Back!

Not that I was gone long...

I finally went to my library knitting group on Friday, whereupon I learned that Saturday was Worldwide Knit in Public Day. (I am guessing that like so many worldwide and international things, this one is largely "worldwide" in America? Have not seen many knitting blog posts to the contrary.) And I actually went and knit in public with a local yarn store group (ok, largely because it meant I got a discount at said yarn store, and possibly that means I have increased my stash again, but I will not admit that).

And I ventured out to the farmer's market! The peaches are getting sweeter, so I bought some, and I got cherries and peas and white corn (!! finally out!) and blueberries, which are sadly nearing the end of their season. This farmer's market is smaller than my usual one, but it was still nice.

Then I headed up to visit sophia_helix, watched many, many episodes of Honey and Clover, knit a lot, and admired her many socks. And now, I think I shall collapse like Nomiya because my eyes hurt from the TV watching and from concentrating on the road.

Also, apparently I missed another fannish kerfuffle, but I am ok with that.

Russ, Joanna - To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction

I think I liked the two other Joanna Russ books I've read better (What Are We Fighting For? and How to Suppress Women's Writing), but that is largely because I am much more interested in feminism than I am in SF.

I know! I am a genre reader, but not really an SF reader -- I grew up on fantasy, and that's still what I seek out. And I've read very little SF, so many of the things that Russ comments on, I don't know enough about to really analyze. I also haven't read several other works she refers to, including Willa Cather and "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Shirley Jackson (um. yes i know. i will some day....).

On the other hand, I continue to enjoy Russ' casual, conversational style and notes, along with her wit and her way of looking at things. I may not always agree with her, but I like that she continues to examine "marginal" genres and works, though this collection of essays focuses more (solely?) on white women instead of on POC.

Also, I am glad to have finally read this, despite the horrific overdue fine my library will charge, because I have now finally read her essay on Gothics, "Somebody's Trying to Kill Me, and I Think It's My Husband"! I'm excited because coffeeandink refers to it for romances, and I'm excited because I feel more equipped to read the Gothics rachelmanija has given and lent to me.

So, recced, but more recced if you have actually read what Russ is referring to.

Sterling, Bruce - Shaping Things

Er, I read this very quickly for class, so no deep thoughts here.

First, the book's format is very different; graphic designer Lorraine Wild decided to try and design it in a way that reflected how a generation that grew up on a computer might think of books.

Having sort of grown up on computers, I personally don't think it worked very well, and most of the people in my class seemed to think so too. I don't like having words underlined for me or highlighted, and I really got annoyed when special fonts were used for special words. I think some of it might have helped, much liked bolded text and headers in textbooks, but the special fonts were just too cutesy.

Anyway. Content-wise, Sterling looks very briefly at the past history of design and tries to go for the future. I.e., we have gone from using artifacts to machines to products to gizmos, and tomorrow we will be using "spimes." I am still not quite sure what he defines "spimes" as, except they are futuristic and contain a lot of data and act something like the internet.

As you can tell, I was not overly impressed with the book. I think the ideas are sort of interesting, but I'd rather have more data to back it up, and I am forever skeptical of anything about the future, particularly if it has to do with the future of technology. I suspect this will be more fun to read twenty years later, just to see what Sterling got right and what he didn't.

Thackara, John - In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World

Another book I read for class.

Thackara is trying to look at the job of a designer in an increasingly complex world, as per the subtitle of his book. I found this book immensely frustrating to read; it is so broad in scope that I kept wanting more citations, more everything. So I was arguing with Thackara every step of the way.

It also didn't help that I felt like he just had a lot of cool ideas and rants but didn't really tie them together. He wrote in one chapter on how we should try and imitate nature more (the much cited example of barnacles sticking like mad but detaching with no trace), but in another, he writes on how in our attempts to imitate nature, we end up creating an even larger environmental footprint. He writes about things that I do think are important, like the environment and trying to figure ethical implications in design, but he does so in such a general way that it is frustrating.

He says stuff about the complexity of systems and cites examples of failures of design and says that it must be solved, but I feel he doesn't give more steps to solve them. I mean, I know complex systems are hard! And bad design! I know that smart machines often assume too much! But what I want to know is how to fix them, and I think that is a much, much, much more complicated thing than pointing out the problem. Also, I felt he wasn't even pointing out the problem in an original way; I think I have read all those criticisms in Wired and other magazines before.

Possibly I was not Thackara's intended audience and the book was meant to be more theoretical.