Technicat

Topic

Writing

A collection of 35 issues

How to Hide an Empire

In a bit of karmic retribution for all that personal pandemic overspending on consumer appliances, I'm now TV-less after my robot vacuum knocked over my 4K LG TV (seems there should be market for anti-robot-vacuum defenses). It was just as well, my sporadic monthly netflix subscription expired the day before,

Julia Child

My latest pick from the Writer's Block bargain bin is the Julia Child installment in the Last Interview series. It's actually a few interviews, still a fairly thin book, but enough to expand on my flimsy knowledge of her, consisting of dim memories of seeing her show in my youth

Why We Sleep

Ironically, I found Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep a bit of a snooze. It's one of those books that took me a long time to finish because I kept nodding off every couple of pages. It's partly because it cites study after study, which sounds good for science, but also,

The Last Kind Words Saloon

I was congratulating myself on finishing The Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler in two days, and then I finished Larry McMurty's The Last Kind Words Saloon in a day. Admittedly, it's no epic-length Lonesome Dove. This is a short book, each chapter a snippet of

Redhead by the Side of the Road

Lately I've begun to worry that I can no longer binge-read a book. I used to devour a good spy thriller or sci-fi story in one night, before showing up at work bleary-eyed. Now I have stacks of partially-read books – graphic novels, fiction, books on coffee, philosophy (seems related, somehow)

Weller's Book Works

My last stop before exiting Salt Lake City was Weller's Book Works, an indie bookstore that's been around since 1929! (Vegas is like a newborn baby compared to Salt Lake City) It's got new books, used books, rare books (second floor, where the photo was taken). No coffee shop, but

Cedar City

The Las Vegas summer heat, nation-leading covid numbers, and my neighbor's subwoofer impelled me to take a road trip into Utah. It's my first time in that state, so I experienced a bit of culture shock after I crossed the state border into St. George and saw the speed limit

Comic-Con@Home

If you've been having trouble getting Comic Con tickets in recent years or just couldn't handle the crowds when it got mainstream popular, pandemic Comic Con, now streaming, is the Comic Con for you. View from home, any session, no more waiting in lines or having to choose among talks.

Save the Cat!

I've piled up a lot of unread books during the pandemic, so I've learned to treat them like other projects – if it looks like I'm not going to finish it, move on, maybe hand it off to someone else (in the case of books, the public library). Honestly, I bought

Invisible City

I love books that discuss real, functional (and non-functional) design, such as the books by Don Norman (the title The Design of Everyday Things speaks for itself), Christopher Alexander (whose A Pattern Language inspired, for better or worse, the current obsession with design patterns in software), and Henry Petroski (To