Fuzzy Nation is a great story about fighting for what is right and getting personal revenge along the way. Scalzi created a very funny story about an underdog fighting against all odds and powerful enemies.
Jack Holloway is an anti-hero. You can think of him as Han Solo working as a lawyer. He is a former lawyer that was expelled from the job for a not-that-clear fact, losing a very important case on purpose, it seemed. He became then a geologist freelancer on a very distant planet, scanning underground for mineral richness. On the way, he discovered a very different thing. And it puts him in a position to work back as a lawyer, fighting against the former employer, that is no short of money and resources.
Holloway is clever. But this is one of the main complaints I had. Holloway is so clever that you cannot follow what he is thinking. It is, in fact, intentional. The book hides inner thoughts of Holloway to deliver some surprising turns in the story. But sometimes it makes you feel like a mere passenger.
Despite any complaints, it is a solid title. I loved reading it and recommend it. I would not be surprised if it gets a movie adaptation eventually.
The Martian is often described as Cast Away in space. I agree. It presents the incredible task of surviving, alone, on Mars. Just like Tom Hanks surviving on the island.
But improvising life on Mars is several degrees more complex than on that island. This is why the main character in The Martian has to be a very, very very smart guy, a little too MacGyver to be honest. Imagine Apollo 13, the movie, when NASA focuses on converting ship scraps into an oxygen filter, but for the entire duration of the movie, it was done mostly by one guy.
80% of the book, Mark Watney is in dire straights. Always facing high odds of dying. This is why the book is so compelling. It sucks your soul, making you wonder at night “how he can pull this off now?”. Watney must have a clear state of mind all the time. I understand that it would not make any sense to write a book about a normal guy that gets lost on Mars and dies after the first disaster. But Watney is too much the perfect guy to be lost in spaceace.
The book sometimes abuses the technical description of the solution. It could be shorter by a bit. However, and this is not a small achievement, there are at least 2 moments when I was crying due to the narration and climax feeling.
It will become a movie directed by Ridley Scott and started by Matt Damon. I will see the movie for sure.
Without any delay, I give it to you: Mark of the Ninja entered to my Top 10 Games of All Time. That is the how much I liked the game.
This beautifully crafted 2D action stealth game. You are asked to go through the stealthy approach in the entire game, but if you are more willing to make it a blood bath, it is a viable option too.
The controls are sharp and the levels are very well designed. And just like Super Meat Boy, the difficulty level is at the point that it you will get compelled to replay it for a better score.
Music is great, story also very good (makes you wanting to know more about the mysteries ahead). I got really inspired by the Klei production.
I played it until I got almost all the badges and challenges completed. When I finally got almost everything possible, it made me sad to uninstall it.
I was waiting a moment with my girlfriend to watch what I was expecting to be a silly romance story. The Fault in Our Stars was a bestseller book, adapted to the big screen. And it is more than enough to make me shiver. Twilight Saga and Fifty Shades of Grey are recent proof of what book editors are bestselling.
But for my surprise, this one is a great movie. Amazing character development, very sad story with a great dosage of first love romance. I cried from start to end.
The actors deliver the characters with nice performances. I cannot remember right now a single actor that was bellow-par. Shailene Woodley is gorgeous and with the make up and different haircut, she is even more beautiful. Great actress too, because she makes you care deeply about her character, the protagonist Hazel.
Her friend and lover Augustus, played by Ansel Ergot, is less believable, but very likable. He is always positive about life and drives the whole dark tone of cancer with much lighter.
The human relations, even on very dare moments of life, is really
About two weeks ago, I was feeling my cellphone too slow. So slow I was starting to think about replacing it with a brand new one. I’ve heard excellent things about the new 2014 Moto X and it was the one that I would probably buy.
However, I believe that my Galaxy S3 is still very good. It is was once a very fast machine, so it might be a way to return it to its former glory. So I changed the focus to replacing big chunks of the software with new ones. My fear was that I was walking in a path that leads to the same place, because about 3 months ago I installed a new Android home screen app, Nova, getting rid of the horribly slow Samsung TouchWiz app, but due to the same set of other apps running was still making the general impression of a slow device.
I took the radical change. I was looking for a very slim Android distro to install. The closest to the vanilla Android, with just the essential extra software. The obvious candidate was CyanogenMod. I once installed in my first smartphone, the Motorola Defy and it was a blast new experience. I was hopping to get the same good sensation in this new run.
CyanogenMod, since them, evolved to a much more professional and organized organization. Their web site is now much more clean and well documented. They now have an installer that is a total breeze. No more almost-secret recipe list of instructions that, if not done correctly, would turn your phone into a brick.
So I tried. I backed up every thing in the memory card and… removed everything. No turning back.
Oh man. WOW.
What a difference. The first impression is generally very good. Because the lack of installed software of any new OS install, it generally seems so fast and responsive. It was not different here. The phone was responding to every command promptly. It was really nice. The whole thing was if it would keep its speed even after reinstalling all the essential apps, like Firefox, PDF reader, a To Do task (I’m my case, both Evernote and Wunderlist), and some messaging apps, like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Google Hangouts and a better TTS engine (Ivona).
I am glad to say that it is still fast. ‘Course that not like the clean state, but definitively a great general sensation.
CyanogenMod have a very close to stock Android with a good selection of apps. Their camera app is very nice, their configuration pages are well organized and the home app is fast and customizable. I did not try the default browser because because of pure habit, but I might give it a try soon.
For all the time I’ve already spent on it, I can only say that I recommend it. If you are getting too annoying of your current phone to the point that you are thinking about buying a new one, you might first take a much more economical approach installing CyanogenMod Android in your device. VIVA the phone rebirth!
