AMC’s computer tech/hot people drama “Halt and Catch Fire” is set in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s a great drama, and also set in the fascinating and generally not seen subgenre of period-piece computer tech. The soundtracks alone make the show worth watching. I love that show, and its iconic line: “Computers aren’t the thing. They’re the thing that gets you to the thing.” I’ve been online for about 25 years, and the gutsin that quote resonated deeply with me. As an artsy, quiet kid, […]
Patent Wars
I really wanted to like this book, and there were definitely some great moments in it with visceral setting and interesting factoids, but it all fell a bit flat for me. “The Last Days of Night” is a fictional retelling of the patent wars between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse during the hey-day of America’s invention period. Moore chooses to tell this story from the Point of View of Westinghouse’s lawyer, Paul Cravath. It’s an ingenious way to tell a story riddled with scientific specifics and […]
The Room Where It Happens
Best for: Men who don’t seem to get how hard it is for women and people of color at the highest levels of their field; women who need a little inspiration and some bad ass women to look up to. In a nutshell: Woman of color venture capitalist is sabotaged by the old boys club in infuriating ways, fights back all the way to court, loses, but still comes out WAY ahead of those assholes. Line that sticks with me: “I was appalled by their […]
Actually it’s about ethics in product design
Hooked presents a model for designers to create products that “hook” people in, that is makes them not only use your product once, but keep returning over and over. The book presents a pretty actionable model of how to progress in design, when to reward a user and when to ask for investments from the user. There are no new tech insights in this book, but for designers of any kind of product it’s pretty interesting. He starts out by defining habits as the things […]