@cartotastic@aus.social
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cartotastic

@cartotastic@aus.social

I love maps and comics and RPGing and once upon a time I sang rock songs in seedy pubs
This account is mostly for reviews of all the wonderful books I read, plus occasional helpful comments or snark

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cartotastic, to sciencefiction
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WAYNE'S 2024 BOOKS: BOOK 12

This Is How You Lose the Time War
by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

I found this book recommended somewhere, possibly reddit.com, and reserved it at my local library, but the reservation came through while I'm in the middle of slogging through a long non-fiction book about pirates. But it was due back soon, so I decided I better get my A into G and read it. Can I say how glad I am that I did so? It was a great palate cleanser from the dry (yet not unentertaining) historical work, and I smashed through it in a couple of days.

The format lends itself to a quick read, and it's not an overly-long work. Two time-travelling warriors from opposing sides of a sprawling temporal war draw the attention of each other and begin to spar through deed and plot over centuries, trading missives encoded in reality that begin as mental sparring but soon progress to something else. It's a war story, it's a love story, it's a tangled tale of time travel that turns out to be not so complex as to overshadow the complex interplay between the pair known only as Red and Blue.

The writing is poetic and multi-layered and filled with subtlety, humour and wonder. Concepts that could provide an adequate spine for a whole novel are presented in mere sentences, but you don't mind because the complexity of the ideas washes over you in delicate prose, and a new concept has already been delivered, and it's just as thought-provoking as the first! It's LGBT-affirming, it's surprising and heartfelt and inspiring, and I'll be looking out for works from both of the authors as the year progresses!

cartotastic, to books
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

WAYNE'S 2024 BOOKS: BOOK 10

The Bezzle
by Cory Doctorow

So, if you've read my other book reviews this year, you'll be familiar with the name Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic). If not, become familiar! His work (published in books, delivered by RSS feed or Xitter, or appearing on various websites) is always entertaining and informative.

The infotaining nature of his writing is clearly evident in his latest book: The Bezzle. I backed the Kickstarter that successfully funded an audiobook version, although audiobooks aren't my thing and I read it in eBook form on my Pixel 6a. It's the second Martin Hench book, a period piece starting in the dotcom boom era, years before the first Hench book, Red Team Blues. Here we see a less established Martin (sans tour bus) stepping unwittingly into the attention of a sleazy robber baron. Events spiral wildly away from a burger-supply Ponzi scheme (no, really) as the book progresses.

The book structure is a little odd; it felt like the pelt of two-and-a-half Last Week Tonight With John Oliver episodes stitched onto the bones of a modern-day Grisham novel. Here the blend of entertaining and informative comes to bear; you know you're being educated as you read, but it's enjoyable, so it doesn't feel like a lecture. There's lessons about MLM investment traps, the hideous state of the California prison-for-profit system, unfair music royalty practises, and more.

The Bezzle was a quick and excellent read, and I'll be delving more into Doctorow's back catalogue as the year progesses, thanks to a tasty Humble Bundle deal that's still active as I write.

cartotastic, to 13thFloor
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

What's that? You love speculative fiction and need something great to read? Have you heard of and want to know more about how it's ruining your life and what you can do to stop it? Well say no more, as Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) and The Humble Bundle have teamed up to fill your phone or eReader or PC with some tasty fiction at an incredible price. You get 18 books and can support the Electronic Frontier Foundation (@eff) at the same time! It's a win-win-win situation.

Read more: https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/03/humbly-bundled/#eff-too

Buy now! https://www.humblebundle.com/books/cory-doctorow-novel-collection-tor-books-books

cartotastic, to mastodon
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

Should I be concerned that Trend is flagging the official Mastodon app on Android as suspect? Or is it just Trend being a goofball again?

funcrunch, to books
@funcrunch@me.dm avatar

Great article (as usual) by @pluralistic on "bestselling" books, botshit, and bezzles:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-a-billionaires-mediocre-pump-and-dump-book-became-a-bestseller-2ed7a8c472d7

(Paywall-free link)

cartotastic,
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

@immibis @pluralistic @prestontumber @rvkennedy @theoldbeginner @JorgeStolfi @funcrunch @kcoyle @Runyan50 @KimPerales

I don't trust the duopoly supermarkets in my country to be customer-friendly, respect my data privacy, or be ethical in any way, but I would still like to buy a loaf of bread, please.

cartotastic, to books
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

WAYNE'S 2024 BOOKS: BOOK 7

Red Team Blues
by Cory Doctorow

The influencer that the internet needs - Cory Doctorow (find him at @pluralistic, pluralistic.net, craphound.com) - is back in my reading list with a second book for 2024. I backed the Kickstarter for the audiobook of the sequel to Red Team Blues (The Bezzle, review coming as soon as it's released!), choosing to take ebooks of Red Team Blues and The Bezzle rather than the audiobook as I like to read rather than listen. Cory chooses to Kickstart his books because Amazon forces reader-hostile DRM onto his works, and in his infinite wisdom, he wants his readers to be able to consume his content in they way they see fit, not in the way a rapacious tech giant demands. It's a publishing strategy that's worked out well for him so far. I wish more authors had the same opportunity to avoid being ensnared in the Amazon flywheel which operates to the detriment of both content creators and content consumers. (For more on this, read Chokepoint Capitalism by Cory and Rebecca Giblin, reviewed by me as Book 1 of my 2024 reading list!)

But I digress. What's Red Team Blues about? It's a hardboiled tale by way of Silicon Valley, where the protagonist just wants to do one more job before a well-earned retirement... and you can guess how well that goes. There's cryptocurrency and financial shenanigans that 67-yo Martin Hench is ably equipped to deal with, even if the blowback from his investigations take him well out of his comfort zone (a tricked-out tour bus named The Unsalted Hash). Hench is good with the ladies and knows his way around the dark corners of the internet like a Chandleresque gumshoe knows which bar to find a lead. There's social commentary that spans a gamut of problems with Big Tech and those left behind when the money floats to the top.

The writing leads you along at a brisk pace - I read this over a few days easily - but at times I found I could see Cory behind the veil of two characters having a particularly erudite and wordy discourse about computing or crypto. I pushed this aside when I realised that this was probably a case where a very intelligent author was supplying dialogue for a pair of equally intelligent characters, and perhaps I was just a little dumber than everyone involved.

I can't wait for the release of The Bezzle; it's not yet on sale, but you can get a copy of Red Team Blues from Cory's webstore at craphound.com/shop/ while you wait for the sequel's release!

#reading #bookreview #corydoctorow #bigtech #books #books2024 #crypto #cryptocurrency

cartotastic, to books
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

WAYNE'S 2024 BOOKS: BOOK 6

From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting
by Judith Brett

I love a good election, and Australia does good elections. Getting to see Antony Green strut his psephological stuff on TV is great, but what's even greater is that our system works, and works to the benefit of the majority of Australians. In this book, Judith Brett outlines the history of Australian voting, from just prior to Federation to the modern day. It's not a roller-coaster of a read - at times it felt like I was reading a long Wikipedia article - but it was definitely interesting.

Of note was one chapter detailing the shameful treatment of Australia's Aborigines, who were denied the vote for far too long despite being disenfranchised in multiple ways; the author presents excepts from Parliament where votes for Aboriginal Australians are being debated, and the derogatory language is quite frankly appalling.

The success of the Australian voting system rests on three pillars: compulsory voting, preferential voting, and non-partisan electoral administration. Compulsory voting staves off apathy and ensures radicals don't overly dominate, preferential voting ensures the least worst option for the majority of voters, and a non-partisan electoral board keeps parties from gerrymandering and disenfranchising voters out of representation. It's a great combination and we're so lucky to have it. Other nations would do well to adopt as many of these three pillars as possible, and their voters should lobby their representatives to enact them by any means.

This is a great book, and it's a relatively quick read, so if you're a history buff or election geek, mark this down on your reading ballot!

#reading #bookreview #books #books2024 #voting #elections #history #Australia

pixel, to pathfinder2e
@pixel@urusai.social avatar

hey, any players out there have any advice for building a rogue? specifically a scoundrel type rogue, I'm having fun thinking of the build craft stuff but the dedication system is kinda overwhelming me and plotting out a build is getting kind of difficult

cartotastic,
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

@pixel RPGBOT can help cut through the chaff of a class. (https://rpgbot.net/p2/characters/classes/rogue/)
I haven't played a rogue but a friend has had trouble with the mastermind racket as Recall Knowledge isn't as much of a sure thing like other rogue methods of getting Sneak Attack.
Crafting can either be great or a costly pain depending on how your GM plays and if your adventure will allow sufficient downtime to utilise it.
Fortunately retraining can be used to get a do-over on any options you select that aren't working for you!

cartotastic,
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

@pixel Copy that. RPGBOT doesn't have the full gamut of options. I'm assuming you're using Archives of Nethys to see the full progression of a dedication?
Fortunately with PF2 there are far fewer 'trap' options and 'suboptimal' characters are much harder to make. Suboptimal parties - no teamwork, poor coordination - are much more of a problem than suboptimal characters.

cartotastic,
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

@pixel I tend to make characters in Pathbuilder and carry them thru to level 20 to see what's available, then make a copy and go back and change/tweak to see what else is available. Fortunately I don't tend to be much of a power gamer or optimiser so taking a level-by-level approach ends up dominating as I advance levels; those early 1-20 versions end up being a good guide but what happens in-game has more of an influence than expected. I planned out a sniper to level 20 for Pathfinder Society play and then ended up doing a rebuild at level 7 as a Spellshot because I wasn't getting good use out of some of the sniper abilities. I would never have imagined that at level 1!

timrichards, to melbourne
@timrichards@aus.social avatar

What a horrible person, so entitled. Don't buy from Robinsons.

Robinsons Bookshop: Owner apologises after calling for more ‘white kids’ on book covers

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/robinsons-bookshop-owner-apologises-amid-backlash-over-white-kids-comments-20240128-p5f0mh.html

cartotastic,
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

@timrichards Her posts on her now-deleted Xitter are illuminating.

cartotastic, to random
@cartotastic@aus.social avatar

WAYNE'S 2024 BOOKS: BOOK 1

Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back

So, last year was a dreadful year for reading for me, and part of the blame lies with this book. Not because it's a terrible book, but because every time I started reading it, I'd get so angry that I had to stop and started reading social media or reddit or whatever.

Let's roll back a little. I've been a fan of one of the co-writers - Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) - for over 20 years, first encountering his work on the shared blog of the technological and the weird, Boing Boing. I subscribe to his newsletter as a good old-fashioned RSS feed and never manage to keep up with it, and you can do the same at https://pluralistic.net/. He's a futurist, activist, journalist and SF writer and you should investigate his work. I went to see him speak with co-writer Rebecca Giblin at the Australian Centre of the Moving Image and bought a signed copy; you can watch that very event here: https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/chokepoint-capitalism-cory-doctorow-rebecca-giblin/

This book goes explains in infuriating detail how the Big Tech firms - Amazon, Spotify, YouTube, etc. - have successfully inserted themselves between creatives and their audiences, to the detriment of both. The shady deals of music labels and promoters aren't spared an examination as well. Every chapter was another damning indictment of capitalist flywheels, relentless rent-seeking, and examples of corporate strangeholds over cultural output. Every chapter made my blood boil, but I remembered Cory mentioning that the second half of the book was more about ways to fight back, so I persevered.

It's a powerful book that really shows how the real talent of Big Tech is to choke creatives into submission, and that our only hope is collective action, solidarity, and direct support for creatives wherever possible.

You can read Chokepoint Capitalism for free at Google Books (https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Chokepoint_Capitalism/CzuAEAAAQBAJ), but much better would be to support your local library by borrowing it, or buy a DRM-free eBook or audiobook from his website at https://craphound.com/shop/.

US and UK readers can also support independent bookshops by buying a hardcover through Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/chokepoint-capitalism-how-big-tech-and-big-content-captured-creative-labor-markets-and-how-we-ll-win-them-back-cory-doctorow/18021916

Aussie readers can find the best non-Amazon website to buy from at the always-awesome booko.com.au: https://booko.com.au/9781761380075/Chokepoint-Capitalism

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