Review: Reamde: A Novel by Neal Stephenson

Engaging thriller. Unexpected twists for fun.

I'm thinking he wanted to comment on terrorism, and also on gold-farming, and ended up bashing them into each other for this novel. That's ok, and made for a gripping read. It's not really scifi, it's more spy novel in the end.

Some of the convergence was forced - there were some hard-to-believe chance encounters to drive everyone together at the end.

amazon link

Review: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Compelling, unexpected. Not a pop-sci book. Personal experiences from the author, adjustments and discussion of how he changed his life.

amazon link

Zero History, by William Gibson

Many of the gadgets are real:
Festo air penguin, and manta ray.
The smartphone was inspired by a DIY Linux phone, says twitter.

Dishwasher UI fail

How can a dishwasher have a UI? Mine does. It's got a flat buttons on the front, so it's easy to lean on it and push one accidentally. So my wife likes to turn on "control lock", so that doesn't happen. Fine so far.

To turn off "control lock", you hold it for 3 seconds. The fail? There is no indication when you've held it long enough.

*press* One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand *release*. Press Start. blinking control lock no-no light again! GRRRRRrrrrrrr!

Review: Black Hole, Blankets

Black Hole by Charles Burns
Blankets by Craig Thompson

I borrowed them and read them (a while back in April). Both worth it.

a bike ride

In the wilds of carrboro:

View 2011-08-07 19:04 North in a larger map
Up and down and all around.

Review: The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, by Thomas L. Friedman

I read it, it took a while. I found myself annoyed with keeping track of all the analogies. He'd introduce a concept, then say, "This is something I call the Golden Straightjacket" and I'd think What a strange name, why do I need a shorthand for this? And then he'd refer to it several times. There were lots and lots of these, DOScapital 1.0, Electronic Herd, bleck. Here's an amazon review that was annoyed, too.

I did find it informative, but I think I'm going to read 'Guns germs and steel' before any more of his later books.

PBSwap link. Reminded me that he mentions Enron's management with approval, and found their use of derivatives inevitable.

A scattered review. I finished the book ~1 month ago, so I'm forgetting pieces.