Amy Ransohoff > Recent Status Updates

Wait, after 500 pages and over a million capricious deaths, "end of part 1"? This whole book is only about 1/3 of the total work? Yikes, why didn't they mention any of this stuff back in school?

We didn't learn much about the USSR's history in school, so real-life accounts of Stalin's security apparatus are quite shocking. It really drives home the importance of making sure that power is transparent and accountable.

It's fascinating that primate studies are finding differences in gender-normative behavior between tribes of the same species. The idea that us apes are mostly just socially primed to ape the culture we're born into is appealing, although the author constantly points out out how difficult it is to interpret the results of many of these studies.

This seems like a nice introduction to using microcontrollers in a modern context using open and widely-available tools. It is difficult to find good resources for moving past the limiting Arduino tools which don't involve proprietary and often Windows-only tools.

This book uses GCC and an open-source STM32 programmer/debugger to teach about both FreeRTOS and the 'libopencm3' Cortex-M HAL, which looks promising.

It's interesting to read about how the mind and self is less a closed-off construct than a permeable extension of the cultural context through which it navigates.

But I am also having some trouble with this. I tend to agree with the author's conclusions, but the research presented seems to leave me with few options for being a genuinely helpful presence in any capacity.

I'm not sure what to do with that.

I enjoyed the start of this book, but I just can't read any more titles about lone minds fleeing into the abyss right now. This series is going on the shelf for awhile.

So I guess the premise of this book is, 'people act like jerks, then we see their perspectives right before - gotcha! - they start acting empathetically.'

I guess that might not be a bad lesson? But I don't see it happen much in real life, and it's a little bit frustrating as a storytelling device.

Audiobook comedies are great background noise for all the tedious organizing and stuff I've had to do lately. It's been making me with that radio plays were more popular...

This gets way easier to understand once you realize that 'condenser' is just an old word for 'capacitor'.

Starting an audiobook re-listen to the Discworld series; I do a lot of audiobook-worthy activities these days. Here goes!

I'm not sure if you can really "read" a coloring book, but I've been meaning to try one of these for awhile.

And I'm already behind on my reading challenge.

This may have to go on hold since the TSA confiscated my whittling knife...so here's your daily reminder to double-check your bag before traveling!

Finally finding some time to read again, I'm really liking the way that Gaiman mixes dream and reality; sort of reminds me of Murakami.

Whittling is harder than I'd thought it would be, but the main challenge for me is sitting still long enough to make any progress. So maybe it wasn't a bad choice for a more relaxing hobby.

I was going to read Rama II, but the reviews all said it was basically a terrible space drama co-opted by Gentry Lee.

A lot of those reviews recommended reading Rendezvous With Rama again instead, so here goes!

Nigel Planer is a great narrator.

Lovecraft's longer stories definitely lean towards slow-burn horror. They pick up towards the end, but you can really only read things like, "my mind forces me to prevaricate rather than state frankly what I have seen" so many times before they start to lose their impact.

Engrossing and highly informative so far! Plenty of information for making anything from a home kitchen 'lab' to an industrial factory capable of churning out millions of plantlet clones per year. Pricing information for equipment makes it easy to decide what your budget and needs allow, and DIY or consumer-grade alternatives are provided for most expensive stuff.

So far, these stories range from mildly unnerving to genuinely disquieting, but they're all very well-written and I like how more often than not, the author goes out of his way to avoid clarifying what the characters' actual motivations and thoughts are, leaving you to make up your own mind about their actions.

So far, my takeaway from this book is that today, the deck is stacked against us and we're doomed to a future of constant nickel & diming.

We face a relentless inundation of demands on our very limited 'System 2' focus and attention; along with normal life, we're constantly expected to make smart choices about whether to click an ad, open an email attachment, etc

How much time and agency does that leave us with?

So far, my takeaway from this book is that today, the deck is stacked against us and we're doomed to a future of constant nickel & diming.

We face a relentless inundation of demands on our very limited 'System 2' focus and attention; along with normal life, we're constantly expected to make smart choices about whether to click an ad, open an email attachment, etc

How much time and agency does that leave us with?

So far, I'm enjoying these short stories. Sometimes they drag on, and they don't take themselves very seriously, but I love the sense of whimsy and the strange setting that (so far) all of the stories share.

This story just keeps getting stranger - I'm really enjoying it, but I feel like I would get more out of it if I knew more about poetry and Abrahamic religions. Dan Simmons loves him some John Keats and Abraham, and I feel like I'm probably missing a lot of his allegories.

The first chapter only contains basic grammar rules, so it's a little slow. After it moves on to composition and style, the pace definitely picks up.

The OpenGL chapters are really out of date and probably not worth reading, but the information on bullet itself seems pretty good.

Surprisingly deep introduction to graphics programming. Lots of good information on lower-level concepts like the rendering pipeline. This could be a pretty good textbook.

The format is very interesting

This anthology is so much fun to read. It's not too serious and it doesn't really make you think, but its setting is refreshing and the characters are fun, if sometimes a little bit anachronistic.

Reads like a loosely-connected series of fairy tales set in China. This is very fun light reading.

Although, it was written in 1980 and some of the bit characters feel uncomfortably close to caricatures. But you can tell that the author has a deep fascination with and love of Chinese mythology.

I'm having trouble believing that a city of thieves would have so much trouble coming to grips with the idea of con artists.