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Here are some more mini-reviews of books, thanks to a spring break trip. I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: Big Dumb Eyes by Nate Bargatze

This was not middle-grade fiction, so I didn’t pick this book out. Some Wife got it and tossed it over to me to read too, as we are both fans of Nate Bargatze.

I didn’t have much expectation, and it’s more of a memoir so I can’t rate the plot or characters at all. In general, if you like Nate Bargatze as a comic then you’ll enjoy this book.

I will also note that we watched his TV game show Greatest Average American and, while it was mildly entertaining, the thing that got the most attention from us was seeing how long he goes without blinking. Those eyes are just big and open and they stay open.

Next up: The Battle for Skandia by John Flanagan

This is the fourth book in the Ranger’s Apprentice series. Book 1 had an ending with a decent conclusion. Books 2 and 3 did not have conclusions, so you are forced to keep reading. Book 4 finally had a non-cliffhanger ending, so you could reasonably stop here if you want.

I liked this one better than the previous book, because it got back to the story’s roots more. It was not as dark, and it had a little more in the way of warfare and tactics. If you liked book 1 you should like book 4.

Next up: The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester

If you like the short story Harrison Bergeron then you’ll like this book. If you haven’t read Harrison Bergeron (and you can find it online so no reason not to go read it right now) then skip to the next paragraph so I don’t spoil it for you. Imagine Harrison Bergeron but as a novel and with a happy ending. And with some supernatural powers too. And that’s it for the spoilers part.

The book is the first part of a trilogy, but you could read just the first book and be satisfied. I liked how it was written. I’m not sure if it’s the style of writing itself, or just the setting that makes the style seem different, but I did notice something. It’s a little more carefree writing style, that helps you get into the setting and the characters. Either way, I think it works. The story itself is good too.

Next up: Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

I read this book because I had heard a lot of good things about the Discworld books and wanted to try one. This was one of the books that was listed as being standalone. Discworld isn’t a series, it is several series plus a smattering of books not in a series. You could probably read any of them and get a feel for his writing and the Discworld setting, but I wanted to choose a standalone book in case I didn’t feel like getting into it more.

I will say this book, and Discworld in general, is not for everyone. There was some mildly objectionable stuff throughout, but when I say it’s not for everyone I’m thinking more it’s his form of humor that people either get or don’t get. Pratchett is most often compared to Douglas Adams, from what I’ve seen, but I would also throw Piers Anthony in the mix too.

Last up: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I had to read this one because everyone else in the house wanted to go see the movie and I like to read the book first so that I get my own images in my head whilst reading. Plus Some Wife had read the book a while ago and said it was one of the best books she’s read.

And it was a good book. Well worth reading. The movie did a good job of presenting the story, but the book gives so many more details that make the story better.

Some Wife also liked the story The Martian by Andy Weir. It’s in the same flavor as Project Hail Mary, but The Martian book has a lot of foul language whereas Project Hail Mary does not (although it does have a slight bit of adult content). So for PHM I can recommend both the book and the movie, but for The Martian I can recommend the movie but not the book. The movie is much cleaner, although not completely clean.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

I was doing some scouting ahead of the normal time of the annual baby name update, just in case they released the data early and also to see if they changed the format of the data since last year. The answer to both of those is No, in case you were wondering.

But in doing the scouting, I came across this error message from the SSA, and I appreciated the fact that someone there knows what the word “data” means so I just wanted to highlight this.

For those who don’t have strong opinions on the word “data”, what I’m appreciating here is that “data” is correctly used as a plural. The singular is, of course, “datum”. But “data” has been put into general use for long enough that people have been misusing it enough that it is generally accepted as either singular or plural. I’m guessing that person also knows the difference between “I couldn’t care less” and “I could care less”, and that is the type of person whom I want managing data.

Extra credit: explain the correct pronunciation of “data”.

Some people have noted that certain icons on computers and phones don’t hold as much meaning anymore, or the original things aren’t around anymore. Such as the floppy disk icon for saving a file, when no one uses floppy disks anymore. In that spirit, here are some other things that becoming outdated.

• I heard someone use the phrase “don’t let your mouth write a check your body can’t cash”, meaning you’d better be able to backup what you say with what you’re able to do. But only old people use checks anymore. Three of my kids have checking accounts, but really they are debit card and Venmo accounts, as none of them ever got an actual checkbook with checks to write. I’m not sure modernizing the phrase would help though, it just doesn’t sound right – “don’t let your mouth send someone cash you don’t have, through an app”.
• I asked my kids the old joke just to see what they’d say: “How do you stop a rhinoceros from charging?”
  The old answer used to be “Take away his credit card”
  The new answer “Take away his USB cord”
  Honestly, I think the new answer is just as funny as the old one.
• This one is not a saying, but is in a similar situation. No one has to remember phone numbers anymore. Back in the day, you had to dial people’s numbers every time you called them, so after a few times of that you had it memorized. But now no one does that anymore. I couldn’t even tell you my kids’ phone numbers. They can tell you mine, because their elementary school made sure they knew their address and parent’s phone number. But I was heartened to realize that the skill of memorizing phone numbers has not gone away, it just changed from phone numbers to Wifi passwords. Between grandparents’ houses and aunts’ and uncles’ houses, they end up memorizing a variety of random numbers and letters. Even our own Wifi password they have memorized just because of the number of times they’ve had to tell other people it.

This is a guide for how to play the game Hues and Cues.

1. How do I win?
By having the most points at the end of the game.

2. How does the game end?
The game is a set number of rounds, and a round is when each person has been the Clue-Giver. We normally go two rounds, but the official number is higher.

3. How do I get points?
By putting your token close to the color square that the clue giver is getting you to guess. The closer you are, the more points you get. If you are the clue giver you get points for each guess that is close, so you are incentivized to give good clues.

4. How do you give clues?
You draw a card from the draw pile. It has four color with coordinates on the board so you know exactly where it is. Pick one of the colors as yours, and say a one-word clue to describe it (other than a normal color name such as Roy G. Biv). Then once everyone has put in their guess, you get to give a two-word clue to refine the description, and people get to place their second tokens.

5. How do you make guesses?
The board is made of a bunch of different colored squares. You put your token (playing piece) on the square you think best matches the description given. Only one token per square, so if someone before you takes the square you wanted, you are out of luck and must choose a different square.

It’s a fairly easy game, not much to it. It is more of a social game, where the official point of the game is to score points but the unofficial point of the game is for people to interact over the shared task of agreeing what color “fresh salmon” is or what the difference is between “teal” and “aqua” or if “blue-green” is one word.

There, now go play Hues and Cues.

I had the occasion to drive a hands-free car, or rather a car with the possibility of hands-free driving under the correct conditions. A Ford product, specifically.

I got to drive one last year, and quite enjoyed Blue Cruise. This year, they made one noticeable upgrade to the Blue Cruise (BC) system and it is both better and worse. I have no idea how they refer to the versions, so I’m just going to call them the 2025 and 2026 versions.

The only thing I noticed was that the 2025 BC would change lanes for you but only if you initiated it by using the turn signal. Tap it so it blinks in the direction you want to go and it will check to make sure the lane is clear, change lanes for you, and then maintain that new lane. The 2026 version handles lane changes in the same way, but it will also decide on its own to change lanes if it wants to.

It is better because it drives more like it should – passing slower traffic on its own rather than needing your input. It is worse because it doesn’t always choose a good time to pass (like maybe let that guy coming up faster go by first), or necessarily do it well (like why are we still slowing down after we’ve moved into the fast lane? Once we move over let’s start accelerating). Maybe it will get better next year, but for now my suggestion to Ford is to have an option for BC so that people can turn off allowing BC to initiate lane changes on its own. It was way too trigger happy with the lane changes.

I much preferred the 2025 setup. I didn’t use the 2026 setup as much as I would have liked to, because I couldn’t trust it to not change lanes at the wrong time. I did end up using it more in low traffic situations, but turned it off when the traffic around us increased. It would have been nice to have an in-between setting because the 2025 setup would have been just fine.

I did notice some other things too. I happened to be using it when I saw a sign that said our lane would be ending, and I thought that would be a good test. So I did nothing and got to find out that BC doesn’t know what to do when the lane it’s in gradually ends. There was no traffic next to us, so it could have moved over. But what it did was just give up and told me to take over driving when it ran out of lane.

Another thing is that it doesn’t look for potholes. So it will stay in its lane just fine and your tires and suspension may pay a price. On the plus side, you can give it a quick steer to avoid an obstacle and it’ll cooperate with you. Besides, you are supposed to paying attention to the road anyway.

And the last thing is that there doesn’t seem to be any coordination between the nav system and BC. This was most obvious when we had to merge from one freeway to another. I was already in the right-hand lane. With the 2025 system it would have been all good. But the 2026 system noticed that we were going slower than my set speed, and the left lane was open, so it decided just before the exit to change lanes out of the exit lane. At the same time the nav system was telling me to be in the right-hand lane. Maybe the system isn’t ready to integrate turn-by-turn stuff with BC, but let’s start with small things like not making the driver’s job worse. If the nav system says to keep right, then just don’t initiate a lane change to the left.

Most years I just use Turbo Tax, but last year it was annoying having to pay for state e-filing for the kids, so I did theirs with Free Tax USA (AKA FTU).

Then this year I decided to try a different service for the oldest, due to being misled by the state of Michigan website, so I ended up using Cash App Taxes (AKA CAT) for him. It was one of the recommended services both there and elsewhere.

I couldn’t buy the Turbo Tax (AKA TT) software to install anymore, because they don’t support Windows 10 and I don’t support updating software that’s doing everything I need it to do. So I had to switch to the online version. It worked pretty much how TT normally does, except every third screen is an ad for you to pay more for their extra services, and the online version doesn’t tell you the cost until you are at the end, just before filing. It used to be I’d pay $40 for a TT CD, install it, and get free federal e-filing and one state e-filing. Now you don’t really know what they’re charging you for. My total was about $110 this year, and that was with a discount from my credit union.

So I am slightly disillusioned with TT, and will be trying some other options out there next year.

One option I will not be trying again is Cash App Taxes. They have free filing if your AGI is low enough, like many other services do, but there are a lot of things they do not do.

For example, for Alpha’s taxes, he had to file two different state tax returns. CAT did the federal file but when it came time for the states, they just said “Nope, can’t do it. We can’t handle multiple states” So we logged into FTU and they said “Sure, no problem, we’ll e-file two states for you for free.”

Another example was he also needed to amend his federal taxes after they were filed. CAT said “we can do that, but you can’t e-file an amendment so you’ll have to mail them.” Again, FTU to the rescue – not only do they let you e-file an amended return, they’ll let you do it even if you e-filed through someone else initially.

If you’re keeping track, that’s only two strikes against CAT, but I don’t need to wait for the third strike when FTU is getting hits each time. Be sure to use the special “freefile” link when signing in, if you think you’re eligible. If you just sign in at the main page you can miss the savings.

I had to call customer service last week (can’t cancel any services easily online, must give someone a chance to talk you out of it first) and thus spent some time on hold.

It was the standard stuff – a bit of music, then the music stops and gives you a rush of hope that you will be speaking to someone now, only to find out the music stopped so they could play you a recorded announcement, then the music resumes.

In this case, half the announcements were the line “Your call is important to us” and then something about the order in which they take the calls.

I got to wondering about the phrase “your call is important to us”. And I think that is the wrong priority for a company to have. I don’t want them to value my call, I’d rather have them value me. It’s like they’re causing trouble just so I have to call them, because my call is important to them.

I want a company that prioritizes my satisfaction as being important to them.

I want a company that prioritizes getting things right so that customers don’t have to call them.

I do not want a company that prioritizes my calling them as being important to them.

What I would rather hear is “we are sorry you had to call us”.

But the worst thing to hear is information about how I should be using their app or website instead of calling them. Dear companies, my calling you is the last resort. I have already tried your online services and they told me I can’t do whatever it is online and I must call. Or my thing is not an option. Or I got an error. All the people on the phone fall into either that category, or the category of not liking online things or computers in general and so they’d have to call you anyway to have you walk them through it. Don’t pretend that your call numbers will go down if you just tell people about your website – put that effort into making your online options better.