Dear Data
Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 09:01 on 25 September 2016, kitt created this:
"Here," he said. "I think you'll enjoy this. It seems right up your alley."
I keep track of all sorts of things. I absolutely love what numbers and visualizations can tell us about ourselves and the world around us. So, when Kris handed me this book, I have to say I was immediately delighted, and immediately oblivious to EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD as I read it. One of the very very few non-fiction books that I've devoured in a day. I love this book. I absolutely adore this book.
The book is a series of weekly postcards sent between Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, visually detailing some data they decided to collect for the week. They put the data into a visualization on a postcard and mailed the postcard to the other. There are so many of the postcards that I just loved ("OOOOOOOOOO, I should track that, too!").
I had an idea of doing this review in numbers (289 pages of the 308 page book actually numbered, something something something), but really, my description cannot do this book justice. So, really now, ignore me and go watch their videos or buy the book.
The book is cute, whimsical, and COMPLETELY MOTIVATING. I love it.
Recommended.
Recommended. Recommended.
© Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec
© Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec
Red Planet Blues
Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 22:13 on 22 September 2016
"Oh! My favourite author!
*pause*
I'm an atheist because of him."
Okay, seriously, can you pay an author a stronger compliment than "I changed my religion because of you."? I think not. I had read Robert J. Sawyer's Calculating God a number of years ago, and I have to wonder if that was the book that caused my friend to think critically about the world around him (and the nuttiness that religions inspire), but I hadn't been recalling that book when I picked up this one.
In reality, I picked this one up because it seemed to be a gumshoe detective novel with a science-fiction twist, which I happen *cough* Dresden *couch* to have a fondness for.
I enjoyed this book about Alex Lomax, a private eye working on Mars, searching for a missing person and eventually investigating a murder. The book has a number of small mysteries in the larger arc of the book, which I found a little off when I started reading the book (and came to the end of the first solved mystery), but they all tied together really well, and I enjoyed the book.
Mentoring Fail
Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 11:58 on 22 September 2016This week, I gave up being the mentor of a fresh-out-of-college, new-to-the-workforce project collaborator.
I like mentoring. I like helping people. I like preventing other people from making the same crappy mistakes I've made. My default state is to help, often to the detriment of my own health and peace of mind.
So, you can imagine how much I hated to give up.
I hated to feel like I had failed. I hated to feel like I had failed this kid. "Kid." He's not a kid, I know that. He's a man, but he's young, and green, and full of the gush enthusiasm I no longer have and want to recapture in some small way.
But, I had to give up when I realized I had made the biggest mistake in mentoring, The colossal mistake of mentoring that I suspect all good mentors make once, and learn not to make again.
I told him I would be his mentor.
I didn't give him a choice. I didn't ask him if he wanted me as his mentor. I didn't wait for him to come to me. I told him.
And that added me to the increasing number of authority figures for him on the project.
It didn't matter that I had good intentions. It didn't matter that my advice was sound. It didn't matter that if I had helped him in some way, because we didn't have a mentor/mentee relationship. Mentoring is a two way relationship, both parties have to have the same understanding of what the relationship is. The mentor has to want to help, the mentee has to be willing to receive the help. Without that understanding, the relationship will never work.
So, I've stepped away.
I believe I'll have the opportunity again. I hope I do better the next time.
Moss Landscape
Daily Photo Instead of being asleep at 01:01 on 18 September 2016, kitt created this:
The Speed of Dark
Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 12:38 on 17 September 2016
Years ago, I read the The Deed of Paksenarrion, a compendium of Elizabeth Moon's three books Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold. I enjoyed the books, and so picked up The Speed of Dark when it was released. I hadn't, however, actually read it until now.
I know, I know, shock, not a book from Mom's list. And not normally a book I would read. I picked it up because I enjoyed the Paksenarrion books, which were fantasy novels. This one was more social commentary with a smidge of science fiction. The beginning of the book has a number of my discomfort triggers, so I was pretty sure this was going to become one of my permanently in-progress books, or maybe the first one since Mote in God's Eye 15 years ago that I decided not to finish.
I finished it by reading it really really really fast.
The book follows Lou Arrendale, a fictionalized, high-functioning, autistic process analyst, who can see patterns that most people can't. A new boss a couple levels up from him at work starts and decides that he hates autistics and that, despite the numbers of tax breaks and sunk costs and incredible productivity, he is going to shut down autistic department. He threatens his employees with layoffs if they don't take an experimental treatment that cures adult autism (the in-utero cure already happened 27 years before).
While the Rosie Project was an amusing take on how autistic actions can be interpreted, this book is a serious look at how a non-autistic person believes autistic people view the world. I'm not sure either is accurate.
The book has a happy ending, so there's that. It's a fine book. Not recommending it, though.