1. 18 January 2006

    2005 Reading List

    961 days ago

    I like to make up a list of the books I’ve read, with quick reviews of each. 2004. I managed 46 books, counting make magazine (the shortest book I read) three times.

    I’m a big fan of reading, and managed 12 more books then in 2004. I had a whole three months of not reading around the time I started college, because college got me real bored and I never managed to figure out the library.

    1. The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander. Alexander has some fascinating ideas. I really like his thoughts on organic – that people should do things (like building) for themselves. The whole idea of a pattern language, which provides for the effortless design of buildings, is a neat one. I wish I had that kind of language. 90
    2. Small Spaces, Azby Brown. A real interesting look at how Japanese embrace the size constraint in their architecture, coming up with all kinds of ways to maximize space and improve living conditions in small flats. 80
    3. Programming Ruby, 2nd Edition, Dave Thomas. The first book I’d ever read on programming. I feel it taught me well. I wouldn’t quite call myself a ruby wizard yet, and there are plenty of concepts in the pickaxe that I haven’t quite internalized. But without me coming across ideas in a project, I don’t think I’ll ever master a programming concept. And the book gave me a good awareness as to what is where in ruby for when I will need to use it. 90
    4. Mind Hacks, Tom Stafford & Matt Webb. I liked mind hacks, although really haven’t thought back as often as I should have since reading it. A better understanding of how my mind actually works is a nice thing to have, and I think a lot of the stuff I read over effects me on a less then conscious level almost daily. 85
    5. Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. A quick and short read, provides a lot of ideas to think over. A lot. I don’t have much to say, but that doesn’t reflect on how I thought of it. 95
    6. The Mind’s Eye, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Interesting look at photography I took up around the time Cartier-Bresson died. Musings of an artist, it was a nice read, but I got a bit bored working through it. 70
    7. A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander. The second time through for me, a pattern language was still nice. As The Timeless Way above, Alexander comes up with some good ideas that make you think. Which is the best thing about reading. 90
    8. Adobe Photoshop CS in a Book, Adobe Creative Team. A nice intro to photoshop, which I wanted to learn to use to touch up my digital photos. I don’t do all that much, but I got a good basic understanding of the controls and manipulations you can get done. 60
    9. Defensive Design for the Web, Matthew Linderman and Jason Fried. A nice concise look at how to get the basics in interaction right at your site – even baser then having a pretty look, make sure that the your users won’t get frustrated and close the window while trying to make an order or finding information. 80
    10. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson. I ordered it from the library when news came through of his death. Nice read, crazy shit. 75
    11. Camera and Lens, Ansel Adams. Another look at photography. I skipped the section on his zone system, but the rest of the book was a good look at the logistics, techniques, and equipment needed to do a good job at photography. 70
    12. Make Magazine Volume 1, Mark Frauenfelder. I got caught up in the make hype, and bought a subscription. It’s a nice magazine.
    13. Test Driven Development, Kent Beck. I can’t say I didn’t get test driven development, but I couldn’t quite make myself practice it. I still don’t after having read the book, but I do a better job. 65
    14. Les Aventures de Petit Nicolas, Sempe. A cute book on the adventures of little nick, a preschooler in suburban france. Charming tales with beautiful illustration. I read it to keep on learning french. 80
    15. Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough, Michael Braungart. Fascinating look at how things should be done sustainably around the world. In manufacturing and building of consumer goods – any and all consumer goods – you shouldn’t have to recycle, but upcycle. Things shouldn’t deteriorate as they get used and discarded and cycled, but better. We’re in enough of an environmental crisis right now that we need all we can get, and if the methods proposed here could be adopted all over the world things out to get a lot better. 85
    16. Un été pas Comme les Autres, Hughette Zahler. Worst book ever, read to learn a little french. 0
    17. Ordinary Wolves, Seth Kantner. Fascinating recollection (partly fictional?) of the author’s childhood being raised by his father nomadically in the alaskan arctic. Interesting look at society from someone who grew up foreign to it, tried it out a bit around college, then married and moved back into the wilds. 90
    18. Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls, Nigel Dunnett and Noel Kingsbury. Good look at what todays green roof technology/methods can achieve, when I build myself a house it will sure have a green roof or two. But a little less then interesting. 60
    19. Make Volume 2, Mark Fraudenfenlder. I haven’t managed to construct lots of projects from make, I usually do one or two of the littler ones – money always provides obstacle to the harder ones. I’m debating as to whether or not I’ll renew my subscription after one more issue. I like it, but haven’t actually built any of the stuff.
    20. Rhinocéros, Eugène Ionesco. A great play written after ww2. In french, to learn french, I fell that I understood most everything. And there were lots of interesting ideas I came away with. 90
    21. The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler. We’re fucked. We’re fucked. We’re fucked. Kunstler lays out his drama filled vision of why our society is massively unsustainable, and is on the verge of complete and utter collapse. As much as I want to have an optimistic view of the whole thing, Kunstler provides a good case, and I can’t help but believe almost everything he says. Let’s go humans, we’ve dug ourselves a hell of a hole. 90
    22. Bogtrotter, Richard A. Coffey. A man and wife chronicle making the move to their central Minnesota cabin, living off the land and the money they made working at a nearby county museum in the summer. I’m still looking for something more compelling then suburban life and the 9 to 5, I’m not sure what part these ideas will play. 70
    23. Allen & Mike’s Really Cool Backpackin’ Book, Allen O’Bannon & Mike Clelland. Nice cute book on backpacking, with great common sense instructions and nice illustrations. Before reading this I’d done a bit of camping, nothing more then a few days. I read a few backpacking books this year, and liked ‘em all. 80
    24. Lost in Norway, Per Eide. Beautiful book of photos. Photos from all over norway, all of nature, with lots of wide images (which I just love). 80
    25. The Very Small Home, Azby Brown. Another from Azby Brown, again on japanese solutions to the problem of space. In japan there isn’t any. Real estate is prohibitively expensive, and architects have figured out how to maximize livability in the minimum amount of space.
    26. Lord Foul’s Bane, Stephen R. Donaldson. The first in a series of three, it was enjoyable fantasy. But I haven’t moved on in the trilogy, so as compelling as it was, it didn’t keep me interested. 60
    27. Natural Born Cyborgs, Andy Clark. On how ubiquitous or pervasive computing is just the extension of the differentiating factor between humans and less successful members of the animal kingdom – their ability to master tools and further their abilities. 90
    28. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling. Nobody hates Harry Potter. Vestiges from my preteen days still hang, but now instead of my mom reading it before bed, I can rip through a Potter in a day. 70
    29. Agile Web Development with Rails, Dave Thomas. I’m a fan of rails, which I’d been using intermittently over the summer. But sitting down and reading through the tutorials really helped cement my understanding, and after it I mostly rewrote the two apps I’d been fooling around with. 80
    30. Make Volume 3, Dale Dougherty. Make switched editors, but has always had the exact same page count. Interesting fact.
    31. The Complete Walker IV, Colin Fletcher & Chip Rawlins. Another book on backpacking, I’ve been yearning to get out on some longer trips. It’s a goal of mine to thru hike one of the real long trails, and I was reading books to try and measure how much I really wanted to and how much it just seemed like something fun. The books increased my interest, whatever that comes to mean. 75
    32. The Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt, David Thomas. I always try to reinforce what I want to be with books, and I;m not much of a programmer, so I went for the book. I couldn’t say it quantifiably improved me, but like the pickaxe, it gave me a solid idea of what tools were there for me to use so that when I needed them I could get and use them. 75
    33. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson. Real good read. My first time going at Stephenson, the only reason I stopped with The Diamond Age was that my school library doesn’t have much of a collection. Fascinating stuff. 95
    34. Enders Game, Orson Scott Card. Stolen from my brother on the trip to montana, nice read. 80
    35. Einstein for Beginners, Joseph Schwartz & Michael Mcguinness. Found in the attic – I think I better understand all that relativity stuff, but it’s still a bit out there for me. 80
    36. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson. Good fun read, encompassing all threads of science as time progressed. The kind of book that throws you off on a different tangent every page. Real good. 90
    37. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon. Interesting look, but I was real let down when I heard it was fiction. Damn misleading books. 50
    38. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson. I’m the kind of guy who can’t ever pick favorites, but Stephenson is approaching favorite territory. I can’t say which of his novels I like better (I’m not much at favorites…), but all I’ve read have been spectacular. 90
    39. The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson. Ditto. 90
    40. God’s Debris, Scott Adams. I went two or three months at a dramatically slower pace then I’d been following to date, college really just sapped a lot of the gungho out of me. But a real interesting philosophical dialog, although I haven’t thought too hard about it since. 85
    41. Make Volume 4, O’Reilly Publishing. I think my standing on Make has been make clear in the last three issues, and I haven’t been rating it, as it isn’t quite a book.
    42. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow. Nice book from Doctorow. He’s curbed a good genre, I’m looking forward to finding and reading more from him. 80
    43. 1984, George Orwell. I hadn’t read 1984 before, the whole government spying and manipulating us thing made me snap it up. I don’t think I got the best chance of absorbing it, having listened to it instead of reading, but good none the less. 85
    44. Don’t Make Me Think, Steve Krug. Good look at web accessibility, and how simple it really is. 75
    45. A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson. Great read from Bryson, equal parts biting social satire, lament over lost wilds and illustration of how much of the natural world is still out there to be enjoyed.
    46. Catch-22, Joseph Heller. I’ve yet to put any coherent thoughts on Catch-22 together, I don’t know what’s keeping me from thinking it over. I’ll get to it.

  2. 04 January 2006

    2005 post mortem

    975 days ago

    Year in review, I guess. I have a pretty normalized outlook on things, and 2005 was a good year like all the rest. I’ll be updating this post with more bits as they come to me.

    Events

    • I turned 18. Along with graduating high school, this is one of those big deals that really doesn’t ever end up that big.
    • I played lots of soccer. I captained my summer team, and we didn’t do half bad.
    • Graduated. I would say I was glad to be done, but I just went on to college to do the same shit another 4 years. Maybe I’ll congratulate myself after finishing that. One plus: I made around $600 dollars from the party that comes standard. I thought about donating it to a charity, but eventually it came down to it and I wanted a powerbook.
    • Joachim, our Norwegian exchange student, left after a year. We still keep in touch.
    • I ordered and got my powerbook, first computer I’ve ever actually owned. It’s still roaring, and I love it.
    • Camp. Danebod is good fun, I’ve gone ever since I was a kid, and don’t think there’s much that will stop me.
    • Started college, although not really. I’d already earned the credits to be a sophomore taking classes on the side throughout high school. I’m not sure I like it, nor that I’ll stay with it.
    • I moved out. It didn’t really change my pattern of living. I always got along fine with my family, I’m a pleasant and polite enough guy. I can’t say I like the dorm better then my sweet room at home. But I wouldn’t say it’s much worse either.
    • I bought into the vc4 from Textdrive. I already had a vc200 account, but had the money in the bank and nothing to spend it on, so I figured I’d double my stats.
    • Went on a great Backpacking trip along the superior hiking trail. I hadn’t been in awhile, and it was nice to really get away from things. Photos.

    Less concrete events

    • I really picked up rails and ruby. I’d subscribed to DHH’s blog after I started to use instiki (before rails came along), and the earliest rails hype got me. I downloaded the first version and didn’t really get it, I’d only started learning ruby. I played around with it a lot. It did a great job of giving me an easy way to really learn ruby. But I didn’t really do anything of consequence with either until this year. I have a few projects under my belt now, having started working with Slantwise Design and picked up a project for a professor at school. If your interested, my resume.
    • I really hit a wall politically. Christ, the state american government has fallen into. I used to call myself a democrat, but since Wellstone died I haven’t noticed anyone at all in congress doing much right, and don’t feel that there is a party I can put my support behind. The Democrats are all too sullen and beaten to stand up and fight for anything, and the republicans are as righteous and extreme as ever and are taking the country 180 degrees from where it ought to be going. With all these scandals and corruption I can only hope there comes some sort of redemption, I can’t imagine how America will look ten years from now if we stay bush’s course.
    • The thing that’s probably taken the most of my thinking this year is whether or not to continue on with college. I don’t feel like I’m getting all that much out of it, but decided I couldn’t write it off without trying it first. It would take real guile to drop out, and for the most part I’m still there because I haven’t quite put together the pieces and figured out something better to do. But I’m sure there’s something out there, and I’ll be keeping my eyes open for it.

    Music

    I really listened to lots of it this year. You can see my general listening trends on last.fm. Here are my favorites this year. They weren’t necessarily released in 2005 or anything, I’m nowhere near hip enough to keep up with all the music that’s out there. I’m not rating them in any order, as you’ll notice they’re listed alphabeticallly.

    • 89.3 The Current – Contemporary public radio, launched the beginning of this year. I’d deferred listening to the radio in favor of iTunes, but it pulled me back, and quick. Give them a listen.
    • Atmosphere – Local underground hip hop, although living in minneapolis it’s quite aboveground. Slug (the frontman) has come a long way since I first heard of him (4 years ago?), and his newest, You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having, seems to have made a splash.
    • Brother Ali – A pal of Slug, under the his Rhymesayers label. I call it hip hop to differentiate it from rap, because it’s really miles above some of the shit that gets put out under the name these days. He’s coming out with a new one soon, and let a track off it in a live performance for MPR (no permalink, but just search).
    • The Go! Team – Thunder Lightning Strike. Listen to any track off the album, and I dare you not to just get up and dance. You’ll at least feel the need. Their stuff is just so energetic. I can’t really make a label for it, it won’t be categorized. But for the great tag.
    • The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday. Great record with local roots. Plus look how the fuck cool they are: they have their own flickr group.
    • Heiruspecs – In the same vein as Atmosphere and Brother Ali, local minneapolis hip hop. Their 2004 release (A Tiger Dancing) didn’t quite get me, but I liked it enough to find Small Steps, a 2002 release that I just love.
    • Harvey Danger – Little by Little. Made a big deal this spring putting his new album on the internet free download, and I scoffed. It came up somewhere about a month later, and caught on slowly with me to the point that I’d have to say it was one of my absolute favorites.
    • Low – The Great Destroyer. Of 13 tracks, 9 stars. One of the best ratios in my library. It’s an understated sort of rock, I don’t really have much to say about it but for that it just feels great to listen to, whenever one of their songs comes up on the radio I just go nuts.
    • Seu Jorge – I’ve been meaning to get my hands on his Cru release, but haven’t. All I have on him are his great covers of David Bowie from The Life Aquatic soundtrack. The movie was good, but his being in it kicked ass.
    • Ted Leo/Pharmacists – Easily my favorite of the year, although I might be getting over him. He has the most starts of any artist in my iTunes library, and I liked his stuff enough to actually buy all his albums. Punk influenced guitar rock, nice lyrics, a bit of a political edge. Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead has been my favorite song for awhile now.
    • Worth mentioning – Belle and Sebastian, LCD Soundsystem, Metric, The Mountain Goats, New Pornographers, Of Montreal, Ryan Adams, RJD2, Sufjan Stevens

  3. 04 December 2005

    1006 days ago

    The Hype Machine - 52 Songs of 2005

    52 most hyped songs on audioblogs. Streamable. Definitely worth visiting.

    via Kjell Olsen1006 days ago

  4. 07 July 2005

    1156 days ago

    Mayor of London - Mayor's Statement 7 July 2005

    They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

    If only Bush could have delivered a speech like this after September eleventh. Instead of freezing while reading to kindergartners.

    via Kjell Olsen1156 days ago

  5. 1156 days ago

    7 July 2005 London bombings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Best info I’ve found on the bombings. My heart goes out, and hopefully things clear up soon and a clearer idea of what happened emerges.

    via Kjell Olsen1156 days ago

  6. 06 June 2005

    1187 days ago

    WWDC 2005 - Live Coverage of Keynote || The Mac Observer

    Wow. Wow. Wow.

    Rosetta will allow PowerPC compiled apps to work on an Intel Mac. It’s completely transparent, and does not require a separate emulation environment.

    I don’t know whether to love or to hate apple – on one hand, intel could probably make chips just as well as IBM – but to get my hopes up like that for a G5 powerbook… And then just snatching it back from me! I don’t know what I’ll do now, I was looking to get a laptop for this summer, but I don’t want a G4 now that apple has an entirely new processor.

    via Kjell Olsen1187 days ago

  7. 28 May 2005

    1196 days ago

    Rails Day 2005 - June 4th

    I want to do railsday, but don’t know if I’ll be able to make the time on saturday. Hm…. I’ve got some killer ideas, but not too much rails-fu. But I could probably work out something in a day, rails is pretty easy.

    Kjell Olsen1196 days ago

  8. 17 March 2005

    1268 days ago

    Bits and Atoms notes

    Another set of notes from a different session at etech, Bits & Atoms.

    [KEY POINT] there’s not just a digital divide, there’s something much bbigger. there’s an instrumentation and fabrication divide. computation isn’t enough. you need to measure and modify the world.

    Kjell Olsen1268 days ago

  9. 1268 days ago

    ETECH Notes: Life Hacks

    A panel given by Danny O’Brien and Merlin Mann at etech, as transcribed by Cory Doctorow

    There’s something satisfying about making it hard to screw up—it’s like clipping mittens to your sleeves.

    OTOH, from O’Reilly: “The mouse is the single greatest obstacle standing in the way of becoming one with your keyboard and the dramatically higher productivity levels which the state promises.” Keyboards get you into the zone. The mouse breaks your stride (though not if you’re a designer). What throws you is the transition—from keyboard to mouse or vice-versa.

    “Improved focus can be achieved through activities such as
    meditations, yoga and turn off Instant Messaging” – Ulrich Mayr,
    U Oregon.

    Everything until now has been about keeping you in flow, but the next wave is all in eliminating distraction. I use a proxy that
    replaces all my web-sessions after 10 min with a page that says
    DO YOU REALLY WANT TO LOOK AT THE WEB OR DO YOU HAVE WORK TO DO.

    via Kjell Olsen1268 days ago

  10. 21 January 2005

    1323 days ago

    centricle : photos

    Photoblog of the inaguration yesterday.

    via Kjell Olsen1323 days ago

  11. 20 January 2005

    1324 days ago

    dangerousmeta! » On this inauguration day,

    Excellent quotes, telling Bush off in the worlds of famous politicians and people.

    via Kjell Olsen1324 days ago

  12. 08 December 2004

    1367 days ago

    Forty Media - Phoenix Web Design - Web Design in 2005

    Color of the year – here I come. I love brown!

    Kjell Olsen1367 days ago

  13. Also somewhat recently

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