Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-02-27

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-02-20

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-02-13

  • Once, putting pants on Max, Alice tickled my feet. I laughed; she laughed; he laughed. Made pants-putting-on tough. No one minded. #SMAtuS #
  • I guess Alice really likes popcorn. She grabbed a 1 pound* bag of popcorn, ran off with it, and then pigged out. *popcorn is light! #SMAtuS #
  • According to Max, a "monger moon" is when the moon is full of worms. He talked about other moons, but sadly I don't remember them. #SMAtuS #
  • Max: "Mom, I love myself… Well, um, is it okay to love myself?" Sarah: "Yes." Max: "Okay." #SMAtuS #
  • @nfarina Oh, you know we all want you to. :) in reply to nfarina #
  • Marvel at the Solar System's motion (FLASHy): http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/orrery_2006.swf #
  • Max just called me from a rocket. He had to go; he was landing on a planet. #SMAtuS #TheFutureIsNOW #
  • @3liza If you prick me, do I not bleed? in reply to 3liza #
  • "Do robots not be born?" –Max #SMAtuS #
  • @MarsGirl75 Oh man, there are so many good books that he doesn't know anything about it all! What delights he has in store! in reply to MarsGirl75 #
  • Alice picked out her own outfit this morning: airplane PJ shirt, halloween candy corn pants, polka dot smart wool socks. #SMAtuS Love it! #
  • It's official: Max is reading. #SMAtuS #
  • THE LOST GOSPEL OF JUDAS ISCARIOT by Bart Ehrman: Fascinating. Once a Bible geek, always a Bible geek, I suppose. #fridayreads #
  • Not content with simply blowing our minds, Max likes spelling words forward and backward. For fun, I guess. (EG, KOOB/BOOK) #SMAtuS #
  • Done your taxes yet? I hired an accountant and it changed my life! http://on.fb.me/i7GASn #
  • @anankaf Oh yeah. I used to do that, too. I've been using an accountant for the last 2-3 years. It's a huge difference. in reply to anankaf #
  • Max and I went out for hot cocoa. We compared mustaches. He got excited about Art, knocked his cocoa on the floor. I love this kid! #SMAtuS #
  • RT: @tordotcom: In Memory of REDWALL author Brian Jacques: http://bit.ly/dVZXLd He will be missed. // I loved his books as a kid. #
  • @dloitz Your link doesn't appear to work. Otherwise, I'm so there! :) in reply to dloitz #
  • Max: How about you give me some grownup clothes and a beard so I can pretend to be a grownup? Please please please? #SMAtuS #
  • I've effectively been without my idea pipe (iPhone) for ~3 weeks now and I don't really miss it. Not as important to me as I thought? #
  • @shadalicious I've done that too. :) The difference is that this time it was a deliberate choice on my part. Funny how that works. in reply to shadalicious #
  • @nfarina Really? Perhaps that's what's been causing the heinous slowdowns on my 3G… Or maybe it's just that it's a 3G… in reply to nfarina #
  • Max: "4 and 4 and 5 are 13." #SMAtuS All I can say is WOW. I mean, I have trouble adding three numbers together… #
  • Max (to woman at a bus stop): "I'm Max. It's spelled M-A-X and I'm almost four years old." #SMAtuS #

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Books Read – January 2011

One Night at the Call Center by Chetan Bhagat

God shows up in this one. At least twice.

The title’s pretty descriptive. The story concerns one night at a call center in India. Provides an alternate view on Americans, and it’s not pretty. Reveals that we and they are not so very different in terms of hopes/dreams/fears, except that we, perhaps, take a bit more for granted.

The protagonist is painfully unaware of himself, but the book’s main payoff comes from his growing self-realization.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

I’ve had this one sitting by my bed for six months or so. (Thanks, Katherine!) I finally managed to getting around to reading it, and I’m glad I did.

I first read Mieville’s stripped bare The City & The City, followed by Un Lun Dun. Where The City & The City was cold and restrained, Perdido Street Station is a wild, hot, thrashing of a novel. The story sometimes flails around sometimes in a seemingly uncontrolled fashion, but whatever rough edges it has are smoothed over by the sheer exuberance of his language.

Reading it was like visiting a dream. Not a completely pleasant one at that.

Shuddertown by Nick Spencer

A graphic novel collection. I don’t remember much about this one.

Johnny Hiro by Fred Chao

A fun little comic about a fella who rescues his girlfriend from Godzilla, among other things. (I think there are ninjas at the opera…)

There’s a lot of great visual humor in this one.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson

I’ve read every one of Johnson’s books, except his first, and they’re all worthwhile.

In this one, Johnson makes a compelling case for the way innovation can be encouraged through sharing knowledge. Innovation thrives when human beings shine their pattern recognition engines at facts, ideas, and whimsies from all over the place.

There’s a lot of callbacks to topics in his previous books, but this one is impressive for the breadth of research gathering that it must have required.

As I read it, I imagined Johnson hunched over a library table heaping with books. In actuality, he probably did much of it on a laptop computer.

Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat

This one’s up there with Perdido Street Station for sheer strangeness.

It’s the story of heroes who foiled the ultimate badness, and then lived on. (Or so I gather.) Thirty years later, and they’re unaccountably bored.

The tone is wavery and the diction odd. The narrator intrudes at times to protect his characters or the reader.

It’s a sleepy, dreamy book, and I often almost fell asleep to it.

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

Well, that tears it. I’m done eating animals.

Read it if you dare.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

You might think that this is about time travel. And you’d be right. But not as right as if you thought it was a book about a son reconciling to the memory of his father.

One of the better time travel novels I’ve read.