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On Tyranny

A short read which should really be required reading for the world right now.

Here are a few passages I highlighted from the book.

These two excepts came from the Prologue of the book:

Since the American colonies declared their independence from a British monarchy that the Founders deemed "tyrannical," European history has seen three major democratic moments: after the First World War in 1918, after the Second World War in 1945, and after the end of communism in 1989.

Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people.

From Chapter 1 "Do not obey in advance":

Crucially, people who were not Nazis looked on with interest and amusement.

From Chapter 3 "Beware the one-party state":

The American abolitionist Wendell Phillips did in fact say that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." He added that "the manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten."

From Chapter 5 "Remember professional ethics":

If lawyers had followed the norm of no execution without trial, if doctors had accepted the rule of no surgery without consent, if businessmen had endorsed the prohibition of slavery, if bureaucrats had refused to handle paperwork involving murder, then the Nazi regime would have been much harder pressed to carry out the atrocities by which we remember it.

This section is largely reminding that the Nazi atrocities relied on professionals bending to the evil acts of others to either support directly or at least not impede. The government machine we see happening in DC is the system working as it resists the changes the government is undergoing.

From Chapter 7 "Be reflective if you must be armed":

Yet we make a great mistake if we imagine that the Soviet NKVD or the Nazi SS acted without support. Without the assistance of regular police forces, and sometimes regular soldiers, they could not have killed on such a large scale.

This section largely says "look, if you're going to get a gun, don't lose perspective." But again, similar to the above, it's a reminder that secret police rely on the support of local law enforcement. Which makes the local PD and Sheriff departments refusal to help with ICE etc. are critical resistance elements.

Chapter 10 "Believe in truth":

Post-truth is pre-fascism.

Chapter 14 "Establish a private life":

What the great political thinker Hannah Arendt meant by totalitarianism was not an all-powerful state, but the erasure of the difference between private and public life.

Chapter 17 "Listen for dangerous words":

The way to destroy all rules, he explained, was to focus on the idea of the exception. A Nazi leader outmaneuvers his opponents by manufacturing a general conviction that the present moment is exceptional, and then transforming that state of exception into a permanent emergency. Citizens then trade real freedom for fake safety.

The Wager - DNF

I finally gave in on trying to read The Wager. I think it is a me-thing and not a commentary on the book. It's an interesting fictionalized telling of a historical event based on journals and other historic records.

I am about 45% of the way through and I just... lost motivation to keep going on it. It's well reviewed and many people enjoy it, so it's not a universal experience with the book, but I just have decided to, well, abandon ship.

"William F. Buckley's Bill Never Came Due"

I don't intend to read the book, but I found this summary and review to be a fantastic read.

Perhaps the highest praise I can offer a book that took 27 years to complete and runs over 1,000 pages is that I can see why, and that it doesn't feel like it. Sam Tanenhaus's extremely long and anxiously awaited biography of the man who founded National Review, and is often regarded as the architect of modern American conservatism, arrived with a resounding thud on my doorstep. There is no way that a book the size of Buckley: The Life and The Revolution that Changed America could arrive quietly. It is, in many ways, a remarkable accomplishment: exhaustive but not tiring, serious yet lively, both affectionate and suspicious. It is almost dizzyingly populated with recognizable characters—the result of Buckley's famed and enormous social influence—which offers regular satisfaction both to readers who like knowing what Sylvia Plath thought of the Buckley family home, and ones who yearn to learn more about cranky Viennese ex-Leninists. Most of all, Buckley is very clearly the result of slow thinking and methodical research, which makes it precisely the sort of work that its subject could never produce.

Ardent Violet and the Infinite Eye (2024) - 4.5/5 Space Mechs

I've got to share how much I enjoy the second book in the Starmetal Symphony series by my friend Alex White. It's a great follow up in the series, filled with twists and turns, as well as dramatic and touching moments. Just a fun and enjoyable ride filled with memorable characters.

Just wait until you meet Scent of Rot. 🦀

"The Ministry of Time" (2024) - 3.5 of 5 little cats

From the book listing:

A BOY MEETS A GIRL.

THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE.

A FINGER MEETS A TRIGGER.

THE BEGINNING MEETS THE END.

ENGLAND IS FOREVER.

ENGLAND MUST FALL.

There are several ways to tell a story.

I finally finished this book, taking my sweet time doing so (I blame Balatro for that at least some, but not entirely.) Truth is that the story did not grab me until the final act. There, it swept me in, and I quickly tore through the final pages.

Looking back, I had found a handful of turns of phrase which I highlighted. Most are spoiler-laden so I won't share them here, but here are a few choices ones.

In a discussion about religion:

Belief has very little to do with rationale. Why demand a map for uncharted territory?

Next is a line that I thought this was an interesting social observation.

Most friendship quartets don't function in squares but in lines

And lastly this line:

Most things don't happen. Mostly the universe is parking space

The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore (2024) - DNF Review

I made it roughly halfway through the book before calling it quits. I found the general segments interesting, but I found it tiresome for the continual jumping around which is necessary for the sweeping history of the bookstore and publishing industry in America.

There was a lot of interesting insights in the book, interspersed with snippets about independent bookstores which sometimes played a part in larger historical narratives the author tells. But there is not chronology to fall back upon as the book often jumps forward and backwards through time between chapters.

I think a lot of people will enjoy the book, but I just ran out of steam on it and am ready to move onto a new book.

Training Ground by Martin Dugard

A few months ago I saw a video on YouTube which was examining the inherent geographical advantages that the USA has. And, from what it covered, it talked about how much of what was once Mexico's most arable and verdant land was lost to the US during the Mexican-American war.

Now, I know about the war in the very broad strokes, but I didn't really have a strong sense of it. So, I went looking for some books to read on the topic and eventually landed on Training Ground by Dugard, as I thought the framing of the war as also a place that many of the notable names from the Civil War was interesting.

Here's the blurb on Amazon:

For four years during the Civil War, Generals Grant and Lee clashed as bitter enemies in a war that bloodied and scorched the American landscape. Yet in an earlier time, they had worn the same uniform and fought together.

In The Training Ground, acclaimed historian Martin Dugard presents the saga of how, two decades before the Civil War, a group of West Point graduates—including Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and William Tecumseh Sherman—fought together as brothers. Drawing on a range of primary sources and original research, Dugard paints a gripping narrative of the Mexican War, which eventually almost doubled the size of the United States.

The Training Ground vividly takes us into the thick brush of Palo Alto, where a musket ball narrowly misses Grant but kills a soldier standing near him; through the mountains and ravines of Cerro Gordo, as Lee searches frantically for a secret route into the Mexican army's seemingly invincible position; to Monterrey, as future enemies Davis and Grant ride together into battle; down the California coast, where war-hungry Sherman seeks blood and vengeance. And we are there as the young troops mount the final heroic—and deadly—assault on Mexico City.

So, for the past few weeks I've been working through it. The truth is, I am not a big war history buff and I found the book hard to get through for that reason. It's not just four biographies, it is an overview of the war which zooms in on portions relating to the four of them, but still maintaining the overall narrative of the war. Today, on my flight to Las Vegas for work, I finally finished it.

(The above is from Wikipedia, not the book. Including it for the reader's benefit.)

Overall, if you're like me and wanting to learn about the Mexican-American war, or its connections to the Civil War, I recommend this book. But I don't think I recommend it as a general book for most people.

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I did export the segments I highlighted from the book, and will share them here as well as giving some small notes after each:

"They may shout and hurrah, and dance around the bonfires that will be lighted, the cannon that will roar in honor of some field of human butchery; but to what end? Is not life miserable enough, comes not death soon enough, without resort to the hideous energy of war? People of the United States! Your rulers are precipitating you into a fathomless abyss of crime and calamity! Why sleep you thoughtless on its verge, as though this was not your business, or murder could be hid from the sight of God by a few flimsy rags called banners? Awake and arrest the work of butchery ere it shall be too late to preserve your souls from the guilt of wholesale slaughter! Hold meetings! Speak out! Act!"

This comes from a segment which described the anti-war efforts against this war. I found the verbiage and tone very interesting to see, with some echoings to today.

"Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart," said Tecumseh.

One thing the book highlights is that some names I know historical figures by were modified because of their enrollment in West Point. "William" Tecumseh Sherman was not born William. It was added to his name by his father when he was submitted for admittance to West Point.

Ulysses S. Grant had no S. initial until he arrived at the school due to some clerical error. And because his name would be listed as U. S. Grant, he got nicknamed (Uncle) Sam Grant, which he chose to just go by and not fight.

But, I found this quote from Sherman interesting, while not revolutionary to hear in this modern era it speaks a great deal to his mindset and that which became evident in the Civil War.

The result was an appalling number of deaths. Unmarked graves soon lined the San Juan. Regimental bands so often played a death march for funerals that Camargo's mockingbirds learned to mimic the refrain.

I found this just so dark. Again, I've heard this concept before of birds learning songs from humans, but under the framing of this war it struck me enough that I highlighted it while reading.

President Polk's Democratic Party had a long-standing distrust of the armed forces, believing that the nation had little need for a standing army. Volunteers like Davis were his ideal soldiers. "It has never been our policy to maintain large standing armies in time of peace," Polk had declared before the war began. "They are contrary to the genius of our free institutions, would impose heavy burdens on the people and be dangerous to public liberty. Our reliance for protection and defense on the land must be mainly on our citizen soldiers, who will be ever ready, as they have been ever ready in times past, to rush with alacrity, at the call of their country, to her defense."

Oh how far this country has come, and learned. The book points out that the Mexican-American war was basically the first war for the US after the war of 1812. And it jumped out to me how different the political landscape was where they questioned even needing a standing army at all. Obviously, Polk here is meaning that the country would rely more on the militias, rather than the standing army. It's like saying that cities shouldn't have paid fire departments and should rely entirely on volunteer fire departments. Or, I suppose, perhaps it is even more about state vs national in the structure, but, regardless - the correct decision won out.

Polk's greatest dilemma over Taylor's armistice, however, lay not with the opinions of the British or the French, and certainly not with that of the Mexicans. It was the American people whom he feared most. The problem had its roots in democracy and a politician's need to be elected by the people before being allowed to serve. Americans had historically been an easily malleable, highly illiterate, and ill-informed mass of voters. But that was changing, and quickly. Technological advances in papermaking and the invention of the steam printing press (which printed well over 1,000 pages per hour, as opposed to the 240 of the Gutenberg-style manual press) had made newspapers affordable and more easily mass-produced beginning in the 1830s. Once only for the well-off, papers sprang up all around the country; New York alone had eleven dailies, a quick source of news and opinion available for as little as a penny a day.

Another interesting insight outside of the war; that the changing face of the populace thanks to the industrial revolution's innovation of the printing press threatened to interfere with the politics behind and around the war. Another echoing moment for today and the land of social media, etc. Obviously the question around algorithms etc., is inherently different at a base level, but still, I see interesting parallels still today - 200 years later.

Scott's invasion of Veracruz was the largest-ever landing of American troops on foreign soil and would not be surpassed until June 6, 1944 — D-day.

This passage jumped out at me. It lasted nearly 100 years.

Grant's job during the three-month delay in Puebla was to ride out with empty wagons and purchase produce and goods from local farmers. As a result, he often returned looking dirty and unkempt, his uniform unbuttoned for comfort. The date has been lost to history, but sometime during this period, Lee paid a visit to Garland's command and remonstrated Grant for his lack of spit and polish. It was the first time the two men ever met, and the wording was harsh enough that Grant would remember it for the rest of his life — and would remind Lee of it again when next they met on a Palm Sunday far in the future.

A bit poetic here.

By 4:00 a.m., Mexico City's authorities had sent a delegation to Scott, requesting terms of surrender. As the sun rose over the capital the following morning, the American flag was raised over Mexico's National Palace. Scott slept there that night, guarded by a squad of U.S. Marines, in what was also known as the Halls of Montezuma.

It's one of the few lines I know from the Marine Corp. anthem, and I had forgotten it was a direct reference to the Mexican-American war.

Homesick for Julia and their growing family, he abruptly resigned his commission in 1854 and returned home. Rumors that drunkenness was the cause have been greatly exaggerated, as Grant was known for his inability to drink more than a few sips of alcohol owing to his light weight and diminutive size. He struggled to find a new profession and soon failed at a number of business ventures that included farming, tanning, and bill collecting. When the Civil War began, Grant was commissioned as a colonel in the Illinois militia. Within three years he had risen to become general-in-chief of all U.S. armies. Following the war, he returned to civilian life. Grant successfully ran for president in 1868 and served two terms. He died on July 23, 1885, shortly after completing his memoirs, which were edited by Mark Twain.

The Epilogue gave a post-war summation of each of Grant, Lee, Sherman and Davis; this passage from Grant was interesting to me. I had forgotten that Mark Twain edited Grant's autobiography, and also I didn't know about his non-war life and how he had attempted a few businesses before being called back to war and rising through the ranks to Commander-in-Chief.

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And that's it. As I said, overall I enjoyed the book and it accomplished what I set out to do, but it didn't floor me such that I am going to urge everyone to read it.

Artemis by Andy Weir - 3/5 Oxygen Tanks

So I finally read Andy Weir's 2017 novel, Artemis. It follows Jazz, who lives on the moon colony with the book's title, Artemis. I am a big fan of the near-future science fiction genre and I think Weir delivers on it better than most, however I struggle with the plot of Artemis a few times along the way. There is, to me, a gaping "feel good" plot hole with the resolution of the story and it really soured the book for me.

Interestingly, this is a book I thought I had started previously and was immensely turned off from but when I came back to it recently, I had zero memory of any of it and went along for the ride.

It's a fine read and it's an interesting plot that is only doable through this near-future sci-fi genre, but yeah - bring along a healthy suspension of disbelief and just go for the ride.

The Lies of Locke Lamora - 4/5 Stars

I have been wanting to read this book for a while. In fact I tried a few years ago but bounced off it. Listening to it, via the Libby audiobook app, finally got me through the book. The style of the book takes some getting used to, it jumps back and forward in time which was part of what was offputting for me, but once I got settled I found it quite enjoyable.

There is a character, "Chains" (and whatever you are imagining for this character, I guarantee you are wrong.) I quite like this character and I kept imagining them portrayed by John Noble back in the early 2000s, when he played Denethor in the LOTR movies.

I'm onto the second book in this series, here's hoping it keeps my attention!

Scarcity Brain - 3 out of 5 hunger pangs

I just finished this audiobook. It fits neatly into my 'infotainment' category. There are some interesting ideas here, but it isn't a book I'll rush out to tell my friends to read.

It starts out strong, delving into the history and modern business of slot machines and how they shape and are built around playing the human brain against its person, something the author calls the scarcity loop. Playing on that mechanism in our brain to drive the further capitalism.

Overall I found this the most interesting portion of the book, and everything afterwards was something I could have personally skipped. There were interesting insights and stories, but nothing that made me go 'oh wow!'

There is No Antimimetics Division by qntm - 3.5 / 5 Antimemes

There is No Antimimetics Division by qntm

Blurb from its Amazon listing:

An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.

Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you tried: complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams...

But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war?

Welcome to the Antimemetics Division.

No, this is not your first day.

Ironically, I can't remember how this book came across my attention. Maybe it was a mention by a BookToker, or maybe another social media post, but the premise grabbed my attention as it is about something which has long fascinated me, playing with memory.

The book is not normally in the realm I would read. It is a bit of a horror novel, with lots of gore and body horror described, but I came to think of the horror aspect of the novel as a bit more art house / new age. The base concept of the novel is so out there and theoretical that it made it easy for me to remove myself from the action and partition it off in my mind - I'm not the one enduring the horror, I'm the observer.

The premise of the novel is hard to summarize, but I think the way I will approach it is this: It is a novel in the vein of the online "SCP" genre. SCP is an a meta genre of fiction writing, where many different individuals contribute to a corpus of sci-fi / horror / supernatural stories with a very dark and, often, experimental tone or styles of writing.

This book is very much all of that. It is weird. It is hard to read sometimes as your brain grapples with shifts in voice or perspective, etc. But it was an interesting ride. Like sitting in a bumper car as it traverses through an art house. You're a passenger with no control of the story, observing what is around you, jarred and bumped and sometimes confused.

As the rating says - largely, I liked it. I have no desire to read it again, even if I would get more out of it with a better understanding for its goings on. Worth noting, it is a quick read. And while I spread it out over a few days, my reader tells me I spent just three hours reading it in total.

This is my first book of 2024. I'm setting a goal of reading 50 books this year, and while I started this one last year, I feel it is fair to count it to this book total as I could have as easily read it all this morning had I decided I wanted to.

Currently Reading: 'The Perennials: the Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society'

I spent a bit yesterday reading, I'm currently working on "The Perennials: the Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society" which delves into some of the macro trends going on with society and the impacts they are having on us.

The book's blurb:

In today’s world, the acceleration of megatrends – increasing longevity and the explosion of technology among many others – are transforming life as we now know it.

In The Perennials, bestselling author of 2030 Mauro Guillén unpacks a sweeping societal shift triggered by demographic and technological transformation. Guillén argues that outmoded terms like Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z have long been used to pigeonhole us into rigid categories and life stages, artificially preventing people from reaching their full potential. A new postgenerational workforce known as “perennials” – individuals who are not pitted against each other either by their age or experience – makes it possible to liberate scores of people from the constraints of the sequential model of life and level the playing field so that everyone has a chance at living a rewarding life. Guillén unveils how this generational revolution will impact young people just entering the workforce as well as those who are living and working longer.

This multigenerational revolution is already happening and Mauro Guillén identifies the specific cultural, organizational and policy changes that need to be made in order to switch to a new template and usher in a new era of innovation powered by the perennials.

As I've been reading, I highlighted a few passages that jumped out at me.

◆ 1. The Four Stations in Life

This chapter largely spent time discussing the concept of the stations, highlighting their relative importance, and that middle age is overlooked as a crucial stage of a person's life.

Excerpts:

In combination, compulsory schooling, wage-based employment, and pension schemes became the foundation for the sequential model of the “four stations in life,” a poetic term resembling the cosmic seasonal calendar. Indeed, by the turn of the twenty-first century, virtually every country in the world had embraced the idea that life proceeds in the four separate and sequential stages of play, study, work, and retirement. It came to be taken for granted as if it were the natural, ideal, and inevitable way of organizing our lives.

I had never really heard the "four stations in life" before, at least not so directly. Interesting to see how the concept became a largely global concept.

The problem has become so pervasive that the Journal of Accountancy felt it necessary to publish a paper on “The Financial and Human Cost of Loneliness in Retirement,” directed at certified public accountants (CPAs) who work as financial planners. “Until recently, social isolation and loneliness were considered purely qualitative factors when it came to retirement satisfaction. They were not something that could be measured with dollars and cents.”

Referring to the impact of loneliness of elders in retirement.

Far from being a biological necessity, retirement somehow became a requirement and a life goal in and of itself. Obviously, some occupations lend themselves better to working well beyond what’s normally considered to be the “retirement age.” But politicians, financial advisors, and real estate developers have persuaded us that this last stage of life is something to aspire to and to long for.

On discussing the concept of retirement and how it is a construct of society.

◆ 2. Soaring Longevity and Health

As the chapter title says, focused on the life and health expectancy of people. Discussing the history of national pension programs, and the future outlook of them. It doesn't post solutions so much as review the concepts and the problems being faced. This chapter also managed to finally make me understand why decreasing birth rates poses such a problem, beyond just a familial issue, and a larger economic and social one.

Excerpts:

It makes a big difference that the average American born in 2022 is expected to live thirty-two years longer than in 1900: seventy-eight compared to forty-six.

I obviously knew the length of life expectancy has grown, but also found this stark increase shocking to see. That is a massive increase in lifespan expectancy.

“Once we have passed reproductive age, the genes can get sloppy about copying, allowing mutations to accumulate, because natural selection no longer cares.” Thus, the remarkable success in increasing life expectancy has multiplied the rates of all sorts of nasty health problems, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and dementia.

I had never considered this correlation, that in many, passing the age of expected reproduction sees higher incidences of other diseases. Whether it is truly tied to biological clocks in cells, I don't know.

“When we try to determine how justice can be advanced, there is a basic need for public reasoning, involving arguments coming from different quarters and divergent perspectives,” writes Amartya Sen, the Indian Nobel Prize–winning philosopher and economist, in his path-breaking book The Idea of Justice (2009). “An engagement with contrary arguments does not, however, imply that we must expect to be able to settle the conflicting reasons in all cases and arrive at agreed position on all issues. Complete resolution is neither a requirement of a person’s own rationality, nor is it a condition of reasonable social choice.”

I will say, The Perennials is giving me numerous excellent other books to read. I highlighted this passage both for its content, but also as a way to remember to check out Sen's book.

There are two ways of addressing any given problem, Russ calmly explained. One is to solve it. That means finding a way to overcome the immediate issue within the existing system design parameters and constraints. In the case of a major city’s rush-hour transportation woes, that might involve fine-tuning schedules, adding more bus lanes, anticipating traffic-light changes, directing passengers to less busy routes, or increasing fares during peak hour so as to discourage use. In a way, solving problems is like kicking the can down the road.

The other course of action, Russ would calmly propose, is to dissolve the problem altogether, to eradicate it. This second method consists of redefining the situation in such a way that the problem simply vanishes. In a brilliant stroke, he proposed to the London transit authorities that during rush hour, the fare collectors should not be riding on the back of the bus but standing at each bus stop. If one conductor were not enough for the busiest stops, two should be stationed. Not only would this dissipate the potential for conflict between drivers and fare collectors, but the process of loading passengers at each stop could be accelerated by several orders of magnitude. The problem thus simply went away.

I quite liked this passage as I was reading in bed. As I read it in the morning, with a fresh view, it isn't as stunning as it was when I read it. The core concept is good: when possible, remove the problem altogether, don't simply patch it. The solution to the London bus issue was an excellent one. I had this concept running through my mind as I fell asleep last night, thinking about some bigger issues which need to be eradicated in my life.

◆ 3. The Rise and Fall of the Nuclear Family

I haven't finished this chapter yet, but it is discussing the idea of a nuclear family and the larger role it plays in history and current society.

Excerpts:

According to historians Peter Laslett and Alan Macfarlane, the nuclear family living in a “simple house” was the norm in England as early as the thirteenth century. In fact, they argue that it was precisely the flexibility and geographical mobility of the nuclear family that made the Industrial Revolution possible, and not the other way around. The logic of the market requires malleable and redeployable individuals detached from the chains of kinship and community. Sociologists

I have never heard it framed this way, that the idea of the nuclear family being a requisite to enable the industrial revolution. I found it a fascinating concept to consider.

It is worth noting that in 1960, only a handful of Western European countries had a proportion greater than 10 percent (Iceland, Austria, and Sweden), and most were below 5 percent. At the time, it was 5.3 percent in the United States, and 4.3 percent in Canada.

This excerpt pertains to reported percentages of children born to unwed mothers and a potential fallacy in the logic and framing jumped out at me. It presents these numbers without any context or notes, and given the context I suspect that this could be suffering from underreporting due to societal pressures and norms.

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Overall I'm enjoying the book. It wasn't what I had expected going in, but it has been enlightening in numerous cases thus far. Looking forward to reading more of it today.

Currently Reading: The Perennials

Blurb for the book:

In today's world, the acceleration of megatrends – increasing longevity and the explosion of technology among many others – are transforming life as we now know it.

In The Perennials, bestselling author of 2030 Mauro Guillén unpacks a sweeping societal shift triggered by demographic and technological transformation. Guillén argues that outmoded terms like Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z have long been used to pigeonhole us into rigid categories and life stages, artificially preventing people from reaching their full potential. A new postgenerational workforce known as "perennials" – individuals who are not pitted against each other either by their age or experience – makes it possible to liberate scores of people from the constraints of the sequential model of life and level the playing field so that everyone has a chance at living a rewarding life. Guillén unveils how this generational revolution will impact young people just entering the workforce as well as those who are living and working longer.

This multigenerational revolution is already happening and Mauro Guillén identifies the specific cultural, organizational and policy changes that need to be made in order to switch to a new template and usher in a new era of innovation powered by the perennials.

I began it last night and I highlighted this blurb as it was discussing national retirement pensions:

In combination, compulsory schooling, wage-based employment, and pension schemes became the foundation for the sequential model of the "four stations in life," a poetic term resembling the cosmic seasonal calendar. Indeed, by the turn of the twenty-first century, virtually every country in the world had embraced the idea that life proceeds in the four separate and sequential stages of play, study, work, and retirement. It came to be taken for granted as if it were the natural, ideal, and inevitable way of organizing our lives.

The "four stations of life" here isn't something I had heard before. So I found it interesting to see it framed this way. I didn't highlight it, but it did discuss that German's Kaiser Wilhelm was the first to implement a national retirement pension in the world, and doing so diverted revolts at home.

It went on to discuss the role of school in both educating the masses, and also building in the mentality of working for the industrial revolution, etc. And when I stopped last night, it was discussing middle age and the fact it is the least of the four stations of life when it comes to research and writing. Looking forward to digging into it again later today.

Titanium Noir (2023) - 3.5 / 5

Cal Sounder is investigating a murder. A murder which makes him among the most perfect people to investigate it for reasons which the story unfurls as you move through the story.

I enjoyed the premise, writing and story. Cal Sounder is an interesting protagonist, though his smarmy nature can be annoying. He isn't an unreliable narrator, but you definitely come to realize that he doesn't reveal everything he knows as soon as it is relevant, and only when it fits the flow of the story.

This is a bit of a spoiler, so I'll hide it: One trope which I have found to grow tiresome is how some authors use the hook of an unknown clue, in this case, a particular phrase. The protagonist spends a lot of time figuring out what this mysterious clue is, only to have the author reveal it wasn't something to be solved at all - it was a misheard or misunderstood phrase. I find that trope tiresome and annoying in 99% of its uses.

Lastly, I am beginning to wonder if my expectations for writing is too high when it comes to conclusions, or if it is something else.

For much of the story, I was in the midst of the action and able to imagine it unfolding around me. But, for roughly the last quarter of the novel, I felt removed and as an outside observer. I feel this way more often than not for stories, so I'm beginning to think if this a me-thing and less a fair criticism toward the author as it is not limited to this novel. It might be tied to my ADHD, once the mystery is resolved or in the final act of resolution, my brain shifts gears. I'm not sure.

Listening to 'Project Hail Mary'

I started listening to Project Hail Mary's audiobook today. I had rewatched The Martian over the weekend and decided to pull the trigger on the audiobook and, as expected, I'm really enjoying it. The narrator's voice is super familiar so I came home and looked him up: Ray Porter.

I am not sure why though. I looked up his IMDB and there's no credits which would make sense (sure, I've watched Shameless and Almost Famous, but there's no way those are how I know his name.) So then I start looking up his book credits in case I've heard him narrate anything else. And I finally figured it out.

He read The Cartel by Don Winslow which was an audiobook I listened to a few years ago and really enjoyed the narration as well.

Radicalized by Cory Doctorow (2019) - 3 of 5 stars

The commentary is, of course, the strongest aspect of the book. Unfortunately, I found the stories and the framings distracted from the messages carried in the book.

Apollo Remastered

Found via kottke.org. This book and the photos look truly stunning. I did a double-take on seeing the below photo on Jason's blog.

NASA keeps the original film negatives from the Apollo program sealed in a frozen vault in Houston, TX and rarely grants access to them. As a result, nearly all of the photos we see of those historic missions were made decades ago or are copies of copies. Recently, the film was cleaned and digitally scanned at "an unprecedented resolution".

Using these new high-res scans, image specialist Andy Saunders remastered each of the 35,000 photographs, resulting in this incredible-looking book, Apollo Remastered: The Ultimate Photographic Record. From the book's website:

The photographs from the lunar surface are as close as we can get to standing on the Moon ourselves, and for the first time, we were able to look back at Earth from afar, experiencing the "overview effect" — the cognitive shift that elicits an intense emotional experience upon seeing our home planet from space for the first time. The "Blue Marble" photograph, taken as Apollo 17 set course for the Moon, depicts the whole sunlit Earth, and is the most reproduced photograph of all time. Along with Apollo 8's "Earthrise," which depicts Earth above the lunar horizon, it was a catalyst for the environmental movement that continues today.

Currently Reading - 22 Feb. 2023

An Immense World by Ed Yong

A review of the book on goodreads:

This is one of the best science books I have read. Read this if you are at all curious about how other animals experience the world. You probably weren’t aware that humans can echo-locate. But other animals are capable of so much more than we are. Their abilities are amazingly fine-tuned to meet their needs. All of the concepts and experiments were very clearly explained and the audiobook was expertly narrated by the author.

Still early into this book, but I'm looking forward to it. It's fascinating, already, and I'm just into the first chapter.

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes

Just begun this morning as an audiobook from the library after a recommendation from a friend. Already enjoying it, though I'm just a little ways in. It's campy urban fantasy which is something I enjoy for the lightweight nature of it. We'll see how it develops.

I had started King's The Gunslinger but fell off. Based on genre and writing, I should enjoy it and perhaps if I pushed through I would, but I just haven't gotten hooked. So, when Fred the Vampire Accountant became available from the library, I switched over.

Kushiel's Dart - 2 of 5

Kushiel's Dart is adult high fantasy fiction. It is not my normal cup of tea but I was drawn to it and found it's setting interesting. The main character is a woman who is masochistic and is raised to utilize that as a form of courtesan. The story itself takes a spin off of Judeo-Christian narratives with thinly veiled name changes, as well as the European map being renamed.

The tropes and ideas are not subtle, but the story itself is one of political intrigue. As is often the case I found the ending a bit of a let down after the intricate build up. Additionally, it lacks a pay off I was looking for.

This is a story which rides on the characters in it and the rest is just window dressing. There are two more in the series but I don't see myself seeking them out.

"The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" - 3 / 5 Encoded Messages

I was in the mood for a spy novel so I checked this out from the library via the Libby app. I didn't realize it was the third in a series, though I don't know how much linear narrative there is given how this one went.

Overall, I really enjoyed the narration but the story was only so-so for me.

Africa Risen

A book of short Afro-futurism stories. I bought this on Kindle with some Amazon gift money. Last night I read the first story, "The Blue House" by Dilman Dila which was fantastic if a bit somber and sad.

Looking forward to diving into more of these stories as I have stepped away from Isaacson's "The Code Breaker" which is a big book.

Review: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This isn't the normal sort of book for me, but I love Almost Famous and based on the blurb I read, it felt like it might be in the same space. The book is about a group of people, Daisy Jones, and the band, The Six. It's set in the 70s predominately and it takes you through the journeys of all the people, on a journey to stardom. The book is surprisingly touching and even brought me to tears. Overall I loved it and highly recommend it for folks.

Here are a handful of my favorite lines, none of which spoil anything for future readers.

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I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it's not faith, right?

I guess I'm saying… if you redeem yourself, then believe in your own redemption.

I'll tell you: If a friend lied to me the way I lie to myself, I'd say, "You're a shitty friend."

You can't love someone back to health and you can't hate someone back to health and no matter how right you are about something, it doesn't mean they will change their mind.

"Ministry of the Future" By Kim Stanley Robinson

This book is exactly why I read science fiction. Set in the modern to near future, it delves into the climate crisis and what might be needed to recover and save the planet. It is not an easy read, dragging at points, with different characters, viewpoints, and even writing styles. But, I found it incredibly rewarding and enjoyable. But, more importantly, it pushed me and my perspective on things. It made me even more burningly aware of the climate crisis around us and how we, as a people, and me as an individual, aren't doing enough.

Highly recommend!

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What follows are excerpts I highlighted while reading the book. Some are interesting tidbits, some are philosophical, and some were moments I enjoyed in the book.

Chapter 20

But it’s important also to take this whole question back out of the realm of quantification, sometimes, to the realm of the human and the social. To ask what it all means, what it’s all for. To consider the axioms we are agreeing to live by. To acknowledge the reality of other people, and of the planet itself. To see other people’s faces. To walk outdoors and look around.

Chapter 28

The Hebrew tradition speaks of those hidden good people who keep the world from falling apart, the Tzadikim Nistarim, the hidden righteous ones. In some versions they are thirty-six in number, and thus are called the Lamed-Vav Tzadikim, the thirty-six righteous ones. Sometimes this belief is connected with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and God’s promise that if he could be shown even fifty good men in these cities (and then ten, and then one) he would spare them from destruction. Other accounts refer the idea to the Talmud and its frequent references to hidden anonymous good actors. The hidden quality of the nistarim is important; they are ordinary people, who emerge and act when needed to save their people, then sink back into anonymity as soon as their task is accomplished. When the stories emphasize that they are thirty-six in number, it is always included in the story that they have been scattered across the Earth by the Jewish diaspora, and have no idea who the others are. Indeed they usually don’t know that they themselves are one of the thirty-six, as they are always exemplars of humility, anavah. So if anyone were to proclaim himself to be one of the Lamed-Vav , this would be proof that actually he was not. The Lamed-Vav are generally too modest to believe they could be one of these special actors. And yet this doesn’t keep them from being effective when the moment comes. They live their lives like everyone else, and then, when the crucial moment comes, they act. If there are other secret actors influencing human history, as maybe there are, we don’t know about them. We very seldom get glimpses of them. If they exist. They may be just stories we tell ourselves, hoping that things might make sense, have an explanation, and so on. But no. Things don’t make sense like that. The stories of secret actors are the secret action.

Chapter 37

He would say we are all like quarks, which are the smallest elementary particles, he told us—smaller even than atoms, such that atoms are all made up of quarks held together by gluons. He made us laugh with these stories. And like quarks, everyone had a certain amount of strangeness, spin, and charm. You could rate everyone by these three constants

Chapter 40

The orienting principle that could guide all such thinking is often left out, but surely it should be included and made explicit: we should be doing everything needed to avoid a mass extinction event. This suggests a general operating principle similar to the Leopoldian land ethic, often summarized as “what’s good is what’s good for the land.” In our current situation, the phrase can be usefully reworded as “what’s good is what’s good for the biosphere.” In light of that principle, many efficiencies are quickly seen to be profoundly destructive, and many inefficiencies can now be understood as unintentionally salvational.

Chapter 54

Yes. You can short civilization if you want. Not a bad bet really. But no one to pay you if you win. Whereas if you go long on civilization, and civilization (therefore) survives, you win big. So the smart move is to go long.

Chapter 55

Strategy comes from below and tactics from above, not the reverse

Chapter 64

Rent goes to people who are not creators of value, but predators on the creation and exchange of value.

Chapter 69

This was the world’s current reigning religion, it had to be admitted: growth. It was a kind of existential assumption, as if civilization were a kind of cancer and them all therefore committed to growth as their particular deadly form of life. But this time, growth might be reconfiguring itself as the growth of some kind of safety. Call it involution, or sophistication; improvement; degrowth; growth of some kind of goodness. A sane response to danger— now understood as a very high-return investment strategy! Who knew?

Chapter 72

The Midwest has been treated like a continent-sized factory floor for assembling grocery store commodities, and anything that got in the way of that was designated a pest or vermin and killed off.

Chapter 74

He wrote that they had a saying in their cold little villages, to deal with the times when fishermen went out and never came back, or when children died. Hunger, disease, drowning, freezing, death by polar bear and so on; they had a lot of traumas. Nevertheless the Eskimaux were cheerful, the man wrote. Their storm god was called Nartsuk. So their saying was, You have to face up to Nartsuk. This meant staying cheerful despite all. No matter how bad things got, the Inuit felt it was inappropriate to be sad or express grief. They laughed at misfortunes, made jokes about things that went wrong. They were facing up to Nartsuk.

"271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book"

In 1692 an artist known only as "A. Boogert" sat down to write a book in Dutch about mixing watercolors. Not only would he begin the book with a bit about the use of color in painting, but would go on to explain how to create certain hues and change the tone by adding one, two, or three parts of water. The premise sounds simple enough, but the final product is almost unfathomable in its detail and scope.

Spanning nearly 800 completely handwritten (and painted) pages, Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l'eau, was probably the most comprehensive guide to paint and color of its time. According to Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel who translated part of the introduction, the color book was intended as an educational guide. The irony being there was only a single copy that was probably seen by very few eyes.

The C Programming Language

This book definitely was nostalgic for me. It was one of the first books I bought when I started Computer Science at Georgia Tech.