Bruce > Recent Status Updates

Wow, Uncle Harlan sure would have been a great voice actor.

Short story anthologies about the end of civilization? So much more interesting than our current shared reality. Current events make the actions of The Walking Dead feel like inspired rebuilding.

Fascinating slice of our real-time, present day dystopia as imagined over three decades ago. I was startled by the mention of “Parable of the Talents” as this was written a decade before Butler’s novel of that name. Great authors always fish from the same pools.

The death that means something. Also, those people from SAN Diego are assholes.

Very Huckleberry Finn mixed with juvenile dystopian stuff from the golden age, with a lot less assumed racism.

Imagine a world where America isn’t the country dismantling itself, but one taken down by the rivals it feared, or at least told the people to fear.

Fascinating, so far. KSR always delivers.

So far so good. Or bad, depending on perspective. Knowledge is power, but the in the end, power to do what?

What can one say on reflection of words put down in 2017 and earlier, other than “AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHH!!!” Madeline Albright’s final book also comes to mind when we look back at who was warning us of what’s to come. The Klept are here, and they think they’ve won. I hope they’re wrong, at all levels.

All in all, a good attempt to come up with replicable samples of what constitutes critical mass, and the uses to which this understanding had been put to, both accidentally and intentionally. Oh, and Homo Economus sucks. Especially McKinsey.

I first read this shortly after it came out, and really couldn’t remember much of it, so when I saw the hardcovers of it and Pattern Recognition for sale at my local thrift shop, of course I had to grab them.

I can feel Gladwell’s remorse at his early fanboying for applied social engineering.

Reading this book while the world gets divided up by kleptocrats as we all choke on the ravages of climate change has my blood pressure spiking. Sure does explain how the Forbes Billionaire list number one is currently the guy who creates things for plutocrats to show off.

If this book doesn’t make you foam at the mouth, knit tricolour cloche caps while muttering “guillotine, guillotine!” then you’re probably a UHNWI or a bootlicker 9.9%er.

Can hardly wait to finish this. Amazing work, exactly what SF does best. Humans are hardly the rational self-actualized beings we think we are.

It threw itself off the shelf at me. So what else should I do with the time I had but to read it? Very unexpected and appropriate for the day of the UK general Election.

Let’s all just pretend it’s a fantastical pipe-dream, and the outlined history and techniques are the scrawlings of a Walter Mitty. Let’s all just go back to sleep. Everything is functioning as designed.

The book itself is compelling and would translate well into a docudrama. The reviews I have seen that go into any level of detail seem to concentrate heavily on refuting the author as a “nobody” or the economics outlined as puerile or overly simplistic. And yet, economists & states-people like Yanis Varoufakis volunteered to blurb the book.

Holy shit, I do not know if this is going to end well. The dickheads could still win!

Ripping along. Just exactly the book I need right now.

Beginning of Chapter 4, and holy shit this book is everything I need to think about right now. Hook, line & sinker, I’m caught up.

I came to a book reading expressly to get a copy of The Bezzle, but my impulse buy of The Lost Cause was an amazing gift, as it was EXACTLY the book that I didn’t know I needed to read NOW, skipping the TBR queue like the plutocrat heading to to private jet terminal while the plebs get their tonsils examined and their overpriced water bottles confiscated.

I did not expect this to dive into the background of neurodivergence, but whoa am I ever glad I picked it up. This is a must-read.

I’ve been having trouble maintaining progress, not due to the subject or writing, just where I right now. Having said that, Klein is really illustrating an exceptional facet of our current world.

Highly recommended. If you haven’t read this, you have not yet experienced the rage required to turn this behemoth around.

Holy shit. We are all doomed. “The rise of the 9.9 percent has turned parenting an extreme sport.”

A challenge to follow up my previous read, but compelling nonetheless.

Holy shit. This book.

Now little bits of Supernatural & Neverwhere have presented themselves. Fascinating. Good book to read while in the psych ward.

Add Wings of Desire to the traces of homagerie I see happening. Maybe a bit of The Matrix in the training montage “I know king fu!”