The Cure for Insomnia

Once of the byproducts of actually hitting a wave of creativity and writing feverishly all day is the fact that you end up too wired to sleep properly. While I'm too wired many night, unfortunately this is usually due to eight hours of marathon gaming and forgetting to eat or drink. Thankfully, for both situations, I have found an easy, surefire way to get to sleep quick: a YouTube hit of  British history documentaries.

The Search for Distraction Options

This may put be in the minority of adults, but I like Cars.  The movie.  Yes that one.  I admit I liked the story even when it's world building and internal logic seemed incomprehensible.  I only liked it more when I realized it was really about driverless cars who take on human characteristics and adopt human culture as a way to assuage their guilt and emotionally hollow cores for wiping out their creators in an apocalyptic war.

But mostly these days, I like Cars because it is the one non-terrible, non-grating entertainment I can put on the screen that will keep the kids from destroying the house in their boredom.  Still waiting for dinner to get made?  Put on Cars.  Left bunny behind at school?  Put on Cars.  Kids fighting over toys?  Put on Cars.  Amazingly, they never get sick of it.  As an adult, on the other hand, I was really hoping for another reliable "go to" pick.  Sadly, out of the many, many, many other TV, movie and internet options, none of them could captivate as much as Cars.

Review: The Kassa Gambit, by M.C. Planck

"You should totally judge a book by its cover." That was the advice of a friend back in college when recommending fantasy and sci-fi novels. This was in the days before the ubiquitous blogs, review sites, Amazon recommendations and tweets helped us to pick out our next read (I'm severely dating myself, aren't I?)

At Long Last, I'm Back

Nope, this isn't a real post, sorry. But it's a preview of a post? It's been a long time, lots of things in life have been getting in the way. Now I've started a new job. Ironically, this might actually improve my output, depending on how hard they work me. So stay tuned. Coming up first, a new review, of a sci-fi book no less.

Ideas: The Wonderful World of Content Moderation

Here's another item sitting around for a while in my "to post" list. A few months ago, Wired published this look at the wonderfully icky world of content moderation, one of the tech industry's biggest sources of employment. The workforces at these places dwarf even companies like Google.

Ideas: Artificial Intelligence is Scary

In recent news, computers can now beat us at video games they're not even programmed to play. I think we can now officially begin the countdown to the robot takeover.

Review: Ghost on the Throne, by James Romm

When reading a book on true history, I find that the notes sections are often what makes the overall quality of the work shine through. If I feel compelled to read through the notes, this tells me a few important things. It usually means that the work is well researched, and allows the notes to present a clear basis for the author's statements, as well as alternative interpretations of the evidence. Well written notes give enough context that I don't feel the need to annoyingly flip back and forth between sections. Most importantly, if I'm spending time reading through the notes, it means I didn't want the story to end.

The best non-fiction works have a strong narrative without sacrificing academic rigour. My favourite work of this kind, Batavia's Graveyard, by Mike Dash, is an excellent example of a book I did not want to put down, even while reading the notes. Ghost on the Throne, by James Romm, also passes this test and is easily the best non-fiction book I've read this year.