Books

Book Review: Ctrl + Alt + Chaos - How Teenage Hackers Hijack The Internet Ctrl+Alt+Chaos I was lucky enough to win a copy of this book from the author when he posted a competition on BlueSky. The very short review of this book is that it’s well written, and an “easy” read that will hold your interest on a complex subject. To go into slightly more detail, meant in the best possible way, I want to emphasise that it’s an easy read. I usually read at night, when I should probably be asleep - but this is well-written, clear, and grabs your attention, so it’s suitable for the beside table or noisy commute; which can’t be said of many non-fiction books. ...

Just a few months this week Prologue More on this later As always, this is an intentionally browseable set of weeknotes regarding things I “beheld” over the previous “week”1. These “weeknotes” support two purposes - recommendations to the handful of people who read it, and also giving me somewhere to look if I’m trying to remember if I watched something or not. My exploration of Hugo Themes2 is still something I need to properly work through, so there will be a Table of Contents around here somewhere, you can use that to navigate to whatever catches your eye. ...

Just a few weeks this week Prologue Image by uwe367 from Pixabay This is an intentionally browseable set of weeknotes regarding things I “beheld” over the previous “week”1. These “weeknotes” support two purposes - recommendations to the handful of people who read it, and also giving me somewhere to look if I’m trying to remember if I watched something or not. Or, well, in the case of the last entry in this post, to give me somewhere to look to see if I wrote up what I watched. ...

Smart Choices, by Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa Context I read this many months ago, I’m writing this based on dipping back into it, and some notes I made at the time. Overall… it feels like a useful methodology, but - as is often the case with this kind of work - it feels like a pamphlet turned into a book, because this is the kind of size and format of book that customers, and publishers, want. ...

Time is a weird soup Prologue Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay This is an intentionally browseable set of weeknotes regarding things I “beheld” over the previous “week”1. So, how to divide up this mass of half-written notes and turn it into something useful to both of us? These “weeknotes” support two purposes - recommendations to the handful of people who read it, on whether they should consider spending their time on a piece of media. And also giving me somewhere to look if I’m trying to remember if I watched something or not. Oh, and to practice getting thoughts out of my own head into other people’s heads in a format that makes sense. So I’ll support that first purpose as best as I can, while resisting the urge to turn this into a long table, marking each piece of media as “yes”, “no”, or “maybe”. But I am going to do that in a slightly longer form. ...

A review of the book “Leading the Rebellion” by Jason Kingsley.

A review of the book “Billion Dollar Lessons” by Carroll and Mui.

A thoughtful listicle of the wide variety of things I read or watched this week, from March to August, from time-travel to sports.

( My reviews are aimed at helping you decide whether you should read something, rather than assuming your meaning of “good” or “bad” is anything like mine. ) The Internet, and more traditional bookshelves, are full of advice on when to start something, how to start something, and how to beat procrastination or self-limiting beliefs or imposter syndrome or whatever the author thinks is stopping you from reaching your full potential. But there’s much less content on when you should quit, on why you should consider not spending time on a project at the expense of other projects, and how to sensibly work through those decisions. With that opportunity cost being one of the few concepts I’ve kept from my O’level economics, I was particularly interested in Seth Godin’s The Dip - with its subtitle of “The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit ( and when to stick ).” ...

Prologue This is an intentionally browseable set of weeknotes regarding things I “beheld” over the previous “week”1. I hope you find something in here that sparks your interest in a piece of media, or encourages you to avoid something when your time could be better spent elsewhere. I write weeknotes mainly to practice a style of writing that isn’t work deliverables or quick emails - but if this helps you please let me know on whatever medium I mentioned this on. ...