and as useful for grown-ups as it is for kids.

This is another beautifully presented book, but in this one the focus is on writing code. The text uses the tried and trusted technique of creating interesting applications and learning about code as you do that.

It’s done very well, there’s great use of colour and layout to explain what the various code elements do.

The programs as presented are great fun and could be the basis of even more interesting bits of code. It would be great to see a follow on text that built on what was described here.

Coding for Beginners: Using Python (Coding for Beginners)

By Louie Stowell

Both of these books complement each other well and are pocket money priced (at least I think they are). They would make great additions to the bookshelf of any kid (or adult) that wanted to dip their toes into coding or at least know a bit about what it is that computers actually do.

Hull Architecture

I must admit that I've never really thought of a place like Hull as having architecture. It's just got lots of nice buildings.

However, I've found out a lot more about the area from this book, which even told me who designed the place I'd spent nearly 40 years of my life working in at the university.

This version was published in 2010, which means that it was just in time to be able to give the low down on places like The Deep.

It's a great reference and even has guided walks around the city. If you're coming to Hull for something City of Culture related, and you want a well written, well researched and good to read guide to where we live then it is well worth a look. 

Tetris by Box Brown

Tetris: The Games People Play

By Box Brown

I don't have many claims to fame. But one is that I once had my picture taken by Alexey Pajitnov, the inventor of Tetris and thoroughly nice man. It was when I was helping out with Imagine Cup Judging in Russia. Alexey and myself were alone in the judging room and I was trying to pluck up the courage to ask him for a picture.

Then a student came in, took one look at me and asked "Can I have a picture with you?". He was one of the competitors, another thoroughly nice chap, and he wanted a picture of himself with one of the judges (i.e. me). He asked Alexey to take the shot, and Alexey obliged. I never got a picture of me with the man who invented Tetris, but having my picture taken by him seems somehow better.

Anyhoo, I was reminded of this when I came across this awesome book by Box Brown. The story of Tetris is fascinating on a whole bunch of levels, and the presentation in beautifully drawn pictures does a great job of telling the tale. If you like video games, social history, business shenanigans or well drawn art, you should get this book.

"Soul of a New Machine" now on Kindle

The Soul of a New Machine

By Tracy Kidder

One reason why I liked Ada's so much is that they had a computer book club and their next meeting was going to discuss "The Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder. 

It is one of my all time favourite books. 

It's supposed to be about building a computer, but really its about people. It's about management, ego and human interaction. Along with a good dollop of how computers work. 

It was written a while back, but still holds lessons for anyone who wants to get thing done. I lent my printed copy to someone (no idea who) a while back and I didn't fancy buying another paper copy. What I wanted was a Kindle version I can carry around on my phone. 

And now I've got one. Amazon have just released the electronic version. If you are in any way serious about computers or management you should read this book. Oh, and it also holds some lessons about how to write a compelling story. A fantastic read.