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Review: Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing
Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein My rating: 5 of 5 stars I know a lot about money and its history and I still learned a bunch in this book. Jacob Goldstein, who also narrates, uses his podcast-acquired skills to make the stories he uses to illustrate the history of…
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Review: One of Us Is Dead
One of Us Is Dead by Jeneva Rose My rating: 3 of 5 stars The wife wanted something we could listen to while doing a bunch of driving last weekend. I don’t remember how we found this particular book, but she said it sounded fun. And she was right! The book centers around a bunch…
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My First USMS Swim Meet (Oct 2022)
On 15 October this year I competed at my first swim meet since high school, some 20ish years ago. Although I’d had various folks encourage me to join US Masters Swimming for almost as long, I’d always found a reason to put it off. Sometime in August or September I decided I wanted to do…
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Review: Every Heart a Doorway
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire My rating: 5 of 5 stars I got this book for free from Tor.com’s ebook club. I highly recommend it – in exchange for your email address you get access to free books from Tor.com’s catalog; a new one each month. (Currently it’s a Brandon Sanderson book from…
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Review: Phenomenons: Every Human Creature
Phenomenons: Every Human Creature by Michael Jan Friedman My rating: 4 of 5 stars What if you took Wild Cards and started off from a more modern place than the 1980s. What would you have? Well, for one thing, less gay slurs and stereotypes. For another, starting with a less sleazy, more modern NYC. I…
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Review: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers My rating: 4 of 5 stars We have reached the end of the Wayfarers series. As has been the case throughout the series, this is less about a specific plot than it is about getting to spend time with the characters that inhabit Chambers’ Wayfarers universe.…
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Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers My rating: 4 of 5 stars If, like me, Firefly’s untimely demise has left a hole in your SFF heart ever since you discovered it (it was DVDs for me back when Netflix was about DVDs), then this book is probably perfect for you.…
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Programming Update: Aug
August was a programming-filled month for me. It focused entirely on Python and I mostly continued working on established projects. Let’s jump in! Amortization I wanted to re-calculate the amortization table for my home loan for the first time in about a year. As a refresher, I created this program (vs using Excel or an…
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Podcasts I’m Listening to in 2022
This time around I’ve written a Python script to take the OPML file from Podcast Republic and generate the list along with URLs and official descriptions for all the podcasts. If I have additional thoughts I’ll add them after the official description. The World Around Us 99% Invisible – Official Description: Design is everywhere in…
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Review: The Empress of Salt and Fortune
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo My rating: 5 of 5 stars I received a free copy of the novella as a voting member of WorldCon 2021 That. Was. Awesome! It’s no wonder that it won the Hugo for best novella. I wasn’t able to get to it in time to vote,…
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NYRR Manhattan 10k Feb 2022
Sunday, 6 February 2022, was my first race of 2022. I’d been looking forward to the Fred Lebow Half Marathon to both be my first race of 2022 and first half marathon race. Unfortunately, I got really sick with something not-COVID and couldn’t attend. So I was extra excited about getting to this race. Last…
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2021 Video Games and 2021 Game of the Year
This year I played a LOT less; partly because I wasn’t home as much as I was in 2020 due to the COVID mitigations. Also, it was partly because I focused on programming with older Advent of Code challenges. Last year I wanted to make a list of games and go in order, but that…
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Review: Men at Arms
Men at Arms by Terry PratchettMy rating: 4 of 5 stars This is my second time reading this book. I left the rating the same When it comes to the Anhk-Morpork based books, Pratchett lays in the final brick in the foundation for all that will come. The Night Watch is elevated to full Watch.…
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Review: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is the story of the beginning of computers, written in the 1980s. I’d already read about many of the events portrayed in the book via other books or magazine articles. But this was nice and detailed. I like…
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2021 in Music (Last.FM and Spotify Listening Trends)
This year I was able to attend the Paul and Storm / JoCo concert that COVID stole from me last year. While there I bought the entire Paul and Storm discography, but I think because I listened to it so much on Spotify in the past, I didn’t listen to it as much as I…