TLDR version:

0x80070643 is probably thrown when you don't have the right software version, in other words, the update is not for you. Sometimes you need to upgrade your software in order for it to apply. To fix the problem with SQL Server, try installing the SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 2 if you are still at SP1.

Now for the full version:

I thought the way Windows updates is a good thing. It keeps the computer up to date, regardless of how annoying it is to stop your work in order to perform updates. The problem, though, appears when having to perform an update that fails. Windows Update will nag at you again and again and again that you have updates. You don't have the option to ignore an update (unless you download a specific tool) so you are forced to solve any problem with the update. This is still a good thing, even if annoying. And if regular people that don't know how to solve issues like that are angered enough, it will also motivate Microsoft to test their updates better. Win, win. Unless it happens to you!

Anyway, this blog post is about KB4019099 or KB4032542 - Cumulative Update 13 for SQL Server 2014 SP1 which failed with a vague error code Error 0x80070643, which is met in several situations when trying to install stuff. In order to get to the bottom of the problem, I manually downloaded the installer for the update and tried again.

This time the error was clearer: TITLE: SQL Server Setup failure.
------------------------------

SQL Server Setup has encountered the following error:

The cached MSI file 'C:\WINDOWS\Installer\1bfcbd.msi' is missing.
Its original file is 'sql_engine_core_inst.msi' and it was installed for product 'SQL Server 2014 Database Engine Services' from 'F:\x64\setup\sql_engine_core_inst_msi\', version '12.1.4100.1', language 'ENU'.
To resolve this problem, recover the missing file from the installation media and start setup again.
For more information about how to resolve this problem, see 'Steps to restore the missing Windows Installer cache files' (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=144387) in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Error code 0x84B20002.

For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=20476...

Amazingly enough, the link that is supposed to solve the problem actually solves the problem. First of all the go.microsoft.com link causes too many redirects for Chrome, so you have to open it in some other browser. Once you do that, you reach this link: How to restore the missing Windows Installer cache files and resolve problems that occur during a SQL Server update and at the end you get a VBS script that seems to repair missing C:\Windows\Installer files from the original installation source.

The first thing the page says is to try setup.exe /ACTION=REPAIR /INDICATEPROGRESS=TRUE from the original installation source for SQL Server 2014, which of course you don't have anymore. But even if you do have it and you run the command, it fails near the end with a funny error: "C:\WINDOWS\Installer\1bfa87.msi" So the only possible solution is to run the VBS script. After that, the update install actually started.

... and failed with another error: The upgrade cannot be installed by the Windows Installer service because the program to be upgraded may be missing, or the upgrade may update a different version of the program. Verify that the program to be upgraded exists on your computer and that you have the correct upgrade.
Error code: 1642. Why are you asking me to upgrade something if I don't even have the version you need?! I've tried the setup repair option, just to see if anything else changed since running FindSQLInstalls.vbs, but I got the same error.

Under the assumption that the "original installation source" is actually not enough - since there was a Service Pack 2 released since I've installed SQL Server from a kit, I've downloaded the SP2 file. Maybe it has a repair option. Ran it, and it ran successfully. Could it be that I never upgraded my SQL Server instance? Yes. Then all those "different version" messages actually make some sense.

Once I did that, Windows Update presented me with different updates altogether! Note that the original update said "SQL Server 2014 SP1" when executed.

Some of the updates installed OK, some failed, mainly Security Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (KB2645410) and Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (KB2635973). These are updates from 2012 and are related to the standalone VS version used by SQL Server Management Studio. I tried a restart, the updates remained there to annoy me. They both failed with error code 0x80070643 and when tried to install them manually they both reported the wrong software version.

Perhaps it is from all the meddling. Installing SP2 would have probably solved all the problems.

I hope it takes you less time to figure this out, once you've read this article.

Update: How to solve the issue of obsolete Visual Studio 2010 updates:

I've downloaded the Microsoft Fixit tool for forceful uninstall of software, even if the installer is not cached in C:\Windows\Installer. Then I uninstalled "Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 ENU". At this moment SQL Server 2014 Management Studio would not work anymore due to a missing component. Then I reinstalled Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Isolated) Redistributable Package. At this moment SQL Server 2014 worked again. Then I ran Windows Update, which found several updates to download, including a Service Pack 1 and several others. Their installation went with only a hitch, a random 0x80246007 (BITS service) error that went away when I retried the update. I started Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Management Studio, just to be sure it worked, and it did. Finally.

Thus endeth the saga of the reluctant Windows Updates.

The Fireman has a lot going for it: world ending global pandemic, superpowers, people finding strategies in order to survive, communities giving into the mob mentality, heroes fighting evil, etc. Joe Hill writes well and the story captivated me from start to end.

That being said, there are some issues with the book. The story is about a global infection with a fungus that makes people burst into flames, but narrowly focuses on a few characters in a small American town. Yet the story abounds in details for every scene: what everybody does, what they think, how the scene changes. Also, while there are some explanations of why things happen the way they do, close scrutiny destroys any logical explanation, so less material would have helped suspension of disbelief. I feel like a little editing that would have removed 10-20% of the book would have benefited it greatly, fixing some issues with pacing. There were times when I just had to skip paragraphs, as in moments of tension the author insisted of describing all kinds of inconsequential things.

Also, at the end of some chapters, there were little phrases where the character would disclose the outcome of the next chapter. I did not appreciate that. Imagine a scene where a character is hopeful and, instead of hoping with them and then being devastated by the story, you just go through the scene knowing how it is going to end. Don't do that, Joe!

It was interesting that the main protagonist (who is not a fireman, BTW, that was a silly title) is a woman. Her character, abused, manipulated and lied to by people in authority in her life, is almost feminist in nature. Other secondary characters are also female or children, with the writing focusing on human relationships. If I didn't know better, I would have said the book was written by a woman. I can only commend Joe Hill for being so good at describing the world and the people from the eyes of this character.

Other than that, the story was really fresh. I don't want to spoil anything here, enough to say that it made my emotions alternate wildly between excitement, fear, disgust and frustration. While optimistic in nature, The Fireman describes so many ways in which people just give in to their inner selfishness and evil. The themes touched by the story vary, but gravitate around one central idea of human relationships: a couples, as communities and what happens when these seemingly good things are contaminated with fear. These are themes one is used to find in Stephen King books and, surprise!, Joe Hill is actually King's son. He is trying his best not to advertise this, though, and I think he is a good writer on his own.

The characters are very human, well created, frustrating in their mistakes, just like normal people are. The author made the lead characters a bit too clean, always taking the high road, always being spared of the tough soul scarring choices by their environment or the people around them. I thought that was a weak point in the book. Without being forced to make hard choices, characters have no reasons to evolve.

Anyway, my recommendation is to read this book. It is scifi and fantasy and clinical dissection of humanity. It is well written, even if a little too long for its story.

Almost two years ago, Variety was reporting that the book was being developed by Fox into a movie, yet there is no other information more recent about this.

I wasn't going to discuss this, but I am being assaulted from all sides by people who have on opinion or another on the Google "Anti diversity manifesto", how the media likes to call it, spread at Google by an employee and his subsequent firing right afterwards. So I will say a few words, but not about the content of the document, only on the reaction to it.

Let's be honest here, what happened was that someone criticized the way things are at Google and then he got fired. He did it in a whitepaper-like document in which he exposed his opinions on what he perceived as problems and possible solutions. I believe his biggest mistake was not substantiate his opinions with previous research, thus dispelling some of his beliefs and strengthening others as fact, but that's beside the point. You can read the document, as well as the response from the Google's new Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance, whatever that means.

James Damore, the employee who wrote the memo, was fired for violating the company's code of conduct by "perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes". What I want to focus on is that the response of Google was based on the fact that they couldn't possibly assign people to work with this guy, once he said something that was controversial, potentially offensive. By logical extension, no one can express something controversial in the company. Would you like to work there? They see it as something positive. The legalese for that is Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views, including different political views, feel safe sharing their opinions. But that discourse needs to work alongside the principles of equal employment found in our Code of Conduct, policies, and anti-discrimination laws. What started as an open discussion, ended abruptly by termination, the employment equivalent of a death sentence for dissension. A personal equivalent would be "if you think like that, then we can't be friends anymore".

While the decision makes sense in the short run, in the long run it only hurts Google, both on a mediatic level and a financial one. However right or wrong, the author of the paper wanted to solve something he saw as problems in the company. I would want that type of person to be part of my company. And if the problems he sees are artificial, I would like to think I would try to convince him of that before firing him. Of course, Google doesn't have to do anything, because what they did is legal, but I am not talking about anything legal here. I am talking about companies having to take care about all their employees, not only the ones they like.

Personally, I wouldn't like to work in a place where I would need to guard my every word, hide my opinions and my thoughts, for fear of crossing some general line or code of conduct. I wouldn't like to work in a place that couldn't care less about me as a person. And if I were to work in such a place (ahem!) then I would create a narrative that would protect my fragile psyche, something like "they would never do that!". Well, Google did it! In a very public and bland and careless way. This will only give strength to the other narrative, the one of the former employees, released from their very strict NDAs, who complain about the same things Damore was fired for trying to solve in the first place.

Now, don't you miss the times when Microsoft was the bad guy?

There is a rule in writing, that if you are trying to tell the story from the viewpoint of another character than the main one, for example the villain, and it is boring, then your story is not good enough. It seems to me that this was the cardinal rule that Manuel Gonzales used to write The Regional Office Is Under Attack!. He wrote tiny interlaced chapters that alternately were describing the action, then the motivations and personalities of the characters through flashbacks. At first it felt fresh, then it just got annoying. There is only so much you want to hear internal monologues.

It would have been great if the story would have been better, or if the characters would have really been fleshed out. However, this book feels more like an exercise in writing, a funky experiment, than a real story. There are very intimate details about how people thought and why they did some things, but they also are empty, doll like characters. And that is too bad, because Gonzales is clearly a talented writer and the plot made me want to read on and find out what will happen to all the characters, only to be left high and dry at the end of the book, which stopped abruptly and spitefully. It was like "Hey, you wanted something else than to experience my new idea? Fuck you! You get nothing."

In the end, it was something that felt like a fairy tale, reinvented for art's sake and modernized just because it's fashionable. It's not even a first part of a series or something. It's a standalone book that showcases the author's idea of presenting many viewpoints on some incidents that have only marginal connection to science and fiction. It could have just as well been a soap opera about highschoolers and be just the same book. It wasn't bad, but I can't quite recommend it either.

I've decided the functionality of the Bookmark Explorer extension was pretty close to final and, before I refactor it to a new form, I wanted to make sure it works for all the browsers that support the WebExtensions mechanism, mainly Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Frankly, I have no idea why anyone would use Firefox or Opera, but if you do, I've got great news for you: I have published the extension for all of them:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Opera

Haven't tested extensively, I am going to do that in the near future, but rejoice, now you can read your news at speed and comfort, then remove them from your bookmarks once you have grown tired. There are some changes to the extension that need to be addressed:

• The most significant is changing the keyboard shortcut for "Previous Bookmark" to Ctrl-Shift-O for Firefox and Opera, because changing extension key shortcuts in Firefox is really difficult and Ctrl-Shift-K is already used by the developer tools
• The default settings have been updated. Now, when you install the extension for the first time you will get:
  • 30 second wait for the "Read Later" links to autoclose, giving the browser time to cache the title and icon
  • Preload next tab is now true by default, leading to loading the content of the next news item while you read the current one
  • When creating bookmarks - from anywhere - their URLs will be stripped of some marketing bullshit
• A lot of bug fixes and speed improvements went into this aparrently minor release

I also plan to make a video of how to use the extension, since letting users read the long description and figure out what the extension does didn't quite work :) I am considering changing the name of the extension for version 3 and I am open to suggestions. I am thinking of Bookmark Surf or something like this. Please let me know of any problems with the extension. I will fix bugs and I will write new features if I agree they are good for my users. All you have to do is ask!

Enjoy!

Update: I was so happy that Firefox for Android supports addons that I just installed it immediately and expected it to work. Unfortunately, the support for the Web Extensions API is very limited for the Android version, most importantly not having a bookmarks API, so the Bookmark Explorer doesn't work. I did make the extension more robust, though, by debugging it on the Android version.

Finally, finally there is a TV series about an asteroid coming towards Earth and what we are going to do about it. It is called Salvation and it fails in every single respect.

The first alarm bell was Jennifer Finnigan, the female costar from Tyrant. She was terribly annoying in that show where she posed as the voice of reason and common sense, while being a nagging and demanding wife to the ruler of a foreign country. I thought "shame on you, Siderite! Just because she was like that in that show it's no reason to hold it against the actress". In Salvation, she plays the annoying nagging and demanding voice of reason and common sense as girlfriend to the secretary of the DOD.

But that's the least of the problems of the show. The idea is that a brilliant MIT student figures out there is an asteroid coming towards Earth. He tells his professor, who then calls someone and then promptly disappears, with goons watching his house. Desperate, he finds a way to reach to an Elon Musk wannabe and tell him the story. Backed by this powerful billionaire, he then contacts the government, which, surprise!, knew all about it and already had a plan. Which fails. Time to bring in the brilliant solution of the people who care: the EM drive! For which there is a need of exactly two billion dollars and one hundred kilograms of refined uranium. And that's just episode 2.

The only moment we actually see the asteroid is in a 3D holographic video projection, coming from most likely a text data file output of a tool an MIT student would build. Somehow that turns into a 3D rendering on the laptop of the billionaire. Not only does it crash into Earth, but it shows the devastation on the planet as a fire front. Really?

Bottom line: imagine something like Madam Secretary which somehow mated with the pilot episode of the X-Files reboot. Only low budget and boring as hell. There is no science, no real plot, no sympathetic characters, nothing but artificial drama which one would imagine to be pointless in a show about the end of the world, and ridiculously beautiful people acting with the skill of underwear models (Mark Wahlberg excluded, of course). Avoid it at all costs.

Update: oh, in episode 3, the last one I will watch, they send a probe to impact the asteroid and they do it like: "OK, we have a go from the president!" And in the next minute they watch (in real time from Io and from a front camera on the probe) how it is heading towards the asteroid. I mean... why write a story and not make it use anything real? What's the point in that? Even superhero movies are more realistic than this disaster. I know the creators of the show did other masterpieces such as Extant and Scream: The TV Series and Hawaii Five-O, they don't know any better, but at least they could have tried to improve just a tiny sliver. Instead they shat on our TV screens.

I loved this book about the far future where humanity is ruled by benevolent AIs and vicious technological wars are being fought with xenophobic alien races. The greatest quality of Dark Intelligence is how it managed to define a world of varying degrees of power and intelligence that somehow manage to coexist without straining suspension of disbelief. I also liked that throughout the book there were hints on various hidden truths in the story, but Neal Asher didn't simply spoil the ending with them, nor did said ending rely solely on disclosing the twists that were glimpsed from those hints. The style of the writing was focused, easy to read, capturing the reader in the world the author created. I finished the book in just two days.

The subject of the story is also one that is very dear to my heart: what is the meaning of identity and personal purpose in life when anything can be changed, altered by either yourself or others, sometimes god like intelligences that just don't see galactic life as any more interesting than we would an ant hill. And while the book is part of a series set in a universe that Asher wrote a bunch of books about, the story is quite stand alone and can be read with pleasure without fear of a cliffhanger ending ruining it all. I liked it and probably I will try other books from the series and from this author.

It was difficult for me to finish Tea From An Empty Cup. While it was a rather classic cyberpunk novel, which I usually enjoy, I felt it was obsolete in a way that could not be fixed. You know, like when designers or artists try to imagine how computers will be in the future. Only after reading it I realized it was written in 1998, so it was normal for that time and age to misunderstand how humans behave in networked environments, but still... even if the subject was a bit interesting, I actually had to make an effort to go through with it. I think the reason for why I didn't like the book was that the characters were paper thin. Concerned to describe a chaotic virtual reality world in which anything is possible and nothing is regulated (although everything is billed), Pat Cadigan forgot to make us feel anything for the protagonists. And considering that this is a story about how technology is affecting our perception of identity, it made the book unpalatable.

Imagine a Matrix in which people enter voluntarily because the real world is boring by comparison. They create their own intricate fantasies that go well beyond the basic human needs like food or sex and focus on social cues that the participants struggle to constantly redefine and grab for themselves. In this, Pat Cadigan was spot on. However, other than this simple idea that nowadays is ubiquitous on the Internet via the various social networks, the book is nothing but a boring detective story, complete with the "normal" policeman character that enters this virtual world as a complete noob and somehow solves the case. The action is very inconsistent and the feeling I got from the flow of the plot was one of a dream sequence where stuff is cool just by merely being defined as such. At no time while reading the book I was enticed by the scenes in the story.

The concepts inside the book are interesting, but explored very little. The author seems to be under the impression that by merely listing them, the story will somehow become interesting by association, an ironic parallel with the characters in the book. Just think that this book was published at the same time The Matrix movie was released. The difference in quality between the two stories is just too big.

Central Station describes a very interesting cyberpunk style of future, where amazing yet commonplace technology mixes with the traditional and with the local culture in a world in which the Solar System has been colonized. And then the book ends. Lavie Tidhar manages to imagine all of this creative world, but doesn't succeed on making the book more than the collection of short stories it actually is. That doesn't mean the book is not worth reading or that other works from the author will not benefit from the world building in it, but it feels like a missed opportunity. The book is short, it describes interactions between a surprisingly small and somehow related people and then it just ends with none of the threads in it being resolved in any way. The main character remains as the background city of Central Station, former Tel Aviv.

The writing style is also a bit heavy. It is descriptive, a little pretentious, but it might have felt like that because I was reading in the subway or when going to sleep and I wasn't in the mood for intellectual work. Even so I believe that a lighter style with more attention to story development would have benefited this book.

Bottom line: I liked the story immediately and felt betrayed after it abandoned me right when I was intrigued enough to seek closure. It is worth a read and I hope Tidhar expands the world in other stories beyond the insular location of the book. I am also looking forward to reading other things from the same author.

Oh, SyFy does it again with a show that is wild, totally over the top and really really fun. Post-apocalypse, hot rod cars that use human blood for fuel, cannibals, wild sex, murder sprees, wild people, Colin Cunningham, corporate overlords, awakened psychotic robots, making fun of corporate overlords, ridiculously attractive people surrounded by ridiculously ugly people... Blood Drive is just too silly to care and too wild to not enjoy. I am watching the third episode already and I am laughing my ass off: "Praise synergy for it provides us with low hanging fruit!", you gotta love that.

Update: of course something truly fun can't last. Blood Drive has been cancelled after just one season.

Finally, a fresh, unapologetically sci-fi story with so many interesting ideas and cultural innovation that I can barely wait for the second book in the series to come out.

Yoon Ha Lee creates this far into the future universe in which everything from social structure to space travel and military technology is run by rigid doctrine that uses a particular calendar. Certain battle formations, using certain weapons, doing specific things leads to "exotic effects", carefully manipulated through higher mathematics, that power society and military expansion. Of course, there are multiple possible calendaristical configurations, but they interfere with each other, so after choosing one, any deviation is considered heretical. Add to this an Asian view of hierarchy and politics and you get the most delicious book I've read in a long, long time.

Ninefox Gambit is, unfortunately, merely the beginning of the story. While one could consider the entire thing a standalone book that leaves the rest of the story to the imagination of the reader, the rich universe that it creates makes followups inevitable. In this case, I can barely wait for them. There isn't much else to say about the book other than urge you to read it. As with any good writing, the plot is simple, but the individual scenes give its flavor. It is an almost unspoilable story, since it doesn't rely much on twists, but on bringing value in every chapter, through rich characterization and original scenecraft.

The Mist is a novella by Stephen King that has been adapted into a great horror movie. I mean, I rated the movie 10 out of 10 stars. So when the TV show The Mist came around I was ecstatic. And then... I watched three episodes of the most insipid and obnoxious series I've seen since Under The Dome. Nay, since Fear of the Walking Dead.

Imagine they removed most of the monsters and replaced them with mostly insects, then they enhanced everything else: small town politics, family matters, teenagers, etc. OK, the original Mist was great because it showed the greatest ugliness was not the interdimensional creatures, but the pettiness of humans. However, it was the right balance between the two. Now, in a TV show that censors words like "fuck", you get to see teenage angst, drug rape, power hungry egotistic policemen, one of the most beautiful actresses from Vikings relegated to the role of an overprotective mother, husband and wife interactions - lots of those, junkies, amnesiac soldiers, priests, goth kids, nature freaks, old people... oh, the humanity! Three episodes in which nothing happened other than exposition, introduction of lots of characters no one cares for and that's about it.

I am tired. I really am tired of hearing that price is driven by offer and demand - which is quite true because that's the definition of price, it has nothing to do with actual value. Same with stories: they are all about people, because people care about people and most people are people. No need for anything too exotic when all you need to do to please most people is to show them other most people. Grand from a marketing point of view, but quite pointless overall, I would say. But who's gonna listen to me, I am not most people after all.

Bottom line: lately there has been a lot of effort invested into TV. HBO and Netflix have led the way by caring about their productions enough to make them rival and even beat not only film productions, but also the original literary material. This has led me to hope against hope that The Mist will be the best horror TV show out there, one that would maybe last two or three seasons at most, but burn a bright light. Instead it is a dying fire that wasn't properly lit and is probably going to take two or three seasons just to properly die out without anyone noticing it is gone, yet managing to poison the legacy of the film forever.

The only fantastical element in this book, except for a ghost that makes a short appearance, is a change in location. The rest is historical fiction in some place that feels exactly like Renaissance Europe, only it has another name and other gods. Worst than that, the story is boring and the writing mediocre. I couldn't finish it.

The story in Children of Earth and Sky follows a few chosen characters while they navigate the treacherous waters lying between warring (and spying) nations. I mean this both metaphorically and literally, since it is also about ships crossing the sea. Guy Gavriel Kay has been writing published works since 1984 which is why I was surprised to see such an amateurish writing style. He uses several tools again and again and again, without much effect. The worse, for me, was describing the same scene from different viewpoints, one after another, even if it did nothing to enrich the story or develop characters. Another is a certain repetition of a phrase for emphasis, something like "He didn't like the book. He didn't." OK, emphasized enough! Also I felt that the author coddled his characters too much. Instead of making them suffer in interesting situations, he just lets them off easy with crises that they can easily handle or at least manage with heroic skill. In one of the most important scenes, one of a battle, he kills off a major character, at which point I was thinking "OK, it's getting started", only to resurrect them immediately after. Ugh!

So beside being a boring historical drama (I mean boring even for a historical drama!), it really nagged me that it was marketed as fantasy. Maybe I am just getting fed up, considering I've just read a western and a heist story, both included in the fantasy and sci-fi genre because they happened in the future or in spaaaaaace. Bottom line: I can't in good conscience recommend this book and I am quite amazed that it has such a high rating.

At first I thought Realm of the Damned would be boring. It was a series of comic book images animated via moving them around or deforming them, while a narrator was speaking on the background. The story also had the seeds that have been used so many times with little success: Van Helsing, vampires, werewolves and so on. But it was only one hour long, how bad could it be? And as the story progressed I really enjoyed the experience. And it wasn't because of the gory graphics or the strong voices or the heavy metal music as much as it was the story. Surprisingly deep, it explores not only a world that is dominated by undead monsters, but the inner turmoils of the last defender of humanity. The ending was gripping and terrible and funny at the same time.

I recommend it highly. Here is the trailer:

Three is a western. The fact that it happens in a post apocalyptic cyberpunk world is incidental. Jay Posey writes about the classical strong silent reluctant hero who fights for a good cause represented by a woman who has changed her ways and her innocent child. There are cyber zombies, there are evil pursuers and a world in which the strong survive in strongholds that are few and far between.

The book works because the writing is good and because the author never attempts to explain what happened to the world or how things actually work. It could have just as well been magic and pixie dust and the story would have remained basically unchanged. And unlike what the title of the review might indicate, you can read the book as a stand alone story, even if it has sequels. It had a beginning, a middle and a resolution.

Bottom line: an enjoyable book, albeit a bit predictable. Its strong suit is the good writing rather than a particularly smart idea or world building or even subtle characterization. Characters are kind of cardboard, but their actions and what happens around them is all well written. I don't think I will continue to read the series, but the author intrigues me and so I may read other books of his, like the new Outriders.