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sections to make things more organized

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Julio Biason 6 years ago
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  1. 3
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      content/dear-github-maintainers.md
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[submodule "themes/after-dark"] [submodule "themes/after-dark"]
path = themes/after-dark path = themes/after-dark
url = git@github.com:getzola/after-dark.git url = git@github.com:getzola/after-dark.git
[submodule "themes/hyde"]
path = themes/hyde
url = https://github.com/getzola/hyde.git

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config.toml

@ -7,7 +7,8 @@ compile_sass = true
title = "Julio Biason .Net 4.0" title = "Julio Biason .Net 4.0"
description = "Old school dev living in a 2.0 dev world" description = "Old school dev living in a 2.0 dev world"
theme = "after-dark" # theme = "after-dark"
theme = "hyde"
taxonomies = [ taxonomies = [
# You can enable/disable RSS # You can enable/disable RSS
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after_dark_title = "JulioBiason.Net 4.0" after_dark_title = "JulioBiason.Net 4.0"
hyde_links = [
{url = "/", name = "Home"},
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hyde_reverse = true

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content/dead-github-maintainers.md → content/dear-github-maintainers.md

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content/reviews/_index.md

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transparent = true
titles = "Reviews"
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content/reviews/books/1001-video-games-you-must-play-before-you-die.md

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title = "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die - Tony Mott"
date = 2015-01-11
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "tony mott"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
For a second -- or, at least, the first chapter --, you may believe that this book will discuss 1001 games that influenced the next generation, from the very first pong all the way to the latest Mario. Sadly, it doesn't.
The whole problem is that the authors decided to use a chronological order instead of a topic order. Instead of going "this game introduced this feature" and then jump to the next which improved that feature, they go into games released in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s. "Where is the harm in that?" you may ask. Well, the harm is that the chronological order doesn't offer, most of the time, the reason *why* a game should be played. I mean, yeah, maybe "Mario World" is not a bad game, but if "Mario World 2" just improves the old mechanics and have bigger maps, it's clear why the first shouldn't be in the list if everything from the first I can get in a better form in the second.
For example, when they talk about "Ninja Gaiden Black", the authors mention this:>Barring a dodgy camera, Ninja Gaiden didn't have much wrong with it. That didn't stop Team Ninja from obsessively tinkering with their masterprice, however, and in Ninja Gaiden Black they improved on what many fighting fans already regarded as the greatest fighting game of its generation."And guess what? "Ninja Gaiden" is also in the list! Why would I play the first one when the second is everything the first one has plus more?
Also, each game have three to four paragraphs. The first is always something related to the game outside it: The company that developed it, some social remark at the time, something in the game culture... anything that it is not the game; the last paragraph try to conclude the (simplistic) review with a positive note; the paragraphs in the middle, which should be the "Why" are not always they "Why". Most of the Mario and Zelda games simply lack the "why". You should play because... you should play?
This is why I'd prefer a topic order: Mario 1 introduced this, Mario 2 changed this into that... It basically forces the list to have a reason instead of seemingly being a list of "I like it".
Also, research seems focused on "games I played" instead of "games that existed". For example, there is "Trine", which I can't call a bad game, but the mechanic of "you play several characters and just jump between them based on their abilities" I can backtrack all the way to "Captain Trueno" on MSX in 1989 -- and I'm not claiming *that's* where this mechanics appeared -- but omitting it seems too much laziness. "Master of Orion", "Dota" (the mod for Warcraft III), "Tetrifast", "King's Valley", "Stunts"... all those are games that I can, from my childhood, bring back as previous examples of some of the recommended games that has the same mechanics and are not listed. But, instead, games with the same mechanics but from bigger publishers are. There is even a game I played on MSX in the 90s that have the *exactly* mechanic listed in "Warioware Inc" but, again, not listed. Heck, even "bananas.bas", part of the MS-DOS 6.0 as an example of how powerful QBasic could be, has the same mechanics as "Death Tank", but the later is listed as some "brilliant mechanic never seen before".
In the end, it seems much more like a list of "games that we, the authors like" than a proper "these games you should play because they describe some advancement in games technology and/or some social discussion about the times when they were released", which turns this into a meaningless e-peen counting (171, by the way).

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content/reviews/books/12-years-a-slave.md

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title = "12 Years a Slave - Solomon Northup"
date = 2015-04-09
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "solomon northup"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
I'll admit that I only bought this book for the morbid curiosity of how much flair the movie added.
In my view, not so much.
Sure, there are a few differences: Ford didn't sell Northup just because one fight with Tibeats, but because Ford had bills to pay; it wasn't a single fight with Tibeats, but three; the movie doesn't mention the Christmas days; the movie doesn't show Northup genius fish catcher; the movie doesn't show that, in the end, the guys who captured Northup actually tried to sue him back.
But I believe the core of it was there. Which is impressive.
The book doesn't only dwell in the his enslavement years, but also paint a bit of the historical production and live style of the US in the 1850s. The problem at those points is that it gives the false impression that everything is going alright with him at the time -- but after reading "Ghost Rider", I know people in distress tend to write books like everything is alright at some point. Still, it's weird to read such passages, like it was a matter-of-fact and now part of the life of someone who is not the owner of his own life anymore.
Also, so parts are so incredible distressing, I had to stop and remind myself that this was *not* a fiction book, but actually the story of a man.

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content/reviews/books/21-erros-classicos-da-gestao-de-projetos.md

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title = "21 Erros Clássicos da Gestão de Projetos - Eli Rodrigues"
date = 2017-05-10
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "eli rodrigues"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
21 erros relacionados com gestão clássica de projetos. Solução: métodos ágeis. Mas me precipito.
Sim, o livro fala sobre 21 erros relacionados com a gestão clássica de projetos, com etapas bem definidas, com prazos já fixados e nenhum aceite de transição. Ou seja, problemas que todo mundo que já teve que trabalhar com gestão em cascata já passou e que são problemas já conhecidos e contornados com soluções em metodologias ágeis.
Um problema do livro, no entanto, é que poucos dos erros tem uma solução -- pelo menos, o livro não cita nada sobre como resolver boa parte dos erros; é como se uma vez que o erro aconteceu, não há mais solução. Um exemplo: um dos capítulos fala sobre porque não se escutam as soluções propostas por pessoas da empresa mesmo ("ouvir a prata da casa"), mas não cita nenhum exemplo de como fazer com que essas pessoas se sintam dispostas a falar, ou como coletar essas informações. Simplesmente, existe o problema de não ouvir pessoas técnicas da empresa. Só isso.
Outro problema é a seção de exemplos. São sempre cenários catastróficos, colocados para mostrar o pior caso possível em que não há retorno para uma solução viável.
E, ainda, em um ponto, cita métodos ágeis -- que, como eu falei, foi criado justamente para resolver parte dos problemas citados -- e adicionar que é "gambiarra" (não exatamente com essas palavras). E mais pra frente começa a citar algumas sugestões ("sugestões", não soluções) que são baseadas nos métodos ágeis, principalmente scrum.
Deve ser interessante para quem vai gerenciar um projeto para ter ideia do que pode acontecer, mas para quem já vivenciou esses problemas ou já usou outras metodologias, a falta de soluções é preocupante.

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content/reviews/books/23-habitos-anti-procrastinacao-como-deixar-de-ser-preguicoso-e-ter-resultados-em-sua-vida.md

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title = "23 Hábitos Anti-Procrastinação: Como Deixar de Ser Preguiçoso e Ter Resultados Em Sua Vida - S.J. Scott"
date = 2016-08-08
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "s.j. scott"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Grande resumo do livro: todos os 23 hábitos são: Siga o Get Things Done (GTD).
Ok, não é tão assim, mas uns 80% dos "hábitos" são. O livro foi construído com a ideia de sequencias de: "Esse é o problema", "Essa é a solução", "Como se acostumar a fazer a solução". Entretanto, boa parte de "Como se acostumar a fazer a solução" é, realmente, o que o GTD sugere fazer para fazer com que as coisas sejam feitas. Inclusive a ideia de pastas dentro de pastas (uma para cada dia do mês, uma para cada mês, fica rotacionando as pastas de dias dentro das pastas de meses) é citada nesse livro -- embora o autor tenha citado, pelo menos, a origem do mesmo (de novo, do GTD).
O livro não é ruim, mas para quem já se preparou para seguir o GTD, boa parte do que foi apresentado já é feito.

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content/reviews/books/_index.md

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title = "Book Reviews"
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content/reviews/books/a-bug-hunters-diary-a-guided-tour-through-the-wilds-of-software-security.md

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title = "A Bug Hunter's Diary: A Guided Tour Through the Wilds of Software Security - Tobias Klein"
date = 2016-10-14
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "tobias klein"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
For a long time you keep hearing things like "don't use this 'cause it can be exploited", but you really never saw something like that being exploited. And then comes this book and shows how someone can use everything you know you can't use to actually call something it wasn't expected to be called.
Confusing? Well, it's a very complex issue that involves the call stack and assembly and registers and all that. But the book goes into length explaining and showing those things (so, yeah, some knowledge of assembly is required).
In the end, it's a good book about those "things" you know your shouldn't use, and what happens when you actually use them.

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content/reviews/books/a-colher-que-desaparece-e-outras-historias-reais-de-loucura-amor-e-morte-a-partir-dos-elementos-quimicos.md

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title = "A Colher que desaparece: e outras histórias reais de loucura, amor e morte a partir dos elementos químicos - Sam Kean"
date = 2017-02-18
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "sam kean"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Quando vemos a tabela períodica, vemos apenas uma coleção de elementos descobertos (e alguns, criados) por humanos. Mas a história por trás dessas descobertas é que os professores nunca contam -- talvez com exceção de Marie Curie e olhe lá.
No livro, são contadas as formas como a tabela períodica e seus componentes foram descobertos e montados. Ou seja, a parte *humana* da física e da química.
Embora seja um ponto interessante de falar sobre física e química, o livro desvaneia demais em vários pontos. Começa com um assunto e, sem concluí-lo, passa para outro e nunca retorna. Sem contar que, em alguns pontos, o autor parece esquecer que as explicações devem ser feitas para não-físicos e acaba gerando conteúdos extremamente complicados de serem entendidos.
Com alguma revisão para evitar que os assuntos fiquem empilham sem solução e uma revisão na acessibilidade do conteúdo, seria um livro excelente para que várias pessoas deixassem de ver física e química como um bicho de sete cabeças.

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content/reviews/books/a-filosofia-explica-as-grandes-questoes-da-humanidade.md

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title = "A Filosofia Explica as Grandes Questões da Humanidade - Clóvis de Barros Filho"
date = 2017-06-05
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "clovis de barros filho"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Filosofia é algo complicado para se entender, sempre lidando com "meta" fatores ao invés de tratar do fator em si.
E quando o autor fica divagando ao invés de explicar as coisas, entender filosofia fica ainda pior.
O estilo da escrita do livro é o que realmente estraga o prazer de ler. Frases minúsculas, falta de uso de vírgula ao continuar pensamentos (o que te força a voltar e ler de novo, para tentar colocar as vírgulas nos lugares dos pontos para que o pensamento siga seu fluxo normal) e uma completa divagação do assunto (de novo, entrecortado pelas frases minúsculas) faz com que entender o que o autor quer dizer uma tarefa praticamente impossível.
A sorte é que o último 1/3 do livro foi escrito por outro autor e nesse ponto sim as coisas fazem sentido. Finalmente começa-se do princípio, vai-se ao meio e termina-se no fim, ao invés de abrir 15 princípios no meio e nunca chegar a um fim.
Vale pelo último 1/3, o resto é uma baderna de ser lido sem que se chegue a uma conclusão.

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content/reviews/books/a-garota-no-trem.md

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title = "A Garota no Trem - Paula Hawkins"
date = 2017-03-18
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "paula hawkins"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
Mais um "resolvi ler o filme".
Sem partir para spoilers, o livro é interessante mais pela estrutura do que pelo conteúdo. Não que o conteúdo seja ruim, mas é levemente cliché.
A estrutura, no entando, é bem mais complexa. Segue a vida de três mulheres (uma delas, a principal, "a garota no trem"), contando como a história das três se interage e como forma uma rede só. O problema é que, além de quebrar eventos em três versões diferentes, três pontos de vista diferentes -- algo que eu acho realmente interessante -- os eventos não ocorrem em ordem cronológica. Um capítulo é sobre a mulher 1, em um dia de julho de 2013; o próximo é da mulher 3 em janeiro de 2012; e assim por diante. Como os capítulos são meio longos, às vezes foi preciso voltar pra tentar conectar os espaços temporais para ter a visão do todo da história.
Fora isso, é um excelente mistério, com uma boa percepção dos clichés e como utilizá-los para criar plot twists.

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content/reviews/books/a-historia-do-mundo-para-quem-tem-pressa.md

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title = "A História do Mundo Para Quem Tem Pressa - Emma Marriott"
date = 2016-05-10
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "emma marriott"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
"A História do Mundo Para Quem Tem Pressa" teve uma proposta inicial interessante: contar, resumidamente, o resumo da história em apenas 200 páginas. Embora interessante, o resultado é, no mínimo, curioso: Quando o livro fala de civilizações grandiosas (com os fenícios), cuja cultura se estende por séculos, sendo um dos maiores centros de comércio da época, em apenas um parágrafo, a questão que fica é se era realmente o maior, pra caber em tão pouco espaço; ao mesmo tempo, leva a questão se analisamos a grandeza de uma civilização pelo número de parágrafos ou pelo conteúdo dos parágrafos.
De qualquer forma, o livro vai desde o ano 5000 a.C. até 1950 d.C., citando as várias civilizações que surgiram, o conhecimento que temos, hoje, dessas civilizações, e a sua repercussão. No entanto, como o livro se divide em períodos de tempos, algumas vezes a história de uma civilização -- e suas ramificações -- fica "cortada" no percorrer do livro. Talvez fosse mais interessante pegar uma civilização e seguir o progresso da mesma desde a sua primeira aparição -- no seu primeiro estado -- e seguir até os dias de hoje, passando por suas transformações.
No fim, o livro se torna divertido mesmo nos tempos modernos, onde a abundância de informações permite uma maior "manobrabilidade" do conteúdo. Mas, como tido no começo, o livro sofre com a própria ideia de ser um livro de história com 200 páginas e acaba sacrificando o entendimento em alguns casos.

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content/reviews/books/all-quiet-on-the-western-front.md

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title = "All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque"
date = 2014-12-24
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "erich maria remarque"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
I was sure that in the forewords there was something about "this is not a book to promote war" or anything of the sorts. But alas, the forewords are
>This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.
... which basically describes the whole book.
The book follows the story of a young German soldier from the beginning of World War I till almost its end. In following him, we learn how training was, how going to the battle front was like, how friendships were forged, how soldiers survived with the small support from the higher ups, how the rest of the society view and treated those who were in the front and how society lived while the war was raging.
Again, my surprise was the "promote war" foreword that I thought existed. 'Cause the book goes far away from it. From it's gory description of the battles, from it's depressing tales of how the society lived, from the sad state most were left when the tides of war changed against those fighting, to the complete desolation of describing how it is to lose someone who fought and helped others in the front, this is far from being a "promotion" of war; if such, it's more of a long story about how governments would engage war without worrying with the poor souls (real people!) who actually got guns in their guns and run against other poor souls that also didn't appear as a single bleep in their government plans.
It's a brutal, sad description of what war really yes.

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content/reviews/books/all-you-need-is-kill.md

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title = "All You Need Is Kill - Hiroshi Sakurazaka"
date = 2014-12-03
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "hiroshi sakurazaka"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
I admit I got this book because of "Edge of Tomorrow", which I watched before reading the book. As usual, only the concept of the story is the same in both. Apart from "soldier keeps repeating the same day over and over again due alien technology", there is absolutely nothing in common with the movie.
The story starts slowly, mostly because Keiji Kiriya is still a fresh guy. But he still kills one special alien and gains temporal superpowers. When that happens, the story picks up and it's really hard to drop it. Then the story stops to tell the backstory of Rita Vrataski and the pace drops a bit; then it goes back to the fight and it picks up again. That's probably how I read this thing so fast.
In a way, the book is more brutal than the movie, as much as "Jarhead" the book is more brutal than "Jarhead" the movie. Also, the explanation for the "time travel" -- which in the book is no time travel at all, being much more akin to the way Kitty Pride sends people in the time in "X-Men: Days of Future Past" -- seems much more plausible than the movie.
It is a short but interesting story, nonetheless.

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content/reviews/books/american-gods.md

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title = "American Gods - Neil Gaiman"
date = 2015-04-04
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "neil gaiman"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
**A very hard book to read **
When I was halfway through it, I though I'd give this book 4 stars; when I was 3/4 through it, I though about giving it only 3 stars; then, in the very end, I decided to give 5 stars.
Thing is, this is not an easy book to read. It's freaking hard, opening several threads at once, which give the feel that you're reading things that make absolutely nothing to the story. And then, in the very end, all threads are neatly closed. If you manage to keep up to the continuous words that feel worthless and read till the end, you'll get a nicely packaged story, worth your time.

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content/reviews/books/an-illustrated-book-of-bad-arguments.md

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title = "An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments - Ali Almossawi"
date = 2015-03-05
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ali almossawi"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
Short, but fun.
It's a really fun read, but really really short (I managed to read the whole thing in about 40 minutes). I expected a little bit more, some more examples, some other types of fallacies and so on.
It's not that the book is bad, quite the contrary. It's a fun read.
But short.

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content/reviews/books/angularjs.md

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title = "AngularJS - Brad Green"
date = 2014-07-19
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "brad green"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Teaches the basic, but it's really out of date.

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content/reviews/books/antifragile-systems-and-teams.md

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title = "Antifragile Systems and Teams - Dave Zwieback"
date = 2017-04-17
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "dave zwieback"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Not really a book, just a paper. But a badly constructed paper.
It doesn't describe what an "antifragile system" is in deep (ok, it's a paper); lists only two examples of antifragile systems; focus too much on devops.
Sadly, nothing useful -- something you can take with you and use when building your own system or leading your team -- in this.

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content/reviews/books/antologia-da-maldade-um-dicionario-de-citacoes-associacoes-ilicitas-e-ligacoes-perigosas.md

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title = "Antologia da maldade: Um Dicionário de Citações, Associações Ilícitas e Ligações Perigosas - Gustavo H. B. Franco"
date = 2016-03-19
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "gustavo h. b. franco"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Com o título principal de "Antologia da maldade", eu esperava uma lista de citações ácidas de pessoas famosas, como praticamente todas as citações de Winston Churchil. Infelizmente, o livro é apenas mais um livro de citações randômicas, incluindo Mário Quintana, que provavelmente é a única pessoa cujas citações são sempre simpáticas e amáveis.
Assim, de "maldade" há muito pouco, a não ser que seja considerada maldade reproduzir citações de Nelson Rodrigues, cuja existência deveria ser atirada no passado negro do Brasil junto com a ditadura.

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content/reviews/books/apache-kafka.md

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title = "Apache Kafka - Nishant Garg"
date = 2017-07-05
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "nishant garg"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
After reading the book, I ended up with more questions than I had when I started reading:
1. What Kafka is good for?
2. What are the use cases for Kafka?
3. When I should NOT use Kafka?
4. How Kafka compares to other options?
5. What is a topic?
6. How to create a pipeline to process information, in a way that I have multiple lines of processing?
Not only the book goes straight to "You install this way, you write a simple app, and that's it", it uses some very terse phrases, which makes really hard to read. Things like "This, at times, leads to redevelopment of information producers or consumers to provide an integration point between them", which is terse but has absolutely no information at all. There is even an introduction to Hadoop as "Resource sharing, stability, availability, and scalability are a few of the many challenges of distributed computing. Nowadays, an additional challenge is to process extremely large volumes of data in TBs or PBs." -- which says absolutely NOTHING about what Hadoop is and how it works.
Again, if you want to know *less* about Kafka, that's a good book for it.

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content/reviews/books/argo.md

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title = "Argo - Antonio J. Méndez"
date = 2017-04-17
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "antonio j. mendez"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Mais um para a lista do "li um filme". Obviamente, o filme é baseado no livro e não o contrário.
Ao contrário do filme, o livro passa um bom tempo explicando os fatos que levaram à invasão da embaixada americana em Teerã, ao invés de pular diretamente para o resgate -- o que é excelente para entender exatamente porque a embaixada foi invadida. Praticamente a primeira metade do livro inteiro conta os fatos que levaram à invasão, como seis funcionários da embaixada escaparam e por onde passaram até chegar a embaixada canadense.
A segunda metade do livro é que foca na operação de extração (exfiltração) dos funcionários. E não, não foi todo aquela sucessão de eventos que acontece no filme: é bem mais simples do que é mostrado.
Entretanto, existem dois grandes problemas do livro:
O primeiro é que Mendez parece super envolvido na sua função de espião da CIA, no clássico "faço tudo pelo meu país", batendo no peito, mas mostra-se de certa forma indignado quando comenta que outros países fazem o mesmo. O clássico, "não confio em ninguém, mas fico indignado quando não confiam em mim."
O segundo problema é a tradução: utiliza toda a língua formal no livro, com pedaços caindo para o popular: "a gente podia" ao invés de "nós poderíamos", "antes de se tornar um fera na maquiagem" ao invés de "antes de se tornar expert em maquiagem". Embora pareça bobo citar esses exemplos, eles são extremamente contrastantes com o resto da linguagem usada.
No fim, o livro é muito interessante pela explicação histórica dos eventos e para ver o quão disparate da verdade o filme é.

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content/reviews/books/arrival.md

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title = "Arrival - Ted Chiang"
date = 2017-02-28
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ted chiang"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
I'll be honest (again) and admit that I bought the book because of the movie (again -- the same thing happened with [book:All You Need Is Kill|6255949]/Edge of Tomorrow). This time, though, I haven't seen the movie yet, so I basically "read the movie" before watching it.
Thing is, this is *not* just about Arrival. It's a collection of stories by Ted Chiang -- one of them is "The Story of Your Life", which is the base for the movie. You have "Tower of Babylon", which is kinda like a fantasy story if said tower actually reached the heavens; "Understand", which takes a stab in a "Limitless" kinda-way; "Division By Zero", which talks about mathematics but it is actually about people (Pro-tip: if you read, keep an eye on the "chapter" numbers; it will explain the story); "Story of Your Life", which, again, is the base for the Arrival movie; "Seventy-Two Letters", about a world where golems and controlling stuff with written stuff actually exists; "The Evolution About Human Science", a short story about a future when humans can't keep up with their own science; "Hell is the Absence of God", about angels (although the author explains it in the end, it felt much more like "this is hell" than anything else); and "Liking What You See: A Documentary", which feels like a huge discussion about beauty and propaganda.
In general, all stories are pretty easy and interesting to read -- reading the whole book in two days may be a testament of this. The whole style reminded me of Asimov's writing, although I could skip half paragraphs without missing anything in the story, while that wouldn't be an option in Asimov stories.
The endings are also kinda loose, but because there are hidden clues about the story itself in other parts -- like in "Division By Zero" -- I guess I just didn't *get* them yet.

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content/reviews/books/backbonejs-essentials.md

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title = "Backbone.js Essentials - Jeremy Walker"
date = 2016-04-26
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "jeremy walker"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
This is the second book about Backbone and, honestly, the more I read, the less I understand about it; but I believe that's absolutely only my fault.
Although the book explains each of the Backbone classes in deep, it never really connects one to another. It seriously lack a whole description on how to build an app from start to finish. Even if you know everything about collections and models (and that they represent a table and a record, respectively), how to create a View and how to route things around, you seriously lack the idea behind connecting one to another -- although Views are shown using Models directly, it should actually go on how to draw several models from a collection in a single step, for example.
So, although good for understanding Backbone classes, it lacks on the general *building* of a Backbone app.

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content/reviews/books/backbonejs-testing.md

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title = "Backbone.Js Testing - Ryan Roemer"
date = 2016-05-02
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ryan roemer"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
At the very begin of the book, the author mentioned that, for the sake of showing tests, there would be a complete application to be used as an example. My thought, at this point was: Finally, a book talking more about how to connect Backbone elements than _Backbone.js Essentials_. Well, I was mistaken.
There isn't much of Backbone itself in this book. When it says "Backbone.js *Testing*", it actually means that Backbone is just a background thingy to talk about Mocha, Chai and Sinon. If the author decided to write a "React.js Testing", there wouldn't be more much in the topics, just a few adjustments there and there.
This means this book is back? Actually not. Although not focusing directly on Backbone, it *does* focus a lot on testing and all related libraries. Even if you don't work with Backbone -- but have at least some general idea about how it works -- it is a damn good book about JavaScript testing.

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content/reviews/books/being-there.md

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title = "Being There - Jerzy Kosiński"
date = 2018-05-31
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "jerzy kosinski"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
It's a somewhat funny story. It's also short. But I can't stop thinking "What the heck I just read?"
I've seen a lot about the movie (with the same name) but I've never seen the movie itself. So I read the book.
But the story... I don't know if Kosinski just wanted to write something funny or was trying to make a statement about the higher classes. 'Cause Chance is dumb as a brick, but after being hit by a car of a high society socialite, suddenly he's elevated to the point of being the smartest, most desired person around.
So you see the kind of comic situations you could do with this. But also, because everything sees him as a super smart persona, you can't stop thinking that, maybe, Kosinski wanted to point how being rich isn't synonymous of "being intelligent".
And, because you never know where the author is pointing at the the story ends rather abruptly, I can't really say it's a good story.

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content/reviews/books/black-hat-python-python-programming-for-hackers-and-pentesters.md

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title = "Black Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Pentesters - Justin Seitz"
date = 2016-12-26
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "justin seitz"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
The very first chapter give me high hopes for this book: Since Python is basically part of every single Linux install, you could do a shitton retrieving system and user information by just using the normal packages. You won't even need to install nmap or similar; using plain Python packages, you could check which services are running and such.
But then, things go downhill.
After the first chapter, you start to add Python packages, which means you need to have root access -- and even if you use something like a virtualenv, you still would announce yourself by requesting things over the net using <code>easy_install</code> (the book never mentions <code>pip</code> -- heck, it doesn't even *mentions* virtualenv to avoid being root), which could be easily blocked by sysadmins if your company doesn't have anything with Python.
And it doesn't stop at that: after these starting chapters, it start hacking Windows machines. Heck, Python is not installed by default on Windows and a py2exe executable weights something like 15Mb, which isn't much in bandwidth, but it's noticeable. And then it starts installing packages and more packages and requesting to run things as administrator, which would surely be a hassle.
The Python code itself is simplistic, to say the least. At the very first chapters I noticed that the code was basically C code translated to Python, which wouldn't be a problem if you're thinking about replacing basic hack code with Python code -- because it is easier to find Python installed than GCC, for example -- but with the problems cited above actually make me think that the author never really cared about Pythonic code, just did the very minimum to make code run and that's it.
So, it's a bad book about hacking because it requires privileged access beforehand and it's a bad book about Python because it doesn't follow Python good practices. In the end, it's just a book with a few interesting Python libraries, nothing more.

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content/reviews/books/brave-new-world.md

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+++
title = "Brave New World - Aldous Huxley"
date = 2014-12-31
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "aldous huxley"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
There is a weird thing about "Brave New World". Well, there are a bunch of weird things, like the pacing, the idea in the early chapters which make it confusing to see where the author wants to go but, on top of that, there is this dystopian future (apparently, 300 or 400 years from the early 20th century) that sounds so much like our days.
The book opens with a very dystopian society: People are bred, not born, and the needs of the society decide the type of people who will be born: Do we need more administrators? Then we'll have this kind of people; do we need more workers? Then we'll have a bunch of twins with low IQ that will be prepared to do menial tasks.
Not only that, but people are thought, at the very age, by continuous reinforcement propaganda that things like "marriage", "naturally born", "father", "mother" and other things are actually bad; we need more money being spent in the country, so let's train people to like being outside the cities; clothing is thrown away because that makes the clothing industry prosper (instead of simply mending); people are actually encouraged to be promiscuous (sorta) in other to never feel lonely.
(In part, this resonates a bit with _The Robots of Dawn_, but while in Aurora people would engage sex when they felt like, in Brave New World people engage sex because they are massively pressured since their early training to do so.)
But then again there are small pockets of people who are not part of the *society*, being kept in *Savage Reservations*. And when one of such "savages" is brought back into *society*, then we have our discussion about total free will and the workings of a completely conditioned and "harmonic" (with quotes) society.
Again, it's weird to understand where the author wants to go in the early chapters, but the final chapters (with the exception of the end of the last one) are pretty damn thought provoking.

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content/reviews/books/c-succinctly.md

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+++
title = "C# Succinctly - Joe Mayo"
date = 2016-04-17
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "joe mayo"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
I know that "succinctly"doesn't mean "let's explore everything", but there are some things that really need some better explanations.
First of all, this is not a book for starters. If you never coded in your live, getting the basics will be really hard. Second, there are some things that, because you already coded, look a bit weird in the way that either C# is a magical language or there is something really wrong with the code.

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content/reviews/books/changing-planes-stories.md

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title = "Changing Planes: Stories - Ursula K. Le Guin"
date = 2018-03-13
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ursula k. le guin"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
This was the first book of Ursula that I've read, even if I'm used to read Scifi from Asimov, Clark and Heinlein. But Ursula is a complete different style from those.
"Changing Planes" can be described as "she took her dreams and turned into stories". It's a story of several "planes" of existence, each with its own history, its own culture and its own people. Each is different from the other in almost non-overlapping fashion.
At first it's kinda weird and uninteresting -- till you realize how much creativity one has to have to come up with several different different planets and their history.

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content/reviews/books/clean-code-a-handbook-of-agile-software-craftsmanship.md

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title = "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship - Robert C. Martin"
date = 2015-01-25
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "robert c. martin"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
<b>About the edition</b>
If there is one single weird thing about the Kindle edition is the code formatting. While reading code in non-monospaced font is weird but not impossible, reading code in non-monospaced font that is justified like normal text <em>is</em>.
The really annoying part is that, at the end of the book, the full listing of the discussed code is shown as "images", large blocks of code that don't follow the selected Kindle background and doesn't seem to allow selection, but it <em>is</em> monospaced and it is <em>not</em> justified. Why won't they use it all over the code is beyond me.
<b>About the content</b>
The book goes with a good start, listing almost all the pet peeves I have with other people code ("why the <em>fuck</em> they named things like <em>this</em>?", "why the <em>hell</em> this function have that many parameters?" and so on -- heck, even the problem with consistent style was there). Although it points the problem and how to improved it, it sometimes lacks the <em>why</em> those changes need to be made.
But, then, things start to really go downhill, with lots of stuff that contradicts previous statements (specially the Single Responsibility Principle), and a bunch of things that are language specific. There is one really good chapter that picks a code and goes slowly showing the principles discussed in the start of the book, applying one after the other, so you can see the code changing and becoming easier to read. The sad part is that it is used only once.
Honestly, I which there was a lot more of "why you should do this", only because as a seasoned programmer, I agree -- and use -- with a lot of the points in the book, but I lack the experience the tell younger programmers <em>why</em> they should not do what they are doing.
It's a good book, nonetheless, although not exceptionally good.

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content/reviews/books/clojure-for-machine-learning.md

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title = "Clojure for Machine Learning - Akhil Wali"
date = 2017-05-01
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "akhil wali"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
If I ever read a book with a misleading title, that would be it.
Not because there is no Clojure in it, but the amount of Clojure used is minimal compared to the whole.
Also, not because there is no Machine Learning in it, but the book goes as deep as explaining the algorithms behind each common machine learning technique, without explaining *when* you should use it. There is ample discussion about the mathematical context of each method, but it explains absolutely nothing about machine learning itself -- it's purely a bunch of mathematical equations that could be use to extract some pattern, but it's hardly "machine learning" at this point.
(Also: Neural networks as "unsupervised learning"?!?)
So, good book on the math behind some machine learning equations, very bad clojure, very bad machine learning.

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content/reviews/books/clojure-for-the-brave-and-true.md

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title = "Clojure for the Brave and True - Daniel Higginbotham"
date = 2017-04-09
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "daniel higginbotham"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
There must be something wrong with Lisp (and Lisp-like) people that when they write about their language, they show the code first, then explain what they wrote -- which is kinda weird, because you read code that you barely understand what it is doing at first, then they explain and you have to go back and read it again to finally "click" it. And, sometimes, they forget what code they just wrote and you're left with commands that you have no idea what they do.
There is also a weird sense of humor, which I believe it could be fun if you watch whatever TV series the author uses as reference. For someone that doesn't follow and doesn't know what he's talking about, it's just... weird -- and not fun at all. Fortunately, the "humor" tones down to the end, which makes more "pleasant" to read.
While it covers a lot of ground in the book, some pieces really fall short in their examples. Threading and process fall short due the use of <tt>sleep</tt>, which is not something you'd normally write; the last appendix, about a tool called "Boot" tries to explain some concepts about tasks and middlewares with things that are not tasks and do not reflect the real world. Lacking this connection to real use of a tool just make things harder to udnerstand -- and even harder to see *where* you'd use it.
It's not the worst book about a Lisp-like language I've read -- and heck, it does a good job *selling* the language, to the point I'm already thinking about writing something in it -- but damn if these problems don't appear in every single one of those.

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content/reviews/books/coffeescript-application-development.md

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+++
title = "CoffeeScript Application Development - Ian Young"
date = 2016-05-07
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ian young"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
In these days of ECMAScript 6, it's nice to see where a bunch of ideas of it came from.
Coffee is a lot like the new JavaScript standard (just a bit more brackets). The book manages to explain and show all the little nice things about it, keeping a single application from start to finish, which helps a lot in understanding the flows of it.
I just got a bit miffed with the upbeat tone of the book. It's not a full Pollyanna, but a lot of "that looks a lot cleaner, don't it?" and "It's even prettier than normal Javascript" gets into you pretty quick.

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content/reviews/books/como-a-musica-ficou-gratis.md

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title = "Como a música ficou grátis - Stephen Witt"
date = 2016-05-21
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "stephen witt"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
“Como a música ficou grátis” é uma análise dos fatos que aconteceram com a indústria fonográfica acabou dando vários tiros nos pés até que músicas fossem gratuitamente distribuidas pela internet.
E não, não estamos falando sobre as “rádios online” que hoje estão em todos os lugares. O livro acaba antes dessa explosão, mas a história contada deixa relativamente explicado do porque essa explosão aconteceu, se você conseguir ligar as linhas.
O livro se foca na história de três pessoas (principalmente): Doug Morris, produtor musical que descobriu vários artistas de ponta, principalmente no mundo do rap; Karlheinz Brandenburg, do Instituto de Erlagen-Nuremberg, que trabalhou no formato hoje conhecido como MP3; e, finalmente, Dell Glover, que trabalhou numa das fábricas de prensagens de CDs da Universal Music e conseguiu vazar vários álbuns antes dos seus lançamentos oficiais.
Embora o livro conte, de forma bem explícita, como a vida dessas três pessoas influenciou uma indústria inteira, eu fiquei com a impressão que acontecimentos realmente importantes nessa história tenham ficado de lado. Por exemplo, a explosão do Napster é contada rapidamente, pulando da sua criação diretamente para o fechamento da empresa (os criadores do Napster, Shawn Fanning, John Fanning e Sean Parker são mencionados de relance, apenas); o lançamento do iPod também é colocado em segundo plano, apesar de ter sido o expoente máximo do MP3 na época apresentada pelo livro; BitTorrent aparece, mas apenas como um novo formato de distribuição para substituir o Napster; o Oink’s Pink Palace ganha mais proeminencia que o Pirate Bay; e, como dito inicialmente, a explosão das “rádios de internet” sequer é mencionada (ok, fala-se rapidamente do Spotify, mas é isso).
Pode ser que o ponto do livro fosse, realmente, apresentar os fatores que não foram apresentados ao público, deixando os fatos mais “populares” de fora e apresentando o que estava acontecendo por baixo dos panos. Mas ainda assim, é estranho que coisas com relativa importância no contexto global da ação tenham sido sumariamente ignorados.
Outro problema com o livro é a leitura. Por algum motivo, o conteúdo é complicado de ser lido, possivelmente porque vai construindo hipótese sobre hipótese e contexto sobre contexto, o que deixa o livro “lento” de ser lido.

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content/reviews/books/como-convencer-alguem-em-90-segundos.md

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title = "Como convencer alguém em 90 segundos - Nicholas Boothman"
date = 2016-07-24
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "nicholas boothman"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
Antes de mais nada, esse livro não é um livro de persuasão, de fazer outras pessoas terem a mesma convicção que você; esse livro é como convencer alguém a comprar algo de você -- seja produto ou seja você mesmo.
Existem vários "exercícios" para conseguir aprender as regras de convencer alguém: como olhar alguém nos olhos, como estar sempre sorrindo, como contar uma história que capture a atenção das pessoas.... cada ponto tem um exercício. Além disso, no final de cada capítulo, existe um resumo do que foi falado no livro -- embora a forma como esse resumo apareça não tenha nenhum indicativo que é o resumo e não apenas mais um tópico do capítulo.

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content/reviews/books/designing-data-intensive-applications-the-big-ideas-behind-reliable-scalable-and-maintainable-systems.md

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title = "Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems - Martin Kleppmann"
date = 2018-01-19
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "martin kleppmann"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
First off, right out of the bat: If you want to design Data Intensive Applications, this is *not* the book you're looking for. This book goes greats lengths to explain how already existing Data Intensive Applications work -- say, how Zookeeper works when synching data, how Cassandra works without a leader, how PostgreSQL do transactions and so on.
While informative, the biggest problem is that most of the text is very loaded: there are layers and layers on each paragraph and you'll take a long time putting it all together.
Personaly, I felt it lacked examples. Sure, it's interesting how many ways you can do leader election, but which databases use this or that way? I can see that one way is the way I want to build my applications on top, but without a really good example, where should I look?
Also, there is a slight tendency to describe the "market winners" in way more detail than everything else. There are long discussions about the ways Cassandra solves its problems than Voldermort (obviously, there is a reason why Cassandra is the market winner, but this "over-focus" on certain applications is tiring and just do a job on keeping those on top -- because that's the ones the book talks and who will look at a database called Voldermort when you mention it just in passing?)
Overall, it felt like reading my old "Operating Systems 101" books again -- in a theorical way, not productive way.

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content/reviews/books/direto-ao-ponto-criando-produtos-de-forma-enxuta.md

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title = "Direto ao Ponto - criando produtos de forma enxuta - Paulo Caroli"
date = 2016-03-26
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "paulo caroli"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Quando comecei a ler o livro, me lembrei imediatamente de um vídeo do _Robert C. Martin_ explicando regras de progressão de código conforme os testes unitários avançam: antes de explicar as regras, ele passa por todo o processo de "escrever os testes antes do código", mostrando a evolução do código e nesse ponto TDD faz o maior sentido do mundo. Mas quando ele chega nas regras, você fica pensando se a regra *realmente* faz sentido.
A mesma coisa aconteceu com o livro: Paulo Caroli começa explicando os vários conceitos e método das metologias enxutas e tudo faz sentido e parece ser a melhor coisa do mundo. Mas depois começa a se aprofundar na inception e você começa a pensar que talvez não faça sentido coletar todas as features e definições e examinar tudo com os stakeholders se métodos ágeis funcionam justamente sabendo que as coisas vão mudar no futuro. Do que adianta planejar, discutir, desenhar e tudo mais quando se sabe que, no produto final, nem todas as features desejadas inicialmente serão usadas ou se durante o desenvolvimento não será detectada a mudança no curso e o resultado final será completamente diferente do planejado inicialmente.
E esse ponto em específico nunca é discutido; você fica com um "waterfall" nas mãos sabendo que nem tudo vai ser usado no final -- afinal de contas, essa é a idéia dos métodos ágeis.
Então embora o livro descreva como fazer uma inception completa, com o maior número de acertos possíveis, o fato que uma inception não parece se encaixar na metodologia ágil nunca é discutido.

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content/reviews/books/django-design-patterns-and-best-practices.md

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title = "Django Design Patterns and Best Practices - Arun Ravindran"
date = 2016-07-07
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "arun ravindran"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Although I'm not a fan of design patterns (you know, the GoF one) because people tend replace it to proper thinking. But I do like design patterns for languages and frameworks, because you can use something for a very long time and still not doing it in the right way.
The book has an interesting premise: Explain a bit something, point a problem, a solution, expand the problem and expand the solution. The problem is that some problems seem really shoe horned to certain solutions. Also, some common problems are not talked at all, like using CSRF with Ajax -- something the author mentions people shouldn't do (disable CSRF) on Ajax requests.
On the other hand, the book focus on the the most recent versions (well, almost). Instead of going in the safe road of Python 2, the book focus on Python 3 -- and, to be honest, there isn't much difference between Django with Python 3 and Django with Python 2.
Is not a bad book, but the really interesting things seem to be left out.

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content/reviews/books/dogfight-how-apple-and-google-went-to-war-and-started-a-revolution.md

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title = "Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution - Fred Vogelstein"
date = 2014-03-07
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "fred vogelstein"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
It starts as a very interesting story, telling the behind the scenes stories about the first iPhone and the creation of Android. Then it derails and do two stupid things: starts brown nosing one side and focus on a single region.
Mid book you'll see how Jobs was aggressive, how Apple was nasty and how Page, Brin and Schmidt were open and Google was an innovative company. The author doesn't deny the effect of iPhones and iPads, but focus solely on what others were doing instead of giving at least some acknowledgement too the company that created such devices. And yes, I know I sound like a fanboy, but when the author talks about Android it is never about its effects, only how cool and innovative and customisable it is. This very much makes the whole book look one sided, in a non funny way.
The other point is the effects of mobile ecosystem. Everything focus solely in the USA. It's really weird for someone read about Google Music and its dent on Apple music stronghold when your country have no access to Google Music since its inception 3 or so years ago.
If the whole book focused on the behind the scenes stories and how they intertwine, it would be a really interesting book. But a narrowed vision and the author personal opinion leaking through the story really ruins everything.

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content/reviews/books/dossie-jung.md

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title = "Dossiê Jung - Elizabeth Mednicoff"
date = 2017-03-21
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "elizabeth mednicoff"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
Vários problemas com a estrutura do livro.
Primeiro, não é um "Dossiê Jung". A parte sobre Jung, a pessoa, termina logo nos primeiro quinto do livro. A vida do médico/psicólogo nunca mais é revista.
Depois disso, começa uma explicação da psicologia analítica, criada por Jung, com todos os seus conceitos... E nenhum exemplo claro. Por exemplo, na parte de símbolos, é comentado que existem símbolos fixos, mas quais são esses símbolos (pelo menos, os primordias, como a casa e a mandala) não são citados. Então fica tudo em conceitos e nada palpável.
E ainda, existe muito mais opinião ("creio" em alguns pontos) e falta de conteúdo direto (como indicar ao leitor para "procurar na web") que realmente tiram a ideia de que é um trabalho completo.

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content/reviews/books/elon-musk-como-o-ceo-bilionario-da-spacex-e-da-tesla-esta-moldando-o-nosso-futuro.md

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title = "Elon Musk: Como o CEO bilionário da SpaceX e da Tesla está moldando o nosso futuro - Ashlee Vance"
date = 2016-02-17
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ashlee vance"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
Elon é uma figura que eu respeito pela decisão, a muito tempo, de, inicialmente, fazer um carro elétrico num mundo que já sofre demais com a queima de combustíveis fósseis e, depois, por abrir as patentes das baterias que alimentam esses carros.
Entretanto, o livro não fala realmente de Elon Musk. Essa "biografia" aborda muito mais as empresas de Musk (o que o autor chama, mais tarde, de "Musk Co") do que a pessoa Elon Musk. Detalhes sobre a vida, como pensa e tudo mais ficam relegados a segundo plano enquanto que a história da SpaceX e da Tesla tomam a frente. Sim, é uma forma de entender a pessoa vendo as decisões dela sobre produtos importante, mas pouco se fala das decisões que Musk tomou sobre as empresas e sim as decisões de outras pessoas sobre as empresas que ele comanda. No fim, sobra muito da empresa e pouco da pessoa.
Detalhes da pessoa são somente abertos nos apêndices, onde o autor coloca descrições completas das conversas com Elon e finalmente se tem uma idéia de como ele pensa, mesmo que superficialmente por se tratar de pontos específicos de discussão.
É um livro interessante para entender a SpaceX e a Tesla, mas pouco para se entender Elon Musk.

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content/reviews/books/emotions-revealed-understanding-faces-and-feelings.md

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title = "Emotions Revealed: Understanding Faces and Feelings - Paul Ekman"
date = 2014-12-20
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "paul ekman"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
**Emotions: Learning, therapy and socialization**
There is one thing weird about this book: although it explores the expressions on people's faces, going through lenghty explanations about what they mean and which context they may happen, there are also parts explaining why you would feel something like that and how to react when you notice people doing them. It's part explanation about emotions, part teaching you about your own emotions (like in a therapy session) and part how to react when people show them (socialization). In a full package.
The problem I found is not about the book, but about the Kindle edition: Because we are exploring expressions in people's faces, we need images. But images on Kindle is terrible and in very low quality. It makes kinda hard to see that little muscle that you move only when you're feeling some emotion when the image showing it have almost no details due quality.
There is a test in the end of the book, explaining exactly what you should be looking for. The problem is, again, the photo quality in the book.
It's an interesting book, specially when it shows that our reactions (face reactions) to some emotions happen in every society, every culture, but hard to follow due those bad images.

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content/reviews/books/eon-the-way-1.md

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title = "Eon (The Way, #1) - Greg Bear"
date = 2018-04-12
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "greg bear"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
_Rendezvous with Rama_. It's all I could think while reading this book. I mean, it's a very large, strange object, which humans from Earth get inside and, while the story progresses, suddenly there are some kind of benevolent aliens, but the real monsters are the humans, in the end. And, as Rendezvous, there is a lot of over-describing stuff that is not actually important for the plot.
Sure, there are some twists, like who the aliens really are (while later in the Rama series you get *why* the aliens built the spaceship in the first place) and while the over-descriptions of how the aliens (in this book) look like, even if they are curious, show a lot of creativity from the author, they still are over-descriptions that add absolutely nothing to the plot.
In the end, curious, but boring.

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content/reviews/books/future-shock-future-shock-1.md

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title = "Future Shock (Future Shock, #1) - Elizabeth Briggs"
date = 2018-06-05
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "elizabeth briggs"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
The basic plot is: A group of teens with special talents is chosen to go to the future but something something and then they are happily ever after.
So... Yes, it's a time travel story, but it goes to the future instead of the past, which is something new for me. And there is a plot twist in the end, but it's not big. And the protagonists are teens and, even if it's explained why (with a bunch of technobabble, that is)... meh. And their "talents" are not that so important to the plot -- if they were some very clever adults, the plot would still work the same.
But the writing is pretty damn good, even when it lags in the end and you feel you can jump whole paragraphs without missing the story. But it's not crumpled, and it's not full of useless descriptions.

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content/reviews/books/genius-the-life-and-science-of-richard-feynman.md

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title = "Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman - James Gleick"
date = 2018-10-28
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "james gleick"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Biographies (even auto-biographies) are not without problems. But it takes a lot of effort to lose the mark.
Imagine that you're drawing the life time of someone; you can't use a pen with a thin point, otherwise you'll end up with simple "they did this, they did that" with dates, which doesn't give the proper understanding and context of why the subject did this and that. In the same vein, you can't use a pen larger than a marker, otherwise you'll spend too much time on things that are not related to the subject.
And this book draw the life of Feynman with a brush.
There is a whole chapter about absolutely nothing but a discussion about what "genius" mean, which seems more targeted to explain the book title than what happened to Feynman -- or even if his colleagues and family though he was a genius, for whatever meaning of the word.
There are other chapters than, instead of focusing of Feynman, focus on other subjects, in points that do not related to Feynman directly. The last chapter, focused on the Challenger explosion, in which Feynman was part of the commission to explain the explosion, talks a lot more about NASA politics than Feynman.
And, on top of that, the author is very lose with poetic prose instead of being direct to the point. Also, the lack of a continuous timeline, with the points moving back and forth through time, makes it hard to understand when things happen.

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content/reviews/books/getting-started-with-meteorjs-javascript-framework-second-edition.md

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title = "Getting Started with Meteor.js JavaScript Framework - Second Edition - Isaac Strack"
date = 2016-03-25
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "isaac strack"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
I must say, I'm confused about something: Either the book is really shallow or there are no "gotchas" with Meteor. 'Cause the book goes all the way from creating a single application from start to end, keep it straight, doesn't add any bullshit, add external dependencies, packages it and then deploys either on the meteor structure or in custom server.
So, again, either Meteor is so simple that everything is already packaged or the book is shallow and doesn't go deep into problems you may find. I can't really know, after reading it, which one (although I'd bet my money on the first).

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content/reviews/books/getting-things-done-the-art-of-stress-free-productivity.md

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title = "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity - David Allen"
date = 2015-03-05
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "david allen"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
As a method, GTD is damn obvious to follow: Write things down so you don't need to keep thinking that you need to remember something, which would just lead into a constant need of keeping parts of your brain working on remembering instead of producing stuff; focus on what you should do next to complete said things you wrote down; and so on.
Part of the whole I was already following, so learning a few more tricks was really welcomed.
The problem here is the telling itself.
There are references to PDAs, like it was something not so common. Right now, almost everyone has a PDA in their pocket, although we call them "smartphones" instead of PDAs; there are references to "common" binders and rolodexes and that kind of furniture that, in today's world, is a pretty rare thing and most of the stuff we deal each day is digital.
There are some topics which are largely just propaganda for the method itself instead of going straight into it to give people an general idea of how things work and then going deeper (he does it later, but the very start is boring as hell).
Also, some final topics are mostly "One of my clients said she couldn't understand how she lived till this day doing things not GTD" or "I do this 'cause I like it", which although good to know, it's not representative of the method itself.
So while GTD is a pretty damn good method to keep things organized, the book that describes this is not well written, IMHO.
Get it for the methodology, and be ready to skip a lot of useless stuff.

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content/reviews/books/guia-politicamente-incorreto-da-historia-do-mundo.md

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title = "Guia politicamente incorreto da história do mundo - Leandro Narloch"
date = 2016-04-29
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "leandro narloch"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
O título mais correto para este livro seria: "Narloch e as Fantásticas Falácias para Provar Pontos".
O livro até começa bem, falando historicamente de Nero e da famigerada queima de Roma.
A partir desse ponto, no entanto, a coisa desanda para um nível de falácias que, se fossem analisadas, poderiam gerar um livro com o dobro do tamanho deste.
Falando em Galileu, o autor debocha do fato dele (Galileu) ganhar a vida escrevendo horóscopos. Mais tarde, insinua a homossexualidade de Ghandi, e afirma "apesar disso, não podemos criticar Ghandi por suas escolhas sexuais" (ou algo desse tipo). Sim, não é possível, porque isso é chamado *ad hominem* -- que, estranhamente, é o mesmo que o autor fez com Galileu! Vale pra um, não vale pro outro.
Outro caso: Afirmar que a revolução industrial ajudou os pobres da Inglaterra, e logo depois afirma que a grande maioria que saiu do campo e foi procurar vida melhor na cidade, morreu. De forma alguma estou criticando a revolução industrial, mas quando "a grande maioria" morre por algo, como é que ela pode "ter feito bem"?
Essas imbecilidades que beiram a infantilidade nesses 4 primeiros capítulos fazem com que o resto do livro fique com uma sensação ruim ao ler. Não só falácias e erros crasos de lógica percorrem o livro inteiro, a postura política do autor também fica extremamente clara. Se houvesse, logo de cara, um aviso sobre isso, não seria grande problema; o problema ocorre que o livro aparentemente escolheu fatos justamente para justificar a postura política ao invés de, obviamente, focar na *história do mundo* (que está ali no título).
Não só a qualidade lógica do conteúdo tem que ser constantemente questionada, mas a versão do Kindle deixa muito a desejar. Além de hifenizar palavras em lugares errados ("escol-ha", por exemplo), o autor decidiu colocar parágrafos com bordas mais largas de forma alternativa (algumas vezes, o texto fica todo à esquerda, outras todo a direita), usa 4 tamanhos diferentes de fontes e, randomicamente, deixa uma palavra em negrito. Só faltou o texto inteiro estar em comic sans.
Não que o livro não tenha seu conjunto de informações, mas o fato de ser, especificamente, um amontoado de situações da história usados simplesmente para provar (com erros de lógica que fariam os pensadores gregos rirem até a morrerem) a posição do política do autor realmente destroem qualquer consideração que deveria ser feita ao conteúdo real.

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content/reviews/books/hadoop-in-practice-manning.md

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title = "Hadoop in Practice (Manning) - Alex Holmes"
date = 2018-02-16
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "alex holmes"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
First thing: This is not about how to deal with Hadoop in a real environment; this a cookbook of recipes for working with Hadoop, some of them that you won't ever use.
Second: The book uses a structure of "Explanation/Problem/Solution/Discussion". While the formula usually works, here is simply to add more words, because "Problem" is tailored exclusively to pair with the "Explanation". Not only that but "Solution" is basically a rehearsal of the "Explanation". Something like "Hadoop comes with it's own class for dealing with X file format; Problem: You have files in the X format and want to process them in Hadoop; Solution: Use the classes in Hadoop". This basically throw the whole structure under a bus.
Third: There is plenty of code examples, and most are terrible. I don't mean "The code doesn't compile" or "It doesn't follow any good practices". I mean it uses some cutesy arrows to point to some pieces of code, which means it's an image instead of a real code, which means you can't copy'n'paste if needed. Also, those arrows could be easily be converted to comments, except most comments would fall into the "i = i + 1; // increments i" category -- useless comments pointing to obvious things. If it would tell you *why* you're incrementing "i" instead of what it's doing, it would at least be interesting.
There may be something useful there if you have a specific problem with Hadoop. But if you have a single, specific problem, you'd Google it instead of buying a book with a bunch of other solutions that doesn't affect you.

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content/reviews/books/hap-and-leonard-blood-and-lemonade.md

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title = "Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade - Joe R. Lansdale"
date = 2018-01-30
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "joe r. lansdale"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Another book that came from a Humble Bundle.
It's weird that a book about a couple of disfunctional investigators have absolutely nothing about investigating stuff. I mean, sure, it's a solo book and may fit in the general sense of the series, but for someone coming from outside, it's weird that they try to capture readers by something the series is not.
On the other hand, the stories are well formed and easy to read and paint a long story of the old days in America (which I suppose it's true, 'cause I never lived in the United States, much less in that time).

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content/reviews/books/historia-do-futuro-o-horizonte-do-brasil-no-seculo-xxi.md

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title = "História do Futuro: O Horizonte do Brasil no Século XXI - Miriam Leitão"
date = 2016-04-16
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "miriam leitao"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Quando comecei a ler esse livro, eu realmente gostei: Miriam começa falando sobre as alterações climáticas e a destruição dos recursos naturais, mostrando o que deu de errado e o que foi feito para corrigir esses problemas, de uma forma brilhante.
Na segunda parte é discutido o problema do envelhecimento da população, mostrando que estamos nos aproximando do ponto em que a população brasileira vai começar a se reduzir e a pirâmide de contribuição da previdência está se invertendo. Segurança entra nessa estatística, já que além de menos filhos, a faixa hetaria que entraria no mercado de trabalho acaba morrendo antes de conseguir chegar a isso (e começar a contribuir).
Terceira parte fala da educação, justamente porque a população está se reduzindo, pedindo para que os trabalhadores do futuro sejam melhores educados e preparados para mudar de situação.
E aí ela fala de economia e a coisa despenca.
Ela comenta os problemas de corrupção no país -- atualizado para até o que se sabia no final de 2015, de uma forma realmente ampla e bem melhor explicado do que qualquer publicação jornalistica por aí -- mas na parte de soluções só são citados os bons e velhos discursos de sempre: desinchar o governo, abrir barreira, reforma tributária, etc, etc, etc.
Acontece que se fosse fácil, já teria sido feito. Enquanto jornalista de economia -- o que garante um conhecimento maior do que a maioria das pessoas -- sair gritando as velhas discussões de sempre sem apresentar uma solução é triste. E soa pior justamente porque ela É jornalista de economia.
(Não discordo que tem que ser feito, mas ficar simplesmente na discussão sem apresentar soluções, mesmo a longo prazo...)
Desse ponto em frente, o castelo de cartas começa a desmoronar. É preciso ensinar as pessoas a poupar, mas é preciso estimular a indústria (se as pessoas estão poupando, a indústria vai vender pra quem?); o mundo está passando para a transformação digital e educação deveria usar esse recurso melhor, apresentando o mundo para as crianças, mas é preciso fazer a indústria ser o maior contribuidor do PIB (minha senhor, se o mundo está virando digital, não deveríamos focar nisso, que é serviço?); as escolas tem que ensinar a pensar, mas é preciso ensinar, desde criança, a poupar (mas se era ensinar a pensar, pra que ter algo específico?); é preciso fazer crescer o PIB com ajuda à indústria, mas o PIB não é uma métrica boa (sem comentários); poluição causa vários problemas de saúde e geração de energia limpa é o futuro, mas é preciso fazer com que a petrobrás tenha uma produção maior (temos que reduzir poluição, mas é preciso investir numa empresa que produz poluição?); quem precisa resolver os problemas do trânsito são as cidades, mas o culpado é o Federal por ter reduzido IPI... E por aí vai.
Não que o livro não seja interessante pela quantidade de informações existentes. O problema é que, numa tentativa de mostrar caminhos para o Brasil do futuro, Miriam acaba sugerindo fazer coisas dispersas. É como perguntar para alguém como chegar num restaurante e essa pessoa dizer que deve-se pegar a direita e a esquerda ao mesmo tempo. Simplesmente, não é possível.
Fora as questões lógicas do conteúdo, existe um problema de edição: vários pontos aparecem com conteúdo repetido, como se a autora tivesse escrito pedaços em momentos diferentes e sequer releu o capítulo novamente para verificar se não há duplicação.
No fim, é um livro interessante pelas informações, mas como sugestões de futuro, parece mais uma tentativa de atirar várias pedras pra ver qual, daqui a alguns anos, atingiu o alvo -- e, as que não atingiram, serão solenemente ignoradas.

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title = "How to Make Mistakes in Python - Mike Pirnat"
date = 2017-01-01
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "mike pirnat"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
For anyone that works with Python for some time, most of the content of this book is "Hahaha, yeah, I did that too. The good old bad times." And, surely enough, you can't hold yourself nodding when the author mentions that you shouldn't do that.
I felt it lacked a bit of "this is the right way of doing it", like Uncle Bob did with _Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship_, where he picks a code and starts refactoring till it gets "correct". Most of the time, it's a bunch of code (sometimes, invalid code, but that's minor) and then a simple "don't do that".

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title = "I Am Legend - Richard Matheson"
date = 2014-05-20
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "richard matheson"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
Sadly, a lot of people may be driven away from the book due the movie -- which follows a very simple plot line.
But the book does not have a simple plot line. It is complex, twisting and its purpose only shows in the very last line. In that line, the whole story finally clicks; all plots and twists, all descriptions and names, everything clicks. And you stay there, suddenly hit by its plot like a brick hitting you in the side of your face.

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content/reviews/books/i-have-no-mouth-and-i-must-scream.md

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title = "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison"
date = 2018-08-23
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "harlan ellison"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
For a long time, I've only heard about "Have No Mouth", but never actually read it -- and, to be completely honest, didn't even know it was a story.
And then I got a fiction humble bundle and there it was.
I must say I'm impressed with Harlan writing style. It's easy to read, not too messy and straight -- a thing that reminds me of the way Asimov writes, which allowed me to read whole books in a couple of days.
The stories are all over the place, though: One is scifi, another is hallucinogenic, another is modern fiction... So all tastes should be satiated in the end.

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content/reviews/books/imperative-to-functional-programming-succinctly.md

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title = "Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly - Marc Clifton"
date = 2016-12-30
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "marc clifton"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
I know the "Succinctly" series doesn't go deep into a topic, but this book takes a step further by not even respecting its own title.
The correct title would be "C# to F# Succinctly".
The reason is that there isn't many explanations about "functional programming", in the general sense, in this book. Here, most things are explained in the F# context, which, as the author points, isn't a pure functional language.
Also, it goes great lengths to make code unreadable by avoiding proper variable names and using things like "hd" and "tl" (instead of, say, "user" and "remaining_users") and "racc" and "lacc" instead of "sum_right" and "sum_left" (although I could point that this *seems* like a functional programming thing).
So, again: Want to use your knowledge of imperative programming to learn functional programming? Sorry, not this book. Know C# and want to learn F#? Then you have something to read.

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content/reviews/books/in-the-beginning-science-faces-god-in-the-book-of-genesis.md

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title = "In the Beginning . . .: Science Faces God in the Book of Genesis - Isaac Asimov"
date = 2018-06-25
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "isaac asimov"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
I'm really a fan of Asimov books and I was really eager to read some of his non-fiction books.
On this book, he discusses the Genesis, the first book of the bible. The weird thing is that the introduction makes it seem like he will use the bible as a starting point for science -- the introduction mentions that the people who wrote the bible were not stupid, and they were the most smart people at the time -- so I was expecting it to be more like "they thought this, but now we know this". It wasn't like this; but it was really interesting for pointing what was in the bible and what know at the time.
So although it is not a journey to the science, its a really interesting journey to history in the region were the bible was written.

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content/reviews/books/instant-backbonejs-application-development.md

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title = "Instant Backbone.js Application Development - Thomas Hunter II"
date = 2016-04-03
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "thomas hunter ii"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
Got this in a promotion, expecting to understand why I should learn backbone.
And the problem is, although the book goes into building a SPA and tells every single step, it severely lacks the "why" you should do such things. Why you should create a "Routes" property on your app; why you have collections AND models, why Backbone can't infer the collections by the models and so on.
In the end, I think I learnt more about LoDash than Backbone.

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title = "iPad® Productivity Essentials: The Definitive Guide to Getting More Productive with your iPad - Christopher J. Lee"
date = 2015-03-21
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "christopher j. lee"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
**Easy way to describe this: lazy**
You know, for a book with a subtitle of "Get efficient with your iPad, Evernote and GTD" (or, at least, that's what my edition says in the cover), I really expect something more around the lines of "Here is GTD and here is how you do this GTD thing with your iPad, and here is how you do this GTD thing inside Evernote". Instead, the book goes talking about apps that two months from now will not make sense, which are completely unrelated to each other (so good look trying to mix them together and get something meaningful), and which, most of the time, have nothing to do GTD or Evernote.
Also, there are a few quirks in the edition that really annoyed me: there some marks around the text that seems there was some editor marking down corrections to be made, but instead of checking those, the author decided to publish the book with the marks instead of the final product.
In the end, it feels like a bunch of blog posts tied together instead of something really targeted towards GTD and Evernote.

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title = "JavaScript Testing Beginner's Guide - Liang Yuxian Eugene"
date = 2015-09-10
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "liang yuxian eugene"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
Let me start this by saying that I really liked the structure of the book. For each chapter, there is an explanation of what will be covered; a "call for action" which shows the code and then describes, step by step, what is going on; a further explanation on when running said code; and, finally, some pointers on where to go forward.
That being said, this is a mess of a book. The kindle version is completely mangled on the source code. Indentation is completely wrong, which makes the code hard to read; the code is full of stupid mistakes (like having an object and trying to get it again with `getElementById(element.id)`); and, generally, it's pure bad code (like raising an exception inside a try/catch just to catch it afterwards). Not only that, but the book goes incredible lengths to explain JavaScript, what are unit tests and such and, just in the last chapter, it finally explains JavaScript Testing.
That wouldn't be so bad if it was a recent book. But it's a book from 2010, with no further editions, and a lot has changed in the JavaScript landscape in those last 5 years. New frameworks appeared, new tools are here, JavaScript is not client side only anymore... The list goes on and on. Heck, the author goes lengths to explain how to test in IE because it's the most used browser at the time!
Honestly, stay away from this book. Get a book about JavaScript. Get a book about testing. Pick one of the JavaScript testing frameworks around (I know at least 5), read its documentation and you'll be in a better place than reading this.

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content/reviews/books/just-a-geek-unflinchingly-honest-tales-of-the-search-for-life-love-and-fulfillment-beyond-the-starship-enterprise.md

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title = "Just a Geek: Unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise - Wil Wheaton"
date = 2015-01-31
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "wil wheaton"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
Wil Wheaton is a weird character. Some of this acting I find bad, but some are incredible natural (compare his early Wesley Crusher acting with his late The Guild acting. Also, assorted Big Bang Theory episodes).
On the other hand, writing seems to be his strongest point -- something that we reckons himself in this book.
In "Just a Geek", Wheaton collects some of his blog posts from wilwheaton.net and tells the story behind them. In a way, it's the reverse of _Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road_: Instead of telling what was happening with hidden emotions and then telling the truth in other media (in "Ghost Rider", it's Neil letters), here Wheaton sounds like everything is going fine in the blog posts -- at least, in the first ones -- and tells what was wrong in the book itself.
I feel like an idiot describing this, because it sounds too much like some marketing/paid content, but the book goes from the child actor in Star Trek: The Next Generation era to his internet celebrity point (although it doesn't go into the internet-video era, with The Guild) and Wheaton admits all his errors and how he "found himself" (anyone who had to go through this road can related to his story).
It's nice to read, even to get some idea behind TNG. It's direct, with Wheaton telling every time he got pissed with himself. And, in the end, it's a very well written book, although there is a lot of content coming from other sources.

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content/reviews/books/land-of-lisp-learn-to-program-in-lisp-one-game-at-a-time.md

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title = "Land of Lisp: Learn to Program in Lisp, One Game at a Time! - Conrad Barski"
date = 2017-03-16
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "conrad barski"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
(Once again, ignoring the language itself to focus on the book).
Lisp is one hell of a language. Lots of things that are getting traction today already exist in Lisp for a long time. And, still, Lisp is not a common language. And this book shows why.
Just before reaching 1/4 of the book, there was a little piece of code that had nothing less than six "close parenthesis" in it. Just to have an idea of how bad it is, one of my friends that know Lisp inside and out rewrote the same piece of code using two new functions and hell, it was a lot easier to read -- simple because Lisp must be read from right to left, which most written languages use the other way around and reducing the closing parenthesis by moving pieces of code to other functions really does help.
The book also fails in a lot of places: There is the constant abuse of global variables, which breaks the idea of functional programming, one of the pillars of the language; the whole code focus on the REPL and nowhere it talks about using an external editor and running the code, although in the very end a magical "load" appears, out of the blue; there is some serious lack of contextualization about concepts: things are simply thrown out and *then* explained (there is a piece about minimax which the author simply explains the code after showing it and, in the next chapter, he finally explains the minimax concept, only to tell that the code could be "fixed" to follow it in only 23 lines -- no shit, Sherlock, you wrote half of it without ever explaining *why* you were writing it).
In the end, it's not a "oh so terrible" book, but it could really use some editing help.

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title = "Learning ECMAScript 6 - Narayan Prusty"
date = 2016-02-18
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "narayan prusty"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
ECMAScript 6 is the new JavaScript, and I'm just saying this in case you're wondering why one would read this book.
There are a few niceties in JavaScript 6 that would make lives easier. I read the book looking for those niceties. And it does its job. Poorly.
Thing is, the first examples are good (not great, good), and then it seems there are some components the author didn't really quite grasped -- like proxies -- and threw examples of things without them. In the case of proxies, the author created proxies that replicate the normal behaviour of objects and after reading it, you'll keep wondering *why* you should use them, as they do nothing different from the default.
Also, broken English. I'll be the first saying that I'm not the most impressive writer in the English language, but hell, some sentences really hurt. "we will be comparing" is one of those cases. And you'll find plenty of them. Plenty of "that is", plenty "therefore" and things like that just make the text tiring to read -- and it's not even a long read, just about 200 pages.
It's a book that may give you some insights about what's new in JavaScript, but falls short delivering its message.

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content/reviews/books/learning-ionic-build-real-time-and-hybrid-mobile-applications-with-ionic.md

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title = "Learning Ionic - Build real-time and hybrid mobile applications with Ionic - Arvind Ravulavaru"
date = 2016-02-04
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "arvind ravulavaru"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
I must say, I was really surprised by this book. Not only it goes a great length to explain things about Angular (the base for Ionic), but builds <b>two</b> applications from start to end, connects to other services and also explains how to publish your application.
But (and there is always a "but") I felt some things lacking. For example, the author says that he prefers to use grunt instead of the default ionic tool, but after that, he *only* uses the ionic tool; there are some things wrong with the book (why I already submitted as an errata for it); there is very little mention on how to deal with different rotations; and the gravest problem of all, in my opinion: There are absolutely no tests. At all. Not even a mention on how to test your Ionic app.
Other that those problems (which are really minor, related to the amount of information), it is really a good book to start working with Ionic apps.

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title = "Learning Java - Patrick Niemeyer"
date = 2018-08-03
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "patrick niemeyer"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
I once said that it's not just the matter of wanting to learn something, there is also the matter of wanting to *teach*.
The problem here is that the book doesn't seem interested in the second.
I mean, sure, it's nice that you go through *all* the classes, but... is it necessary? Is this teaching? Not to me.
Either focus on how things work and how to pick things, but going over and over and over over *everything* is tiring and not helpful. Not to mention there is a lot of things said twice (or even more), which seems focused on making the book bigger, instead of making things clearer.

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content/reviews/books/less-web-development-essentials.md

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title = "Less Web Development Essentials - Bass Jobsen"
date = 2016-08-02
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "bass jobsen"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Less is a compiler for CSS. Why do I feel I need to start a review with that? Because this book focuses a lot more on CSS than Less. Actually, I may have learnt more about CSS than what it was expected to learn. There is nothing wrong talking more about the base technology when the piece you're talking about is built on it, but when you talk a lot more about the first and not the second, you have to seriously reconsider your book title.
Another thing that annoys me is when the author keeps talking about the examples outside the book. "Check the examples which you can download in the previous URL" is lazy explanation. Instead of building knowledge blocks and then expand over them, the book uses the lazy escape of not telling you anything and expecting yo to read things somewhere else.
In the end, it's a nice book to learn a thing or two about modern CSS, but barely something good about Less.

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content/reviews/books/linux-shell-scripting-cookbook.md

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title = "Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Shantanu Tushar"
date = 2016-01-13
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "shantanu tushar"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
I don't know why, but when I saw the title, I expected to be a book only about bash. Bash is a shell for *nix based systems and, as VIM, is one of the apps you can use for 10 years and, after reading something about it, you find something completely new.
Thing is, this is not just about bash. This book is about tools in the GNU system that can help write shell scripts. And even if you're pissed about Stallman asking to call the system GNU/Linux, this *is* about GNU tools: tr, expect, find... All GNU tools.
So "GNU Shell Scripting Cookbook" would be a more appropriate title.
About the content itself... It's mostly a miss than a hit. Some things are some wrong it hurts (Git does *not* add a `.git` directory inside every directory) and some are so utterly stupid to the point of being dangerous (you don't need root to chown a file!). Some points are so strange, they seem like the authors used a GNU/Linux for only two months and decided to write a book about it.
The book have two authors and it shows. Lots of repeated information, some things not building on things already said (really guys? Not matching pipe with stdin/stdout redirection?) will give you the impression that they never spoke about the book or had a roadmap for it. And there is a shitton of "as follows" (seriously, you'll get sick of reading "as follows" over the book). It says in the cover that, besides the two authors, there were at least 5 reviewers. But it seems none of them actually read the book -- and I'm not talking about easy things to find in a 1 minute Google search (like the git thing), but things like "this 'as follows' is getting through my nerves, you're using it every-fucking-where".
The content gets better in the end, when it gets over the "teaching phase", but you'll still have the bad taste of things wrong from the previous chapters.
So, basically, the book tries to cater to two different audiences -- the beginner and the master -- and doesn't seem to be able to provide a good content for any.

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content/reviews/books/mastering-javascript-design-patterns-essential-solutions-for-effective-javascript-web-design.md

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title = "Mastering JavaScript Design Patterns - Essential Solutions for Effective JavaScript Web Design - Simon Timms"
date = 2016-03-12
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "simon timms"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
With a book named "Master JavaScript Design Patterns", I was expecting something about some JavaScript common patterns, like subscribing and generating events, proper way of transversing structures and such.
But nope.
The book starts with the classical design patterns from the Gang of Four, which doesn't seem so bad if the book was named "Learning Design Patterns with JavaScript", in a way to make learning the design patterns more streamlined for people who already know JavaScript. But, then again, things fall apart, with the Observer pattern being designed with a list of callbacks in a structured, instead of creating a real event -- something, again, really common in JavaScript.
Not only that, but some stuff seems really off. Like explaining lazy evaluation -- something only ES6 has -- with... lists. Yup, lazy evaluation, for the book, means adding things in a list only when you need to remove things from the list. It would make so much more sense if the author jumped into the ES6 bandwagon for this and explained the "yield" command... but no, he had to write some lazy text.
The fact that all examples are based on Game of Thrones -- with all being based on things that happen in Westeros -- don't make it funny or interesting. Worse, none of the examples are related, so the author just keeps jumping between weird scenarios to explain the "patterns".
Even when you throw the JavaScript away and decide to read it to learn some design patterns, you waste your time. Some designs, mostly the MV*, are hastily described and just superficially analyzed.
It really starts a bit off -- again, if it was "Learning Design Patterns with JavaScript", it would be almost perfect -- and then goes downhill by some lazy writing and wrong assumptions.

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content/reviews/books/mujica-a-revolucao-tranquila.md

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title = "Mujica – A revolução tranquila - Mauricio Rabuffetti"
date = 2017-03-05
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "mauricio rabuffetti"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Chamar esse livro de "biografia" é um pouco demais. É estranho que um livro que tenha uma pessoa na capa e no título tenha tão pouco espaço para ela.
Parte da história de José Mujica acontece durante a ditatura uruguaia, quando este era guerrilheiro. Embora seja um capítulo importante da vida de Mujica, o autor resolveu não despender tempo o suficiente sobre o assunto porque, segundo o mesmo, há vários outros livros sobre o assunto do qual os uruguaios querem esquecer. Entretanto, mesmo que seja a milésima vez em que algo é falado, ele deve ser contando por questões de posicionar o "tópico" na história.
A mesma coisa acontece com a questão da legalização da maconha. Embora o livro realmente despenda tempo falando sobre a lei do então presidente Mujica, pouco é falado da ação do presidente sobre a liberação e muito mais sobre questões sanitárias da questão: se vicia mais ou menos, como a OEA via a questão da legalização, os relatórios da ONU, etc, etc, etc. A parte que tangencia todas essas questões e Mujica é simplesmente "Mujica levantou a questão da legalização da maconha".
Ainda, bem no começo do livro, é dito que o povo uruguaio não vê Mujica como o resto do mundo vê. Esse seria um ponto bem interessante de ser visto -- afinal de contas, aqui nós somos "resto do mundo" -- mas isso nunca é levado a frente. Termina, basicamente, com "algumas pessoas não gostaram do que Mujica fez". Existem alguns pontos, principalmente questões diplomáticas, mas fica basicamente no "não gostaram".
É interessante para se ter uma visão da questão política-diplomática do Uruguai nos tempos de Mujica, mas muito pouco para se ter uma visão diferente do "presidente pobre", como os grandes meios projetaram Mujica.

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title = "Mussum Forévis: Samba, mé e trapalhões - Juliano Barreto"
date = 2016-02-21
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "juliano barreto"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
Esse foi um livro que eu comprei, inicialmente, simplesmente porque estava em promoção. No entanto, há tanta informação histórica no conteúdo que eu posso afirmar, categoricamente, que foi uma das minhas melhores compras.
Seguindo a história de Antônio Carlos Bernardes Gomes, o conhecido Mussum, o livro explora desde a infância nas ruas do futuro humorista, passando por seu período de cadete militar (na aeronáutica), cobrindo a parte de sambista integrante de Os Originais do Samba e concluindo com a morte do humorista, parte integrante de Os Trapalhões.
Não apenas focando na pessoa-título, o livro também mostra a cena cultural e política desde os anos 50, quando Mussum passou a fazer parte dos Originais do Samba até o período em que era figurinha certa nos filmes dos Trapalhões. Obviamente, isso faz com que o livro se torne maior do que o necessário -- alguns pontos são interessantes, mas não necessariamente ligados à vida de Antônio Carlos -- mas nem por isso o conteúdo deixa de ser informativo.
PS: Acabei esquecendo de mencionar: A forma como o livro foi escrito é de uma acessibilidade tão grande que eu consegui ler todas as 440 páginas em apenas 3 dias.

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content/reviews/books/nginx-from-beginner-to-pro.md

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title = "Nginx: From Beginner to Pro - Rahul Soni"
date = 2017-06-28
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "rahul soni"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
Seriously, I had to read this with a lot of self control, because there was so much bullshit. I mean, you don't need to know Nginx to understand that the PID file is used to know if the process is running (in the most simple case) but the book tries to sell it as a way to check process uptime. I mean, seriously? Of all the things, Nginx will create a PID file simply for you to check its uptime?
This kind of thing keeps going on and on. It feels like the author didn't know Nginx at all and was figuring out as the book was being written; when they had no idea what one thing meant, bullshit was used to fill the blanks.
This means two things: One, there is so much bullshit it is painful. Second, the book only gets reasonably good at the end. But still hardly anything near the "Pro" as used in the title.

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title = "Night of the Living Trekkies - Kevin David Anderson"
date = 2018-08-28
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "kevin david anderson"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
I'm not a fan of zombie movies/books. But I'm a Star Trek fan. And oh boy, this is a fun book.
While some events in the story may be too cliché (specially in the zombie genre), the way the author interweaves with Star Trek philosophy and Trek fandom is brilliant. And also gets bonus points for not doing "A red shirt on the Enterprise gets infected with a virus and starts zombifying everyone"; instead, it takes the *fandom* and infects its.
And while the cliché parts, although cliché, fit the story, the fact that the author also goes into deep in what Star Trek is and what it represents to its fans, it's pretty damn amazing.
I really really liked it.

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title = "Nos Bastidores da Coca-Cola - Neville Isdell"
date = 2017-01-14
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "neville isdell"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
O grande problema com biografias -- ou apresentações de história na primeira pessoa -- é que é esperado que a pessoa conte sobre o que o autor sentiu; caso contrário, tudo se torna tão impessoal que o mesmo parece uma ficção.
Em _Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist_, Neil Peart soa impessoal e começa a cair nessa categoria de "parece ficção", mas junto com o livro estão as cartas enviadas a um amigo, o que o trás de volta para o lado humano. Em "Nos Bastidores da Coca-Cola", Neville Isdell nunca fala de como se sente, e deixa uma sensação tão grande de "desumanidade" que até quando fala da esposa, parece que o único mérito da mesma é que ela o apoiou.
Existem alguns casos interessantes de história mesmo, mas a narrativa se torna cansativa pois a visão do autor é sempre de que o mesmo resolveu o problema e, mais pra frente, houveram mais pessoas envolvidas. Foi sempre *ele* quem resolveu o problema, não o grupo. Sempre no singular.
E o último capítulo não fala nada de Coca-Cola. Trata-se de sua visão de economia, da qual a Coca-Cola sequer faz parte.
Com relação à tradução: Embora a tradução tenha se preocupado em fazer um livro bom de ler, peca-se horrendamente quando se fala da Coca-Cola. Algumas vezes é "Coca-Cola", outras é "Coke". Poderia ser que uma refere-se à bebida e a outra à empresa (ou vice-versa), mas não. É como se o tradutor -- ou mesmo o autor, nesse ponto -- não consiga ter uma visão do que é uma e o que é a outra.

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title = "O Herói de Mil Faces - Joseph Campbell"
date = 2016-01-05
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "joseph campbell"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
Vou admitir que o livro ganhou de mim. Desisti de continuar lendo depois de chegar na metade.
Não que o conceito de um monomito não fosse interessante o suficiente para ler o livro até o final. Campbell ainda faz a questão ser mais interessante ligando os pontos e conceitos do monomito com questões sociais e psicológicas reais.
Acontece que Campbell, para provar seu ponto, basea-se em mitos não comuns ao ocidente. Se o monomito fosse 100% correto, não importaria a origem do mito, haveriam interligações com mitos conhecidos daqui; entretanto, 95% dos mitos citados são orientais, não difundidos: mitos japoneses (nada como Musashi), muçulmanos, africanos, aborígenes (da Austrália)... O que levanta a questão de quão difundido é o mito ou, caso você esteja usando o "chapéu de ceticismo", se o mito realmente existe ou se Campbell criou apenas para provar um ponto.
Mitos como os gregos conhecidos -- Hércules e seus 12 trabalhos, por exemplo -- não são falados; Buda aparece, mas em coisas que apenas um budista conheceria; Jesus aprece de relance... Tudo isso torna difícil acreditar que os pontos são reais.
Os pontos em si são complexos de serem explicados, justamente por causa da base psicológica e sociológica presente. Nesse ponto é onde surge um mito não popular que deve ser contado. E assim você está lendo 4 páginas já sobre um mito e esqueceu completamente o ponto que o autor queria chegar. Ou então é apenas uma continuação de um mito começado dois capítulos atrás, que você já esqueceu os pormenores que fazem com que o ponto faça sentido.
Ainda: O texto original é de 1949, um tempo em que escrever bem significava escrever muito. Existem parágrafos gigantescos de uma frase só e páginas inteiras que são apenas um parágrafo. A tradução de 1989 não ajuda nem um pouco e a combinação dos dois simplesmente te faz perguntar o que diabos o autor e o tradutor fumaram durante seus trabalhos.
O monomito parece ser realmente correto, mas para isso existem filmes de 3 minutos que conseguem explicar todos os pontos de forma sucinta e com mitos comuns hoje. Veja os filmes e esqueça o livro.

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title = "O Príncipe - Niccolò Machiavelli"
date = 2016-11-28
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "niccolo machiavelli"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Esse é o livro que gerou a expressão "maquiavélico" (e seus derivados). Eu acredito que a parte inicial do mesmo, em que Maquiavel aponta que o livro é um presente para um novo príncipe, foi cortada dessa edição, mas posso estar enganado.
Um dos problemas dessa tradução -- mas que é explicado logo na introdução do livro -- é que, por ser baseado num texto em italiano antigo, o mesmo foi traduzido para um português mais rebuscado (praticamente um barroco). Algumas partes são excruciantes de ler.
Fora isso, O Príncipe fala muito de como manter o poder a qualquer custo. E é impossível não ler e não pensar em vários políticos nacionais brasileiros, que aparentemente seguem o livrinho a risca.

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title = "Object-oriented JavaScript - Second Edition - Stoyan Stefanov"
date = 2015-10-03
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "stoyan stefanov"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Javascript is a weird language. Good practices make a weird language easier to understand and read. That's why I was interested in writing OO JS code.
Thing is, this book is not just about OO. There is a bunch of "hey, if you never heard about JS, here is how it works", which I believe is kinda pointless (there are plenty "Starting with JS" books these days), there is a bunch of browser objects (which, although "objects", I don't believe they are necessary to write OO JS code) and there is plenty about reserved words and what they mean (which although nice, is also unnecessary).
There is also a bunch of mentions of things some "Douglas Crockford" which made me wonder why I was reading this book instead of looking for stuff Crockford wrote.
But the book explores all possibilities of writing OO code in a non-OO language, have some design patterns in JS and some JS patterns which are interesting.

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title = "Oh Myyy! (There Goes the Internet): Life, the Internet and Everything - George Takei"
date = 2015-09-18
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "george takei"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
Ok, totally my fault, but I bought the book expecting a bit about Takei history, but all I got was "how to be successful on Facebook".
Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book. It's easy to read and have its fun moments, but there is nothing about Takei himself -- again, my fault, I was expecting a biography when I didn't read the summary.

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content/reviews/books/old-mans-war-old-mans-war-1.md

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title = "Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1) - John Scalzi"
date = 2015-07-19
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "john scalzi"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
"Old Man's War" was a long time in my "to read" list. Today I finally finished reading it.
I've been following Scalzi for some time on Twitter and he always post intelligent comments. I read _Subterranean Scalzi Super Bundle_ and really enjoyed his writing style. The very first book of his was, then, an obvious choice.
"Old Man's War" is part _The Forever War_. It's war on space. You have spaceships and soldiers with special training and special weapons.
But while you read about the military life like in "Starship Troopers", it also has no qualms in killing interesting characters to show that not all things in war are easy and the bad guys always lose, like in "All Quiet".
The story starts really strong, gets more cerebral in the middle and then slows a bit in the end. Still pretty enjoyable, specially if you liked the books I mentioned before. The fact that they way Scalzi writes makes it easy to read is also a plus.

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title = "Pense Como Um Freak - Steven D. Levitt"
date = 2016-02-28
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "steven d. levitt"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
"Pense como um freak" é mais um dos livros da série do Freakonomics, onde coisas aparentemente sem conexão são mostradas como possíveis correlações.
Nesse livro, Levitt e Dubner explicam algumas das "técnicas" que usam tanto para detectar coisas sem conexões óbvias como para explicar os resultados depois.
E, obviamente, não poderiam faltar as conclusões mostrando que coisas aparentemente sem conexão na verdade estão relacionadas.
A parte interessante é que o livro termina nos 70%. Os demais 30% são divididos entre um índice gigantesco de assuntos abordados e a lista de referências utilizadas para chegarem as conclusões apresentadas.

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title = "Poder & Manipulação: Como entender o mundo em vinte lições extraídas de \"O Príncipe\", de Maquiavel - Jacob Pétry"
date = 2016-08-27
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "jacob petry"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
"O Príncipe" é, basicamente, um livro para perder a fé na humanidade. Tudo se relaciona com o poder e como mantê-lo; como convencer os outros de que você é a resposta certa e os demais estão raros -- uma fato que, se olhar as figuras que tem aparecido no final de 2016, torna-se contuendemente óbvias, utilizando os princípios "maquiavélicos" para se propagar na atmosfera política.
Entretanto, esse livro não é O Príncipe. Esse livro é uma análise sobre O Príncipe. E embora a escolha de trechos tenha sido muito interessante, a análise fica devendo muito para com o conteúdo. Enquanto o príncipe fala, por exemplo, como a Alemanha se manteve unida, pronta pra guerra e adorando seu líder, a análise resolve falar de... pessoas tímidas? O que é que A tem a ver com B?
De novo, O Príncipe parece ser, pelos trechos escolhidos, bem interessante. A análise, conteúdo desse livro, no entanto, parece se referenciar a algo completamente diferente.

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title = "Powers (Annals of the Western Shore, #3) - Ursula K. Le Guin"
date = 2018-05-27
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ursula k. le guin"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
"The story of a boy becoming a man."
Or "The story of a slave becoming a freeman."
Or "The story of a man traveling across its country."
All those could serve as a quick description of the story. And all of them would be, at least, a bit wrong.
Because it's not just one of those. It's all of those. And a bit more.
At first, I was quite disappointed 'cause the "Powers" at the title are mentioned very early and then... nothing. There is a lot of going back and forth (a few transitions are a bit weird, like suddenly the story being a letter to the protagonist's wife) and you keep thinking "Were the heck is this going on?" And then, suddenly, you keep reading a bit more because you want to see a thread closed, and then read more, and more, and more... It's quite the same feeling I got from _Changing Planes_, although the story here is way more complex (not quite hard, as Changing Planes is a bunch of separate stories instead of the continuous story of a slave who runs away, make friends, finds his people, in a span of 10 or so years).
One of the things that Le Guin impresses me is how the way she describes things approaches the way _Isaac Asimov_ does: Describes the very minimum necessary for the reader to understand why the characters are doing something, and let their imagination soar with the rest. It's quite different from _Arthur C Clarke_, which likes to over describe stuff.
In the end, it was a story that I was mostly uninterested at first but that deeply moved me in the very end.

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title = "Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings - Linda Rodríguez McRobbie"
date = 2018-06-16
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "linda rodriguez mcrobbie"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
One book that came with a Humble Bundle.
Although the title may sound a bit of feminist, the book has nothing about it. Surely, it breaks the mold of “princesses are nice and quiet and beautiful and a man saves them in the end”, but some of the examples are not role models.
Princesses that were crazy. Princesses that were princesses just because they lied about it. Princesses that acted more like men. Sadly, there are were few Princess (later queen) Victoria, a princess that proved her worth.
Still, is a curious history book.

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title = "Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development - Jim Blandy"
date = 2018-05-22
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "jim blandy"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=4) }}
First off, this is not a book for *learning* Rust: This is a Reference Book. A good one at it, but not for learning.
My inclination to learn Rust is how it deals with errors (it's `Result` enum), something that most languages seem to drop out of context or accept some "catch all" which let developers ignore such errors. Rust doesn't; you <b>have</b> to deal with errors.
And, in such small thing, which I thought it was very simple and straightforward... is not. The `Err` part can be very complex, specially if you want to keep in line with the rest of the system. Which is good.
Although a good book, it's not great. The explanation for generics is very convoluted and complex and doesn't help grasping the whole context -- maybe it's easier if you're already working with a language that has generics. And then, when you are almost getting how they work, they throw lifetimes in it and the confusion grows.
Several topics are started and then become "beyond the scope of this book". So it just brushes some pointers at it and then completely forget about it. I, personally, would drop some of those -- it could mention that they exist -- and expanding for not being "beyond the scope of this book".

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content/reviews/books/python-3-object-oriented-programming.md

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title = "Python 3 Object Oriented Programming - Dusty Phillips"
date = 2016-04-02
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "dusty phillips"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
After a bunch of titles from Packt, I expected something that would be half OO, half Python 3. But I got a very happy surprise reading the book because it does really go intro OO, explaining from analysis to design to code and then slowly dwelving into Python around those topics.
Not only that, but instead of simply assuming his position is right, the author explores other possibilites and than moves back when something doesn't work -- kinda like _Robert C. Martin_ does in _Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship_.
In the end, even after I work with Python for 5+ years, I still learnt a few more things about using Python for OO development (and really got in agreement with the author when OO isn't necessary!)

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title = "Python Data Science Essentials - Learn the fundamentals of Data Science with Python - Alberto Boschetti"
date = 2016-12-16
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "alberto boschetti"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
It's hard to explain this book, mostly because it's hard to get to whom it is targeted.
Is it targeted to people that already know Machine Learning and want to learn Python? No, the book goes into lengths into some algorithms and has "easy to write, but not quite right" code to do so.
Is it targeted to people that know Python but want to learn Machine Learning? No; even if some algorithms are explained in length, some aren't and there is very little "you use this when you have data like that" explanations. Actually, there is very little explanation on where an algorithm should be used.
Is it targeted to people that don't know Python and don't know Machine Learning and want to learn but? This is the gray area of the book: Again, the code is pretty simple and does not follow Python coding standards and the ML part is really shallow on the "when" and "why" sections.
In the end, the book is simply an extended version of Scikit-Learn manual -- and I even have doubts if the manual isn't better because it explains when an algorithm should be used.

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title = "Python Playground: Geeky Projects for the Curious Programmer - Mahesh Venkitachalam"
date = 2016-10-12
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "mahesh venkitachalam"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
When I start to not get a book, one thing I ask myself is: Am I the target audience for this book? 'Cause, you know, I may need to reflect if the book is actually good for beginners instead of people who already know the topic.
And here is the problem with this book: it does a bad job finding its target.
The reason is simple: the code is full of violations of PEP8, something Python beginners should not be exposed to and something expert developers get pissed.
Now, there is nothing wrong with your weekend projects to not follow standards -- that's perfectly acceptable. But when you have your code published in a book, you must, at least, follow the general guidelines that the community follows.
But let's throw this out of the window: is the book "good"? The answer is mostly "well...". It's not bad, but it isn't really interesting. It is merely ok.

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title = "Quatro Heróis e um Bardo contra a Realidade Medieval - Rodrigo Assis Mesquita"
date = 2016-10-12
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "rodrigo assis mesquita"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
Ok, não é nem um"livro", mas apenas uma história curta de quatro páginas. Mesmo assim, não consegue chegar no ponto onde a coisa fica realmente interessante.
Basicamente, uma mistura de jogos de RPG com... eu queria dizer Monty Python, mas as absurdices que acontecem não são do nível Monty Python, sendo muito mais cruas e sem sentido, ao ponto que a parte engraçada se perde completamente -- ok, tem <I>uma</I> absurdice que é realmente engraçada, mas ela é jogada de forma tão direta e vindo tão do nada que a piada se perde completamente.

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title = "Reactive Programming with JavaScript - Jonathan Hayward"
date = 2016-05-27
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "jonathan hayward"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
If I had to define this book in a single word, I'd had to go with "unfocused".
Now, with that title, you'd expect to learn about the principles that drove the design of things like "ReactJS". But it doesn't. This is not about Reactive Programming. It's about ReactJS. And it's not about Reactive Programming, it's about Reactive *Funcional* Programming.
Well, you'd still expect it to come with some conclusions about ReactJS, right? Wrong again.
Most of the time you'll spend reading things that have absolutely no relation with reactive programming, functional reactive programming or even ReactJS. There is a long rant about C++ which ends with no conclusion at all and gives no pointers on how it connects to the whole. There is another discussion about INTERCAL which leads to nowhere -- maybe, except, the author's bank account for the number of words.
At some point, the author finally discusses a bit of functional programming talking about `map`, `filter` and `reduce`, but it goes nowhere from there and a whole chapter with 10+ pages have a single paragraph about real, focused talk about functional programming; the rest is just more rambling going to nowhere.
If it was possible to run tests over the content of the book, the amount of content out of a coverage on a BDD about Reactive Programming would point that about 90% of it is never tested. It's content that talks absolutely *nothing* about reactive programming, with large portions being repeated over and over again (which makes me, once again, wonder why Packt pays for reviewers when this kind of bullshit happens).
"This book is about ReactJS", the author says in the introduction, but there are only 4 chapters about ReactJS, with terrible JavaScript and absolutely no explanation on *why* things are being designed that way.
You want a review in a single phrase? Ok, that phrase would be "stay away from this book".

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title = "Ready Player One - Ernest Cline"
date = 2015-03-24
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ernest cline"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
**80s, Back to Back**
First, small spoiler: imagine a world were Second Life won and reached its wildest dream. A world created by an 80s aficionado. Imagine there is a prize hidden somewhere. Imagine the locks are all based on 80s stuff. That's the book.
Now, if you're a children of the 80s, this will be a great ride. You'll find a bunch of stuff you remember appearing everywhere. And you'll remember what it was and it will be fun.
All this you can read in all other reviews.
The story suddenly drops mid book before returning to the old 80s memorabilia trip. A couple of pages could remove one hundred and the book would be a lot more fun (and that's why I'm not giving it 5 starts).
Some things will piss you off: the "evil" guys are one dimensional. The romance is dull. The hero never gets in a corner he doesn't find a way out. The fights are too colorful. It may not sound so, but it is annoying.... Till you realize 80s movies were just like that.
It's really a fun book and I never knew I could read that fast.

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title = "Redshirts - John Scalzi"
date = 2015-01-28
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "john scalzi"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
There are two simple words to describe this book: Galaxy Quest.
And then, they aren't.
"It's complicated", are some characters in the book say over and over again.
But the first part is. And it's too damn hilarious -- if you're a Star Trek fan, that is. Or some of the lesser sci-fi series.
But the story picks up every absurd psedo-science and plot twist from the series and extrapolates to the silliest level possible. I can't remember the last time a book made me laugh.
It's silly. It's funny. It's the Galaxy Quest for every sci-fi series in the planet.
And, then, after the curtains close... It goes into a deep, touching story about... life, basically. You think you're done, but then it gets deeper and serious and... touching, basically.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. And my reading statuses for this book proves it.

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content/reviews/books/rin-tin-tin-a-vida-e-a-lenda.md

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title = "Rin Tin Tin: A Vida e a Lenda - Susan Orlean"
date = 2016-07-04
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "susan orlean"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Aviso: Eu nunca fui um fã de Rin Tin Tin, até porque nunca acompanhei nenhuma das séries. Mas como "cachorreiro", me senti obrigado a pegar esse livro, até porque estava em promoção.
Embora pareça que o livro irá tratar do cachorro, o contexto geral são "coisas ao redor do primeiro cachorro chamado Rin Tin Tin, que fez alguns filmes mudos e depois teve uma série de TV" -- até porque a parte da vida termina antes da metade do livro.
Um dos problemas do livro é que a autora fica, boa parte do tempo, conjecturando sobre o "produto" (por assim dizer) Rin Tin Tin do que focando nos personagens. Boa parte do livro parece uma reportagem de jornal estendida para ficar do tamanho de um livro. Também -- e aqui vou me valer do mesmo artifício e dar a minha opinião -- o livro carece um monte de imagens: para um produto visual (afinal de contas, 4 filmes e um seriado são visuais), algumas fotos dos Rin Tin Tins e seus coadjuvantes ajudaria a trazer o cachorro em evidência ao invés de ficar no produto metafísico "Rin Tin Tin".
No fim, ao invés de focar no cachorro, como esperado, o livro se foca no produto e seus coadjuvantes, deixando a impressão de que tudo não passou parte de um roteiro dentro do roteiro.

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title = "Rust Essentials - Ivo Balbaert"
date = 2015-07-02
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "ivo balbaert"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
Rust is a language that intrigues me. It seems it has a good deal of protections and clever structures to prevent problems that other languages have. And it usually outperforms C (at least, in the Euler tests).
But I really never really "got" the language just reading Rust By Example and The Rust Programming Language. So I bought this book.
Sure, it goes slowly to teach you the light intricacies of the language, but it never, in any point, goes deep into it, which is really annoying. It tries to pick a subject to tell how to code in Rust (using a theoretical game), but it never completes it. You never see the final product of all the stuff it was just explained. And some examples have nothing to do with it.
The problem with shallowness of the book gets exponentially worse when talking to complex subjects, like threading and unsafe blocks. Because it never goes too deep, you end up handing with simple threads the basically just add numbers, nothing something so complex that would actually require threads in the first place.
Also, it seems the book was not reviewed. There is one paragraph saying one thing (traits can't have implementations), just to, a few paragraphs later, showing exactly the opposite (like a trait with an implementation). There are two "We'll see X in the next section" with said next section just below it.
It's an ok introduction to Rust, but it goes short in several places.

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content/reviews/books/scrum-a-arte-de-fazer-o-dobro-de-trabalho-na-metade-do-tempo.md

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title = "Scrum: A arte de fazer o dobro de trabalho na metade do tempo - Jeff Sutherland"
date = 2016-06-08
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "jeff sutherland"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=5) }}
Aviso: Eu já conhecia o Scrum de usar o mesmo para desenvolvimento, então certas partes já eram conhecidas. Entretanto, mesmo nesse caso, para quem já conhece a metodologia, saber o *porquê* de certas coisas é um bocado interessante.
O começo é meio devagar, pois Sutherland fala muito de sua vida e como chegou a pensar no Scrum. Não há qualquer informação de como funciona, como proceder ou até mesmo o porquê. Pelo terceiro capítulo é que as bases do Scrum começam a ser comentadas e aí é que a coisa faz sentido.
O final também é um pouco de história: ao invés de continuar a explicar exatamente como funciona o scrum (ou, de novo, os seus porquês), há uma lista de projetos que usam Scrum e que não são relacionados com TI. Embora seja interessante saber que há projetos desse tipo usando a metodologia, o mesmo se torna um pouco cansativo pois, mais uma vez, não foca no scrum em si.
Junto com os porquês, há, no final de cada capítulo, um pequeno resumo, que ajuda a entender melhor o processo e serve como consulta rápida na futuro. O apêndice final inclui um "Como aplicar o Scrum" que explica de forma resumida o passo a passo de iniciar um projeto scrum, com indicadores de onde encontrar maiores informações dentro do próprio livro. Ou seja, o livro não serve apenas como um "como aprender scrum", mas também possui informações suficientes para servir de referência futura.

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content/reviews/books/silence-on-the-wire-a-field-guide-to-passive-reconnaissance-and-indirect-attacks.md

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title = "Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks - Michal Zalewski"
date = 2016-06-23
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "michal zalewski"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
This is a book about passive detection. Or active detection. Or attacks. I really don't know, because the subject keeps jumping around so much you have no idea the point the author wants to make.
There are plenty explanations for stuff, but mostly is dumbed down to the point it doesn't even make sense. Besides that, you have explanations for attacks that sounds really scary/cool (depending on your point of view) but after you think a bit about it, it is really hard to execute and, with the necessary access to do so, you wouldn't really need this kind of stuff.
Also, there is plenty of "this author research" or "a research that yours truly did" that sounds more like "Hey, look how awesome I am" than "you should really worry about this thing".
About the edition, there are original articles in their original form, but they are presented in mono spaced font in a weird indentation that doesn't fit any layout you chose (landscape, two columns landscape, portrait). Also, there are chapter footnotes and book footnotes and both follow the same format, which means you will find a "[1]", followed by a "[100]", followed by a "[2]". And the author uses "Too," instead of "Also," which, for a non-native English speaking person like me, sounds strange as hell.

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content/reviews/books/storm-real-time-processing-cookbook.md

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title = "Storm Real-Time Processing Cookbook - Quinton Anderson"
date = 2017-07-30
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "quinton anderson"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
The book presents a couple of problems and how to solve them in Storm. Or, at least, that's the premise.
The whole problem is that the problem is described in very high level, like "process the logs". While this sounds alright, the book never goes to explain *how* the logs are store, they format and so on. So you have a solution for a very high level which you have no idea how good the solution could be because you have no idea how the data exists. It simply does and the Storm topology process it and that's it.
Another problem is that, because all solutions are written in Java and Java is too damn verbose, instead of showing the whole code, the book goes into "Go to the file X, use the IDE to automatically add the imports and add this function." You never get a clear picture of how a complete bolt looks like.

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content/reviews/books/subterranean-scalzi-super-bundle.md

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title = "Subterranean Scalzi Super Bundle - John Scalzi"
date = 2015-03-20
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "john scalzi"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=3) }}
**the stories are good, the blog posts, not so much**
This is a book on five acts.
The first act you have the stories. In this act, "The Diary of Jane Sagan" and "God Machines" are going to get stuck in your head, 'cause they are pretty excellent stories.
The second act are blog posts, which are meh.
The third act is a single story, which is ok.
The fourth act are more blog posts, which manages to be more Boeing than the ones in the second act.
The fifth act are unused chapters from "Lock In". They are probably good, if you read the published story.
Now, while the stories are good, the fact that 70% of the book are blog posts is a real let down, mostly because I think blog posts are boring. Sure, there are exceptions to this rule, like Wil Weathon's book, in which he just don't put the posts, but actually put some background about them. For Scalzi, there is no such reflections and most of the posts are not even interesting, 'cause they are temporal or regional (like elections and things related to the USA). After a while, I just skipped most of them.
Is it a worth book? Hard to answer. If I had only the stories and no blog posts, that would be awesome, but the posts just make the book longer without the need for such.

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content/reviews/books/tecnicas-de-memorizacao-para-estudantes-porque-voce-pode-ir-alem.md

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title = "Tecnicas de Memorizacao Para Estudantes: Porque Voce Pode IR Alem - Rodrigo Vargas"
date = 2016-03-14
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "rodrigo vargas"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
É difícil fazer um review de um livro de memorização sem ter algo para memorizar no momento, mas enfim...
O livro trás três técnicas para memorizar coisas: reler, utilizar mnemônicos e associação de imagens mentais. Nenhuma delas é explorada a fundo (mnemônicos até nem precisa tanto) e 50% do livro é perdido falando como descobrir o dia da semana de qualquer ano.
Simples, direto e superficial. É como preciso descrever esse livro.

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content/reviews/books/the-big-bad-book-of-bill-murray-a-critical-appreciation-of-the-worlds-finest-actor.md

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title = "The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray: A Critical Appreciation of the World's Finest Actor - Robert Schnakenberg"
date = 2018-06-03
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "robert schnakenberg"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
There are real biographies and biographies written by fans. This falls in the second, which means it's not a good biography.
Here is the thing: biographies should focus on which kind of person the subject really is: Are they a good person or a bad person? Are they nice or are they assholes? And there is no exact answer for this, 'cause people can be nice sometimes and assholes sometimes. And you have to focus on those two; if you don't, you give a half-piece of who the person really is.
And here is the problem with the book: Because it was written by a Murray fan, everything he does is written in a way to give him a good light. He fights on the backstage? The other actors had an issue with him, not that he had a problem.
One such example is when the book discusses his divorces. On the second, it's not that Murray spent too much time away from home or wasn't lovingly; it was his wife asking divorce for "abandonment and physical assault". So the author didn't say Murray left his wife and, when together, used to beat her; *she said* he abandoned her and *she said* he beat her. By removing him, it turned a bad pair of actions into a passive description of Murray.
The same goes with everything "bad" that could be said about him (like the cited fights with other actors/actresses). And, in the end, it puts such quotes like "I never had a fight with someone that didn't deserve", just to clean up his slate.
Another example of fandom: There is only *one* movie in which Murray is a bad actor -- a movie with a completely disagree with the author of the book, "Scrooged". Everything else is cited as "a mess of a movie, but Murray gives a much needed appearance" as if Murray appearance was the only redeeming fact of every movie he appeared which bombed.
And this is just my tip for you, new reader: Read it with a gain of salt, as this is written by a fan who don't want to see Murray in a bad light.
Apart from all of this, it's a curious book 'cause, instead of going in chronological order, it goes in alphabetical order. Yeah, you read that right: Instead of going through the life events of Bill Murray, the book focus on things and people and movies in Bill's life: So every person who worked with him (maybe a few missing here), every movie made and declined, every sketch character, every family member, everything is there, in alphabetical order.
But even with this nonsensical ordering -- which is a good match for the portrait of Murray the book wants to give -- it is, still, in the very deep, a fan book which tries to make the subject seem much better than they actually are.

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content/reviews/books/the-book-of-kells.md

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+++
title = "The Book of Kells - R.A. MacAvoy"
date = 2018-08-13
category = "review"
[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "en-au", "r.a. macavoy"]
+++
{{ stars(stars=2) }}
I really don't know how to categorize this book.
I mean, for a while, I thought it was a serious fantasy book. Then things got way crazy and I thought it was a comedy. Exactly at that point, craziness went out and things were not funny anymore.
Maybe the guy just read too much Irish tales and decided to write about it, since there are very few books in which the story happens in Ireland.
In the end, sure, it's a story around some Irish tales, based on Irish history and, basically, that. It's crazy, it's hard to follow and jumps around too much.

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