First one was simple old school sci fi fun.
Second one had a really interesting concept and mostly well done; although I didn’t think much of what seemed to be 20 pages of stream of consciousness type rambling near the end.
Third one was effing brilliant, my favourite out of the series.
Incredible book. I always recommend it.
Be careful recommending that, some idiot will take it to be an instruction manual.
Maybe it’s already too late.
Dilla Time. Not as good as I’d hoped it would be. Sometimes it’s best just to listen to the music and accept some of the myths surrounding it.
G
We Are Bellingcat by Eliot Higgins. It gives a glimpse behind the scenes of OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) journalism. It dismantles the idea that we are passive actors at the mercy of propaganda, and shows that there are ways to find information and uncover facts other that relying on mainstream news.
I am not into politics or journalism, nor will I ever carry out the painstaking research required to rummage through heaps of mis/information and materials to find the truth in any given situation, but it’s reassuring to know that somebody out there is doing it. Also, the proposed shift of mental model in regards to how we view news and information surrounding us is worth the time it takes to get through this short read.
I am a King addict. And this is one of the finest. It’s a collection of stories, the first being 1922, which was recently adapted for the screen. It’s a tense, brooding and powerful piece of work, some of the best writing from King I’ve yet experienced. Highly recommend for fans as well as new readers.
The first part was great the directors goal is to make a 3 part movie of the first two books
In a weird way, that’s exactly what this forum is. A way for people to come together and share direct experience with these weird art tools we love, cutting through the marketing that would otherwise cause us to buy [whichever synth has great marketing but you don’t actually want].
My glass half full view is that lying and uncovering lies is what humans do. Whether it’s ancient inscriptions assuring everyone that this god-king won the battle, just a few miles away from the counter-inscription asserting that no, in fact, that king-of-king won the battle and took many beautiful slaves. Or just the scrawled bathroom note offering a phone number by which a good time can be obtained from Mary. Now we have sharpies. And internets.
It’s good to keep up to date on the latest, but we’ve all known that the “news” is entertainment that sociopaths want us to absorb. We can’t fully ignore it, but at some level we know it isn’t real.
Not a book per se, but I recently had the inaugural issue of Disco Pogo magazine in the mail and it‘s right up my alley.
This looks great, hadn’t heard of it. Thanks for making me aware.
For those interested:
Kinda wish I was called Bogo Pogo magazine.
Interesting take. So a kind of built-in mechanism to keep things in universal balance? I like it.
I love 1922. It’s the only story from this collection that I’ve read but it was so, so good.
Has it been a while since you read it? I think it’s going to stay with me for a long time.
Perhaps, but I think we do have to put effort into building and maintaining social structures - like governments - to help create and maintain balance.
Even religions usually start with faith / belief for the masses and reserve logic and rationality for the elites. Same with music: folk music is based on vibe and feel, formal music is based on mathematical rules and logic.
Logic is a tool, “truth” is a building block for that tool. Food in the belly, good friends, good music and good drink are all real 
It’s been a long time - probably five or six years. I just remember the story oozing an overwhelming sense of dread.
I’m reading The Membranes by Chi Ta-Wei, because I wanted to read some queer SF and the underwater city setting sounded interesting. At a quarter of the way through now.
Sherman Filterbank Manual… So I can tey the exercises but inevitability get distracted by all the knobs.
Both Iain Banks and Vernor Vinge do this too. It works (for me). Keep in mind that this place is a BBS.
I was looking for something lighter than Debt, so picked up Seveneves for a second read-through. I’m struck by…
I’m struck by how prophetic Stephenson with respect to just letting almost everyone die. Yuval may be the one writing about the emergence of a Silicon Valley based religion, but I’m pretty sure Neal is the Prophet.
Reading HTML, Bootstrap, CSS and XML manuals for a university course in Digital Humanities, there is also a more theoretical book to start with, and it is freely available online:
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/
