I really enjoyed this book even though it’s fundamentally about not super fun topics. But Solnit manages in her writing to instill a feeling of optimism and connectedness in me while still being very real about the terrible things that are happening. I don’t know if I would say I took anything actionable away from it but it did make me feel less alone in a world that’s on fire and filled with stupidity in a lot of directions you can look.<\/p>"},{"title":"Monsters","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dederer-monsters-2023\/","pubDate":"Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dederer-monsters-2023\/","description":"
I was really curious about this book as the topic of enjoying art made by\npeople who express world views very counter to my own is something I often\nthink about. It’s one of the reasons why I was intrigued by and enjoyed Bad\nFeminist<\/a> when I read it, with its discussion of enjoying rap music - which\noften has very questionable lyrics to say the least - while being a feminist.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Safety Anarchist","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dekker-thesafetyanarchist-2017\/","pubDate":"Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dekker-thesafetyanarchist-2017\/","description":" After having read Dekker’s Field Guide to Understanding Human Error<\/a> many\nyears ago I had been loosely following his work through recorded talks and\nlectures, as well as papers<\/a>. And since I’ve been thinking more about\norganizational safety and reading books about it<\/a> lately, I was curious\nabout some more recent writing by him.<\/p>"},{"title":"Beschleunigung","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rosa-beschleunigung-2005\/","pubDate":"Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rosa-beschleunigung-2005\/","description":" The feeling of acceleration and “missing time” has been on my mind for quite a\nwhile (in which I’m probably not alone) and when I heard about this book I was\nimmediately intrigued. And since the author is German I decided to read it in\nGerman as well. I don’t have a lot of experience in reading German sociology\ntexts, let alone ones written in an academic setting. And I will say that I\ndefinitely struggled and it took me a lot longer to read the book than usual.\nBut there are a lot of interesting ideas in there. The interconnection of\nacceleration in technology, societal structures, and personal lives and how\nthey reinforce each other is something I definitely want to work through and\nthink deeper on.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Thursday Murder Club","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/osman-thethursdaymurderclub-2020\/","pubDate":"Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/osman-thethursdaymurderclub-2020\/","description":" I had this on my shelf for forever and always wanted to read it and never got\nto it. And with there being a Netflix show now that looks like fun, I really\nwanted to read the book first. And I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. The\nbook was very funny and entertaining and a kind of different take on a crime\nnovel in many ways. I can super recommend it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Adventures in Democracy","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/benner-adventuresindemocracy-2024\/","pubDate":"Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/benner-adventuresindemocracy-2024\/","description":" With democracy currently having a much rougher time and being attacked in many\nways, I was really intrigued by this book. The author touches on many\ndifferent subjects that relate to democracy like the power of the people,\nelections, demagogues, women’s rights to participate and much more. I really\nliked reading about the history of democracy and the various “implementations”\nand differences around the world. I don’t know what I wanted to get out of the\nbook and I think while I was reading I was yearning for a simple answer to\nhave to “save” democracy in our current times. Which of course isn’t in there.\nBut I can still recommend the book.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/jacobs-thepleasuresofreadinginanageofdistraction-2011\/","pubDate":"Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/jacobs-thepleasuresofreadinginanageofdistraction-2011\/","description":" I randomly found this book at the bookstore and was very curious about it.\nI’ve been trying to make regular time for reading throughout the last couple\nof years and it’s often a pull between reading time and all the chores and\ndistractions that also exist. So I was really curious about this book in a\nkind of meta way. The author approaches the topic of reading from a number of\nangles and first and foremost clears up the ever lasting cliche of there being\n“good” or “proper” books to read and lesser ones. He encourages reading on a\nwhim (or Whim as he defines it) that which one is curious about. And actively\nshuns reading list that should be worked through. Probably owed to the fact\nthat the author is a literature academic the book feels fairly intellectual at\ntimes. But overall I really enjoyed the book and it made me want to read even\nmore.<\/p>"},{"title":"Slow Productivity","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/newport-slowproductivity-2024\/","pubDate":"Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/newport-slowproductivity-2024\/","description":" I’ve read a couple of Newport’s books so far (see here<\/a> and here<\/a>) and I’ve generally liked them but also found them somewhat repetitive. As in the general idea of not frantically running from thing to thing and getting distracted by things that aren’t a priority in improving your goals are the recurring topic in slightly variated form in most of his writing. Still I find it helpful as periodic reminders to actually also follow this advice and breaking out of cycles of distraction and - in the case of this book - what he calls “pseudo productivity”. I think if you’re only interested in his steps for slow productivity it’s enough to watch one of his videos about it (e.g. this<\/a>). But I can also recommend the book if you want to just spend some more time with Newport’s thoughts about this topic and some examples and anecdotes of famous people that have achieved great work in a manner that is compatible with the concept of “slow productivity”. It’s a pretty entertaining and short read as well. And the ideas resonate a lot with me, even if they don’t differ in spirit much from his previous books.<\/p>"},{"title":"Safety-I and Safety\u2013II","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hollnagel-safety-iandsafety-ii-2014\/","pubDate":"Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hollnagel-safety-iandsafety-ii-2014\/","description":" After years of following Hollnagel’s work and having read ETTO<\/a> many years\nago, I finally read this (now) classic that he wrote in 2014. And I have to\nsay it still holds up extremely well even 10 years later. It’s a mostly easy\nread that introduces and explains concepts from the approach that is branded\nin the book as “Safety I”, which is the focus on preventing accidents versus\nwhat he calls “Safety II”, the focus on fostering and increasing things that\ngo right. There’s a lot in this book about the history of safety and risk\nmanagement and how we got to this focus on accidents as the data point to\nfixate on. It’s a fairly quick read and I can highly recommend it if you do\nanything related to safety, risk, or resilience management or even just work\nin an area where you are responsible for operating any form of live system.<\/p>"},{"title":"Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/henderson-reimaginingcapitalisminaworldonfire-2021\/","pubDate":"Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/henderson-reimaginingcapitalisminaworldonfire-2021\/","description":" In my journey this year to read a bit more about economic topics, I came\nacross this book in my bookstore and was curious about. There’s lots of\ndiscussion currently about how bad capitalism is but I haven’t seen a ton\nabout what could be better. So I was curious to read more about that part. The\nbook overall did an ok job there. A lot of cases are outlined where people went\nagainst “common sense” of capitalism and increasing shareholder value and\nbuilt or grew companies that were and are very successful. There are a lot of\nexamples there that the author outlines as strong reasons to be hopeful.\nHowever reading this in 2025 where things feel like they’ve only gotten worse\nin the years since the book got published a lot of it rings kinda hollow. And\nthe examples feel more like anecdotes than signs for a better way. It’s a very\nwell written and researched book. And I think if I had read it in 2021 I\nwould’ve taken away a lot more positive things.<\/p>"},{"title":"Die Schuldenbremse","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/bajohr-dieschuldenbremse-2015\/","pubDate":"Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/bajohr-dieschuldenbremse-2015\/","description":" In the same spirit that made me read Naked Economics<\/a> I had also asked a\nfriend who’s an economist whether he knew any good books to learn the basics\nabout economics but also specifically about the “Schuldenbremse”, Germany’s\nbalanced budget amendment<\/a> flippantly called “debt brake”. So he\nrecommended me Bajohr’s essay on the topic which ended up a very brief but\ninteresting read. The author collects a good amount of history on the topic\nand how it came to be and then goes on to outline his critique of it and how\nit doesn’t help in many cases and in others even makes things worse. It is\nwritten in a very accessible way even for someone like me who’s not super well\nversed in economics terms and theories. I can highly recommend it if you want\nto learn about this topic that was a huge contributing factor in the failing\nof the last German government.<\/p>"},{"title":"Leichtes Herz und schwere Beine","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/schlegl-leichtesherzundschwerebeine-2025\/","pubDate":"Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/schlegl-leichtesherzundschwerebeine-2025\/","description":" I knew the author from when he was moderating tons of shows on VIVA, the\nGerman version of MTV. And I kinda knew that he had mostly given up working in\nmedia to work as a paramedic instead. So when I saw that he wrote a book about\nhiking with his mother I was kinda curious about it. I think the start is a\nbit bumpy and it feels more like a boring day by day telling of someone not\nenjoying their hike. But even though the trip gets harder and harder\nthroughout the book, the narration gets a lot more interesting and personal.\nAnd the musings about hiking, tourism, but also mortality spoke to me a lot\nand I really enjoyed the book overall.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Morrigan","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/curran-themorrigan-2025\/","pubDate":"Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/curran-themorrigan-2025\/","description":" After reading The Bear and the\nNightingale<\/a> and\nhaving already ordered the followups I wanted some more mystical fiction books\nto read. So when I stumbled upon this book at my bookstore I was immediately\ninterested. Especially since my knowledge of Irish mythology is\/was\npractically non-existent and I wouldn’t dare claim the parts that made it into\nMarvel comicbooks count. The book itself I ended up being kinda meh on. I\nthink it’s written well while still being more crass and gory than I expected.\nThere also aren’t many happy or fun stories in there which is something I’ve\nkinda expected since despite the rampant awfulness that exists in probably all\nmythologies, from the Norse, Roman, and Greek mythologies I remembered some\nstories that at least had some funny or silly aspects to it. Whereas The\nMorrigan is mostly a compendium of men being awful. I’m happy I read it and\nhaving learned a bit more about Irish mythology. But I wouldn’t recommend it\nas a happy, entertaining read.<\/p>"},{"title":"Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/wheelan-nakedeconomicsundressingthedismalscience-2019\/","pubDate":"Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/wheelan-nakedeconomicsundressingthedismalscience-2019\/","description":" I go this book originally because I wanted to start getting a better\nunderstanding of economics as a field. Something I’ve shied away from through\nmost of my university years because it was hardly ever talked about in a way\nthat wasn’t either extremely obnoxious or extremely boring. Reading through\nthe book I kinda alternated between “yes this seems obvious” or “they are\ndoing what??” depending on the topic. But in general it’s very well written\nand does a good job conveying economic ideas in plain English that is easy to\nunderstand. The chapters generally are structured in a way that first\nit is emphasized that ideally the market shouldn’t be regulated and then\nfollowing up on this with a more nuanced explanation of why regulation and\ngovernment influence and rule making still is needed to some extent for the\nwhole thing to work. I would definitely recommend it even though even though I\nfelt triggered a couple of times early in chapters before the more nuanced\nprogression took place :).<\/p>"},{"title":"Metal Gear Solid 2","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/benson-metalgearsolid-2010\/","pubDate":"Tue, 20 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/benson-metalgearsolid-2010\/","description":" When I ordered the first Metal Gear Solid book<\/a> I also ordered the second\none at the same time. And I will say that it reads much the same way. I\npersonally find the story of the Metal Gear Solid 2 video game less exciting\nthan the first one as well. I also never played it as a kid so it’s missing a\nton of nostalgia for me as well. But the second book basically is written in\nthe same style than the first one. It was an easy read but not something I\nwouldn’t necessarily recommend unless you are a huge MGS fan and want to\nconsume literally everything that exists in that universe.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Atlas of AI","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/crawford-theatlasofai-2021\/","pubDate":"Fri, 16 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/crawford-theatlasofai-2021\/","description":" After reading about the technology of AI<\/a> I decided to stay with the topic\nfor a bit longer and also read more about the impacts of the technology and\nits deployment on the world outside of plainly looking at the outputs of\nthe algorithms. Much of it I already knew but the book very clearly looks at\nthe aspects of environmental as well as human and societal impact of these\ntechnologies for mass data gathering and processing. It’s very well written\nand recommended even though it’s not fun to read about this very dark aspect\nof our current age of technology.<\/p>"},{"title":"Artificial Intelligence","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/mitchell-artificialintelligence-2019\/","pubDate":"Sun, 27 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/mitchell-artificialintelligence-2019\/","description":" I got this book in order to get a more nuanced idea about current approaches\nto what’s generally being called “AI”. And especially to read more about the\nbasic of neural nets since I didn’t have a lot of lecture content about it in\nuniversity. The book does a really good job of explaining the history of the\nfield of artificial intelligence and the different cycles of excitement it has\ngone through. The author also explains very well the basics of historical and\nmodern AI technologies and how e.g. images and text are being ingested and\nevaluated. The book makes it very clear that tools like neural nets are\nautomatic classification tools and not more. The book is highly recommended if\nyou want an understanding of the field without the hype and fantastic claims\nthat have become so rampant in the last couple of years.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Bear and The Nightingale","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/arden-thebearandthenightingale-2017\/","pubDate":"Sun, 13 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/arden-thebearandthenightingale-2017\/","description":" I got this recommend by a friend as I had just finished City of Bones<\/a> and\nwanted something similar in some regards. And the fact that it was set on the\nbackdrop on some old Russian folk stories was kinda interesting. And overall\nthe book really held up. The first 100 pages were really slow, mostly\ndepressing, and I wasn’t able to really keep track of the characters. But\nafter that I was really drawn into the story, to the point where some parts I\nfound creepy enough that I stopped reading it before going to bed and read it\nin daylight instead \ud83d\ude05. I finished the final 150 pages or so in one setting\nbecause I really wanted to know how it ends. And then immediately ordered the\ntwo follow up books in the series.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Ordinal Society","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/fourcadehealy-theordinalsociety-2024\/","pubDate":"Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/fourcadehealy-theordinalsociety-2024\/","description":" I was really curious about this book as I’ve been thinking a lot lately about\nmy use of technology, the amount of data that is tracked on devices, and just\nthe general state of software (and hardware) where a lot things seem to be\ngetting developed more for the purpose of keeping people hooked and\nparticipating in a closed platform rather than mostly offering a useful\nservice or a solution to an actual problem. The book overall is definitely a\nchallenging read at times as it’s often written in fairly academic language\n(the disclaimer here being that English isn’t my first language and I don’t\nhave a degree in the humanities, so ymmv) which made me re-read some sentences\noccasionally to get to the gist of it. But overall it was a really interesting\nbook that gave me a lot of new ideas and avenues to think about my\nrelationship with technology.<\/p>"},{"title":"Notes on Complexity","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/theise-notesoncomplexity-2024\/","pubDate":"Sun, 16 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/theise-notesoncomplexity-2024\/","description":" I found this at the local book store and wasn’t really sure what to make of it\nbut found it interesting enough to buy. I’ve dabbled in complexity theory\ntopics over the years but haven’t really dug deep into it so far. I overall\nreally enjoyed the book. It does a good job introducing the basics of\ncomplexity in my opinion and guiding through a lot of historical developments\nin math and related fields in relation to the study of complexity. Which also\nmakes up the majority of the book. The part when the author actually gets to\nconsciousness is rather short and is more a starting point than a real outline\nof their research in my mind. So while I can’t say I have a more interesting\ninsight into consciousness after reading the back, I still took a lot away\nfrom reading it.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Notebook","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/allen-thenotebook-2023\/","pubDate":"Fri, 07 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/allen-thenotebook-2023\/","description":" I honestly devoured and thoroughly enjoyed this book. I’ve recently been going\nback to leaning on my notebooks a lot more for a lot of my tasks including\nplanning and todos (both at work and personal). So the book just came at the\nright time. I gives a wonderful overview over how paper (and notebooks) were\nused throughout the centuries by different people of various professions. It\nwas really interesting to compare how much of these ways of journaling and\ntaking notes is still in use today and how the question of organization of\nnotes kinda still has so many approaches. If you like writing on paper, I can\nabsolutely recommend this book.<\/p>"},{"title":"City of Bones","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/clare-cityofbones-2017\/","pubDate":"Sun, 09 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/clare-cityofbones-2017\/","description":" I started this book many years ago after I had finished watching the Netflix\nshow and really was kinda bummed it ended. So I wanted to continue spending\ntime in that phantasy universe. Initially however I didn’t super enjoy the\ndifferences between the book and the show (as I really wanted to have it make\nthe show keep going for me) and I had the book on my nightstand for a long\ntime without actually reading it. But then I decided to pick it back up - with\nsome good distance from the Netflix show - and just read it as its own. And I\nthoroughly enjoyed it and finished it pretty quickly. I also got the follow up\nbook already, so I’m intending to keep going. If you like young adult stories\nset within a universe of vampires, demons, werewolves, and other fantastical\ncreatures, I can recommend the book.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Creative Act","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rubin-thecreativeact-2023\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rubin-thecreativeact-2023\/","description":" As a long time fan of a lot of the music that Rick Rubin has produced I was\nreally curious about his take on creativity and the pursuit of making art. And\nthere were a lot of interesting bits in there. I found his views on the\npressure to make something that will be popular and how to approach\nexperimentation really interesting. And also the contrast of emphasizing the\nmore structured parts like note taking and practicing was very interesting.\nOverall I think the book could’ve been a lot shorter as some parts felt\nrepetitive in some ways. And of course it mostly leaves out the challenges of\nmaking a living with art. But I still overall enjoyed the book.<\/p>"},{"title":"Rebel Girl","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hanna-rebelgirl-2024\/","pubDate":"Tue, 14 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hanna-rebelgirl-2024\/","description":" I stumbled upon this in a bookshop and while I knew about Bikini Kill, I can’t\nsay I had listened to a lot of their music before. So I was really curious\nwhat their lead singer’s memoir would be like. And even though it has a lot of\nhard to read and sad passages I really liked this book. There is so much raw\nrealness in there and so many interesting passages about their first gigs, the\nstruggle to keep the band and the zines and all the stuff around it going,\ntheir history with Kurt Cobain, and a lot of sweet details from their\nrelationship with Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys. I really enjoyed the book.<\/p>"},{"title":"Gott ist nicht sch\u00fcchtern","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/grjasnowa-gottistnichtsch%C3%BCchtern-2017\/","pubDate":"Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/grjasnowa-gottistnichtsch%C3%BCchtern-2017\/","description":" I had read books by Olga Grjasnowa before and really liked her style and view\non the topics like migration and multi-lingualism. So I started reading this\nbook on winter break and I wasn’t really prepared for the how real and rough\nthis story is. It details a lot of the cruelties that happen to the\nprotagonists during mid-2010s Syria and their route to flee the country. It\ntook me some struggling to get through it but also gave me a lot of additional\nperspective on the realities of living in a country that often struggles with\nthe question of whether and how many refugees to take in. It’s not an easy\nread but I can recommend it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kleinhalevi-letterstomypalestinianneighbor-2019\/","pubDate":"Wed, 25 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kleinhalevi-letterstomypalestinianneighbor-2019\/","description":" I’ve not really concerned myself in depth with the Israel-Palestine conflict\nmuch before. But with all the recent events I wanted to educate myself a bit\nmore and got this book to read from some people that live there. And I found\nthe book to be very interesting. Especially the contrast between the letters\nwritten by the author and then the reply letters by Palestinians that are\nadded in this edition give a good idea about the contrasting (and sometimes\nsimilar) views on the various topics of this situation.<\/p>"},{"title":"Mapmatics","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rowinska-mapmatics-2024\/","pubDate":"Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rowinska-mapmatics-2024\/","description":" I was super curious about this book. The combination of maths and maps\nimmediately captured my attention, having been interested in both for a long\ntime. And I absolutely loved the book. It expectedly goes into detail of the\nmathematics to make projections of 3D territory on a 2D plane works and what\nthe trade-offs are there. But then goes so much wider into (often no well\nknown) pioneers of map making and how drawing maps can help people but also\nhave impact on politics in other areas as we essentially draw arbitrary lines\naround territories to categorize them. If you like maps and maths I can highly\nrecommend the book.<\/p>"},{"title":"Africa Is Not A Country","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/faloyin-africaisnotacountry-2022\/","pubDate":"Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/faloyin-africaisnotacountry-2022\/","description":" I super enjoyed this book. I’ve been to Tunisia as a kid and Cape Town for\ngiving a talk at a conference before but my knowledge of Africa is still very\nlimited and I was really curious to learn more. The book is very well written\nwith a lot of no-nonsense historical details and tons of humor. I learned a\nlot about the history of the continent as well as some of it countries and\nculture. Can highly recommend this book.<\/p>"},{"title":"Metal Gear Solid","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/benson-metalgearsolid-2008\/","pubDate":"Sat, 02 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/benson-metalgearsolid-2008\/","description":" As someone who has played the original Metal Gear Solid game multiple times on\nthe first Playstation as well as the Switch and has fond childhood memories of\nthe story I was curious how it could or would translate to a book. And I can\nsay I definitely wasn’t impressed. The book is written fairly cringy, and\nespecially the way the boss fights had to be adapted to a book was awkward at\ntimes. And often times it feels like pages needed to be filled by mentioning\nthe full name, number, and make of the weapons Snake is using - almost missing\nthe serial number as well. I don’t regret reading it but I wouldn’t call it\ngood literature either.<\/p>"},{"title":"Wintering","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/may-wintering-2020\/","pubDate":"Sun, 13 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/may-wintering-2020\/","description":" I stumbled upon this book in the book store and was immediately intrigued by\nthis idea of “winter” as a global but also personal season of struggle, death,\nand renewal. The author shares a lot of personal stories of struggle and\naccommodating the inevitable in her life. And the idea that a lot of people\ntry to pretend winter isn’t happening or at least wishing for months that it\nwas summer. Which is something that rings very true for me as someone who\nroutinely falls into a winter depression around January when it’s been cold\nand grey for more than 2 months here in Berlin.<\/p>"},{"title":"How to Build Impossible Things","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ellison-howtobuildimpossiblethings-2023\/","pubDate":"Fri, 04 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ellison-howtobuildimpossiblethings-2023\/","description":" I found this book at my favourite book store and was really interested in it\nwithout knowing too much about it. I initially thought it was more about\nactually building things. But the book turned out to be more like listening to\nan old carpenter reminiscing about life. Which I thoroughly enjoyed. I come\nfrom a line of car mechanics and carpenters and it reminded me a lot of\ntalking to my dad or grandpa. The book is divided into chapters on various\ntopics around life. And usually a lot of them have examples from houses the\nauthor built. Lots of them including the fanciest apartments of New York. Many\nstories reminded me of just general vibes in project management even in\nsoftware engineering. But also stories I’ve heard from carpenters and other\nengineers. There’s a chapter about “Friendship and Death” that made me very\nemotional and I actually stopped reading there for a bit. But I can definitely\noverall recommend it if “old carpenter talks about life” is a vibe you’d\nenjoy.<\/p>"},{"title":"Reality Is Not What It Seems","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rovelli-realityisnotwhatitseems-2017\/","pubDate":"Sun, 15 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rovelli-realityisnotwhatitseems-2017\/","description":{}},{"title":"The Science of Can and Can't","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/marletto-thescienceofcanandcant-2021\/","pubDate":"Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/marletto-thescienceofcanandcant-2021\/","description":" I was intrigued by the title when I saw the book in the bookshop as\ncounterfactuals are something that is seen as not desired in the process of\nlearning from incidents. So I was really curious how this can serve as a\nprobably different perspective and interpretation in other sciences. The book\nis not a completely easy read and there are definitely dense parts in\nunderstanding the more complex topics like quantum information and heat\/work\nlike transfers. But I can definitely say the book opened my mind to thinking\nabout capabilities rather than dynamic law like rules of systems and it’s\nsomething I still chew on, especially in relation to learning from incidents\nand analyzing complex systems to learn from their failures.<\/p>"},{"title":"Der Spurenfinder","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kling-derspurenfinder-2023\/","pubDate":"Sat, 03 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kling-derspurenfinder-2023\/","description":" I read this as a kind of in between book while I was reading something else.\nBut I already liked the author and we were thinking about gifting this book so\nI wanted to read it first to know what it’s about. And I really enjoyed it.\nIt’s a great fantasy story suitable for children around the age of 10-12. It\nhas some scary parts but is overall very joyous and entertaining.<\/p>"},{"title":"Sprache und Sein","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/g%C3%BCm%C3%BCsay-spracheundsein-2021\/","pubDate":"Sat, 06 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/g%C3%BCm%C3%BCsay-spracheundsein-2021\/","description":" I enjoyed reading this book thoroughly. I’ve been living in Germany almost all\nof my life and yet most of the things I have read and have influenced my\nthinking around topics like integration, diversity, migration, race,\ndiscrimination, and related topics have been in English and often centered on\nthe US. It was really interesting and good to read a book about the topic in\nGerman by a German author who also has the background of being German. It’s a\nquick but deep and thought provoking book that touches on many topics around\nhow categories are erected to try and tightly define people and their being.\nCan definitely recommend reading it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Blueberries","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/savage-blueberries-2020\/","pubDate":"Fri, 21 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/savage-blueberries-2020\/","description":" I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book and I will say that it definitely\nthrew me off a couple of times. The writing style changes a lot throughout the\nchapters and the topics do as well which is something I personally often have\na hard time following along with. Which also meant it took me quite some time\nto finish it. But I overall enjoyed it and there is quite a lot of text about\nfinding (defining?) one’s purpose and identity amongst other things.<\/p>"},{"title":"Brain Food","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/mosconi-brainfood-2018\/","pubDate":"Wed, 15 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/mosconi-brainfood-2018\/","description":" I really enjoyed this book and its thorough focus on the biological and\nnutritional aspects of nurturing the brain. Especially the very thorough\nbreakdown of which foods contain which nutrients and how and when they benefit\nthe brain. For my taste the fairly uncritical recommendations of alcohol\n(specifically red wine) and taking at face value the validity of “blue zones”\nand centennials (especially after the data seems to be less robust than\npreviously assumed) as a proof for nutritional choices was less scientific\nthan it could be. But in my mind didn’t retract from the interesting rest of\nthe book.<\/p>"},{"title":"Chemistry for Breakfast","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/nguyen-kim-chemistryforbreakfast-2022\/","pubDate":"Sat, 04 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/nguyen-kim-chemistryforbreakfast-2022\/","description":" I really like these kind of “quick lessons in science” style books where\ndifferent chapters talk about a specific topic. And this book is no\ndifference. The basic setup is a day in the author’s life where everyday\nthings like drinking coffee, brushing teeth, or charging the phone are being\nused to illustrate the chemistry behind how it works and debunk some common\nmisconceptions along the way. The book is very entertaining and an absolute\nfun and educating read.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Transgender Issue","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/faye-thetransgenderissue-2021\/","pubDate":"Thu, 18 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/faye-thetransgenderissue-2021\/","description":" I stumbled upon this book somewhere on the internet and ordered it pretty\nimmediately as I thought it would be a good way to get more exposure into some\nrealities of trans life. And given this isn’t my lived experience - so I don’t\nhave first hand knowledge of things - and I don’t want to have my trans\nfriends have to explain too many, often very painful, experiences to me, I was\nhappy to have another way to educate myself on my reading list. The book\nitself was very informative albeit very UK centered (which is fine and I knew\nbeforehand). It touches on a lot of the frequently discussed topics of bodies,\ntransitioning, the role of society and the state, class struggles, and much\nmore. It also gave me some good input and perspectives to examine my own view\non things. While I’m not an expert on the topic by any means I can definitely\nrecommend this book.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Design of Everyday Things","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/norman-designofeverydaythings-2013\/","pubDate":"Sun, 17 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/norman-designofeverydaythings-2013\/","description":" I had this book on my reading list for years at this point and never quite got\nto it. I actually already had it on my Kindle in like 2015 or so and then\nbought a paper copy a couple of years ago after I had gotten rid of the\nKindle. So this year I finally made the time to read it. And I super enjoyed\nit. It gives a very good theoretical framework to think about design and how\nto distinguish good from bad design. It goes also goes into detail on a range\nof other topics like human biases, the business of design, and the role of\nfeedback and discoverability in design. I took a lot of notes while reading\nthis book and it let me look at design in a very different light.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Antidote","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/burkeman-theantidote-2012\/","pubDate":"Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/burkeman-theantidote-2012\/","description":" I found this at the bookstore and bought it on a whim since I had already read\nhis book 4000 weeks and really liked it. “The Antidote” starts with making fun\nof “positivity seminars” and explains why forbidden yourself to think about\nsomething doesn’t work. And then gives a kind of all around summary of some of\nthe ways people have dealt with hard topics like pain, negative outcomes of\nevents, inevitability, and death. And still managed to be happy (for whatever\nthat means). There are some well known approaches like stoicism and Buddhism\nexplained in there and even approaches to specifically death like the “day of\nthe dead” celebrations in Mexico. Some of these weren’t new to me so I kinda\nknew what to expect there but the book still was very entertaining and\ninteresting and a good read.<\/p>"},{"title":"How Infrastructure Works: Transforming our shared systems for a changed world","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/chachra-howinfrastructureworks-2023\/","pubDate":"Sun, 04 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/chachra-howinfrastructureworks-2023\/","description":" I preordered this book immediately when I saw it flying by in my Mastodon\nstream. I’ve long been interested in infrastructure and especially having\nworked in tech infrastructure for a long time I love thinking about how to\nprovide good services and utilities. The book was actually a lot different\nfrom what I expected. I somehow thought there was more in depth discussions of\nthe inner workings of different types of infrastructure. But what I got\ninstead was way better. The book is a fantastic ode to infrastructure and does\na great job conveying the kind of fascination I’ve had with it for a long\ntime. But it also goes even further. It talks a lot about the kind of contexts\nin which infrastructure was and is built. And how it furthers general\nassumptions about who benefits in what ways from it. And there is also a lot\nof focus on climate change, both how infrastructure is a contributing factor\nin it and how it can be part of a more sustainable future.<\/p>"},{"title":"\u201cSix Easy Pieces\u201d","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/feynman-sixeasypieces-2011\/","pubDate":"Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/feynman-sixeasypieces-2011\/","description":" This book was a very fun read. I’ve read a bunch of physics related books in\nthe last couple of years. And while I don’t claim to deeply understand any of\nit, the topic still keeps being interesting to me. The way the book is\nstructured and the lectures are delivered is also very engaging. One of my\nfavourite parts being the relation of physics to other sciences which is\noutlined as relationship of building on each others knowledge and feeding back\ninformation that can be useful to further progress. Rather than what’s often\ncommunicated as physics being “the most fundamental science”. It was\nrefreshing to hear that from such a renowned physicists like Feynman.<\/p>"},{"title":"Engineering a Safer World: Systems Thinking Applied to Safety","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/leveson-engineeringsaferworld-2012\/","pubDate":"Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/leveson-engineeringsaferworld-2012\/","description":" I was very torn reading this book as it is a lot more slow going than I\nexpected. A lot of the discussions felt very drawn out and like they could’ve\nbeen explained with a lot fewer words. That being said especially the early\nchapters are rich with rethinking incidents and approaches to safety. There’s\na lot of good discussion about viewing our complex systems through the lens of\nsystems engineering and getting away from single cause sequential accident\nmodels and stopping at human error to declare an incident “solved”. A lot of\nthe book also talks about hazard analysis and setting up process to have\nanalysis be part of designing and maintaining systems. I don’t generally work\nin safety critical systems on the level of aerospace and chemical plants\n(anymore). So this part was less interesting to me and I had a bit of hard\ntime getting through it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Resolving the Command\u2013Adapt Paradox: Guided Adaptability to Cope with Complexity","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/woods-resolvingcommandadaptparadox-2023\/","pubDate":"Sun, 17 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/woods-resolvingcommandadaptparadox-2023\/","description":" The paper discusses the apparent paradox of \u201cplan and conform\u201d (aka centralised control) and \u201cplan and revise\u201d (aka guided adaptability) perspectives in safety management. As the paper discusses, this paradox is only apparent as both are needed in conjunction to navigate an ever faster changing world full of brittleness.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Strategic Agility Gap: How Organizations Are Slow and Stale to Adapt in Turbulent Worlds","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/woods-strategicagilitygap-2020\/","pubDate":"Sun, 19 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/woods-strategicagilitygap-2020\/","description":" This paper outlines how past successes drive the creation of bigger and ever\nmore complex systems. And the risk of not being able to adapt fast enough to\nchanging environments and systems. The gap between the adaptation possible and\nthe adaptation required by an organisation is called \u201cThe Strategic Agility\nGap\u201d and a fundamental requirement to be able to bridge that gap is the\nability to react to unplanned failure called \u201cSNAFU catching\u201d.<\/p>"},{"title":"Safety after neoliberalism","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dekker-safetyafterneoliberalism-2020\/","pubDate":"Tue, 07 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dekker-safetyafterneoliberalism-2020\/","description":" Neoliberalism has contributed to an environment where regulation and rule making is done on a central per organisation basis that often is implemented by non-experts and gets in the way of frontline workers while providing (next to) no improvements for them in terms of safety and incident reduction. The path to safety management after neoliberalism is through “the restoration of professional judgement” and increased and encouraged participation and compensation of workers at the sharp end.<\/p>"},{"title":"Meaningful Availability","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/diwan-meaningfulavailability-2020\/","pubDate":"Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/diwan-meaningfulavailability-2020\/","description":" SLOs the way they are usually constructed heavily bias towards the most active\nuser. This isn’t necessarily a good representation of the overall customer\nimpact of an incident. In order to address that, a mechanism called “windowed\nuser-uptime” is introduced to make the measure of user impact more\nrepresentative.<\/p>"},{"title":"Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/benjamin-kunstwerkzeitalterreproduzierbarkeit-1936\/","pubDate":"Thu, 28 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/benjamin-kunstwerkzeitalterreproduzierbarkeit-1936\/","description":" I don\u2019t really think I got the gist of this book. It had the usual barrier to\nunderstanding that I\u2019ve kinda come to expect from early 20th century\nphilosophy texts. There is a lot of talking about film specifically and how it\nenables misuse of media. And when it comes to the reproducibility of art it\u2019s\nmostly said that the \u201caura\u201d of it gets lost. I’m likely gonna do a second pass\nof it at some point maybe with some relevant secondary literature in hand\nbecause I feel like there is more I can get from this text. Especially since\nthere were many parts in there that lamented the dissolving distinction\nbetween author and audience. And the fact that “everyone these days can\npublish whatever they think they have to say”. Which feels very similar to a\nlot of discourse today about content creation.<\/p>"},{"title":"Sources of Power","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/klein-sourcesofpower-1998\/","pubDate":"Sun, 24 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/klein-sourcesofpower-1998\/","description":" I deeply enjoyed this book. I\u2019ve had many discussions about Klein\u2019s ideas and\nconcepts before. I have for example applied his idea of premortems<\/a> a lot\nbefore in architectural and operational reviews of technology changes. And his\nideas about knowledge of expert workers is an important part of how I approach\nincident reviews and learning from them. The book is also an interesting\nopposite view in a lot of ways to Kahneman\u2019s classic \u201cThinking, Fast and\nSlow\u201d<\/a> where a lot of emphasis is put on how the human mind can be tricked\nor is wrong. I took tons of notes from this book and there were so many things\nthat reminded me of operating web services or planning and maintaining other\ncomplex systems. Definitely a strong recommendation to read from me.<\/p>"},{"title":"Building a second brain","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/forte-buildingasecondbrain-2022\/","pubDate":"Thu, 24 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/forte-buildingasecondbrain-2022\/","description":" This book was a surprisingly quick and easy read. I wasn’t really sure if I\nwas gonna like another book about taking notes (or find it useful) after\nreading How to take smart notes<\/a> had comparatively little practical things\nfor me to take away from and implement. But “Building a Second Brain” was very\ndifferent in that regard. The book puts a lot of focus on building a system\nthat is very flexible and adaptable even to stressful schedules. There are a\ncouple of guiding principles (the PARA folder structure, refining notes\nregularly, making it easy to capture notes) that are elaborated on. But there\nis a lot of emphasis on making this work in even tiny moments throughout the\nweek. A lot of the system and ideas reminded me of bullet journaling in a way\nwhich I’ve been doing for years at this point and has been working very well\nfor me<\/p>"},{"title":"Gender Trouble","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/butler-gendertrouble-2011\/","pubDate":"Sun, 06 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/butler-gendertrouble-2011\/","description":" I don\u2019t remember how I got to this book as I had never heard of Judith Butler\nbefore given I\u2019ve not really had any philosophy or literature classes on a\nhigher education level and haven\u2019t read much about academic feminist or gender\ntheory. So I went into this book pretty unprepared and I was immediately in\nfor a rude awakening. I\u2019ve always thought of my English being pretty decent\nfor a second language but there were so many sentences in this book that even\non the third try I wasn\u2019t able to grasp. The fact I haven\u2019t read Freud, Lacan,\nFoucault, or any of the other works that \u201cGender Trouble\u201d discusses and bases\na lot of arguments on definitely also didn\u2019t help. Only while I was already\nsomewhat deep in did I find out that Butler is somewhat notorious for having a\ndifficult and dense writing style. Nevertheless I stayed curious enough about\nthe topic to get through the book and it was definitely interesting. I had\nheard of gender being a social performance before but reading it in a more\nacademic context and having more (albeit difficult to grasp) discussion around\nit was pretty insightful for me. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d recommend it unless\nyou\u2019re really into the topic and have maybe read some of the referenced\nmaterial. But I don\u2019t regret reading and struggling through it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Existential Physics","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hossenfelder-existentialphysics-2022\/","pubDate":"Mon, 29 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hossenfelder-existentialphysics-2022\/","description":" I saw this book in my regular bookstore and the topic really interested me. So\nI started reading the book with no preconception or notion of who the author\nwas. Only halfway through or so I found out she also has a somewhat popular\nYouTube channel.<\/p>"},{"title":"What is Existentialism?","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/debeauvoir-whatisexistentialism-2021\/","pubDate":"Tue, 16 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/debeauvoir-whatisexistentialism-2021\/","description":" This was another book that I didn\u2019t really have any expectations on when I\nbought it. And having never really had any philosophy classes in school or\nuniversity there was definitely a certain challenge to reading this. Maybe\nsome of it was also the translation from French but not being used to the way\nphilosophers talk about topics and structure their sentences it often took me\nmore than reading a sentence once to understand what was being said. I don\u2019t\nthink I\u2019ve really understood what existentialism is after reading the book on\na level where I would be able to argue about it. However there were many\ninteresting ideas in there about what it means to live in the present and even\nsuch grim topics like the (far) future always presenting death and how to\nthink about and live with that.<\/p>"},{"title":"Hello World","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/fry-helloworld-2020\/","pubDate":"Sat, 22 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/fry-helloworld-2020\/","description":" I had this book on my shelf since 2020 or so and never took the time to read\nit. With the renewed (and intensified) hype around AI this year I started to\nread it even though I wasn\u2019t sure if there was really more about machine\nlearning that I wanted to know and would find interesting.<\/p>"},{"title":"Twilight of Democracy","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/applebaum-twilightofdemocracy-2021\/","pubDate":"Wed, 08 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/applebaum-twilightofdemocracy-2021\/","description":" Starting this book I was a little set back as the author identifies with what\nwould have been called the \u201ccenter-right\u201d towards the late 1990s and early\n2000s. So I wasn\u2019t too sure where this book would be going. But I ended up\nfinding it super interesting. The book details some historical background as\nwell as current workings of politics in various countries like Poland,\nHungary, and the U.K.. There is also a lot of very personal accounts in there\nabout how friends of the author have drifted more towards the contemporary\nright and how that feels. It was overall a pretty harrowing account of what\nhas happened in some countries over the past 20 years and how much similarity\nthere is between them.<\/p>"},{"title":"Big Friendships","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/friedmansow-bigfriendships-2021\/","pubDate":"Sun, 19 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/friedmansow-bigfriendships-2021\/","description":" I didn’t really know what to think of this book. I generally enjoyed reading\nit. But I think I was expecting something different. I wasn\u2019t expecting more\nof a memoir of a friendship but rather thought there was some more general\ndiscussion of the topic of friendship in there. Some parts of the book I\nwasn\u2019t super excited by as it either went into a lot of detail about social\noutings I didn\u2019t find super interesting or stopped before I felt it went to\nthe core of the situation.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/perry-thebookyouwishyourparentshadread-2021\/","pubDate":"Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/perry-thebookyouwishyourparentshadread-2021\/","description":" I liked a lot how the book always came back to talking to the kids and\nempathizing with their emotions instead of trying to abolish them. And there\nwere always good examples that came with every section to illustrate the\npoint. However it still felt very “good weather parenting” advice to me, in\nthe sense that it talks about how to do these things when you have the time to\ntake for it. But there was hardly anything in there about how to deal with\nsituations where time is tight or there isn’t the space to slow down and\nprolong the situation.<\/p>"},{"title":"Solving Mathematical Problems: A Personal Perspective","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/tao-solvingmathematicalproblems-2006\/","pubDate":"Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/tao-solvingmathematicalproblems-2006\/","description":" It was fun to read through this book and see different approaches to solving\nthe problems presented. I didn’t follow through all the proofs and steps all\nthe time because I would have needed to carefully do it with pen and paper and\nthat was really the mood I was in when I wanted to read. But it made me miss\nschool math and solving problems a lot. It also ended up being a bit hard to\nfollow for me occasionally as I read the book in English and most of my math\neducation was in German. So there were definitely words and terms I wasn’t\nfamiliar with at all. Overall I enjoyed reading it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Black Hole Survival Guide","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/levin-blackholesurvivalguide-2022\/","pubDate":"Sun, 25 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/levin-blackholesurvivalguide-2022\/","description":" I absolutely enjoyed this book and devoured it in 2 days or so. Janna Levin\nhas a fantastically fun and entertaining way to talk about the most\nfascinating things. And black holes sure are fascinating. There were a lot of\nparts in the book where I was sure I’m not getting quite the importance of the\nimplications she explained. Or even the science on the highest of levels. But\nI enjoy thinking about space. And the book did exactly that.<\/p>"},{"title":"It\u2019s not about the Burqa","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/khan-itsnotabouttheburqa-2020\/","pubDate":"Fri, 23 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/khan-itsnotabouttheburqa-2020\/","description":" I really enjoyed this book. Mostly because I rarely have read any texts, let\nalone feminist ones from a Muslim women perspective. There’s a lot of things I\nlearned having previously had close to no knowledge of Islam, its traditions,\nor which are practiced. The book is very UK centric as most of the essay\nauthors live there. So I’m curious to also read more from authors from other\nplaces.<\/p>"},{"title":"Seven Brief Lessons on Physics","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rovelli-sevenbrieflessonsphysics-2016\/","pubDate":"Sat, 17 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rovelli-sevenbrieflessonsphysics-2016\/","description":" I really liked the book. It was short and digestible but interesting and fun\nto read nonetheless. I think I probably have read about most of the seven\nthings somewhere else before (which doesn’t mean I understood or have a good\ngrasp on them). So it wasn’t mind blowing new things I was reading. But\nRovelli has a very philosophical style how he talks about these things which\nmakes it really enjoyable.<\/p>"},{"title":"Thinking, Fast and Slow","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kahnemann-thinkingfastandslow-2011\/","pubDate":"Sat, 17 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kahnemann-thinkingfastandslow-2011\/","description":" I had originally started reading this on my Kindle in 2016 but quickly\nabandoned it. I then thought it was because I didn’t find the book too\ninteresting but I found out some time later that I just didn’t enjoy reading\non the Kindle much. So having moved to reading exclusively on paper over the\nlast couple of years, I gave the book another try this year and absolutely\nenjoyed it. There’s a lot of fascinating facts and insights into research in\nthere. And a lot of examples to try out yourself to realize that your own\nbrain works the same way. I took a lot of notes for this one and can\ndefinitely recommend it.<\/p>"},{"title":"We need a replacement for TCP in the datacenter","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ousterhout-replacementtcpdatacenter-2022\/","pubDate":"Sun, 06 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ousterhout-replacementtcpdatacenter-2022\/","description":{}},{"title":"The Order of Time","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rovelli-orderoftime-2018\/","pubDate":"Sun, 22 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rovelli-orderoftime-2018\/","description":" I went into this book expecting much more physics than what was actually in\nthere. There was definitely a lot of explanation of concepts on a high level.\nBut overall the book felt much more on the philosophy side of things. Which -\nafter realizing and getting used to it - I really liked. The thing I struggled\nwith was the fact that so much is explained via entropy in the book. And\nentropy has always been a hard topic for me to wrap my brain around. Even in\nuniversity. So there were some parts that left me more confused than I would\nhave liked. Due to no fault of the author.<\/p>"},{"title":"The End of Everything","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/mack-endofeverything-2020\/","pubDate":"Sat, 14 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/mack-endofeverything-2020\/","description":" This was an absolutely wonderful and mind blowing book to read. I had to think\na lot of \u201cDark Matter and the Dinosaurs\u201d while reading it. I feared at first\nthat it would be too depressing. But the author has an absolutely enjoyable\nwriting style and it made the whole topic fun and interesting rather than loom\nand doom.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Art of Statistics: How to learn from Data","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/spiegelhalter-artofstatistics-2019\/","pubDate":"Mon, 18 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/spiegelhalter-artofstatistics-2019\/","description":" It took me a while to get through this book which had less to do with the book\nitself and more with how I was able to make time to read. So the first couple\nof chapters were spread out for me over a couple of weeks and thus I had a\nhard time getting into it. But once I managed to make proper time to read\ncontinuously I really enjoyed the flow of the book. It’s much less\nmathematical than I assumed beforehand. But it’s really well written and does\na good job explaining statistical concepts in plain English. And I really\nappreciated the strong focus on the fact that (good) statistics is more than\njust applying some formulas but also a hard look at whether the data and the\nconclusions make sense for the questions that need to be answered.<\/p>"},{"title":"Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/burkeman-fourthousandweeks-2021\/","pubDate":"Sat, 08 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/burkeman-fourthousandweeks-2021\/","description":" I read this book after Mathias really enjoyed it and Nina finding the audio\nbook pretty insufferable. Which is an interesting combination to say the\nleast. Overall I did enjoy the book a lot. Even though I could definitely see\nthe preachy and more annoying parts of it. The general message of the books is\nthat we don’t actually have that many weeks, so it’s worth it to think about\nhow to spend them. What kind of things actually are enjoyable (of the things\nthat we do voluntarily) and which things we can more or less do away with.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Cancer Journals","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/lorde-thecancerjournals-1980\/","pubDate":"Fri, 31 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/lorde-thecancerjournals-1980\/","description":" I found this book while browsing through the local book store. And I found it\nreally intriguing because even though cancer seems to be everywhere and all\naround us in some ways and I’ve had a number of friends and family suffer\nthrough and even die of cancer, it’s not something I’ve personally\nexperienced. Especially not going through a mastectomy as a black, queer woman\nin the 70s. So I was interested in reading a personal account of something\nthat I will never actually experience myself. And I’m very glad I did. Lorde\ntalks very directly and openly about the struggle she went through, the\nadversaries she faced, as well as the things that helped her through. I can\nvery much recommend reading it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/grjasnowa-russederbirkenliebt-2012\/","pubDate":"Sun, 26 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/grjasnowa-russederbirkenliebt-2012\/","description":" I decided to read this book after I had read Die Macht der\nMehrsprachigkeit<\/a> earlier\nthis year. I haven’t read a lot of German literature (let alone fiction) since\nI was in school for no real reason. So I was curious about some more\ncontemporary authors. And the book really wasn’t an easy read. It’s a very\nemotional and not often happy story and deals with a lot of heavy topics\naround war, migration, loss, and what it means to be and have a home.\nNonetheless I flew through its nearly 300 pages in about 2 days. And I was sad\nwhen I was done as I wanted to keep reading.<\/p>"},{"title":"Afropean","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/pitts-afropean-2019\/","pubDate":"Sat, 25 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/pitts-afropean-2019\/","description":" This was an absolutely fascinating book to read. For every city that the\nauthor visits throughout the book and talks to people I’ve learned to see them\n(and I’ve been to a good chunk of them) in a new light. And made me reflect\nabout a lot of things. I can whole-heartedly recommend this book.<\/p>"},{"title":"Human Error","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/reason-humanerror-1990\/","pubDate":"Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/reason-humanerror-1990\/","description":" It took me quite a while to get through this book. I had actually abandoned it\nbefore and then came back to it. It’s very theoretical and academic (even\nthough it contains some suggestions towards more practical applications of the\ntheory towards the end). There is a lot of interesting thought in there about\nhow to put something more concrete to the notion of errors or mistakes. And\neven if most of it is now superseded it provides interesting insight into the\nresearch of human error during that time.<\/p>"},{"title":"Social Choice and Invidual Values","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/arrow-socialchoiceindividualvalues-1970\/","pubDate":"Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/arrow-socialchoiceindividualvalues-1970\/","description":" Given this book is more or less the printed and published version of Arrow’s\nPhD. thesis, it is not an easy read. It lays the foundation and explanation\nfor his Impossibility\nTheorem<\/a>\nwhich states limitations of a ranked voting electoral systems when it comes to\nindividual and communal preferences. I can’t claim to have understood all of\nit fully. It was nevertheless very interesting to me, so read something from a\nfield I have hardly any experience or knowledge in. I started reading it\nearlier in the year and then put it down because I didn’t have the brain space\nto get into the math and proofs of it. And then I picked it back up during the\ntime of the German general election this year. I found it really interesting\nto read about how these kind of problems are described and reasoned about in\npolitical and economical academia. And which kind of definitions and trade\noffs are being chosen to create a system within these formal proofs can exist.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Bilingual Brain","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/costa-bilingualbrain-2020\/","pubDate":"Sun, 29 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/costa-bilingualbrain-2020\/","description":" I really enjoyed reading this book. For years at this point I’ve felt like a\nbilingual in German and English, and I’ve come across so many situations where\nI unconsciously chose one language over the other. And then was surprised by\nit. I’ve always wondered how bilingualism or multilingualism is reflected in\nthe brain and how it’s different between people and languages. “The Bilingual\nBrain” gives a ton of insight into the research field of multilingulism as\nwell as highlighting the approaches, challenges, and limitations of research\nin this field. There were many situation in the book, when a common pattern\nfor bilinguals was explained, where I was happy to realize it’s something I do\nto.<\/p>"},{"title":"Between the World and Me","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/coates-betweentheworldandme-2015\/","pubDate":"Sat, 10 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/coates-betweentheworldandme-2015\/","description":" This was an absolutely fantastic, emotional, gut-wrenching, sad, and happy\nbook to read. I’ve come to really like the way it is written, as a\nconversation between the author and his son, trying to explain the world.\nThere’s a lot of mixing of history, current affairs, personal history and\nmemories, which makes for a very personal piece of literature.<\/p>"},{"title":"Digital Zettelkasten","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kadavy-digitalzettelkasten-2021\/","pubDate":"Sun, 20 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kadavy-digitalzettelkasten-2021\/","description":" I read this as I was working on figuring out how to set up my Zettelkasten and\nhow it would best serve me after reading the basics of the theory behind it in\nTaking Smart Notes<\/a>. And there sadly wasn’t much new stuff in the\nbook that I haven’t already read in various forms in some blog posts over the\nlast couple of months. However it was really nice to have this information all\nin one place in book form. And get the confirmation that I am on the right\ntrack with how I’m building my Zettelkasten. Or at least going in the same\ndirection that has worked for others so far as well.<\/p>"},{"title":"How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/odell-howtodonothing-2019\/","pubDate":"Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/odell-howtodonothing-2019\/","description":" This was one of those books that I started reading with a lot of expectations\nthat it would be similar to Newport’s Digital Minimalism<\/a> and tell me a\nlot of things that I already kinda knew. But I was completely surprised by it.\nThe book is much more about what to do instead<\/em> of following the pull of the\nattention economy, rather than why it’s bad. There is some of that in there as\nwell of course. However the fascinating part of the book is much more the fact\nthat it kinda acts like a nice guide about how to re-engage with your physical\nsurroundings, your city, countryside, and neighborhood. The real things around\nyou. It took me a while to realize that and read the book with that in mind.\nAnd I definitely struggled early on as there was way more talk about the\ndropout communities of the 70s that I really was interested in. But after\nfinishing the book I definitely have a new-found appreciation of my\nneighborhood and the nature around me. It was a very positive read and in the\nend not really about “doing nothing”<\/p>"},{"title":"Die Macht der Mehrsprachigkeit - \u00dcber Herkunft und Vielfalt","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/grjasnowa-machtdermehrsprachigkeit-2021\/","pubDate":"Mon, 24 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/grjasnowa-machtdermehrsprachigkeit-2021\/","description":" I found this one by accident while shopping at the local bookstore. The book\nended up being a super fascinating read about how language and multilingualism\nis viewed in Germany. I’ve found myself reminded of a lot of things that I’ve\nnoticed since living abroad in the US and coming back to Germany. And it gave\nme a new sense of reality of what it means to arrive and live in Germany as\nsomeone who’s first language isn’t German and isn’t considered one of the\n“good” languages either.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Limits of Organization (Fels Lectures on Public Policy Analysis)","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/arrow-limitsoforganizations-1974\/","pubDate":"Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/arrow-limitsoforganizations-1974\/","description":" This was a very fascinating book. In part because I have never really attended\nan economics lecture. And the ones I did were geared towards very practical\nthings that we had to learn by heart. So while reading this book I was at the\nsame time getting used to thinking about economic things in a theoretical\ncontext and taking in the information conveyed in the text. I enjoyed it a lot\nand took a lot of inspiration and food for thought from it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Brain age and other bodily \u2018ages\u2019: implications for neuropsychiatry","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/coleetal-brainage-2018\/","pubDate":"Mon, 19 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/coleetal-brainage-2018\/","description":{}},{"title":"Altered Traits","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/golemandavidson-alteredtraits-2017\/","pubDate":"Sat, 17 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/golemandavidson-alteredtraits-2017\/","description":" I went into this book with a lot of expectations. I was very curious about the\nscience behind meditation and how to approach the topic in a scientific way.\nWhile ultimately that information was in the book to some extent, it overall\nwasn’t what I had hoped it would be. First of all there is a lot<\/em> of\nnamedropping happening. So for a quite some time I was busy with going back to\nre-read who someone was, or wondering whether I should care to remember that\nperson’s name because it would be important later on. This is likely very\ninteresting to someone who is already familiar with well-known people in the\nfield of meditation but was mostly distracting for me. The tl;dr for the book\nseems to be that there are still more questions than answers about the science\nbehind meditation and how to explain the clearly visible benefits with a lot\nof long time practitioners. But to me that could have been a blog post and not\nsuch a long book.<\/p>"},{"title":"The amygdala as a hub in brain networks that support social life","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/bickartdickersonbarrett-amygdalahubinbrainnetworks-2014\/","pubDate":"Sun, 28 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/bickartdickersonbarrett-amygdalahubinbrainnetworks-2014\/","description":" This was a fascinating paper to read. Mostly because there were so many things\nI absolutely didn’t get. And yet from reading How Emotions Are Made<\/a> there\nwere a bunch of things that I had heard before and that made sense to me.\nEspecially thinking about the brain more as a network structure and less than\na set of connected control nodes. And some of the findings wrt how changes in\ndifferent networks for different aspects of social life contribute to symptoms\nthat manifest in various external behaviors (e.g. being cold\/distant to loved\nones or being easily fooled by scammers)<\/p>"},{"title":"How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/barret-howemotionsaremade2017\/","pubDate":"Sun, 21 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/barret-howemotionsaremade2017\/","description":" This was an absolutely mind blowing read in the sense that it made me think\nabout a lot of things in a new light. The book is an introduction into the\ntheory of constructed emotion<\/a> which has been the author\u2019s field of\nresearch for many years. The tl;dr kinda being that emotions don\u2019t just exist\nas objective reality but are constructed by humans as we interpret external\nand internal sensor input.<\/p>"},{"title":"How to take Smart Notes","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ahrens-smartnotes-2017\/","pubDate":"Fri, 27 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ahrens-smartnotes-2017\/","description":" I really like this book even though it\u2019s fairly academic to a large extent.\nI\u2019ve heard about the Zettelkasten method<\/a> quite a bit especially recently\nand I was very curious to learn more about it. Coming to the book with that\ncontext, I didn\u2019t mind the academic style of the book too much. However it\u2019s\ndefinitely more a book that makes you reflect on how you want to take notes\nand why more than giving you a concrete guide on what to do.<\/p>"},{"title":"Born a Crime","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/noah-bornacrime-2016\/","pubDate":"Sat, 24 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/noah-bornacrime-2016\/","description":" I bought this book never really having watched any of Trevor Noah\u2019s comedy or\nThe Daily Show with him. But the book sounded really intriguing to me and I\nwas curious about his life and background. And the book was absolutely\nfantastic. It\u2019s one of the few books I\u2019ve read where I literally laughed out\nlout while also being struck and deeply emotional reading through other parts.\nI’ve only been to South Africa for a couple of days and only really been to\nCape Town. So I\u2019ve had (and still have) very limited knowledge of the history\nof the country. And the book taught me a ton about what it was like growing up\nduring and after Apartheid and how kids can perceive very extreme and cruel\nsituations. This is definitely one of the best books I\u2019ve read and I can\nwholeheartedly recommend picking it up.<\/p>"},{"title":"Outlining your Novel: Map Your Way to Success","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/weiland-outliningyournovel-2011\/","pubDate":"Tue, 13 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/weiland-outliningyournovel-2011\/","description":" I picked this book up because I\u2019ve always been interested in outlining. But\neven more so I\u2019ve fascinated by how many people are fans of outlining. To the\npoint where there are discussion about things like \u201cis OmniOutliner or OneNote\nthe better outlining app\u201d and the point that there are even dedicated\noutlining apps. I\u2019ve mostly done outlining for my writing with bullet points\nin a plain text or markdown file. And I wanted to know if I\u2019m missing\nanything. In addition to that I also find the process of writing a book or\nnovel super fascinating. I don\u2019t know if I would want to write one. But the\nprocess of planning, structuring, and writing something of that size I find\nvery interesting and fascinating. And I wanted to see if I could learn\nsomething from it for shorter writing like documentation and blog posts.<\/p>"},{"title":"How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/pigliucci-howtobeastoic-2017\/","pubDate":"Sun, 27 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/pigliucci-howtobeastoic-2017\/","description":{}},{"title":"1919","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ewing-1919-2019\/","pubDate":"Sun, 13 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ewing-1919-2019\/","description":" I was interested in Eve Ewing\u2019s writing ever since I read her run on Marvel\u2019s\nIronheart. So I got her other books a couple of months ago as well. I started\nwith “1919” and it was definitely an interesting albeit completely new\nexperience for me. I’ve not really read poetry since school where I wasn’t a\nbig fan because it always felt forced. But while reading “1919” I definitely\nregretted not paying more attention in school to be able to pick up on the\nstylistic and technique choices in the book. “1919” is a collection of poems\nwith the background of an official report about the 1919 race riots in Chicago\nwhich I had never heard of until I read the book. It was absolutely\neducational to read the various passages from the report that were the basis\nfor the poem. And then get an emotional and very personal feeling poem about\nthe passage right after. Given my own lack of knowledge about poetry I\nconstantly felt like I was missing some fascinating nuances about the writing.\nAnd I’ve started learning more about poetry and creative writing to rectify\nthat. And I definitely plan to re-read “1919” once I’m more knowledgeable\nabout poetry.<\/p>"},{"title":"Draw People Every Day: Short Lessons in Portrait and Figure Drawing Using Ink and Color","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/mcleod-drawpeopleeveryday-2019\/","pubDate":"Wed, 09 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/mcleod-drawpeopleeveryday-2019\/","description":" This book caught my eye while I was browsing for art books. I\u2019ve been trying\nfor a while to incorporate (almost) daily drawing back into my daily schedule.\nBut in a lighter weight way with less pressure to do finished pieces. And \u201cDraw\nPeople Every Day\u201d definitely fit the bill for that. The book provides a great\nhigh level overview for getting started with ink drawing and dives deeper into\nvarious topics like e.g. the importance of drawing from life, gesture drawing\nand how to achieve different effects with line weights. The same approach is\nthen taken in the final chapter to talk about using color for quick sketching.<\/p>"},{"title":"Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/randall-darkmatteranddinosaurs-2015\/","pubDate":"Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/randall-darkmatteranddinosaurs-2015\/","description":" I had heard about this book on several occasions and when we went to the\nnatural history museum here in Berlin I found it in the shop and decided to\nfinally buy it. I didn\u2019t really know what to expect but having recently read a\ncouple of popular science books about physics I was very intrigued. And the\nbook did definitely deliver, albeit in a very different way than I thought. I\nwent into reading it with the expectation that the majority of the book would\nbe about dark matter and its details. This however is really only a small part\nof the whole book. Throughout the book there are detailed explanations about\nthe (presumed) origins of life, the makeup of the cosmos, mass extinctions,\ndetermining the age of rocks, history of scientific discoveries and methods,\ndinosaurs, impact crater anatomy, why Pluto isn\u2019t a planet anymore, why\nmeteroids as we call them often aren\u2019t really meteroids, and much more. At the\nend of the book the author then circles back to dark matter and some of the\nrecent theories and discoveries, tying all of the chapters together.<\/p>"},{"title":"Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/forsgren-accelerate-2018\/","pubDate":"Mon, 23 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/forsgren-accelerate-2018\/","description":" This has come up in various discussions again and again so I finally decided\nto read it. I didn\u2019t really enjoy reading it much. It\u2019s a good book and has a\nlot of good points. But also a couple I disagree with. But having worked so\nmuch in DevOps context, the book didn\u2019t offer me anything new. More so some of\nit actually is opposite to my experience. Which made it even harder to\ncontinue reading it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/harari-sapiens-2011\/","pubDate":"Sun, 08 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/harari-sapiens-2011\/","description":" Usually I tend to shy away from longer (i.e. over 300 pages) books because I\nfeel like I\u2019m a somewhat slow reader. And it takes me too long to get through\nand I feel demotivated to pick the book up. Sapiens still really piqued my\ninterest and it absolutely delivered.<\/p>"},{"title":"Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/pink-drive-2009\/","pubDate":"Fri, 14 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/pink-drive-2009\/","description":" I really liked especially the first part of the book that focuses on the\nscience and research of motivation. It was very interesting to read about the\nhistory of behavioral psychology and how in various stages scientists ran\ndifferent experiments to understand the psychology of motivation.<\/p>"},{"title":"Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/heisenberg-physicsandphilosophy-1958\/","pubDate":"Sun, 09 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/heisenberg-physicsandphilosophy-1958\/","description":" This book was just plain amazing. I didn\u2019t know what to expect when I found\nthis at the book store and I was reading books about (quantum) physics at the\ntime, so I was curious to see that Heisenberg had written a book. A lot of the\n(quantum) physics details went over my head. But I loved the discussion of its\nimplications on “reality” and the philosophy of being. It\u2019s an extremely dense\nread but I got so much out of it.<\/p>"},{"title":"First Aid for your Child's Mind: Simple steps to soothe anxiety, fears and worries","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/eaton-firstaidchildsmind-2019\/","pubDate":"Tue, 28 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/eaton-firstaidchildsmind-2019\/","description":" I also found this one by accident while looking through the book store. It was\ninteresting to read a psychologist\u2019s view on dealing with anxiety in kids. And\nit turned out to be much more interesting and useful for its explanations of\ngeneral behaving towards children. The exercises are a bit too involved for me\nto want to try them. But I can see them being useful.<\/p>"},{"title":"Weisse N\u00e4chte (Vollst\u00e4ndige Deutsche Ausgabe)","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dostoyevsky-weissenaechte-1848\/","pubDate":"Fri, 24 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dostoyevsky-weissenaechte-1848\/","description":" I decided to give this book a try after poking around at the local book store.\nI realized I\u2019ve never read a single Dostoyevsky. And I sure wasn\u2019t gonna read\n\u201cWar & Peace\u201d just to give it a try and see how I like it. After some quick\ngoogling it seemed like \u201cWei\u00dfe N\u00e4chte\u201d was one of his fairly popular works,\nand they had it in the Reclam<\/a> version which is about 4 Euros. So not a\nhuge investment.<\/p>"},{"title":"A Field Guide to Getting Lost","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/solnit-fieldguidetogettinglost-2006\/","pubDate":"Wed, 22 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/solnit-fieldguidetogettinglost-2006\/","description":" This was another purchase while rummaging at the book store. I’ve read\nSolnit\u2018s \u201eMen explain things to me\u201c a couple of years ago. And since I really\nenjoyed that one, I wanted to read another one of her works. I’m not usually\none for essays so it was definitely a different experience from reading more\nscience related books.<\/p>"},{"title":"Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/newport-digitalminimalism-2019\/","pubDate":"Sat, 18 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/newport-digitalminimalism-2019\/","description":" It took me quite a while after buying this book to find the excitement to\nactually read it. Which had nothing to do with the book itself but the fact\nthat I was already sold on the concept of “Digital Minimalism” and thought\nthere wouldn\u2019t be new or interesting things for me in there.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Art of Logic in an Illogical World","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/cheng-artoflogic-2018\/","pubDate":"Sat, 11 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/cheng-artoflogic-2018\/","description":" This book gives a thorough introduction into logic and how to apply it. And I\nreally enjoyed the discussion of what kind of things can be applied, how to\nbuild a logical structure and argument, and what the limits of a logical\nargument are.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Watercolor Artist's Bible","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/scott-watercolorartistsbible-2009\/","pubDate":"Sat, 11 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/scott-watercolorartistsbible-2009\/","description":" A while into learning how to draw I realized that watercolor is a lot more fun\nand versatile than I thought it was from my experience using it in art class\nin school. So I researched around and found this book recommended as a sort of\nreference book for watercolor artists. And it\u2019s exactly that. The book gives a\ngreat overview over all the different aspects and techniques of using\nwatercolor. Reading it gave me a much better understanding of the medium and I\nstill refer back to it to look some things up occasionally.<\/p>"},{"title":"A Briefer History of Time","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hawking-brieferhistoryoftime-2006\/","pubDate":"Mon, 11 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hawking-brieferhistoryoftime-2006\/","description":" I decided to read this new edition of \u201cA Brief History of Time\u201d, which I had\nstarted but never finished. I really enjoyed it even though most of it went\ntotally over my head. I read this book on the Kindle and mostly before going\nto sleep. Which is not a good combination for reading a book with such an\nintense topic.<\/p>"},{"title":"Sketch Every Day: 100+ simple drawing exercises from Simone Gr\u00fcnewald","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/gruenewald-sketcheveryday-2019\/","pubDate":"Thu, 17 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/gruenewald-sketcheveryday-2019\/","description":" I absolutely loved this book. It was more of a flip through and reading\nindividual chapters for me than a book I read front to back. The chapters\ncover the author\u2019s creative journey, some general advice for artists, art\nfundamentals, character design, and even a chapter on managing a family life\nwhile also making time and space for art. Every chapter and its sub sections\ncontain a ton of very helpful examples. All drawn in Simone Gr\u00fcnewald\u2019s well\nknown style. So it\u2019s easy to see how to approach faces, noses, hair, old and\nyoung people. And even flora and fauna.<\/p>"},{"title":"Coffee Nerd: How to Have Your Coffee and Drink It Too","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/brown-coffeenerd-2014\/","pubDate":"Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/brown-coffeenerd-2014\/","description":" Really enjoyed the book. I\u2019ve been nerding out on coffee for a couple of years\nnow and I\u2019ve definitely learned a bunch of new things through the book. And\nit\u2019s absolutely entertainingly written. Definitely recommended if you\u2019re into\ncoffee.<\/p>"},{"title":"Calm Technology: Designing for Billions of Devices and the Internet of Things","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/case-calmtechnology-2015\/","pubDate":"Sat, 14 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/case-calmtechnology-2015\/","description":" I was pretty excited about this book. I used to follow Amber Case on social\nmedia and she did some interesting early IoT stuff. But the book overall is\nwritten with mostly anecdotal examples and not many directly practical things.\nIt also has some confusing layout quirks that occasionally makes it hard to\nread. But content wise it’s pretty good if you\u2019re new to the topic.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Tree of Yoga","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/iyengar-treeofyoga-1988\/","pubDate":"Mon, 02 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/iyengar-treeofyoga-1988\/","description":" I didn\u2019t much enjoy the book which might be due to expecting something\ndifferent. I didn\u2019t have strong expectation but I wanted to get some more\nbackground on where yoga is coming from and what else is part of it to enhance\nmy own yoga (and maybe meditation) practice. And I\u2019ve definitely learned a\ncouple of things from the book. But those could have been summarized on 10\npages. The rest of the time I\u2019ve felt the book to mostly be repetitive,\nrambling, almost condescending at times, and even occasionally dangerously\nwrong (e.g. there\u2019s a section in which it\u2019s said that inverted poses while\nmenstruating can lead to cancer).<\/p>"},{"title":"Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/demarco-slack-2001\/","pubDate":"Tue, 27 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/demarco-slack-2001\/","description":" I really enjoyed this book. As someone who has not been actively part of the\ndotcom era, and has mostly been told about the bad sides of that time, it\u2019s\nrefreshing to read something coming out of that time full of what are still\nessentially progressive ideas today. Slack as the part of the work where\ninnovation happens vs the always on, always busy culture is something\norganizations can still learn heaps from today. Definitely recommend reading\nit.<\/p>"},{"title":"Managing Oneself (Harvard Business Review Classics)","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/drucker-managingoneself-2008\/","pubDate":"Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/drucker-managingoneself-2008\/","description":" It\u2019s really short, more of an essay really, so there\u2019s no reason not to read\nit. It gives a couple of really good and fairly practical tips about what to\nfind out about oneself in order to be effective and successful.<\/p>"},{"title":"Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/wachterboettcher-technicallywrong-2017\/","pubDate":"Mon, 19 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/wachterboettcher-technicallywrong-2017\/","description":" This is a fantastic book. It walks through many different facets of how\ninterfaces are causing people to have a hard time instead of being useful. And\nlooks at many different factors contributing to the status quo. I\u2019ve\ndefinitely spent a lot of time educating myself on the topic before and while\nsome things I already knew about, the book provided a great mix of new\ninformation, different view points, and reminders for myself. I wholeheartedly\nrecommend this to anyone working in tech.<\/p>"},{"title":"Resilient Management","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hogan-resilientmanagement-2019\/","pubDate":"Sun, 11 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hogan-resilientmanagement-2019\/","description":" I\u2019ve known Lara for years and have also been part of her organization for a bit\nwhen we worked at Etsy together. And over the years we have talked extensively\nabout management and leadership. So I\u2019ve had a certain idea of what I could\nexpect from her book. And the book absolutely delivered!<\/p>"},{"title":"The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/levitin-organizedmind-2015\/","pubDate":"Fri, 09 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/levitin-organizedmind-2015\/","description":" This book blew my mind (pun intended). There was so much neuropsychology in\nthere that explained so many things about the brain. So many things I always\nwondered about made so much more sense now. I don\u2019t know if it made me more\norganized but I have a whole new perspective on attention, memory, sleep,\ncategorization, and so much more. This is one of those \u201cgame changer\u201d books\nfor me. I am approaching many things in daily life and even about my inner,\nemotional life very differently since reading the book. From how remembering\nand recalling things works (as far as we know currently), to how sleep impacts\nyour brain, how categorization is done by humans (and why you will always end\nup with a \u201cjunk drawer\u201d), and when to not trust your gut. It\u2019s a book I want\nto read a second time because I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve fully taken it in yet.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/carroll-bulletjournalmethod-2018\/","pubDate":"Sat, 19 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/carroll-bulletjournalmethod-2018\/","description":" Very nice and easy read. Made me really think about slowing down for planning\nand reflection. I read this book after having switched to a Bullet Journal for\ndaily logging and planning about 9 months prior. And it\u2019s really easy to get\nsucked into all the pretty and elaborate spreads with bullet journaling and\nlose focus of what\u2019s really important. The book does a really good job\nfocusing on the fundamentals with bullet journaling and how to think about\nwhat to incorporate into your journaling practice.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Miracle Morning Journal","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/elrod-miraclemorning-2012\/","pubDate":"Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/elrod-miraclemorning-2012\/","description":" I wasn\u2019t quite sure what to expect from this book. Morning routine inspiration\nalways intrigues me. I\u2019m a terrible early riser but I really enjoy being awake\nearly. However the book was too much romanticism and extremes for me and not a\nlot I was taking away from reading it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Deep Work","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/newport-deepwork-2016\/","pubDate":"Wed, 14 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/newport-deepwork-2016\/","description":" I read this book during a fairly busy time of my life (both personally and\nprofessionally) and it provided a very welcome perspective on slowing down,\ndialing down distractions, and focusing on what Newport calls “deep work”.\nWhich is basically the engaged, deep, focus on the work that really matters\n(to oneself, one’s career, and goals). And even though that not every work day\nin a busy job can accommodate lots of deep work every day, the book made me\nsensitive to the topic and seek out more of these opportunities even in\nsmaller ways.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Retrospective Handbook: A guide for agile teams","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kua-retrospectivehandbook-2013\/","pubDate":"Sat, 31 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/kua-retrospectivehandbook-2013\/","description":" This book provides a great overview of how to run good retrospectives and\nmeetings in general. While all the recommendations and tips on there are very\napt and useful I’ve found it a bit too practical and general. Most chapters\nare applicable to any form of meeting (which is good) but I would have loved a\ndeeper dive into the psychological challenges and things to look out for with\nretrospectives.<\/p>"},{"title":"Bad Feminist","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/gay-badfeminist-2014\/","pubDate":"Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/gay-badfeminist-2014\/","description":" I really enjoyed reading this book and the author’s argument with the fact\nthat not everybody is perfect and that not everyone needs to be perfect to\nstrive for feminist ideas to become reality. I’ve very much identified with\nthe guilty feeling of enjoying listening to rap music - which is often deeply\nmisogynistic - yet still wanting to further a more feminist world. And having\nto sit through this cognitive dissonance discussion with myself. The book is\nwritten in a very honest and raw way and I can definitely recommend it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Effective Monitoring and Alerting: For Web Operations","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ligus-effectivemonitoringandalerting-2012\/","pubDate":"Wed, 06 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ligus-effectivemonitoringandalerting-2012\/","description":" I was really looking forward to this book as I’ve heard good things about it\nand thought it would round up what I already knew about the topic. However\nright from the start it felt rather awkward. The author is trying to maintain\nan abstract high level view on monitoring and alerting and not go into\nspecific implementations. This makes for an awkward combination with it being\nbasically a 101\/introductory book on the topic. A lot of the formal\ndescriptions of monitoring and alerting feel forced and don’t hold up in the\nabstract very well and are too high level to be practical. He also talks about\noperations in an almost romantic hero style way which I didn’t enjoy. In\naddition to that the book also includes some final chapters on outage handling\nand organizational and cultural setups. The terms human error, root cause\nanalysis, and “5 Whys” are thrown around a lot with no acknowledgement of it\nbeing actually harmful to learning according to modern research in the field\nof systems safety. Definitely not a book I would recommend.<\/p>"},{"title":"Meat Market","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/penny-meatmarket-2011\/","pubDate":"Mon, 04 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/penny-meatmarket-2011\/","description":" This was an interesting read about the author’s perspective on the issues of\nobjectification and discrimination of women and their bodies. There are a lot\nof interesting arguments in there about how much in the current economy (and\nthe general status quo) really relies on maintaining that women stay in this\nplace and how badly women suffer through this. Especially as a cis-man I can\nhighly recommend reading the book to get a perspective on a lot of issues that\nat least I didn’t think about that much before.<\/p>"},{"title":"Thinking in Systems: A Primer","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/meadows-thinkinginsystems-2008\/","pubDate":"Sun, 03 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/meadows-thinkinginsystems-2008\/","description":" This is a really great introduction to systems thinking. Meadows does a great\njob describing basic system properties, adding examples to illustrate them and\nthen coming back to them later when describing related properties. A lot of\nthe described things - especially at the beginning - almost seem like common\nsense and suddenly you’re neck deep in systems thinking. I especially liked\nhow she puts systems thinking into relation to being a mindful person. That\nit’s always a model and not the real world and that we still have to act as\nmorale humans. Highly recommended.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Internet Of Garbage","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/jeong-internetofgarbage-2018\/","pubDate":"Sat, 28 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/jeong-internetofgarbage-2018\/","description":" In this book Sarah Jeong - a journalist trained as a lawyer at Harvard Law\nSchool - talks about the problem of online harassment. It’s another short but\nreally good one. I’ve learned a ton about copyright law and the limitations of\ncurrent legislation when it comes to online harassment. But also things that\ndo work and what things could be attempted. It’s a very sobering look at the current state of social networks, online harassment and tooling and legislation to help fight it. Definitely worth a read if you spend any time on the internet.<\/p>"},{"title":"Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/krug-dontmakemethink-2005\/","pubDate":"Thu, 26 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/krug-dontmakemethink-2005\/","description":" I’m one of those engineers who used to happily claim to not have any frontend\nskills and just not be good at design. I came to loathe this thinking over the\nyears and decided that if I can’t do something I want to learn at least the\nbasics. This is one of the reasons why I read “Designing for Performance” as\nmentioned above. Thankfully I also work with a ton of talented designers and\none of them is Jessica Harllee<\/a>. I talked to her\nabout suggestions to get started with learning about design. And she said I\nshould read “Don’t make me think”. And she wasn’t wrong. The book is a\nwonderful introduction into usability and design. The beauty of it is that\nwhile reading it, all of the things mentioned are total no-brainers. But you\nhave to remember it while designing things. The other interesting thing for me\nwas that while all of the examples in the book are web based (with some brief\nstints into mobile) I could totally think of CLI apps I’ve written in the past\nthat totally do the wrong thing design-wise. Definitely a recommended read.<\/p>"},{"title":"Men Explain Things to Me","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/solnit-menexplainthingstome-2014\/","pubDate":"Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/solnit-menexplainthingstome-2014\/","description":" This collection of essays titled for the aggressive tendency of men to always\nhave to explain things to women while assuming they have no idea what they are\ntalking about. The first essay brings this to a point by telling a story of a\nparty where a man mansplains to the author the book she herself wrote. Without\nhaving actually read it. The book than continues with more essays that talk\nabout a lot more darker things like discussing domestic violence. The over\narching theme is that the credibility of and respect towards women is\ncontinuously diminished to maintain the status quo and its power imbalance.\nSome of the essays towards the end of the book are not easy to read but it’s\nmore than worth it.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Art of Mindfulness","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hanh-artofmindfulness-2012\/","pubDate":"Wed, 23 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hanh-artofmindfulness-2012\/","description":" This is another super short read and the de-facto introductory book to\nmindfulness meditation. There’s not a lot to say here. It’s good, give it a\nread as it’s short enough to not matter if you end up not liking it. I started\nmeditating regularly after reading it and it has been a great experience.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/losse-boykings-2012\/","pubDate":"Wed, 16 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/losse-boykings-2012\/","description":" The biography of Kate Losse about her time at (early stage) Facebook is in my\nmind a must read for any software engineer and especially if you’re a man. It\ngives an extremely good insight view into what happens when young men are\nsuddenly in charge of a ton of money. But more importantly it talks very\nbluntly about how engineers are treated differently from most other employees\nfor our supposed gift to turn any idea into gold with code.<\/p>"},{"title":"Cybersexism: Sex, Gender and Power on the Internet","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/penny-cybersexism-2013\/","pubDate":"Tue, 15 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/penny-cybersexism-2013\/","description":" This short book by Laurie Penny is a very good read about sexism in the age of\nsocial networks and the omnipresent Internet. It does a great job at talking\nabout how a lot of familiar concepts of “offline sexism” are reinvented online\nand no news to women. It’s short and insightful enough to recommend reading it\nwithout hesitation.<\/p>"},{"title":"Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rosenberg-nonviolentcommunication-2015\/","pubDate":"Sat, 12 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rosenberg-nonviolentcommunication-2015\/","description":" This has been recommended by many people I work with as a wonderful resource\nabout positive human communication. And as - especially in a growing\nengineering org - communication is one of the most important skills to try to\nmaster, I decided to finally read this one. It’s a very interesting book with\nan approach to communication that is rarely taught especially not to men. It\nfocuses on a collaborative rather than a competitive style of communication\nand the goal to reach agreements over winning arguments. The examples in the\nbook are often pretty extreme coming from the author’s work as a diplomat. And\neven though those are great to demonstrate how this way of communicating can\nwork in the most extreme cases, it also shifts its focus a lot on explicit\ndiplomatic style discussions. There are more examples that are more directed\ntowards every day situations and even though the author is very explicit about\nthis being useful in regular work meetings as well, I had a very hard time\nunderstanding how to practically apply those lessons in a meeting for example.\nThat being said however it made me think a lot more about the way I\ncommunicate and what I’m saying versus what I want to say. I have also applied\nthat way of communicating successfully at least once since reading the book.\nAnd I look forward to try it out more.<\/p>"},{"title":"You Had Me at \"Hello, World\": Mentoring Sessions with Industry Leaders at Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Zynga and more!","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/sarkar-helloworld-2015\/","pubDate":"Mon, 07 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/sarkar-helloworld-2015\/","description":" I found this book through Camille<\/a> tweeting about the fact that she was\nalso interviewed for it. “You had me at ‘Hellow World’” is a collection of\ninterviews with industry leaders from successful companies about the many\naspects of leadership and mentoring. It’s a pretty lightweight read and a\ngreat resource to get some insight how successful people talk about those\ntopics. It does a great job in conveying how important skills outside of\nwriting code are. And it provides good examples of how to use those for your\nadvantage.<\/p>"},{"title":"Recoding Gender (History of Computing)","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/abbate-recodinggender-2012\/","pubDate":"Sun, 06 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/abbate-recodinggender-2012\/","description":" I have a very complex relationship with the profession of “software\nengineering” and how it’s often defined in a non-inclusive way and as the\nprofession of the golden children of society. Part of that is that I had\nalways known a bit about the origins of programming and that a majority of\nprogrammers used to be women. But I didn’t know a lot about it which is why I\nwas excited to read this book. And it was great! The book walks you through\nthe beginnings before and during WWII and what programming meant back then. It\ndiscusses how the emerging industry in this field changed job prospects and\neconomic chances for women. But it also discusses how the image of a\nprogrammer changed as more and more men participated. It’s full of historical\nfacts and documents and a more than wonderful read. It sparked a lot of\nthoughts for me and changed the way I think about my profession even more.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/aron-sensitivepersoninlove-1996\/","pubDate":"Fri, 14 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/aron-sensitivepersoninlove-1996\/","description":" I really liked the book. It was interesting to read about experiences of other\nhighly sensitive people and to get a view from a psychologist on it. The book\nhowever has a way too touchy-feely style for me. And especially the final\nchapters talking about spirituality were a bit much for me. That being said I\ntook a couple of things away from reading the book, I was more than once ready\nto throw the kindle across the room because my sensitivity got super hijacked\nby some things, and I’m definitely better informed and at peace with my\nsensitivity than I was before.<\/p>"},{"title":"Leading Snowflakes","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ellenbogen-leadingsnowflakes-2013\/","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/ellenbogen-leadingsnowflakes-2013\/","description":" I really enjoyed the book. It has a structure that is very easy to follow and\ndefinitely a quick read. And even though I’m not a manager or planning to\nbecome one, there’s a lot of actionable advice in there for me as an engineer.<\/p>"},{"title":"Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/glei-manageyourdaytoday-2013\/","pubDate":"Sun, 26 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/glei-manageyourdaytoday-2013\/","description":" This book sparked my interest while I was looking for improving my daily\nroutines. I was often just starting the day as it happened often leaving me\nfeel disorganized, unproductive, and imbalanced. Reading “Manage your\nDay-to-Day” gave me a lot of ideas of what things to try and add to my daily\nroutine. And also to try and even have a daily routine. Something I picked up\nagain through this book was journaling and while it has been on and off for\nthe last couple of months I really enjoy it. The book was not mind blowing for\nme but I enjoyed reading it and definitely would recommend it if you are\nlooking for inspiration for your daily routine.<\/p>"},{"title":"Designing for Performance: Weighing Aesthetics and Speed","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hogan-designingforperformance-2014\/","pubDate":"Sat, 18 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hogan-designingforperformance-2014\/","description":" My coworker Lara<\/a>lara<\/a> wrote this book last year and it was a lot of fun\nwatching her process and how she knocked out that book. Since then it was on\nmy list of books to read. Especially since I tend to shy away from frontend\nthings in my day job and want to get better at not doing that. The book is a\nwonderful introduction into web performance especially from a design view. It\ngives very solid technical details on a lot of things like browser rendering\nand image formats that I only had very superficial knowledge of before. I\nreally enjoyed it and the book lead me to reduce the page weight of this blog\nby 92%<\/a> which\nwas tons of fun to do as well.<\/p>"},{"title":"Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hooks-feminismisforeverybody-2000\/","pubDate":"Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hooks-feminismisforeverybody-2000\/","description":" I\u2019ve known about this book for a while now, but up until early 2015 it was\nonly available in print. And since I don\u2019t really like owning physical books\nand read exclusively on my Kindle and iPhone I hadn\u2019t bought it yet. So when I\nfound out there is a Kindle version now, I immediately bought it. As expected,\nthe book is really good and gives a good primer on feminism and the historical\ncontext from the author\u2019s perspective. It reads less extreme to me as Greer\nwhich is very much in line with Hooks\u2019 other writing. Definitely highly\nrecommended for learning more about feminism.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Whole Woman","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/greer-wholewoman-1999\/","pubDate":"Sun, 08 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/greer-wholewoman-1999\/","description":" I started reading this book in 2014 and finished it early 2015. I overall\nliked it and it was really good in giving me different ways to think about\nfeminism and how the whole system works together to enable sexism and\nexploitation. It’s also a good resource to understand better how closely\nrelated feminism and capitalism really are. However it comes with a really\nserious trigger warning. Germaine Greer is known to have very\ntransphobic\/cissexist views and this book is no exception. It is restricted to\none chapter but those opinions - which I don’t share at all - are definitely\nin there. So if this is a trigger for you, it’s probably better to skip this\nbook.<\/p>"},{"title":"Creating Flow with OmniFocus","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dini-creatingflowwithomnifocus-2010\/","pubDate":"Wed, 31 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/dini-creatingflowwithomnifocus-2010\/","description":" This one was kind of a surprise read for me. I\u2019ve written before about how much I have OmniFocus is integrated in my life. And when this book popped up in one of my RSS feeds I decided to give it a read. It\u2019s definitely not a cheap book and I jumped over the first half as it\u2019s basically an introduction into OmniFocus which I already know how to use. The book isn\u2019t a total game changer, but the latter half gives some good food for thought on how to make the most of OmniFocus\u2019 Perspectives and some unusual use cases for it.<\/p>"},{"title":"Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/cain-quiet-2021\/","pubDate":"Wed, 31 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/cain-quiet-2021\/","description":" This is another one I started in 2013 and then dropped for no real reason. I\nfinished it this year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I knew before I started\nreading that I fall on the introvert side of the scale but the book really\nhelped recognizing some more patterns and making me feel better about it. This\nis also the only book I finished as a Kindle audiobook and while I likely\nwon’t do it again, it was an interesting experience. It’s a great read and\ndefinitely recommended for anyone who works with other humans in their daily\nlife.<\/p>"},{"title":"The Sketchnote Workbook: Advanced Techniques for Taking Visual Notes You Can Use Anywhere","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rohde-sketchnoteworkbook-2014\/","pubDate":"Wed, 31 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/rohde-sketchnoteworkbook-2014\/","description":" This was really fun to read. I didn\u2019t end up picking up sketch noting as a\npermanent tool in note taking. But I really enjoyed reading it.<\/p>"},{"title":"The ETTO Principle: Efficiency-Thoroughness Trade-Off","link":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hollnagel-ettoprinciple-2009\/","pubDate":"Wed, 10 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/unwiredcouch.com\/reading\/hollnagel-ettoprinciple-2009\/","description":"Resolving the Command\u2013Adapt Paradox: Guided Adaptability to Cope with Complexity<\/h1>\n
Key takeaways<\/h2>\n
The Strategic Agility Gap: How Organizations Are Slow and Stale to Adapt in Turbulent Worlds<\/h1>\n
Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
Key takeaways<\/h2>\n