01 Jan 2014
.
life
.
Read (aka Listened) Books of 2013
Comments
2013 I really found my stride with audiobooks, having started the year previous I listened got through a collection of books averaging one complete book a month for the year. This may not seem like much, I know a lot of people read a book a week or even a night, but for me this a dramatic jump on probably one every 3-4 years.
I thought I would try to highlight some of the books I enjoyed reading and would recommend to anyone with similar interests to me that is interested in reading a little more
1st |
2nd | 3rd |
|
|
|
Ready Player One | Year Zero | Fuzzy Nation |
| This is a great read with so much geek nostalgia. Recommendation from friend and I already recommend to my friends (was even given as gift on recommendation). The plot is really gripping but don’t want to give it away so just read! | This is a really interesting take on copyright infringement and how in a Sci-fi world it can have interesting consequences. | Sentient or not? Gripping read about the fight of a species against the corporate machine. Also I don't want to say more than this but “dog” + “explosives” its worth reading to find out what I mean! |
After reviewing and selecting these as my favourite books read over the last year, I realised they are all Sci-Fi so I thought I would list of non-fiction. My first choice of these probably should of come in the top 3 above probably on par with Ready Player One…
1st | 2nd | 3rd |
|
|
|
Ghost in the Wires | A Short History of Nearly Everything | Thinking, Fast and Slow |
| Anyone with an interest in Computing, and therefore watched the Hackers movies (mandatory geek watching). Should read this is a really interesting read about Kevin Mitnick (Again Geeks should know who this is). | This is a slight cheat pick, since I read the end of last year but this is just such a good read, covering science from the microscopic to the universe. Is a great review and very well read by William Roberts. | Pseudo-Psychology books have become a little hobby off mine, I find it interesting to think about how we think and how in some cases we can manipulate to get better performance. This was a relaxing read with somewhat of a story to string it all together; making it a lot more casual than a lot of Psychology books. |
Finally, my most over-hyped book, you could argue that I was a fool to read in the first place but I felt was worth exploring and was publicly reviewed quite well.
|
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography |
| This I felt was a poorly constructed book with in my opinion little exclusive content. Although I am not a particular fan of apple products since they don't suit my needs, I am impressed by Steve Jobs contribution to the technology industry. This however I felt was not far off a string of press statements. Wrapped up with some anecdotes to pass the time. |
Finally I would like to draw your attention to two places, Good Reads which not only provided the cover imagery for this post but also provides a great way to explore related books and find people with similar interests. Although I am not very active on this site I would recommend and would welcome additional friends (in the loose sense of the word). Secondly Audible, which I couldn’t of read as much over the last year without!
31 Dec 2013
.
code
.
Gradient Field HOG Update
Comments
Every so often we get contacted about algorithms our group (lead by Dr. John Collomosse) have implemented. Due to a recent request I have updated the files downloadable for the implementation of Gradient Field HOG, little changes to make it easier. Included additionally is the Windows dependent libraries to make it a little to compile and run the code.
Available from:
22 Nov 2013
.
life
.
My PRE-GAMING Xbox One Experience
Comments
So I woke up today, and saw my delivery was at the depot in reading when I refreshed an hour later it was in Burpham Guildford! I find it a shame I don’t live at my old address that is pretty much at the bottom of the marker in the shot above.
So I waited… debated about doing an animated gif of the truck driving away…
Promptly realised I hadn’t taken the same sized screen cut each time… so went back to work to await my delivery
With the arrival of Dead Rising 3 (via Royal Mail standard post) Pixel took possession
How is this an optimised route? Drive past customers to double back? Maybe could see a east and west Guildford but he literally drove past the end of my road…
Anyway…
(Yes I realise I am abusing the “…”)
And here is Xbox One!
Spot on a nice gesture
Pretty hard to see in the photo but says “Hello from Seattle” nice touch!
And that is my Xbox pre-gaming experience, will complete an actual review once have got a proper handle on the console.
01 Nov 2013
.
tech
.
VirtualBox Windows 8.1 Upgrade -- don't forget the settings
Comments
I run a few VM's on my workstation to perform different tasks one is a Windows 8 dev box, I finally got around to upgrading it. So checked all updates were done and then went to the store to get an error message I think is somewhat unusual.
Sorry, you can't install the update because it isn't supported by your computer's CPU.
So quick search online didn't yeild any obvious results and a simple setting came to mind that may fix it. When choosing your VM you select your version of Windows so after switching it to 8.1 it worked magically (well not magically but you get my point).
Then nipping back into the Windows Store and all works fine. Message of the day -- thinking a little helps!
31 Oct 2013
.
tech
.
SAFESEH and Visual Studio
Comments
Many of us dont hugely enjoy recompiling libaries. I for one who only use 3 large and a handful of small, causing me to cringe at the idea of recompiling to include a new feature or worse a new platform.
So when I hit:
error LNK2026: module unsafe for SAFESEH image.
So after looking around for a solution I found there is just a simple switch you can turn off to allow an old library to be used
Hidden in Linker --> Advanced -> Image Has Safe Exception Handlers you can set this to No and recompile and your code work again.