This is beloved firebrand Cory doing what he does best. Rallying the rebellion with righteous indignation and a no-nonsense approach to fixing technology's ills. If you've read any of his fiction, or listened to him talk, you'll know what to expect. An overview of how big tech has screwed us over and the consequences of those machinations. Unlike other writers, Doctorow provides eminently practical solutions. Now, some of the solutions you'll be unable to implement unless you're an elected…
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The first section of this book are, frankly, dull. It's the sort of sneering, middle-class soap opera which leaves me cold. Entitled twats ignoring the world around them. It's a stultifying atmosphere which nearly made me stop after a few chapters. And then... It's amazing just how well that cloying sense of safety is gradually shattered beyond repair. I knew very little about Biafran War. It is a harrowing period of history. Told through the eyes of ambiguous and unsympathetic characters,…
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It occurs to me that I mostly read modern books. But sometimes I dip into the classics to see what modern literature is built upon. Quentin Crisp was - depending on how you read his autobiography - famous for being infamous, notorious for being Proud before Pride, or an uncompromising icon of studied awfulness. The book veers wildly between achingly painful prose and unimaginably bitchy barbs. Every page is stuffed with acid-drops of social commentary. About my immortal soul I did not…
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This is a sickly sweet and somewhat preposterous book - but it is a lot of fun. Fifties feminism and cooking go together like bangers and mash. Chemistry and gender politics are the garnish on top. I loved the way it told the story from multiple points of view - even the pet dog gets in on the act. I've no idea if the science was accurate, but it was delightful to be swept away by something so charming. It is an excellent story - it's all wish fulfilment and unlikely co-incidence. But isn't…
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Computers, eh? Leave them for five minutes and they become obsolete. Leave them for five years and they become legacy infrastructure. How do we deal with a tower of "quick fixes" which are older than Moses? What strategies do we need to stop teams going mad as they try to upgrade a Spitfire into a 747 while in flight? This is Marianne Bellotti's attempt to explain how we get there and - just maybe - how we stop legacy cruft from building up in the first place. I found myself highlighting…
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I'm a little behind on my reading - I've been busy, OK! This is a collection of tales from 2014. Which means it isn't in the shadow of a damned pandemic, lunatic president, or any of the other modern horrors which have caused shockwaves to authors' psyches. I love short stories. There's absolutely no commitment. I'm not going to be tricked into buying endless sequels of declining quality. There's no vast universe for me to get invested in. And if one's a bit disappointing, never mind; turn…
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This is an interesting - although frustrating at times - book. It asks a pretty big question - how do we embed justice in to the ways we designs apps and services? I couldn't find much to disagree with (although I have the odd quibble) but some of the language it uses is very exclusionary unless you're terminally online in very specific communities. "Undocuqueer", "heteropatriarchy", "LGBTQIATS" - I scuttled off to the glossary more than once to try and understand what was being talked about. …
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This was a cheap Kindle deal, so I took a punt. It's a collection of stories whose titles mirror the tracks of Please Please Me. Except... They kinda don't? A couple of the stories are explicitly Beatle-y, the others aren't. The titles don't seem to bear any resemblance to the stories told. Indeed, one was obviously originally named "Octopus's Garden" - featuring a rather good tale of a man who dreams he's an octopus, and vice-versa - but has been shoved into the "There's A Place" slot. There …
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I thought I wasn't clever enough to read this book. The intro and first section are very challenging if you're not already familiar with philosophy and literary criticism. However, I struggled through and found something quite wonderful. Let's start with what this is about: I advocate for the development of computational poetics: a strategy of interpretation capable of reaching past surface content to reveal platforms and infrastructures that stage the construction of meaning. Where…
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This is a modern Arabian Nights. Eight Middle Eastern tales of adventure and magic, infused with a startling modernity. I loved the world-building in this. The creeping horror in some of the tales was offset by the delicious exploration of what it means to inhabit a world with Djinn. Interestingly, it seemed very scripture-heavy to me- with characters reciting little prayers and quoting from the Qur'an. Would I noticed that if the characters were Christians? It shows just how deeply embedded…
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I wish I could remember who recommended this book to me. It's not something that I'd usually choose to read, but it was surprisingly interesting. How did Romans take a shit? That's at the heart of this book. Not just the how - but the why, the when, and the where. How did foreign toilet habits influence the state? Was hygiene properly understood? What are the limits of Roman engineering. The book is interesting without being particularly entertaining. This isn't a Mary Roach style wander…
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The bad news is - this book isn't released until September 2023... The good news is - I have an advance reader copy. So I get to revel in it now! I appreciate that you might not consider that much of an upside. But sucks to be you, I guess? Scalzi's writing reminds me why I love to read. It is fast, funny, and filled with righteous ire. The plot is... look, it's identical to Scalzi's other books. "Who? Me? A nerdy guy is called on to save the world? But all I have is my nerdy references and…
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