God heard his thoughts, and made him the sun. Now he was all powerful, and shined his rays upon the earth and he was happy for a while. One day, he noticed a storm cloud under him. The cloud blocked his rays from the earth, and pelted it with rain and wind and lightning. He grew unhappy, and said to himself, “The storm cloud is mightier than me. Dear Lord, make me a storm cloud so that I may be more powerful.”

God heard his thoughts and instantly he became a storm cloud. Now he was truly powerful, and he pelted the earth with rain and hail, wind and lightning. One day he passed over a mountain. The mountain absorbed his rain, wind, and lightning and was impervious to all his power. The man grew unhappy and he prayed, “Dear Lord, make a mountain so that I can be all powerful and resist the sun and storm clouds.”

God heard his thoughts, and instantly he was a mountain. Now he truly felt all powerful. He basked in the sun all day and was impervious to its rays. Storm clouds came and battered him with wind, rain, and lightning, and he stood strong as ever.

One day, he heard a hammer at his base. He looked down and saw a simple stonecutter chipping away at his rock. He grew unhappy and prayed, “Dear Lord. The stonecutter is more powerful than even I am! Please make me a stonecutter so I can cut mountains and resist storm clouds and the sun.” God heard his thoughts, and instantly he became a humble stonecutter again.

The moral of the story: Be happy with what you are in life. You are more powerful than you know, and you influence many others by the way you live your life.

If parents are concerned about what their children are consuming in popular media, it’s easier to turn the TV off than it is to pre-screen the books they read. As I’ve noted previously, some books capturing young readers’ attention have completely inappropriate content, and I’ve tried to point this out in reviews.

Consequently, I think the best advice for parents concerned about the content their children are reading is to pay attention to reviews. Browse the Amazon reviews for popular YA books, do a Google search for blog reviews on a particular title. Several teen lit books have remarkably dark elements, including graphic and abusive sexual content, drugs, suicide, bulimia, and other topics that parents may need to monitor and discuss with their children while reading. It also doesn’t hurt to crack the covers of the books your kids are reading now and then. Some titles are remarkably enjoyable, even for older readers.

Certainly, many teens are able to handle adult content in literature better than others. But the occasionally obscene and graphic material in some books marketed to younger adults may fly under many parents’ radar.

1. Thwarting Smartphones

Most older students own cell phones these days, and with the audio and video recording capabilities of typical smartphones, the devices are the easiest means for students to cheat. Still pictures or movies of tests and recordings of lectures are commonplace. Word processing functions allow students to type and record data to look at later during tests. Texting allow students to ask each other questions on the test. For instance, one student back in the dorm can look up answers in a textbook and quickly transmit them back to test takers.

Since jamming signal transmission is illegal, the easiest way to fight smartphone cheating is to simply collect them before the start of exams. Have students drop them off on the way in the door and retrieve them on the way back out.

2. Thwarting Hidden Cameras

As we saw in the previous post, camcorders and cameras can now be hidden in seemingly innocuous items like pens. A student can record every page of a test by simply leaning over it and aiming the pen in his pocket at the page on the desk. While these aren’t as simple to thwart as collecting cell phones before the start of exams, keeping an eye on student behavior during the test may help pick out cheaters. Keep in mind that objects like pens in shirt pockets, lapel pins and brooches may be hidden cameras. Since they are difficult to detect, student codes of conduct should address surreptitious videoing, with stern consequences if cheaters are caught.

3. Thwarting TVBGone

As seen in our last post, the keychain device TVBGone quickly cycles through the “off” code for hundreds of TV sets and monitors. This little gadget has also been used for practical jokes in the classroom where the TV set mysteriously keeps turning off, to the befuddlement of teachers. Since it operates as an infrared remote, you can thwart it by covering the infrared remote receiver window on the front of your classroom television with a bit of black electrical tape.

4. Thwarting Electronic Communications

As seen on a ZDNet blog entry recently, students can purchase communication “beepers” to surreptitiously signal one another (one tic for A, two for B, etc.) Radio frequency detectors might alert the savvy teacher to these devices, although pinpointing who has them might require more expensive equipment.

5. Thwarting Hidden Text

Examples abound on the net for students to sneak in a cheat sheet the old fashioned way: by written text. Common examples include printing answers on the back of soda bottle labels. As the soda is consumed, more answers become visible through the clear bottle. Placing answers under the bill of caps is also common. Since there is not an easy electronic fix for this low tech way of cheating, vigilance on the part of the teacher is the best option.

However, one idea to combat this form of cheating may be to purchase a fake camera and place it strategically in the classroom during exams. Laws vary regarding video in public places, but a fake camera can be a visual deterrent to low tech cheating. Since no video is really being recorded, no laws are at risk. Amazon has a variety of fake cameras here.

Here’s a quick look at five nifty gadgets available to anyone on a budget.

1. Spy Pen

Swann makes an HD PenCam with 16 gigs of memory accessible via a USB port. Stick it in your pocket and it looks like a regular ball point, but it can take audio/video recordings or snap a bunch of stills on the sly.

$100 from www.swann.com

2. Monitor Zapper

This nifty universal TV/monitor remote does one thing well: it turns off most any TV set. Disable those monitors in the evil scientist’s lair with a quick aim of the tiny infrared device on your keychain, and within seconds it cycles through almost every TV manufacturer’s “off” code. Also handy for silencing loud TVs in waiting rooms and other places.

$19.99 from www.tvbgone.com

3. Remote GPS Tracking

There are a variety of GPS units out there. Some are designed to be attached to a car and retrieved later, offering a readout of where the car has been. But what if you want to track a particular person or animal in real time? Tagg to the rescue, a $99 device that allows you to place a remote GPS monitor on a pet’s collar. Of course, you can attach it to other things as well. For $7.95/month the service lets you monitor where the device is on the web or your smartphone. Alerts can be set up to notify you when the unit leaves a geographic area and when the onboard battery needs recharging.

$99 from www.pettracker.com

4. Bionic Ear

How’d you like to hear those distant conversations on the other side of the city park, or maybe catch that elusive bird song? A portable parabolic sound mic is just the ticket. Put the headphones on, aim it at your target, and listen to your heart’s content. Sudden loud noises are instantly muted to preserve your hearing.

$169 from www.kjbsecurity.com

5. Bug Detector

Are they spying on you? Find out for sure with a personal bug detector. These little devices notify you of radio frequencies in the area, such as those used by remote listening devices and cameras. Sweep a room and find out if you’re the target of spies.

$29.99 from www.netlinkenterprises.com

Riordan is maturing nicely as a writer, and each new book shows an emerging style that is both engaging and descriptive. Fans of previous Riordan books will find familiar elements, such as nods to popular culture. For instance, in Seattle the heroes find that Amazon.com is run by Amazon warriors, who are often found reading their Kindles.

Educational elements are skillfully intertwined in Riordan books, and this one is no exception. Young readers are introduced to Greek and Roman mythology and pick up quite a bit of classical detail despite the fact the story is modernized to a considerable extent. Even though the story is dealing with pagan gods of antiquity, quite a few Christian elements shine through, such as love, friendship, and shared sacrifice.

Character development remains strong, and retains typical Riordan memes such as teen angst and finding ones purpose in life (albeit from a demigod’s perspective). Fans will enjoy most all aspects of learning about and caring for Zhang and Levesque as well as other minor characters.

My biggest beef with the Kindle version of the novel I downloaded was the plethora of typos. Odd paragraph breaks were very common, and words were often smashed together to the point of distraction. For instance, here’s part of a sentence that typifies mistakes in the text: “… no wall she had to worry about …” It should read, “ … now all she had to worry about …” Mistakes like that went on chapter after chapter.

Today, Amazon sent an e-mail indicating the publisher is aware of these many mistakes in the electronic text, and has offered a corrected version. As I have already finished the book, and waded through the errors, it’s no big deal. One of the benefits of electronic books is the ability to quickly fix mistakes, but a simple read through by somebody in charge could have prevented these many errors from appearing in early electronic versions in the first place. That said, I’ll take off a star from an otherwise five star book.

4 out of 5 stars.

As before, readers meet a host of characters, some loosely based on our own history. Events and personalities are ably coordinated by Westerfeld, and fabulous artwork by Keith Thompson illustrates the action throughout. Of course, we’ve been waiting for Alek, the Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to learn of Deryn Sharp’s secret (she’s a girl, disguised as a boy serving as a middie on Leviathan) for two books now.

Westerfeld sends his characters off at the end with all loose ends tied up except one: the Great War itself. What happens next? In real life, the US was dragged into war with the sinking of the Lusitania. Things are altered “just a squick” as Deryn might say. Perhaps, and hopefully, Westerfeld can grace us with a continuation of the story at some point in the future. That is the highest praise I can think of to bestow on a fantasy series that is great fun to read for young and old alike.

5 out 5 stars.

PanDigital 72-70FW 7-Inch Tablet Computer – At $84.85, this factory refurb is the cheapest model in our lineup.

Pandigital Android 1 GB 7-Inch Multimedia Tablet – It’s only $99. It’s got a gig of memory. It’s 7 inches and color. Need we say more?

Superpad 10.2″ Tablet PC – With a bigger screen than the above models, micro SD slots and a built-in microphone, the SuperPad is a great deal at $150.

Archos 7 Home Tablet – Longtime accessory manufacturer Archos delivers on a snazzy tablet for only $150.

ViewSonic ViewBook VB730 7-Inch Android 2.2 Wi-Fi/BT – At $169, this cheapest of the ViewBook models comes with 8 gigs of storage with expansion capability to 32 megs.

Short url: http://edbok.com/?p=234

For authors, two digital newspapers filled with useful resources I’ve recently become aware of include the #pubtip Daily and Unbridled Editor. #Pubtip, of course, is one of my Top Ten Twitter Hastags for Authors. The #pubtip Daily is a paper.li site that publishes links to tweets using the #pubtip hashtag. If you don’t have time to monitor Twitter all day, you can drop in and find the editors’ top picks for content linked on Twitter under the #pubtip hashtag. So far this week, they’ve linked to two of my tweets, so of course I like the paper very much. @JenTalty on Twitter sends out alerts for each new edition.

Another digital paper that has also linked to me is Unbridled Editor. Published by @John_Rakestraw, Unbridled Editor compiles a broad range of blog posts and tweets designed to help writers. Highly recommended.

Short url: http://edbok.com/?p=219

The background to the books is, a superior alien race has been going around the galaxy destroying all other civilizations it comes across. Humanity puts up a good fight, but the aliens have superior technology. In a last minute desperate retreat, the humans jump into hyperspace and fool the aliens by having them chase after a decoy fleet, which gets destroyed. The remainder escape to a far distant star system and settle a planet called Safehold.

On their new home planet, the humans divide into two groups. One group wants to prepare for the inevitable future conflict with the aliens, and be far more technologically advanced so they can defeat them next time. The other group believes if humans are forever low tech, they can avoid detection by the bad guys and continue living. The latter group wins the argument, and kills off most members of the former group. They then set up a world perpetually stuck at the technology levels of the early 19th century. They do away with all world religions and leave one church in charge of enforcing this low tech philosophy on the population.

Into this milieu, one of the pro-tech group’s PICAs enters the picture hundreds of years later. Lt. Commander Nimue Alban had a Personality-Integrated Cybernetic Avatar that allows her essence to continue long after death. She sets about to become a Prometheus for the Safehold humans. Among the many super powered capabilities the PICA has is to change physiological characteristics, and so she turns into a male version of herself since the Safehold culture is male dominated. She, now a he, renames himself Merlin. This is one of many intriguing twists in the saga.

Another interesting feature in the series is the interpolation of futuristic high tech with the decidedly low tech lives of those on Safehold. Thus, satellites and space skimmers are mixed in with sailing ships. Weber obviously enjoys his sailing terms and much time is spent on the progressively high tech Charisian Empire, a group of countries reminiscent of England’s naval superiority back in the day. Readers also may enjoy watching the empire quickly advance toward Industrial Revolution levels of knowledge as they battle with a corrupt Luddite religion.

On the down side, it’s a very slow moving saga. Much time is spent on conversations as opposing sides examine possibilities from all angles in endless conferences. The lead time to battles may last over several chapters, as fleets draw near across the water at a glacial pace. When action finally does occur, it’s well written, but Weber fills the books with an excessive amount of conversation between the characters. Swearing is low to moderate, and usually reserved for bad guys. You can sometimes tell when new characters are bad if they start dropping F-bombs, for instance.

The latest in the series won’t disappoint fans. It’s not one a new reader can pick up and jump into; readers will need to start with the first Safehold book, Off Armageddon Reef. Once started, however, you will likely become anxious to read the next installment. You’ll mark your calendar, and begin an impatient wait.

4 out of 5 stars

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