Reviews and links for May 2010

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017.

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston

4/5

Over 30 interviews with tech company founders ranging from Ray Ozzie and Mitch Kapor to James Hong of "Hot or Not". The interview with Philip Greenspun of ArsDigital is very raw and very amusing. Joel Spolsky's advice is "So quit your day job. Have one other founder, at least. I'd sat that's the minimum bar to getting anywhere." - well, that plus have a hit blog read by developers and then sell tools for developers. Diverse, inconclusive but fascinating.

The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium, #2) by Stieg Larsson

4/5

Picks up the pace from the first book in the trilogy. Looking forward to the third, which comes out in the US in a couple of weeks.

Links

- Let’s Get Small from I, Cringely (Way to kick Zuckerberg while he's down...).

- World Cup hangover warning from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (The same half a million?).

- Fewer women get mammograms after program cuts from SFGate: Top News Stories (Nice one CA. I bet treating undetected and uninsured breast cancer will be a bunch cheaper :().

- Church warns cell scientists not to play God from All Salon (Surprise surprise. Correction, so far we have Evolution and Venter...).

- Cordoba scandal from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Really, shocked? Not been reading the news much then...).

- Toddlers who lie will do better, research suggests from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Fair disclosure - the research was conducted by lying toddlers...).

- Calif sea lion shot in face has new home from SFGate: Top News Stories (Getting shot is bad enough... Six Flags is torture.).

- Fresh BA strike dates announced from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Hopefully they'll correspond with large plumes of ash.).

- Fan updating David Lynch's "Dune" with modern FX from Boing Boing (You're making it worse. Stop.).

- Neanderthal genes 'survive in us' from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Um, the surprise would be if this wasn't the case.).

- Terry Pratchett: Doctor Who isn't science fiction from Boing Boing (Shouldn't think of it as one show. It's more of a framework for different authors to create plot around - some are very hard SciFi and some are very silly.).

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(All Reviews)

reviews, jessica livingston, stieg larsson, small, hangover, mammograms, scientists, cordoba, toddlers, calif, updating, neanderthal, science

Reviews and links for March 2010

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017.

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

3/5

Classic Hornby. It's fairly close to High Fidelity with it's themes of love and music obsession-ism and so feels slightly too comfortable but certainly worth a read if you're a fan. 3/24/2010 2:00:00 AM

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) by Stieg Larsson

3/5

Slow, but highly atmospheric mystery. The first half of the book is dedicated to setting the scene and then the pieces start to fit into place like a glacier melting. The pace makes the occasional punctuation of extreme sexual violence all the more shocking. Fun enough, so I'll probably read the rest of the trilogy and try to catch the film (which has to be a profoundly truncated version).3/22/2010 2:00:00 AM

Practical WPF Charts and Graphics by Jack Xu

4/5

Be aware that this book is 90% code, 5% mathematics and 5% explanation. This isn't a criticism, Dr. Xu builds up a complete charting library that includes 2D, WPF 3D and manual 3D methods. The mathematics covers the theory and practice of 2D and 3D transforms as well as techniques for smoothing, interpolating and trending data. It's a fast read to get a sense of the content and then a great reference work to dip back into as needed. 3/14/2010 3:00:00 AM

C# Design and Development: Expert One on One by John Paul Mueller

1/5

This book is just atrocious. Each section sells itself as providing all the information you need about a certain topic, then provides trivial and often incorrect or at least highly subjective details. A couple of examples:

The chapter on error handling makes the point that you should catch the most specific Exception possible, but then goes on to demonstrate catching a FormatException, a DivideByZero exception and then just System.Exception. The whole point is to avoid catching Exceptions that you can't handle. There's a legitimate debate here between trying to plaster up the cracks with general catches and letting the application die with a useful stack, however this book doesn't discuss it. There's also very brief coverage of creating your own derived Exception but it doesn't touch on serialization.

Serializing an XML file is somehow included in the section on "Special Coding Methodologies", and labors over calling both .Flush() and .Close() on a StreamWriter. Despite the fact that you only need to call Close(), and that StreamWriter is IDisposable and so a using statement is really the way forward for this example.

I could go on, but won't. Avoid. 3/8/2010 2:00:00 AM

Links

- Dorothy Erskine Park Exists from Spots Unknown (Must go find this park.).

- Parties in online popularity war from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (No).

- Winslet and Mendes split from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (I thought that was her Dad?).

- Court: 'Under God' in Pledge is constitutional from SFGate: Top News Stories (Bollocks).

- Casttoo from jwz (I want to break my arm again...).

- Woman murdered over Facebook photo from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Somehow I don't think the photo being on Facebook was the important part of the story...).

- Petition against Pope's UK visit from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (A better petition would be to get the Pope and Dawkins together on Question Time.).

- 'Heart risk' at football stadiums from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Surprisingly few are equipped to remove gall stones as well.).

- Postal Service's emerging model: Never on Saturday from SFGate: Top News Stories (How about once a week. While you're at it recycle the junk at the post office and don't bother hauling it out for delivery.).

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reviews, nick hornby, stieg larsson, jack xu, john paul mueller, popularity, winslet, constitutional, casttoo, murdered, petition, football, emerging

Reviews and links for February 2010

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017.

Programming WPF by Chris Sells

4/5

A highly detailed and well written reference to WPF. Note that this second edition is still based on Visual Studio 2005 / .NET 3.0 so a little out of date now. I still found the book to be very useful and would recommend it both for picking up WPF basics and to refer back to for more advanced topics when needed.2/26/2010 2:00:00 AM

Professional C# 2008 by Christian Nagel

4/5

I'm in the process of upgrading to VS2008 and loved the 2005 version of this book so picked up the 2008 update. It's a broad language and framework reference, perfect for understanding what's available in .NET 3.5 and how to get started. My only complaint is that it could have used a "what's new" section or guide to separate out completely new technologies from those familiar from .NET 2.0. Not a big problem though, it's easy to skim through the old stuff and then pay attention when you reach something new. I'll probably pick up the 2010 version in 2015 or so ;)2/15/2010 2:00:00 AM

Links

- Don't Fuck with the Copyright Jesus. from jwz.

- Wikipedia list of every landing mankind has ever made on other planetary bodies from Boing Boing (Wow, what were the Russians up to with Venus?).

- UK NHS urged to buy Fairtrade tools from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Fair enough, but what about having developing countries pay to train doctors and nurses and then poaching them to work for the NHS?).

- Brown 'upset' by bullying claims from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (And when he finds those responsible he's going to turn purple, squint and twat them.).

- CBS runs free ad for "magic" energy box from Boing Boing (A slightly more skeptical take. Magic box plus natural gas...).

- French halal burger sparks appeal from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (So eat somewhere else. You're in France and not about to starve.).

- One inch equals $30,000 in online dating world from Boing Boing (I'm worth $2.2 million :)).

- Honor Societies from xkcd.com.

- Video: Mantis vs. Cursor from Boing Boing (OK, I need a Preying Mantis to entertain me like this while I work...).

- Toyota recalls 8,000 US vehicles from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (And they're not even real propellers. They're just the joke ones you can attach to your tow hitch.).

- Britain reveals how U.S. treated detainee from SFGate: Top News Stories (Miliband against the "principle of their disclosure by an English court against U.S. wishes"!).

- Mariposaaah!!! from Spots Unknown (Feels steeper walking up it.).

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reviews, chris sells, christian nagel, copyright, wikipedia, fairtrade, bullying, energy, french, equals, societies, mantis, vehicles, detainee

Reviews and links for May 2010

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston

The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium, #2) by Stieg Larsson

Links

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Reviews and links for March 2010

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) by Stieg Larsson

Practical WPF Charts and Graphics by Jack Xu

C# Design and Development: Expert One on One by John Paul Mueller

Links

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Reviews and links for February 2010

Programming WPF by Chris Sells

Professional C# 2008 by Christian Nagel

Links

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