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Soh Kam Yung Locked account

sohkamyung@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 6 months ago

Exploring one universe at a time. Interested in #Nature, #Photography, #NaturePhotography, #Science, #ScienceFiction, #Physics, #Engineering.

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Soh Kam Yung's books

Currently Reading

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David Kushner: Masters of Doom (2003, Random House) 4 stars

“To my taste, the greatest American myth of cosmogenesis features the maladjusted, antisocial, genius teenage …

A Tale of Two Hackers as a Rock Biography

4 stars

The story of John Carmack and John Romero, archetypes of the hacker and the gamer. The book follows a similar arc to many rock biographies.

There is a steady rise to rock star status, a life of fame, the price of hubris, and its aftermath. Carmack comes across as a brilliant programmer, but obsessed with work and lacking in empathy. Romero is written as a man with an intimate understanding of what makes games fun, but a tendency to try and do everything at once all the time. The story is like a tragedy where you watch these flaws become their undoing.

Worth a read if you've never heard the story. It was all news to me. The whole thing feels a little too neat and I have to wonder what was left out, but that's an Internet search for another time.

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Tony Padilla: Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them (2022, Farrar, Straus & Giroux) 4 stars

A fun, dazzling exploration of the strange numbers that illuminate the ultimate nature of reality. …

A book on numbers and how they matter to physics and other areas.

4 stars

A fascinating book about numbers big, small and infinite, and how they relate to physics, astronomy, cosmology, history, and culture.

The book start with big numbers. Some people may be familiar as the googol, but there are numbers even bigger, like Graham's Number, which is so big that attempting to put even the beginnings of the number into a volume the size of the brain would result in the 'Black Hole Head Death'. Why that happens leads to an introduction to entropy, its relationship with information, information storage in a black hole, and the holographic principle.

Then, it is on to small numbers, starting with zero and why it took so long for zero to be accepted as a number. Then it is on to smaller numbers, like 0.00000000000000001 which is interesting, because it is the difference between the actual and expected mass of the Higgs boson, leading to still …

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reviewed Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan (The Celestial Kingdom Duology, #1)

Sue Lynn Tan: Daughter of the Moon Goddess (Hardcover, 2022, Harper Voyager) 4 stars

Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being …

Great world-building

4 stars

The big draw of this book (to me, anyway) is the world-building which is rather unique. The story is based on a Chinese folktale but unlike other fantasy books rooted in Chinese falktales and mythology this one is set in the heavens, i.e. various immortal realms, and among Immortals. At times that made it hard for me to imagine how travelling between the realms really worked and the action set piece towards the end a bit confusing but other than that, I found it intriguing. The main characters are well-rounded and believable and I liked Xingyin's path in the Celestial Kingdom and the slower pace of that part. The writing style and the pacing are also a bit different from other fantasy books. I liked the realistic and bitter-sweet ending. Though it's part 1 of a duology it's a self-contained story. If you're into world-building, it's worth checking out.

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reviewed Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree (Legends & Lattes, #0)

Travis Baldree: Bookshops & Bonedust (AudiobookFormat, 2023) 4 stars

When an injury throws a young, battle-hungry orc off her chosen path, she may find …

Very cozy

5 stars

I loved it. I enjoyed the general setting - a quiet seaside town in a fantasy world - a lot. The characters are great, too. They have their outlooks and motivations and their little quirks and it's all presented in a well-paced manner that doesn't feel forced. I loved how this is also a book about books and bookshops. The excerpts of the books from this world were fantastic and were woven well into the overall story. That story was also really nice and captivating. I adored the cozyness and how accepting everyone was. An early highlight of the year for me! The audiobook is narrated by the author who does a great job with it.

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Amazon is removing the ability to download purchased Kindle content, which is the only way to read it on my Kobo or elsewhere. What this means is I will no longer be purchasing (“a license to”–ick) any books by the mostly independent authors who exclusively publish there; just cancelled preorders.

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