27 July 2016

I succeeded in packing a carry-on backpack with a leather black briefcase I bought twelve years ago as my personal item.  I packed no knives, hatchets, chainsaws or liquids, excluding a small container of homemade deodorant. 

Finished reading Little Brother and started on Mr. Doctorow's Information Doesn't Want to Be Free (certainly a riff on that Queen song popularized by Coke Zero advertisements).  Next up is Jim Butcher's Summer Knight as I'm entrenched in the Dresdenverse now.

20 July 2016

"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes."
- Erasmus

I love going to local used book stores.  Many of the ones I've seen in the past few years have a special shelf or table of local authors, which most of the time I don't really care about.  Occasionally I'll find a gem, like last week when I found a used paperback copy of The Martian for eight bucks.  I read it in two days.  Thrift stores are great, too, and I started my first Cory Doctorow book, Little Brother, a few days ago, which I picked up for twenty five cents at a local thrift store.  I think the book is (hopefully) farfetched insofar as what the DHS would do to some kids who like to subvert weakly secured operating systems and play video games.  The book does make me think about encryption for personal use and rebuying Bunnie Huang's book, Hacking the Xbox.  The only encryption I use on a daily basis is https, Lastpass and Crashplan.  The other great thing about Mr. Doctorow is his website on which he gives many of his books away for free.  That, combined with Calibre, enabled me to get a .mobi version of his book onto my Kindle.   

Get reading and stop using a spreadsheet for your passwords.

8 July 2016

I love books.  One of my oldest friends gave me a Kindle paperwhite for a birthday gift a few years ago, which I rarely use because reading books feels more real to me.  I enjoy the tactile sensation of flipping through the pages and moving my eyes across the printed words.  The same connection with the story does not come across with ebooks or audio books.  The only ebook that comes close is Warren Ellis' Cunning Plans.  I started reading a sample on my Kindle last year about this time and figured $1.99 for a book was a steal.  The book is a collection of his talks about technology, the past and the future of how humans interact with technology and the world.  Rewinding a bit, I enjoy reading the "I'm X and This is How I Work" on lifehacker.  Well I read Warren Ellis' interview a year ago and have been reading his blog and have subscribed to his Sunday newsletter since.  If the bald head, beard and skulls don't do it for you, nothing will.  Another interesting HIW article is Cory Doctorow, which lead me to buy widgy bars.

Anyway, books and lists of books.  I've added a widget that shows the books I'm reading (assuming I've updated my Goodreads account recently...) and played with the layout to make it darker, like coffee and my Ikea desk at home.  If you want to add widget to your blog, specifically Goodreads stuff, check out this useful fella.