Posted in reading, software on December 2nd, 2009 6 Comments »
…if the world of blogging about software had by now developed some kind of a tradition of critical analysis?
Over at Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemee writes a careful and thoughtful review of Cornel West’s new book. It performs the delicate feat of being at once both generous to its subject and devastating in its analysis:
Legend [...]
Posted in reading on April 10th, 2008 No Comments »
Marc Ambinder comments on the peculiar cadence of the jacket blurbs for Douglas Feith’s new book, to which some wag responds with a suggestion for a similar endorsement.
Feith’s book is perfectly rectangular. Its page numbers progress in a pleasing upward sequence. Its evident shortcomings in terms of accuracy are offset by its usefulness in [...]
Posted in reading, science on December 20th, 2007 No Comments »
Here is an absolute treat: a long, lively interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, conducted on one of my favourite blogs, BLDGBLOG.
At its best (the Three Californias trilogy, Antarctica), Robinson’s writing is at once haunting and beautifully evocative of a sense of place.
Posted in reading on January 13th, 2007 No Comments »
From the department of microscopic obsessions of the bourgeoisie:
I’ve subscribed to The New Yorker since I first came to the US, over a decade ago. On a mailing list, a correspondent alerts readers to this blog entry, which tickled me pink.
Q. Is it true that at some point in the seventies, Goings On About Town [...]
Posted in reading on December 20th, 2006 1 Comment »
Inspired by a discussion on a mailing list, I dug up a copy of Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen’s Figments of Reality, to find the definition of the zombike.
[...] We begin with a topic that has greatly excited many philosophers: along with Dennett, we think it is a complete [...]
Posted in reading, science on December 12th, 2006 No Comments »
Local scientists, ancient reptiles, volcanic eruptions, and Antarctica! All in one story! Really, this article was written precisely and exactly for me.
In brief, a paleontologist from Berkeley (across the Bay from me) was involved in a spectacular find: an almost complete skeleton (cartilage and all) of a juvenile plesiosaur, buried in 70 million year old [...]
Posted in reading, science on December 6th, 2006 No Comments »
Some time ago, I read a Nature review (subscription required) of Doug Macdougall’s “Frozen Earth“. As is the way of such things, after I ordered my copy, the book suffered several months of neglect before I finally had a chance to pick it up. However, once I started reading it, I quickly became engrossed, and [...]
Posted in reading on June 25th, 2005 No Comments »
Not too long ago, I decided to start tracking the books I read more closely. Though I had no particular goal in mind when I started this, I had been entertaining, for a while, the notion that I am not graced with much spare time.
The quantity of books I apparently read has given the [...]
Posted in reading on June 13th, 2005 No Comments »
In preparation for a move of house that isn’t actually likely to happen until 2007, Shannon and I have been going through some of our bookshelves. Our (admittedly unattainable) goal is to get rid of half of our books.
Since we don’t know when the move will occur (we first have to get permission from [...]
Posted in reading on June 12th, 2005 No Comments »
Shannon and I spent a dizzying hour at Borderlands Books in the Mission last Friday. (I know, I know, it’s been over a week.) Borderlands is the perfect geek bookstore, right down to the unnaturally friendly Sphinx cat who haunts the front counter. It houses an impressive collection of science fiction and fantasy, [...]
