notes bookshop link recommended: yes there’s not a lot to say about this. it’s a fun, quick read and apparently the first installment on a much longer series. there’s all sorts of interesting stuff swirling around in here and stephenson is doing a great job of “world buliding”. the initial character, dawn/aurora, straddles two worlds between the wars and during the rise of soviet communism. there are historical figures (neils bohr makes a sidebar cameo), events (a world’s fair) interesting digressions (polo being played by cowboys/girls in montana, etc....

links, etc Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Temptations of Narrative a pretty solid review of the message some additional food for thought.

links, etc The FBI secretly created an Ethereum token to investigate crypto fraud - The Verge chef’s kiss… 200 Years Later, Still Trying to Define the Midwest - The New York Times oh, fuck off nyt.

notes bookshop link recommended: yes there’s been no shortage of press on this book. i suspect i’ve ingested a fair amount of what’s surrounded it. given the hype around the book you’d be forgiven for glossing over the trip to dakar and to a school board meeting. i’m not sure that i parse the dakar bits, i’m not meta/cerebral enough to grok what’s going on here. but it doesn’t feel like much....

links, etc The Truth About Hurricane Geoengineering - The Atlantic it’s absolutely bonkers to me that this is something that requires discussion.