Reviews and Comments

Preston Maness

aspensmonster@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years ago

A revolutionary Marxist Leninist that seems to add two books to the stack for every one book I take off...

Keyoxide: keyoxide.org/79895B2E0F87503F1DDE80B649765D7F0DDD9BD5

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Corinna Barrett Lain: Secrets of the Killing State (2025, New York University Press) No rating

Robert Chapman: Empire of Normality (Hardcover, 2023, Pluto Press)

'Groundbreaking ... [provides] a deep history of the invention of the 'normal' mind as one …

This was recommended in revolutionaryth0t's video essay on normality:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6oUHaLCc_U

I'd like to get around to it eventually. In particular, I wonder if it has any historical investigation of the human tendency to measure a distribution, and yet walk away from the result of that measurement thinking instead "I have found a point."

wants to read Rehab on the Range by Holly M. Karibo

Holly M. Karibo: Rehab on the Range (2024, University of Texas Press) No rating

The first study of the Fort Worth Narcotic Farm, an institution that played a critical …

reviewed Biocode by Dawn Field

Dawn Field, Neil Davies: Biocode

A Recovering Software Engineer's Review

0.1 Introduction to Biocode

Biocode, by Field and Davies, might better be structured in two parts. Its first four chapters present the reader with what may be termed a minimal bootstrapping into the world of genetics in a broad sense. The second four chapters detail the scaling opportunities for genetic technology, showcasing how such technologies have insights to offer from the microbial world all the way to the entire planet.

The first part provides the reader with a layman’s introduction to genetic technology in its first chapter, “DNA,” a non-critical overview of real and potential commercial uses in its second chapter, “Personal Genomics,” a poor attempt to prod the ethics of the field in its third chapter, “Homo Evolutis,” and an incomplete treatment of bioinformatics in its fourth chapter, “Zoo in My Sequencer.” As evidenced by this author’s choice of adjectives, I find this part of the book deficient. The …