Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, & technology book reviews, plus social, political, & economic commentary
Guess which book, as yet unreleased, is pre-selling at #1 in Amazon’s “Corruption & Misconduct in Politics” category? P.S., I possibly may earn a few helpful cents as an Amazon affiliate bookseller if you follow this link to the book. But only if you actually buy it or something else. Otherwise, bupkis. No soup for … Continue reading Just One of the Ways Political Crime Pays?
Homestead Steel Mill: The Final Ten Years USWA 1397 and the Fight for Union Democracy Mike Stout PM Press Now more than ever, with some 40 million Americans unemployed, the nation’s economy stalled by protests and a deadly pandemic, and federal leadership failing, we need to review and draw again from hard lessons learned during … Continue reading Hard Lessons Learned Inside a Steel Union’s Battles to Save Jobs and Benefits
Staying Sane & Entertained While Forced to Hide from the Coronavirus Charles Dickens likely did not have a deadly global pandemic in mind when he wrote the “best of times, worst of times” opening for his novel, A Tale of Two Cities. He was contrasting life in profitable, peaceful London with grim life in revolution-torn … Continue reading Worst of Times, Best of Times
Reinventing a city does not have to start from the top down. You don’t need big government initiatives and huge funding, this noteworthy book contends. People within America’s growing “Maker culture” can rework and improve a local economy. They can bring needed and worthwhile changes to a city’s culture using significantly smaller budgets and much … Continue reading Maker City: How to reinvigorate local economies and cultures – #bookreview
Introducing Data Science Davy Cielen, Arno D. B. Meysman, and Mohamed Ali Manning – paperback The three authors of this book note that “[d]ata science is a very wide field, so wide indeed that a book ten times the size of this one wouldn’t be able to cover it all. For each chapter, we picked … Continue reading ‘Introducing Data Science’ – A good doorway into the world of processing, analyzing & displaying Big Data – #bookreview
I strolled into my favorite Austin Starbucks recently and noticed a startling sight. Every person standing in line or sitting at tables simultaneously had their head down as if in group prayer. All at the same moment were staring at their smartphones. I pulled out my own phone, dramatically flipped it open, held it aloft, … Continue reading Will “Smart” Device Dependence Make You Increasingly Dumb?
Big Data Principles and best practices of scalable real-time data systems Nathan Marz, with James Warren Manning – paperback Get this book, whether you are new to working with Big Data or now an old hand at dealing with Big Data’s seemingly never-ending (and steadily expanding) complexities. You may not agree with all … Continue reading BIG DATA: A well-written look at principles & best practices of scalable real-time data systems – #bookreview
D3.js in Action Elijah Meeks Manning – paperback The D3.js library is very powerful, and it is full of useful choices and possibilities. But, you should not try to tackle Elijah Meeks’s new book if you are a JavaScript newcomer and not also comfortable with HTML, CSS and JSON. It likewise helps to understand … Continue reading D3.js in Action: A good book packed with data visualization how-to info – #javascript #programming
Soft Skills The Software Developer’s Life Manual John Z. Sonmez Manning – paperback I really wish I had had this book when I started a 14-year career in software development and testing. I was hired back in the days when you could get a software job by having a college degree (in anything), a couple of … Continue reading SOFT SKILLS: A very useful ‘life manual’ for software developers – #programming #bookreview
Cloudera Administration Handbook Rohit Menon Packt Publishing – Kindle, paperback The explosive growth and use of Big Data in business, government, science and other arenas has fueled a strong demand for new Hadoop administrators. The administrators’ key duty is to set up and maintain Hadoop clusters that help process and analyze massive amounts of … Continue reading Cloudera Administration Handbook – How to become an effective Big Data administrator of large Hadoop clusters – #bookreview
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