Red Mountain by Boo Walker. Outside my normal interest range and for good reason, this is horrible. A Hallmark movie. Cloying, ridiculous. The Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. Post apocalypse, zombies,…
Author: john
Noumenon and Noumenon Infinity by Marina Lostetter. A space exploration trip returns to Earth after centuries away and can barely relate to the evolved human culture. And so on. Fun.…
Three articles worth reading: The Tesla Model 3 Invaded My Neighborhood — But It’s Bigger Than That (GM President Mark Reuss Take Note) GM president: Electric cars won’t go mainstream…
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. Whew what a tough read. We have been so fortunate to always have access to housing and family in…
Eggshells by Caitriona Lally. An odd woman in Dublin tries to connect with the world, or escape the world. Tiring. Misterioso by Arne Dahl. Another Swedish mystery. Characters seem very…
We get to spend two days with strategy consultants this week. I spent the first four years of my career as a strategy consultant and I have some perspective. Strategy…
The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden. Started out great with some novel characters and South African setting, kind of sputtered out. The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. OK…
Tesla is just kicking ass in car apps — https://electrek.co/2019/09/15/tesla-v10-first-look-release-notes-features/. They made an investment in a UX and data architecture and it is paying off. Most carmakers are targeting…
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. In the late 1800s in NYC, a golem and a jinni struggle to fit into human society and become human themselves. Very…
So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. Very helpful coverage of a very tough topic. Horrific recent news stories about personal attacks on the author. Say Nothing…
Writing software for cars is hard. Processors are generations behind mobile phones. Compute/network platforms are byzantine and fractured within/across OEMs. OS environments/toolchains are clunky/archaic. Internet connectivity is unavailable, intermittent, and…
Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart. Great story based of a budding female detective in the early 1900s. Based on a real person, this is a great retelling. How…
The Old Man by Thomas Perry. A lazy suspense novel, unimpressed. The action moves along ok but the characters are tissue thin. And when I see a character arrive in…
Walkaway by Cory Doctorow. My first Doctorow, and I am not sure I will do any more. A hash of steampunk, cyberpunk, biohacking, post-gender, libertarian themes all jammed into a…
The Genius Plague by David Walton. Award Winner, and has some great concepts, but wasn’t an amazing story. Fun but forgettable. Empty Planet by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson. Very…
Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. I hate pop business books but this book does not belong in that category. A timeless approach to the basics of strategy, whether…
Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. Really great book about decision making, and how to think probabilistically about decisions. Very good. Change Agent by Daniel Suarez. Suarez is always super…
In a recent article about the latest VW Golf, the product manager was quoted “Already now there are ten times more lines of code in the latest Golf than in…
Our Towns by James and Deborah Fallows. An uplifting walk thru towns and cities across America, each of which is finding its way and wrestling successfully with renewal, growth, education,…
The Library Book by Susan Orlean. A peek inside the history, operations, and stories behind the LA Public Library, written by someone who loves books and libraries. Really enjoyable. Rules…