Feeling sick today. Napped a lot and finished off Seveneves. The ending was weirdly paced --- I think it felt that way mostly just because it lacked the clear sense of knowing at a high level what's going to happen (i.e. it gon' Hard Rain) without knowing how it's going to play out that the first 2/3rds of the book had, which made it a little less ( Read more... )

Paid rent, had some late dinner, read some more of Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. I've been warned the ending is disappointing, but I don't really care so far; I'm liking the incredibly grim setup.

Started reading everything is miscellaneous. Not sure if I like it yet. It's possible I already agree too hard with certain propositions it's trying to argue for me to be impressed by them.

Oh my god, I knew that old metalleus joke about deriving moses from middletown was old, since I'd first heard of it through usenet, ferchrissakes, but apparently something about the moses-middletown pair goes really far back in the history of linguistics/philology. Here's a book (alluded to in this article about children's counting rhymes) by Henry ( Read more... )

Recently finished this book "Seeing Like a State". Really interesting study in things that humans have tried to do that went terribly wrong. I really, really think it could have been edited down tighter in places, but still a worthwhile read.

_wirehead_ over on twitter linked to this blogpost which has some thoughts about "Genius Loci". I found it notable initially because it Baader-Meinhofed me by mentioning Seeing Like a State, a book I started reading recently (and am continuing to mostly enjoy --- though I feel like it could have probably been edited down to about half its length without ( Read more... )

Oof migraine.

Stopped me from doing much of consequence today. Read some more of "Corporation Nation".

Decided to try going to a meetup.com e-o meetup on the upper west side for the hell of it, after not really speaking it with other humans for like ten years. Turns out it still stuck in my brain pretty decently through all that time; successfully managed iom da konversacio. Wasn't too unbearably awkward ( Read more... )

Finished reading Bill Bryson's childhood autobio memoir thing, "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid". Gloriously goofy writing, and an interesting peek into mid-20th-century mid-american life.

Started reading a bit of "Seeing Like a State", which was mentioned on http://www.openculture.com/2015/02/what-books-could-be-used-to-rebuild-civilization-lists ( Read more... )