A bit breathlessly sensational, a bit high on her own supply, having reminded us approximately 47 times that she writes for the NYT and HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE NYT SHE WRITES FOR IT, but overall just an amazingly thorough, clear, compelling whirlwind read through a complex and bewildering subject that most people will never know exists.
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jm3 rated Loneliest Americans: 4 stars
Review of 'This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
jm3 rated Attack Surface: 5 stars
Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow's Attack Surface is a standalone novel set in the world of New York Times bestsellers Little Brother and …
jm3 reviewed Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is …
Review of 'Seeing Like a State' on 'Goodreads'
Get an editor! Hoo boy. I would recommend the author’s AGAINST THE GRAIN much more highly than this. Feels scandalous that this work is much more widely known.
jm3 rated Totally Rad Mac programs: 4 stars
Owen W. Linzmayer: Totally Rad Mac programs (1994, Sybex)
Totally Rad Mac programs by Owen W. Linzmayer (Sybex Macintosh library)
jm3 reviewed The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo
"Everyone has heard of Bitcoin, but few know about the second-largest blockchain, Ethereum, which has …
Review of 'The Infinite Machine' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Well researched and thorough but not a particularly engaging read for either the layperson or a geek. It’s a linear history of the Ethereum ecosystem’s evolution (from its inception to the end of 2019) that attempts to make crypto comprehensible to a non technical casual outsider. Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly riveting story.
I think it’s indicative of the quality of this book that while I’m very interested in crypto currency and have been for years, I found this book much less engaging than other contemporary techno-histories like Mike Isaac’s SUPER PUMPED, Nick Bilton’s HATCHING TWITTER or his Silk Road book AMERICAN KINGPIN, Nicole Perlroth’s THIS IS HOW THEY TELL ME THE WORLD ENDS, or any of Joseph Menn’s hacking related books like FATAL SYSTEM ERROR.
I would recommend this to few people, but not many. If you’re just curious about crypto I’d probably recommend some podcasts instead.
Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the …
jm3 reviewed Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Review of 'Caste' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Magisterial. Recommended.
1. Exhaustively and vividly details the past and present injustices visited upon black Americans, and by way of second-order effects, all Americans.
2. Uses the much older Indian caste system as a parallel example of a fixed, immutable, heritable, “divinely ordained”, violent, terrorizing system of power striation, exclusion, economic, spiritual, and political oppression that mirrors the American legacy of slavery in ways that will unsettle many Americans.
3. Presents comparisons between Nazi eugenics and the southern slave trade and its downstream effects on both descendants of slavery and on American society as a whole. Offers examples where the Nazis used the American slavers’ rules and laws as templates for the Nazi Holocaust, and in at least one instance, looked at the American rules for oppression as TOO STRONG, the Nazis instead choosing a more “inclusive” definition of Aryan than the American slavers’ “one drop” rule.
4. Reframes and …
Magisterial. Recommended.
1. Exhaustively and vividly details the past and present injustices visited upon black Americans, and by way of second-order effects, all Americans.
2. Uses the much older Indian caste system as a parallel example of a fixed, immutable, heritable, “divinely ordained”, violent, terrorizing system of power striation, exclusion, economic, spiritual, and political oppression that mirrors the American legacy of slavery in ways that will unsettle many Americans.
3. Presents comparisons between Nazi eugenics and the southern slave trade and its downstream effects on both descendants of slavery and on American society as a whole. Offers examples where the Nazis used the American slavers’ rules and laws as templates for the Nazi Holocaust, and in at least one instance, looked at the American rules for oppression as TOO STRONG, the Nazis instead choosing a more “inclusive” definition of Aryan than the American slavers’ “one drop” rule.
4. Reframes and integrates common mental models about radicalized injustice in America. The author very thoroughly paints a picture of America’s racialized caste system as being (only) incidentally about “race”, but rather more fundamentally grounded in divide-and-conquer power consolidation processes — deliberate systems of economic control that evolved repeatedly in order to maintain their efficiency through different means.
5. Offers comparisons between the German model of reconciliation — destruction and paving over of Nazi monuments or historic sites, the construction of highly visible monuments in high traffic areas, reparations — to the relatively tepid American reconciliation and apologia for slavery — to the ongoing Indian caste struggles of the Dalits (often called “The Untouchables”).
Definitely a hearty, and emotionally heavy, read. Some people are born to write — a certain subject, focus, book; and the author is one such example. Powerful, well reasoned, deeply thorough, thought provoking, inspiring, unsettling, and emotional.
Good books to read after this one would be DYING OF WHITENESS, THE CONDEMNATION OF BLACKNESS, and THE SUM OF US.
jm3 reviewed Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan Michel Metzl
Review of 'Dying of Whiteness' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Killer book. Must read for White People and Those Who Know Them
jm3 reviewed Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
A work-from-home comedy where WFH meets WTF.
Told entirely through clever and captivating Slack …
Review of 'Several People Are Typing' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Sweet, fun, fast throwaway read. I’d say four stars except I wouldn’t want that interpreted as a recommendation to buy because it’s literally like reading a Slack thread. But it was a great pull from the local library. Funny times we live in.
jm3 reviewed The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk
Review of 'The Invention of Sound' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Extreme trigger warnings for dysfunctional sex stuff, violent murders, generalized cynical doomer accelerationism. (The book, not the review)
A tumescent thrashing through a timeline tinted by ubiquitous surveillance, Me Too, Pizzagate-style conspiracies, our post-truth, deep-faked reality, and FIGHT CLUB’s exhaust, set in the armpit of Hollywood. The writing is good, as always, but the story’s more muddied than usual, with fewer sharp angles, and less of a gut punch payoff than a long series of rabbit punches to the back of the head. If you’re not an existing fan of the author, steer far, far away.
jm3 reviewed How To Be An F1 Driver by Jenson Button
Review of 'How To Be An F1 Driver' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Highly not recommended. Watch FORMULA ONE: DRIVE TO SURVIVE instead
jm3 reviewed The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt
"Something is going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Rates of …
Review of 'The Coddling of the American Mind' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND synthesizes human psychology, cognitive behavioral techniques, educational and parenting trends, current events, and through it all, a way forward. What a beautifully written book.