3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years

 

The first 3/4s of the book were mid. Some guy is an operator for a time travel company. It costs a lot for customers to make the jump. They are able to return back to the present after 3 days, 9 month, 27 years, or never. We hear about a bunch of customers. We also learn about company policies.

One such policy is that employees, after working at the company for a while, are entitled to one time travel adventure of their own. Our main character has been working there for 25 years. His trip is longer overdue. Once he schedules his trip, he informs us that this is not his first jump. He is actually not from this time.

In the main guy's original time, the people working at the company have an untimely end. He comes back in time to warn the company. He wants to prevent the disaster. He is success in delaying the event. But he cannot prevent it. Thus, he decides to make another jump to prevent the same disaster occurring in the time he jumped to. Where he ends up, nobody knows.  

The Kidnapping of Alice Ingold

Alice's mom comes from wealth. Her dad has become the father of AI. She interns at his company. But she realizes the harm his company will do to the world. Her dad fires her. She is still in college. She decides to relocate from school dorm to an off campus apartment in the ghetto.

Alice's mom comes to strong arm Alice into moving to a safer neighborhood. When mom leaves, she gets a note that Alice has been kidnapped. Mom rushes back to the apartment to find her daughter missing. The family works with the FBI to try to locate Alice and the kidnappers. They initially do not receive any ransom demands. Instead they get cryptic messages.

Alice describes an initial kidnapper as a buff woman with a gun and a disguise. Alice tries an escape from the getaway car. But she is recaptured. Another man joins the female kidnapper at some sort of compound. Alice figures out how to poison the male kidnapper. She escapes the compound, runs down the road, and slips through the fence.

Eventually Alice confesses that the kidnap story is not real. Her boyfriend is in on the ruse. So is her best friend Monica, plus Monica's girlfriend. Alice's dad figure it out and produces a fake ransom note. He also uses deep fake AI to produce a video fro Alice. Alice's boyfriend talks her to leaves the camp site they are hiding in, and they flee to his remote plane hangar.

They want to meet Alice's dad to broker a deal. The dad shoots the boyfriend. Then he forcibly takes Alice to control the narrative and muzzle her. Alice's mom questions Monica about a lie she told, and is able to piece together clues about the whole ruse. Mom goes to the boyfriend's hangar and rescues him. She also blocks Alice's dad from leaving with Alice.

Alice pleads to lessor punishment. Her boyfriend is framed as a kidnapper. Her dad has a story about him saving his daughter from the kidnapper. Alice and her mom reconcile as she serves a minimal prison sentence and returns to school. 

Eyes of the Emperor

Eddy lives near Pearl Harbor during World War II. His family is Japanese. As soon as Pearl Harbor is bombed, many white people are leery about the "Japs. His father had been working on constructing an expensive boat for a client. It was a long project with heavy material costs. When the boat is completed, and before his dad can turn over the boat, it is burned. Everyone suspects arson.

Eddy and his friends decided to enlist in the army to do their patriotic duty. This would be the first time Eddy leaves the island. They take a ship ride to the mainland. Everyone gets seasick. They take a train ride up North to attend boot camp. Then they are flown out to their destination.

They all are part of a secret program. They live on some island. A civilian picks them up in a boat and takes them to their work daily. The program is to train dogs to be part of the army fight against the Japanese. Eddy and pals are going to be the bait. They are forced to beat the dogs to make them adversaries. Then they participate in hiding and have the dogs search them out and attack them.

The government comes to witness the ability of the dogs and the worthiness of the program. Three white guys and and Eddy go out and hide. The idea is that the dogs would be able to seek out the Jap. Turns out they went straight for a white guy. The program gets cancelled. Eddy and the boys are reassigned to front line battle.

User Interface Design for Programmers

 

Normally I document books of fiction I have read. However, I also read a bunch of tech books. Here is one example by Joel Spolsky. He is a guy who became famous for his web site on software development. I recently read that he wrote this book on UI for programmers. Just finished it.

I was surprised that Joel starts out with general usability. Not computer programs or even using computers. He educates us on general principles of usability. Then he applies those principles to computer programs or web pages that we interact with.

He is big on usability tests. But he cautions that having a lot of people participate does not give you gains. You can do almost as well with informal queries in the hall. He has a lot of other detailed ideas. It would be hard to communicate those here.

Biggest Fake in the Universe

Mo is a nerd in middle school. When hanging out with friends, he spies a girl he likes. She is a great skateboarder. He comes up with a plan to learn how to skate in order to get close to the girl. One day, when everybody is skating down some parking garage, he lands a gnarly grind. It is caught on video. All of a sudden, he becomes a celebrity.

Unfortunately, some TV show arranges to do a story on him. They have a huge skate ramp constructed. And Mo is not ready to drop in from it. He is not able to cancel the episode. He climbs up the ramp. But he is able to drop in. He is afraid he is going to die. He has to climb back down and explain to skate girl that he is a fraud.

He talks the TV show into filming his excellent baking skills. He makes a pizza. While it is cooking, he allows his sister to show off her new juggling skills. The skate girl ends up going on the huge ramp, dropping in, and catching some air. She might be Mo's new girlfriend.

Under the Blood-Red Sun

 

Tomi lives in Pearl Harbor with his family. He was born here. But his parents and grandfather are from Japan. Pearl Harbor is bombed. Grandpa waves a Japanese flag until they restrain him. Tomi's dad is shot in the leg and jailed. Dad's ship is sunk Tomi swim around the barbed wire surrounding the prison to see his dad.

Dad's young deck hand was killed. The military comes and makes Tomi and his grandfather kill their pigeons. They are suspected in use sending message to the enemy. Tomi's mom is temporarily laid off. Grandpa must sell eggs to make money. But they eventually come and lock up grandpa too.

Tomi is in charge of the family Katana, which is hid deep in the woods. The landlord's son Keet discovers the sword and threatens to tell his father. Kerosene is rationed. Tomi's family shares. School eventually reopens. And Tomi's mom goes back to work for a sympathetic wife of the landlord.

A Night at the Tropicana

Natalie is a doctor. The hospital needs some funding. She puts together a Night at the Tropicana. It is a fundraiser event. They have some fun gambling. There is an auction at the end she hopes bring in money from the patrons. She thinks back when she turned 18 and visited Havana, Cuba with her family.

Natalie's grandparents migrated to the USA. Her parents did not grow up in Cuba. They family took a trip there when Natalie graduated from high school. There went to Havana when the Tropicana, originally named something else, opened.

At the hotel, there was some big festival or such. She met a man that was in her field. They danced the night away. He gave her his address so she could write when she returned home to Florida. Natalie's mom found the paper with the address and threw it away so Natalie could be focused on her studies to become a doctor.

Back in the present, where Natalie is divorced with an adult child, she is at the fundraiser she arranged. Her friend brings her brother to meet Natalie. Lo and behold, it is the guy she met in Cuba so long ago. He never married. He could never find anyone like Natalie. Just like back then, they decide to dance together.