The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy is a …
This book has been sitting on my shelf for years. Eric Daniels recommended Graeber to me back when we were working at #Twitter.
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XML apologist. Erlang enthusiast. Currently JVMs & Performance stuff at Netflix. Previously JVMs & performative stuff at Twitter. He/him.
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Ian Brown's books
2025 Reading Goal
25% complete! Ian Brown has read 6 of 24 books.
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Ian Brown finished reading Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
The second book by Kushner that I have read. While enjoyable and riddled with small insights and minor profundities, it reads like it was written after finishing a graduate class on the Guy Debord and the Situationist International. Overall though it was a solid read.
Ian Brown started reading Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
I've read her novel "The Flamethrowers" and I dug it, so looking forward to this one.
Ian Brown finished reading Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny …
This was a trip to read. Every narrator and author is somewhat unreliable, especially when it comes to memoirs, but a lot of what is in this book scans.
The lengths to which #Facebook has gone to prevent the author from publishing or promoting this book just make it a more compelling read.
Overall it is written better than most tell-alls, and the author seems to have retained a fair amount of emails and notes from her days at Facebook^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Meta.
Ian Brown rated Hubris Maximus: 5 stars
Ian Brown finished reading Hubris Maximus by Faiz Siddiqui
A pretty fun and frustrating account of Musk's self-immolation. I am a bit biased because the author, Faiz Siddiqui, does take a few paragraphs to document my run-in with Elon, but it goes deep into a lot of non-Twitter material.
Another (better) highlight is the chapter featuring the amazing @chancerydaily@masto.ai. Yeah Chance!
Anyway, pick up a copy at your local bookstore!
Ian Brown rated The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: 4 stars
Ian Brown finished reading The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard by J. G. Ballard
I haven't really enjoyed Ballard's novels, but his short stories fall somewhere between Phllip K. Dick and Bradbury & Asimov.
He is also a fan (as am I) of using a $10 word where a $1 word would have sufficed.
Ian Brown started reading The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard by J. G. Ballard
SS-GB by Len Deighton
For nine months Britain has been occupied - a blitzed, depressed and dingy country. However, it's 'business as usual' at …
Ian Brown finished reading SS-GB by Len Deighton
For nine months Britain has been occupied - a blitzed, depressed and dingy country. However, …
In the end, everyone just goes along.
Ian Brown rated Cheap Land Colorado: 4 stars
Ian Brown set a goal to read 24 books in 2025
Ian Brown finished reading Cheap Land Colorado by Ted Conover
A pretty nuanced and literate take on the off-the-grid culture of Colorado's San Luis valley. Also it has a brief appearance by a Juggalo!
Ian Brown finished reading Programming Heterogeneous Hardware via Managed Runtime Systems by Juan Fumero
Finally found the downtime to complete this fantastic survey of managed runtimes (e.g. the JVM) and heterogeneous hardware (e.g. CPUs and GPUs or FPGAs) by @snatverk@mastodon.online, @thanos_str@mastodon.sdf.org, and @kotselidis@mastodon.online.
Required reading for those who want a look at the future of software development.