Category Archives: Books

Guildenstern and epistemology

Posted on March 23, 2011 by

A propos of nothing in particular, this quote from Stoppard’s brilliant Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. After losing nearly a hundred coin tosses in a row to Rosencrantz, who bets Heads every time, Guildenstern suspects there’s something funky going on … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Philosophy | 2 Comments

Learning from strangers

Posted on November 24, 2010 by

I got a copy of “Learning from Strangers,” by Robert S. Weiss, after reading about it in Jeremy Handcock’s blog. It’s such a good book that I wanted to bang my head against a wall for not reading it before. … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Books, Recommendations | Leave a comment

My copy of Making Software

Posted on November 15, 2010 by

Last night, as I came back home from my convocation in Toronto, I found my free copies of Making Software waiting for me. The book looks great, and the list of contributors is (ahem!) fantastic. I’ll read it over the … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Books, Software development | Leave a comment

“Making Software” is out!

Posted on November 3, 2010 by

I got some great news today: the book Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It, edited by Andy Oram and Greg Wilson, is now available. It includes a chapter I wrote on co-located vs. private-office work environments, … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Books, Software development | 3 Comments

Recommendations from 2009

Posted on December 30, 2009 by

Another year is almost gone, so I’d like to share some recommendations of stuff I loved throughout 2009. Fiction Books I should mention I now try to post my thoughts on all the books I read at LibraryThing; feel free … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Recommendations | 5 Comments

Why We Disagree About Climate Change

Posted on December 2, 2009 by

I’ve just finished reading Mike Hulme’s Why We Disagree About Climate Change (update: you can listen to Hulme discuss some of the book’s topics here. Thanks Jon!) and felt I had to recommend it to anybody that is interested in … Continue reading →

Posted in Activism, Books, Recommendations | 5 Comments

Spanish books in Toronto!

Posted on June 15, 2009 by

For years I’d been searching for a copy of Janusz Glowacki’s Antigone in New York, a play I performed back in Mexico. I couldn’t find it anywhere: big bookstores, small bookstores, online, in Canada, in the United States –nowhere. Until … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Toronto | 5 Comments

Books by the foot?

Posted on December 11, 2008 by

This is bizarre and plain wrong. I don’t know what is worse: the service itself or the careful selection of maxims about books that make no mention of actually reading them.

Posted in Books | 1 Comment

Economic measurement

Posted on September 24, 2008 by

I just finished reading Fritz Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful”, and it reminded me of a speech by Robert F. Kennedy that I wanted to share: Too much and for too long, we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community … Continue reading →

Posted in Activism, Books | 2 Comments

2007 recommendations: Books

Posted on December 31, 2007 by

Here’s a short list of some of the great books I discovered this year. Fiction: The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin: Both are honest, bold, exciting, and soothing. And they’re science fiction too. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Recommendations | 2 Comments