Book – Page 7 – Made by Mikal

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…

The Consuming Fire

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 26, 2018
Post category:Book

Another fast run read from Mr Scalzi, this book is the sequel to The Collapsing Empire. I think this book is actually better than the first, which I guess is fair given the first had to set the universe up. I particularly like the twist about two thirds of the way through this one, and I think the universe has a lot of potential to be really interesting in future books. Mr Scalzi remains on my I-buy-everything-he-does list. I wish he'd write another book in the Old Man's War universe.

Chaos Monkeys

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 10, 2018
Post category:Book

A very well written tale of a Wall Street quant who left during the GFC to adventure in startup land and ended up at Facebook attempting to solve their monetization problems for an indifferent employer. Martinez must have been stomping around Mountain View because his description of the environment and what its like to work inside a Silicon Valley company ring very true to me. A good read.