Kelson Reviews Stuff - Page 49

A fast, funny, informative read about, well, pigeons (and to some extent other birds). Readers of the author’s webcomic about nature, Bird and Moon, will recognize the quirky humor and the drawing style of the illustrations.

You might think pigeons are boring because they’re so common, but they can be as interesting as any other bird once you start looking. And because they’re found everywhere humans live (there’s a reason for that), anyone can go out and start looking in the real world for the patterns and behaviors described.

The irreverent but enthusiastic style draws you in as the book runs through the long history of pigeons and humans. We’ve bred them for messaging, food, chemistry and as pets since ancient times, and the common pigeons seen today are descended from domestic pigeons that have escaped over the years. It continues through an overview of pigeon anatomy, what types of coloration are most and least common, the extremes of modern pigeon breeds (there are still pigeon races and pigeon shows!), and of course pigeon behaviors.

If you buy an e-book edition like I did, it’s worth pulling it up on a color screen when you get to the chapters on appearance.

You can find a print copy through Bookshop.org.

An accident at a hospital gives each person nearby access to someone else’s memories…including the US President on the eve of a top-secret mission that may resolve or worsen international tensions. But who has the President’s memories?

The thriller part of the plot really didn’t stick in my head, and the conclusion was one of those out-of-left-field endings that sometimes work and sometimes don’t.

What does work is the exploration of how memories work, how they’re triggered, and how we reconstruct them from pieces.

If you want to seriously edit OpenStreetMap while you’re out and about, Vespucci is the way to go. You can add, remove, and modify just about any paths or structures on the map, trace paths using your phone’s GPS and either add them through the app or upload them to use another tool. It uses a lock/unlock system so you don’t make changes accidentally, and you can place geolocated photos on the map to help you position features. It’s easiest to use on a tablet, but still packs its full capabilities into a phone-sized screen.

That said, there is a steep learning curve when you start out.

Vespucci is available for Android phones and tablets on the Google Play Store, the Amazon App Store, and F-Droid.

Compared to StreetComplete

StreetComplete and Vespucci are complementary. StreetComplete is good for casual mapping (ex: filling in street info), while Vespucci is good for more significant changes (ex: adding a new street). I use both regularly.

After finishing my epic re-read of Les Misérables, I’ve been watching the various movie adaptations and finding other versions of the story, including a classic radio play, some comics, and even a children’s book.

Movies

• 1935 Les Misérables Movie directed by Richard Boleslawski, starring Frederic March and Charles Laughton.
• 1952 Les Misérables Movie directed by Lewis Milestone, starring Michael Rennie and Robert Newton.
• 1978 Les Misérables Movie directed by Glenn Jordan, starring Anthony Perkins and Richard Jordan.
• 1998 Les Misérables Movie directed by Bille August, starring Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush.
• 2000 Les Misérables TV Miniseries (3-hour version) directed by Josée Dayan, starring Gerard Depardieu and John Malkovich.
• 2012 Les Misérables Movie musical directed by Tom Hooper, starring Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe.
• Followup: The 2012 movie after re-reading the book

Spoofs and Parodies

• Les Miseranimals (Animaniacs’ spoof)
• Thénardier’s Inn (a cabaret-style parody)
• Three Les Misérables parodies

Stage, Audio and Books

• Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Stage Production
• Orson Welles Radio Drama (1937)
• Classics Illustrated original comic book (1943)
• Classics Illustrated revised comic book (1961)
• Cozy Classics: Les Misérables
• Manga Classics: Les Misérables

All of these reviews are at Re-Reading Les Mis, along with commentary on two full reads through the book.

I’m going to miss two things about Fry’s Electronics, which shut down this week:

• Being able to walk in and grab random parts immediately.
• The decor.

And yeah, there’s nostalgia for the old days, but they’re already gone.

Back in the 1990s and early 2000s they really were a one-stop shop for computers, software, appliances, all kinds of electronics hardware, and the random snacks you might want to munch on while tinkering or upgrading. You could check out, or better yet try out – they had a huge number of computers available for demos – all kinds of cool tech.

I bought a lot of components for my desktop PC over the years, replacing pieces bit by bit. Sure, you could get complete systems at Micro Center or Best Buy or Circuit City, but none of them had the long tail of components that Fry’s did.

(There was also the generous return policy – I knew a lot of people who used the “Fry’s rental” when they needed something for a single project.)

Service was a mixed bag, though. Sometimes you’d get someone really knowledgeable who could help you pick out the best hardware combination for what you wanted. Sometimes you wouldn’t be able to find anyone. And a lot of the sales staff tended to be proto-techbros, so if you were shopping while female, or looking for Apple products – or worse, both – there was a good chance you’d get someone overly condescending.

Fading Away

They’ve been going downhill for a while. They dropped a lot of the middle range and focused on the high-end and low-end markets. All the articles talk about competition from online stores, and I suspect friendlier brick-and-mortar stores like Best Buy took over a lot of the mid-range consumer market.

When I built a gaming PC a few years ago, I tried Fry’s first, but I couldn’t find most of the parts I wanted. I only bought the case and power supply there, then ordered other parts from NewEgg, Amazon, or direct from the manufacturers. And I went back to Fry’s when I tried to put everything together and discovered I had the wrong mounting rails and needed another case fan.

They never really adapted to online shopping. Their website is still terrible (or was until Wednesday). Before 2019, big deal, I’d just walk into the store and browse anyway. But in 2020, after Covid-19 hit and in-person retail shut down, curbside pickup and shipping were the way to go. The search results were a pain to sort through, even for products that didn’t have nationwide shortages (like webcams). Even when I told it I wanted to look for shipping or local pickup, it kept trying to send me to San Jose, hundreds of miles away.

The Fry’s Experience

Ultimately, though, the most memorable thing about Fry’s couldn’t translate to a website. The locations I’ve been to were all converted warehouses or small office buildings. And each one was decorated with a theme.

Burbank’s store had a flying saucer crashed into the front, with statues of 50’s sci-fi aliens with ray guns scattered around as if they were invading the building. A giant squid’s tentacles supported the computer demo tables.

Anaheim had a giant mock-up of the Space Shuttle. If I remember right, the audio demo room was inside it.

Manhattan Beach had a Pacific Islands theme, with tropical plants, tiki statues, and murals based on Gauguin’s paintings from Tahiti.

Fountain Valley’s store was decked out in a classical Roman style, with columns, a mural of Roman gods, and a broken aqueduct that poured into a fountain in the center of the store. (I always thought that was a risky choice for an electronics store.)

Las Vegas had a giant slot machine for an entrance, but nothing special inside that I can recall.

Sad to say, I don’t seem to have taken photos inside any of these locations, though I do have a shot of the Vegas entryway. And of course now I can’t.