ambimb > Recent Status Updates

I'm trying the group read with Infinite Zombies. We'll see how it goes.

Great book, but in the competition for my attention this one has been repeatedly pushed aside...

Terrifying and a great read, but my library loan has expired and I can’t renew so I’m taking it back but will check it out again ASAP to finish. One of the stories this book tells is that U.S. government fiefdoms (NSA, CIA, FBI, and dozens of others, have been competing with each other to shell out huge amounts of cash too hackers for cyber “weapons” that have now been stolen and are now pointed at us.

Halfway through and my loan is going to expire again, so may have to pick this up again in another few months when I can check it out again. I don’t honestly understand my fascination with this disaster, but I’ve spent as much time surfing the internet for pictures and additional explanations, diagrams, histories, anecdotes, etc., as I have reading the book.

It’s good, but for some reason I just can’t seem to stick with it. Too many other good books keep crossing my path and this one ends up on the bottom of the pile...

Great book, want to finish, but wasn’t able to finish in the time I had it from the library and now waiting to get it back.

Great perspective on the control of space and sound in courtrooms and how the sheriffs police this. Missing is the fact that many of the sheriffs are genuinely sweet and good people who have come to see "the public" and defendants as "other," and don't even realize the effect of what they're doing. That doesn't make it ok, but....

The two lanes for entry to the courthouse are both now inside and protected from the weather. Besides that, the "VIP lane" is for anyone who works in the courthouse and has a courthouse ID, so that includes *many* people of color — a majority, I would guess. I see the point and the metaphor is effective, but it's also misleading.

Describes the Cook County Courthouse as "a place where whites were allowed to stop being nice and start being racist." Disturbing bc true.

This book is amazing, a revelation. Just the first chapter should be required reading for anyone who cares about social justice and politics today.

Of course this makes me want to hike the AT and to take a leave of absence from the rest of my life to do it soon.

All the science of the brain chemistry involved in flow gets a little boggy at times. So far the best bits are just the stories of great athletes doing amazing things. Very sad about the base jumper who died after safely landing a leap from El Capitan only to drown while trying to escape from the park rangers waiting to arrest him.

Moab hits the media: "In a 1985 issue we published an unsolicited story by a contributor named Todd Campbell who had discovered a unique mountain bike challenge in a remote part of Utah, the so-called Moab slickrock." Yes.

And now they can take money from ATMs again. Seems like a giant plot inconsistency that in the first book money was no problem, then it was a big problem again in the second and now third books, but now it's no problem again—for a page or two, most likely.

Obama, a bunch of CIA and military lawyers and leaders, and eight members of congress regularly (weekly?) look at "kill lists" and are asked to "ok" assassinations around the globe. These are not special people. They are just normal people, most of whom have a lot more money and privilege than you or I will ever have. They are told these are bad people. Guess what they say? "Kill them." What would you say?

The expedition was complete many pages ago (at about 65%, I think), yet on and on it goes. What is the end? Once the journals are published? It's interesting to see the aftermath, I guess, but....

Surprisingly good so far if you can get past the bit of white male privilege which Ambrose seems to find amusing. Don't understand why it was a lucky thing for the expedition that Sacagawea's brother was the first Shoshone leader they encountered. Why didn't that make the Shoshone angry that these white men were participating in the enslavement of their people?

Skipping silly rants about the golden age of advertising, phobophobia, and whatever else. Sorry, but I just can't take it!

"What is the individual to do in the face of pervasive negligent toxicity?"

Dane is Ayn Rand. Idiot.

A decent argument from a judge against the drug war comes just after a funny set-piece about the f-word and the tale of the litigator's diarrhea nightmare. Oh, yeah, and the guy with three ears. This "novel" has a little bit of everything.

Dragging. The "maximal reality" or whatever is kind of exhausting but this is one of those books I feel I *must* read bc the main character is a public defender. Oh, and critics love this book, right? So... Onward.

Kind of having a hard time really getting into this. Maybe I'm just not really the target audience for a work of fiction that takes place largely inside an online role-playing game. :-(

No. Really? This again? We just spent half the book with Tris lying to Tobias and then running off to be the hero/martyr by herself even though it's completely unnecessary and stupid, and now we're doing the same stupid thing AGAIN!? Super fail. Why oh why do I read this crap?

Tris, you are such an idiot. So busy selfishly sacrificing yourself that you can't see that the knowledge they get from you is going to destroy all the people you care about. I understand characters need flaws to create drama and tension, but this is just ridiculous. Why do I read this crap?

Why is our strong female narrator so stereotypically catty, putting the evil Jeanine down for having a "pudgy middle" and stretch marks on her knees? Weak sauce for a strong female role model.

Yeah, I can't believe I'm reading this either but the Apocalypse Whenever group is reading it and in a moment of weakness where my mind just wanted candy, I gave in. So far? Cute, but too obvious. I guess that's sort of inevitable when it's based on another well-known story, but still, it didn't have to be so heavy-handed...