Complete

An interesting read, weaving between topics of operating system histories and philosophies.  I am about a year into my Linux journey and I think this mostly motivational for me to continue that, but also made me think what would have been different if had succeeded in my experiments to get Linux running at home in the basement during my high school years.  I remember burned Mandrake Linux CDs and also Ubuntu ones that I got in the mail for free.

I chose this book knowing that it was old.  My thoughts were that it would be interesting to see how things used to be, and also that it would focus more on what nowadays seem to be basic principles.  I can report success of both points.

The book overall had a nice balance of hacking stories, security principles, protocol analysis, and functional recommendations.

We chose the topic of philosophy for the second read our three-person book club, and after a brief consideration of Nicomachean Ethics itself we pivoted to this book to get more of a broad introductory take on the subject.  This ended up being a perfect fit for me, who had essentially zero knowledge on philosophy and its characters.

This really expanded my knowledge of so many things, especially the history of Greece, Italy, Egypt, etc. as it relates to the great thinkers that bounced around the area over the centuries.  The relationship of these thinkers and their ideas to religion was also particularly interesting.  And of course the core idea of the book, the diverse platforms of Plato and Aristotle, is something that I will enjoy thinking about and reading more directly about for years to come.

But first I will need to read some lighter stuff.  This book is lengthy and I read a lot of it in 10 minute chunks, so it seemed to drag on and on.  Worth it though: this ranks as one of the most impactful books I have read.

I did not realize how old this was when I started reading it.  I was thinking early 90s for some reason--off by 20+ years!  So my initial thoughts of mediocre quality of framing of technology and processes were similarly off and it is really a great book in that regard.

I am not a fan of the report/write-up structure, with the frequent wry sidebars about how the scientists were missing things.  One or two of them did nice foreshadowing but that is all I will concede.

I recently read Project Hail Mary and I wonder if some concepts with regards to the organisms in that were inspired by this book.  Or maybe it is kind of a genre and other examples exist.

First book of a three-person book club that I am in.  The "He might have a kid of his own at home" message of the opening sequence really set the tone for the rest of the book--it is a message of positivity and being thankful.

I found myself a bit bored in the middle of the book.  It was repetitive but also firmly established some kind of Americana vibe, so fine overall.

Great sci-fi

I found this book on in a bookcase at work and spent the second half (and then some) of my lunch break reading it.  The story of Marty is great, to the point, and tugs at the heartstrings--a good reminder to do a little better and care about people.

The first thing that hooked me about this book is that it that the author farms just outside of Bismarck.  Local connection!  I had never heard of him or the farm, but Anna was given the book by someone so we threw it on the bookshelf to read eventually.  Then we happened to see Gabe at the recent Pride of Dakota exhibition and said we already had the book, which he had on display.  I bought some horseradish beef sticks from him (actually were not amazing tasting...) and made a mental note to read the book soon.

So I brought the book to read over Christmas vacation and it was a great read.  It was very interesting to read about advanced or maybe even "hippy" farming techniques.  Never have I felt such desire to buy some destitute land and spend 15 years bringing it back to life--hopefully that fades rapidly!  I have limited knowledge of the other side of the story (traditional farming) so it would be interesting to hear that perspective.  But everything in this book does seem to make sense.

Ehhh...let's just say I mostly agree with the two or three out of five reviews.  At 40% I was reasonably certain I wouldn't finish the book, but I guess I just needed a little break (also motivated to finish a book to mark that goal off of my list).

This book is notably lacking of interesting science concepts.  Also, I can't remember anything truly interesting about the ways in which the alternate history deviates from real history.