How USEI Gained 27,250% in 2012

This was a really short book. It was more like a pamphlet. It tries to explain how a stock investor could have detected the meteoric rise of a stock with the ticker symbol USEI. This is a penny stock. It soured in 2012.

There were a lot of cautions in the book. Most of the time, you should expect to lose your shirt in penny stock trading. Also, nobody got a 27,520% gain on this stock. However the author believes some achieved 600 to 700 percent. That is a 5x pay or more.

I don't think there were any real insights in this book. If you did know the secret on how to detect stocks that appreciate 700 percent, you would not be sharing that secret with anybody else.

How to Get a Job in Video Games

This book was written from an artist's perspective. But it did touch on some issues for computer programmers. A lot of it just seemed like the author bragging. There were some good insights. For example, you should choose a college that is in close proximity to a big game development company.

The author cautions the reader about the state of instructors in game development college courses. Those instructors may not have knowledge of current practices in game development. He also cautions you to not compare yourself to other students in a game development school program. Instead compare yourself to successful current game developers.

Many of the ideas from the author are not good ones. Don't slack off at school. Go to community college to save money, And so on. Not sure how I would rate the book overall. Maybe two or three stars out of five.

Prince Lestat

This book is about the vampire Lestat. However it is also about Amel, an ancient spirit that gave birth to vampires everywhere. Amel continues to exist in a vampire host body. Amel give the vampires their power. However it turns out that Amel wants out, and into a newer vampire host body.

A young vampire named Benji is broadcasting from New York. He is asking the old vampires to assemble in order to combat the spirit Amel. He specifically wants Lestat to come, even though Lestat is not one of the truly old vampires.

We meet another ancient spirit, and find out the he and his comrades are the original driving force behind the group called the Talamasca. And the vampire chronicles go on. I picked up another Anne Rice book on the cheap at a used book store.

Fante Bukowski

This is a small book. It is also a comic. So I read it in one pass. Fante is a writer who is having problems getting published. He writes short stories that get rejected by publishers. He is also working on his first book.

Fante is not his real name. He changed his name to match a famous writer that inspired him. Fante's dad is a rich and successful businessman. Fante strives to be successful too in order to impress his dad. Unfortunately, Fante has a beg his mom for money each month.

Fante lives in a cheap motel. He tries to network with agents. But they only want to represent someone who is already published. Fante makes a friend at a bar. But his friend dies of seemingly old age. Fante also gets a girlfriend who is an author. Even she cannot hook him up with an agent.

Eventually Fante checks out of the hotel. He takes the advice given to him from his old deceased friend. He leaves the town to go somewhere he can breathe. Unfortunately he encounters a weirdo giving him a ride. Then he heads to the outdoors and is spooked by wildlife. It is a rough life.

Game Programming All In One

I got this book to read a few interesting chapters in it like game design, artificial intelligence, and publishing. Even though I got the updated version of the book, it was still an old book (2007).

The book did not teach you about Windows programming or Direct X. It tried to steer you towards using a framework called Allegro which allowed you to publish the game to many platforms. The author believes that you need a whole team these days to produce a game. He likens game development to making a movie. The author also believes that console games will overtake PC games.

The author states that adventure games have fallen out of style. You should only do a beta test when there are no bugs and 100% of the functionality is done. If you do a prototype of your game, you can use that as your game demo. Some tasks such as the game installer, manual, and web site are saved for the post production phase.

Only the briefest introduction was provided for artificial intelligence. The book touched on expert systems, fuzzy logic, and neural networks. Can't go into detail about these topics and do them justice here.

Your game must be graphically attractive to be worth publishing. The sounds must match the actions in the game. The author recommends you start doing small games through small publishers first to build a name for yourself. You should attend game conferences such as E3 or GDC. You can sell/publish games by yourself. Just be sure to choose a site that can handle payments for yourself. If you do team up with a publisher, hire a lawyer to represent you at contract time.

Confessions of a Software Techie

I had a bunch of popups from Amazon. They were offering a $5 credit towards their eBooks. I normally like physical print books these days. But I decided what the heck. I found a title in my wish lists that was electronic: Confessions of a Software Techie.

Ramakrishna Reddy is a developer from India. He did well in school. He is working in Connecticut as a team lead. He directs a team that works out of India. He is responsible for a suite of insurance software applications.

Reddy tries to install insider knowledge of being a developer. He does have some insights. But I believe a lot of his conclusions are wrong. For example, he says that being successful will get you ahead. Okay. But then he uses Steve Jobs as an example. He says Jobs was so successful with his second company NeXT that Apple brought him back. Wrong. NeXT was a complete failure. Apple wanted him back for other reasons.

Another example from Reddy is one that makes no sense. He advises against telling the truth. At the same time, he recommends that you have integrity. LOL wut? I really cannot recommend this book. Halfway through I started skipping chapters. So I really only read about half the book, and thought it lackluster at best.

Mirror Mirror

Let's get this out of the way first. "Mirror Mirror" is a book by model Cara Delevinge. It is her first novel. In this book, main character Red (nicknamed because of her hair) has a tough life. Her dad is running off with some mistresses all the time. Her mother is a severe alcoholic. And her little sister is suffering from the family turmoil.

For a while, Red seeks solace in a band formed at her school. There is a super hot girl, Rose, who is the lead singer. Then there is Leo, whose brother is a criminal who has gone to jail but is getting released. And then there is Naomi (Nai for short). By the time the book opens, Nai has been missing and turns up in the river. Nai is not dead, but is severely injured and is in a coma.

Red teams up with Nai's sister Ashley (Ash) to figure out what happened to Nai. Although Nai led a troubled life previously, things were looking up for her after the band got together. Initially Nai's disappearance was chalked up to a girl running away from home. However clues start to point towards some foul play type of abduction.

There are some tragedies in the midst of this book. For example, Leo's criminal brother tries to get Leo to assist with a murder. And Red falls for her best friend, and mistakes that friendship for love. The main plot sticks to the search for what happened to Nai. In the process, Red solidifies her true self and attempts to lead the resolution of problems in her own family's life.

This was quite a book to read. Nice suspenseful plot and some pretty decent character development. At first I thought this was an autobiography. I have since decided it is just fiction. I wonder if Delevinge had a ghost writer produce the text.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

This book is by blogger Jenny Lawson. She goes by the handle "The Bloggess" online. Jenny was born and raised in a small town in Texas. Her family was poor. Her dad was a weird taxidermist. Her grandparents spoiled her and her sister.

When Jenny grew up and got married, she moved a few hours away in Texas. Turns out she also got an interest in taxidermy. She did not stuff animals like her dad. But she did collect them, to the disgust of her husband. Seems she could not help buy stuffed animals that were dressed up in unusual regalia.

Jenny had some funny lines in this book. But her style was the same chapter after chapter. It was an interesting read to start. Got a bit stale by the end. Most books I keep for  possible future read. Not this one. I bet her blog, although I have never read it, is somewhat interesting too.