This book is novel simply because it exists. A lot of hate mongers would have you believe that the ideas expressed here can’t work within the framework of Islam. Guess not, eh. This one is definitely a must read.
What to say about this book? I loved her bashing on the games industry, as we share the same perspective there. Actually, the entire book was nothing but me nodding my head. I’m not sure if I’d recommend it to anyone who doesn’t care about video games, though.
Also she flat-out lies about Plano in order to burn it. It’s probably just hyperbole to accompany her sense of despair as she spent time suffering at SMU’s Guildhall.
I was more interested to learn about Shelley himself while I did this reading than by the poem. The poem, I suppose, is good. I have no formal training in poetry so I suspect for me to properly address the work done here I would need to read several other books, though I certainly respect and enjoy the broader themes presented.
Returning to the Prometheus Unbound will be made possible by the brevity of the work. I hesitate in calling it a book. However, I spent too much time reading Team of Rivals and need some padding — okay?
This book is amazing. It is expertly put together with quotes from letters and accounts weaving in and out of the narrative. I feel as though I know Lincoln personally, along with many of his cabinet members. I assume this account is warped by Lincoln’s legend but during the reading I really did not care.
Fun facts:
Really, read this book.
Wow. It’s been a while. I’ve been reading, just not updating.
The only other book I’d read by Thompson was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, so it was interesting to take in one of his more journalistic efforts. Let’s see… There’s a really uncomfortable segment at the beginning where he dabbles heavily in rape apologetics. Actually the entire setting is somewhat uncomfortable and highly foreign. It’s a lot like how I felt reading On the Road.
Speaking of, there’s a new On the Road movie coming out. The trailer makes it look like they’ll be attempting to capture the uneasiness or uncomfortable feeling I mentioned. Who knows, I’m probably reading my own emotions from the book into the trailer. That impression of lives spent wandering, minds so obliterated by recreational substances that they don’t even notice their bodies rotting.
Watergate: A Novel has a one catch - it was written for people who were there. The characters weave the politics of the 1940s and 1950s into their thoughts and discussions the way we might refer back to the Reagan or Carter administration today. Alice Longworth goes back further, delivering barbs referencing turn-of-the-century Washington, DC. Most of the major events of the scandal take place on the periphery and I was generally only made aware of them as characters mentioned them in passing.
I’ll confess that I was largely ignorant of Watergate. I knew of the break-in, that Nixon and many of his people were involved, about the tapes and that Nixon ultimately resigned. Halfway through the novel I even looked up a YouTube video of Spiro Agnew when I realized I didn’t know what he looked or sounded like (aside from his reanimated and talking headless body that appears in a few Futurama episodes). I don’t regret approaching the novel this way. It lead to a number of “no way” moments, the largest being the fate of Dorothy Hunt.
Stepping inside the minds of the wide cast of characters was ultimately the most enjoyable part of the novel for me. Feeling like I was observing the thought process of Nixon & Co. became a bit addictive.
It’s a solid book.
Also wrapped up this one. I’ve definitely got a few ideas to try out on my projects now but I did skim most of the last two chapters. One was primarily directed to managers trying to foster a startup culture within a larger organization and the other was an overlong conclusion.
The only real complaint I can level was that occasionally there would be a section of the book I felt had been padded.
Two books in one week puts me back on schedule.
I think many of the principles expressed in this book have made their way into today’s design education and culture, so I didn’t find anything inside that blew me away. There were a few sections that I had to completely skip when the author elaborated on his vision of future products (this was written in the mid-1980s) as they weren’t even slightly relevant. It’s a solid book to have under your belt, though.
Well, I’ve fallen behind on both my reading schedule and my updating schedule. Republic, Lost is an incredibly depressing book but it gave me a different perspective on the nature of “corruption” in Congress. I’d recommend it on that measure alone.
I’ve written up and tested a few ways to extract that inner DOM-y goodness lurking inside a jQuery object. These are sorted in order of speed:
var header = $("#heading"), dom_header;
dom_header = header[0];
dom_header = header.get(0);
dom_header = document.getElementById(header.selector.slice(1));
dom_header = document.getElementById(header.attr("id"));
In the tests I ran, header[0] would run roughly eight times faster than header.get(0). Which isn’t surprising if you think about what’s happening here.
Now, let’s say you have multiple elements in a jQuery object:
list.each(function (i) {
dom_elements[i] = list[i];
});
Go forth and be speedy.
This is highly accurate.