Catching up on Enjoyable Audiobooks (mostly SF)

My wife and I got to see some old friends today for the first time in much too long and we got to talking about books ... and I realized I hadn't posted my recent favorites here for a while. So:

This is another Nebula Award winner (among other awards it won). The plot is very complicated (Wikipedia has a synopsis), with a spacefaring civilization set 1000 years in the future that uses AIs in reused human bodies (Ancillaries) for some functions and one of the ancillaries trying to track down and get revenge on the civilization's tyrant, Anaander Mianaai ... I found the whole series (sequels are Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy) very satisfying. Five Stars!

And I just finished the latest from the author of The Martian, Andy Weir:

Artemis is the first city on the Moon, and the protagonist is a brilliant petty criminal and smuggler named Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara ... Jazz is involved in an episode of industrial sabotage that leads into murder and intrigue ... there's a little too much plumbing and welding detail, but overall big fun. Four stars.

Another far-future story, with humans behaving even worse than normal:

Earth's ecosphere is collapsing, so various ships are sent out to various suitable-looking worlds that will be bombarded with an intelligence-enhancing nanovirus to speed up evolution on the earthlike fauna that have been seeded there.

But a saboteur in an "earth only" movement messes up the ship doing the seeding and the nanovirus misses the intended monkeys and helps the intelligence of a bunch of ... spiders ...

Complications ensue over millenia ... but there's a remarkably upbeat ending ... Four stars!

And for some reason I got this one free from Audible:

The reader only gradually learns that this is a post-collapse story ... that there is some terrible virus going around that infects humans and makes them "hungries" which will eat uninfected humans and whose bite will transmit the virus to those humans.

We only gradually realize this because the protagonist is a bright elementary student named Melanie and we wonder why she's locked up and wheeled in shackled to her classroom ...

I quite appreciate the way the author brought all this out gradually ... this one doesn't really have that much an upbeat ending, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. Five stars.

And finally, one from Lee Child's Jack Reacher series that was excellent as usual but thematically relevant to a societal problem that's huge right now: the opioid crisis:

Five stars!

Happy reading ... or audiobooking!

Relief from the plague of fleas

Our cockapoo Myla summer 2016 brought home a bunch of fleas:

(one of Myla's cousins from the Internet)

(not actual size)

My fault completely; when I noticed her scratching early on and I said "fleas!!" my wife said no, she just has dry skin. So I filed her under "dry skin" and forgot about it.

Summer 2016: the "dry skin" took over our house ... first I spoke with our vet and asked for a solution ... "Internal or external?" he asked. I said "what's faster?"

He asked how much the dog weighed and then prescribed this:

This worked immediately and (after we bombed the house) we haven't seen a flea since. We just give the little dog one of these (pseudo?) meaty treats every 12 weeks. I can do that for the rest of her doggy life ...

Dog owners: do yourself a favor and get this for your dog!

First experience with Zelle, "fast bank transfer" app, not inspiring!

I've been reading about Zelle, this new app that's supposed to be a "new way to send money to almost anyone, on your phone, in minutes."  There's a footnote: it's "in minutes" only if your recipient is enrolled, 1-3 business days the first time. Well, OK.

I used the Capital One app on my phone to try and send money to my wife. She got a text message asking her to register for Zelle, which she left for me to do.

First, it offers to take a picture of the debit card to be used with your account. Cool! So I tried this, first with my wife's Aspiration card:

It seemed to work after jiggling the phone camera for a few minutes. I then put in the CVV number, checked the box "I approve the terms and conditions" ... and got a wait wheel and then:

Actually just "error 101" with no explanation: not "we don't recognize your bank", which I thought was a possibility.

So then I tried my wife's BECU debit card, my second choice because I don't want apps having access to any main bank account. But I tried it and first:

The glare from the finish seemed to keep the app from reading the numbers ... or something. It didn't work on this one. I messed around with this for a while and was just finished typing in the numbers and other information and hit continue and then:

I had been messing with the app for at least 1/2 hour!

Goodbye Zelle ... I may try this again in a few months, but sheesh.

A free alternative to Quickbooks, at least for techies

I have been neglecting accounting for quite a while now. My wife and I have recently started two new businesses that will need two new accounting setups ... this was going to be too expensive with Quickbooks, which was charging us $80+ per month for two companies.

I tried Zoho, an Indian alternative that's listed at $9 per company per month ... but it seemed clunky and I wanted to find something else.

I wound up with LedgerSMB:

After using it for a day, I can see it as something I can make work for my businesses ... and my non-tech-capable wife. But do keep in mind:

1. It's a Linux thing; some of the documents say "If you get this working on Windows please let us know how you did it." It's supposed to work on Mac too, but I didn't try that. I installed it on a little Mint Linux machine I've had on my home network since last year, and that worked (mostly) fine.
2. There is a partial Docker setup which for those who are more Docker-capable than I am currently might be just the ticket. But for some reason they don't include Postgres in their Docker setup but require you to do that separately.
3. So I used the "quick install guide" ... which took most of an entire day. The programming language is Perl and there are a lot of Perl modules to install. The two Dumb Problems I had to overcome were:

• They recommend the "fast Perl web" thing Starman ... but the configuration file that runs it specified /usr/bin/starman when it was really /usr/local/bin/starman.
• They have a suggested setup with Starman reverse proxying to a web server: Apache or Nginx.
• I picked Nginx ... then they have this suggestion for Let's Encrypt, a free SSL cert setup from eff.org ... I tried that and used the "automatic Nginx" option that seemed to work. But when I tried to connect to the server via https, it didn't work. On investigation I found that the Let's Encrypt certbot does not work on a private IP address (as I use on my home network) ... and there is no error message saying that ... I eventually realized I just needed to do the self-signed certificate trick, and that was the last step getting it to work.

Usage requires more accounting knowledge than does Quickbooks; you need to know what account to debit and what to credit, for example. But there is a templating system to set up common transactions to be reused.

More details as I know more, but so far so good!

Peoples' Pharmacy quotes Lancet Study: Saturated fat is OK!

I recently came across some prime beef at Costco:

It was completely delicious, as I expected ... and a new study confirms accumulating evidence that it's better for my health than carbs!

Put down that Twinkie, soldier, and grab a burger (skipping the bun)!

Bon apetit ...

Why I started wearing a wristwatch again after years of not doing this

I was visiting my sister-in-law and her husband in Michigan last month. My father-in-law died in 2014 and my mother-in-law earlier this year, and my wife and my sister were going through some of their effects. This included a Timex Indiglo, which had belonged to my father-in-law:

It was still running ... and keeping nearly perfect time!

And ... I had just missed an Amtrak train from not having the time easily glanceable on my wrist, so ... I"m getting used to this again.

It "takes a licking and keeps on ticking" indeed ...

The 21st Century Bank Robbery: how to keep your Bitcoin stash from being part of it

Some friends and family have been accumulating various amounts of Bitcoin recently:

I just read a disturbing article on how easy it is to drain a bitcoin account that's set up with 2-factor authentication via text message.

One part of the solution: use other 2-factor authentication ... for example, Google Authenticator, which I already had set up on my phone for another site and which I easily added (just by scanning a barcode) to Gmail. I then removed the text-message authentication step.

Now all I need is a bunch of bitcoin! :-)

If you are keeping bitcoins, best not to let Coinbase or another exchange keep the keys for you. Keep the keys yourself ... I know this is all confusing, but a good book on the details is:

New bank refunds ATM fees ... and expects a tip!

I heard an advertisement for Aspiration on a podcast and wanted to try it:

They claim to refund all ATM fees worldwide, and in return they try to get you to give them a tip!

Sorry, bank, no can do ... Tips are going away even in restaurants so your timing in this is hilariously bad ...

But! Thanks for the ATM rebates as long as they last ...

Recent (2017) nonfiction I've enjoyed

I saw a review of this one somewhere:

This gives an extensive look not only at the government's use of these fringe subjects, but CSICOP and fellow travelers trying to debunk the whole subject. But the government has been using this stuff to get intelligence value it couldn't get any other way. So it does apparently work!

I mentioned this to a friend who suggested this one:

This is the story of a skeptical but open-minded psychologist who uses a map dowser to find a stolen object of her daughter, which prompts her to launch a years-long investigation of the subject. She also reports on the skeptics alliance and their opposition to such research. This section was the highlight of the book!

Another from Annie Jacobsen:

This give DARPA's background from its origin through the present day. Many know that DARPA is behind the Internet, but that's not its primary purpose: military technology. Jacobsen's final section on autonomous killer drones is especially good ... and scary!

Finally, another cautionary note, this from my favorite economist:

This one's pretty technical, but his point has always been that standard economic models don't capture the real economy. And his answer is, of course, no.

These four are well worth reading ... enjoy!

Audiobooks from the King County Library: my first experience

I've been a happy Audible subscriber for some time, typically with a subscription for 1 book per month. Occasionally I'd rip quickly through a book and take the 3-books-for-$35 deal they offer ...

But I recently tried my local library's audiobook system.  It's misleading:

It says "MP3" but it's actually a file ending in .ODM. A little Googling around shows that it works with a phone app called Overdrive:

It's a little bit strange to use, having you choose your local library and only then start downloading the book that you checked out. After you get it set up, though, it's terrific: automatically downloads several CDs worth of a book to your phone so you can play it all the way through without changing disks.

My first experience of this format was a book I read years ago:

I had previously learned that I tend to skim fiction and I get a fuller experience in audio, and this experience confirmed that analysis. I didn't remember half of the details, just the high-level overview.

So despite the slightly clunky interface, this is well worth trying ... I returned The Stupidest Angel so grab it quickly!

Opentable stops supporting their web application

I've been an enthusiastic customer of Opentable ever since they were founded. But for the past few weeks when I've tried to use the web interface I get this:

I tried everything: different restaurants, different browsers, cleared browser cache (this latter a suggestion from their tech support after I waited several days for a response). I just get this same error over and over.

I wound up calling the restaurant (The Metropolitan Grill in Seattle) for a reservation ... and then I thought, hm, they do have a mobile application and I wonder ...

And it worked! I got the reservation to go through on the mobile application.

But ... why?

• Opentable is apparently using a different back end for the mobile app than for the website
• They also apparently are completely neglecting the web site back end, not responding at all to whatever's wrong with it ... for weeks?

I googled around and found this:

Priceline paid $2.6 billion for Opentable ... and now decides it's worth a lot less ... because nobody is managing it after the founders cashed out?

I don't know ... nice that the mobile app is working, but I find the web app's continuing issues enough of a downer that I'd really rather use some other service if the restaurants I am patronizing would switch to it.

Sheesh ....

Daylight savings time ... for the last time?

It's that time of the year again, when we lose an hour on Sunday night:

And the effects continue the next day, when the accident rate is significantly higher than normal:

And why? Supposedly to save energy, but the research is at best mixed on this issue. But the golf and barbecue industries make more money!

But there's a movement afoot to stop changing the time back and forth. For Colorado it's to stick with DST year-round and for others like Oregon they're looking to stick with PST year around!

For one more year, though: be careful out there ... and/or just turn off your alarm clock and sleep in!

Cricket update: not really their fault

I resolved my problem with Cricket the day after my last post. I still would like to have 24 hour support from them, but I can live without that.

It turns out the problem was really 2 interacting user interface issues:

The credit card statement (online) didn't say DECLINED but instead:

This doesn't say the same thing to me and I thought the payment was going through.

Then on the cricket site it didn't have anything attention-getting about 'overdue payment' in flashing red or anything.

The cricket rep took a substitute credit card number and waived the $5 late fee, which was all I could ask for (other than an obvious note on their site) ...

Cricket Wireless: the downside

I have elsewhere in this blog expressed enthusiasm for Cricket Wireless:

But they have some sort of a back-end glitch that's been annoying today. The credit card I have hooked to pay the account was late in getting the payment credited (not my fault this time!) so the payment to Cricket failed temporarily.

This is now resolved, but the phone network didn't hear the news as the phones I have on the Cricket plan aren't working.

I tried their support chat line, but they were just closing (apparently midnight EST) and said they can't do any changes to my account until they open at 6:30 (EST).

*splut* ... OK this time, but I'm not happy about this 6.5-hour window.

I'll try in the morning and post an update then.

A Dysfunctional Family Saga that I greatly enjoyed

I just finished the audiobook version of this book:

I laughed out loud in spots and enjoyed the whole story thoroughly. It features flawed characters interacting over a spiral timescape from 1940 to 2011.

I'm afraid of spoiling the story if I say too much, so I'll just warn you: it's sexually explicit in a few spots (always germane to the story) and there is also a bit of violence.

Don't miss it, for the minor characters Pwnage and Laura doing their internal monologues, both LOL funny! The rest is satisfyingly tragicomic ...

Five stars! Don't miss it!

How I wound up with a Nissan Leaf instead of a Chevy Bolt

I've been driving the Chevy Volt since late 2011:

First I had a 2012 then leased a 2014 ... that I just turned back into the local Chevy dealer on December 22 of last year. I thought I was going to Salem Oregon to pick up a new Chevrolet Bolt:

GM was selling the Bolt into Oregon and California first, so I contacted Capitol Chevrolet in Salem OR and arranged to come down on December 30 to sign a lease and pick up an orange version of the Bolt. The last I heard from this dealership, the car was to be delivered on the 26th or 27th.

I showed up on the 30th as planned to be told that, gosh, the car wasn't in yet (they blamed weather in the midwest) but please go ahead and sign this paperwork ... They could easily have called me to have me delay a week, but no.

I walked out. This is my latest annoyance with Chevrolet and I was so steamed I decided I never want to set foot in one of their dealerships again. I contacted an auto broker to see if he could get one from Oregon for me ...

He eventually reported that the $349 lease deal that Capitol Chevy had dangled in front of me applied only to Oregon drivers. For me, from Washington, it would have been something like $708.

Thanks anyway ... at the same time I had been seeing local ads for the 2016 Nissan Leaf, which was being advertised at fire-sale prices:

This now has a 30 KW battery, rated around 107 miles. This is enough for me for the next two years, I thought, so I visited Bellevue Nissan, signed lease paperwork, and drove home with a 2016 Nissan Leaf S.

So far (2 days) I'm quite happy with it, and I am planning just to roll into Nissan's "Tesla Killer" in 2 years when this lease is up ... or maybe just buy this one at the end ... the residual is listed as $11000 but I'll be surprised!

Thanks, Bellevue Nissan ... and goodbye Chevrolet!