The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum by Margalit Fox (2024)

This captivating, concise, and well-crafted tale follows a crime boss "fence" who ruled the redistribution of stolen goods during the wild, violent 19th century in the USA. The characters burst with color and intrigue, drawing the reader into vivid slices of life across New York's diverse social classes. This historical fiction echoes Amor Towles' style, brimming with authentic dialogue and era-specific slang. 4/5 stars.

The Lindy Effect of public Internet Information and Object Permanence

The Lindy effect aka "Lindy's law" is the theory that the momentary future life expectancy of an idea or technology (object) is a Pareto probability distribution proportional to the current age of the object. So the longer something has existed, the longer its remaining life expectancy.  This idea also applies to some species of life, but subpopulations of animals frequently follow lognormal distributions instead of Pareto.

The short and shrinking lifetime of trending ideas and technology is nowhere more evident than Internet blogs, web sites, AI companies, and memes.  I discovered that jwz published a pair of scripts to make your URLs a little more permanent.  One rewrite URLs to use archive.org and the other crawls your wordpress blog to rewrite all links to point at archive.org.  

archive.org is the prime target for takedowns; in fact, the Lindy's Law link above was taken down!  Luckily, other preservation sites are filling the gap for wayback machine functionality. There are many web sites like archive.ph, stillio, perma.cc, mementoweb, and archivebox that can fill the gaps, but the longevity of these archive sites is also questionable.

Beyond the Hallowed Sky by Ken Macleod (2021)

I think I finally found another space opera series that I really like!  I enjoyed this book. 5/5 Stars.

Die Haarteppichknüpfer von Andreas Eschbach (2021)

Ich habe das Buch wirklich genossen. Die Art und Weise, wie die Welt aufgebaut ist, fand ich spannend und einzigartig. Die zentralen Themen – Macht, Autorität und die Grenzen persönlicher Einflussnahme – sind beeindruckend und regen zum Nachdenken an. Alle Charaktere sind sorgfältig ausgearbeitet und ziehen einen sofort in ihren Bann. Jede ihrer Geschichten trägt auf schlüssige Weise zum Gesamtbild bei. Das Science-Fiction-Setting sorgt für eine faszinierende Atmosphäre voller Staunen, die den Hintergrund lebendig macht, ohne jedoch für die eigentliche Handlung entscheidend zu sein. Insgesamt vergebe ich 4 / 5 Sternen.

The Technological Republic by Alex Karp (2025)

Great book with interesting ideas and a refreshingly new perspective.  Alex Karp is emerging as a new intellectual thought leader among patriotic but rational, civil leaders in the USA.  His ethics and ideas are sometimes overly simplistic; and his expression of win/lose  Realpolitik is harsh. Thought-provoking and worthwhile, 5/5 Stars.

Red Dust by Yoss (2020) translated by David Frye

The story has a lot of action and fun science fiction, with interesting politics from a Cuban perspective but set in a space opera. The homages are a bit shallow and trite.  It is very short, dense, and enjoyable. 4/5 Stars.

Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer (2021)

Scattered and unsatisfying. Ridiculous characters and terrible world building. 1/5 Stars.

personal

https://photos.app.goo.gl/44mA1k4rToh9dQGHA

Mash Up edited by Gardner Dozois (2016)

I had read and was looking for the story in this collection by Allen Steele.  The rest of the stories were also ok; some were very good.  I enjoyed them all and I enjoyed re-reading the hilarious story "The Big Whale." 4/5 Stars.

Midnight in Moscow by John J Sullivan (2024)

The book offers a compelling and insightful recounting of the American ambassador's experiences in Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the tense prelude and early stages of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. For me, it was an eye-opening narrative. I've always found it perplexing how international dynamics can unravel when leaders become so entrenched in their own perspectives that they lose sight of reality. This story highlights a recurring failure of imagination—an inability to grasp the clear, unvarnished actions and motives of their counterparts on the global stage. 4/5 Stars.