May Review

Wiresong June 08, 2024 #Review

A bit late this month, due to traveling and other things. Also busy with exams last month, so not as much content as usual.

Books

I read Dungeon Crawler Carl. I had read it while it was on Royalroad, I just hadn't caught up to the published series. (For reference, Dungeon Crawler Carl is about an anarchist explosive-using protagonist and his sentient cat going through an alien-constructed dungeon, for the express purpose of getting streamed live for the entertainment of viewers across the universe. ...Yeah.) I also picked up Virtuous Sons (a fairly interesting take on chinese-style cultivation in a Greek and Roman context - a snack read, at the end of the day, but good within that category).

I've also been rereading The Laundry Files. I feel like the first few books have a much more consistent storyline than the last few (the first four, for instance, seem to be very cohesive to me). If you're interested in math, computers, the Great Old Ones, or any combination of the above, you should really give Laundry Files a try. (And while I'm giving out a shoutout to Charles Stross, Accelerando is very nice if you're interested in science-fiction and the singularity. Strong, strong rec.)

Not too much nonfiction this month (exams), although I did pick up Learn Physics with Functional Programming, which starts you off from one-dimensional motion all the way to Maxwell's equations. it uses Haskell, which is pretty fun.

Music

A fairly eclectic mix this month. I was listening to Composure a lot, but nothing much new apart from that.

  1. Minami - Crying for Rain
  2. Weird Al - Hardware Store
  3. Divyam sodhi / khwaab - Bohot bechain
  4. Agam - The Boat Song
  5. Boi What - Neon Tide
  6. Simulcats - Composure (KERO Remix)

Misc

  1. Mr Tompkins Explores The Atom
  2. Surprise Saxophone Battle. Worth a full watch.
  3. A vignette of the smoker's corner behind an Indian hospital
  4. Book Review: The Others Within Us. Apparently, Internal Family Systems therapy can get pretty interesting (as in, conceptualizing-your-parts-as-actual-demons interesting). This is a review of a book that makes such a claim.
  5. The Natural Number Game, a game where you prove facts about the integers via Lean, a proof assistant. My favorite thing this month.