An account of the Battle of Flodden in 1513 is the earliest surviving example of printed news in Britain
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What I'm Reading - Aug. 1
Just Finished
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Curreyy - Bite sized entries of varying size and depth about many famous artists and people of all sorts. It's infotainment. There were no real major insights or realizations, but it was interesting and fun to read.
Currently Consuming
Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away by Ann Hagedorn - Still early into it, but it's interesting and providing context to the era, the Cold War, and the cultures in their respective countries.
This “historical page-turner of the highest order” (The Wall Street Journal) tells the chilling story of an American-born Soviet spy in the atom bomb project in World War II, perfect for fans of The Americans.
George Koval was born in Iowa. In 1932, his parents, Russian Jews who had emigrated because of anti-Semitism, decided to return home to live out their socialist ideals. George, who was as committed to socialism as they were, went with them. There, he was recruited by the Soviet Army as a spy and returned to the US in 1940. A gifted science student, he enrolled at Columbia University, where he knew scientists soon to join the Manhattan Project, America’s atom bomb program. After being drafted into the US Army, George used his scientific background and connections to secure an assignment at a site where plutonium and uranium were produced to fuel the atom bomb. There, and later in a second top-secret location, he had full access to all facilities, and he passed highly sensitive information to Moscow.
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Ann Lembke - Listening to this audiobook. Came to it after hearing her interview on Tim Ferriss' podcast. I've got the audiobook checked out and need to get back to listening to it.
This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting....
The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.
Think Like a Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol - Another Audiobook I have checked out from the library, just started it on the drive home this evening as I wasn't in the mood for Dopamine Nation. Still in the intro but enjoying it.
A former rocket scientist reveals the habits, ideas, and strategies that will empower you to turn the seemingly impossible into the possible.
Rocket science is often celebrated as the ultimate triumph of technology. But it's not. Rather, it's the apex of a certain thought process -- a way to imagine the unimaginable and solve the unsolvable. It's the same thought process that enabled Neil Armstrong to take his giant leap for mankind, that allows spacecraft to travel millions of miles through outer space and land on a precise spot, and that brings us closer to colonizing other planets.
Fortunately, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to think like one.
Next Up
Checkmate in Berlin by Giles Milton - Picked it up based on the read of the book cover, haven't delved in at all.
In Queen Esther's Garden by Vera Basch Moreen (translator) - This line from the book cover caught my interest: "An anthology of Judeo-Persian literature." -- It's far outside my comfort zone and something I'm excited to dive into.
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Did some shopping at the used bookstore tonight
Disclaimer: I work for Wizards of the Coast, makers of Dungeons & Dragons.
We met some friends for dinner, and while we waited for our table to be ready we went next door to Half Price Books. Found some gems. They had more 2nd edition adventures but I only grabbed these two. The handbooks are a little beat up, but I'm thrilled to pick them up. I'm still looking for Player Handbooks from 2nd edition.
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Daily Rituals - 3 out of 5 cups of tea
I finally finished this book. It's a string of entries about the habits and routines of famous artists, authors, architects, etc. I started out reading every entry but by about halfway I began skipping entries for people I'd never heard of. But it was still interesting to be able to compare Isaac Asimov to Stephen King to other great authors, etc.
It's firmly infotainment, no shocking revelations - the vast majority of entries boil down to "Put in the hours to get the work done" no matter the type of art or work they do. Very few claim to be driven purely by bolts of brilliance rather than dogged determination and work habits.
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From Bertrand Russell's The Conquest of Happiness:
There is an element of boredom which is inseparable from the avoidance of too much excitement, and too much excitement not only undermines the health, but dulls the palate for every kind of pleasure, substituting titillations for profound organic satisfactions, cleverness for wisdom, and jagged surprises for beauty. I do not want to push to extremes the objection to excitement. A certain amount of it is wholesome, but, like almost everything else, the matter is quantitative. Too little may produce morbid cravings; too much will produce exhaustion. A certain power of enduring boredom is therefore essential to a happy life, and is one of the things that ought to be taught to the young.
I just took Elwood out for a late/very early walk. I'm back in bed reading and Russell's passage here, in a chapter all about boredom jumps out at me. How smartphones, the internet, and especially social media have largely removed one's ability to be bored except to be such very purposefully. And how doing so floods our brains with dopamine, deadening them just as he wrote.
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Last night I began my second attempt at 'The Three-Body Problem' by Cixin Liu. I have previously attempted it as an audio book and found it too dense to follow. I'm hoping as a physical trade paperback I'll find it more digestible.
And, on my drive to work this morning, I started a new sci-fi audiobook 'Sleeping Giants' by Sylvain Neuvel. I saw someone recommend it on #BookTok and decided to give it a shot since the audiobook was available from the library. 30 minutes in and enjoying it so far, we'll see how it goes.
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On Tolkien and Orwell
A very interesting comparison of two authors who I had no inkling of looking at as comparable.
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Do you believe in God? I know it's a personal question. I do. And I think He was pretty awesome to make relativity a thing, don't you? The faster you go, the less time you experience. It's like He's inviting us to explore the universe, you know?
Religion is not a thing I feel particularly strongly for these days, but I really like this passage from Hail Mary. I've been greatly enjoying the book and am within a stone's throw of finishing it.
PS - Glowbug idea, a growing list of 'auto replacements' for known links. For example, I could add 'Hail Mary' and have it be italicized and linked to the book listing online. Will need to think on it, adding it to the coding backlog.
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I am really enjoying Weir's Hail Mary. I didn't really know what is was about, and I'm glad I went into it dark. It turns out it is one of my favorite subgenres of sci-fi.
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"We have figured this out, yes," said Dimitri. "With lasers. It was very illuminating experiment."
"Was that a pun?"
"It was!"
"Good one!"
We both laughed. Stratt glared at us.
I am reading Hail Mary by Andy Weir finally and this little interchange made me laugh out loud. Honest nerd humor as they geeked out in a part of the story.
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Hank Green's - An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
I just finished the audiobook for Hang Green's latest book. I haven't read any of his other books, but this was overall an enjoyable listen. I won't say it is amazing, it feels for much of the book like a thin veil over the events of 2020 but it is still an enjoyable story. As with most books, I found the finish of the book a bit unsatisfying. I don't know if I simply have too-high expectations for books, if endings are that hard to pull off, or more likely a mixture of both.
I give it a rating of 🤖 🤖 🤖 / 🤖 🤖 🤖 🤖 🤖
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The new reading stack
Stack, in this case, refers to the usage for 'stack' as a package / unit of technology. Used for 'stack' of servers and the technology used by them. I enjoyed this post because it shares some very interesting sites, many I already knew, but I am definitely going to check out readng.co as a replacement for Goodreads.
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Tibetan Book of Proportions for how to draw or display Budda
The Tibetan Book of Proportions is an eighteenth century manual that gives precise iconometric guidelines for depicting the Buddha and Bodhisattva figures
The Tibetan Book of Proportions is an eighteenth century manual that gives precise iconometric guidelines for depicting the Buddha and Bodhisattva figures. A standardized grid with numerical notations is used for both marking the measurements of the figures and for arranging the posture of the figures within a composition. Written in Newari script with Tibetan numerals, the book is likely to have been produced in Nepal for use in Tibet. It is presently held by the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
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