Author: tonyandrewmeyer

dev, education, dad

Graceling (Kristin Cashore)

Olyvia purchased this on my behalf – I had been given a voucher for Dymocks, which is a terrible choice, because there are so few Dymocks stores, and they are so far away from anywhere I go.  Time passed, and eventually reached the point where I one day to spend the voucher or lose it – losing it seemed a terrible waste, so Olyvia offered to go to Dymocks and purchase a book – basically she read out names over the phone until finding something I didn’t own.  I had never heard of Kristin Cashore before, and I like finding new authors, so it sounded fine to me.

I was more skeptical when Olyvia arrived home with the book.  For a start, it was a softcover edition, which I particularly dislike (I like paperback, because it’s comfortable to read, and I like hardback, because it looks nice and ages well, but softcover has none of the advantages and many of the disadvantages).  In addition, the cover is terrible – it has a moderately attractive women in light armour holding a sword – it looks like a bad book trying to attract teen readers.

However, once I got around to reading it, I was pleasantly surprised.   The ‘magic’ of the world is that some people have extreme talents – rather than just being really good at something, they are ‘magically’ good at it.  In a really nice touch, the talent might be anything, even the mediocre (it reminded me of the heroes with mediocre talents in Lafferty‘s Playing for Keeps).  Although the central characters have talents that are far more impressive, the general way that ‘graces’ were developed was very enjoyable.

The central characters, Katsa and Po, were both well developed, and enjoyable to read.  The antagonist was a little weak – we never really get to know him, so there’s less at stake than with a more developed villain.  However, his ability was suitably impressive, and his lack didn’t detract from the story’s other strengths too much.

(Minor spoiler alert). I did feel that the book ended rather suddenly – although it was obvious that it was getting close to the end (there weren’t many pages to turn), the story only seemed part-way through.  I was really expecting a partial conclusion with a sequel (or two) to finish the story off – although this is probably partly due to the ubiquity of trilogies within the genre).  However, with only a small number of pages to go, the story is completely resolved.  Although it ended cleanly and it did create a real echo of surprise to match the character’s surprise, it still felt quite rushed.

In general, this felt like a really good story by a slightly inexperienced writer.  I think someone with more experience would have been able to flesh out the antagonist more and create a less rushed ending – although these would probably both have meant a longer book.  The story changes a little abruptly about a third of the way through, and I think a more experienced writer would have tied the parts together a little better as well.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable read (it’s unfortunate that the publisher didn’t find a better cover artist), and I highly recommend reading it.  I hope to read more from Cashore in the future, and expect that later novels will have more polish than this one, while hopefully retaining the originality and great character development found here.

Foxmask (Juliet Marillier)

This is the sequel to Wolfskin – to understand the relationships that underlay the characters, it would certainly be best to have read Wolfskin first, although this is a standalone story, not part two of two (or three), which is certainly refreshing.  I purchased this at the same time as Wolfskin, so I wasn’t then aware that I’d love that book so much.  By the time I got to reading Foxmask, though, I had reasonably high hopes for anything from Marillier.

Although I enjoyed Foxmask, it wasn’t quite as fantastic as Wolfskin.  The basic story has a lot of promise, mostly as a result of the earlier book – Somerled, the antagonist from Wolfskin, was so clearly the villain of the piece, but also clearly had the potential for redemption.  Here, we can find out whether he did manage to redeem himself – but Marillier made the sensible decision to place the story a little later in time, so that although the story answers that question, it’s not actually the central focus of the story.  That means that Foxmask is more of a standalone story than a direct sequel, which is a benefit, in my opinion.

Although Thorvald, Sam, and Creidhe are interesting characters, I was never as drawn to them as the Wolfskin characters – and the antagonist of Foxmask is far more on the black side of grey than Somerled ever was, which makes him a lot less interesting.  You can see how he might have made the decisions that he did, but they are still more evil.

The weakest part of the book was the character Keeper.  For some reason, I was never interested or attracted to this character, and that made it harder to understand the relationships that he formed with the other characters.  The strongest part was the development of Thorvald’s character, particularly the leadership development with the other men of the island.

The magic in Foxmask is a little more overt than that of Wolfskin, which also detracts slightly from the story.  It’s also a little darker in some ways (although there’s probably less death, the reader knows the characters that die or suffer better, so they are more intense).

Overall, however, this is still an excellent novel.  If this was the first Marillier novel I read, I’m not sure I would be so eager to seek out more of her work – probably I would just hope to remember to buy one next time I see it, rather than actively looking for it, but I absolutely recommend reading it, especially since it wraps up the Wolfskin story a little more.

Wolfskin (Juliet Marillier)

The main reason that I bought Wolfskin was because I noticed that Marillier was a New Zealander (or at least was born here, although she lives in Australia now), and there’s not really very many NZ sci-fi/fantasy authors or books, and I’d like to support the locals as much as possible.  (As an aside, my favourite NZ book is Beak of the Moon, by Philip Temple, also of Dunedin).

So I wasn’t really expecting that much – it wasn’t quite charity, but I would have been happy with a pretty mediocre story.  However, I really loved this book.  I’m not sure why so many fantasy authors feel the need to set their stories in/around the UK, but it’s so common that it didn’t really bother me here.

The characters in Wolfskin were excellently developed, and a pleasure to get to know.  The antagonist was nicely grey – although you really could despise what he did, you could also understand his motivation for the most part.  The magic was pleasingly subtle, and the battles sufficiently short.

One minor note that bothered me (minor spoiler alert): early in the book, a girl is attacked, and the attacker isn’t identified.  The implication is that it’s the antagonist, Somerled.  The way the scenes were written, it seemed likely to me that it would turn out to not have been (directly) Somerled at all, but rather the girl’s friend, led to a bad decision by listening to Somerled (so he was at fault, but only indirectly).  Even later in the story, when the friend is re-encountered, nothing in the events seemed to contradict this theory.  However, the book ends without coming back to it, so I suppose that we’re meant to just believe that it was Somerled who did the attack.  I think it would have suited Somerled’s character, and improved the story, if we had discovered that it wasn’t directly his fault.

The story ends well, with the story nicely resolved, and although there’s clearly a hook left for a sequel, it’s subtle enough that the ending is satisfying and yet the hook doesn’t seem like the only purpose for that element is the sequel.

Overall I highly recommend reading Wolfskin, and intend to keep an eye out for anything else that Marillier produces.

Fallout (Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Deason)

I quite enjoyed this (a lot more than I enjoyed Resurrection Inc.).  This is really a pretty straight-forward action/adventure style story (the same sort of story as, e.g., 24).  I read a few stories along these general lines (e.g. the Dan Brown books) over the second half of 2008, and they were a nice break (I read more in this genre a long time back), although nothing was mind-blowingly great.

I gathered that Fallout continues the story of characters from an earlier story (Virtual Destruction), but not having read that didn’t effect my enjoyment of this at all – as far as I can tell, the story is completely standalone.

The plot was a little predictable – it wasn’t hard to guess who the villains would turn out to be, but the mystery wasn’t really the appeal of the book, and the characters were likable enough.

Overall, well worth a read.

Resurrection Inc. (Kevin J. Anderson)

For some time, I was posting my mini-reviews on Pownce, which seemed to suit the short format .  I’ve mostly switched to using Twitter instead of Pownce now, but 140 characters is a bit too short.  I don’t really want to create a new account somewhere else, so I guess they can go here for now.  Maybe I’ll start using one of the ‘library’ sites at some point, and switch to there, or maybe I’ll get my Delicious Library -> web system a bit more automated again and integrate it there somehow.

So, since it’s been a while, there’s a bit of a backlog.  Firstly, Resurrection Inc., by Kevin K. Anderson.

I mostly bought this because I recognised the name from ISBW.  It was reasonably enjoyable, but nothing spectacular.  A lot of sci-fi deals with immortality, and this didn’t seem to introduce anything particularly new or compelling.

I liked the first half more than the second – it didn’t end up going where it seemed like it would.  I think partly that I don’t have a huge liking for stories about such dreary futures, where humanity are essentially idiots.

Overall, though, I liked it enough to read more Anderson in the future.

S92A, and other thoughts on the revised Copyright Act

There is quite a furore (e.g. #blackout) at the moment about the eminent arrival of the updated Copyright Act in NZ, pretty much all surrounding section 92A.  92A doesn’t appear in the official online copies (either HTML or PDF) – I don’t know if that is because it only takes effect from the end of the month, or because someone left it out.  The Amendment does have the wording:

92A Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers

“(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.

“(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.

The outcry among the public is basically saying that this amounts to “guilt on accusation” – i.e. someone accuses you of copyright violations, and you lose your Internet access.  That isn’t what it says, however:

  • Termination needs “appropriate circumstances”.  I can’t see how any right-thinking court would think that “proof of guilt” would be an inappropriate circumstance.  I don’t see how “found guilty by a recognised court of law” would be an inappropriate circumstance, either.
  • Nowhere does it say that termination of a user that is accused of infringement is required.  It’s quite explicit in that actual infringement is required.  I fail to see where this section removes the requirement for proof.
  • Termination needs repeat infringement.  You could define repeat infringement as downloading two songs at once, but I believe the more commonly accepted definition (what a court would hopefully require) would be that infringement is done more than one occasion (ideally with some sort of notice or warning after the first infringement).
  • I’ve seen it said that ISPs will use draconian policies out of fear of legal action.  However, the Act specifically exempts any such action:

Merely because A uses the Internet services of the Internet service provider in infringing the copyright, the Internet service provider, without more,—

“(a) does not infringe the copyright in the work:

“(b) must not be taken to have authorised A’s infringement of copyright in the work:

“(c) subject to subsection (3), must not be subject to any civil remedy or criminal sanction.

An ISP could adopt a policy that does provide for immediate termination on accusation, of course.  But they can adopt any policy they like (that doesn’t itself break the law) – that’s how the free market works.  Nothing there has changed.  An ISP could also chose to implement a policy that puts a reasonable burden of proof on the person/organisation making the accusation – considering that many of the major ISPs in NZ have spoken out against the section, it doesn’t seem unlikely that they would do so.

New Zealand is pretty soft on crime (although hopefully that will change with the recent change in government).  If someone (provably) violates the law, and does so knowingly (i.e. I would personally include in a policy a requirement for a first warning, before it gets to “repeat”), then they should be punished.  The question is then whether their Internet access should be removed, or whether punishment should be left for the regular court process.  This is where I have a problem with S92A.

  • Although making it harder for a criminal to repeat offend is a good idea in general, it’s not common.  This is done in traffic offences – if you repeatedly offend, then you lose your license, or might even have your vehicle removed for a period of time.  Many crimes, of course, use only commonly found equipment (or none at all) – so this doesn’t apply to theft, assault, and other crimes like that.  I can’t easily think of a crime that requires specialised equipment – but there probably are some, and removal of a set of tools is probably not done in that case.
  • The section is vague, and the Act’s definition of “Internet Service Provider” is far too vague.  It would be better if it made clear that proof of guilt (e.g. a conviction by a recognised court) was required.

There are many more problems with the revised version of the Act (although it is arguably better than the version it replaces).  For example:

  • The definition of cache is wrong: it must be “for the sole purpose of enabling the Internet service provider to transmit the material more efficiently to other users of the service on their request”.  A cache may be legitimately used to transmit the material a second (or further) time to the same user.

Another example:

An educational establishment does not infringe copyright in a work that is made available on a website or other electronic retrieval system by storing a copy of the page or pages in which the work appears if—

(a) the material is stored for an educational purpose; and

(b) the material—

(i) is displayed under a separate frame or identifier; and

(ii) identifies the author (if known) and source of the work; and

(iii) states the name of the educational establishment and the date on which the work was stored; and

(c) the material is restricted to use by authenticated users.

As far as I can tell, this lets an educational establishment provide unrestricted copies of software to authenticated users, as long as the software is related to the course.  I doubt that’s what’s meant, but that’s how it reads to me.

Then there’s the section that’s meant to be one of the big improvements, stopping everyone that rips CD music (to put on a portable music player) from breaking the law:

Copying sound recording for personal use

(1) Copyright in a sound recording and in a literary or musical work contained in it is not infringed by copying the sound recording, if the following conditions are met:

(a) the sound recording is not a communication work or part of a communication work; and

(b) the copy is made from a sound recording that is not an infringing copy; and

(c) the sound recording is not borrowed or hired; and

(d) the copy is made by the owner of the sound recording; and

(e) that owner acquired the sound recording legitimately; and

(f) the copy is used only for that owner’s personal use or the personal use of a member of the household in which the owner lives or both; and

(g) no more than 1 copy is made for each device for playing sound recordings that is owned by the owner of the sound recording; and

(h) the owner of the sound recording retains the ownership of both the sound recording and of any copy that is made under this section.

This is great, but this specifically excludes video.  So although you can copy a legally purchased CD to a hard drive, then to an iPod, I am restricted from copying a legally purchased DVD to a hard drive, then to an AppleTV.  Where is the logic in that?

Time-shifting is also now permitted:

Recording for purposes of time shifting

(1) A person (A) does not infringe copyright in a programme included in a communication work, or in any work included in it, by recording it, if—

(a) A makes the recording solely for A’s personal use or the personal use of a member of the household in which A lives or both; and

(b) A makes the recording solely for the purpose of viewing or listening to the recording at a more convenient time; and

(c) the recording is not made from an on-demand service; and

(d) A has lawful access to the communication work at the time of making the recording.

(2) However, subsection (1) does not apply, and A does infringe copyright in the communication work recorded and in any work included in the communication work, if—

(a) A retains the recording for any longer than is reasonably necessary for viewing or listening to the recording at a more convenient time; or

(b) in the event that the person who views or listens to the recording wishes to make a complaint to a complaint authority, A retains the recording for any longer than is reasonably necessary to prepare and despatch the complaint.

So I can record Lost to watch it later, but I can’t keep it longer than “reasonably necessary”.  “Reasonably necessary” is far too vague.  I’ve kept programs on MySky for close to a year before getting around to watching them.  Is that “reasonable”?  Would copyright holders really care if recordings for personal use had no time limit?

My biggest concern is that this Act (and presumably many others) was developed/debated by people who have no idea what they are talking about (just read the debate transcripts, and it’s obvious).  Surely someone could be found to inform the politicians, so that they have some clue about the decisions they are making?

Disclaimer time: Note that I am not a lawyer, nor do I follow this extremely closely.  I may be wrong in places.  However, I have read the Acts (original, revised, and amendment), and also the transcripts of the various debates/readings that were held.  I’m not convinced that many of the other people writing/speaking about this have done so.  I also strongly believe that people should be entitled to certain rights (such as those that the Copyright Act provides) over works that they developed (i.e. I’m not anti-copyright), although there should be sensible exclusions.  I believe that many of the changes are positive, and that many of the rights are fair.  As those that know me know, if there is a reasonably convenient, reasonably priced method of legally acquiring content, then I will always use that (even though I have sufficient knowledge to easily obtain illegal copies).

How to waste $500M

I believe this was announced a while ago, but I only noticed when it was twittered today: Vodafone NZ is extending their network so that there is 900 MHz 3G coverage over much more of the country.

I was quite elated reading that – the existing coverage is is not great, and it’s annoying having a very capable phone and not being able to use it as it was meant to be (especially when overpaying).  However, after asking a few questions, it turns out this is actually bad news – the extended coverage won’t work with the world’s best phone (only PR people really dispute that).  Since they’ve just extended the network, it seems pretty unlikely that they’re planning on a real upgrade any time soon, so this means that real coverage is further off, not closer.

The release has a list of 14 phones that can be used (only 14!).  These all look very uninteresting:

  • Nokia 3120.  Looks like something from 5 years ago.
  • Nokia 6121.  Perhaps 7 year ago.
  • Nokia 5320.  Perhaps 4 years ago.
  • Nokia 5800.  
  • Nokia N96.  A reasonable phone for its day – before people realised how good a phone could actually be.
  • Nokia E75.  Tiny screen, and two keypads.  Crazy.
  • Nokia E71.  Tiny screen, huge keyboard.  That’s the wrong way around, people.
  • Nokia E63.  These Nokia’s really do all the same…
  • Nokia N85.  A couple of years ago, this family of phones was pretty interesting.
  • Nokia E66.  The most interesting of the Nokias.  Still nothing fascinating.
  • Sony Ericsson 715.  Something not from Nokia!  I guess this might be already if you didn’t mind ugly and just wanted a pretty plain phone (but then what are you using the 3G for?).
  • Sony Experia.  It uses Windows Mobile, which I think everyone can agree is a joke at this point.
  • LG KS500.  Just a phone.  Ok, but boring.
  • HTC Diamond II.  Most interesting looking here, but (a) is this released yet? and (b) Windows Mobile.

What about the Pre? (ok, still coming soon).  What about the Storm or Bold – or any other BlackBerry?  What about the G1 (HTC Dream)?  And yes (the one I care most about since I own one), the one that they are all trying to better, the iPhone?

It’s possible that a third generation iPhone might support 3G at 900 MHz, but as far as I can tell Europe and the US don’t really have any 900 MHz 3G networks, so I don’t know why Apple would bother.

I’m not entirely clear on what Telecom’s about-to-arrive new network is, but my guess is that it’s not going to help (I bought the iPhone outright, so could easily switch if necessary, especially now there’s number portability).

For now, looks like we’re stuck in the slow lane.  At least the iPhone can use the home network when at home – I can’t understand why anyone would get a phone that didn’t have WiFi, especially with New Zealand’s terrible data prices/plans.

The one good side: having a twitter presence is great, especially since Brislen actually responds to people with useful answers.  He does seem to be quite good at his job – I wish this could be said about everyone at Vodafone!

Go raise your own children, please!

It really bugs me when I’m told how to raise my child, whether by the government, by people I know, or random people off the street.  If you have children, then you get to decide how you raise them (I have no desire to interfere with that at all).  If you don’t have children, then it’s nothing to do with you, and you don’t know anything about it anyway.  For better or worse (and it does seem a lot like worse, these days), any man & woman can have a child, and if they make that decision (or a decision that leads to a child that wasn’t expected), then they are responsible for making sure that, to the best of their ability, the child is brought up appropriately.  ‘Appropriately’, of course, is completely up to them (the things insane people do, like violence and abuse, don’t count – if you’re so badly disturbed that you can deliberately injure your own child, then you don’t belong in society).

I have no problem with people offering advice, or asking for it.  But that’s where it stops.  I really don’t care in the slightest what you (where “you” covers everyone but my wife) think about how I am raising my child.  It’s our business, not yours.  When he’s my age, then he can make his own judgement about it as well (but while he’s a child, he doesn’t get to decide, either).  That means the government shouldn’t interfere, past ensuring basic rights (preventing the aforementioned violence, requiring schooling, etc).  That means that if you’re someone that knows me, you’re welcome to have any opinion you like about how we are doing it, but you can keep any non-constructive criticism and negative judgements to yourself.  If you’re a random person on the street, then feel free to give me a passing compliment, but you can save anything else to discuss with your own friends, if you have any.  I imagine it would be extremely annoying if grandparents did this (they’ve had their chance, it’s time to let the kids have their turn).  Thankfully, my parents are great, and let us do things however we like, even if it differs from what they would do (or did), all the while supporting us as much as they can.

One of the annoying things is that (as people who know me know) I really don’t care in general what people think about what I do.  I act as I believe I should, and am happy to discuss things with people, but I’m going to do what I think is right, not what other people think I should do.  So other people’s judgements wouldn’t bother me, except that it does bother my wife, and her opinion, of course, does count.

So, please: if you’re someone that does this, stop.  Next time you feel you’re going to criticise someone else’s parenting to them, remember that it’s their kid, and their decision, and save your comments for a water cooler discussion another day.

Hello, Telecom NZ, it’s 2008 already…

My sister’s Internet connection isn’t working, and she called me up to troubleshoot it.  The router’s testing indicated that it was a line issue, so I headed over to Telecom’s service status page to see if this was a known problem.

The entire telecom.co.nz site (NZ’s biggest Telco) is down for 6 weekend daytime hours for maintenance!  These guys must think it’s still the 1990s or something (like Vodafone a while back).

In the first place, why are they doing maintenance during the day?  Maintenance that needs downtime is done in the middle of the night when the impact on customers will be least (people building roads have known this for decades).

Secondly, it takes very little work to setup a system where you can serve at least something (static pages, if nothing else) via an alternate location.  Replicating the entire setup (account maintenance etc) is probably overkill, but there is absolutely no reason not to have some content available.  Certainly the status page would be one of those things (it could be manually updated if necessary – I doubt you could find a NOC staff member that can’t write HTML).  I would think that things like pricing and packages would be another (that content is probably dynamic, but anything that doesn’t require a login should be easily copied and served elsewhere temporarily).

NZ’s ISPs are pretty laughable in many respects.