Chris Brooks Newsletter 019
Greetings from Oregon. You might be surprised to know that it will be raining all week here.
1. 🚘 Where I’ve been traveling
A lot of miles added to the camper van this past month. After hosting our final group at Keuka Lake, Julie and I embarked on an 8 day east coast adventure with friends Jim and Jill. Jim and Jill stayed over an extra night after our trip concluded to help us close down the cottages for the winter. So much easier with extra hands.
We closed things down on October 20 and drove away in the van and Tesla (Blitzle), headed towards Florida where we’d live Blitzle with my sister for the winter. That was a tough drive! We’ve learned to appreciate shorter driving days with shared driving responsibilities.
2. 📖 What I’ve been reading
First, a couple of truth-telling but also somewhat wacky futurists:
- Mark Andreesen wrote his Techno-Optimist Manifesto. Did it need to be this long? I’m not wild about principles or assertions where the opposite is clearly a bad idea (the classic “motherhood and apple pie” mission statement), and he makes a lot of these, e.g. “We believe in _bravery, in _courage.”, “We believe in the truth.” I can get behind much of his fundamental message: innovation presents risk, but the benefits in the large will outweigh potential downsides.
- Balaji, former CTO of Coinbase and crypto evangelist, wrote about how Crypto Twitter Found SBF’s Fraud. I didn’t fact check nor will I. Big takedown words on traditional media and the American left.
On a much cooler note, it looks like the 23ky old human footprints at White Sands are solid – ArcheoThoughts. It is also worth noting that this just sets a floor for how long humans have wandered the Americas. Perhaps they’ve been around 25,000 years? 30,000? Time to update our priors.
I still haven’t seen Marin Scorsese’s latest Killers of the Flower Moon but I hope to soon. I did enjoy this recap of Roger Ebert on the Films of Martin Scorsese. My favorite: The Departed. What’s yours?
I’m a new owner of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and enjoyed this iPhone 15 Pro Max Review focused on photography capabilities.
Lastly, I finished a few speculative fiction books:
- Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. It was good, but didn’t have enough payoff for me to jump into the next book in the series. Instead I’m going to read the four surprise Brandon Sanderson novels from this year.
- Julie and I finally read or listened to Shift (audio book) and Dust (audio book) in the Silo series by Hugh Howey. Highly recommended!
3. 🍿 What I’ve been watching
Julie and I are caught up on two TV series:
- Foundation season two is better and more coherent than the first season. Characters are better here than in the books. I like the stronger presence of Demerzel and more overt linkage to I, Robot.
- We are still enjoying the witty and too-smart characters of The Morning Show
We also watched two movies:
- I managed to talk Julie into watching a horror movie: The Conference.
- Of course I had to see Taylor Swift - the Eras Tour, and even better I saw it with Julie, sister Jennifer, three nieces, and two grand-nieces.
4. 🎶 What I’ve been listening too
- Thanks to those of you that shared your favorite covers - I’ve added several to my playlist since last month.
- The new Rolling Stones album is very good! A few boring boomer rocker tracks, but several that could have appeared on albums 30–50 years ago (“Angry”, “Get Close”, “Mess it Up”, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”)
- A blogger I’ve followed for at least 15 years published his list of favorite Taylor Swift covers. My favorite.
- How did I not know about A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs??? Only five episodes in and I love it so far.
5. ⛳️ What I’ve been playing
Lots of golf wandering, from 9 hole muni play with Julie to epic rounds at Essex County Club and Oak Hill East.
As Julie and I roamed west we were finding it harder and hard to stay up until 9pm, especially with the recent time change. One night this week we pulled out our computers to play some games on BGA: Draftosaurus and Patchwork.
6. 🐣 Big News
Son Jacob and daughter-in-law Kaitlin are expecting a baby boy this coming May. We’ll be spending more time in Napa.
-Chris