This book slaps, and it is constantly, tragically, achingly relevant. Fighting for reproductive freedom, the importance of communal projects, fascism's strange relationship with empowering technology. And of course: whacky intratextual timeline shenanigans.
User Profile
I'm a nonbinary π³οΈββ§οΈ trans π queer π§ disabled π Jewish πΉ socialist π΄π© anti-fascist π urbanist on unceded Ohlone land in Berkeley, CA.
I enjoy reading fiction and I put in the effort to read non-fiction to expand my horizons and improve my abilities. Science fiction is where I'm most comfortable, but I can dive into almost any story depicting smart but flawed people trying to manage complex and uncertain situations.
π΅ While I read, I like to enjoy limitless (green) tea, and (lukewarm) coffee in moderation. π₯ Dumplings and soup are my favorite food groups, which makes xiao long bao humanity's greatest achievement besides audiobooks. β As well as lying in bed on a rainy day, reading with a warm mug in my hand, I also like to listen to books while sailing, hiking, camping, or really any other activity which lets me look at trees or find a cool bird or pretty flower. π
Find me at @tilde@infosec.town or tilde.lowengr.im.
Since I spend my day staring at glowing screens, I try to focus on audiobooks. Most books that I'm only going to read once I get from Overdrive & Libby. I prefer to buy new books from my favorite authors, and anything I find myself reading over and over.
For those audiobooks, I love Libro.fm. They're a social purpose corporation, care about DEI, and let you support your local book store when you shop there. Most importantly, all your audiobooks can be downloaded as DRM-free mp3 files so you can archive them on your own, and use any audiobook player you like. libro.fm/referral?rf_code=lfm299420
Either way, audiobooks go to my Plex server and I listen using the Prologue app on iOS (prologue.audio). Using my own server means I don't need to sync my three-thousand file terabyte-sized collection to my phone. I download the books on my reading list to use offline. If I don't think I'm going to re-read an audiobook, I remove the download when I'm done.
Friends: would you also like access to my Plex library? Send me a message on Signal and I'll get your account hooked up.
For a smaller audiobook collection, I strongly recommend BookPlayer (apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998). It works great, and has a ton of flexibility and convenience. But it chokes when synchronizing huge libraries, which is why I switched to Prologue.
I also used to hugely recommend the Voice Dream app, but it was recently bought by a new company and has been less reliable of late. Not every book has an audio edition β especially obscure material and non-fiction. Having a robot in my phone which can read me any PDF or ePub is magical. Custom voices and pronunciation, fully offline reading, it's really solid. But the sync has been on the fritz lately, which is extremely frustrating. voicedream.com
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Tilde Lowengrimm finished reading The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
Tilde Lowengrimm finished reading Blindsight by Peter Watts
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Two months since the stars fell...
Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous β¦
Tilde Lowengrimm started reading Blindsight by Peter Watts
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Two months since the stars fell...
Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous β¦
Tilde Lowengrimm finished reading Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliott Friedman
Tilde Lowengrimm reviewed Six Amendments by John Paul Stevens
Straightforward, reasonable, impossible
These six amendments are easy to understand and eminently reasonable. In fact, they are barely amendments β they mostly just clarify existing text which unreasonable judges have decided to deliberately misunderstand in order to achieve unpopular policy goals. Indeed, it is an indictment of the US and our legal system that we do not currently act as if these clarifying amendments are in place. Stevens provides plenty of context about the events and cases which demand these amendments. But a reasonably-informed person would probably get most of the context just from reading the proposed changes.
Tilde Lowengrimm finished reading Six Amendments by John Paul Stevens
Tilde Lowengrimm started reading Six Amendments by John Paul Stevens
Tilde Lowengrimm finished reading Wondering Jew by Micah Goodman
This was an absolutely fantastic read mixing positions which I think of as coming from very different ends of Judiasm. This was a quick first read, but there's so much in here to examine further. I might even need to read this one in text with a highlighter. What an interesting document with so much to think about. It's going right back on the end of my reading list.
Tilde Lowengrimm started reading Wondering Jew by Micah Goodman
Tilde Lowengrimm reviewed Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad
Bland & unremarkable travel writing
1 star
A collection of anecdotes, but nothing that really spoke to me or showed me anything new or interesting. Very focused on the author's experience rather than the place he's in. Cover art & title much better than the writing. Not recommended.
Tilde Lowengrimm finished reading Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad
Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad
When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. β¦
Tilde Lowengrimm started reading Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad
Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad
When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. β¦
Tilde Lowengrimm started reading Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliott Friedman
Tilde Lowengrimm reviewed Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan M. Metzl
Whiteness is politics of calculated harm, not ignorance of negative consequences
A difficult book to read, since it mostly talks about how people are harmed, and how society fails to protect & support them. The three main topics covered are gun ownership leading to (especially) suicide, opposition to government-provided healthcare leading to worse healthcare outcomes, and school funding cuts leading to many negative outcomes. Whiteness is a political doctrine which contains many jagged bits and pieces of ideology which don't necessarily fit together neatly. One of the things this book did for me was articulate that at least in the policy areas of guns and healthcare, white people aligned with the white political project are not ignorantly voting for harmful policies. The people interviewed know that widespread easy access to guns leads to more gun deaths, and they accept and acknowledge that as a reasonable cost of maintaining their rights. Likewise healthcare: there is no confusion about the fact that moving β¦
A difficult book to read, since it mostly talks about how people are harmed, and how society fails to protect & support them. The three main topics covered are gun ownership leading to (especially) suicide, opposition to government-provided healthcare leading to worse healthcare outcomes, and school funding cuts leading to many negative outcomes. Whiteness is a political doctrine which contains many jagged bits and pieces of ideology which don't necessarily fit together neatly. One of the things this book did for me was articulate that at least in the policy areas of guns and healthcare, white people aligned with the white political project are not ignorantly voting for harmful policies. The people interviewed know that widespread easy access to guns leads to more gun deaths, and they accept and acknowledge that as a reasonable cost of maintaining their rights. Likewise healthcare: there is no confusion about the fact that moving closer to universal healthcare would help them and their communities. But they are willing to forego that benefit in order to withhold it from other, mostly non-white, disfavored groups. These are deliberate calculated choices, not ignorant policy-against-self-interest. These people have simply decided that the individual and community costs of these policies (gun access and individualized healthcare) are worthwhile. Education seems like the exception. The voices highlighted seemed to reject the legitimacy of education funding cuts after seeing the negative outcomes of those policies. They previously believed that education was inefficient and overfunded, but amended those beliefs after funding cuts hurt schools. This outcome was not consistent, but it was noticeable for happening at all in contrast to guns and healthcare. However, even when it came to education, that policy objective was less important than other objectives more closely centered around the project of whiteness. Hence interviewees who objected to local and state school-defunding decisions but were still excited to vote for Trump's ethno-nationalist policies despite disagreeing with his education policy. Overall, it is abundantly clear from these interviews and analyses that whiteness is a doctrine of exclusion, perceived scarcity, and hatred. It is probably not surprising to hear that whiteness has racial animus at its heart. What was most interesting to me was that ignorance was not a key pillar of policy decision-making. White politics entails full awareness of the harm done by white policies to white communities. It is simply calculated that these lives lost are an acceptable cost.