Nerdery

Review of Grave Peril, Book 3 in the Dresden Files

Apr 16

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Dresden Files fans, rejoice! grumpyhawk and I have completed another episode of our Dresden Files Re-Read. This month we’re reviewing book 3, Grave Peril. This episode is shorter, and a different format then what we previously had attempted, instead of going through the entire story, we highlight our favorite characters and scenes from the book. Hopefully this change in format will keep things interested and keep us form rambling on and on.

If you feel like we’ve overlooked some parts of the book, or want to join in on our discussion, please feel free to tweet at @grumpyhawk or @benjamincombs, or just use the #grumpyhawkreads hashtag. (Although I’m thinking we should make it #grumpyhawklistens as he used the audio book this time around…)

Where Music and Technology Converge – How To Destroy Angels Coachella Review

Apr 15

The How To Destroy Angels show at Coachella on April 12, 2013 was recently captured and streamed on YouTube. Unfortunately I had commitments that kept me in Nashville, or else I would have been interested in going to Coachella and seeing them play. Trent, Mariqueen, Rob, and Atticus all recently were on Reddit for an AMA and made mention of how this show was going to take the viewing experience to a whole new level. So using my trusty Kindle Fire I loaded up the YouTube app and started the stream at 2:05 AM on Saturday morning (Central Time) and started viewing something amazing. It was absolutely worth staying up for. Holy shit this show is amazing. At first glance (and partially due to the viewing angles of the stream) it looks like there is a translucent screen in front of the band, and some sort of projection screen in the rear, and lights in between giving the show a depth and dimension I had never seen before. After a few minutes I realize my initial assessment was wrong, as the “screens” ended up being LED ropes hung close together and were tied to an impressive movable lighting rig.

They weren’t joking when they said this show was going to be amazing. I feel like I could break down each individual song, and how the visual effects were used to enhance the show and elicit certain feels and emotions, but it would pale in comparison to seeing the set for yourself.

I don’t care whether or not you like Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails, or How To Destroy Angels, if you’re interested in watching music being played live, this is one set you should see immediately. If you’re interested in seeing how technology can improve the concert going experience, I would highly recommend grabbing a copy of this video and studying it thoroughly. The way this multi-tiered lighting array was used, moved, changed and lit had my mind active for hours after I watched the show.

I’m extremely jealous of the Coachella concert goers and I’ve made it my goal this year to go out of my way to see HTDA live. After watching this set on my Kindle, I am extremely interested and want to see this show live, the small screen experience did nothing but whet my appetite for seeing what appears to be an amazing show.

Riddler USB drive from Mimoco

Apr 11

I (Benjamin) arrived home to find that I had recently received a package from Mimoco! In it I find 2 stickers :-D, a $10 emusic offer card, and a limited edition Riddler MIMOBOT® character-based designer USB flash drive. (It’s hand written on the top of the box, 127/2000…so close to the top 6%, so close.) So let’s get this custom flash drive out of the box and see what awesomeness is in store for us today.

Looks

First, lets talk about the look of the flash drive. It’s a fun caricature Riddler, complete with giant head and grey bowler hat! The color of the hat fits the design well, but in my research of the Riddler his hat is predominately green; otherwise, there is no mistaking this little flash drive as one of Batman’s iconic foes. The big smile and bright colors would make a perfect companion to Jim Carrey in Batman Forever, if he had need for a flash drive in the movie…(you can see the hair on the flash drive, and while it’s not the red hair Mr. Carrey rocked, it matches the overall design quite well.)

This grinning Riddler makes all your other USB drives jealous.

The Riddler MIMOBOT® USB flash drive

Initially my biggest concern was how round is the flash drive? All the pictures I’ve seen online show the drive from the front and back, and never at an angle and I couldn’t tell how rotund the flash drive was going to be. I didn’t want it to be so large it wouldn’t fit into the narrow space allowed by my PlayStation 3, so I was excited to put the smaller and slimmer than anticipated Riddler right in, without issue.

Face down ass up thats the way the Riddler likes to...be inserted

The Riddler USB drive faces downward when inserted horizontally.

Well…when inserted horizontally, the Riddler is facing downward. I checked on my computer to confirm that it wasn’t just my PS3 port being upside down. This little detail ruined some of the appeal of getting a custom drive. How am I supposed to show it off when all you see is his backside when he’s in use? The light is also back there, so maybe it was intentional? I don’t know for sure, but I know that it looks a bit weird hanging out of my PS3, but the performance isn’t changed by appearance so it’s not exactly a deal breaker, just a negative.

The arms on the side also don’t cause any concern as it fit when I plugged it in next to other cords on my computer. They didn’t touch and it didn’t cause any awkward bending or reason to shuffle anything around, so the unique shape keeps it looking fresh without causing any major headaches.

Goodies

When I plug the USB drive into my computer, I’m shown the drive is named RIDDLER and has 7.28 out of 7.3GB free, I wonder what types of goodies come on the drive. A quick looks shows me a readme.txt file and a Riddler_mimory.zip file. Reading the txt file tells me that the zipped up folder contains a collection of wallpapers, some avatars, replacement icons, and instructions for both windows and mac. While unzipping the file, I am initially disappointed at the wall paper sizes, it seems like they have taken great pride in adding multiple sizes for phones, a square file for tablets, and some generic sizes for wall papers, but all the sizes listed are smaller than my monitor. Finally at long last, I see the resolution I really wanted, 1920×1080, and all is well with the world, I can now use one of these images without the need to stretch and distort the file to get it to fit properly. Hurray!

Overall, the wallpapers are a bit underwhelming. While looking at Mimoco’s blog page announcing the Riddler MIMOBOT® USB flash drive, I saw the wallpapers in the last screen shot. All of the wallpapers have the flash drive in the picture but when I look at the backgrounds of those pictures, those are the wallpapers I really want. A couple Gotham shots and two wallpapers filled with varying question marks would be something I would have loved to use on my computer.

The 5 avatars are fun, but not necessarily my style: 3 of them are pictures of the flash drive, 1 is the iconic question mark, and the last is a drawing of the Riddler holding a cane. Coming in 2 sizes 60×60 and 80×80, it shows that Mimoco took the time to make sure that you could just use their avatars without needing to do any additional editing of your own. Like with the wall paper sizes, there are enough of them to cover most of common sizes.

Last but not least, the icons. Holy cow. 4 custom folder icons, 4 drive icons, a picture of the Riddler, the cane, the hat, the mask, the question mark, and then pictures of the flash drive itself, this collection is awesome. I don’t normally use custom icons, but I’m seriously getting the urge to try these out. The idea of using the self referential flash drive icon, which would make the Riddler pop up when I insert the Riddler flash drive is awesome, and makes me wish I had pictures of all of my flash drives, because then inserting them would become far more rewarding than the generic icons I get now.

The icons are far and away my favorite goodie that came with the flash drive.

Performance

Now on to testing the performance of the flash drive. It’s exactly what you’d expect from an 8GB flash drive. I used HD Speed to test the read/write speeds on the drive, and they are pretty much the same as my other flash drives. So nothing stands out performance-wise, it’s just like your boring, plain looking flash drive. I achieved an average speed of 33.0 MBps when it was reading information off the flash drive, which was on par with other USB flash drives I had lying around. The write speed was noticeably slower, but that is to be expected with flash based memory, only achieving an average of 2.9MBps. Again this fell in line with the other flash drives I tested.

The Riddler USB drive read and write speeds. 33MBps read/2.9MBps write.

Like all flash drives, it works well enough to move your documents, music, or even some videos while being more convenient than using a portable hard drive. I didn’t notice any speed differences when loading the drive full of music to copy to my laptop, but I did notice how much cooler it looked when I was carrying it around my office.

So while all flash drives are pretty much the same when being used, none look this good while in the process.

Beautiful Creatures – A Jen and Xerx Review

Mar 20

Hey folks, welcome to a new, recurring feature here at the grumpyhawk collective, Jen & Xerx review….stuff and things. This is a mother/daughter team that will be delving into various nerdy things and providing a dual perspective, from both a parent and kid’s point of view. First up, Jen (mom) gives us her take on the Beautiful Creatures Series, and it’s recent transition to film.

A fair amount has been written already about how Beautiful Creatures the book and the movie differ (Short version: the movie version removed characters, and gave a TOTALLY different ending for reasons unclear to me or Xerx). Typical of a book-to-movie, some of the things dropped either don’t translate well visually (telepathy) or are just hard to explain (family details). I watched the movie first so it’s easy for me to say that for a YA title, the story benefited from a bit of tightening up. I was surprised they took out so much though – one of the key aspects of YA fiction is struggle/conflict and change. Teen versus the world! The movie focuses on only one struggle – the classic star-crossed lovers conflict. No surprise it keeps getting compared to Twilight. (Though, seriously, star-crossed lovers is a pretty classic trope – why the Twilight shorthand?)

Classic conflicts the book goes much deeper into: small town banding together against an outsider, high school politics, and difficult home life. Really the book drives home more clearly the world (town/school) being against both of the main characters. Ethan – formerly well regarded – is frozen out by his schoolmates and teammates, and viewed as a lost lamb by the town because of his association with Lena. He has nowhere to turn at home because his dad is absentee to the extreme.

The movie also removes complexity. Xerx talks below about all of the various casters and other types of magic users. Another huge complexity present in the book is that Ethan and Lena have “no future” more literally; they cannot be together – not just because people don’t like it. To me this was a huge barrier. (think Rogue of X-Men)

I enjoyed both the book and the movie both, although I found the book a bit clunky and the movie possibly oversimplified (after reading the book). There are four books in the series – I will definitely be interested to read more and see any sequels.

Next up, Xerx (daughter), tells us what she thought of the movie.

Okay; I am going to be bringing the fangirl side of books, or as some put it the silliness. Beautiful Creatures is a book by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, not to be confused with

Beautiful Creatures, the music series

this Beautiful Creatures, a children’s music series by Ed Jordan and Alan Glass using animals to aid in children’s emotional development.

Yeah, not what we are talking about; sorry to disappoint. Anyways, I am going to first mention what I found to be the most significant differences between the movie and the book. SPOILER ALERT! Okay so first of all, the fact that Lena and Ethan can’t talk telepathically. In the book the pair could talk without others hearing from long distances, such as when Lena is at her house and Ethan at his. Useful skill. Second,in the book there was a song called Sixteen Moons that kept playing randomly that added to the creepy factor.The creepiness was a big part in the book that made it as good as it is to me. Finally, there is more than one type of caster in the book.

NO, not those casters. Yahoo! just doesn’t get my searches…Anyway, I can only name some; I know, I’m not a 100% BC fangirl: fire me. Okay so: Siren, Thaumaturge, Natural, and…that is all I can think of. For example, a Siren (such as Ridley) can manipulate others – especially men, a Thaumaturge (such as Ryan) heals, and a Natural (such as Lena) can control weather and the elements. Also, for those of you who haven’t read Beautiful Creatures I would read it. It is a pretty epic book in my opinion and there are some good fansites online for Fangirls/Fanboys, like this LOL worthy script, or this Fan Fiction from Ethan’s POV, Beautiful Remembrance.

Read On,

Xerx

Resistance is Futile – This Is Why #8

Mar 08

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Hey everyone, welcome to episode 8 of This is Why. In this episode, Nate and I talk about Google glass, and how we seem to be on opposite sides of how this tech is going to be used. From there we vere off to internet privacy and the occupy movement. If you’d like to continue the conversation, feel free to leave a comment below.

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