Reviews and Comments

Peter Murray

dltj@bookrastinating.com

Joined 1 year, 4 months ago

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Michael Warren Lucas: $ git sync murder (2021, Tilted Windmill Press) 3 stars

Murder on the Sysadmin Express

After accidentally solving two murders, Dale Whitehead hungers to stay …

Nerd meets murderer, again

3 stars

It is hard to know what attention-deficit-disorder is like when you don’t have it. But if it is anything like this author’s portrayal, the. I have a new understanding and appreciation for the coping mechanisms that those with ADD employ to live in a neurotypical world. Wow, that can be distracting!

A good story with plenty of geeky details to satisfy any computer or networking nerd. Not sure how it is taken by the average reader, but Lucas certainly knows his audience.

Kim Stanley Robinson: Ministry for the Future (2020, Orbit) 4 stars

Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the …

A view of a future that could happen

5 stars

This isn’t a dystopian story, nor is it a utopian story. It is a reality-based guess of what could happen. In this possible reality, the world struggles to put a cost on the effect that climate damage will have on new generations. The world’s governments are forced to deal with citizen uprisings to address those costs. With a combination of capitalism (including…ugh…a blockchain currency) and climate activism, the levels of carbon in the atmosphere crest and decrease. But that is just the start of untangling the human population’s Gordian knot; it is not (yet?) the utopian future.

This was a 10%-per-day book for me: each day I’d read 10% plus the remainder of the chapter. The book is written in a dense style with a constantly shifting viewpoint, and it takes a while to digest the author’s meaning.

Andy Greenberg: Tracers in the Dark (2022, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) 5 stars

Over the last decade, a single innovation has massively fueled digital black markets: cryptocurrency. Crime …

Bitcoin isn’t private, how law enforcement took down marketplaces, and why that might be good/bad

5 stars

Excellent non-fiction and elegantly crafted dive into cryptocurrency tracing and the law enforcement actions that came out of them. After the four stories are told, the last chapters are a nuanced exploration of the light and dark sides of making every financial transaction traceable or untraceable.

Andy Greenberg: Tracers in the Dark (2022, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) 5 stars

Over the last decade, a single innovation has massively fueled digital black markets: cryptocurrency. Crime …

Excellent non-fiction and elegantly crafted dive into cryptocurrency tracing and the law enforcement actions that came out of them. After the four stories are told, the last chapters are a nuanced exploration of the light and dark sides of making every financial transaction traceable or untraceable.

Ryan North: How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler (2018, Riverhead Books) 4 stars

Full of interesting facts and processes, the premise of the book got a little old after a while. I found I could only read a few chapters at a time, the. Set it down and come back after a few days. This is a survival guide I would want should the need ever arise, and at that point I would certainly look past the pedantic story arc.