Bruce > Recent Status Updates

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!”

Interesting to have watched a film and thinking “why is his thumbnail black?” then reading the diary entry explaining about the door crushing. The health issues and corollary deaths of all his friends is hard to read.

Compelling name-dropping and location-moving as I am aghast at the schedule. What a life.

Well, finally things start to fall into place. No idea if that will continue, or if I am just being the eternal optimist that I typically have been, but perhaps this novel is about being human, and the striving to be a good one. Lord knows, I've never found it easy to be OK with my efforts.

I'm not really enjoying this book; it's taking too long to get anywhere, though that may be the exact reason why I should continue, as the book's theme is all about developing patience and waiting for the answers to come naturally, once sufficient information and understanding has developed. I just don't feel I have the time to wait for this.

Peeved that I have to write this again… my initial take that this will be Dead Like Me handles Arthur Dent has been reinforced, though there's a bit of Groundhog Day in here too. I hope the main character breaks out of his cosmology soon. I'm not keen on spending too much time with assholes as they try and bend reality to their will.

Amazing work ethic, and by and large, I find his politics are something I can embrace. Amazing career, relationships, and battles.

My initial sense of this being a mashup of Dead Like Me deals with Arthur Dent, with a cosmology that gets revealed due to "just wait and see" in a Groundhog Day kind of way. I'm sure it's just my current mood, but it seems overly stretched out with detail and character reveals. Will the lawyer discover he wasted his life with efficiency and coldness? Of course it will happen. Will I care? Yet to be discovered.