Reading Log

Podcasts

• Our Opinions Are Correct
• NPR Short Wave
• Moods And Modes
• Risky Biz
• LeVar Burton Reads
• Security. Cryptography. Whatever.
• AAAS Science
• Failure To Adapt
• By The Bywater
• On The Media

Dead Collections, Isaac Fellman

2022-03-27.

A love-letter to fanfic, to trans people, and to libraries. Confessional, epistolary, and magic realism. I like a good San Francisco novel.

I’ve stopped being grateful for the miracle of my survival, and just started living as best I can. I think it’s that way for everyone.

Zero History, William Gibson

2022-03. Audiobook, narrated by Robertson Dean.

3rd or 4th read; 1st time audio. Good narration.

Gibson’s Jackpot and Blue Ant series hold up as key, even crucial, ways to understand what is going on right now. Below the keenly-observed surface flows a tide of critical, and necessary, radicalism.

He’s still hitting all the same plot and character points as all of his novels do, in their endless variations. But, it still works.

Inversions, Iain M. Banks

2022-03.

2nd or 3rd read. I had forgotten how extremely low-key the Culture-ness is in this novel. (No e.g. gravitas-minimal ship names.) Valuable as a way to observe Culture intervention from 1 non-Culture perspective.

Agency, William Gibson

2022-02. Audiobook, narrated by Lorelei King.

2nd read; 1st time audio. Narration is extremely good. San Francisco, with specific details and humor.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams

2022-01. Audiobook, narrated by Stephen Fry. Narration is ideal for the material.

I hadn’t read this since probably middle school. This time around, the bromance aspect is clear to me in a way it wasn’t then. That’s not a bad thing, at all, but Trillian is the lone non-bro — this delightful classic doesn’t even give itself a chance to fail the Bechdel test. These days I find that harder to ignore. Most (not all) of the jokes still work, and the cynical-but-loving worldview they evoke stills rings true.

Programming Rust, 2nd ed., Jim Blandy, Jason Orendorff, Leonora F. S. Tindall

2021-12-21.

• Definitely already assumes you know at least 1 other programming language and how to write software — this is not a first language book or appropriate for a beginner. That is OK, given Rust’s niche and (mostly necessary) complexity. (Still, I can imagine the language having a Gc<T> someday, and perhaps an additional prelude, to make it more inviting for beginners. A tangent...)
• Overall very thorough, and covers some different stuff than The Rust Programming Language. I have read both and got value from having read both, and recommend that if you have time.
• For unsafe, you need a dedicated book (The Rustonomicon).
• If you only have time to read 1 Rust book cover-to-cover, make it this one. RPL is a very close second and you’ll be well off if you read it instead.
• The binding is not as fancy as O’Reilly books of old — it’s not holding up as well as did my Camel Book in decades long past. Alas. Some typos, and sometimes code is formatted in a strangely small font.