Book – Page 6 – Made by Mikal

Books read in January 2021

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 31, 2021
Post category:Book

Its been 10 years since I've read enough to write one of these summary posts... Which I guess means something. This month I've been thinking a lot about systems design and how to avoid Second Systems effect while growing a product, which guided my reading choices a fair bit. A fair bit of that reading has been in the form of blog posts and twitter threads, so I am going to start including those in these listings of things I've read. Social media posts of note: A better Kubernetes from the ground up Systems Design Explains the World, Volume 1 This twitter thread about why Google Cloud isn't winning in the cloud platform wars Stevey's Google Platforms Rant OKRs -- Secrets to Success Goals Gone Wild Books: The Mythical Man-Month Bolos 1: Honor of the Regiment (re-read, in the hope that learning about artificially intelligent super tanks killing aliens would help me with motivational techniques for my team). Bolos 2: The Unconquerable (another re-read).

The Mythical Man-Month

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:Book

I expect everyone (well, almost everyone) involved in some way in software engineering has heard of this book. I decided that it was time to finally read it, largely prompted by this excellent blog post by apenwarr which discusses second systems effect among other things. Now, you can buy this book for a surprisingly large amount of money, but as Michael Carden pointed out, the PDF is also made available for free by the Internet Archive. I’d recommend going that route.

The book is composed of a series of essays, which discuss the trials of the OS/360 team in the mid-1960s, and uses those experiences to attempt to form a series of more general observations on the art of software development and systems engineering.

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Title: The Mythical Man-month
Author: Frederick Phillips Brooks, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.,
Genre: Computer programming
Publisher: Reading, Mass. ; Don Mills, Ont. : Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
Release Date: 1975
Pages: 195

The Calculating Stars

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 6, 2020
Post category:Book

Winner of both a Hugo, Locus and a Nebula, this book is about a mathematical prodigy battling her way into a career as an astronaut in a post-apolocalyptic 1950s America. Along the way she has to take on the embedded sexism of America in the 50s, as well as her own mild racism. Worse, she suffers from an anxiety condition. The book is engaging and well written, with an alternative history plot line which believable and interesting. In fact, its quite topical for our current time. I really enjoyed this book and I will definitely be reading the sequel.

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 28, 2019
Post category:Book

This book discusses science and technical communication from the perspective of someone who comes from professional theatre and acting. Alan explains how his accidental discovery of the application of theatre sports to communication created an opportunity to teach technical communicators how to be more effective. Essentially, the argument is that empathy is essential to communication -- you need to be able to understand where your audience is starting and and where they're likely to get stuck before you can take them on the journey. Unsurprisingly given the topic of the book, this is a well written and engaging read. The book is nicely structured and uses regular anecdotes (some of them humorous) to get its message across. A detailed and fun read.

Ignition!

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 5, 2019
Post category:Book

Whilst the chemistry was sometimes over my head, this book is an engaging summary of the history of US liquid rocket fuels during the height of the cold war. Fun to read and interesting as well. I enjoyed it.

I, Robot

Post author:mikal
Post published:March 16, 2019
Post category:Book

Not the book of the movie, but the collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. I've read this book several times before and enjoyed it, although this time I found it to be more dated than I remembered, both in its characterisations of technology as well as it's handling of gender. Still enjoyable, but not the best book I've read recently.

What If?

Post author:mikal
Post published:March 4, 2019
Post category:Book

More correctly titled "you die horribly and it probably involves plasma", this light hearted and fun read explores serious answers to silly scientific questions. The footnotes are definitely the best bit. A really enjoyable read.

Abaddon’s Gate

Post author:mikal
Post published:February 18, 2019
Post category:Book

This is the third book in the Leviathan Wakes series by James SA Corey. Just as good as the first two, this is a story about how much a daughter loves her father, perhaps beyond reason, moral choices, and politics — just as much as it is the continuation of the story arc around the alien visitor. Another excellent book, with a bit more emphasis on space battles than previously and an overall enjoyable plot line. Worth a read, to be honest I think the series is getting better.

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 31, 2019
Post category:Book

We've owned this book for a while, but ironically Catherine lost it for a bit. It seems very topical at the moment because of the Marie Kondo craze, but its been floating around our house for probably a year. The book is written by an 80+ year old and explains the Swedish tradition of sorting your stuff out before you keel over, which seems like a totally reasonable thing to do when the other option is leaving your grieving kids to work out what on earth to do. The book isn't as applicable to people not at the end of the lives -- it for example recommends starting with large things like furniture and younger people are unlikely to have heaps of unneeded furniture. That said, there is definitely advice in here that is applicable to other life stages. The book is composed of a series of generally short chapters. They read a bit like small letters, notes, or blog posts. This makes the book feel very approachable and its a quite fast read. I enjoyed the book and I think I got some interesting things out of it.

Best Foot Forward

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 27, 2019
Post category:Book

Catherine and I have been huge fans of Adam Hills for ages, so it wasn't a surprise to me that I'd like a book by him. As an aside, we've never seen him live -- we had tickets for his show in Canberra in 2013, but some of us ended up in labor in hospital instead, so we had to give those tickets away. One day we'll manage to see him live though, he just needs to get back to touring Australia more! Anyways, I enjoyed this book which as mentioned above wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise is that he said something interesting which I have been pondering for the last few days... Basically, its nice to get on stage and say things, either entertaining the audience or in my case perhaps educating them a little (I give technical conference talks). However, that's not the most important thing. You need to work out why you're on that stage before you go out there. What is the overall thing you're trying to convey? Once you know that, everything else falls into place. I think this is especially true for keynote speeches, which need to appeal to a more general audience than…