Many years ago I participated in an inter-blog (and very detailed!) discussion of the military classic On War by Carl von Clausewitz. The proceedings of that endeavour have been collated into 553 page book, released this week by Ever Victorious Press.
I submitted three chapters under my alias at the time “Sir Francis Younghusband.” My bio from that time was appropriately ridiculous:
If you are very interested in CvC, you can get the book from all the usual places. Below are the links to my minor contributions:
Each quarter I do a quick roundup of the book and film reviews that I do on Goodreads and Letterboxd. These reviews are too short and too off-the-cuff to be included with the more in depth reviews I do on this site. Below are the highlights of the quarter.
Books
This month I technically completed my 2016 Goodreads Challenge — 16 books ahead of schedule. It is a little misleading, since of the 14 books I read this quarter 6 were graphic novels. This year I decided to try and read more comics at the long-time encouragement of The Incomparable, one of my all-time favourite podcasts. Hence why I set my Goodreads challenge so low. However, most of the graphic novels are on GR, so I am racking up points!
Also, I have been much better of making at least a note once I finish a book. Thus follows a list of everything I read this quarter, for probably the first time ever. Looking back, I would say that Debt, the First 5,000 Years is a must-read that I will recommend to everyone, and Alif the Unseen, though not perfect, certainly had me thinking and talking about it for days after reading it.
Pretty light on film this quarter. I was catching up a lot on TV, and found that graphic novels (as seen above) became my go to evening entertainment when I didn’t have the bandwidth to read a tract on Buddhism or debt.
This weekend I passed 500 read books on Goodreads. I started using the site Dec 27th 2009 and added a bunch of read books in early 2010. Since then I have logged 295 reads, averaging about 46 a year.
My 500th book was Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana aka. “Bhante G”. I purchased this book five years ago, and read only a quarter of it before stopping. I wasn’t ready.
After reading about the life of the Buddha, listening to a couple of Jon Kabat-Zinn guidedmeditations, and prepping for my tour of Buddhist temples in Kyoto, I understood this book much better on the second attempt. I am glad I did. I will continue to explore how to integrate meditation in to my daily life. From the book:
Our mind is analogous to a cup of muddy water. The longer you keep a cup of muddy water still, the more the mud settles down and the water will be seen clearly.
I have tried to take that lesson and apply it to reading. Upon finishing a book, I usually let it settle in my brain for a few days, then look over the annotations I made, to get a good sense of it as a whole. Then I write a short review on Goodreads. When I read a related book, going back and looking at old reviews sparks a lot of interesting conceptual connections — insights I would have totally missed had I merely just picked up the next book. Books are part of a literary universe, you shouldn’t start tabula rasa every time you crack one open. Keeping notes helps you to navigate the connections. It is sort of like how a commonplace book works.
If you are looking for a similar experience, I recommend using Goodreads. If you become a member, connect with me.
Each quarter I do a quick roundup of the book and film reviews that I do on Goodreads and Letterboxd. These reviews are too short and too off-the-cuff to be included with the more in depth reviews I do on this site. Below are the highlights of the quarter.
I watched 11 films in March alone, and went on kind of an Oscar jag in late February (I particularly enjoyed Spotlight and last year’s winner Birdman). With my family in Japan, I was home alone and had lots of time to catch up on films, and even got in some TV like The Man in the High Castle series which I enjoyed. Of course, the highlight at the beginning of the year was The Force Awakens, which I saw twice in theatres, the second time with my 6 year old daughter who loved her first experience at a movie theatre and her first 3D experience.
This year was one of community, organizing and living better. After breaking down my current interests in a recent post, a pattern of community organizing and social activity is apparent. 2015 was a year of solidifying my thinking on social issues, especially those beyond tech, which has consumed me for the past few years.
Besides winning a victory over Bell Mobility and getting a nice letter from prime ministerial hopeful Tom Mulcair, here are some highlights from 2015:
Posts
Early in the year my writing performance was strong but it tapered off towards the end. Disappointing, and understandable that my most memorable posts were from the first part of the year.
In January I did a Kelowna news media audit. Thanks to this post I was able to interview insiders in the industry here, and learned a lot about the attempt Kelowna.com made to unseat Castanet… and why it failed. The post even generated an invitation to talk on CBC Radio. Later there were communications with UBCO to host a panel discussion between journos and academics to talk about media and transparency with the public, but that went nowhere. Nobody else seems to want to tackle this problem.
In March the LRC published my review of Kitten Clone. That is my second piece with them, and it was a lot of fun working with their editor.
I really enjoyed my second trip to the annual LinuxFest Northwest in April. My first experience was good, but this one had a lot of political events that I found very interesting. See More than computers — A recap of LinuxFest Northwest 2015.
For summer holidays we visited Japan, which made me think deeply about the sense of belonging that I have been building up in Canada — maybe for the first time. Check out the post In between worlds — thoughts from a short trip to Japan.
Media
I logged 47 films and 55 books this year. Only 6 were by women authors… Hmmmm… Of the 55, 42 were audiobooks. This is out of balance compared to years before. One reason is that I have been “reading” Infinite Jest … for 6 months. The “Infinite Summer” has certainly run long, but I am back on the horse and hopefully can finish in the next quarter. My GoodReads Challenge this year was 110%. Next year I will probably tone this down a little and listen to more Great Courses from The Teaching Company and history/education podcasts.
Books and film consumption by year, 2010 to 2015
Probably the most influential book I read this year was Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I read it early in the year and it guided a lot of my subsequent reading. Highly thought-provoking and highly recommended. For fiction, The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin was a breakout book. It was my first foray into Chinese science fiction, and hard sci-fi at that — super mind-bendy. I look forward to the rest of the series.
For film, I would be remiss not to mention Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Maybe not the most technical film, but I still can’t stop thinking about it. I now know how real pop-culture fans feel about their respective fandoms. Going again this week. The Martian was another impressive film. I only saw it once in the theatre, but will watch it again as soon as I can get it in my house. I finally watched 2013’s Her (just yesterday in fact) and it blew me away. Finally, The Lego Movie and Big Hero 6 were the winners in Family Film this year.
Those are fun, blockbuster-type movie “experiences”, but for more hard-hitting media I consumed this year there are a few standouts: All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, a documentary series from 2011 was very influential; as was Under the Dome, a documentary on China’s disastrous environmental record (see my full review here). The first few episodes of the summer television series Mr Robot had some great social commentary on tech. Even though the series was very enjoyable, it was a little disappointing that they did not more deeply explore the show’s early critiques.
Upcoming in 2016
Next year will see more learning/media focus on the Syrian refugee crisis as I work more with ORCA. There is also a fun secret project that will be done during Q1 (expect a post then). In the spring there is another trip to Japan planned, and in the summer a second wedding (my wife and I are renewing our vows for our tenth wedding anniversary). 2016 will also be a breakout year for my company. So, lots of positive stuff coming up.
Each quarter I do a quick roundup of the book and film reviews that I do on Goodreads and Letterboxd. These reviews are too short and too off-the-cuff to be included with the more in depth reviews I do on this site. Below are the highlights of the quarter.
Two trends you may detect are “Syria” and “Star Wars”.
Books
I have been doing better at making sure I write a few notes for each book I read on GoodReads. Some of these “off-the-cuff” reviews are pretty long.
Each quarter I do a quick roundup of the book and film reviews that I do on Goodreads and Letterboxd. These reviews are too short and too off-the-cuff to be included with the more in depth reviews I do on this site. Below are the highlights of the quarter.
Books
Currently at 37 of 50 books in my 2015 Goodreads challenge, my pace this quarter dropped significantly since reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and starting Infinite Jest, both which are over a thousand pages. Yes, the Infinite Summer is not over for me and looks to last into winter. I should be able to polish off this year’s particularly ambitious challenge. In the meantime, here are some of my shorter reviews:
Mr Robot has fueled much discussion at my office. Although I generally liked it, I think the conversations afterward are even more interesting than the show itself. I hope other — especially non-tech people — are also talking about the issues brought up in the show, and are not sidetracked by the (undermining in my opinion) sensationalism around drugs and sex (a particular obsession of the USA network?).
I would like to take this opportunity to highlight another (documentary) series I watched this quarter and thought was excellent: Adam Curtis’s All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. This film encapsulates much of my observations and concerns about technology, politics and society over the last three years, but was released in 2011. The first two episodes are particularly recommended.
As for Strange & Norrell, I read it a few years back and rated it 5 stars. I love this book. The TV show was not as satisfying, but I think that was mostly a function of length. The sets, costume and acting were brilliant. And even though I could only inhabit this world for 7 hours (compared to the 32 hour audiobook), I think the abridgement actually cleared up a few plot points for me. Regardless, I am sure glad that they didn’t try to squeeze it into a 2 hour movie.
As for movies, I watched quite a few while my kids were in Japan, but the rate tapered off dramatically once they returned (and once I got into the above-mentioned television series). Only 3 micro-reviews:
Previously I praised Douglas Coupland’s typography, and explained that:
Often when reading Coupland’s books, I use my smartphone camera to capture the unique layouts
I have collected a number of those photos and gathered them together with some commentary in the galleries below. Have a click through, and enjoy some pithy quotes, equally insightful and random.
Coupled with the power that is derived by the state’s increasing sophistication in this space — whether through automation, biometrics, or the new forms of social control and the violence they enable — there is reason to question the narrative of empowerment that has been explored throughout this book.
Emphasis added. This quote comes from page 184 (of 210). That is 88% of the way into the book. It reflects my frustration with this book, as I spent much of my time questioning the “narrative of empowerment.”
Owen does a good job giving an overview of the state of tech and the state. Each chapter tackles big issues in tech and the way we govern ourselves: “activists, humanitarians, journalists, … terrorists”. All the usual suspects make an appearance — Anonymous, Bitcoin, Ushahidi — and the tried and true analysts like Shirky, Benkler, and Castells are cited at length.
But there is a shocking lack of critique.
A simple example:
Anyone can now disseminate information on a new media infrastructure. Blogs, social networks, and the wider Internet all allow people to self-publish and have the capacity to reach most people around the globe.
This completely ignores the inherent power imbalances the incumbents have (ie. talent pools, media relationships, existing audiences etc). Joe Sixpack blogger != CNN. This kind of statement has been debunked time and again. Throughout Disruptive Power there are a number of these observations which are seated more in the cyberutopian wishful thinking of the 1990s, than the analyses bourne out in the past few years.
Throughout the book Owen derides hierarchy, lauding liquid democracy and the “flat” structure of Occupy Wall Street. This belies how fractured and terrible the decision-making was/is in OWS and the Pirate Party. Owen pits hierarchy against networked organizations — yet, hierarchy is simply a type of network architecture. The book is riddled with such simplifications, and it detracts from his overall argument.
Owen cites tech critics like Evgeny Morozov, so he is surely aware of the negative aspects of the tech-boosterism he seems engaged in. His Twitter activity is also evidence of this. So why is this book so one-sided? Later in the book Owen takes on a more critical tone, and these chapters are much more satisfying. It is almost like this book was written in the same order it is presented, and the longer he researched, the more nuanced his opinion became.
A more likely hypothesis is length: Disruptive Power is a mere 210 pages (plus endnotes), and gives a whirlwind tour of some very large trends. Books have been written on each of the chapter topics. Owen barely scratches the surface. I would have liked him to add another 120 or so pages and include a more rounded-out argument. Disruptive Power may be a good primer on these topics, but it is not a thorough critical analysis. Read it as the beginning of a journey into this topic, not to get caught up on the current state of affairs.
Hmmmm… Of the 55, 42 were audiobooks. This is out of balance compared to years before. One reason is that I have been “reading” Infinite Jest … for 6 months. The “Infinite Summer” has certainly run long, but I am back on the horse and hopefully can finish in the next quarter. My 
