Beyond the Reach

Tonight we watched "Beyond the Reach."  The plot is extremely contrived.  The dialog is weak.  The acting is from Mt Rushmore (stone faced).  It is worth missing this one.  2/5 stars.

The Evil Search Giant is getting less Evil

https://myaccount.google.com/

and

https://www.google.com/settings/takeout

are fantastic steps in the right direction.

 takeout lets you download all your data from G and

 the new myaccount features are much better.  This is great progress.

Maggie

A different kind of zombie apocolypse movie.
We saw Maggie last night; it's not bad.   Ahnold's thick accent kept pushing me out of the story but the rest of the cast holds up well.  I really liked the resolution and the ending.  The teenager emotions and  father - daughter love stuff was very well done.  4/5 stars.

Da Vinci's Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the Worldin His Own Image

I read this on the plane on the way home.   It provides just the right amount of background and detail, filling in gaps in my knowledge of history. It paints Leonardo in a very human light, complete with warts, failures, deficiencies, shortcomings. 4/5 stars

Consider Phlebas

The first "Culture" book is good. 4/5 stars

Petit Quinquin

We are watching the french mini-series "Le Petit Quinquin." It is very bizarre and powerful in many ways.  The timing and cinematography will keep you spell-bound.  You will need subtitles.  4/5 stars.

Run all night

Monday night we watched “Run All Night” where Liam Neeson plays an alcoholic mafia torpedo who has Liam-Neeson super powers.  When you shoot him it makes him angry. Not great but a fun shoot-em-up 3/5 stars, worth watching.

Battling Botnets

The anti-fraud team in Google has very cool digs in London.  They are fighting botnets that create billions in click fraud losses to the evil search giant (ESG).

Their entrance is like a big bank vault. 

 

Their powerdrill super-computer sounds really cool.  But the article indicates they are losing the battle and the click fraud is actually increasing.

Read the whole thing.

A Lion Among Men

I finished Greg McGuire's fourth book in his "Wicked" stories in his own Oz universe.  I find the magic system inconsistent and unsatisfying. I shall not read future installments.  The second book was the best.  2 out of 5 stars.

Focus

. . . is slightly better than the terrible reviews; 3/5 stars.  Not good; barely worth watching.