Books

if you’re not first-time visitor here, likely you know already I’m reading a lot of books. a lot? after years of carefully considering and accumulating books, I finally fulfilled one of my early dreams: to have a wall full of shelves dedicated to storing my book collection (as depicted in the opening picture of this post, although some packages obstruct the view - my apologies for that). now, what exactly constitutes “a lot” of books? for me, it means reading around 2-3 books per week, resulting in an average of over 100 books per year staying on shelves. of course, this is just an average figure. during vacations, I tend to indulge in more reading material (and sometimes end up buying additional books when I exhaust my supply). moreover, due to the pandemic, I’ve been reading even more than usual. however, it’s not a race to break records. reading simply becomes second nature over time. you can start at your own pace with any book that piques your interest. and see how deep the rabbit hole goes ;) ...

Eliot Higgins has achieved something remarkable by establishing a highly influential organization right from his own kitchen. this organization is dedicated to combatting the chaos caused by rampant disinformation and falsehoods disseminated by individuals, organizations, companies, and even nations. the book takes us on a compelling journey, tracing Higgins’ path from his humble beginnings in his own kitchen, armed only with an internet-connected laptop, to the formidable position that Bellingcat holds today. (by the way, the name “Bellingcat” derives from the image of a bell attached to a cat’s collar, which serves to warn potential prey.) ...

the book did a lot of noise, being quoted everywhere even before it was published. as part of the marketing before release, they even did limited publishing in parts in partnership with wired. but… the book is bad. simply as that. if you expected Tom Clancy’s level of technical detail, just because one of the authors is retired US Navy admiral - don’t. you won’t find it. if you expected Tom Clancy’s level of characters that have nothing interesting to say and their background story is thin as cheapest printing paper for your printer - you may enjoy the book. authors may have decided to define given character by throwing some random words and deciding from them. ...

we are all dealing daily with the eponymous “bullsh*t truth” and unfortunately we are inundated with it. we live in an age where opinions are treated as facts, and anyone who has access to the “mass media” suddenly becomes a great philosopher, thinker and scientist all rolled into one. the beginning of the book gives a brilliant summary of the situation we are in: The world is awash with bullshit, and we’re drowning in it. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Silicon Valley startups elevate bullshit to high art. Colleges and iniversities reward bullshit over analytic thought. The majority of administrative activity seems to be little more than a sophisticated exercise in the combinatorial reassembly of bullshit. ...

I recently had a chance to finish reading fantastic book covering disinformation war happening between USSR and USA during Cold War - Active Measures. it’s frightening how Soviet Russia, and by extension todays Russia, mastered skill of disinformation and manipulation of public opinion. and at the same time, reading it helps you spot influence over todays anti- and pro- movements, like antivacciners, anti-5G, anti-whatever. i’m not saying they’re all inspired and sponsored by Russia (or by whomever), but after reading this book you can easy see into how those movements start, evolve and get exploited. it’s just so easy to spark doubt in uneducated minds, and then let them consume “verified facts” and “in the internets”. ...

I was able to finally reach Aleksander Poniewierski SPEED book in my queue of books to read. if you don’t know Aleksander, you should - and this book will give you a lot of good answers for “why?”. I can finally attest that indeed that’s great, short, and to the point piece providing high level view of what and how drives fourth revolution, and what exactly is that revolution about. ...

i’m great fan of Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson books. latest one - it doesn’t have to be crazy at work - is a great continuation of the previous pieces. all of them: rework, remote and getting real should be part of ‘must read’ for teams and their managers. the most important in what they write about is that they bring it to life. and they write about all of the important things - including team management and organization, the way they work, the ideas that guide them and the lack of ‘corporate bullshit stories’ typical workplaces and companies try to invent just to justify need to work harder. ...

Cixin Liu trilogy was excellent. I wrote about it before. the latest collection of stories by the same author… well. not so much anymore. i am sad to say that it’s almost like Abelard Giza said in one of his standups pieces - ‘first there’s this original idea, and then total shit’). from the whole series of stories in the volume ‘wandering earth’ you can find maybe two or three original and interesting ones. the others are an attempt to glue a new story using almost the same or even exactly the same ideas. ...

great book. short but perfect. i will not try to praise and underline my deep knowledge and uderstanding of - Nosowska works. i know her almost exclusively from ‘texan’, and by the way she writes about people like me in one of the chapters about psychotherapists. i did not even knew, that she has a feed on instagram, publishes video - and in general - as a private person. not to mention all of her works. ...

great and unfortunately very short book about british geeks. it consists of couple of short chapters covering specific areas - from satellites (Ariel program), Blue Streak missiles, through Concorde (and all history of trying to keep it in service), to geeky pieces like legendary David Brabens Elite game. you won’t find too much about Elite game itself, as author is focusing more on the business side of things. however, there are couple of interesting pieces - like David relentless work on optimizing game code for BBC Micro (20kB of RAM!). game went on sale in september 1984 - i was six years old at the time, and in two years my father will buy ZX Spectrum 81. with shocking… 1kB of RAM! :) i only got to know Elite much later - in late 90’s in PC era. ...