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Turn-of-the-Century House Designs by William T. Comstock

Something to get a little more inspiration for our future house design. The styling is cool but the floorplans are not very useful. None of these have bedrooms on the first floor, and most have the kitchen absolutely buried behind a butler's pantry or something. One does have a stable built in which could be a garage, but is not really a style that I like.

One part of the book mentions the tragedy of arsenic in wallpaper and wallpaper glue, and that it is good that such a harmful thing is being phased out. And then two paragraphs later it goes into some detail about how much lead is good in paint for various purposes!

Completion status
Complete
Rating
OK

Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson

An enjoyable book with some interesting action.  It is lacking in grand sci-fi concepts other than the sulfur stuff, which I thought for sure was going to be a cargo ship loaded with iron filings based on some commentary I had seen before reading.  But there is a good amount of near-future envisionings: drone concepts, live streaming, climate impacts, etc.

The climate topics overall are a no for me.  I don't identify with the people who dread climate impacts all day long in real life.  So even though I think it is plausible for such things to happen, I guess I really do not care to read a book about it.  I think I envision all these "dreaders" also reading the book and being like, "yes, see that is what will happen!" and want to roll my eyes so hard.

I wonder what topics I enjoy reading that would cause such eye rolling by others?

Lastly, I am really not sure what to think of the non-lethal border wars!  Is there some kernel of this developing already that I don't know about?

Completion status
Complete
Rating
Enjoyed
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