Veiled (Alex Verus)
Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 21:28 on 15 August 2015, kitt created this:
I really like the Alex Verus series, by Benedict Jacka. It might be because of the broken hero, or maybe because the realistic results of various choices. The book reminds us that we make decisions as best we can at the moment, and they don't always turn out to be the best one in the long run, but they are the best at the moment. This series, about Alex Verus, a diviner mage living in London, pretty much exemplifies this concept. Best decision at the moment, hope for the best, so much outside of our control.
This is book six of the series.
There are a lot of explanations in the book about this political structure and that bit of history. There were times where I was thinking, "Ugh, more explanation than I really needed." Given that I read relatively fast, I didn't mind the history lessons, but the fact that I even noticed means there were a large number of them. The history lessons not withstanding, there was enough intrigue and mystery and ACTION that, again, I enjoyed this book.
Though, now that I think about it, this book might not be able to stand on its own... It's a good continuation of the series, but not really a book to pick up to read. If you're reading the series, this isn't the first of two to cause stopping (my rule, two bad books in row in a series and I stop reading the series), but it's not a stand-alone book. Read books 1-5 first.
Day by Day Armageddon
Book Notes Posted by kitt at 09:26 on 15 August 2015
Okay, I like a good zombie book. Feed, by Mira Grant, totally started me on this zombie kick. I followed up reading that series with World War Z, the book is better than the movie. I watched the Walking Dead series, then started reading the graphic novels (and oh boy, there are a lot). I read the not-so-great-in-my-opinion Raising Stony Mayhall, and while I didn't like the book per se, I did like the way the zombie world was portrayed. I had a delightful zombie surprise in The Girl With All the Gifts, which just means I was lulled into thinking zombie books are good fun reading.
Which they are, for the most part.
This zombie book, however, rather broke that trend.
The book is supposed to be a journal of one guy who happens to be military personnel and a pilot, who manages to avoid the first wave of infection in the zombie apocalypse. He finds a companion, then a few more, and survives. The journey is reasonable (if you can accept the premise of "the dead rising up to continue walking and having the single-minded desire of canabalism"), but the writing is somewhat jarring, especially in the beginning. When I write in my journal, I write "Talked to Pete today," and not, "Talked to Pete, my buddy from the academy who trained with me those first six months, today." There are better ways to weave a person's history into a story than overt explanation. I find overt explanation that way very jarring and prefer a more subtle narrative mode.
The saving grace about the narrator is that he isn't a brilliant, super-intelligent, physically-imposing, amazingly fit and athletic person. He gets hurt. He makes mistakes. That's a good thing, otherwise this book would be boring.
And the end? OMG the end is soooooooooooooo unsatisfying. It was like the author thought, "Damn, I'm tired of this book, I'm just going to stop writing now," and stopped writing. The ending annoyed me so much that I had to see if there were sequels and WHAT DO YOU KNOW, there are.
Unsure if I'm going to read them yet.
If you're going for zombie books, go for Grant's Feed trilogy and World War Z.
Call a spade a spade already with zombies
Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 08:24 on 15 August 2015Unrelated to anything important, I ask this question.
In books, why are zombies not f---ing referred to as zombies?
Or really, OMG FUCKING ZOMBIES!
They are referred to as "walkers" and "walking dead" and "hungries" and, oh good lord, when we have a name for them, why not just call them "zombies?" That's what they are, why would you not call them zombies? Zombies!
Okay, I think I can answer this somewhat. In the same vein that hackers don't like crackers (malicious hackers) to be called "hackers" in general, perhaps those who like to keep Haitian folklore separate from the whims of Hollywood directors insist they are called something other than zombies:
The term comes from Haitian folklore (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) where a zombie is a dead body animated by magic. Modern depictions of zombies do not necessarily involve magic but invoke other methods such as a virus.
...
The English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey, in the form of "zombi".[3] The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin of the word as West African, and compares it to the Kongo words nzambi (god) and zumbi (fetish).
Which is to say, the Wikipedia article on zombies is somewhat fascinating.
They're still zombies. Just call them zombies.
Zombie.
If the zombie apocalypse comes, I'm totally screaming, "THEY ARE F---ING ZOMBIES!"
What Shopify does right, Part 1
Blog Posted by kitt at 21:20 on 13 August 2015I suspect this topic could be an entire website all its own, instead of a series of my thoughts. Since I happen to be in one of those moods (yeah, yeah, you have no idea which "those" to which I am referring, but that's beside the point), and these thoughts have been swirling around, I should get them down, lest I forget them. Which is pretty much the reason for every single one of my posts on this site, now that I pause to reflect. Anyway.
Having been away from Shopify for a month now, there are a number of things I realize that Shopify just does RIGHT, and I miss a lot of them. I can lump them under the giant umbrella of "Shopify treats its employees right," which is true as far as any company can treat its employees right and still make a profit and still stay in business and still have more than one employee. It's hard to grow a company and it's hard to sustain a company and it's hard to have any group of people all harmonious, working in one direction, and without politics (but let's not be naïve, there are politics and maneuvering at Shopify, so maybe that last one should be, "without a lot of overt politics that adversely affect everyone in the company").
Shopify treats its employees right as well as I've seen (from the inside) any company do it. Which is not to say Shopify is perfect (it's not), but it's pretty damn good.
So, how does a company do a company "right?" How does Shopify "treat its employees right?" In no particular order other than "this is the order I thought of them," the first way they do it right is,
Default to open.
When trying to decide whether or not to let someone at work know about a thing, the answer is always yes. Default to open. The finance guys talked at an all-hands to the whole company when it came to the process of having an IPO. There wasn't any "You don't need to know this." It was, "We are doing this together." The executive team let everyone know when some change was happening (mostly) within the ranks. The security guys let everyone know when there was some could-have-been disaster with some phishing attack that might have succeeded in a spectacular way, but didn't, thankfully. Shopify is getting better at documenting things, with the company wiki available for everyone to edit and question changes. The guru leads talk about mental health in a way that opens the door for anyone to come talk if they were having issues. Every door, as far as I could tell, was open. Default to open.
It matches up with the other well-known Shopify ideal of:
Do things. Tell people.
Which I couldn't quite understand when I started working there. I read it as, "Do things, brag to everyone about it," which is such an ego-centric, American, Silicon Valley way of looking at it.
And so wrong. In reality, it was:
Do things, tell people about this nifty cool thing you just built that will make their lives easier!
Do things, tell people about this way you made the website faster!
Do things, tell people about this new project that encourages new entrepreneurs!
It was never, "Do things, now brag," It was always "Do things, now share."
Default to open.
That default to open goes both down and up. If a project is going poorly, you let the dev-lead know so that expectations are better set, additional resources can be added to the project, or the requirements adjusted. I did not do well at this, I'm very sad to say. I did do better after I was called out on this, I'm glad to say. When I found a mistake that was potentially going to cost the company six figures, my reaction was not, "Oh shit, how do I cover my ass?" it was, "Oh shit, how far up do I need to tell people right now so that we can get this fixed, and the losses minimized?" The answer to that question is, by the way, two levels up, which is pretty shallow, actually, in an organization as large as Shopify. And the potential loss from that mistake didn't happen (thankfully, that was a really rough week), as far as I know.
Default to open, except in public, then default to close.
There are of course things that can't go beyond Shopify's walls. Those stayed in Shopify, because Shopify trusts its employees not to share when they were told not to share. Shopify treats its employees as adults.
Which is, of course, the topic of "What Shopify does right, Part 2."
A shit leader
Blog kitt decided around 20:04 on 13 August 2015 to publish this:A post I was writing went in a completely different direction than I intended it to go. It had something I wanted to say, but didn't work in the framework of the post. So, what I didn't put there, I am putting here instead.
One of the many shit things that exist at Twitter is the lack of communication between even managers and the people that they lead. Having a lead who holds the cards close to his chest, won't send out meeting notes, won't tell his people what is going on, complains when the people seek out the information outside of him, embarrasses his people when they do try to figure things out, and doles out just enough information for you to kinda-sorta know what to do that week, is a recipe for unhappy employees and shit products. Only when you have great employees who care can your team overcome the disaster of a crappy, political, ass-hat of a manager like that.