In 2023, I finished and reviewed 53 books, continuing a trend of year-over-year increases and of reading the most books since 2012 (the last year I averaged five books a month). Reviewing continued to be uneven, with a significant slump in the summer and smaller slumps in February and November, and a big clump of reviews finished in October in addition to my normal year-end reading and reviewing vacation. The unevenness this year was mostly due to finishing books and not writing reviews immediately. Reviews are much harder to write when the finished books are piling up, so one goal for 2024 is to not let that happen again. I enter the new year with one book finished and not yet reviewed, after reading a book about every day and a half during my December vacation. I read two all-time favorite books this year. The first was Emily Tesh's debut novel Some Desperate Glory, which is one of the best space opera novels I have ever read. I cannot improve on Shelley Parker-Chan's blurb for this book: "Fierce and heartbreakingly humane, this book is for everyone who loved Ender's Game, but Ender's Game didn't love them back." This is not hard science fiction but it is fantastic character fiction. It was exactly what I needed in the middle of a year in which I was fighting a "burn everything down" mood. The second was Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, the 29th Discworld and 6th Watch novel. Throughout my Discworld read-through, Pratchett felt like he was on the cusp of a truly stand-out novel, one where all the pieces fit and the book becomes something more than the sum of its parts. This was that book. It's a book about ethics and revolutions and governance, but also about how your perception of yourself changes as you get older. It does all of the normal Pratchett things, just... better. While I would love to point new Discworld readers at it, I think you do have to read at least the Watch novels that came before it for it to carry its proper emotional heft. This was overall a solid year for fiction reading. I read another 15 novels I rated 8 out of 10, and 12 that I rated 7 out of 10. The largest contributor to that was my Discworld read-through, which was reliably entertaining throughout the year. The run of Discworld books between The Fifth Elephant (read late last year) and Wintersmith (my last of this year) was the best run of Discworld novels so far. One additional book I'll call out as particularly worth reading is Thud!, the Watch novel after Night Watch and another excellent entry. I read two stand-out non-fiction books this year. The first was Oliver Darkshire's delightful memoir about life as a rare book seller, Once Upon a Tome. One of the things I will miss about Twitter is the regularity with which I stumbled across fascinating people and then got to read their books. I'm off Twitter permanently now because the platform is designed to make me incoherently angry and I need less of that in my life, but it was very good at finding delightfully quirky books like this one. My other favorite non-fiction book of the year was Michael Lewis's Going Infinite, a profile of Sam Bankman-Fried. I'm still bemused at the negative reviews that this got from people who were upset that Lewis didn't turn the story into a black-and-white morality play. Bankman-Fried's actions were clearly criminal; that's not in dispute. Human motivations can be complex in ways that are irrelevant to the law, and I thought this attempt to understand that complexity by a top-notch storyteller was worthy of attention. Also worth a mention is Tony Judt's Postwar, the first book I reviewed in 2023. A sprawling history of post-World-War-II Europe will never have the sheer readability of shorter, punchier books, but this was the most informative book that I read in 2023. 2024 should see the conclusion of my Discworld read-through, after which I may return to re-reading Mercedes Lackey or David Eddings, both of which I paused to make time for Terry Pratchett. I also have another re-read similar to my Chronicles of Narnia reviews that I've been thinking about for a while. Perhaps I will start that next year; perhaps it will wait for 2025. Apart from that, my intention as always is to read steadily, write reviews as close to when I finished the book as possible, and make reading time for my huge existing backlog despite the constant allure of new releases. Here's to a new year full of more new-to-me books and occasional old favorites. The full analysis includes some additional personal reading statistics, probably only of interest to me.

Review: Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett

Series:	Discworld #31
Publisher:	Harper
Copyright:	October 2003
Printing:	August 2014
ISBN:	0-06-230741-X
Format:	Mass market
Pages:	457

Monstrous Regiment is the 31st Discworld novel, but it mostly stands by itself. You arguably could start here, although you would miss the significance of Vimes's presence and the references to The Truth. The graphical reading order guide puts it loosely after The Truth and roughly in the Industrial Revolution sequence, but the connections are rather faint.

There was always a war. Usually they were border disputes, the national equivalent of complaining that the neighbor was letting their hedge row grow too long. Sometimes they were bigger. Borogravia was a peace-loving country in the middle of treacherous, devious, warlike enemies. They had to be treacherous, devious, and warlike; otherwise, we wouldn't be fighting them, eh? There was always a war.

Polly's brother, who wanted nothing more than to paint (something that the god Nuggan and the ever-present Duchess certainly did not consider appropriate for a strapping young man), was recruited to fight in the war and never came back. Polly is worried about him and tired of waiting for news. Exit Polly, innkeeper's daughter, and enter the young lad Oliver Perks, who finds the army recruiters in a tavern the next town over. One kiss of the Duchess's portrait later, and Polly is a private in the Borogravian army. I suspect this is some people's favorite Discworld novel. If so, I understand why. It was not mine, for reasons that I'll get into, but which are largely not Pratchett's fault and fall more into the category of pet peeves. Pratchett has dealt with both war and gender in the same book before. Jingo is also about a war pushed by a ruling class for stupid reasons, and featured a substantial subplot about Nobby cross-dressing that turns into a deeper character re-evaluation. I thought the war part of Monstrous Regiment was weaker (this is part of my complaint below), but gender gets a considerably deeper treatment. Monstrous Regiment is partly about how arbitrary and nonsensical gender roles are, and largely about how arbitrary and abusive social structures can become weirdly enduring because they build up their own internally reinforcing momentum. No one knows how to stop them, and a lot of people find familiar misery less frightening than unknown change, so the structure continues despite serving no defensible purpose. Recently, there was a brief attempt in some circles to claim Pratchett posthumously for the anti-transgender cause in the UK. Pratchett's daughter was having none of it, and any Pratchett reader should have been able to reject that out of hand, but Monstrous Regiment is a comprehensive refutation written by Pratchett himself some twenty years earlier. Polly is herself is not transgender. She thinks of herself as a woman throughout the book; she's just pretending to be a boy. But she also rejects binary gender roles with the scathing dismissal of someone who knows first-hand how superficial they are, and there is at least one transgender character in this novel (although to say who would be a spoiler). By the end of the book, you will have no doubt that Pratchett's opinion about people imposing gender roles on others is the same as his opinion about every other attempt to treat people as things. That said, by 2023 standards the treatment of gender here seems... naive? I think 2003 may sadly have been a more innocent time. We're now deep into a vicious backlash against any attempt to question binary gender assignment, but very little of that nastiness and malice is present here. In one way, this is a feature; there's more than enough of that in real life. However, it also makes the undermining of gender roles feel a bit too easy. There are good in-story reasons for why it's relatively simple for Polly to pass as a boy, but I still spent a lot of the book thinking that passing as a private in the army would be a lot harder and riskier than this. Pratchett can't resist a lot of cross-dressing and gender befuddlement jokes, all of which are kindly and wry but (at least for me) hit a bit differently in 2023 than they would have in 2003. The climax of the story is also a reference to a classic UK novel that to even name would be to spoil one or both of the books, but which I thought pulled the punch of the story and dissipated a lot of the built-up emotional energy. My larger complaints, though, are more idiosyncratic. This is a war novel about the enlisted ranks, including the hazing rituals involved in joining the military. There are things I love about military fiction, but apparently that reaction requires I have some sympathy for the fight or the goals of the institution. Monstrous Regiment falls into the class of war stories where the war is pointless and the system is abusive but the camaraderie in the ranks makes service oddly worthwhile, if not entirely justifiable. This is a real feeling that many veterans do have about military service, and I don't mean to question it, but apparently reading about it makes me grumbly. There's only so much of the apparently gruff sergeant with a heart of gold that I can take before I start wondering why we glorify hazing rituals as a type of tough love, or why the person with some authority doesn't put a direct stop to nastiness instead of providing moral support so subtle you could easily blink and miss it. Let alone the more basic problems like none of these people should have to be here doing this, or lots of people are being mangled and killed to make possible this heart-warming friendship. Like I said earlier, this is a me problem, not a Pratchett problem. He's writing a perfectly reasonable story in a genre I just happen to dislike. He's even undermining the genre in the process, just not quite fast enough or thoroughly enough for my taste. A related grumble is that Monstrous Regiment is very invested in the military trope of naive and somewhat incompetent officers who have to be led by the nose by experienced sergeants into making the right decision. I have never been in the military, but I work in an industry in which it is common to treat management as useless incompetents at best and actively malicious forces at worst. This is, to me, one of the most persistently obnoxious attitudes in my profession, and apparently my dislike of it carries over as a low tolerance for this very common attitude towards military hierarchy. A full expansion of this point would mostly be about the purpose of management, division of labor, and people's persistent dismissal of skills they don't personally have and may perceive as gendered, and while some of that is tangentially related to this book, it's not closely-related enough for me to bore you with it in a review. Maybe I'll write a stand-alone blog post someday. Suffice it to say that Pratchett deployed a common trope that most people would laugh at and read past without a second thought, but that for my own reasons started getting under my skin by the end of the novel. All of that grumbling aside, I did like this book. It is a very solid Discworld novel that does all the typical things a Discworld novel does: likable protagonists you can root for, odd and fascinating side characters, sharp and witty observations of human nature, and a mostly enjoyable ending where most of the right things happen. Polly is great; I was very happy to read a book from her perspective and would happily read more. Vimes makes a few appearances being Vimes, and while I found his approach in this book less satisfying than in Jingo, I'll still take it. And the examination of gender roles, even if a bit less fraught than current politics, is solid Pratchett morality. The best part of this book for me, by far, is Wazzer. I think that subplot was the most Discworld part of this book: a deeply devout belief in a pseudo-godlike figure that is part of the abusive social structure that creates many of the problems of the book becomes something considerably stranger and more wonderful. There is a type of belief that is so powerful that it transforms the target of that belief, at least in worlds like Discworld that have a lot of ambient magic. Not many people have that type of belief, and having it is not a comfortable experience, but it makes for a truly excellent story. Monstrous Regiment is a solid Discworld novel. It was not one of my favorites, but it probably will be someone else's favorite for a host of good reasons. Good stuff; if you've read this far, you will enjoy it. Followed by A Hat Full of Sky in publication order, and thematically (but very loosely) by Going Postal. Rating: 8 out of 10

co2mon.nz currently uses monitors based on Oliver Seiler s open source design which I am personally building. This post describes my exploration of how to achieve production of a CO2 monitor that could enable the growth of co2mon.nz.

Goals Primarily I want to design a CO2 monitor which allows the majority of the production process to be outsourced. In particular, the PCB should be able to be assembled in an automated fashion (PCBA). As a secondary goal, I d like to improve the aesthetics of the monitor while retaining the unique feature of displaying clear visual indication of the current ventilation level through coloured lights. Overall, I ll consider the project successfull if I can achieve a visually attractive CO2 monitor which takes me less than 10 minutes per monitor to assemble/box/ship and whose production cost has the potential to be lower than the current model.

PCB

Schematic The existing CO2 monitor design provides a solid foundation but relies upon the ESP32 Devkit board, which is intended for evaluation purposes and is not well suited to automated assembly. Replacing this devkit board with the underlying ESP32 module is the major change needed to enable PCBA production, which then also requires moving the supporting electronics from the devkit board directly onto the primary PCB. The basic ESP32 chipset used in the devkit boards is no longer available as a discrete module suitable for placement directly onto a PCB which means the board will also have to be updated to use a more modern variant of the ESP32 chipset which is in active production such as the ESP32-S3. The ESP32-S3-WROOM1-N4 module is a very close match to the original devkit and will be suitable for this project. In addition to the change of ESP module, I made the following other changes to the components in use:

• Added an additional temperature/humidity sensor (SHT30). The current monitors take temperature/humidity measurements from the SCD40 chipset. These are primarily intended to help in the calculation of CO2 levels and rely on an offset being subtracted to account for the heat generated by the electronic components themselves. I ve found their accuracy to OK, but not perfect. SHT30 is a cheap part, so its addition to hopefully provide improved temperature/humidity measurement is an easy choice.
• Swapped to USB-C instead of USB-B for the power connector. USB-C is much more common than USB-B and is also smaller and not as tall off the board which provides more flexibility in the case design.

With major components selected the key task is to draw the schematic diagram describing how they electrically connect to each other, which includes all the supporting electronics (e.g. resistors, capacitors, etc) needed. I started out trying to use the EasyEDA/OSHWLab ecosystem thinking the tight integration with JLCPCB s assembly services would be a benefit, but the web interface was too clunky and limiting and I quickly got frustrated. KiCad proved to be a much more pleasant and capable tool for the job. The reference design in the ESP32 datasheet (p28) and USB-C power supply examples from blnlabs were particularly helpful alongside the KiCad documentation and the example of the existing monitor in completing this step (click the image to enlarge).

Layout The next step is to physically lay out where each component from the schematic will sit on the PCB itself. Obviously this requires first determining the overall size, shape and outline of the board and needs to occur in iteration with the intended design of the overall monitor, including the case, to ensure components like switches and USB sockets line up correctly. In addition to the requirements around the look and function of the case, the components themselves also have considerations that must be taken into account, including:

• For best WiFi reception, the ESP32 antenna should be at the top of the monitor and should not have PCB underneath it, or for a specified distance either side of it.
• The SHT30 temperature sensor should be as far from any heat generating components (e.g. the ESP32, BME680 and SCD40 modules) as possible and also considering that any generated heat will rise, as low on the monitor as possible.
• The sensors measuring the air (SCD40, BME680 and SHT30) must have good exposure to the air outside the case.

Taking all of these factors into account I ended up with a square PCB containing a cutout in the top right so that the ESP32 antenna can sit within the overall square outline while still meeting its design requirements. The SCD40 and BME680 sit in the top left corner, near the edges for good airflow and far away from the SHT30 temperature sensor in the bottom left corner. The LEDs I placed in a horizontal row across the center of the board, the LCD in the bottom right, a push button on the right-hand side and the USB-C socket in the center at the bottom. Once the components are placed, the next big task is to route the traces (aka wires) between the components on the board such that all the required electrical connections are made without any unintended connections (aka shorts) being created. This is a fun constraint solving/optimisation challenge and takes on an almost artistic aspect with other PCB designers often having strong opinions on which layout is best. The majority of the traces and routing for this board were able to be placed on the top layer of the PCB, but I also made use of the back layer for a few traces to help avoid conflicts and deal with places where different traces needed to cross each other. It s easy to see how this step would be much more challenging and time consuming on a larger and more complex PCB design. The final touches were to add some debugging breakouts for the serial and JTAG ports on the ESP32-S3 and a logo and various other helpful text on the silkscreen layer that will be printed on the PCB so it looks nice.

Production For assembly of the PCB, I went with JLCPCB based out of China. The trickiest part of the process was component selection and ensuring that the parts I had planned in the schematic were available. JLCPCB in conjunction with lcsc.com provides a basic and extended part library. If you use only basic parts you get quicker and cheaper assembly, while using extended parts bumps your order into a longer process with a small fee charged for each component on the board. Initially I spent a lot of time selecting components (particularly LEDs and switches) that were in the basic library before realising that the ESP32 modules are only available in the extended library! I think the lesson is that unless you re building the most trivial PCB with only passive components you will almost certainly end up in the advanced assembly process anyway, so trying to stay within the basic parts library is not worth the time. Unfortunately the SCD40 sensor, the most crucial part of the monitor, is not stocked at all by JLCPCB/LCSC! To work around this JLCPCB will maintain a personal component library for you when you ship components to them to for use in future orders. Given the extra logistical time and hassle of having to do this, combined with having a number of SCD40 components already on hand I decided to have the boards assembled without this component populated for the initial prototype run. This also had the benefit of lowering the risk if something went wrong as the cost of the SCD40 is greater than the cost of the PCB and all the other components combined! I found the kicad-jlcpcb-tools plugin for KiCad invaluable for keeping track of what part from lcsc.com I was planning to use for each component and generating the necessary output files for JLCPCB. The plugin allows you to store these mappings in your actual schematic which is very handy. The search interface it provides is fairly clunky and I found it was often easier to search for the part I needed on lcsc.com and then just copy the part number across into the plugin s search box rather than trying to search by name or component type. The LCD screen is the remaining component which is not easily assembled onto the PCB directly, but as you ll see next, this actually turned out to be OK as integrating the screen directly into the case makes the final assembly process smoother. The final surprise in the assembly process was the concept of edge rails, additional PCB material that is needed on either side of the board to help with feeding it through the assembly machine in the correct position. These can be added automatically by JLCPCB and have to be snapped off after the completed boards are received. I hadn t heard about these before and I was a little worried that they d interfere or get in the way of either the antenna cut-out at the top of the board, or the switch on the right hand side as it overhangs the edge so it can sit flush with the case. In the end there was no issue with the edge rails. The switch was placed hanging over them without issue and snapping them off once the boards arrived was a trivial 30s job using a vice to hold the edge rail and then gently tipping the board over until it snapped off - the interface between the board and the rails while solid looking has obviously been scored or perforated in some way during the production process so the edge breaks cleanly and smoothly. Magic! The process was amazingly quick with the completed PCBs (picture above) arriving within 7 days of the order being placed and looking amazing.

Case

Design I mocked up a very simple prototype of the case in FreeCAD during the PCB design process to help position and align the placement of the screen, switch and USB socket on the PCB as all three of these components interface directly with the edges of the case. Initially this design was similar to the current monitor design where the PCB (with lights and screen attached) sits in the bottom of the case, which has walls containing grilles for airflow and then a separate transparent perspex is screwed onto the top to complete the enclosure. As part of the aesthetic improvements for the new monitor I wanted to move away from a transparent front panel to something opaque but still translucent enough to allow the colour of the lights to show through. Without a transparent front panel the LCD also needs to be mounted directly into the case itself. The first few prototype iterations followed the design of the original CO2 monitor with a flat front panel that attaches to the rest of the case containing the PCB, but the new requirement to also attach the LCD to the front panel proved to make this unworkable. To stay in place the LCD has to be pushed onto mounting poles containing a catch mechanism which requires a moderate amount of force and applying that force to the LCD board when it is already connected to the PCB is essentially impossible. As a result I ended up completely flipping the design such that the front panel is a single piece of plastic that also encompasses the walls of the case and contains appropriate mounting stakes for both the screen and the main PCB. Getting to this design hugely simplified the assembly process. Starting with an empty case lying face down on a bench, the LCD screen is pushed onto the mounting poles and sits flush with the cover of the case - easily achieved without the main PCB yet in place. Next, the main PCB is gently lowered into the case facing downwards and sits on the mounting pole in each corner with the pins for the LCD just protruding through the appropriate holes in the PCB ready to be quickly soldered into place (this took significant iteration and tuning of dimensions/positioning to achieve!). Finally, a back panel can be attached which holds the PCB in place and uses cantilever snap joints to click on to the rest of the case. Overall the design is a huge improvement over the previous case which required screws and spacers to position the PCB and cover relative to the rest of the case, with the spacers and screws being particularly fiddly to work with. The major concern I had with the new design was that the mount to attach the monitor to the wall has moved from being attached to the main case and components directly to needing to be on the removable back panel - if the clips holding this panel to the case fail the core part of the monitor will fall off the wall which would not be good. To guard against this I ve doubled the size and number of clips at the top of the case (which bears the weight) and the result seems very robust in my testing. To completely assemble a monitor, including the soldering step takes me about 2-3 minutes individually, and would be even quicker if working in batches.

Production Given the number of design/testing iterations required to fine tune the case I chose not to outsource case production for now and used my 3D printer to produce them. I ve successfully used JLCPCB s 3D printing service for the previous case design, so I m confident that getting sufficient cases printed from JLCPCB or another supplier will not be an issue now that the design is finalised. I tried a variety of filament colours, but settled on a transparent filament which once combined in the necessary layers to form the case is not actually transparent like perspex is, but provides a nice translucent medium which achieves the goal of having the light colour visible without exposing all of the circuit board detail. There s room for future improvement in the positioning of the LEDs on the circuit board to provide a more even distribution of light across the case but overall I really like the way the completed monitor ends up looking.

Evaluation Building this monitor has been a really fun project, both in seeing something progress from an idea, to plans on a screen to a nice physical thing on my wall, but also in learning and developing a bunch of new skills in PCB design, assembly and 3D design. The goal of having a CO2 monitor which I can outsource the vast majority of production of is as close to being met as I think is possible without undertaking the final proof of placing a large order. I ve satisfied myself that each step is feasible and that the final assembly process is quick, easy and well below the level of effort and time it was taking me to produce the original monitors. Cost wise it s also a huge win, primarily in terms of the time taken, but also in the raw components - currently the five prototypes I ordered and built are on par with the component cost of the original CO2 monitor, but this will drop further with larger orders due to price breaks and amortisation of the setup and shipping expenses across more monitors. This project has also given me a much better appreciation for how much I m only just scratching the surface of the potential complexities and challenges in producing a hardware product of this type. I m reasonably confident I could successfully produce a few hundred and maybe even a few thousand monitors using this approach, but it s also clear that getting beyond that point is and would be a whole further level of effort and learning. Hardware is hard work. That s not news to anyone, including me, but there is something to be said for experiencing the process first hand to make the reality of what s required real. The PCB and case designs are both shared and can be found at https://github.com/co2monnz/co2monitor-pcb and https://github.com/co2monnz/cad, feedback and suggestions welcome!

I think this is partial because I also have a stack of other books that I missed recording. At some point, I should stop using this method to track book acquisitions in favor of one of the many programs intended for this purpose, but it's in the long list of other things I really should do one of these days. As usual, I have already read and reviewed a few of these. I might be getting marginally better at reading books shortly after I acquire them? Maybe? Steven Brust Tsalmoth (sff)
C.L. Clark The Faithless (sff)
Oliver Darkshire Once Upon a Tome (non-fiction)
Hernan Diaz Trust (mainstream)
S.B. Divya Meru (sff)
Kate Elliott Furious Heaven (sff)
Steven Flavall Before We Go Live (non-fiction)
R.F. Kuang Babel (sff)
Laurie Marks Dancing Jack (sff)
Arkady Martine Rose/House (sff)
Madeline Miller Circe (sff)
Jenny Odell Saving Time (non-fiction)
Malka Older The Mimicking of Known Successes (sff)
Sabaa Tahir An Ember in the Ashes (sff)
Emily Tesh Some Desperate Glory (sff)
Valerie Valdes Chilling Effect (sff)

Previously, I explained why ventilation monitoring is important, and the opportunity I see to help accelerate deployment of high quality ventilation monitoring for small businesses and organisations. In this post, I m going to discuss my plans to tackle that opportunity:

My journey to ventilation monitoring I started looking into ventilation monitoring in detail last year when I wanted to ensure that the classrooms of our local primary school were well ventilated during the Omicron outbreak. That research revealed that the existing products on offer were challenging to deploy in a school environment from a cost perspective while also not providing perfect functionality. I built and deployed a set of monitors to our local school, along with a corresponding set of software and web services that provide management of the monitors and visibility into the collected data and trends. The benefit of the monitoring is evident - CO2 concentration drops immediately after a notification occurs, indicating the intended action of increasing ventilation is taking place. Initially this occurred more frequently, but over time low concentrations of CO2, indicating good ventilation levels, are regularly achieved across the school day thanks to simple changes in routine being established, such as leaving windows cracked open. As the benefits of the project to the school became clear, my ambition and vision for ventilation monitoring grew from wanting to see my children learn in a safe and effective environment to desiring safe and effective learning, working, living and social spaces for everyone.

co2mon.nz: Ventilation monitoring as a service prototype co2mon.nz is the service that I have launched to explore this opportunity. Based on the same hardware and software that I used for the school deployment I am selling both a physical CO2 monitor and an ongoing subscription service for the management and monitoring. Together, the monitor and software provide an effective and affordable path to understanding indoor air quality and ventilation status that anyone can use.

CO2 monitor The CO2 monitor hardware and firmware are based on Oliver Seiler s design using a Sensirion SCD40 module for CO2 measurement and providing immediate in-room feedback via an on-monitor screen as well as a red/orange/green traffic light . In addition to the immediate feedback provided by the monitor itself, a WiFi connection can be configured allowing every measurement to be reported back to the supporting monitoring and management service. At the current prototype stage, I am building all the hardware, 3D printing the plastic cases and assembling the circuit board from purchased components through a production line in my home workshop. The monitor is powered via a standard USB cable and wall adaptor for simplicity. The first batch of monitors I built have been operating smoothly for nearly a year now. Further refinement and development of the design is required but already I am impressed with the potential this combination of easily accessible components provides to enable widespread adoption and deployment of ventilation monitoring.

Monitoring and management service The web service provides a historical record of CO2 levels from each monitor through a set of graphs and other dashboards and allows for this data to be shared or published. This is useful both for providing visibility into ventilation status to those not directly present in the space (e.g. across an entire school) and to allow insights into trends and patterns in ventilation to be observed and acted upon. When I began the project I approached the software side as an opportunity to explore the real-world equivalents of many of the internal tools and components that I was used to using within Google. That s been a fun process, even though it means I ve invested far more time on the software than the current number of customers or business state can really justify. Communication with the monitors occurs via MQTT into a custom Go service responsible for maintaining the fleet and exposing the measurement data to Prometheus which acts as the storage layer. A second service (based on the Buffalo web framework) is responsible for serving the web interface containing the dashboards and configuration options. Alongside these core components another small Golang service manages a private X509 certificate authority to provide monitor identity and encryption of the measurement data and an automated pipeline of scripts and triggers takes care of firmware provisioning, sensor calibration and burn-in/failure testing when building batches of monitors. While simple, the design is easy to manage and could scale to support many, many more monitors without significant effort. I m hosting the infrastructure on AWS, which I ve found pleasant and easy to use, and while not a typical choice, I m very pleased with the performance and flexibility that Prometheus offers as a data storage layer.

Areas of development The prototype has been effective in proving the feasibility of offering ventilation monitoring as a service, but to evolve the prototype into an actual business is going to require further effort in the following areas:

Finding product market fit I m confident that what co2mon.nz is offering could provide a useful and needed service for many small business owners and numerous others, but the question of whether it s sufficiently compelling that a sizeable group of customers see enough value that they re willing to regularly pay for it and therefore sustain a business providing the service is not yet proven. While initial feedback on the idea has been positive, much of it has been from family and friends and I ve spent more time building the software (which has been fun and educational) than I have talking to actual potential customers and understanding their needs and wants. This is a classic trap that technical founders fall into, and I m guilty despite my best intentions it s comfortable and easy for me to work on the parts where I have existing experience and neglect putting time into the customer-facing sales, marketing and research which are more uncomfortable, new and challenging!

Scaling monitor production Scaling from the current prototype batches I have built to even modest levels (e.g. hundreds) of sales will require outsourcing. There are several potential New Zealand and overseas providers I can work with which look very promising, but will require iteration of the hardware design (e.g. to remove through-hole components which add complexity and expense to the PCB assembly process). The lead times I ve been quoted for working with these outsourced providers are in the order of 1-2 months per batch, and on top of this there are a number of other risks in terms of component availability and regulatory compliance that may add additional delays or time to resolve, particularly as my experience leans towards the software rather than the hardware. It seems counter-intuitive to worry about how to scale to meet demand that doesn t yet provably exist, but given the potentially long lead times involved in establishing outsourced production I think it s worth taking some risk in starting this journey early.

Next steps My aim now is to intentionally change my focus from the software to learning about the market and finding the right product to offer via two channels:

1. Via online marketing, to reach a wide range of potential customers and allow rapid iteration and testing of a variety of product/service combinations, including referral options for existing customers.
2. In-person with small businesses in my local area to seek out direct feedback and thoughts on the general issue of ventilation monitoring and the specific service I m offering.

One concrete possibility I m keen to test via both channels is a simple monthly price for the combined service, rather than purchasing a monitor and separate software subscription. This has the potential to be both simpler to market and explain to customers, while also opening the possibility of short-term rental or evaluation to customers who are not willing to make a long-term investment or commitment. In parallel to the customer-focused discovery work, but as an explicit lower priority, I ll order an initial small batch of outsourced monitors to begin gaining experience with that process accepting the risk that the time and cost may turn out to be wasted if the product is wrong or not a good match for customers needs.

Review: Once Upon a Tome, by Oliver Darkshire

Publisher:	W.W. Norton & Company
Copyright:	2022
Printing:	2023
ISBN:	1-324-09208-4
Format:	Kindle
Pages:	243

The full title page of this book, in delightful 19th century style, is:

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller, wherein the theory of the profession is partially explained, with a variety of insufficient examples, by Oliver Darkshire. Interspersed with several diverting FOOTNOTES of a comical nature, ably ILLUSTRATED by Rohan Eason, PUBLISHED by W.W. Norton, and humbly proposed to the consideration of the public in this YEAR 2023

That may already be enough to give you a feel for this book. Oliver Darkshire works for Sotheran's Rare Books and Prints in London, most notably running their highly entertaining Twitter account. This is his first book. If you have been hanging out in the right corners of Twitter, you have probably been anticipating the release of this book, and may already have your own copy. If you have not (and to be honest it's increasingly dubious whether there are right corners of Twitter left), you're in for a treat. Darkshire has made Sotheran's a minor Twitter phenomenon due to tweets like this:

CUSTOMER: oh thank heavens I have been searching for a rare book expert with the knowledge to solve my complex problem ME (extremely and unhelpfully specialized): ok well the words are usually on the inside and I can see that's true here, so that's a good start I find I know lots of things until anyone asks me about it or there is a question to answer, at which point I know nothing, I am a void, a tragic bucket of ignorance

My hope was that Once Upon a Tome would be the same thing at book length, and I am delighted to report that's exactly what it is. By the time I finished reading the story of Darkshire's early training, I knew I was going to savor every word.

The hardest part, though, lies in recording precisely in what ways a book has survived the ravages of time. An entire lexicon of book-related terminology has evolved over hundreds of years for exactly this purpose terminology that means absolutely nothing to the average observer. It's traditional to adopt this baroque language when describing your books, for two reasons. The first is that the specific language of the book trade allows you to be exceedingly accurate and precise without using hundreds of words, and the second is that the elegance of it serves to dull the blow a little. Most rare books come with some minor defects, but that doesn't mean one has to be rude about it.

You will learn something about rare book selling in this book, and more about Darkshire's colleagues, but primarily this is a book-length attempt to convey the slightly uncanny experience of working in a rare bookstore in an entertaining way. Also, to be fully accurate, it is an attempt shift the bookstore sideways in the reader's mind into a fantasy world that mostly but not entirely parallels ours; as the introduction mentions, this is not a strictly accurate day-by-day account of life at the store, and stories have been altered and conflated in the telling. Rare bookselling is a retail job but a rather strange one, with its own conventions and unusual customers. Darkshire memorably divides rare book collectors into Smaugs and Draculas: Smaugs assemble vast lairs of precious items, Draculas have one very specific interest, and one's success at selling a book depends on identifying which type of customer one is dealing with. Like all good writing about retail jobs, half of the fun is descriptions of the customers.

The Suited Gentlemen turn up annually, smartly dressed in matching suits and asking to see any material we have on Ayn Rand. Faces usually obscured by large dark glasses, they move without making a sound, and only travel in pairs. Sometimes they will bark out a laugh at nothing in particular, as if mimicking what they think humans do.

There are more facets than the typical retail job, though, since the suppliers of the rare book trade (book runners, estate sales, and collectors who have been sternly instructed by spouses to trim down their collections) are as odd and varied as the buyers. This sort of book rests entirely on the sense of humor of the author, and I thought Darkshire's approach was perfect. He has the knack of poking fun at himself as much as he pokes fun at anyone around him. This book conveys an air of perpetual bafflement at stumbling into a job that suits him as well as this one does, praise of the skills of his coworkers, and gently self-deprecating descriptions of his own efforts. Combine that with well-honed sentences, a flair for brief and memorable description, and an accurate sense of how long a story should last, and one couldn't ask for more from this style of book.

The book rest where the bible would be held (leaving arms free for gesticulation) was carved into the shape of a huge wooden eagle. I m given to understand this is the kind of eloquent and confusing metaphor one expects in a place of worship, as the talons of the divine descend from above in a flurry of wings and death, but it seemed to alarm people to come face to face with the beaked fury of God as they entered the bookshop.

I've barely scratched the surface of great quotes from this book. If you like rare books, bookstores, or even just well-told absurd stories of working a retail job, read this. It reminds me of True Porn Clerk Stories, except with much less off-putting subject matter and even better writing. (Interestingly to me, it also shares with those stories, albeit for different reasons, a more complicated balance of power between the retail worker and the customer than the typical retail establishment.) My one wish is that I would have enjoyed more specific detail about the rare books themselves, since Darkshire only rarely describes successful retail transactions. But that's only a minor quibble. This was a pure delight from cover to cover and exactly what I was hoping for when I preordered it. Highly recommended. Rating: 9 out of 10

The importance of clean, fresh indoor air is one of the most tangible takeaways of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to being an effective risk mitigation strategy for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses, clean, fresh air is necessary to enable effective cognitive performance. Monitoring indoor air quality is relatively easy to do, but traditionally has not been a key focus. I believe air quality monitoring should be accessible for any indoor space, and for highly occupied indoor spaces should be provided on a continuous basis. This post explores the need and an opportunity for a business that can accelerate the adoption of ventilation monitoring through the following topics:

The importance of indoor air quality Clean, fresh air is fundamental to life and health. That might sound obvious, but unfortunately being obvious is not enough to ensure the air we breathe is in fact always clean and healthy. Repeated studies have revealed that in many cases the air you re breathing at school, in the bus or at work and probably also at home falls well below the ideal of what clean, fresh air should be. Unclean air has potential long-term health impacts and has also been shown to lower cognitive performance impacting the ability to learn and work as well as increasing the risk of transmission of respiratory illnesses like Covid-19 and the flu. Ventilation (replacing old stale air with clean fresh air) is the most effective and economical method of improving and maintaining high indoor air quality. Most New Zealand buildings (including schools and houses) are designed to rely on manual ventilation (opening windows), while newer buildings, often including larger or commercial buildings may use mechanical ventilation involving fans and ducts. Mechanical ventilation including filtration may also be required in situations where the outdoor air is not clean and fresh such as in a city or next to a busy intersection.

Observing the invisible Overall air quality is a complex topic involving many contributing factors, many of which are invisible and not perceptible to us until well after adverse effects or irritation occur. This complexity and lack of visible signal is a large contributing factor to the ignorance and lack of attention towards indoor air quality that is prevalent in most buildings and indoor spaces today. Our attention is biased towards the risks that we can see, and this default bias has not been helped by hesitation and resistance to the idea that aerosol transmission and air quality is an important factor in preventing disease transmission that has only recently started to change. Zeynep Tufekci has a great overview that provides fascinating context for how an overreaction to the early incorrect theories of bad air and miasma causing disease contributed to aerosol transmission and air quality being incorrectly neglected for so long. Correcting this history of inattention to indoor air quality is going to take time and effort, but one significant step that we can take to help start the journey to ensuring all indoor spaces have clean, healthy air is to make the invisible part visible. The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in a space is an incredibly effective and easy to measure proxy for the ventilation of a space. The atmospheric background level of CO2 is around 420 parts per million (ppm), while our exhaled breath has concentrations as high as 40,000 ppm. Without effective ventilation, one or more people breathing in an enclosed space will rapidly lead to an observable increase in CO2 concentration, which in turn provides a signal that the ventilation is insufficient and needs to be improved. Monitoring CO2 and improving ventilation is not a panacea for all possible air quality issues, but for the majority of buildings and indoor spaces, using CO2 as a proxy for ventilation and increasing ventilation when CO2 levels rise above recommended levels is a simple, effective and achievable approach that will deliver improvements in cognitive performance and reduction in the risk of disease transmission with few, if any, downsides or risks. See this Public Health Communication Centre briefing for a more detailed explanation.

Adding clean air to our hygiene practices We have well established expectations of hygiene for the food we eat and the water we drink and these expectations are codified in regulations that ensure those providing these services do so in a way that gives us confidence that we re not going to be at risk of illness. You may recall seeing food grade ratings prominently displayed on the walls of restaurants and cafes that you visit as an example of this. Why should the air we breathe be treated any differently? I think there is a strong argument that indoor air quality deserves regulation, both of the absolute quality of the air and ensuring that the practices and achieved air quality are clearly advertised and available. Ventilation monitoring via measurement of CO2 concentration provides an effective and achievable method that can be used to achieve this, and countries like Belgium and Japan are already starting to regulate indoor air quality. In the UK, the independent SAGE group of scientists has published Scores on the Doors , a proposal which demonstrates how CO2 monitoring can be helpful in providing information about the air quality of indoor spaces. Unfortunately there is no movement in any of these directions in New Zealand yet, and no sign that regulation or even a basic campaign to raise awareness of ventilation and air quality is even being planned. This is disappointing, but even if such work was planned, it would still require appropriate ventilation monitoring products and services to enable it, and while there are some options available, it is not a fully solved space yet.

Existing ventilation monitoring options Until recently the available offerings for ventilation monitoring have sat at two distinct ends of the price and quality spectrum:

• Handheld air quality meters advertised as measuring CO2, but in reality reporting only an approximation. These meters do not contain actual CO2 sensors, and only approximate CO2 levels based on measurements of other components of the air. While cheap (often less than $100), these meters are not useful for providing reliable data that can be systematically used to assess and improve ventilation and should be avoided.
• High-end building management systems (BMS), and industrial measurement products targeted at large buildings such as offices or commercial applications such as food production. These systems require specialist installation, often integrated with large whole-building air conditioning systems. These systems, if appropriately configured, can be a great solution for the types of buildings and spaces that can afford them, but by their nature and cost, they do not offer a solution for the majority of smaller buildings and indoor spaces where we tend to spend a lot of our time.

Over the last few years a growing number of companies have developed products that fit in between the unreliable air quality meters and the expensive BMS/industrial measurement products. Promising NZ-based options in this space include Air Suite, Tether and Monkeytronics. These products are wall mountable, resemble a smoke alarm and utilise a WiFi network to report their measurements to a supporting web service. Pricing varies between $200 and $300 ex GST per unit. Aranet, while not NZ based, provides a handheld monitor the Aranet4 Home, which is well regarded for quality and accuracy. Aranet4 Home devices are the most expensive in this space, retailing at $386 ex GST and offer a clunkier and less convenient set of connectivity options via a Bluetooth connection to an associated phone. To obtain similar reporting functionality to the other products requires upgrading to their Pro model and purchasing a separate base station at a combined cost of $1255 ex GST. Outside the commercial product offerings are a number of open source DIY options, which can be built by anyone with basic electronics knowledge. AirGradient is a leading example based in Thailand, and within New Zealand Oliver Seiler s CO2 Monitor provides similar functionality. These open source options have a parts cost in the $100-$150 range, depending on volume built and provide high-quality measurements via trusted CO2 sensors while also offering huge flexibility in terms of how they operate, interact with users and potential supporting web services.

An opportunity: Small businesses and organisations While a growing number of high-quality CO2 monitors has the potential to help drive increased adoption of ventilation monitoring, the plethora of small businesses and organisations that own, operate and manage many of the indoor spaces we visit on a day-to-day basis do not appear to be well served by these existing products. To deploy ventilation monitoring a small business or organisation needs to first become aware of the need or demand for it, and then have a simple and easy path to acquire and install the monitor and access the data. Little to no marketing or demand generation appears to be targeted towards this market from the existing businesses and tellingly, several of the products are not directly available for sale, requiring interaction with a salesperson to purchase. This indicates a focus on selling to larger customers who have a campus or portfolio of buildings and will purchase in larger quantities than the typical small business or organisation will. Small businesses and organisations are likely to occupy smaller buildings and spaces where manual ventilation is the prevalent method of improving and maintaining air quality. Maintaining clean, fresh air via manual ventilation requires the occupants of the space to receive an obvious and straightforward signal when action (opening windows, etc) is required. While the products above all tend to provide some form of local feedback and display in the room, the indication provided and notification of when to take action is less obvious and prominent than would be ideal in a situation where manual ventilation is being relied upon. Informally testing this opportunity with family and friends running small businesses over the last few months has resulted in promising feedback. One particular success story was the discovery of a fresh air duct on the air conditioning unit in a small office that had never been connected to the outside air and was simply recirculating air from the ceiling space back into an office! The resulting stuffiness and poor air quality had been noticed, but without the clear indication from the CO2 monitor that the air conditioning was actually making things worse, rather than better, the underlying issue had not been understood. With the issue fixed and the duct now connected, that business is now enjoying much more productive and healthy working conditions.

Next steps Many small businesses and organisations are likely to have poor air quality and opportunities for improvement similar to the example above that are waiting to be found and fixed, and the existing products available are neither focused or ideal for the needs of this market. I have spent some time over the past six months building a basic CO2 monitoring service that I have used to deploy ventilation monitoring to our local school, and a few other local businesses. There are a number of challenges that still need to be addressed in order to scale the business up, but I think there is a reasonable chance that I can build a viable business that offers an attractive and useful solution that would accelerate the deployment of ventilation monitoring for small businesses and organisations. In an upcoming post, I will explain the foundations of the service that I have built to date, the challenges that need to be overcome and how I plan to evolve the service from the current prototype into a sustainable, bootstrapped business.

Review: Overdue, by Amanda Oliver

Publisher:	Chicago Review Press
Copyright:	2022
ISBN:	1-64160-534-0
Format:	Kindle
Pages:	190

Like many lifetime readers, I adored the public library. I read my way through three different children's libraries at the rate of a grocery sack of books per week, including numerous re-readings, and then moved on to the adult section as my introduction to science fiction. But once I had a regular job, I discovered the fun of filling shelves with books without having to return them or worry about what the library had available. I've always supported my local library, but it's been decades since I spent much time in it. When I last used one heavily, the only computers were at the checkout desk and the only books were physical, normally hardcovers. Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library therefore caught my eye when I saw a Twitter thread about it before publication. It promised to be a picture of the modern public library and its crises from the perspective of the librarian. The author's primary topic was the drafting of public libraries as de facto homeless service centers, but I hoped it would also encompass technological change, demand for new services, and the shifting meaning of what a public library is for. Overdue does... some of that. The author was a children's librarian in a Washington DC public school and then worked at a downtown branch of the Washington DC public library, and the book includes a few anecdotes from both experiences. Most of the book, though, is Oliver's personal memoir of how she got into field, why she chose to leave it, and how she is making sense of her feelings about the profession. Intermixed with that memoir is wide-ranging political commentary on topics ranging from gentrification to mental health care. This material is relevant to the current challenges libraries face, but it wandered far afield from what I was hoping to get from the book. I think of non-fiction books as coming in a few basic shapes. One is knowledge from an expert: the author has knowledge about a topic that is not widely shared, and they write a book to share it. Another is popularization: an author, possibly without prior special expertise in the topic, does research the reader could have done but doesn't have time to do and then summarizes the results in a format that's easier to understand than the original material. And a third is memoir, in which the author tells the story of their own life. This is a variation of the first type, since the author is obviously an expert in their own life, but most people's lives are not interesting. (Mine certainly isn't!) Successful memoir therefore depends on either having an unusual life or being a compelling storyteller, and ideally both. Many non-fiction books fall into multiple categories, but it's helpful for an author to have a clear idea of which of these goals they're pursuing since they result in different books. If the author is writing primarily from a position of special expertise, the book should focus on that expertise. I am interested in librarians and libraries and would like to know more about that job, so I will read with interest your personal stories about being a librarian. I am somewhat interested in your policy suggestions for how to make libraries work better, although more so if you can offer context and analysis beyond your personal experiences. I am less interested in your opinions on, say, gentrification. That's not because I doubt it is a serious problem (it is) or that it impacts libraries (it does). It's because working in a library doesn't provide any special expertise in gentrification beyond knowing that it exists, something that I can see by walking around the corner. If I want to know more, I will read books by urban planners, sociologists, and housing rights activists. This is a long-winded way of saying that I wish Overdue had about four times as many stories about libraries, preferably framed by general research and background that extended beyond the author's personal experience, or at least more specific details of the politics of the Washington DC library system. The personal memoir outside of the library stories failed to hold my interest. This is not intended as a slam on the author. Oliver seems like a thoughtful and sincere person who is struggling with how to do good in the world without burning out, which is easy for me to sympathize with. I suspect I broadly agree with her on many political positions. But I have read all of this before, and personally lived through some of the same processing, and I don't think Oliver offered new insight. The library stories were memorable enough to form the core of a good book, but the memoir structure did nothing for them and they were strangled by the unoriginal and too-general political analysis. At the risk of belaboring a negative review, there are two other things in Overdue that I've also seen in other writing and seem worth commenting on. The first is the defensive apology that the author may not have the best perspective to write the book. It's important to be clear: I am glad that the Oliver has thought about the ways her experiences as a white woman may not be representative of other people. This is great; the world is a better place when more people consider that. I'm less fond of putting that observation in the book, particularly at length. As the author, rather than writing paragraphs vaguely acknowledging that other people have different experiences, she could instead fix the problem: go talk to librarians of other ethnic and social backgrounds and put their stories in this book. The book would then represent broader experiences and not require the apology. Overdue desperately needed more library-specific content, so that would have improved the book in more than one way. Or if Oliver is ideologically opposed to speaking for other people (she makes some comments to that effect), state up-front, once, that this is a personal memoir and, as a memoir, represents only her own experience. But the author should do something with this observation other than dump its awkwardness on the reader, if for no other reason than that lengthy disclaimers about the author's limited perspective are boring. The second point is about academic jargon and stock phrasing. I work in a field that relies on precise distinctions of meaning (between identity, authentication, and authorization, for example), and therefore I rely on jargon. Its purpose is to make those types of fine distinctions. But authors who read heavily in fields with jargon tend to let that phrasing slip into popular writing where it's not necessary. The result is, to quote Orwell, "gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else." The effect may be small in a single sentence but, when continued throughout a book, the overuse of jargon is leaden, belabored, and confusing. Any example I choose will be minor since the effect is cumulative, but one of several I noticed in Overdue is "lived experience." This is jargon from philosophy that, within the field, draws a useful distinction between one's direct experiences of living in the world, and academic or scientific experience with a field. Both types of experience are valuable in different situations, but they're not equivalent. This is a useful phrase when the distinction matters and is unclear. When the type of experience one is discussing is obvious in context (the case in at least three of the four uses in this book), the word "lived" adds nothing but verbosity. If too much of this creeps into writing, it becomes clunky and irritating to read. The best (and not coincidentally the least clunky) part of this book is Oliver's stories of the patrons and other employees of the Northwest One branch of the Washington DC library system and her experiences with them. The picture was not as vivid as I was hoping for, but I came away with some new understanding of typical interactions and day-to-day difficulties. The same was true to a lesser extent for her experiences as a school librarian. For both, I wish there had been more context and framing so that I could see how her experiences fit into a whole system, but those parts of the book were worth reading. Unfortunately, they weren't enough of those parts in the book for me to recommend Overdue. But I'm still interested in reading the book I hoped I was getting! Rating: 5 out of 10

Review: Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett

Series:	Discworld #19
Publisher:	Harper
Copyright:	October 1996
Printing:	February 2014
ISBN:	0-06-227551-8
Format:	Mass market
Pages:	392

Feet of Clay is the 19th Discworld novel, the third Watch novel, and probably not the best place to start. You could read only Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms before this one, though, if you wanted. This story opens with a golem selling another golem to a factory owner, obviously not caring about the price. This is followed by two murders: an elderly priest, and the curator of a dwarven bread museum. (Dwarf bread is a much-feared weapon of war.) Meanwhile, assassins are still trying to kill Watch Commander Vimes, who has an appointment to get a coat of arms. A dwarf named Cheery Littlebottom is joining the Watch. And Lord Vetinari, the ruler of Ankh-Morpork, has been poisoned. There's a lot going on in this book, and while it's all in some sense related, it's more interwoven than part of a single story. The result felt to me like a day-in-the-life episode of a cop show: a lot of character development, a few largely separate plot lines so that the characters have something to do, and the development of a few long-running themes that are neither started nor concluded in this book. We check in on all the individual Watch members we've met to date, add new ones, and at the end of the book everyone is roughly back to where they were when the book started. This is, to be clear, not a bad thing for a book to do. It relies on the reader already caring about the characters and being invested in the long arc of the series, but both of those are true of me, so it worked. Cheery is a good addition, giving Pratchett an opportunity to explore gender nonconformity with a twist (all dwarfs are expected to act the same way regardless of gender, which doesn't work for Cheery) and, even better, giving Angua more scenes. Angua is among my favorite Watch characters, although I wish she'd gotten more of a resolution for her relationship anxiety in this book. The primary plot is about golems, which on Discworld are used in factories because they work nonstop, have no other needs, and do whatever they're told. Nearly everyone in Ankh-Morpork considers them machinery. If you've read any Discworld books before, you will find it unsurprising that Pratchett calls that belief into question, but the ways he gets there, and the links between the golem plot and the other plot threads, have a few good twists and turns. Reading this, I was reminded vividly of Orwell's discussion of Charles Dickens:

It seems that in every attack Dickens makes upon society he is always pointing to a change of spirit rather than a change of structure. It is hopeless to try and pin him down to any definite remedy, still more to any political doctrine. His approach is always along the moral plane, and his attitude is sufficiently summed up in that remark about Strong's school being as different from Creakle's "as good is from evil." Two things can be very much alike and yet abysmally different. Heaven and Hell are in the same place. Useless to change institutions without a "change of heart" that, essentially, is what he is always saying. If that were all, he might be no more than a cheer-up writer, a reactionary humbug. A "change of heart" is in fact the alibi of people who do not wish to endanger the status quo. But Dickens is not a humbug, except in minor matters, and the strongest single impression one carries away from his books is that of a hatred of tyranny.

and later:

His radicalism is of the vaguest kind, and yet one always knows that it is there. That is the difference between being a moralist and a politician. He has no constructive suggestions, not even a clear grasp of the nature of the society he is attacking, only an emotional perception that something is wrong, all he can finally say is, "Behave decently," which, as I suggested earlier, is not necessarily so shallow as it sounds. Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other. Dickens has not this kind of mental coarseness. The vagueness of his discontent is the mark of its permanence. What he is out against is not this or that institution, but, as Chesterton put it, "an expression on the human face."

I think Pratchett is, in that sense, a Dickensian writer, and it shows all through Discworld. He does write political crises (there is one in this book), but the crises are moral or personal, not ideological or structural. The Watch novels are often concerned with systems of government, but focus primarily on the popular appeal of kings, the skill of the Patrician, and the greed of those who would maneuver for power. Pratchett does not write (at least so far) about the proper role of government, the impact of Vetinari's policies (or even what those policies may be), or political theory in any deep sense. What he does write about, at great length, is morality, fairness, and a deeply generous humanism, all of which are central to the golem plot. Vimes is a great protagonist for this type of story. He's grumpy, cynical, stubborn, and prejudiced, and we learn in this book that he's a descendant of the Discworld version of Oliver Cromwell. He can be reflexively self-centered, and he has no clear idea how to use his newfound resources. But he behaves decently towards people, in both big and small things, for reasons that the reader feels he could never adequately explain, but which are rooted in empathy and an instinctual sense of fairness. It's fun to watch him grumble his way through the plot while making snide comments about mysteries and detectives. I do have to complain a bit about one of those mysteries, though. I would have enjoyed the plot around Vetinari's poisoning more if Pratchett hadn't mercilessly teased readers who know a bit about French history. An allusion or two would have been fun, but he kept dropping references while having Vimes ignore them, and I found the overall effect both frustrating and irritating. That and a few other bits, like Angua's uncommunicative angst, fell flat for me. Thankfully, several other excellent scenes made up for them, such as Nobby's high society party and everything about the College of Heralds. Also, Vimes's impish PDA (smartphone without the phone, for those younger than I am) remains absurdly good commentary on the annoyances of portable digital devices despite an original publication date of 1996. Feet of Clay is less focused than the previous Watch novels and more of a series book than most Discworld novels. You're reading about characters introduced in previous books with problems that will continue into subsequent books. The plot and the mysteries are there to drive the story but seem relatively incidental to the characterization. This isn't a complaint; at this point in the series, I'm in it for the long haul, and I liked the variation. As usual, Pratchett is stronger for me when he's not overly focused on parody. His own characters are as good as the material he's been parodying, and I'm happy to see them get a book that's not overshadowed by another material. If you've read this far in the series, or even in just the Watch novels, recommended. Followed by Hogfather in publication order and, thematically, by Jingo. Rating: 8 out of 10

I haven't posted one of these in a while. Here's the (mostly new) stuff that's come out that caught my interest in the past few months. Some of these I've already read and reviewed. Tom Burgis Kleptopia (non-fiction)
Angela Chen Ace (non-fiction)
P. Dj l Clark A Dead Djinn in Cairo (sff)
P. Dj l Clark The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (sff)
P. Dj l Clark A Master of Djinn (sff)
Brittney C. Cooper Eloquent Rage (non-fiction)
Madeleine Dore I Didn't Do the Thing Today (non-fiction)
Saad Z. Hossain The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday (sff)
George F. Kennan Memoirs, 1925-1950 (non-fiction)
Kiese Laymon How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (non-fiction)
Adam Minter Secondhand (non-fiction)
Amanda Oliver Overdue (non-fiction)
Laurie Penny Sexual Revolution (non-fiction)
Scott A. Snook Friendly Fire (non-fiction)
Adrian Tchaikovsky Elder Race (sff)
Adrian Tchaikovsky Shards of Earth (sff)
Tor.com (ed.) Some of the Best of Tor.com: 2021 (sff anthology)
Charlie Warzel & Anne Helen Petersen Out of Office (non-fiction)
Robert Wears Still Not Safe (non-fiction)
Max Weber The Vocation Lectures (non-fiction) Lots and lots of non-fiction in this mix. Maybe a tiny bit better than normal at not buying tons of books that I don't have time to read, although my reading (and particularly my reviewing) rate has been a bit slow lately.

Sorry for not being on blog for sometime, the last few months have been brutal. While I am externally ok, because of the lockdown I sensed major hearing loss. First, I thought it may be a hallucination or something but as it persisted for days, I got myself checked and found out that I got 80% hearing loss in my right ear. How and why I don t know. Is this NIHL or some other kind of hearing loss is yet to be ascertained. I do live what is and used to be one of the busiest roads in the city, now for last few months not so much. On top of it, you have various other noises.

Tinnitus I also experienced Tinnitus which again I perceived to be a hallucination but found it s not. I have no clue if my eiplepsy has anything to do with hearing loss or both are different. I did discover that while today we know that something like Tinnitus exists, just 10-15 years back, people might mistake it for madness. In a way it is madness because you are constantly hearing sound, music etc. 24 7 , that is enough to drive anybody mad. During this brief period, did learn what an Otoscope is . I did get audiometry tests done but need to get at least a second or if possible also a third opinion but those will have to wait as the audio clinics are about 8-10 kms. away. In the open-close-open-close environment just makes it impossible to figure out the time, date and get it done. After that is done then probably get a hearing device, probably a Siemens Signia hearing aid. The hearing aids are damn expensive, almost 50k per piece and they probably have a lifetime of about 5-6 years, so it s a bit of a expensive proposition. I also need a second or/and third opinion on the audiometry profile so I know things are correct. All of these things are gonna take time.

Pandemic Situation in India and Testing Coincidentally, was talking to couple of people about this. It is sad to see that we have the third highest number of covid cases at 1/10th the tests we are doing vis-a-vis U.S.A. According to statistical site ourworldindata , we seem to be testing 0.22 per thousand people compared to 2.28 people per thousand done by United States. Sadly it doesn t give the breakup of the tests, from what I read the PCR tests are better than the antibody tests, a primer shares the difference between the two tests. IIRC, the antibody tests are far cheaper than the swab tests but swab tests are far more accurate as it looks for the virus s genetic material (RNA) . Anyways coming to the numbers, U.S. has a population of roughly 35 crores taking a little bit liberty from numbers given at popclock . India meanwhile has 135 crore or almost four times the population of U.S. and the amount of testing done is 1/10th as shared above. Just goes to share where the GOI priorities lie . We are running out of beds, ventilators and whatever else there is. Whatever resources are there are being used for covid patients and they are being charged a bomb. I have couple of hospitals near my place and the cost of a bed in an isolation ward is upward of INR 100k and if you need a ventilator then add another 50k . And in moment of rarity, the differences between charges of private and public are zero. Meaning there is immense profiteering happening it seems in the medical world. Heck, even the Govt. is on the act where they are charging 18% GST on sanitizers. If this is not looting then I dunno what is.

Example of Medical Bills people have to pay.

China, Nepal & Diplomacy While everybody today knows how China has intruded and captured quite a part of Ladakh, this wasn t the case when they started in April. That time Ajai Shukla had shared this with the top defence personnel but nothing came of it. Then on May 30th he broke/shared the news with the rest of the world and was immediately branded anti-national, person on Chinese payroll and what not. This is when he and Pravin Sawnhey of Force Magazine had both been warning of the same from last year itself. Pravin, has a youtube channel and had been warning India against Chinese intentions from 2015 and even before that. He had warned repeatedly that our obsession with the Pakistan border meant that we were taking eyes of the border with China which spans almost 2300 odd kms. going all the way to Arunachal Pradesh. A good map which shows the conflict can be found at dw.com which I am sharing/reproducing below

India-China Border Areas Copyright DW.com 2020

Note:- I am sharing a neutral party s rendering of the border disputes or somebody who doesn t have much at stake as the two countries have so that things could be looked at little objectively. The Prime Minister on the other hand, made the comment which made galvanising a made-up word into verb . It means to go without coming in. In fact, several news sites shared the statement told by the Prime Minister and the majority of people were shocked. In fact, there had been reports that he gave the current CDS, General Rawat, a person of his own choosing, a peace of his mind. But what lead to this confrontation in the first place ? I think many pieces are part of that puzzle, one of the pieces are surely the cutting of defense budget for the last 6 years, Even this year, if you look at the budget slashes done in the earlier part of the year when he shared how HAL had to raise loans from the market to pay salaries of its own people. Later he shared how the Govt. was planning to slash the defence budget. Interestingly, he had also shared some of the reasons which reaffirm that it is the only the Govt. which can solve some of the issues/conundrum

First, it must recognize that our firms competing for global orders are up against rivals that are being supported by their home governments with tax and export incentives and infrastructure that almost invariably surpasses India s. Our government must provide its aerospace firms with a level playing field, if not a competitive advantage. The greatest deterrent to growth our companies face is the high cost of capital and lack of access to funds. In several cases, Indian MSMEs have had to turn down offers to build components and assemblies for global OEM supply chains simply because the cost of capital to create the shop floor and train the personnel was too high. This resulted in a loss of business and a missed opportunity for creating jobs and skills. To overcome this, the government could create a sector specific A&D Fund to provide low cost capital quickly to enable our MSMEs to grab fleeting business opportunities. Ajai Shukla, blogpost 13th March 2020 . And then reporting on 11th May 2020 itself, CDS Gen. Rawat himself commented on saving the budget, they were in poor taste but still he shared what he thought about it. So, at the end of it one part of the story. The other part of the story probably lies in India s relations with its neighbors and lack of numbers in diplomats and diplomacy. So let me cover both the things one by one .

Diplomats, lack of numbers and hence the hands we are dealth with When Mr. Modi started his first term, he used the term Maximum Governance, Minimum Government but sadly cut those places where it indeed needs more people, one of which is diplomacy. A slightly dated 2012 article/opinion shared writes that India needs to engage with the rest of the world and do with higher number. Cut to 2020 and the numbers more or less remain the same . What Mr. Modi tried to do is instead of using diplomats, he tried to use his charm and hugopolicy for lack of a better term. 6 years later, here we are. After 200 trips abroad, not a single trade agreement to show what he done. I could go on but both time and energy are not on my side hence now switching to Nepal

Nepal, once friend, now enemy ? Nepal had been a friend of India for 70 odd years, what changed in the last few years that it changed from friend to enemy ? There had been two incidents in recent memory that changed the status quo. The first is the 2015 Nepal blockade . Now one could argue it either way but the truth is that Nepal understood that it is heavily dependent on India hence as any sovereign country would do in its interest it also started courting China for imports so there is some balance. The second one though is one of our own making. On December 16, 2014 RBI allowed Nepali citizens to have cash upto INR 25,000/- . Then in 2016 when demonetization was announced, they said that people could exchange only upto INR 4,500/- which was far below the limit shared above. And btw, before people start blaming just RBI for the decision, FEMA decisions are taken jointly by the finance ministry (FE) as well as ministry of external affairs (MEA) . So without them knowing the decision could not have been taken when announcing it. The result of lowering of demonetization is what made Nepal move more into Chinese hands and this has been shared by number of people in numerous articles in different websites. The wire interview with the vice-chairman of Niti Ayog is pretty interesting. The argument that Nepal show give an estimate of how much old money is there falls flat when in demonetization itself, it was thought of that around 30-40% was black money and would not be returned but by RBI s own admissions all 99.3% of the money was returned. Perhaps they should have consulted Prof. Arun Kumar of JNU who has extensively written and studied the topic before doing that fool-hardy step. It is the reason that since then, an economy which was searing at 9% has been contracting ever since, I could give a dozen articles stating that, but for the moment, just one will suffice. The slowing economy and the sharp divisions between people based on either outlook, religion or whatever also encouraged China to attack us. This year is not good for India. The only thing I hope Indians and people all over do is just maintain physical distances, masks and somehow survive till middle of next year without getting infected when probably most of the vaccine candidates have been trialed, results are in and we have a ready vaccine. I do hope that at least for once, ICMR shares data even after the vaccine is approved, whichever vaccine. Till later.

I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.

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La morte di Stefano Cucchi avvenne a Roma il 22 ottobre 2009 mentre il giovane era sottoposto a custodia cautelare. Le cause della morte e le responsabilit sono oggetto di procedimenti giudiziari che hanno coinvolto da un lato i medici dell'ospedale Pertini,[1][2][3][4] dall'altro continuano a coinvolgere, a vario titolo, pi militari dell Arma dei Carabinieri[5][6]. Il caso ha attirato l'attenzione dell'opinione pubblica a seguito della pubblicazione delle foto dell'autopsia, poi riprese da agenzie di stampa, giornali e telegiornali italiani[7]. La vicenda ha ispirato, altres , documentari e lungometraggi cinematografici.[8][9][10]

La morte di Giuseppe Uva avvenne il 14 giugno 2008 dopo che, nella notte tra il 13 e il 14 giugno, era stato fermato ubriaco da due carabinieri che lo portarono in caserma, dalla quale venne poi trasferito, per un trattamento sanitario obbligatorio, nell'ospedale di Varese, dove mor la mattina successiva per arresto cardiaco. Secondo la tesi dell'accusa, la morte fu causata dalla costrizione fisica subita durante l'arresto e dalle successive violenze e torture che ha subito in caserma. Il processo contro i due carabinieri che eseguirono l'arresto e contro altri sei agenti di polizia ha assolto gli imputati dalle accuse di omicidio preterintenzionale e sequestro di persona[1][2][3][4]. Alla vicenda dedicato il documentario Viva la sposa di Ascanio Celestini[1][5].

Il caso Aldrovandi la vicenda giudiziaria causata dall'uccisione di Federico Aldrovandi, uno studente ferrarese, avvenuta il 25 settembre 2005 a seguito di un controllo di polizia.[1][2][3] I procedimenti giudiziari hanno condannato, il 6 luglio 2009, quattro poliziotti a 3 anni e 6 mesi di reclusione, per "eccesso colposo nell'uso legittimo delle armi";[1][4] il 21 giugno 2012 la Corte di cassazione ha confermato la condanna.[1] All'inchiesta per stabilire la cause della morte ne sono seguite altre per presunti depistaggi e per le querele fra le parti interessate.[1] Il caso stato oggetto di grande attenzione mediatica e ha ispirato un documentario, stato morto un ragazzo.[1][5]

Federico Aldrovandi (17 July 1987 in Ferrara 25 September 2005 in Ferrara) was an Italian student, who was killed by four policemen.[1]

24 Giugno 2020

This story involves boys pretending to be pizza deliverymen using a working automated Strowger telephone exchange demonstrator on display in a museum, which is very old and is, to my knowledge, the only such working exhibit in the world. (Yes, I have video.) But first, a thought on exploration. There are those that would say that there is nothing left to explore anymore that the whole earth is mapped, photographed by satellites, and, well, known. I prefer to look at it a different way: the earth is full of places that billions of people will never see, and probably don t even know about. Those places may be quiet country creeks, peaceful neighborhoods one block away from major tourist attractions, an MTA museum in Brooklyn, a state park in Arkansas, or a beautiful church in Germany. Martha is not yet two months old, and last week she and I spent a surprisingly long amount of time just gazing at tree branches she was mesmerized, and why not, because to her, everything is new. As I was exploring in Portland two weeks ago, I happened to pick up a nearly-forgotten book by a nearly-forgotten person, Beryl Markham, a woman who was a pilot in Africa about 80 years ago. The passage that I happened to randomly flip to in the bookstore, which really grabbed my attention, was this:

The available aviation maps of Africa in use at that time all bore the cartographer s scale mark, 1/2,000,000 one over two million. An inch on the map was about thitry-two miles in the air, as compared to the flying maps of Europe on which one inch represented no more than four air miles. Moreover, it seemed that the printers of the African maps had a slightly malicious habit of including, in large letters, the names of towns, junctions, and villages which, while most of them did exist in fact, as a group of thatched huts may exist or a water hold, they were usually so inconsequential as completely to escape discovery from the cockpit. Beyond this, it was even more disconcerting to examine your charts before a proposed flight only to find that in many cases the bulk of the terrain over which you had to fly was bluntly marked: UNSURVEYED . It was as if the mapmakers had said, We are aware that between this spot and that one, there are several hundred thousands of acres, but until you make a forced landing there, we won t know whether it is mud, desert, or jungle and the chances are we won t know then! Beryl Markham, West With the Night

My aviation maps today have no such markings. The continent is covered with radio beacons, the world with GPS, the maps with precise elevations of the ground and everything from skyscrapers to antenna towers. And yet, despite all we know, the world is still a breathtaking adventure. Yesterday, the boys and I were going to fly to Abilene, KS, to see a museum (Seelye Mansion). Circumstances were such that we neither flew, nor saw that museum. But we still went to Abilene, and wound up at the Museum of Independent Telephony, a wondrous place for anyone interested in the history of technology. As it is one of those off-the-beaten-path sorts of places, the boys got 2.5 hours to use the hands-on exhibits of real old phones, switchboards, and also the schoolhouse out back. They decided why not? to use this historic equipment to pretend to order pizzas. Jacob and Oliver proceeded to invent all sorts of things to use the phones for: ordering pizza, calling the cops to chase the pizza delivery guys, etc. They were so interested that by 2PM we still hadn t had lunch and they claimed we re not hungry despite the fact that we were going to get pizza for lunch. And I certainly enjoyed the exhibits on the evolution of telephones, switching (from manual plugboards to automated switchboards), and such. This place was known it even has a website, I had been there before, and in fact so had the boys (my parents took them there a couple of years ago). But yesterday, we discovered the Strowger switch had been repaired since the last visit, and that it, in fact, is great for conversations about pizza. Whether it s seeing an eclipse, discovering a fascination with tree branches, or historic telephones, a spirit of curiosity and exploration lets a person find fun adventures almost anywhere.

Highway US-81 in northern Kansas and southern Nebraska is normally a pleasant, sleepy sort of drive. It was upgraded to a 4-lane road not too long ago, but as far as 4-lane roads go, its traffic is typically light. For drives from Kansas to South Dakota, it makes a pleasant route. Yesterday was eclipse day. I strongly suspect that highway 81 had more traffic that day than it ever has before, or ever will again. For nearly the entire 3-hour drive to Geneva, NE, it was packed though mostly still moving at a good speed. And for our entire drive back, highway 81 and every other southbound road we used was so full it felt like rush hour in Dallas. (Well, not quite. Traffic was still moving.) I believe scenes like this were played out across the continent. I ve been taking a lot of photos, and writing about our new baby Martha lately. Now it s time to write a bit about some more adventures with Jacob and Oliver they re now in third and fifth grades in school. We had been planning to fly, and airports I called were either full, or were planning to park planes in the grass, or even shut down some runways to use for parking. The airport in the little town of Beatrice, NE (which I had visited twice before) was even going to have a temporary FAA control tower. At the last minute, due to some storm activity near home at departure time, we unloaded the plane and drove instead. The atmosphere at the fairgrounds in Geneva was festive. One family had brought bubbles for their kids and extras to share. I had bought the boys a book about the eclipse, which they were reading before and during the event. They were both great, safe users of their eclipse glasses. Jacob caught a toad, and played with it for awhile. He wanted to bring it home with us, but I convinced him to let me take a picture of him with his toad friend instead. While we were waiting for totality, a number of buses from the local school district arrived. So by the time the big moment arrived, we could hear the distant roar of delight and applause from the school children gathered at the far end of the field, plus all the excitement nearby. Both boys were absolutely ecstatic to be witnessing it (and so was I!) Wow! Awesome! And simple cackles of delight were heard. On the drive home, they both kept talking about how amazing it was, and it was once in a lifetime. We enjoyed our eclipse neighbors the woman from San Antonio next to us, the surprise discovery of another family from just a few miles from us parked two cars down, even running into relatives at a restaurant on the way home. The applause from all around when it started and when it ended. And the feeling, which is hard to describe, of awe and amazement at the wonders of our world and our universe. There are many problems with the world right now, but somehow there s something right about people coming together from all over to enjoy it.

A month ago, we were waiting for our new baby; time seemed to stand still. Now she is here! Martha Goerzen was born recently, and she is doing well and growing! Laura and I have enjoyed moments of cuddling her, watching her stare at our faces, hearing her (hopefully) soft sounds as she falls asleep in our arms. It is also heart-warming to see Martha s older brothers take such an interest in her. Here is the first time Jacob got to hold her: Oliver, who is a boy very much into sports, play involving police and firefighters, and such, has started adding aww and she s so cute! to his common vocabulary. He can be very insistent about interrupting me to hold her, too.

We re expecting a baby any time now. The last few days have had an odd quality of expectation: any time, our family will grow. It makes time seem to freeze, to stand still. We have Jacob, about to start fifth grade and middle school. But here he is, still a sweet and affectionate kid as ever. He loves to care for cats and seeks them out often. He still keeps an eye out for the stuffed butterfly he s had since he was an infant, and will sometimes carry it and a favorite blanket around the house. He will also many days prepare the Yellow House News on his computer, with headlines about his day and some comics pasted in before disappearing to play with Legos for awhile. And Oliver, who will walk up to Laura and give baby a hug many times throughout the day and sneak up to me, try to touch my arm, and say doink before running off before I can doink him back. It was Oliver that had asked for a baby sister for Christmas before he knew he d be getting one! In the past week, we ve had out the garden hose a couple of times. Both boys will enjoy sending mud down our slide, or getting out the water slide to play with, or just playing in mud. The rings of dirt in the bathtub testify to the fun that they had. One evening, I built a fire, we made brats and hot dogs, and then Laura and I sat visiting and watching their water antics for an hour after, laughter and cackles of delight filling the air, and cats resting on our laps. These moments, or countless others like Oliver s baseball games, flying the boys to a festival in Winfield, or their cuddles at bedtime, warm the heart. I remember their younger days too, with fond memories of taking them camping or building a computer with them. Sometimes a part of me wants to just keep soaking in things just as they are; being a parent means both taking pride in children s accomplishments as they grow up, and sometimes also missing the quiet little voice that can be immensely excited by a caterpillar. And yet, all four of us are so excited and eager to welcome a new life into our home. We are ready. I can t wait to hold the baby, or to lay her to sleep, to see her loving and excited older brothers. We hope for a smooth birth, for mom and baby. Here is the crib, ready, complete with a mobile with a cute bear (and even a plane). I can t wait until there is a little person here to enjoy it.

Last December, the Guardian published a long essay by Oliver Burkeman entitled "Why time management is ruining our lives". Those who follow my book reviews know I read a lot of time management books, so of course I couldn't resist this. And, possibly surprisingly, not to disagree with it. It's an excellent essay, and well worth your time. Burkeman starts by talking about Inbox Zero:

If all this fervour seems extreme Inbox Zero was just a set of technical instructions for handling email, after all this was because email had become far more than a technical problem. It functioned as a kind of infinite to-do list, to which anyone on the planet could add anything at will.

This is, as Burkeman develops in the essay, an important critique of time management techniques in general, not just Inbox Zero: perhaps you can become moderately more efficient, but what are you becoming more efficient at doing, and why does it matter? If there were a finite amount of things that you had to accomplish, with leisure the reward at the end of the fixed task list, doing those things more efficiently makes perfect sense. But this is not the case in most modern life. Instead, we live in a world governed by Parkinson's Law: "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion." Worse, we live in a world where the typical employer takes Parkinson's Law, not as a statement on the nature of ever-expanding to-do lists, but a challenge to compress the time made available for a task to try to force the work to happen faster. Burkeman goes farther into the politics, pointing out that a cui bono analysis of time management suggests that we're all being played by capitalist employers. I wholeheartedly agree, but that's worth a separate discussion; for those who want to explore that angle, David Graeber's Debt and John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society are worth your time. What I want to write about here is why I still read (and recommend) time management literature, and how my thinking on it has changed. I started in the same place that most people probably do: I had a bunch of work to juggle, I felt I was making insufficient forward progress on it, and I felt my day contained a lot of slack that could be put to better use. The alluring promise of time management is that these problems can be resolved with more organization and some focus techniques. And there is a huge surge of energy that comes with adopting a new system and watching it work, since the good ones build psychological payoff into the tracking mechanism. Starting a new time management system is fun! Finishing things is fun! I then ran into the same problem that I think most people do: after that initial surge of enthusiasm, I had lists, systems, techniques, data on where my time was going, and a far more organized intake process. But I didn't feel more comfortable with how I was spending my time, I didn't have more leisure time, and I didn't feel happier. Often the opposite: time management systems will often force you to notice all the things you want to do and how slow your progress is towards accomplishing any of them. This is my fundamental disagreement with Getting Things Done (GTD): David Allen firmly believes that the act of recording everything that is nagging at you to be done relieves the brain of draining background processing loops and frees you to be more productive. He argues for this quite persuasively; as you can see from my review, I liked his book a great deal, and used his system for some time. But, at least for me, this does not work. Instead, having a complete list of goals towards which I am making slow or no progress is profoundly discouraging and depressing. The process of maintaining and dwelling on that list while watching it constantly grow was awful, quite a bit worse psychologically than having no time management system at all. Mark Forster is the time management author who speaks the best to me, and one of the points he makes is that time management is the wrong framing. You're not going to somehow generate more time, and you're usually not managing minutes and seconds. A better framing is task management, or commitment management: the goal of the system is to manage what you mentally commit to accomplishing, usually by restricting that list to something far shorter than you would come up with otherwise. How, in other words, to limit your focus to a small enough set of goals that you can make meaningful progress instead of thrashing. That, for me, is now the merit and appeal of time (or task) management systems: how do I sort through all the incoming noise, distractions, requests, desires, and compelling ideas that life throws at me and figure out which of them are worth investing time in? I also benefit from structuring that process for my peculiar psychology, in which backlogs I have to look at regularly are actively dangerous for my mental well-being. Left unchecked, I can turn even the most enjoyable hobby into an obligation and then into a source of guilt for not meeting the (entirely artificial) terms of the obligation I created, without even intending to. And here I think it has a purpose, but it's not the purpose that the time management industry is selling. If you think of time management as a way to get more things done and get more out of each moment, you're going to be disappointed (and you're probably also being taken advantage of by the people who benefit from unsustainable effort without real, unstructured leisure time). I practice Inbox Zero, but the point wasn't to be more efficient at processing my email. The point was to avoid the (for me) psychologically damaging backlog of messages while acting on the knowledge that 99% of email should go immediately into the trash with no further action. Email is an endless incoming stream of potential obligations or requests for my time (even just to read a longer message) that I should normallly reject. I also take the time to notice patterns of email that I never care about and then shut off the source or write filters to delete that email for me. I can then reserve my email time for moments of human connection, directly relevant information, or very interesting projects, and spend the time on those messages without guilt (or at least much less guilt) about ignoring everything else. Prioritization is extremely difficult, particularly once you realize that true prioritization is not about first and later, but about soon or never. The point of prioritization is not to choose what to do first, it's to choose the 5% of things that you going to do at all, convince yourself to be mentally okay with never doing the other 95% (and not lying to yourself about how there will be some future point when you'll magically have more time), and vigorously defend your focus and effort for that 5%. And, hopefully, wholeheartedly enjoy working on those things, without guilt or nagging that there's something else you should be doing instead. I still fail at this all the time. But I'm better than I used to be. For me, that mental shift was by far the hardest part. But once you've made that shift, I do think the time management world has a lot of tools and techniques to help you make more informed choices about the 5%, and to help you overcome procrastination and loss of focus on your real goals. Those real goals should include true unstructured leisure and "because I want to" projects. And hopefully, if you're in a financial position to do it, include working less on what other people want you to do and more on the things that delight you. Or at least making a well-informed strategic choice (for the sake of money or some other concrete and constantly re-evaluated reason) to sacrifice your personal goals for some temporary external ones.

Burkeman: Why time management is ruining our lives Over the past semester I ve been trying to convince one graduate student and one professor in my department to use Inbox Zero to get a better handle on their e-mail inboxes. The goal is not to be more productive. The two of them get far more academic work done than I do. However, both of them are far more stressed than I am. And in the case of the graduate student, I have to add items to my own to-do list to chase up e-mails that I ve sent him, which only spreads this stress and tension around. The graduate student sent me this essay by Oliver Burkeman about how these techniques can backfire, creating more stress, tension and anxiety. It seems to me that this happens when we think of these techniques as having anything to do with productivity. Often people will say use this technique and you ll be less stressed, more productive, and even more productive because you re less stressed. Why not just say use this technique and you ll be less anxious and stressed ? This is a refusal to treat lower anxiety as merely a means to some further end. People can autonomously set their own ends, and they ll probably do a better job of this when they re less anxious. Someone offering a technique to help with their sense of being overwhelmed need not tell them what to do with their new calm. It might be argued that this response to Burkeman fails to address the huge sense of obligation that an e-mail inbox can generate. Perhaps the only sane response to this infinite to-do list is to let it pile up. If we follow a technique like Inbox Zero, don t we invest our inbox with more importance than it has? Like a lot of areas of life, the issue is that the e-mails that will advance truly valuable projects and relationships, projects of both ourselves and of others, are mixed in with reams of stuff that doesn t matter. We face this situation whenever we go into a supermarket, or wonder what to do during an upcoming vacation. In all these situations, we have a responsibility to learn how to filter the important stuff out, just as we have a responsibility to avoid reading celebrity gossip columns when we are scanning through a newspaper. Inbox Zero is a technique to do that filtering in the case of e-mail. Just letting our inbox pile up is an abdication of responsibility, rather than an intelligent response to a piece of technology that most of the world abuses.

For four years now, we ve had a tradition: I go up to the attic one night, make a lot of noise, and pretend to be Santa. The boys don t think Santa is real, but they get a huge kick out of this anyway. The other day, this wound up with me singing a duet with my 7-year-old Oliver, and seeing a hugely delighted 10-year-old Jacob. All last week, the boys had been lobbying for me to be Santa . They aren t going to be able to be here on Christmas day this year, so I thought why not let them have some fun. I chose one present to give them early too. So, Saturday night, I said they could get ready for Santa. They found some cookies somewhere, got out some milk. And Oliver wrote this wonderful note to Santa : That is a note I m going to keep for a long time. He helpfully drew arrows pointing to the milk, cookies, and even the pen. He even started Santa s reply at the bottom! So, Saturday night, I snuck up to the attic, pretended to be Santa, and ate some cookies, drank some milk, and wrote Oliver a note. And I left a present. Jacob has been really getting into music lately, and Laura suggested I find something for the boys. I went looking for something that could record also, and came up with what has got to be a kid s dream: a karaoke machine. The particular one I found came with two microphones, a CD player, audio recording onto SD card (though it s a little dodgy), and a screen for showing words on any music that s karaoke-enhanced. Cue gasps of awe and excitement from the boys when we came down in our PJs and sweats at 6:45 Sunday morning to check it out. Jacob excitedly began exploring all the knobs and options on it (they were particularly fond of the echo feature), while Oliver wanted to sing. So we found one of his favorite Christmas songs, and here he is singing it with me. When you have a system with a line in, line out, and several microphone jacks, you can get creative. With a few bits of adapters from my attic, the headset I use for amateur radio worked with it perfectly. Add on a little mic extension cord, and pretty soon Oliver was pretending to be an announcer for a football game! Then, Oliver decided he would act out a football game while Jacob and I were the announcers. Something tells me there will be much fun had with this over the next while! Just wait until I show them how to hook up a handheld radio to it in order to make a remotely-activated loudspeaker

Let me set a scene for you. Two children, ages 7 and 10, are jostling for position. There s a little pushing and shoving to get the best view. This is pretty typical for siblings this age. But what, you may wonder, are they trying to see? A TV? Video game? No. Jacob and Oliver were in a library, trying to see a 98-year-old map of the property owners in Township 23, range 1 East, Harvey County, Kansas. And they were super excited about it, somewhat to the astonishment of the research librarian, who I am sure is more used to children jostling for position over the DVDs in the youth section than poring over maps in the non-circulating historical archives! All this started with giant concrete arrows in the middle of nowhere. Nearly a century ago, the US government installed a series of arrows on the ground in Kansas. These were part of a primitive air navigation system that led to the first transcontinental airmail service. Every so often, people stumble upon these abandoned arrows and there is a big discussion online. Even Snopes has had to verify their authenticity (verdict: true). Entire websites exist to tracking and locating the remnants of these arrows. And as one of the early air mail routes went through Kansas, every so often people find these arrows around here. I got the idea that it would be fun to replicate a journey along the old routes. Maybe I d spot a few old arrows and such. So I started collecting old maps: a Contract Airmail Route #34 (CAM 34) map from 1927, aviation sectionals from 1933 and 1946, etc. I noticed an odd thing on these maps: the Newton, KS airport was on the other side of the city from its present location, sometimes even several miles outside the city. What was going on?
(1927 Airway Map)
(1946 Wichita sectional) So one foggy morning, I explained my puzzlement to the boys. I highlighted all the mysteries: were these maps correct? Were there really two Newton airports at one time? How many airports were there, and where were they? Why did they move? What was the story behind them? And I offered them the chance to be history detectives with me. And oh my goodness, were they ever excited! We had some information from a very helpful person at the Harvey County Historical Museum (thanks Kris!) So we suspected one airport at least was established in 1927. We also had a description of its location, though given in terms of township maps. So the boys and I made the short drive over to the museum. We reviewed their property maps, though they were all a little older than the time period we needed. We looked through books and at pictures. Oliver pored over a railroad map of Newton from a century ago, fascinated. Jacob was excited to discover on one map that there used to be a train track down the middle of Main Street! I was interested that the present Newton Airport was once known as Wirt Field, rather to my surprise. I somehow suspect most 2nd and 4th graders spend a lot less excited time on their research floor! Then on to the Newton Public Library to see if they d have anything more and that s when the map that produced all the excitement came out. It, by itself, didn t answer the question, but by piecing together a number of pieces of information newspaper stories, information from the museum, and the maps we were able to come up with a pretty good explanation, much to their excitement. Apparently, a man named Tangeman owned a golf course (the golf links according to the paper), and around 1927 the city of Newton purchased it, because of all the planes that were landing there. They turned it into a real airport. Later, they bought land east of the city and moved the airport there. However, during World War II, the Navy took over that location, so they built a third airport a few miles west of the city but moved back to the current east location after the Navy returned that field to them. Of course, a project like this just opens up all sorts of extra questions: why isn t it called Wirt Field anymore? What s the story of Frank Wirt? What led the Navy to take over Newton s airport? Why did planes start landing on the golf course? Where precisely was the west airport located? How long was it there? (I found an aerial photo from 1956 that looks like it may have a plane in that general area, but it seems later than I d have expected) So now I have the boys interested in going to the courthouse with me to research the property records out there. Jacob is continually astounded that we are discovering things that aren t in Wikipedia, and also excited that he could be the one to add them. To be continued, apparently!