Andrey Goder

Good history of Uber under Travis Kalanick, somewhat marred by the author's anti-tech editorializing.

Started out so promising but after the first 1/4 it devolved into some kind of nonsensical non-story.

This book covers several disparate topics, which unfortunately were not combined in the most cohesive way. Part of it is a history of UX/design, which is interesting, but is not presented linearly which can make it hard to follow. My favorite part was the discussion of the development of industrial design of physical objects and how it significantly influenced digital design. Additionally it includes a description of more recent ideas in design, such as improvements in driver-assist technology in cars, design of smartphone apps, etc.

There was a long section in the middle that was basically soapboxing about the ‘evils' of social media which felt really out of place. It didn't really have anything to do with design specifically (except in some very stretched way) and it seemed like the author just wanted to have a platform to insert these views. It really detracted from the flow of the book.

A lot of the more interesting ideas to me were actually not elaborated on significantly. I would have liked to read more about ideas for the future of design and how we can make it better (which was hinted at a little). There was an interesting section about making things easy to use having some downsides (worse understanding of the underlying system) but again this wasn't elaborated on very much. Overall, the book had a scattering of interesting ideas, so I did enjoy it in parts, but it really felt like it was lacking that cohesive whole to make it a truly great experience.

This book was a sweet story about a girl trying to find her place in the world. It reflects anxieties all middle school kids have about fitting in and making friends.

Yet there were a couple things I didn't like (spoilers!):
1. Lucy makes some mathematical errors when calculating the expected time of dog pickup (e.g., the gambler's fallacy and not considering it as a Poisson process). This could be excused for a normal character, but as an alleged “genius” that solves a Putnam problem in 5 minutes it seems unlikely she would make such errors.
2. The plot with the dog getting cancer felt contrived to manipulate the emotions of the reader. I would have rather focused on feeling emotions towards the main human characters, but this kind of overshadowed anything they did. Also, the resolution was not really satisfying, as it felt very deus ex machina as well as thinking of all the suffering the new owner will have to endure just to assuage some child's guilt.

I liked this one the least of the (currently) 4 books in the series, mainly because the first 1/2 felt like it dragged on quite a lot and I didn't love the arc of having Osaron show up at the beginning then basically do nothing for a while as the main characters set up their plan to defeat it. But overall it's still really good, with exciting action and interesting characters (Holland being the best).

The first ~25% of the book was a really interesting look at the history of burnout, the three main axes of burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, and ineffectiveness), and the general cause (a disconnect between the imagined job and what it really entails).

After that, the book goes on some rambling meanders that seem like they were only put there to pad the page count to a minimum level. I would recommend reading only the first few chapters, then skip the rest.

• Some interesting sci-fi ideas.
  - Dragged on a lot in the middle of the book. Plot isn't very compelling.
  - Too many characters that were not really individuated. All of them sort of blended together. Doesn't help that multiple characters have the same name. I didn't really find myself caring what happened to any of them.
  - Seems unrealistic that alien spiders would behave extremely similarly to humans. They didn't really feel ‘alien' at all.

• Interesting central conceit (Vietnamese double agent after the end of the Vietnam war).
  + Had some good satirical parts, e.g. making the Vietnam war film and other commentary on life in the US.
  
  - Writing was very rambling, especially in the last third. Really could have used some editing. The whole last third felt like a bad version of Darkness at Noon.
  - The ending was really illogical and random.
  - The main character was not very interesting. It wasn't clear what his motivations were and why we should really care about him.
  - I wish it had explored more about either the Vietnamese immigrant experience or life in Vietnam after the end of the war.

Pros:
+ Good worldbuilding.
+ Some characters are interesting.

Cons:
+ No real conflict or tension. This is the biggest flaw.
+ No real plot.
+ Some very cliched plot elements like the “in love with AI” person (without adding anything new that hasn't been done before).
+ Too many characters (and species!) so it's hard to keep them straight and they don't feel fleshed out. It doesn't help that there are too many POVs.

I did like it overall but I was hoping for slightly more facts about space. Also the pacing felt a bit off, we don't learn that much about the MC until the very end and then it comes all really fast at once. Would have liked a bit more hints sprinkled in about what's really going on.

A great traditional mystery. Sort of in-between Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie. Also I think it's better than Harry Potter. It has higher-quality characterization and a more interesting plot.

Book with the premise that the main character lives his life out of order, each day from his perspective occuring at a different point in time in his life. This is the same premise as Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore, although I liked that book quite a bit better. The Day Tripper kind of bogged down the main character moping about smoking and drinking the whole first 2/3 of the book and it felt somewhat tedious. Then when he turned his life around it seemed like it happened way too quickly. The ending was very sweet though.

Overall enjoyable, but the format left some of the games with not enough depth, and seemed like forced him to include several that were quite similar to others. Some of the games didn't even really have the rules explained, but then the chapter continued as if you already knew the rules. Also, I was hoping for a bit more math/game theory. And certain games that I am pretty familiar with just plain had errors, such as the history of MTG (makes me wonder if the other chapters have errors as well)?

Fantastic. Probably my favorite fantasy book I've ever read now (previously it was Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell). I would say that it's probably better to read the “Shades of Magic” trilogy first but not strictly necessary if you are quick at picking things up (I didn't).