A Day in Paradise

As you, my regular readers know, I have a soft spot for self-published authors, and when I find an autographed advance copy of “An American Hedge Fund” written by Timothy Sykes and self-published under the “Bull Ship Press” imprint, you know I’m going to take off with it and tear through it on a lazy Saturday morning.

Tim Sykes tells his own story of how he starts off with just over $12,000 and during his years at collage turns it into over $800,000. Read the book to find out the details of how he does it. After he leaves college he creates the “Cilantro Fund” and starts looking for investors to invest in his shiny new hedge fund.

The book doesn’t go into great detail about exactly what hedge funds are, so let’s talk about that for a minute. A hedge fund is generally a limited partnership which is formed to allow investors to become limited partners with the fund manager (or an LLC formed by the manager) as the general partner. The LP is used as an investment vehicle and the gains and losses of the fund are passed directly through to the investors after the fees. Generally the manager takes a 2% management fee, and 20% off the top of all profits.

This elaborate structure is set up to avoid having to deal with the SEC and bypass the restrictions that other money management structures, such as mutual funds, have to deal with. There is a catch. Only “Accredited Investors” can invest, you can’t advertise, and before an investor can invest you need to have a pre-existing relationship (of at least six months).

Many of the established hedge funds manage well over $100 million, have a two to five year track record and a 50+ person staff, so finding accredited investors is difficult. For the Cilantro Fund and their comparatively tiny $1.1 million, finding investors and fighting to stay afloat became a substantial challenge. The second half of the book describes the downward spiral in detail.

While many of the other reviews of “An American Hedge Fund” call the book “inspirational”, I am going to go with “spirited” as by the end of the book I was more exhausted than inspired. The book is a great read, and takes you through the ups and downs of a small player in an industry where the deck is stacked in favor of the Goliaths.

Since writing the book, Timothy Sykes has closed his hedge fund and started a website which is dedicated to inform the public and cut through the secrecy that has shrouded the hedge fund industry.

If you’re interested in Hedge Funds check out this article on what a hedge fund is.

What can I say, Leonardo does the South African accent so well he totally disappears as an actor. Between this movie and “The Departed” which I watched two days ago, my opinion of Di Caprio has totally changed. He has transcended (whatever that is supposed to mean).

Blood Diamond is set in Sierra Leone during the bloody civil war. A fisherman (Djimon Hounsou) finds a pink diamond, and a Diamond Smuggler has to travel with him to retrieve the hidden diamond and save the fisherman’s son.

This movie shows the brutality of the war. It shows the extreme cruelty of the rebels and plight of the child soldiers they recruit, it also shows the foreign army’s involvement in the search for diamonds, as well as the role in western cultures and the massive diamond selling companies.

As you watch this movie, you realize that while it is an amazing character study of all the characters involved, the focal point of the movie is the diamond. This is an expose on the diamond industry and exposes the tactics that they use to keep diamonds in demand and the price as high as it is. For more information about this read the article “Have you ever tried to sell a diamond” by Edward Jay Epstein. The article is over 20 years old, but a very interesting read.

I would give this movie an 8 out of 10. It is very well written and produced. Be warned that the movie is extremely violent, and has many disturbing scenes especially those involving the child soldiers.

Short version - Awesome cinematography, interesting action sequences and CGI - the demonization of the Persians and underlying political rhetoric make the movie hard to watch.

spoilers and ranting ahead… click through at your own risk

(more…)

Just got back from watching Crank. What can you say? It’s craaaazzzzy! A couple quick comments.

• The first time I’ve seen google product placement. Between the scenes there were shots from google maps where it panned across the city and then zoomed in on a street/car/house. In the corner was a “Maps provided by google” logo
• Nokia, having phones ring with the “nokia sound” is just as annoying as hearing the windows sound when laptops boot up.
• You really should watch this with proper surround sound set to the appropriate volume
• We have been desensitized to violence
• We have not been desensitized to Sex and Drugs

Now I want to rant about violence in movies. This movie has a lot of Sex, Drugs and Violence. The “funny” thing about it, is that I was really only “shocked” by the Sex and Drugs. This sort of goes along with the rant about how cartoons are being edited to remove scenes where cartoon characters are chugging on a cigar. This is a cartoon where the characters repeatedly blow each other up with various forms of dynamite/fireworks but we’re offended when someone smokes on a childrens show.

So apart from the crazy ride this movie was, I think that this movie has was some form of social commentary. Why is it “alright” to create action and laugh about people blowing each other up, when it’s not “alright” to laugh at people shooting themselves up with huge drug cocktails and the running around town with a huge erection? Obviously when I say “alright” I mean socially acceptable.

Of course combine them all and you have some great scenes, like where he is involved in a car chace / shootout while getting a blowjob. Gives a whole new meaning to shouting “Keep your head down!”

Another highlight was when he needed the poor indian guy’s taxi so he threw him out of the taxi and yelled “Al Quida”, and have the crowd jump on the poor guy and beat the crap out of him. I know, I shouldn’t have laughed… but again, I think this was yet another peice of social commentary by the director.

The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)

This is probably one of the funniest movies I’ve seen this year. The title pretty much sums up the premise of the movie, there aren’t a whole lot of big surprises as far as the plot goes, but it’s still an enjoyable watch.

We watched the 133 minute unrated version, which while a bit too long, it had plenty of good laughs, and even had some jokes that I hadn’t seen done before. The song-and-dance ending was especially amusing.

First time I’ve noticed Steve Carell, and thought he did an excellent job.

A couple days ago I blogged about the Loose Change documentary on the events surrounding September 11th. I finally got around to watching it last night.

Now, even though I’m a bit of a conspiracist I do understand a couple basic points about these kinds of events.

1. You are not an expert! Even though something may sound illogical to you, it could have a very simple explanation to an expert.
2. When buildings are blowing up, things get confusing. People will always have different stories, this doesn’t mean that people are lying or there is a cover-up.
3. In the thousands upon thousands of hours of TV footage that is available to dig through, you can find a quote that will suppor ANY theory
4. Listen for “Leaps of Faith”, comments like “We don’t know what happened, but we certainly know what didn’t happen.” These usually surround circumstancial evidence

Having said that, and taking those points into account, this documentary is very well made and does bring up some interesting questions. However, in my opinion the film makers tried too hard to cover all aspects (pentagon, towers, flight 93, and government conspiracy) and that causes parts of the film to be very weak.

Something is obviously wrong with the official story surrounding 9-11, I don’t think there is any question about that. I just don’t see why people can’t present these issues without taking the leaps of faith that are needed to directly involve GWB in the conspiracy. The famous Pentagon Strike movie is a good example of presenting specific information in a focused way. Give the information and let the viewers come to their own conclusions.

Anyway, everyone should certainly watch the movie and draw your own conclusions. The demolition bits were exceptionally good, I especially enjoyed the footage of the demolition of the stadium (OK, so I like watching things blow up). The whole section about flight 93 was pushing it, as was the conspiracy bit at the end.

When I first started listening to podcast novels, I had a hard time getting used to the fact that unlike dead tree books, unless the author decides to tell you how much of the book is left, you have no idea how many chapters are left. When Matthew Wayne Selznick’s performed the final chapters of his first book and brought the podcast novel “Brave Men Run” to a close, I along with several thousand listeners were left at the edges of our seats waiting for more.

Brave Men Run - A Novel of the Sovereign Era, is hard to describe. As a sci-fi story, set in an alternative version of the early 80s, BMR introduces us to the “Sovereign Era” and the politics surrounding the revelation that amongst humans live “Sovereigns” each of whom weilds extraordinary abilities. As a character study, BMR looks at this monumental event through the eyes of Nate Charters, a teenage Sovereign who fights to deal with the sudden realities of who he is and the past which has been hidden from him.

At it’s core, Brave Men Run is not about spaceships, action sequences or any other elements which are commonly associated with science fiction. BMR is about it’s characters, and the character development and dialog which takes place between the characters is masterfully done.

While Brave Men Run is a complete book and satisfying read, the author has left many questions open in regard to the “Sovereign Era” as well as Nate’s character and the history of “Sovereign” people. The premise could very easily support several more “Sovereign Era” books.

Matthew Wayne Selznick has released the audio versions of BMR for free on Podiobooks.com and has made the electronic versions of the book available for the cheap price of $5. As an independant, self published author, Matthew has placed the future of the series in the hands of the readers.

I throughly enjoyed the book, and would recommend it not only to sci-fi fans, but to all bookworms who are interested in a good read and the growth of independent authors. In support, I’ve set up a page through which you can subscribe to the podcast or buy the ebook or paperback version.

So visit my Brave Men Run page, subscribe to the feed, buy the ebook, blog about it, and tell your friends to do the same. You won’t be disappointed.

This is a 5-minute review of “Whiteout” by Ken Follett, the whole premise is a spoiler so if you don’t want large portions of the story line revealed then stop reading now.

Firstly Ken Follett is one of my favorite authors, his stories are simple, focused and always a good read. I was hooked after reading “Pillars of the Earth” and while nothing else I’ve read from him has been quite as good, they are generally good reads.

Whiteout focuses on a high-security lab where (good) scientists are in the final stages of creating some kind of miracle cure for all disease. Obviously in this lab they also have some very nasty stuff, which some very nasty people want to use for very nasty purposes.

So the story builds up nicely, bad people use the professor’s disgruntled son (who also created the “inpenetrable” security system) to get inside. The son thinks that they are going to steal the miracle drug, not the apocalyptic virus, he needs the money to get out of debt hates his father and goes along with the scheme, and plans the heist.

According to to the plan, the drug will be stolen in such a way so that it just appears to disappear and nobody will know who took it. Obviously things go very wrong.

Kit (the son, and “mastermind”) discovers that they are stealing the virus, and that it will be used by terrorists. Through a string of events he and his fellow robbers, find themselves in the house of his father, with his family around them. Everyone knows that the 3 others are part of the gang, but nobody knows that Kit is helping them, and there comes a point where Kit has to decide whether to keep his cover and loose out on his paycheck or help the gang escape with the virus.

This is the point, where you take the gun from your pocket, shoot the three other guys in the gang. Switch the deadly virus in the perfume bottle with water make the drop, and collect ALL of the $1 million for yourself. I mean, how hard can it be to think of that… instead he decides that he would be better off betraying his family, unleashing a terrible virus, and taking the $50k that will be left over after his debts are paid and hiding in Italy.

Don’t get me wrong, the book wasn’t bad… just Kit’s thought process was very lame. I guess he wasn’t the brightest of the bunch to begin with, but still…

At the recent International PHP Conference held in Frankfurt, Germany I was able to pick up a copy of Sebastian Bergmann’s “PHPUnit Pocket Guide” a slim pocket guide published by O’Reilly which forms the most complete documentation for PHPUnit. I hesitated before picking up this book, the last “Pocket Guide” I bought covered Python and I found it less than and useful. However, I am very happy with the PHPUnit Pocket Guide, it is well written and easy-to-read documentation for a package which more people should be using.

The book itself is 75 pages long and can easily fit into ones back pocket. After a very brief introduction we quickly move into real life examples and a description of the goals which effected the development of PHPUnit.

What I found enjoyable, was the mixture between real-world examples, Agile development methodologies and program documentation. I have never used PHPUnit style of unit testing before and while I am familiar with the concepts of Agile and Extreme programming, I would have appreciated a bit more Theory. Of course, this is a pocket guide, not “Unit Testing Unleashed” and links are provided to various sources of information on the topic, so there is plenty of information for me to look at.

The pocket guide also covers using PHPUnit with Phing as well as a brief section on PHPUnit and PHP4.

Best of all, this book is totally free and you can download it from the PHPUnit website. Many thanks to Sebastian not only the book, but for bringing a full-featured Unit Testing suite to PHP (yes, I know about SimpleTest, but I’m preferential to PEAR packages).

“Look Mom, a PHP book without a chapter on design patterns”. Yup, you heard me right, the PHP Phrasebook goes back to the basics of PHP with a focus on functionality, simplicity and security, things which seem to unpresent in a lot of books these days.

The PHP Phrasebook is the first installment of a new series from Sams, which ca only be described as “a Cookbook in a Nutshell”. The book itself is small enough to fit in your back pocket and thick enough (278 pages) not to be totally ruined when you sit down. The book belongs to the Developer’s Library series, and has the same look and wonderful binding.

The Chapters are as follows:
1. Manipulating Strings
2. Working with Arrays
3. Date and Time (I’d never heard of date_sunrise() before)
4. Interacting with Web Forms (including good security tips and best practices)
5. Remembering Users (Sessions)
6. Using Files on the Server File System
7. Making Data Dynamic (Database access, including coverage of PDO)
8. Using XML (XML in both PHP4 and PHP5, SimpleXML and DOM)
9. Communicating with others (Sockets, SOAP and a rant on AJAX)

As expected, each chapter covers various common tasks (phrases) associated with the subject. Each chapter ends with a “What does PEAR Offer” text box which explores the possibilities using PEAR libraries. The content is very up-to-date, discussing the upcoming PHP5.1 release and functionality which will be available in it. There are also many “links” to external websites and pages which explain or are sources of additional information on the topic.

The lists of “phrases” within the chapters are not extensive, but a very systematic approach has been taken so that the code is as functional as possible. One example of this is the choice to instead of quoting a regular expression as a way to validate the syntax of an email address, a couple very simple checks are made to verify that the email address string contains the correct elements. This functional approach to problem solving is exactly what makes PHP a great language for people to pick up and learn.

Another focus is on security. In chapter 3 a routine for removing magic_quotes was developed, and then in each “phrase” where external data is being handled that routine is included and called. This may seem redundant, but there is no point including incomplete “phrases” when trying to learn a language, so while the extra space (just one include_once() call) is a bit annoying, I am very happy with the choice to include it. You will also notice that no data is displayed without being run through htmlentities() first.

The only problem I had is the fact that due to the size of the book, often the example code samples are awkward or break in difficult places. However, I am very pleased with this book in general and would recommend it to anyone who is coming to PHP from another Programming language or just starting with PHP as their first language.

I’m looking forward for the upcoming Apache and MySQL Phrasebook. What about a PHP SPL Phrasebook?

Ancestor: The Next PodCast Novel by Scott Sigler

Just listened to Scott’s teaser for his upcomming podcast novel Ancestor, and figured that I would give a little pre-review of what you should expect to hear.

In an attempt to find out how to genetically engineer an animal to create organs suitible for human implants, the German scientist “Klaus Rumpkoff” creates the “ancestor of all mammals”.

A cow is impregnated with the “ancestor” and is transported to another research facility. The research is funded by a big biotech firm, who employs, our magnum-toting hero Sara Pernam, to secure the transport of the animals.

During the flight one the fetus escapes it’s “host body” and after mangling a scientist is killed by Sara and brought back to Klaus to study.

I’m guessing that a second “ancestor” was either in a cow or was secretly developed by one of the scientists. This “ancestor” escapes and it’s up to Sara to stop it.

Sound’s like a cross between The Relic, Jurassic Park and Anaconda. After listening to Earth Core, I’m guessing that this is going to be more sophisticated. I’m also not going to count on any survivors.

Michael Ridpath: Final Venture

I had read Ridpath’s first book “The Marketmaker” a couple months ago, I enjoyed it, and was pretty happy when Stella picked this one up for me.

The story revolves a junior member in a Boston-based Venture Capital firm. Big money, stocks and venture capital are being moved around, there is some internal friction and secrecy and then people start dying.

The story is very well told, characters and suspense is built up slowly and the story takes several interesting and realistic turns. Michael Ridpath has done his homework, I was especially impressed with his accurate description of hacking into a protected network through a trusted node using TCP/IP packet spoofing.

I’m not sure if it’s the re-emergence of the Tech-Boom, or my interest in the financial side of the story, but I really enjoyed this book, and found very little to complain about.

Michael Ridpath is to finance what John Grisham is to law.

EarthCore: A Podcast Novel

EarthCore was initially published as an ebook in 2001, in 2002 it was slated for a Nationwide paperback release, but the imprint was closed four months before the book was published. Riding the Podcasting wave Scott Sigler decided to pull “a cheap publicity stunt second only to a nude, ball-flapping, Secret Service ducking, 50-yard dash through the White House” and release the book as a podcast novel.

“You can’t buy EarthCore anywhere, so if you get hooked that’s your own problem. I’m trying to pimp you out here. I want you addicted to this novel.”

Now twenty-six chapters into the riveting story, over 5500 self-proclaimed “EarthCrack junkies” wait for their weekly fix.

There is no point giving you a rundown of the story, so far it is better far better than I expected. Scott’s clear performance is quite a bit better than the other author-performed audiobooks I’ve listened to. A comment in a recent review (which does have details of the plot) suggest that Scott should use a female to do the feminine voices, I disagree, this is an audio book, not a radio drama. Keep it to one voice.

The one thing that is different with this particular audio book is that you have no idea how much is left of the book. I enjoy holding a paperback in my hand and knowing that I still have two-thirds of the book left. Scott, how many chapters are there?

So get over to scottsigler.net and download the past episodes. I would suggest that for your own sanity that you listen to no more than a couple a week. Get all caught up in a couple sessions and you’ll end up one of the sorry EarthCrack junkies without their fix.

Note: Scott seems to be having distribution problems, so if you want to get up-to-date on the story but can’t download the story so far, just pop me an email and I’ll send you the files (please don’t ask for my email, this offer is limited to people who know me or are smart enough to figure out my email address).

Even though I have four unopened computer books on my shelf, over the weekend I took the time to read Dan Brown’s �Angels and Demons� (I keep wanting to write daemons). I probably wouldn’t have bothered if I hadn’t enjoyed the style and pace of �The Da Vinci Code�, but this book was seriously lacking.

The book starts off pretty much exactly like TDVC. Robert Langdon gets a phone call in the middle of the night because a scientist has been murdered at CERN and has been branded by an ominous Illuminati symbol. For those of you unfamiliar with Robert Langdon, he is the world’s foremost expert in religious symbology. Even though our hero seems to have a comprehensive knowledge of ancient history, the fact that he is unaware that the world wide web was �created� in CERN shows that his knowledge of modern history is a bit lacking. Later on in the book, his sidekick impresses him by very quickly figuring out the roman numeral for 503 (DIII), all this time I was under the impression that they still taught roman numerals in fourth grade.

Nitpicking aside, the general story line is that the dead scientist and his daughter had discovered how to create, and store, antimatter and had created the equivalent of a 20 megatons bomb. They swore each other to secrecy, but somehow when the scientist is killed the antimatter disappears. When the antimatter reappears, it is on a security camera and is hidden somewhere in the Vatican and the hunt to find the antimatter begins. They only have 6 hours before the antimatter explodes, so they begin their search. Tracing the tracing the signal of the video feed doesn’t seem to be an option, and the technically advanced team of Swiss Guards opt to scan to get a signal from the canisters �plastic batteries�. Robert and the daughter of the scientist decide to follow the �Path to Enlightenment� which is pretty much a treasure hunt set up by influential Illuminati members which leads to the �Illuminati lair� where they plan to find the ones who are behind everything.

All of the above takes place in the first hundred or so pages, it goes downhill from here. The plot slows, and the next 400 pages turn into an extravaganza of useless knowledge sandwiched between Dan Browns pseudo religious rhetoric.

Up until this point I had been tempted several times to put the book down, but the intriguing premise still held and many good books have slow bits. Not this one.

The last 100 pages tie up all the loose ends, in twist after painful twist. Just when you think it’s going to end, another twist is unveiled, until you feel like you were the one who jumps out of the helicopter three miles above the ground. That’s not a spoiler… within the first few pages of the book the fact that the hero will survive a long fall is given away.

The only thing I’ve read worse than the book, was this review. So don’t bother reading either… oh well, we’re already done here! So if you’ve sat through this, you’ll probably enjoy the book. Maybe it’s really not that bad… I just haven’t had a good winge for a while! I’m going to watch a rerun of Farscape!

When I say that I was disappointed to find this book in my mailbox, it is only because I knew that when I got my hands on it I wouldn’t put it down for the rest of the day. Keeping up with the style of my 5-Minute-Reviews, I’ll have to prefix this by saying that I have not yet read PHP 5 Power Programming from cover to cover, and the review is based on the few hours that I have spent flipping through the pages.

About the book: The book is nearly 700 pages long, with 16 chapters and 3 appendices. Written by Andi Gutmans, Stig Bakken and Derick Rethans, we are in very good hands and are treated with specific information that is useful to real world developers. Unlike the majority of computer books, we are not treated like idiots.

Starting with “What’s New in PHP 5″ PHP 5 Power Programming quickly covers all the goodness which is new to PHP 5. After covering “PHP 5 Basic Language” and “PHP 5 OO Language” we are treated with an in depth look at “PHP 5 OOP and Design Patterns” which covers the 4 most popular web related Design Patterns (Strategy, Singletons, Factory, Observer), as well as PHP 5 iterators and Reflection API. And that’s all in the first 100 pages.

PHP5 Power Programming is focused at developers, and offers a wide range of information on new PHP 5 features as well as associated technologies and invaluable tools such as PEAR Packages, Zend Tools, PHPDocumenter, xdebug, APD, etc.

The guys obviously enjoyed writing the book, which is evident by the casual style in which the material is presented. Little effort seems to be made in standardizing the writing styles of each author, which gives the book a refreshing and personal touch. The authors part with the dry format that we have come to expect from computer books, and take the liberty to both explain small tools which would normally be ignored — like the 5 pages covering HMAC Verification, in “How to Write a Web Application” — and to not go into detail about tools which there is plenty of other information available on the web — Like the half page explanation on PEAR::HTML_Quickform. In some cases the concept is presented, but the implementation has been left as a exercise for the reader.

Annoyances: For a book this size there are relatively few annoyances. My main complain was that the font is quite bold (or is lack of whitespace between the lines) and at first glance the pages of the book looks cluttered. This is probably largely my imagination, as after reading a couple pages it’s unnoticeable.

There is some inconsistency in the tab widths. In some places 4 spaces are used, and other places there are 6 (yuk). In some examples there are indents after the opening < ?php tag, this is mainly annoying when the excessive indentation causes the code to wrap, which is distracting.

Very few noticeable errata, and there is a forum on the books site which will track issues as they appear.

In general I’m very happy with this book. If there is one book that you want to get to bring you up to speed on PHP 5, this is the one. I’ll leave my copy at the PEAR booth at the IPC2k4 next week for anyone who wants to thumb through it.

The only question this book doesn’t answer is: What the hell is Kossu?