Book Review - The Doomed City by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The Strugatsky brothers are probably most famous for their novel Roadside Picnic, which later Tarkovsky adapted into the film Stalker. I came across the Doomed City via a blog post on Boing Boing, where Cory Doctorow sang its praises. The brothers wrote the book back in the 70s, but it wasn't published until 1989 due to its overt . . .
Learning From The Record Store
I don’t have enough hair left for a mohawk, and I’ve had a corporate job of some sort for over a decade. My punk rock bona fides are solidly in the past. I mean I’ll still scream and yell for a loud rock show, but I will admit that my taste in music drifts a bit more electronic these days. (Often it sounds like Wulfband . . .
Book Review - Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
Saunders isn't explicitly a genre writer, either by brand or content. Some of his stories are straight literary fiction about weird people socially hobbled by their stupidity, narcissism, or both. When he does lean into genre fiction, it's often just a spice added to his regular style. He doesn't get tied down in world building or . . .
YouTube Film School
This is going up a few days later because it’s a little longer than my usual entries, and needed a bit more attention before going up.
Every snooty Mac blogger, at some point, invokes Steve Jobs’ line about the intersection of liberal arts and technology. Though the WWDC keynote was last week, I’ll instead use that line to talk about . . .
Ephemeral Writing
Should we judge the present moment’s importance by its historical weight? A massive media apparatus has risen up around politics, entertainment, sports, and every other matter, making it hard to believe that it isn’t important. With all that energy pumped out documenting every moment, it has to meaningful, right?
Most of . . .
Learning Diary: Statistics With Python Part One: The Basics
I am rounding out the Python stuff at Code Academy with their Learning Statistics with Python course. Along with a couple of books I bought, this should be a fun way to find direct applications with Python at my current skill level.
I finished the first section, which covers the basics of statistics that you probably remember from . . .
Book Reviews:Smashed by Junji Ito
Though Tomie and Uzumaki didn’t get the American remake treatment of other well known J-Horror classics, Junji Ito is still widely regarded as one of the masters of the genre. Smashed is the latest collection of his horror manga to be translated and released in the US.
The opening story is about a girl who . . .