books
Finished reading: Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen 📚 A perfect read for Gen-Xers looking to get back in touch with the existential anxiety that we felt during the Reagan era. We may spend more time worrying about the climate these days, but the nukes are still out there.
Finished reading: The Ionian Mission by Patrick O’Brian 📚In any long book series, there are some duds among the bangers. This one was draggier than I remembered–O’Brian could have cut about 50 pages of “political intrigue” with no loss. Somewhat redeemed by a terrific concluding sea battle.
Finished reading: Erasure by Percival Everett. 📚 American Fiction was my favorite movie of 2023, so I was eager to read this, the source novel. I enjoyed it just as much as the film and can now better appreciate the skill that it took to translate such a darkly funny and layered work to the screen.
Finished reading: Portal: San Francisco’s Ferry Building and the Reinvention of American Cities by John King 📚 San Francisco is one of my favorite places, and urban history and design among my favorite subjects, so this was right up my alley. An extremely engaging yet very thoughtful read.
Finished reading: Starter Villain by John Scalzi 📚 Scalzi knows how to deliver a diverting, fast-paced, funny story. The class-conscious cetaceans were particularly hilarious.
Finished reading: Post Captain by Patrick O’Brian 📚I’m two books in to my decennial re-reading of the Aubrey/Maturin series, and it is holding up well so far. Only 18 to go!
Short Review: A Hacker's Mind, by Bruce Schneier
Finished reading: A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules and How to Bend Them Back by Bruce Schneier 📚
The author of this book is a cryptography/security expert, so if you glossed over the subtitle, you might expect this to be a look at computer hacking. Instead it’s an examination of “hacking” in a broader sense: Schneier defines it “gaming the system”, or subverting the intent of a social or technical system by subverting its rules or norms. Sometimes a hack can be positive or benign, such as when hockey players first discovered that they could increase the velocity of their shots with curved sticks (a modification not covered in the rulebook). More often, though, hacking is done by powerful people looking to consolidate their power, whether by avoiding taxation via loopholes, or manipulating legislation through obscure amendments, or using AI to spread disinformation or perpetrate fraud.
Schneier is an engaging writer, and at the end of these 60 chapters you will find yourself wondering if there is any system on Earth that can’t, in one way or another, be hacked. I did wish that more time was spent on the promise made in the second half of his subtitle (the How to Bend Them Back part), but as he points out, ending the hacking of our society will be a complex and ongoing process. He ends with a call to create “hacking governance systems” made up of citizens and experts who could act quickly to evaluate (or even anticipate) negative hacks and help blunt their effects through the legal system. But given that no such efforts are happening, he ends on a dark note:
“Unless we can hack the process of hacking itself, keeping its benefits and mitigating its costs and inequities, we may struggle to survive this technological future.”
My verdict: Recommended (if a little bit depressing)
Finished reading: American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin 📚I thought that Oppenheimer was overlong, but now, having read the source material, I’m amazed that Christopher Nolan was able to squeeze the story down to three hours. This was quite a tome, but worth the attentional effort.
Recently finished reading: A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit. 📚 It examines the ways that disasters (like the San Francisco Earthquake, 9/11, or Hurricane Katrina) can temporarily upend the social and economic order, and how these new arrangements might point the way to a more egalitarian future. A very thought-provoking and hopeful book that I’m still pondering, days later.
Finished reading: The Blazing World by Jonathan Healey 📚This was a fast-moving and vivid trip through an eventful few decades of English history. I love a history book with a strong narrative voice like this. Healey did a perfect job of finding that elusive sweet spot between dry scholarly work and watered-down pop history.