wshaffer

Lacuna Coil recorded a Christmas song. Hah.

I can't remember whether I mentioned it here before, but I bought a new phone recently. I got an iPhone SE - I was pretty happy with my old iPhone 5 and I probably wouldn't even have bothered to upgrade for a while except that the screen was falling off. When I bought the iPhone SE, I was pretty much expecting to get an iPhone 5 with more storage and a somewhat better camera, and I was happy with that.

However, on Monday, I went to a concert at the Oakland Metro, and I discovered something that completely blows my mind. I took some video of the headlining band, because I wanted to show Daniel a little bit of what the show was like. Now, most cell phone videos taken at concerts sound like crap, because the music is just so loud that it overloads the sound inputs and you get tons of clipping. So, I was very pleasantly surprised when I played the video back and it sounded like this:



Somebody in Apple marketing is missing a trick somewhere. Because if someone had told me, "Get an iPhone SE and you can record listenable concert video even in the second row at the Oakland Metro," I'd have upgraded ages ago.

I have just been introduced to the delightfulness that is Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women, and I've gotta share with y'all.

First up is a song that we all need sometimes: "Bitch With a Bad Attitude"


Second is a song that is the best reclaiming of the term "Thunder Thighs" since this: "There's Lightning in These Thunder Thighs"

The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast by Josh Kaufman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


For a start, I don't recommend getting this book on audio. It's well-narrated, but the chapters on learning programming and learning to play go would benefit a lot from visuals. (All the visuals are available from the book's website, but since I usually listen to audiobooks when I'm not sitting in front of a computer, that didn't do me a whole lot of good.)

This book is an interesting mix of how-to and memoir. The how-to part starts from the now-famous assertion that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill…and then makes the happy assertion that it only takes about 20 hours of focused practice to get competent at a skill. Kaufman then lays out a check list of what you should do to maximize the results that you get out of your first 20 hours of practice. The principles seem to me to be good ones- some are things that I already do when learning something new, and some are ideas that are new to me.

The second and much longer part of the book is a kind of memoir of how Kaufman applied these principles to learning several different skills: yoga, programming basic web applications in Ruby, relearning to touch type, learning to play go, playing the ukelele, and windsurfing. I think it's probably a rare reader who will find all of these equally fascinating. The chapter on learning programming was fascinating, but if I weren't already half-competent at Ruby myself, I'm not sure if I'd have followed along at all. The chapter on relearning to touch type was actually unexpectedly fascinating. I found that the chapters on yoga and go dragged a bit.

Overall, this is a great read for relentless autodidacts everywhere, but get a paper or ebook copy so that you can skim the parts that you don't find as interesting.



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Doctor Who: The Cold Equations by Simon Guerrier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Like the previous story in this trilogy featuring newly-created companion Oliver, this really captures the feel of Hartnell-era Doctor Who. The meticulously worked-out details of zero-gravity navigation even evoke some of the show's original purpose as education television, without getting tedious.

I continue to really enjoy the relationship between Oliver and Steven, and this play does a lot to showcase it, since the second half is mostly a two-hander featuring the two of them. They present a nice contrast to each other: Oliver is shrewd, slightly devious, but very much out of his depth in the realm of time and space travel. Steven is much more open and plain-spoken, but comes from far in Oliver's future.

We also get to find out what Oliver's secret is. I think they made a smart choice to reveal it now rather than trying to string it out for suspense. I'd had my suspicions about what it was, and they happened to be correct. Oliver's confession and Steven's reaction to it were pitched just about perfectly.

I'm very much looking forward to the next installment in the trilogy.



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Doctor Who: The Silver Turk by Marc Platt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Well, I'm still loving the fact that a throwaway line in an early 8th Doctor audio play about the Doctor meeting Mary Shelley eventually led to a whole set of plays featuring Mary Shelley as a companion. And, of course, it's thoroughly appropriate that Mary Shelley's first proper adventure with the Doctor should involve her encountering a Cyberman.

This is an atypical Cyberman story, being set in 19th century Vienna, and featuring a pair of Cybermen from Mondas who have crashed on Earth and been badly damaged. Like the author's previous story, Spare Parts, this story highlights the individuality of the Cybermen much more than most stories that feature them, bringing out hints of the human personalities still lurking beneath their cybernetically enhanced exteriors. In lots of ways, this makes them more horrific than when they're portrayed as a mass of identical emotionless near-robots. The story also does a great job of integrating the Cybermen into a story that very much has the feel of 19th century literature of the uncanny. It feels period, while incorporating futuristic elements.

Mary Shelley makes a great Doctor Who companion - she's smart, courageous, and not afraid to take the initiative. Platt strikes a good balance in showing her adjusting to the concept of time travel and the strange things that she encounters without bogging down the story. The scene where she first speaks to a damaged Cyberman is pitch perfect - she sympathizes with and tries to help a creature that everyone else sees as a monster.

I have a few quibbles. I could do with a few less jokey references by the Doctor to Mary Shelley's future books - after a while, it not only feels in-jokey but rather careless on the Doctor's part. Admittedly, these stories are set before the 8th Doctor's most traumatic experiences with the Web of Time, but it still feels like he should be a bit more careful.

Still, if the remaining Mary Shelley stories live up to this one, I'll be very happy indeed.



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So, back when I was a teenager, something that was very important to my music appreciation was the concept of the Album of Imminent Suck. Basically, if a band released an Album of Imminent Suck, which was was itself usually not a bad album, then one of two things would happen: either the band would break up or everything they released thereafter would Suck.

Each new album release by a favorite band was therefore an occasion for some anxiety, as it had to be scrutinized for the varied and subtle signs of imminent suckage. I can remember the rush of relief I felt on hearing Soundgarden's Superunknown for the first time and feeling absolutely certain that it was not their Album of Imminent Suck, and the equally crushed when I heard Down on the Upside, because despite containing some of Soundgarden's best tunes, it was the clearest example of an Album of Imminent Suck I'd heard in some time. The band proved me right by breaking up not long thereafter.

Of course, now I've reached the age at which dearly beloved bands of my youth that succumbed to Suck decades ago are now reuniting. And I find myself cautiously excited. Is it possible that my 18-year-old self did not know everything about the creative lifecycle of bands, and there might be a path back from the pit of Suck?

Soundgarden have released "Been Away Too Long", the first single from their upcoming new album, and on the basis of one listen, I'm prepared to say it doesn't suck. I wouldn't quite call it a home run - the lyrics are a little self-referential for my taste, and it doesn't have the sheer grandeur of my favorite Soundgarden tracks. But it's got a nice chuggy little guitar riff, somewhat reminiscent of "My Wave" from Superunknown.

You can listen on Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/soundgarden/been-away-too-long. (They've disabled embedding, alas.)

Of course, there are also bands that just defy the simple pattern of the Album of Imminent Suck altogether. My Dying Bride have seemed like they were going off the rails a number of times during their 20+ year career, but always seem to find their way back to equilibrium. They have an album coming out in a couple of weeks, and have released a preview track called "Kneel 'Till Doomsday".

It doesn't suck either, although I have an unreasonable fondness for violin played over downtuned guitars (a combination that, as far as I know, is unique to My Dying Bride), so I'm predisposed to like it:

In Conversation With An Acid Bath Murderer by Nigel Fairs

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Nigel Fairs plays John George Haigh, one of the twentieth century's most infamous serial killers, who dissolved his victims' bodies in acid in the belief that a murder conviction was not possible in the absence of a body. The play is largely a monologue delivered by Haigh from his prison cell just before his execution, looking back on his life, although key scenes in his recollection are dramatized by a full cast.

It's certainly an acting tour-de-force by Fairs, who manages to portray Haigh as the outwardly charming and smooth-talking fellow that he had to be in order to win the trust of his victims and evade suspicion for as long as he did. Ultimately, I have to say that it wasn't quite my cup of tea - I read a lot of true crime stories, but what tends to interest me is the detective work and forensic science involved in catching the criminal, and there's not much of that here.




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Doctor Who: Rat Trap by Tony Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I thought this was good solid fun, though not mind-blowing. I think it suffers a bit from having the regular cast get split up and paired off with various guest cast members, leaving a lot of separate threads to keep track of. Although on the flip side, it had some very strong guest characters, and some quite emotionally touching moments near the end.

The science does annoy me a bit - as in a lot of Doctor Who it's very hand wavy ("I made a cocktail of amino acids and proteins and synthetic strings that, when injected made a radical advancement in rat genetics.") and major breakthroughs happen implausibly fast. I should just let this stuff go, really, but I can't quite. But the setting is well-realized and the action is vivid.



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