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Having a cozy Christmas with my parents and next-to-immediate family.
For those of us who happen to be feeling lonely this season, don’t despair – if there’s anything that’s true about the world, it’s that things change, and perhaps things will change for the better for you, and quicker than you may think. In any case, I share my warmest regards and I’m sure many of us will too.
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This piece was beautiful. I’ve perennially been chronically impatient with my own mom, and this reminded me once again that a little patience can go a long way.
I’m definitely going to start rethinking my attitudes about many of my interactions now.
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One important takeaway from this, which Brie Code also makes is that videogames aren’t very accessible. I really want them to be so because I want to share the stories, music, and artwork from videogames with more people, but it’s difficult to do so if they can’t get past the accessibility issues. I’m also kind of surprised the author’s mom wasn’t completely put off by Cindy, because I certainly am, and I know many people who just don’t feel like the game is for them when a character dressed up like Cindy shows up.
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For more about the misuse of data-driven algorithms in scary places, I highly recommend reading Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil. It itemizes a number of different places where these algorithms end up harming people and notes some patterns in judgement errors that lead to these things become widespread.
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I’m reading Oathbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, it’s not networking, it’s not sci-fi, but it certainly is good!
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For more fantasy, I’m reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson. It’s ten books and I’m currently about to finish the sixth. Definitely a great read for anyone who loves good worldbuilding or fantasy characterization.
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it’s not networking, it’s not sci-fi,
Honestly, I’m really eager for that kind of discussion around here. I get tired of everyone recommending the same circle of tech books or science fiction.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll take a look!
Edit: Oh… it’s fantasy. Erm, I suppose the tribe doesn’t wander far from the community-approved genres.
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If you like history, I’m still chewing on Empire of the Steppes. The book is always described as “majestic” and “sweeping”. I’ve never read another history book that provides such an encompassing view. Its scope extends from mainland China, to the silk road oasis kingdoms, to Persia, to Kiev, to Attila’s march on Rome. It’s fascinating how a military campaign in China can set off a chain reaction like billiard balls and cause an invasion in Europe.
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Another amazing history is Jonathan Spence’s God’s Chinese Son, but really, you cannot go wrong with Spence. He is a magician.
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I’m trying Alex and Happy (and Haskell) for the first time in a side project; trying to make a really minimalistic query language for CSVs. I’ve gotten up to generating some small parse trees from strings.
https://github.com/emsal1863/csvql/ (I’m sort of embarrassed)