My long-form notes on the books I read
I found this book from an episode of the Decoder Podcast . The premise is that Joanna Stern used AI, LLMs, and robots for many of her tasks and jobs for 2025. The book goes through her experiences, what the tools did well, what they struggled with, and what they simply failed miserably at. I appreciated her humor in her writing and talking about some of her experiences, both good and bad. As you…
I picked this book up after re-watching the HBO series and the accompanying podcast. I figured reading the source material would provide more insight into these extraordinary men and what they went through in their World War II campaigns. The book starts off talking about all the training they went through. The Airborne were a new concept, the US had never had airborne divisions prior to World War…
I heard of this book from 404 media and it made me kind of want to smash all my technology and go move into the woods as a hermit. This book does a good job diving into all the various ways technology companies have started to slurp up all our data, originally for advertising and tracking purposes, but eventually making its way into various government databases as well. And all the data we…
I graduated college and started my career shortly before the 2008 financial crisis hit. I remember the aftermath and learning about the subprime mortgages that were the primary cause behind it. This book provides an interesting perspective about some of the government officials and company executives dealing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG. The book focuses a great deal on both Lehman…
I've known now for a while that streaming is bad for artists, and while I still have and use my Apple Music subscription, I have been using it less and less, focusing on growing my music collection. This book focuses on Spotify and how it ruthlessly worked to cut costs squeezing more and more from musicians and songwriters. Spotify's stated goal when it launched was to "level the playing field"…
I picked a good time to read this book. Right now, the tech job market is in a weird place. The layoffs have slowed a bit lately, but we're also in a low-hire environment where those who have been laid off, as well as recent graduates are often having trouble finding work. Today, much of that is coming from how AI and LLMs are being used to try to supplement workers or replace the need to hire…
Despite working my entire adult life on computers, I never really dug all that deep into the history of the development of computer chips. They're such a key piece of almost everything in our lives so it's a little embarrassing I didn't know all this history. This was a captivating book. It talked about the history of the development of some of the first chips that sent Apollo astronauts to the…
This was a fascinating read about a little bit of the history or the current AI hype and many of its problems. It did a fantastic job of digging into what the different tools being hyped actually are as well as the basics on how they work, and why they aren't as "powerful" as they seem. They point out the issues many of these tools have with built-in biases, the costs of the creatives behind the…
I had heard about this book a while ago and when it was mentioned again in Apple in China , I decided to see if it was available through my library, and sure enough it was. This book goes through the history of the 1MDB scandal . For those unaware, 1MDB was a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund that ended up being a slush fund for the Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak and his family, Jho Low, and…
This was a look at how Apple grew from manufacturing primarily in America to almost exclusively in China. It was a fascinating look from when Apple had to sell their own factories just to avoid bankruptcy to today. It was kind of eerie to see all the decisions that slowly but surely tied them to China. The book goes through in detail all the different things Apple did to take advantage of the…
I'm not one who generally likes memoirs, but this was an incredible listen about John Romero's life, growing up and gaining a legacy of one of the DOOM creators. I remember getting DOOM and playing it and thought it was amazing. Listening to the history of how John Romero got into game development, programming in assembly, and how he, John Carmack, and the rest of Id got together to make one of…
This was a fantastic dive into the history of the encrypted phone market. The book goes through the history of the previous encrypted phones like Phantom Secure, EncroChat, and SkyPhones and how those companies got charged, often with their founders facing criminal charges for intentionally supporting organized crime. This all led to the creation of the primary focus of the book and the events…
I found out about this book from an episode of the Techdirt Podcast . I had heard about NYT v Sullivan and knew it was important with regards to free speech and journalism. This book does a good job talking about why the Sullivan decision is so important to the freedoms we enjoy in America, especially the freedom of the press. The book goes on to describe the different attacks the rich and…
I remember when I first heard about the Astros cheating scheme. As a baseball fan, I was surprised at how brazen it was. I knew teams would often straddle the line and skirt the rules any way they could to gain an advantage, but didn't expect something so bold and blatantly illegal. As much as I borrowed this book thinking it would be focused on the cheating scandal, the scandal itself was not a…
I had heard a Fresh Air interview with Richard Behar about the largest Ponzi scheme in American history. I of course had heard about Bernie Madoff and knew the basics, but this book provided more details and insight into it. I found the audiobook on Libby and decided to give it a listen. I mention that because the audiobook contains recorded phone calls between Richard and Bernie. Richard…
This was a sobering look at where we are as a society. It’s easy to put the blame for all of this on the rise of the internet, but as Tom goes on to describe, there’s a lot more to it. The breakdown of trust between the public, experts, and elected officials in a republic goes in all directions. The public, especially, needs to be able to trust leaders and their expert advisers. This relationship…
I’m a pretty big space geek. I’ve always found it captivating. I was born too late to experience the moon race, but I was born just as the Space Shuttle was starting to take off. I didn’t really know what was going on at that point, but the Challenger disaster occurred a couple of years after I was born. I remember when I started getting into space, my Mom mentioning Challenger , and how it was…
I had heard about this book on an episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Addendum podcast and quickly put a hold on it at on Libby. The book is an interesting look at what nuclear war might look like. She interviewed countless Department of Defense officials as well as others who at points in their lives were involved with our nuclear war planning. The insight she used from those interviews…
As someone who enjoys reading about history, this was an in-depth look at one of the darkest periods in American history. The book is long, but it goes into so much depth about the battles, the characters involved, and the politics of both the Union and the Confederacy. So much was going on in the country during the Civil War and James M. McPherson did a great job talking about what was happening…
This is the second book of Erik Larson's I've read and it was again well written. The trigger that started what would become the Civil War was the Confederacy's siege of Fort Sumter by Charleston, South Carolina. Larson does a good job going through what happened leading up to the shelling as the newly seceded states wanted to take control of U.S. forts and armories since they declared their…
To say I've been upset at the lies, misinformation, and disinformation we see on social media and various TV channels would be an understatement. It makes me angry that people are duped about COVID, voting rights, and who knows what else. But as angry as I might be, the 1st Amendment allows for the speech, and that's the right call. Kosseff does a good job going through past legal cases regarding…
I had known that Pakistan was divided into East and West Pakistan at one point in history, but didn’t really know how the region formed into what it is today. The book goes through what happened between Pakistan, India, and what is now Bangladesh. It goes through the atrocities committed by Pakistan against the Hindus and East Bengalis across East Pakistan, the unwillingness of the United States…
Like The Storm Before the Storm , I had discovered this book on a Hardcore History Addendum episode . This was a fantastic book going from the death of Julius Caesar to what would become the Roman Empire. Barry Strauss does a great job of going through the history of the rivalry between Mark Antony and Octavian (who would later become Augustus). The story was fascinating as it goes through the…
This was an absolutely fascinating look at the Roman Republic leading up to the fall of the republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. I was referred to this book from an episode of Hardcore History Addendum . Episode 2, Rome Through Duncan’s Eyes had Mike Duncan on to talk about this book. The book goes through the different figures who were involved as well as some of the fateful decisions they…
I had heard of this book from a Make Me Smart podcast episode . The book is an interesting and slightly depressing look at the racism that clearly still exists in America. The book looks back at various points in history where there were spikes in racial animosity. There is an obvious futility to the search—there is no satisfying explanation for evil. Yet in moments of chaos and tragedy, human…
If you haven’t already picked up on it, I’m a pretty big space geek. I love reading about it and have dreamed of going up into space. This book was right up my alley. This book throws some cold water on humanity’s dream of truly settling space, at least in the near term. Kelly and Zach do a fantastic job of going through the different challenges, technologic, scientific and legal of us as a…
Nothing in this book is known to be true. It's a reflection on what I've noticed. Not facts so much as thoughts. Some ideas may resonate, others may not. A few may awaken an inner knowing you forgot you had. Use what's helpful. Let go of the rest. That’s Rick Rubin’s introduction to the book. From my perspective, it was a good way to go into the book. Recently I’ve been trying to branch into my…
From the beginning, I thought that crypto was pretty dumb. And it turned out to be even dumber than I imagined. Never before has so much wealth been generated with such flimsy schemes. But what shocked me was not the vapidity of the crypto bros. It was how their heedlessness had devastating consequences for people across the world. By the end, I’d find myself in Cambodia, investigating how crypto…
I’ve read several of Kashmir’s articles in the New York Times, so I knew she knows her stuff when it comes to privacy and technology. It’s the primary reason I bought the book. I had heard and read about Clearview because of her reporting. This book does a good job going into the history of facial recognition, its failures, weaknesses and potential for a very scary future where privacy as we…
This was a really fascinating look at Lincoln's rise to the presidency. and how he ran the Union during America's darkest hours. The book starts out by describing how both Lincoln and the three other presidential hopefuls in the 1860 Republican Primary race got to be on the ballot in 1860. Doris Kearns Goodwin does a fantastic job of describing the backgrounds of Abraham Lincoln, William Seward,…
This book was an interesting read looking at one of the biggest victims of unrestricted submarine warfare. It was also the start of the events that would bring the US into World War I two years later. The book Bounces between passenger and crew stories from the Lusitania , the path of U-20 and Captain Lieutenant Walther Schwieger, who would sink the Lusitania . While talking about Schwieger and…