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Last night on the Metro I finished “Social Blunders” by Tim Sandlin. It was OK, but it didnt help that it was the third book of a series and I have not read the previous two. This was another Justin selection, and has been the best of the bunch.

New: 5/25
Old: 1/25

The next string of books I plan on reading will be re-reads. After watching “Troy” (the movie) I was inspired to read the Illiad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Theyre pretty thick books (technically poems) in formal Greek and Latin translations so it should take me a while to get through them.

seele :: Feb.24.2005 :: Books, General :: 1 Comment »

Perhaps I should start naming it the “25/25 Book Challenge” or the “50 Book Challenge” since I have no intention on attempting to read 100 books in a year.

Anyway, last night on the Metro I finished book number 6. I had previously mentioned this book earlier this week. The Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut was a very good collection of short contemporary stories with a mix of politics and sci-fi from the 1950’s and 1960’s. I would recommend this collection for anyone who enjoys Orwell and Huxely.

New: 5/25
Old: 1/25

I think ever set of ten books I will reiterate my list for the benefit of trackbacking.

seele :: Feb.17.2005 :: Books, General :: No Comments »

Accessibility is something I have been becoming more and more interested in. It seems to be a natural progression from usability. When designing for the web, there are the obvious things you can do like including “alt” tags in your images to identify them, providing text equivalents of documents which require a plugin and evaluating color schemes for those with color blindness.

When thinking of the handicap and the web, the first two groups who come to mind are blind and deaf people. We know about screen readers (like JAWS and IBMs reader) and try to develop content that will make sense to them. Audio can be captioned.

We try our best to provide accessibility to the deaf and blind. But what about the other groups?

Continue Reading »

seele :: Feb.11.2005 :: General, Usability, Work :: 2 Comments »

I suppose I should note the latest book I completed: The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq. Another selection from Justin’s collection, hes 0 for 2 right now. At first glance it seems to be a fictional story of quantum physics, but instead follows the lives of two half-brothers through their life of sex, love and philosophy from a childhood in the sexual revolution to the present day. The writing wasnt impressive although there is a gut wrenching twist at the end. Eh, I wouldnt recommend it unless you like graphical descriptions of group sex.

The list is getting longer so Ill just trackback through the past

New Books: 4/25
Old Books: 1/25

I think the next read will be a selection from my own shelf.

seele :: Feb.09.2005 :: Books, General :: No Comments »

My latest book of the challenge was NEXUS: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks by Mark Buchanan. It was a really great book, and did a very good job of explaining different kinds of small-world related networks in contexts of the Internet, viral outbreaks and economics. If you are interested in relational, neural, small-world or social networks, I recommend this book to you.

New Books: 3/25
Old Books: 1/25

1. The Difference Engine - William Gibson, Bruce Sterling (05/01/14 New)
2. Burning Chrome - William Gibson (05/01/24 Old)
3. Automated Alice - Jeff Noon (05/01/25 New)
4. NEXUS - Mark Buchanan (05/02/04 New)

seele :: Feb.04.2005 :: Books, General :: 3 Comments »