Amazon link This is the third book analyzing Buffy that I’ve bought, after Reading the Vampire Slayer and a Buffy philosophy book. This one takes the angle of inviting other authors (the book is subtitled “Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Discuss Their Favorite Television Show”) to analyze the show. There wasn’t actually a lot of […]

Amazon link I read a Wired article a couple years ago about the MIT blackjack team, a group of MIT students who used their ability to count cards to beat the system at Vegas and make a lot of money. Millions of dollars allegedly. This intrigued me both because it was about MIT students, but […]

Amazon link Saw this at the used bookstore, and it looked sufficiently interesting that I picked it up. Ullman worked as an independent computer programmer contractor throughout the dot-com years, and this book is a sort of memoir of her dedication to the machine, sometimes at the cost of losing track of the people involved. […]

Trillin wrote a series of articles for the New Yorker over the course of 15 years called “U.S. Journal”. As part of that, every now and then he’d throw in an article about eating, as he tasted some outstanding local cuisine someplace. Mind you, he’s not necessarily talking about fancy haute cuisine, something which he […]

As a fairly rabid devotee of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and as somebody who likes thinking about deeper issues on occasion, this book was irresistible: a collection of articles by philosophy professors and students discussing how various philosophical theories are exemplified by Buffy. It’s interesting how many different ways the same episodes can be viewed. […]

Mike Daisey’s website Subtitled “doing time @ amazon.com”, this is a memoir of Daisey’s two years at Amazon. It’s an entertaining account, starting with his being interviewed at Amazon because he fit their profile of being a freak (or as he more charitably describes himself, a dilettante). He suffers through life in customer service, figuring […]

Subtitled “The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports”, this book takes a look at the rise of Robot Wars, Battlebots, and the several other TV shows associated with robotic warfare. It’s interesting to me as somebody who watched a lot of these things develop from afar, from being a fan of SRL to cheering my friends […]

Kevin Murphy, formally associated with MST3K, decided to embark on an unusual (some might even say foolhardy) quest. He decided to watch a movie a day, every day, for an entire year. And to watch movies under as varied conditions as possible. He sees movies at film festivals in Norway and projected onto a bed […]

This is one of the few books that takes a close look at the medium of comics. Scott McCloud uses the comic book format to explore the conventions of comics, and how comics use our brain to do most of the heavy lifting for them. It’s an interesting look into what makes the medium work, […]

This book is an interesting peek into the world of professional gambling from one of its practitioners. With chapters ranging from poker strategy to the history of Vegas, the book necessarily is shallow in its exploration of various topics. But it definitely whets the appetite. After Bellin describes the thrill of bringing a huge bet […]