Well, it's that time of year! This is the time of year that many social media services use your data to create a Year In Review for the things you did on their platform. My cynical side is thinking that this is one of those "hey! pay attention to this, and not what else we do with your data" but I'll take it...I guess!I've been thinking about moving away from GoodReads over this past year, something

 Well, here we are!  It's Year-in-Review season!  I've gotten a few of these from the various apps and services that I use so I thought I'd post some of these.  I thought I'd start off with GoodReads since I track my books through that platform. I've been considering moving to the Fediverse or something similar, but still using the Amazon product.   My "goal" for last

What I missed in Podcasts in my Year In Review, I think I made up in Audiobooks and Comic Books! My goal was to read 20 books (admittedly a low goal...) and I ended up reading 255 books, audiobooks, and comic books in 2022. I think the headline here is that, yet again, audiobooks save the day.  I listened to a number of books that I normally would not have read on paper because I was able to find

Education for Critical Consciousness by Paulo Freire My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was a rather short book, as is the case with most of Paolo Freire's books, but it packed a rather big punch.  I listened to this on the way to and from work as an audiobook, but I think that this kind of book is probably consumed a bit more slowly, maybe with the addition of

Star Trek: Borg by Hilary J. Bader My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the audio component of the FMV (full motion video) game Star Trek Borg which came out in 1996 (if I am not mistaken).  Basically, strip out all the little gameplay elements and what you have left is a nice little movie.  This is the audio component of that.  The video is available

iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It by Steve Wozniak My rating: 5 of 5 stars I rather enjoyed this book. Not knowing a lot about Woz, it was fun to discover a seemingly curious down-to-earth maker and tinkerer.  The practical jokester side did surprise me a bit. I would have liked

The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy by Brian Klaas My rating: 5 of 5 stars Well, we all knew that Donald Drumph was a huge piece of 💩, but every book that examines his pre-presidency and presidency just adds confirmatory evidence. It blows my mind that he's just announced that  he's interested in running for the 2024 presidential

The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It by Jamie Bartlett My rating: 5 of 5 stars I came across this book recently, which apparently is based on a BBC podcast.  I don't know how I missed it originally, but I guess it's expected since I have treated anything blockchain, crypto, and NFT-related to be one giant scam. 

The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election by Malcolm W. Nance My rating: 4 of 5 stars Enlightening investigative piece.  It tied a few things that were happening in the background that seemed separate, but where not. I was kind of hoping that the timeline of the book proceeded past the election of 2016,

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport My rating: 5 of 5 stars I am not always a fan of Cal's writing, but after a friend recommended this (Brian?), I decided to pick it up. It's a quick read (comparative to other books anyway) and it's filled with good advice (some of which I stumbled upon through my own social media use...so