Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

📚 Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism by Elsa Sjunneson

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2/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You should read this. Memoir, societal and media criticism, and a lot of often-footnoted humor in this examination of persistent and pervasive ableism. I ordered this after seeing the author give the keynote address at Accessing Higher Ground, an academic conference on accessible technology in higher education, which was an excellent keynote and introduced me to the phrase “disability is a multiverse”. Though I’ve been making an effort at broadening my awareness of the ableism around me, as someone who isn’t (currently) disabled, I know that there’s a lot I miss, and there was a lot in this book that I hadn’t thought of. However obvious it is in retrospect, unless you live within these circumstances, they’re often all too easy to not be aware of, and it’s very worthwhile to be exposed to situations outside of our experience.

Michael holding Being Seen

📚 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

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1/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fun to re-read this for the first time in at least two decades, especially so soon after reading Gibson’s Neuromancer. It had been long enough that all I really remembered clearly was the Metaverse and the opening pizza delivery sequence; other pieces I halfway recalled as I read, but much was brand-new all over again. Just as with Neuromancer, it’s fascinating to see how these books have influenced modern technology and tech culture. And I always love diving into one of Stephenson’s books. His tendency to cram everything including the proverbial kitchen sink into his books in overly intricate detail mixed with a healthy dose of snark doesn’t work for everyone, but it sure does for me.

Michael holding Snow Crash

Bring Back Blogging

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Monique Judge at The Verge, in “Bring Back Personal Blogging“:

In the beginning, there were blogs, and they were the original social web. We built community. We found our people. We wrote personally. We wrote frequently. We self-policed, and we linked to each other so that newbies could discover new and good blogs.

I want to go back there.

Hard agree. This blog got its start in the mid-’90s — the earliest “post” I can still verify was on December 29, 1995, and though it now lives in this blog, was originally a hand-coded entry on a static “Announcements” page — back before “blogging” was even a term. In fact, it wasn’t until February 8, 2001 that I first discovered the word “blog”.

So there’s a lot of what Monique writes about that I remember very clearly. And I miss a lot of it. Which seems kind of funny to say, because in a lot of ways, it really hasn’t ever completely died, but the shift to social media definitely impacted the blogging world.

I’m hopeful (if not optimstic) that just maybe the issues at Twitter, the rise of Mastodon, and the general upheaval in online spaces will actually lead to something of a resurgence of people writing for themselves and in their own spaces.

Buy that domain name. Carve your space out on the web. Tell your stories, build your community, and talk to your people. It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It doesn’t need to duplicate any space that already exists on the web — in fact, it shouldn’t. This is your creation. It’s your expression. It should reflect you.

Bring back personal blogging in 2023. We, as a web community, will be all that much better for it.

2023 Resolutions

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My resolutions for this year:

  • 3840 x 2160
  • 1920 x 1080
  • 2560 x 1664
  • 1668 x 2224
  • 1125 x 2436
  • 368 x 448

(That’s my Mac mini’s primary 4K monitor and secondary display, my MacBook Air, and my iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch, respectively. Yes, I make this same stupid joke every year, ’cause it makes me laugh.)

📚 Sacrifices of War by Kevin Ryan

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68/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wraps up all the threads quite nicely, in a way that I didn’t expect when I started the first book – by revisiting Errand of Mercy. While the episode always mentioned that the Federation and the Klingon Empire were at the brink of war, the combination of TOS’s weekly adventure format and ‘60s TV styles always meant that it never really felt that dire. By exploring the buildup of tensions between the powers over six books and several bloody encounters in space, on the ground, and on space stations, the events of the episode, and even Kirk and Kor’s frustration at being prevented from going to war, gain much more weight and solidity.

Michael holding Sacrifices of War

📚 Demands of Honor by Kevin Ryan

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67/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

As we approach the end of this hexology, it’s worth noting that it’s doing a really neat job of exploring the state of affairs with and within the Klingon empire from both Starfleet and Klingon viewpoints. While these are some of the more violent Trek novels I’ve read, it works well to give weight to the interactions hear referenced and see onscreen in TOS episodes.

Michael holding Demands of Honor

📚 River of Blood by Kevin Ryan

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65/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A strong conclusion to the trilogy, culminating in an all-out battle between invading Klingons and Starfleet defenders on a starbase that takes up the majority of the book. Something of the literary equivalent of the final act CGI battle of any given Marvel movie. The threads wrap up satisfyingly well, with a few nicely placed ties to future events and characters. Though I rated each standalone book at three stars, taken together, the trilogy as a whole is definitely above average for Trek novels. (Though all books do suffer from occasional typos missed in the editing passes; in this one, the starbase’s first mention is given the designation Starbase 43, but in the next paragraph it becomes Starbase 42 and remains there for the rest of the book.) Also, keep an eye out on the character names — many throughout the series are named for notable people in Trek’s real-world past.

Michael holding River of Blood

📚 Killing Blow by Kevin Ryan

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64/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

As with many mid-points of trilogies, not quite as strong as the first, though still better than average. Some flashback scenes are written in with the main narrative and occasionally mildly confusing when scenes switch between present and past battles, and there are a few unfortunate typos swapping similarly named characters. Once those are accounted for, though, a decent enough middle chapter.

Michael holding Killing Blow.

📚 The Edge of the Sword by Kevin Ryan

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63/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

TOS events as seen trough the eyes of a disguised Klingon operative serving as part of the Enterprise’s security crew. On the one hand, it’s a combination of common tropes: the outsider/enemy coming to understand humanity through living among them and a “lower decks” view of life on a starship. On the other hand, it’s done quite well, without being too “wink-wink, nudge-nudge, remember this bit?” when the book’s events intersect with known missions. A good start to the trilogy (or hexology, I suppose, as there is another trilogy following the events of this one).

Michael holding The Edge of the Sword.