Steven’s Notebook

I was fortunate to spend two days last week with some very smart people as my company hosted a completely non-company-specific, non-tool-specific, non-technology-speicfic peer conference; twelve people in a room discussing the craft and profession of software testing, what changes we see happening and would like to see, and how we might be able to [...]

It’s not often that I post book recommendations here, but here goes one. If you’re a child of the 80′s; if you ever walked into the arcade, dropped a coin in the slot in the slot let the “real world” fade away for a few hours; if you can quote lines — just a few [...]

An addition to my previous post, about using highlighted text on the Kindle. Amazon’s Kindle preferences page, https://kindle.amazon.com/home/preferences can also be used to enable automatic sharing on Twitter and Facebook.

Buying electronic books for the Kindle, and in conjunction the Kindle app on various devices – PC, Macintosh, iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, etc. – has just become much more useful for me. Among the nice features of the Kindle software is the ability to hilight blocks of text and to take notes. This is hardly [...]

I just finished reading Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base, by Annie Jacobsen. [Amazon] Lots of previously-unknown history. It’s a good book, even if there aren’t enough aliens.

This past week, I read Practices of an Agile Developer, not because I’m currently employed as a developer, nor because my employer uses them, but because I believe the guidelines are good ones to be practiced no matter what the profession. Check out some readers’ notes, then invest some time in the book yourself, especially [...]

Library Journal has released it’s list of the Best Audiobooks of 2008. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’ve not read or listened to even one of these yet. Yet.

Wow, it’s been over a year and a half since I read Daemon and recommended it here. It’s a great book and I’m glad to introduce it to other new readers. It’s fascinating to see how often conversations these days wander near people’s fear of — or complete trust in — technology; those are great [...]

I read books, quite a few of them in fact, and as I’ve written before I find a number of them through friends and their suggestions. Well, now Tony Dye has one for us: How to Read a Book. How to Read a Book. Huh? Did I get that right – a book called How [...]

I stopped by to see my friends at Tomorrow Pictures the other day. Drew was busy working with some footage from Australia down in the editing room, so rather than interrupt his train of thought I just hung out in his office and took the opportunity to browse his bookshelf, looking for something I hadn’t [...]

On a lighter note, I read book 5 – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – last weekend and saw the movie this past week. The book was, of course, much better than the movie. I understand that parts of the book needed to be cut to fit a script into a reasonable [...]

Salon: We are meant to be here [physicist Paul Davies'] new book, “The Cosmic Jackpot,” will challenge even the most open-minded readers. Without ever invoking God, Davies argues for a grand cosmic plan. The universe, he believes, is filled with meaning and purpose. Sounds interesting. Added to my to-read list.

Before last week’s vacation, we stopped by the used book store to pick up some light “mind candy” for the trip. I was looking for some of John D. MacDonald‘s books that I’d not read yet, but there weren’t any of those on the shelf. Nor were there any copies of Cell available either. I [...]

I just finished reading, upon recommendation from Rick Klau, a techno-thriller called Daemon. Wow. Scary wow. Not Amityville Horror scary or The Shining scary, but Andromeda Strain scary, or Rainbow Six scary – enough “reality” to make you believe that, though the whole story’s an unlikely one, parts of something like this could happen. [much [...]

For Mike (and the rest of us too), I’m going to add a 16th book to my list of Books to Jump-Start 2007: Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone. Though the book jacket blurb may sound like it’s all look out for number one, self-serving business “techniques,” there’s more to it. Like Tim Sanders, Ferrazzi’s point [...]

Tim Sanders, author of the excellent books Love Is The Killer App and The Likability Factor, suggests a few books for us to read in the upcoming year. It looks like a good list to me, most were already on my to-read soon list. In addition, here are some from my book list that I [...]

I read a fascinating book this weekend, Ian Wilson’s Murder At Golgotha. Subtitled “Revisiting the Most Famous Crime Scene in History,” it’s an interesting look at Jesus’ crucifixion and other events during Holy Week from a forensic and analytic perspective. While not proving the Bible to be 100% factually correct (neither completely possible nor necessary [...]

One of my favorite nonfiction authors, Steven Johnson, has an article in today’s New York times: The Long Zoom. He writes about Will Wright’s still-in-development game, Spore, and the way it can help people take a set back to look at the bigger picture and how their actions are connected into it. Spore’s players will [...]

On tonight’s LOST: a nice hat-tip to a particular author.

Start with a pint or so of John D. MacDonald‘s Travis McGee, mix in a quarter-cup of Clive Cussler‘s Dirk Pitt and you just might end up with a refreshing drink of Doc Ford. Well, you or I might not, but thankfully Randy Wayne White did. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some cheap MacDonald [...]

For James, Robert and the rest of you other fine readers too (via Jason): First rule of Book Club: you do not talk about Book Club. [Third Day Blog]

I had barely started Steven Johnson‘s 2001 book Emergence last night – indeed I was still in the first two dozen or so pages – when the TV show my wife was watching caught my ear. The Screen Actors Guild awards show was showing clips from Crash and giving a short description of it’s premise. [...]

A while back I wrote about Steven B. Johnson‘s book Everything Bad Is Good For You. Last night an interview with him was shown on the Charlie Rose show, and now it’s available for viewing here (about 45 minutes in). After you watch the interview, of course I recommend you go read the book. It’s [...]

A few weeks back I read a Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, based on the recommendation of a friend and commented that it was a “fascinating story.” Big understatement. When Bryant recommended The Dark Tower series, I joked that he’d be to blame if I couldn’t sleep for a week. I meant that I’d be too [...]

We may have our differences of opinion but Dave‘s still the Blogfather, having gotten many of us – including me – interested in weblogging with his writing, his offer of EditThisPage, the development of Radio and his enthusiasm in general. His writing also inspired me to give the Grateful Dead a listen. I’d heard of [...]

“What is the current reigning technological paradigm — combined with both market and public-sector forces — doing to our minds?” Steven Johnson, who I heard interviewed on the radio this afternoon, tackles that in a book that I’m very much looking forward to reading: Everything Bad Is Good for You. I wrote a paper back [...]

I spent Saturday vacationing on Key West, being lazy in the hot sun. Well, not really, but I did hang out on the deck (where it was hot enough) and read The Mango Opera. Darn good book, made even better by the fact that I’d just been there a couple of months ago. Corcoran’s description [...]