Author: Grey

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Review

“The Alchemist”

Paolo Bacigalupi

A sequel to The Executioness, and one that answered some of the questions I wondered about in that one! (If it seems convenient that I read them in this order, it’s because I read the jacket and decided to start with The Executioness so that I could end on the, presumably, happier note of someone figuring this out.)

Because of course bramble, even magical bramble, can’t be the end state. It’s too complex; entropy always wins in the end. And here, someone figured out the proper way to burn it so that it truly dies.

Unfortunately for me, that happened far too early in the story for it to be a happy ending just like that. Looking at how many pages you have left is a great way to stress yourself out about a book.1 Still, figuring out just what would go wrong, and how the protagonist would get out of it, made this one more of a fun read than the first. Check it out.2

As a fun follow-on, after I went to post this review: I have, in fact, read this before, and even posted a review here! It’s been long enough that I had no memory of that, so I’m posting a new one as well. I suppose you can compare Past Grey’s thoughts, if you’d like.

  1. I’ve got another one I’m working on that I’ve had to take a break from for a month or so, because everything is going great for the protagonist… and I’m just barely halfway through. Something is about to go horribly wrong. ↩
  2. This is an Amazon affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I prefer Bookshop affiliate links to Amazon when possible, but in this case, the book wasn’t available there, so it’ll have to do. ↩
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Review

“The Executioness”

Tobias S. Buckell

This is one of those stories where the worldbuilding is executed incredibly well, and it leaves me with so many interesting questions. The short version: magic exists! But using it generates bramble—a plant that you apparently can’t kill, and whose thorns, in a very fairy tale fashion, make you fall asleep. I, of course, immediately start wondering about the sort of ecosystem this implies—because, given something like that, surely something has evolved a way to eat it, right?1

The story itself is… not fun, really, but an interesting read, at least. Worth giving it a go, as it was a pretty quick one.2

  1. Or, also a fun concept, maybe not yet! Which does imply that the combination of magic and bramble is, on an evolutionary timescale, pretty recent. And that puts me back into my common thought “how can I explain this magic system as actually being some kind of advanced technology from right before the sci-fi civilization collapsed back to these dark ages?” ↩
  2. This is an Amazon affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I prefer Bookshop affiliate links to Amazon when possible, but in this case, the book wasn’t available there, so it’ll have to do. ↩
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Review

“First Test”

Tamora Pierce; graphic novel adaptation by Devin Grayson and Becca Farrow

I somehow missed that this was going to be a thing until the day before it was released. It took me something like ten seconds between finding out it was up for preorder and actually putting in the preorder; I consider it a testament to my willpower that I made it days after it was delivered before I finally let it jump the queue and be my next thing to read.

Keladry of Mindelan is my comfort reading. The visual treatment here brought me so much joy; it’s quicker to read than the original novel is, and I suspect I’m going to wind up rereading it quite often as a result. Sitting down to reread the Protector of the Small quartet is an investment, it’s what I’m doing with my reading time for a while. This, I can get through in something like an hour.

There’s a couple places where I could feel the edits, but for the most part, everything felt natural; sure, the story was abridged some, but all of it made sense.1

Two thoughts on this visual treatment, specific to that: my immediate thought upon seeing Neal was “he looks like Sokka!” and I sorta held on to that feeling throughout.2

And, even more so in this visual treatment where the words stand alone more, one of my favorite quotes jumped out at me. I was glad it made it in:

The short sword is the sword of law. Without it, we are only animals. The long sword is the sword of duty. It is the terrible sword, the killing sword.

It should surprise precisely nobody that I’m going to recommend this book. I grabbed the paperback—I think I already knew that this was going to be an oft-reread comfort book for me, and wanted the comfortable feel of a paperback to match that. Please, vote with your wallet; get them to do the rest of the series, too.3 I really want to see a baby griffin. And, weirdly, one of the killing machines.

  1. Well, okay, the fact that the Gift was shown (only twice) and was the same vague sparkles each time instead of being the color of each person’s magic, that bugged me a bit. ↩
  2. Hakuin Seastone also sorta reminded me of Zuko, although I think he’s a bit more Live Action TV Series Zuko than Animated Series Zuko. ↩
  3. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: June 2024

If it’s Pride where you are, happy Pride! There’s a lot of Orville Peck in here, which I’ll pretend was a deliberate choice to celebrate.

gatsby – Daniel Leggs on gatsby – Single

Hallelujah Anyway – Luke Sital-Singh on Hallelujah Anyway – Single

Call Your Mom – Noah Kahan on Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever)

Machine Learning – J. Maya on Machine Learning – Single

Beneath Oak Trees – Dylan Gossett on No Better Time – EP

Can I Ask – Yoste on A Place To Exist

People Watching – Charles Fauna on People Watching – Single

Under The Surface – Sultan + Shepard & Nathan Nicholson on Endless, Dawn

Boys Of Faith (feat. Bon Iver) – Zach Bryan on Boys Of Faith – EP

Imitadora – Romeo Santos on Golden

The Night We Met – Amber Run on The Power Of Love – Single

Don’t Take the Money – Harry Strange & Mahogany on Don’t Take the Money – Single

Carrusel – Ozuna on Carrusel – Single

Kalahari Down – Orville Peck on Bronco

Highlights – Sasha Alex Sloan on Highlights – Single

Let Me Drown – Orville Peck on Bronco

Daytona Sand – Orville Peck on Bronco

Bronco – Orville Peck on Bronco

Lafayette – Orville Peck on Bronco

manly – Andy HD on how i felt in march of ’21 – Single

Oliver – FER4Z on Oliver – Single

Dragon – flora cash on Dragon – Single

CASTLE OF GLASS – LINKIN PARK on LIVING THINGS

JOLENE – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER

Be Together – Enrique Iglesias on FINAL (Vol.2)

The Archer – Taylor Swift on Lover

II MOST WANTED – Beyoncé & Miley Cyrus on COWBOY CARTER

Want You (living room floor version) – Yoste on Want You (living room floor version) – Single

They Can’t Hang – wes mills on They Can’t Hang – Single

DAUGHTER – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER

La Botella – Enrique Iglesias & El Alfa on FINAL (Vol.2)

Midnight Magic – Charles Fauna on L I M B O

One More Light – LINKIN PARK on One More Light

Carson – Harry Strange on Carson – Single

Go Home (Demo) – alberto brandt on Go Home (Demo) – Single

Don’t Matter to Me – Vancouver Sleep Clinic & GXNXVS on Don’t Matter to Me – Single

Take Me Back – Allman Brown on Take Me Back – Single

Lake Tota – Hayden Calnin on Lake Tota – Single

Vida – Miliano on Vida – Single

Stressed Days – Zino Vinci on Stressed Days – Single

Swans – Kai Bosch on Love, Throw Me A Bone – EP

Pig feet (feat. Childish Major) – ScHoolboy Q on BLUE LIPS

The Hurtin’ Kind – Orville Peck & Midland on Stampede: Vol. 1

Down Bad – Taylor Swift on THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY

Bones Shake – Hazlett on Bones Shake – Single

I Wanna Die in La (feat. girlhouse) – Jon Bryant on I Wanna Die in La (feat. girlhouse) – Single

iwaly – Shallou on iwaly – Single

Seasons – Thirty Seconds to Mars on Seasons (Acoustic) – Single

Twelveighteen – kiskadee on Twelveighteen / Heda – EP

Believe Again – Luke Sital-Singh on Believe Again – Single

The Age of Believing – Aron Wright on The Age of Believing – Single

Data – Aweezy on Data – Single

The River – Petey on The River – Single

Photoshoot Tonight – Isaac Dunbar on Beep Beep Repeat – EP

Not Like Us – Kendrick Lamar on Not Like Us – Single

Miénteme – Orville Peck & Bu Cuaron on Stampede: Vol. 1

Yet – Babsy. on Yet – Single

Conquer The Heart – Orville Peck & Nathaniel Rateliff on Stampede: Vol. 1

I Don’t Want To Lie (living room floor version) – Yoste on I Don’t Want To Lie (living room floor version) – Single

Oblivion – SYML on Oblivion – Single

THICKRICK – Dominic Fike on 14 minutes

CHIHIRO – Billie Eilish on HIT ME HARD AND SOFT

Control – Emmit Fenn on The Last Dance – Single

How Far Will We Take It? – Orville Peck & Noah Cyrus on Stampede: Vol. 11

Stay High – One Room on Lagoona

Chemical Sunset – Orville Peck & Allison Russell on Stampede: Vol. 1

hi grace – Dominic Fike on 14 minutes

Stay Out of Trouble – OPLURE on Stay Out of Trouble – Single

I AM BLACK – BERWYN on I AM BLACK – Single

Painkiller – Aquilo on Painkiller – Single

Little Bit of Magic – Thorin Loeks on Little Bit of Magic – Single2

We’re Over – ZEE on We’re Over – Single

Shadow II – Charles Fauna on L I M B O3

Keep Moving – Aquilo on Painkiller – Single

Follow The Feeling – Lonely in the Rain & PEARL on Follow The Feeling – Single

Shadow I – Charles Fauna on L I M B O

Little Homies – Vince Staples on Dark Times

Like No One Could – flora cash on Like No One Could – EP

Bloom – Edwin Raphael, wordsbyjuni & Kashmir Winter on Will You Think of Me Later? (Recurring Dream)

4U – Mac Ofro on 4U – Single

Midnight Ride – Orville Peck, Kylie Minogue & Diplo on Midnight Ride – Single

Heavy (feat. Kiiara) – Linkin Park on One More Light

BROADCAST: TIME AWAY – BIG SPECIAL on POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES

Same Old Song (S.O.S. Part 1) – Two Feet on A 20 Something F**k

Black&Blue – Vince Staples on Dark Times

Bando Dreams – Yung Fume on Bando Dreams – Single

Louder – Kygo, Julia Michaels & Chance Peña on Louder – Single

euphoria – Kendrick Lamar on euphoria – Single4

Far As I Can Go – Ian Harrison on Far As I Can Go – Single

Can’t Just Be Me – Vincent Mason on Can’t Just Be Me – EP

In Your Eyes – Sung on In Your Eyes – Single5

Feels – Moezi on Feels – Single

Que Sera – Yartti & Juma Mufasa on Que Sera – Single

Heaven in the Right Light – Old Sea Brigade on Heaven in the Right Light – Single

Pink Skies – Zach Bryan on Pink Skies – Single

feelslikeimfallinginlove – Coldplay on Moon Music6

Cologne – Emmit Fenn on Cologne – Single

In Your Eyes – The Weeknd on After Hours (Deluxe)

  1. I really enjoyed the music video of this one, too. ↩
  2. To really emphasize what the experience of these playlists is like, play this immediately after Pig Feet. ↩
  3. Delighted by how well this captures the feeling of what I liked about Charles Fauna originally without being derivative of his earlier work. ↩
  4. I know only a little bit about the Kendrick/Drake beef, but it sure does make for some good music. From one side. ↩
  5. This is why In Your Eyes by The Weeknd showed up later – the scansion works. ↩
  6. New Coldplay? In 2024??? It’s more likely than you think. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Silk Roads”

Peter Frankopan

Just like my last book review, I’ve got two thoughts; apparently it’s always two things with me. This time, it was two things that I actually did learn about in history class that this book helped me understand better than the classes ever did.

First, the American Revolution. As the output of the American education system, I’m well aware that it, basically, got started because Britain raised taxes on the colonies in what would become the US, and we all got mad about it.1 What this book pointed out is why Britain increased taxes — because, of course, they had to know it wouldn’t be popular, so it wouldn’t have been just for funsies, there had to be a reason. The reason, it turns out, was that they had just bailed out the British East India Company, and big bailouts require funding. Why did they bail out the British East India Company? Because the BEIC’s revenues from India had suddenly collapsed! Why did those revenues suddenly collapse? To summarize, because the company realized that, thanks to the magic of colonialism, the could just… not pay a living wage! To anyone! And so they didn’t. And then millions of people starved. (To those following along at home, the moral of the story is that you should pay people a living wage. And also, y’know, not do coercive labor practices in any way, shape, or form.)

Secondly, and let’s just go ahead and say right now that it’s not gonna get lighter in tone, was World War II. I very specifically remember thinking, in not only high school but also college-level history classes, “how did Hitler think invading Russia was going to go well, it’s like the canonical way to end a European empire.” It was never really explained, the best I ever got was mumbling about his egomaniacal tendencies and the need for “Lebensraum.” Which, to be fair, were factors. But this book did a lot better a job explaining a key thing: crops. The goal wasn’t to invade Russia, it was to take Ukraine—the bread basket of the USSR. And the issue wasn’t egonomanicism or greed, it was that Germany didn’t have enough food. Also on the list of things that can cause massive starvation: declaring war on everyone, dumping your entire economy into war matériel, and conscripting every farm worker with a Y chromosome. Plants may generally be able to grow themselves, but they don’t harvest themselves.

The book had a whole lot of other interesting stuff. I knew (and, let’s be real, still know) very little about Asian history, so a whole heck of a lot of this was new to me. The bits above are what I called out because they were revelatory moments about things I already knew about. A different form of learning to “this is brand new information” types of things. I found the book quite approachable, and the chapters were broken up fairly well—not tiny chunks, each one is still gonna take some time to get through, but reasonable enough. The naming pattern definitely got stretched thin after a while, but that’s probably less of an issue if you’re reading a print copy instead of the ebook where the chapter title is always visible at the top of the screen.

All in all, a good read, and I recommend it, Check it out!2

  1. “No taxation without representation” does point out that the lack of representation was also a key issue, but it’s not as relevant to my realization here. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Modern Software Engineering”

David Farley

Over the course of reading this book, I kept coming back to two thoughts.

Firstly, I think Farley undersells the advances that programming languages have made. He has a point that the level of bikeshedding about languages that programmers are capable of is too much, but treating it as completely nothing is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Take an example close to my heart: comparing Objective-C and Swift, there have been some significant advances. The introduction, and use throughout the language and libraries, of optionals has functionally eliminated null-pointer exceptions. Memory management bugs are a massive category of problems, across all sorts of software. Look at Heartbleed, for example. If you’re using Swift idiomatically, and avoiding the (hilariously named) UnsafePointer stuff, this sort of problem cannot happen.1

Secondly, this book felt like the moment where in my mind I went “oh, we are getting there.” He makes a point early on that software engineering as a field has different standards of success than other engineering disciplines. Again, an example: this morning, I woke up to a truly terrible software bug in an app I use that had deleted several years worth of data. This is a bad bug, and I’m personally quite upset about that loss, but it’s not as bad as, say, the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse. Subjectively, it feels like software as a whole has a lower bar for “is this okay to produce” than the other, physical engineering disciplines.

Where this book changed my opinion is in starting to feel like the field is beginning to coalesce around some standards. We’re nowhere near the level of “you have to use these techniques, and if you don’t you can lose your Software Engineering License and be prohibited from working professionally in the field,” but some of those techniques are taking shape.2 Farley’s argument is that the core of it is fast feedback, allowing for tight iteration loops, and from that it logically follows that test-driven development is the best option.

And yes, I’m sold! Just the other day, while doing some tinkering on a personal project, I found several bugs I’d created — because the tests I wrote before I started writing the code failed. That’s such a nice way to do things. And now, having written both the code and the tests, I feel much more comfortable with the idea of “oh, I’m going to need to reuse some of this logic somewhere else, I’ll just pull it out into a separate chunk.” I don’t have to spend an hour thinking through “what might break from this,” or testing things out. I just do it, run the tests, and know that I’m good.

As to the book itself: he’s hammering the same points over and over, as these sorts of books tend to do. I found it a generally good read, and took many notes for the book club discussion, but I don’t know that it was particularly world-changing… or if anyone else will have the same “eureka” feeling from it that I did. That moment came with a very clear sense of “all the other stuff I’ve read and done leading up to now came together into this idea.” It’s not a bad book, though, and could be a pretty good starting point if you’re just getting into the “read about the field” kind of thing, so check it out.3

  1. And I’m also setting aside the type checker, which is, for all intents and purposes, a form of mandatory unit testing imposed at compile time. Writing Swift, you don’t have to safety-check your inputs to make sure they’re the right types; the language does it for you. ↩
  2. I do absolutely believe that software engineers should be forming some kind of industry group and establishing shared standards for what “software engineering” actually means. ↩
  3. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Blindspots Between Us”

Gleb Tsipursky

This is one of those books where I wind up with a whole bunch of notes. Cognitive science: it’s neat stuff!

As with most of my reading, I have no idea when, where, or why I got this book; based on the title, I wasn’t quite expecting cognitive psychology, particularly not in a self-help sort of manner. Broadly, each segment is “here’s this problem that you have, because you’re a human and that’s just how human brains work; here’s some approaches you can take to mitigate that problem.”

The word ‘mitigate’ is important in there, though: there’s not a magic solution to any of these biases.1 The best you can do is be aware of these evolutionary foibles and try to catch yourself when they’re happening.

A thought that kept coming to mind, all the way through this book, was how much it reminded me of some of the excerpts of Tim Urban’s What’s Our Problem? that I’ve read. In his case, he uses a division between a Scientist Brain and a Caveman Brain, roughly; here, it’s the Autopilot System and the Intentional System. I tend to think of it as a three-part split, between lizard brain, monkey brain, and person brain, although that does present the issue of the person brain being outnumbered by the other two. On the other hand, maybe you should feel a bit outnumbered; the person brain is the slow one, whereas monkey and lizard brain are progressively faster.

Regardless, there’s a split between your higher-order thinking, stuff that makes it possible for us to, y’know, gestures at modern civilization, and the lower-order stuff that kept us alive through the majority of human history, before all the conveniences of modern life. Evolution is slow to change, and hasn’t even begun to catch up to what life is like now; and, back in the caveman days, the caveman who stopped to contemplate the social implications of running from the oncoming lion had lower odds of survival than the one who was in a dead sprint before the expensive, slow higher-order consciousness had even parsed that particular blur as “lion.”

This book is basically a list of ways that those monkey-brain reflexes trip us up in modern life, and hints for helping your person-brain deal with it. Which is, overall, quite a useful thing to be able to do! As a book, I mostly enjoyed reading it—it does have Self-Help Book Syndrome, wherein it provides a bunch of examples that are occasionally useful but mostly just come across as stilted and unhelpful—and recommend it. Check it out.2

  1. Well, as of this writing there isn’t. By the time you’re reading this, maybe we figured out some kind of brain implant technology that makes us all better at thinking about stuff. I can dream. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“How to Read Literature Like a Professor”

Thomas C. Foster

If you pay attention to my reviews, you may notice a dearth of “literature” as a genre. This was my attempt to begin working on rectifying that; sadly, I don’t think it will have worked. This sort of literary analysis, tearing apart every decision the author made to try to find the symbolism behind it, just isn’t my cup of tea.

Which isn’t to say that this wasn’t a good book! I quite liked the way it served as an overview of the topic, to begin with. Beyond that, there were a couple things that really stood out to me as something of throughlines to the book.

First, that, roughly put, meaning is in the eye of the beholder. We each bring our own personal history, our own preconceptions and biases, to our reading. The things that strike me as meaningful are going to be different than the things that strike my sister as meaningful, but the two of us are likely to have more overlap than I would with someone reading the same thing in their home in Hong Kong.

Secondly, a professorial reiteration of the idea that there’s nothing new. It’s one big melting pot; in the same way that each reader has their own approach to the same book, each other has their own approach to the same ur-story underneath everything.1

So, overall, a useful introduction to/reminder of literary analysis as a concept. I remain… not sold on the whole field, but to each their own! If it’s of interest to you, this is a pretty good place to start.2

  1. This also, I felt, made an excellent addition to the arguments in favor of transformative works as a thing. If all of fiction is just remixes of earlier fiction, then what difference is there, really, between a fanfic and Dante’s Inferno? One is older, is all, and has attained respectability over time. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: May 2024

Honestly surprised this playlist is as long as it is; this month has felt extremely busy.

gatsby – Daniel Leggs on gatsby – Single

If You Want Somebody – Elderbrook on Little Love

I Don’t Want To Lie – Yoste & Vandelux on I Don’t Want To Lie – Single

Hallelujah Anyway – Luke Sital-Singh on Hallelujah Anyway – Single

Call Your Mom – Noah Kahan on Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever)

Crazy in the Night (Barking at Airplanes) – Kim Carnes on Best of Kim Carnes

Machine Learning – J. Maya on Machine Learning – Single

Beneath Oak Trees – Dylan Gossett on No Better Time – EP

Can I Ask – Yoste on A Place To Exist

People Watching – Charles Fauna on People Watching – Single

Under The Surface – Sultan + Shepard & Nathan Nicholson on Endless, Dawn

Boys Of Faith (feat. Bon Iver) – Zach Bryan on Boys Of Faith – EP

Risk Al – Mako & Baro on Risk al – Single

Imitadora – Romeo Santos on Golden

TUTA GOLD – Mahmood on TUTA GOLD – Single

The Night We Met – Amber Run on The Power Of Love – Single

Don’t Take the Money – Harry Strange & Mahogany on Don’t Take the Money – Single

Carrusel – Ozuna on Carrusel – Single

Kalahari Down – Orville Peck on Bronco

TEXAS HOLD ‘EM – Beyoncé on TEXAS HOLD ‘EM – Single

Highlights – Sasha Alex Sloan on Highlights – Single

Bite the Hand – Harry Strange on Bite the Hand / Kind of Love – Single

Let Me Drown – Orville Peck on Bronco

Daytona Sand – Orville Peck on Bronco

Bronco – Orville Peck on Bronco

Lafayette – Orville Peck on Bronco

Blush – Orville Peck on Bronco

Tulips – Kai Bosch on Love, Throw Me A Bone – EP

Smalltown Boy – Orville Peck on Smalltown Boy – Single

manly – Andy HD on how i felt in march of ’21 – Single

Oliver – FER4Z on Oliver – Single

Dragon – flora cash on Dragon – Single

4 The Music – MIN on 4 The Music – Single

The Winner Takes It All – Meryl Streep on Mamma Mia! (The Movie Soundtrack feat. the Songs of ABBA)

Heat Above – Greta Van Fleet on The Battle at Garden’s Gate

CASTLE OF GLASS – LINKIN PARK on LIVING THINGS

JOLENE – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER

Be Together – Enrique Iglesias on FINAL (Vol.2)

The Archer – Taylor Swift on Lover

not ok – Andy HD on not ok – Single

not ok – Andy HD on not ok – Single

no body, no crime (feat. HAIM) – Taylor Swift on evermore

II MOST WANTED – Beyoncé & Miley Cyrus on COWBOY CARTER

Want You (living room floor version) – Yoste on Want You (living room floor version) – Single

They Can’t Hang – wes mills on They Can’t Hang – Single

DAUGHTER – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER

La Botella – Enrique Iglesias & El Alfa on FINAL (Vol.2)

Prrrum – Cosculluela on El Príncipe [Ghost Edition]

Como Yo – Enrique Iglesias on FINAL (Vol.2)

Midnight Magic – Charles Fauna on L I M B O

Kind of Love – Harry Strange on Bite the Hand / Kind of Love – Single

One More Light – LINKIN PARK on One More Light

Carson – Harry Strange on Carson – Single

Go Home (Demo) – alberto brandt on Go Home (Demo) – Single

All I Wanna Say – Lontalius on I’ll Forget 17

To Be Loved – Moko on Until Feb

Chicken Tenders – Dominic Fike on What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Revenge – Saffari on Revenge – Single

Don’t Matter to Me – Vancouver Sleep Clinic & GXNXVS on Don’t Matter to Me – Single

Take Me Back – Allman Brown on Take Me Back – Single

Hope… – alberto brandt on Hope… – Single

Makes Me Violent – Bob Vylan on Humble As the Sun

Lake Tota – Hayden Calnin on Lake Tota – Single

Saint Michael Myers – Trippie Redd & BANKS on Saint Michael

Vida – Miliano on Vida – Single

Stressed Days – Zino Vinci on Stressed Days – Single

Un Autre Monde – Tom Kha on Un Autre Monde – Single

Swans – Kai Bosch on Love, Throw Me A Bone – EP

TRAP PHONE – BERWYN on TRAP PHONE – Single

Pig feet (feat. Childish Major) – ScHoolboy Q on BLUE LIPS

The Hurtin’ Kind – Orville Peck & Midland on Stampede: Vol. 1

Follow The Sun – Lost In Pacific & Noah Kulaga on Follow The Sun – Single

Friday – The Chainsmokers & Fridayy on No Hard Feelings – EP

Lie To Me – Edwin Raphael on Will You Think of Me Later? (Recurring Dream)

Inside Out – Winona Oak & Boy In Space on Inside Out – Single

Down Bad – Taylor Swift on THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY

Bones Shake – Hazlett on Bones Shake – Single1

Count on Me – Emmit Fenn on Count on Me – Single

Sober – Edwin Raphael on Will You Think of Me Later? (Recurring Dream)

Hideaway (feat. Ruba) – Charles Fauna on L I M B O

I Wanna Die in La (feat. girlhouse) – Jon Bryant on I Wanna Die in La (feat. girlhouse) – Single

iwaly – Shallou on iwaly – Single2

Promise – HAEVN on Promise – Single

NEIGHBOURS – BERWYN on NEIGHBOURS – Single

Seasons – Thirty Seconds to Mars on Seasons (Acoustic) – Single

Run Right Back – ORACLE & Holochrome on Run Right Back – Single

Twelveighteen – kiskadee on Twelveighteen / Heda – EP

Believe Again – Luke Sital-Singh on Believe Again – Single

The Age of Believing – Aron Wright on The Age of Believing – Single3

Data – Aweezy on Data – Single

The River – Petey on The River – Single

Photoshoot Tonight – Isaac Dunbar on Beep Beep Repeat – EP

Heaven – The National on Heaven – Single

Not Like Us – Kendrick Lamar on Not Like Us – Single4

Miénteme – Orville Peck & Bu Cuaron on Stampede: Vol. 1

Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting) – Orville Peck & Elton John on Stampede: Vol. 1

As Easy As Possible – Oduu on Connect – EP

Yet – Babsy. on Yet – Single

Heartburn – Panama & Vandelux on Heartburn – Single

Conquer The Heart – Orville Peck & Nathaniel Rateliff on Stampede: Vol. 1

I Don’t Want To Lie (living room floor version) – Yoste on I Don’t Want To Lie (living room floor version) – Single

Oblivion – SYML on Oblivion – Single

THICKRICK – Dominic Fike on 14 minutes

CHIHIRO – Billie Eilish on HIT ME HARD AND SOFT5

Captagon Limit Extended 909 Sr – 47 Tw Mix – Flesh Simulator on Captagon Limit Extended – Single

Control – Emmit Fenn on The Last Dance – Single

How Far Will We Take It? – Orville Peck & Noah Cyrus on Stampede: Vol. 16

Stay High – One Room on Lagoona

Chemical Sunset – Orville Peck & Allison Russell on Stampede: Vol. 1

hi grace – Dominic Fike on 14 minutes

Stay Out of Trouble – OPLURE on Stay Out of Trouble – Single

Sinking Underground – Lontalius on Sinking Underground – Single

  1. This is one that feels like it’s gonna be in my list for months on end, just based on how I’m slowly picking up bits of it that I can sing along to. ↩
  2. I can’t quite figure out what this one reminds me of, feels like it’s on the tip of my tongue… ↩
  3. The same guy who gave me “like the softest hammer” (How You’ll Be Remembered) comes in with “love is like a tiger on a landmine — you’re scared but want to save it at the same time.” Excellent. ↩
  4. I’m told this is full of sick burns, or whatever. I don’t actually keep up with the music industry news enough to follow it, I just heard it enough from people who do that it wound up in here. ↩
  5. The driving synth line in here is really excellent. ↩
  6. The music video for this is also excellent. ↩
Categories
Review

“Perfect Software And Other Illusions About Testing”

Gerald M. Weinberg

Another book club entry, and a shorter one than usual, it feels like. I think the core concept is a good one to hold on to: testing everything is impossible, so you should be aware of what tradeoffs you’re choosing, and pick the ones that best meet your needs.

There’s some places in the book where, coming at it with Programmer Brain, I was annoyed at how long it took to explain something. Like yes, of course, you can’t test every possible system state, even just looking at a single small program there’s likely to be thousands of possible states, and that’s without addressing all the additional states created by the fact that programs don’t exist in isolation. The system they’re running on can impact them; the person using them can have a varying level of knowledge on using the program or the system; the program can be left continuously running for a long time, getting into ever more-complex possible states; heck, even cosmic radiation can impact program state.1

That complaint aside, there’s still a lot of useful ideas in there. Remember, the testers are not the enemy! But neither are they infallible. They are, in point of fact, people. Have empathy for them.

In all, a good, and reasonably quick, read about the software development process. Give it a go if that’s your type of thing.2

  1. Seriously, cosmic rays flipping bits inside RAM (or on various forms of longer-term storage media) is a real problem! ↩
  2. This is an Amazon affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I prefer Bookshop affiliate links to Amazon when possible, but in this case, the book wasn’t available there, so it’ll have to do. ↩
Categories
Review

“Prodigals”

Alan Dean Foster

This was a fun little romp of a book. It starts as a first contact scenario, a nice hectic experience for everyone involved as the various contacted governments scramble to pull together contact teams. And then it promptly goes off the rails for them, as nobody’s expectations about what First Contact will actually look like have anything to do with what happens.1

There’s some fun twists and turns in the book, and I quite enjoyed it. Towards the end it went a little funny, but I think… reasonably stuck the landing. Check it out.2

  1. And I am, frankly, delighted that the book managed to come up with a coherent reason for why this first contact was completely nonsensical in a way that most First Contact stories completely fail at. They’re from space. Do you know how much stuff there is out there? Why would an advanced race bother landing on a planet to mine for resources? ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Bad Gays”

Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller

This is a fun concept for a book: take the concept of “let’s talk about the forgotten gays of history” and focusing, instead of on the heroic ones, the villainous ones. I thought the choice of Hadrian for the cover art was weird, but the chapter on him… sorta explained that, and sorta didn’t? Like, my reading is that he was definitely a toxic boyfriend, but not particularly a villain beyond that, unless you want to count the inherent villainy of being a Roman emperor. And even then, by Roman Emperor Standards, he wasn’t actually all that bad.1

I have, in the past, bounced off books for being too academic in style, and this feels like it’s right around the upper edge of what I can tolerate in that way. It’s an interesting telling of the history, with a fair amount of citations throughout, but where I started to lose interest was where it got deep into… queer theory? Historiography? Something like that. Not a book to read when your brain is tired and you just want to gently process words, there’s too many moments demanding of deep thought for that. But then, sometimes that’s what you’re in the mood for.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the read! It’s a fun, if sometimes disheartening and depressing, skim through a specific subset of history. Give it a go.2

  1. This is, admittedly, a pretty low bar. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Thing Explainer”

Randall Munroe

This was a really interesting book to read. The quick summary is that it explains things! (It’s a well-chosen title.) The trick is that it does so using line art and the 1,000 most-common words, in the style of Simple English Wikipedia. It’s a mix of genuinely useful information, decontextualization that feels like Strange Planet, and a surprisingly similar feeling to trying to read a book in a language in which you are not fluent. For as short a book as it is, it took me a long time to read it; I could only get through a few pages at a time, and then I had to go take a break to let my brain recover.

It is, however, quite fun to read. You’ll learn some things, and at the same time you’ll have a few moments of feeling proud of yourself for figuring out what the heck it’s trying to convey. It’s an educational puzzler. I had a lot of fun with it; check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: April 2024

Feels like a shorter one than usual—I had a bit less time for listening to music this month. Which feels slightly ominous.

How It Was – Yoste on A Few Brief Moments – EP

Friends – Yoste on Friends – Single

gatsby – Daniel Leggs on gatsby – Single

If You Want Somebody – Elderbrook on Little Love

I Don’t Want To Lie – Yoste & Vandelux on I Don’t Want To Lie – Single

Hallelujah Anyway – Luke Sital-Singh on Hallelujah Anyway – Single

Call Your Mom – Noah Kahan on Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever)

Crazy in the Night (Barking at Airplanes) – Kim Carnes on Best of Kim Carnes

Machine Learning – J. Maya on Machine Learning – Single

Trouble In Your Eyes – Yoste on Trouble In Your Eyes – Single

Beneath Oak Trees – Dylan Gossett on No Better Time – EP

Can I Ask – Yoste on A Place To Exist

My Innocence – Corey Harper on My Innocence – Single

Safety In Numbers – MAX RAD & Nathan Ball on Safety In Numbers – Single

People Watching – Charles Fauna on People Watching – Single

american fantasy – Daniel Leggs on american fantasy – Single

Under The Surface – Sultan + Shepard & Nathan Nicholson on Endless, Dawn

Boys Of Faith (feat. Bon Iver) – Zach Bryan on Boys Of Faith – EP

Nobody Cares – Lonely in the Rain & MR TOUT LE MONDE on Nobody Cares – Single

Risk Al – Mako & Baro on Risk al – Single

Armor – Iniko on Armor – Single

Imitadora – Romeo Santos on Golden

TUTA GOLD – Mahmood on TUTA GOLD – Single

The Night We Met – Amber Run on The Power Of Love – Single

Grow (feat. Wye Oak) – Forester on Grow (feat. Wye Oak) – Single

Constantinople – Ed Prosek, Portair & Driftwood Choir on Constantinople – Single

Don’t Take the Money – Harry Strange & Mahogany on Don’t Take the Money – Single

rainonmyparade – cln on rainonmyparade – Single

Carrusel – Ozuna on Carrusel – Single

Kalahari Down – Orville Peck on Bronco

TEXAS HOLD ‘EM – Beyoncé on TEXAS HOLD ‘EM – Single

Highlights – Sasha Alex Sloan on Highlights – Single

Bite the Hand – Harry Strange on Bite the Hand / Kind of Love – Single

Cover Girl – Haux on Blue Angeles

You’re Not Alone (feat. Tailor) – Lonely in the Rain on Clouds In Our Heads – EP

Let Me Drown – Orville Peck on Bronco

Daytona Sand – Orville Peck on Bronco

Bronco – Orville Peck on Bronco

Trample Out the Days – Orville Peck on Bronco

Lafayette – Orville Peck on Bronco

Somewhere Between – Dylan Gossett on Somewhere Between – Single

Blush – Orville Peck on Bronco

Born This Way (The Country Road Version) – Orville Peck on Born This Way (The Country Road Version) – Single

Tulips – Kai Bosch on Love, Throw Me A Bone – EP

Smalltown Boy – Orville Peck on Smalltown Boy – Single

manly – Andy HD on how i felt in march of ’21 – Single

Oliver – FER4Z on Oliver – Single

A Bad Dream from an Old Life – Ed Prosek, Portair & Driftwood Choir on A Bad Dream from an Old Life – Single

Dragon – flora cash on Dragon – Single

4 The Music – MIN on 4 The Music – Single1

leaving so soon – Andy HD on how i felt in march of ’21 – Single

The Winner Takes It All – Meryl Streep on Mamma Mia! (The Movie Soundtrack feat. the Songs of ABBA)

Hymn for the Weekend – Coldplay on A Head Full of Dreams

Heat Above – Greta Van Fleet on The Battle at Garden’s Gate

CASTLE OF GLASS – LINKIN PARK on LIVING THINGS

JOLENE – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER2

Be Together – Enrique Iglesias on FINAL (Vol.2)

Lost – Frank Ocean on channel ORANGE

The Archer – Taylor Swift on Lover3

Too Sweet – Hozier on Unheard – EP

Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other – Orville Peck & Willie Nelson on Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other – Single

Lost In Paradise (feat. Boo Seeka) – Forester on Moonlight

not ok – Andy HD on not ok – Single

not ok – Andy HD on not ok – Single4

no body, no crime (feat. HAIM) – Taylor Swift on evermore

Far Away – Allman Brown on Far Away – Single

RIIVERDANCE – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER

Leave This All Behind – Dixon Dallas on Leave This All Behind – Single

Afterlife – Eloi El on Above Ground

II MOST WANTED – Beyoncé & Miley Cyrus on COWBOY CARTER

Want You (living room floor version) – Yoste on Want You (living room floor version) – Single

SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIIN’ – Beyoncé & Shaboozey on COWBOY CARTER

Waiting for the End – LINKIN PARK on A Thousand Suns (Deluxe Edition)

Palestrina Sicut (feat. Sarah Aristidou, Kim Sheehan & Niels Orens) – Max Cooper on Seme – EP

They Can’t Hang – wes mills on They Can’t Hang – Single5

IF YOU GO DOWN (I’M GOIN’ DOWN TOO) – Kelsea Ballerini on SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Glad I Found You – Elderbrook & George FitzGerald on Glad I Found You – Single

Never Change – Otherwish on ii, Let You Go

DAUGHTER – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER6

Me Voy Acostumbrando – Enrique Iglesias on FINAL (Vol.2)

La Botella – Enrique Iglesias & El Alfa on FINAL (Vol.2)

BLACKBIIRD – Beyoncé, Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy & Reyna Roberts on COWBOY CARTER

so bad (feat. Vide) – Kid Kobe on so bad (feat. Vide) – Single

Yardstyle – M24 on Concrete Rose

American High – Isaac Dunbar on American High – Single

The Mountain Is You – Chance Peña on The Mountain Is You – Single

Prrrum – Cosculluela on El Príncipe [Ghost Edition]7

Como Yo – Enrique Iglesias on FINAL (Vol.2)

Midnight Magic – Charles Fauna on L I M B O

All Of You (feat. maybealice) – Lonely in the Rain on All Of You (feat. maybealice) – Single

BURN IT DOWN – LINKIN PARK on LIVING THINGS

Unwavering – Sandrayati & SOHN on Unwavering – Single

Stay Still – Le Youth, Forester & Lyrah on Stay Still – Single

Honey – Corey Harper on Honey – Single

JUST FOR FUN – Beyoncé & Willie Jones on COWBOY CARTER

Kind of Love – Harry Strange on Bite the Hand / Kind of Love – Single

Cinema – French Braids & Tailor on Cinema – Single

Finally Stop Dreaming – Dylan Gossett on Songs in the Gravel – EP

Hey Now – VisionV, Surf Mesa & MKLA on Hey Now – Single

AMERIICAN REQUIEM – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER

Have I Ever Left Your Side? – Aron Wright on Have I Ever Left Your Side? – Single

ALLIIGATOR TEARS – Beyoncé on COWBOY CARTER

One More Light – LINKIN PARK on One More Light8

Back Through You – Sultan + Shepard & Tishmal on Endless, Dawn

Carson – Harry Strange on Carson – Single

Paris – The Chainsmokers on Memories…Do Not Open

Righteous – Juice WRLD on Legends Never Die

  1. Really love the strings here, wonderfully rhythmic. ↩
  2. collab of the century??? ↩
  3. Feels very… ‘80s female lead to me. I dig it. ↩
  4. Not a repeat! One is the “explicit” version and one isn’t… but they’re actually very different iterations of the same song. ↩
  5. Feels very “Fred again..” ↩
  6. I have done no research to find the answer to this question, because it’s more fun that way, but I keep wondering: did Beyoncé already have the classical-opera-style training for this, or did she learn it just for this song? Either way, daaaaang. ↩
  7. This is the one song I added whilst I was away from my computer and listening to less music. ↩
  8. A+ song to sing along to in the shower, can recomend. ↩
Categories
Review

“How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”

Dr. Walter Rodney

This is one of those books that I feel underprepared to read. Human interests are fractal; every topic is full of so much more detail and history than you’d ever expect. And this is a book from deep within a topic area. There’s a lot of assumed prior reading that I just don’t have.

The general thesis is pretty simple to state: through slavery and colonization, Europe took the resources of Africa to fuel its own development, and in so doing, slowed the development of—or, roll credits, underdeveloped—Africa.

And that point is made quite well throughout. There’s a lot of the history of the relationship between Europe and Africa, and it’s a whole lot of interesting, useful information. The one point that really lodged in my head was population numbers over time: using the (very) rough census data available, the extrapolated populations of Europe, Asia, and the Americas just kept growing over time; Africa’s population stayed stable for a couple of centuries. Gee, do you think there’s something environmentally unique about Africa that meant this gigantic landmass with plenty of arable land was just immune to natural population growth? Or could it perhaps be that people kept showing up with empty ships and leaving with ships full of slaves?

And the population numbers were already something I hadn’t known about, but the larger point made is that having a permanent population drain is a massive detriment to a region’s ability to develop. Every person taken away isn’t just a person taken away, they’re a whole set of possible futures cut off. Every interaction they could’ve had with someone else, every possible invention they could’ve come up with… every child they could have had, and every interaction and invention and child that child could’ve had, expanding on into the future. A massive amount of potential, stolen away… over and over, constantly, for centuries. It’s a hell of an impact, and the way Dr. Rodney talks about it really drives that point home. For that alone, this book is well worth the read.

There’s two part of the book that didn’t hold up well. Firstly, it was written in the 1960s, and has a lot to say about the future of socialism, with the unfortunate outcome of pointing to the USSR and North Korea as shining examples of development. That… aged poorly.

The other issue is a lot more mechanical, and hopefully just an issue of the specific edition I was reading: it had, very clearly, been run through OCR software at some point, and was reprinted based on that without an editing pass. It’s a tad headache-inducing to have to deliberately blur your vision at times so you can figure out what word was supposed to be there, based on the shape, instead of whatever word actually wound up there. Whatever OCR software was used, it was very bad at distinguishing between the characters f/l/t, as well as c/e, and the editing pass appears to have been “paste it into Word, hit ‘spell check,’ accept the first suggestion for everything.” Not great, Bob!

All in all, I found this to be an interesting read, and can heartily recommend it. Maybe… avoid this specific edition, though.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩