"The first all-nonfiction McSweeney’s issue is a collection of essays and interviews focusing on issues related to technology, privacy, and surveillance. The collection features writing by EFF’s team, including Executive Director Cindy Cohn, Education and Design Lead Soraya Okuda, Senior Investigative Researcher Dave Maass, Special Advisor Cory Doctorow, and board member Bruce Schneier. We also … Continue reading End of Trust
Category: books
The Parable of Fish & Turtle
"Once there was a fish and a turtle who were friends. They had been living in the same lake together for some time. One day the turtle decided to visit the land surrounding the lake. She had a good look around and came back to tell her friend the fish of the wonders she had … Continue reading The Parable of Fish & Turtle
Greg Egan and the Permutation Problem
"Then on September 26 of this year, the mathematician John Baez of the University of California, Riverside, posted on Twitter about Houston’s 2014 finding, as part of a series of tweets about apparent mathematical patterns that fail. His tweet caught the eye of Egan, who was a mathematics major decades ago, before he launched an … Continue reading Greg Egan and the Permutation Problem
The Minto Pyramid Principle for Writing
Barbara Minto's "The Minto Pyramid Principle" is a how-to guide for writing concise reports in a management consulting firm that has been around for years. I wrote a one sheet summary of her book over a decade ago that I still sometimes find to be a useful aid for writing. While it might be overkill … Continue reading The Minto Pyramid Principle for Writing
Exploring the Future Beyond Cyberpunk’s Neon and Noir
Discussion of nine current subgenres in science fiction: Chinese Sci-Fi, Afrofuturism, Gulf futurism, Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi), Solar Punk, Water Crisis Thrillers, Kitchen Sink Dystopia, Woke Space Opera, and The New Weird. Each category has three book suggestions. Of the suggestions I've read (which are very few), I've liked Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy and everything by … Continue reading Exploring the Future Beyond Cyberpunk’s Neon and Noir
Eric by Tom Manning
"When we are clear-eyed about the fact that what we think of as our individual self is really a hodgepodge of artifice, and not really our self, that can be both freeing and terrifying. Our ego constantly chases fleeting needs, which is why an identity based on that ego is fleeting, and happiness based on … Continue reading Eric by Tom Manning
Imagine a Forest: Designs and Inspirations For Enchanting Folk Art by Dinara Mirtalipova
Imagine a Forest provides a template for drawing flowers, trees, butterflies, beetles, generic birds, cats, chickens, horses, bears, foxes, firebirds, sirins, mermaids, dragons, griffins, matryoshkas, lions, and gingerbread houses in a folk art style. It also features feudal scenes from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia including feudal royalty, knights, artisans and castles. Fun book … Continue reading Imagine a Forest: Designs and Inspirations For Enchanting Folk Art by Dinara Mirtalipova
Too Much Fruit Kills The Root
"A king went riding in the forest and encountered a mango tree laden with fruit. He said to his servants, 'Go back in the evening and collect the mangoes,' because he wanted them for the royal dining table. The servants went back to the forest but returned to the palace empty-handed. 'Sorry, your Majesty,' they … Continue reading Too Much Fruit Kills The Root
The Machine Stops
"Anybody who uses the Internet should read E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops. It is a chilling, short story masterpiece about the role of technology in our lives. Written in 1909, it's as relevant today as the day it was published. Forster has several prescient notions including instant messages (email!) and cinematophoes (machines that project visual … Continue reading The Machine Stops
How to Be a Stoic | RadioWest
"No matter where you live or what culture you live in, the question of how to lead a good life is central. And there is no shortage of answers, from fundamentalist religion to nihilism. For his part, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci has become a Stoic. Stoicism, he says, isn’t about suppressing or hiding emotions. It’s about … Continue reading How to Be a Stoic | RadioWest
Solarpunk: Against a Shitty Future
"Solarpunk is about 'ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community' — the last of which is of particular interest — and rightly sees 'infrastructure as a form of resistance.' Politically, the stories vary, but they always feature a progressive focus on race, gender, and equality of all kinds: many revolve around themes of difference, recognition, and acceptance. … Continue reading Solarpunk: Against a Shitty Future
Why “The Culture” Wins
"Now consider Banks’s scenario. Consider the process that is generating modern hypercultures, and imagine it continuing for another three or four hundred years. The first consequence is that the culture will become entirely defunctionalized. Banks imagines a scenario in which all of the endemic problems of human society have been given essentially technological solutions (in … Continue reading Why “The Culture” Wins
Book Review: “The Waste Books” by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
"Merchants have a waste-book (Sudelbuch, Klitterbuch, I think it is in German) in which they enter from day to day everything they have bought and sold, all mixed up together in disorder; from this it is transferred to the journal, in which everything is arranged more systematically; and finally it arrives in the ledger...This deserves … Continue reading Book Review: “The Waste Books” by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Fanfiction: Wishes and Request for Recommendations
Sometimes, there is such compelling possibilities with a background group or character, that is only briefly mentioned or used as a backdrop in a book, I wish the author had developed them more fully. For example, I'd love to read more about the Zetetic Elench from Iain M. Banks' Culture series and Quellcrist Falconer and Quellists … Continue reading Fanfiction: Wishes and Request for Recommendations
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