By @edent · Book Review Sci Fi · 3 comments · 400 words
Everyone smokes in the future. It is such an obvious truism that sci-fi writers can predict faster-than-light travel, yet fail to see that manly men won't be smoking pipes on board their spaceships. Someone recommended that I read "Autofac" which is the sci-fi version of "The Magic Porridge Pot". But the story was surprisingly hard […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review technology · 450 words · read ~385 times.
I was saddened to hear of Kris Nóva's untimely death a few weeks ago. I had her book "Hacking Capitalism" on my eReader for several months, but hadn't got around to reading it yet. Never put these things off. The book is a complicated but fitting legacy. It absolutely showcases Nóva's ideas, ideals, and potential. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review Cory Doctorow internet politics · 650 words · read ~215 times.
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 […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review · 200 words
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 […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review LGBT · 1 comment · 500 words
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 his0 autobiography - famous for being infamous, notorious for being Proud before Pride, or an uncompromising icon of studied awfulness. The […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review · 2 comments · 150 words
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 […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review technology · 1 comment · 350 words · read ~201 times.
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 […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review Sci Fi · 400 words
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. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review design · 3 comments · 1,050 words
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 […]
Continue reading →By @edent · beatles Book Review · 200 words
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 […]
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