Violence of Action by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole

These Anspach / Cole books in their other universe (forgotten ruin) are starting to grow on me.  I don't normally like high fantasy, even when there is a good magic system.  But the Rangers one-liners and "book of Joe" stuff is enormous fun.  4/5 Stars.

Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot 6) by Martha Wells

I finally reached the book that won the 2021 Hugo award and the reason I started reading the six-book series.  It's pretty good but I liked some of the earlier books better, 4/5 Stars.

Losing the Nobel Prize by Brian Keating

I saw Dr. Keating's Lex interview and decided to get the book.  The book is gripping and fantastic.  Dr. Keating is a great "popular science" author, bringing the difficult and complex topics of physics and cosmology accurately and simply into layman's terms. The drama and analysis of the Nobel Prize and the new privately funded larger collaborations opposed to the insane competition in science are very-well presented.  5/5 Stars, very highly recommended.

Green Swans by John Elkington

I don't know how this book appeared in my stack but I am severely disappointed. At most 20% of the material makes any sense and there are so many ridiculous, random ideas, I was frequently tempted to put the book down and stop reading. 1/5 Stars.

A Handbook for New Stoics

Not bad, and surprisingly useful.  Pigliucci's interpretation of stoicism is more about mental discipline and less about ethics. 3/5 Stars.

Rationality by Steven Pinker

Great book. Dense, hard-hitting, actionable. 5/5 Stars.

Schilf von Juli Zeh

Ich habe dieses Buch geliebt. Jedes Kapitel ist straff, spannend, Hitchcock-artig. Zehs Stil ist fließend, aber auch elegant sparsam. Sie spielt den Roman im Schwarzwald und ihr beschreibendes Schreiben gibt dem Roman ein Gefühl für die Gegend, ihre saubere, frische Luft und unberührten Gebäude. Die Charaktere sind fantastisch. Die Art und Weise, wie die Physik und die Definition von Zeit in die Handlung eingewoben werden, ist wunderbar. Jetzt muss ich mehr von ihren Büchern finden. 5/5 Sterne.

Mature vs Immature Developers

As a manager, I frequently consider impact, results, peer feedback, artifacts, and other direct, objective information about developers when analyzing their performance.  There is a dimension of seniority that is not easily summarized by these objective measures -- maturity.  I usually summarize observable, behavioral differences by saying things like "the senior developer comes into code you wrote, cleans it up, adds documentation, and fixes your bugs for you; the junior developer files bugs without reading your code and asks you to add capabilities or features that violate the purpose of your design."  But what are the abstract elements and signs of maturity?

My friend recently blogged about an article he came across and generalized that non-developers also display these abstract signs of maturity or immaturity.  I could not agree more.

Network Effect by Martha Wells (Murderbot 5)

Another short murderbot book, this one in two major story arcs. Interesting, mysterious space operatic sci-fi tech, bad science, but fantastic characters and anthropomorphised AI's. I can't wait to read the 6th book (Hugo award winner!) 4/5 Stars.

When we cease to understand the world by Benjamin Labatut

I received this short book as a gift.  It is very gripping and melodramatic as the great scientists from the turn of the 20th century struggle with big ideas and the societal  (and personal) consequences of their discoveries.  However the fictional parts of the stories -- gothic horror and insanity stuff --  are silly and bad.  A much better and similar book is Jim Holt's  When Einstein walked with Gödel because Holt's book is historically accurate.  3/5 Stars.