User Profile

Part comedy, part memoir, part filler. Put them together and you end up with a grey goo, and not very tasty. Adding "read by Patton Oswalt and Michael Stipe" is like adding a sprig of parsley or a mint to the goo - slightly improved, but still goo.

I enjoyed some of the memoir bits, especially describing life as a standup comic. The first chapter was pretty good also. The comedy bits were a mixed bag, and at least Patton has good comic timing. The fillers (greeting cards? hobo songs?) were mostly awful.

It is more apparent that this book has two authors than other collaborations I have read. I enjoyed the story of the Sri Lankan mathematician, and probably tolerated more math language than others would have. The back story of galactic aliens was interesting, but might have fit better in a few large chunks instead of being spread throughout. It was hard not to envision the small aliens as coming from Douglas Adams. Overall a decent collaboration and story.

I really enjoyed most of the stories in this collection, and who doesn't love Sherman Alexie?

This collection of short stories has a pretty stellar cast, and unfortunately more misses than hits. I enjoyed the contributions of Norman Spinrad, James Blish, John Brunner, Piers Anthony and Harry Harrison. The rest ranged from unremarkable to nearly impenetrable - would the recreational drugs of 1970 help?

Mariner fan Derek Zumsteg writes about how baseball and cheating evolved together, covering the quasi-legal to downright dirty. His last chapter makes some solid points about how various cheats (trick pitches, corked bats and spitters) led us to where we are today, and I agree. The earlier chapters are hit-or-miss, but usually quite humorous. A solid 3.5 stars, and a worthy read for baseball fans.

Ben Bova started writing his Grand Tour series some twenty years ago. I read a middle book in the series two years ago, then sought out this book for future reading. I've had a fascination with the concept of a power satellite since reading [b:Colonies In Space|1672032|Colonies In Space|T.A. Heppenheimer|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1365589917s/1672032.jpg|1667039] as a kid.

This book has some sci fi, but is more of a techno-thriller. I liked the main character Dan Randolph far less than the older version of him from [b:The Precipice|267302|The Precipice (Asteroid Wars, #1)|Ben Bova|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312231973s/267302.jpg|293551], and the romance aspects seemed forced to me. Other than that, the story was decent enough to like; I will continue to read this series.

This book describes nine revolutionary algorithms without delving into deep computer science or mathematics. Ideas such as these truly are the core of software engineering, and one of the main reasons I got into this field. In the conclusion, the author speculates on what sorts of solutions might be generated in the near future - very interesting ideas.

In my opinion, both the description the Pattern Recognition algorithms and the overview of the Halting Problem were more complex than they needed to be. A discussion of neurons from other popular science books would improve the former; the latter may just require editing. Regardless, this is a very good introduction to these algorithms.

The story earns high marks; as I neared the close I worried too much was being left for the next book, but that resolved and this book can stand alone. Not well, but it can. A decent coming-of-age novel. What would be fantastic is a story from the point-of-view of another ward.

The writing nets low marks - I dislike the omniscient narrator, who unfortunately kept popping up. To put it in writers terms, way too much tell, not enough show. The dialog saves this somewhat, with good use of wit.

Overall rating - a smidge under 4 stars. I will read the next in the series, and I hope it hits a little closer to the bullseye.

This World War II classic novel spent 62 weeks on the best seller list. With half a platoon of fully fleshed out characters, this book is a tribute to miscommunication, giving several viewpoints of each action in the main story - the capture of a fictional island in the Pacific Theater of Operation.

I am glad I read it, and somewhat appropriately finished it on a rainy Memorial Day. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes is a better war novel, though it covers Vietnam instead.

A good introduction to C++ which requires no prior programming experience. Using the concept of a train, object oriented concepts are hit fairly soon, before C standards such as call by reference. Examples are fairly clear, but often require some work from the reader to complete. Graphic descriptions of memory allocated were especially welcome.

The entire book is online at people.csail.mit.edu/phw/OnToCPP/toc.html The graphics have suffered somewhat, but the text is clear to read and examples of code can be copied and pasted into C++ editors or environments.

Greatly enjoyed by my nine year old, to whom I read out loud. Here first question upon finishing - "Is there a sequel?"

The first parts of this were a little slow to read, as I wanted to comprehend all the ideas. After that, a series of error examples were all quick to read and enjoyable. The overall conclusion, that error is tied to creativity, and indeed humanity, was well done. I may have to ponder on some of the sub-conclusions, which bear a little more thought.