Review: Help! I Have a Manager! – Wizard Zines

(Post theme: Talk by Coldplay)

Next up in the Wizard Zines set is an odd one, not being particularly technical, and I think one of the earlier ones: Help! I Have a Manager, which is all about building good relationships with your manager.

Like Julia, I’ve had several good or great managers, and a few not so much. I have found them all very different, so page 16, which is all about this, really resonated. Other than that, this was pretty much all advice I’d seen elsewhere and/or picked up naturally. For someone really early career, this might be worthwhile, but I’d skip it otherwise.

Unlike the other zines, this one (at least the PDFs, when viewed in Apple Books) had weird spacing issues where text had odd gaps and sometimes had overlaid characters. Not enough to prevent reading the zine, but enough that it doesn’t feel polished like the others.

Review: Bite Size Bash – Wizard Zines

(Post theme: Hall of Fame (feat. will.i.am) by The Script)

As mentioned previously, I purchased the set of Wizard Zines via my annual training budget, and am working through them. Current reading: Bite Size Bash.

The first 20 pages surprised me – I don’t consider myself particularly knowledgeable in terms of bash (or similar shell scripting) but pretty much everything in the basics I’ve managed to somehow pick up over the last couple of decades, despite usually jumping pretty quickly into another tool whenever my needs get above simple. It is a great intro, though, and I would have benefited having this at hand years back.

On page 20, parameter expansion is introduced. Most of this was either new to me, or I think I’ve seen but certainly wouldn’t remember to use. I’m not sure how to make this stick, though – the syntax is so odd. Maybe I should just jump to this page next time I’m writing bash, or maybe I’ll remember that it can be done and that will be enough to look it up or remember. I do wonder if LLM will replace this sort of learned syntax, though.

After that, it was background processes and subshells, both of which were again surprisingly familiar. After that is trapping signals – I knew this could be done, but I’m pretty sure by the time I have something that needs to do this, I’ve already moved to another language, and I don’t see that changing. Errors and debugging were also mostly things I knew, except for ‘trap x DEBUG’, which seems pretty handy.

Overall, this zine surprised me: I expected to learn a lot, and instead recognised a lot. In some ways, this is great: I feel more confident that I do actually know the most useful core of shell scripting (even though certainly not the vast area beyond that). I’d definitely recommend it for shell scripting beginners (especially bash) but likely not for others.

Review: Become a SELECT Star – Wizard Zines

(Post theme: Call Off the Search by Katie Melua)

As part of my training allowance for 2024, I purchased all 14 of Julia Evan‘s zines. There are definitely ones I expect to learn from more than others, but having the pack appealed, and one of the things I really enjoy about her posts is finding little tidbits of information that I didn’t know, even though I would have said I know the topic fairly well in general.

First up: Become a SELECT Star, which, as you’d guess from the title, is all about the SELECT statement in SQL. The first dozen pages are a really good summary of the fundamentals: things that I gradually absorbed over the last 20 or so years, and probably would have been better off with having a summary like this rather than a bunch of more traditional reference material.

I really like how the examples work through the query in the logical order rather than the syntax order. It makes it much simpler to follow what’s happening.

On pages 14-16, it covers window functions, which I didn’t really know at all. I would normally just do this by getting a bunch of the data down into something like Python and calculating there. I’m a big fan of moving computation left where possible, so these seems super useful, and something I hope I remember (although I don’t do a huge amount of SQL these days).

The zine continues on to cover NULL and COALESCE, which we used a lot at SpamExperts, so those were pretty familiar, but again a good summary that I could have used many years back! It then covers CASE, and I don’t remember if I knew that or not, but also don’t think I can think of times I would have wanted it directly in SQL.

After a straightforward page on counting rows, it moves into subqueries. I’ve used these quite often (I’ve often had situations where subquery performance was better than joining, for various reasons). However, common table expressions (naming sub queries) is new to me, and look super useful.

It wraps up with a few more useful tips, most of which were things I already knew.

I’d definitely recommend this to anyone that’s just starting with SQL. If you’re a SQL expert, it’s likely not going to be useful, but if you’re a casual querier like myself, then there are good tips to pick up, and given how small and inexpensive the zine is, I’d highly recommend picking it up.

Review: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

(A while back The Spinoff asked for suggestions for best book-to-film adaptations, and this was my suggestion. Post theme song: If You Think This Is Real Life by Blossums).

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021, streaming on Prime Video) is based on a short story (of the same name) in the anthology book Summer Days & Summer Nights (edited by Stephanie Perkins). In general, I find short stories produce better film adaptations than novels do.

It’s a great story – a modern (and much better) version of Groundhog Day. It’s romantic, deeper than you first think, and has fun playing with time-loop tropes. (Mild spoiler, sorry) it also has a truly wonderful moment when both the narrator and the reader realise that the story isn’t actually about him at all.

The film takes all of this and is true to all the important parts, but also improves on some of the weaker parts of the story. Kathryn Newton (Little Big Lies, Supernatural) and Kyle Allen (West Side Story, The Path) bring their characters to life perfectly. Director Ian Samuels’s style is clearly there, but it’s not as odd as Myrna the Monster and a stronger story than Sierra Burgess.

The author, Lev Grossman, has other adaptations (e.g. The Magicians) but both source material and adaption aren’t as good as The Map of Tiny Perfect Things.

Anyway, if you know the film I assume you also love it. If you know the story, I strongly recommend the film. If you haven’t read the book, it’s worth it just for this story, but some of the others in the anthology are ok as well, particularly if you’re looking for a light, romantic, read. If you don’t know the film or the book, definitely add it to your watch list.

SkyTV iOS App

The SkyTV iOS app is free, and I rarely use it, but on occasion is is very handy. The application is mostly a TV Guide – since SkyTV refuses to let anyone else have their listings, but they do have all the free-to-air channels, it’s clearly the best guide. However, I don’t really have much use for a guide, because I’m never looking for something to watch (everything I’m interested in is scheduled to record).

Where the app is occasionally useful is that it can be connected to your MySKY box, and you can remotely schedule a program to be recorded. This is essential for those times when you’re away from home and remember that a new program is starting in a few hours and you forgot to schedule it. The scheduling is limited (e.g. you can’t set up a series link), but it’s good enough for these situations.

As you’d expect from SkyTV, the process of setting this up is incredibly painful. You need to enter your SkyTV account details and the unique ID of the smart card in the MySKY box, and although this should be a smooth process, it never works first time – and then, without anything being done at all, will ‘magically’ start working at some later date (I’m guessing that the linking process takes time, and the app fails to tell the user this, leading them to believe they did something wrong).

Once it is finally set up, though, it’s very simple to use – just find the program you’re interested in recording and a few taps later it’s scheduled. Test it at home first, of course! (But not right away, because, as above, it doesn’t appear to work until a few hours have passed since the initial setup).

If you’ve got MySKY and an iOS device, then this is absolutely an app that you should have installed (it is free, after all!). If you don’t have MySKY, but you do want to use a TV Guide on iOS, then this is the more comprehensive one for New Zealand listings, so (again given that it’s free), it’s worth having.

Note that the app doesn’t offer any sort of iSKY (on demand video) access. It would be extremely nice if that was added in the future, but I’m skeptical that it will be.

PyPad

PyPad is a Python interpreter for iOS. This sounds incredibly exciting, right – finally I can do proper development and run Python programs on iOS! Unfortunately, that’s not really the case (mostly due to Apple’s restrictions).

PyPad lets you create multiple modules and execute each of them. However, only a subset of the standard library is available, and there’s nothing iOS-specific available (so you can’t access the camera, or touch information, and so on). Getting code in and out of the app is done via copy and paste. The standard keyboard is provided, with start/pause/stop buttons.

I keep the app installed so that I can (via AirPlay mirroring) demonstrate simple Python snippets. However, if I have an Internet connection available, then I can do that in Prompt (ssh’d to a server that has Python installed) much more elegantly.

The app is clearly limited by Apple’s restrictions as to what’s acceptable for iOS. However, it does seem like it could do much more (e.g. see Codea) if more of the standard library was available (this would mean rewriting chunks, I presume) and if there were special iOS-specific modules available for accessing things specific to the device (especially for accessing touch and graphical output). It could accept .py and text files from other applications, making it easy to get code in (e.g. from Dropbox) and share files (as text) – although perhaps that crosses Apple’s boundary for what’s ok. It would be nice to include the Python documentation, too (I have a separate app for this, but it makes sense to have it in once place).

The app is only $2, so if you’ve any interest in Python on iOS, then I’d recommend buying it to have a look and to encourage more development. You probably won’t end up using it that much, however.

TomTom New Zealand

The TomTom iOS app was recently updated to be universal (i.e. support both iPhone/iPod and iPad resolution in a single app) and this, combined with yet another navigation argument, was enough to convince me to buy it – at $95 it’s by far the most expensive iOS app I’ve bought (although as a percentage of the total app expenditure it’s not very much!).

I gather the interface strongly resembles the dedicated TomTom hardware. It’s useable, but not as clean or elegant as I imagine Apple’s app will be when they finally reveal it (but I strongly suspect that Apple’s one will be iPhone only, at least at first). Given that most of the time you’re glancing at the map or just listening to the turn-by-turn directions, the interface isn’t overly important anyway.

It’s done well with directions so far – no errors, and easily correcting when mistakes are made. The maps have sufficient coverage even in Warkworth and Ahuroa, and being a proper navigation app there’s no need for a cellular connection (unlike with the built-in Maps app), which is essential in Ahuroa, since there’s barely any coverage.

The app is certainly better than having to rely solely on another person to navigate. Although I don’t often need instructions (since I’m usually driving somewhere I’m familiar with), in the cases where I do, it’s useful to have, and over the course of a year, I think that’s probably worth $100. (The monthly traffic subscription, however, is not – I haven’t even bothered trying this out).

I’ve tried various free/cheap navigation apps, and although they’re ok, they’re absolutely inferior to this one. I’d recommend it to anyone that thinks that they’ll get $100 of value out of it, especially over the next year (it seems very likely that iOS 6 will have a built-in app).

Quarrel Deluxe

Quarrel Deluxe (Quarrel DX in Springboard) is a cross between Scrabble (which I don’t love, although I did, like many people, play Words with Friends for quite a while) and Risk (which I do love, but rarely play non-digital because of a lack of people to play against), and may well be better than either.

The setup is essentially like Risk: a board of locations (countries in Risk) that each have a number of armies and varying numbers of neighbouring locations. The options in a turn are similar as well: attack, fortify (i.e. move armies from one country to a neighbouring one), or pass. Even in fortification Quarrel beats Risk – rather than only being able to fortify at the end of your turn, you can do it throughout the turn, but once you’ve moved armies from one location to another, neither of those can then fortify or attack later in the turn (they can receive armies from another neighbour).

Attacking is where Scrabble comes in – rather than relying on the luck of the dice, like in Risk, each player is given the same eight letters (that always form at least one eight-letter word, as well as many smaller ones) and whoever makes the highest scoring word wins the battle. Not only is there more skill (and less luck) than in Risk, there’s more than in Scrabble, too, since you always have the same letters to work with as your opponent. The length of the word you can make depends on how many armies you have (so if you have three and your opponent has seven, you’ll need a pretty awesome three-letter word). All the ‘double letter’, ‘triple word’, ‘use a letter from another word’, ‘make multiple words at once’, and hard limits to board size elements from Scrabble are gone: these are the parts I hate most about Scrabble, so for me that’s a clear win. It’s all about making the best word (i.e. longest and with the highest point letters).

Speed is also a factor – if your word is the same number of points as your opponent’s, then whoever finished first wins. This comes into play quite a lot – it’s often better to go for a high scoring word really quickly than take a bit longer trying to find the best word possible. Games can also be against the clock, which adds considerably to the difficulty.

There are many other subtle elements to the game, which clearly indicate that it has been well thought out. In addition, the graphics and sound are very well done (cutesy little stylised fighters).

I’d recommend this game to anyone that likes word games and/or strategy games like Risk. There’s very little luck involved (none, really, if you exclude the computer opponent behaviour), and a lot of strategy required. Games can be quite simple but also range to very difficult.

I’d love to see a future version include a multiplayer (i.e. multiple iPad) game option. It could also possibly borrow the concept of “continents” from Risk and have some additional larger boards where there are locations that give additional reinforcements if you’re holding the entire island.

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.