Wolfgang Streeck -- Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
This book discusses European political-economic history from the post-war period up to the time of writing (2014). The title refers to Streeck's perspective on why change happens: democracy is at odds with capitalism and this tension must eventually lead to a separation of the two; either democracy rids itself of capitalism, or capitalism rids itself of democracy. The book is not just a high-level discussion of this tension, but also a practical analysis of what it has actually done in western democracies in practice over the past 40 years.
Stratechery -- Apple, Epic, and the App Store
Stratechery is Ben Thompson's blog and newsletter about current events in the tech business world, and how the pieces of the puzzle came to fit together like they do. His comparisons of different businesses and their interests are nuanced but concise. This post puts into words my uneasy feeling about Apple's supreme leadership over iOS and (to a lesser extent) macOS.
Tigran Hamasyan - The Call Within
After the (mostly) piano solo works An Ancient Observer (2017) and For Gyumri (2018), this album is a return to the head bob-inducing rhythmic destructo-beam style of Mockroot (2015). Prepare your neighbors and get ready to clean your walls -- this album's beautiful melodies and hard hitting rhythms will make your brain explode into a thousand pieces, each in its own unique state of bliss.
Ben van Gelder & Reinier Baas -- Mokum In Hi-Fi
These two are among the Netherlands' finest in instrumental jazz. They've been playing together for a long time, and it shows. I like Baas' warm, but still clean and piercing sound, with wide spread chords that are tastefully complex. The recordings are high quality and nicely mixed -- it's great to listen to with some good headphones. My three favourite tracks are Palace, Deo Volente and Charles.
This series tells the life story of someone who is now a prisoner in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to the best of its ability. I write 'to the best of its ability' because the problems that the reporters encounter along the way are a vital part of the story. There are roadblocks thrown up by the US government ('classified..'), unreliable testimonies and things that are just impossible to know for sure because of the chaos of real life. The series deals with this in a really honest way, which elevates it from a generic 'wow look what happened'-type story to actual food for thought.
Fast Forward -- The Tech Nonprofit Playbook
Fast Forward is a fund that raises capital from individual donors, foundations and corporations and invests it in tech nonprofits and hosts an accelerator program. They've gathered some advice for such startups in the form of a playbook, discussing nonprofit business models, if and when to bring in volunteers, and how to measure impact. It also includes some examples of cool nonprofit startups I didn't know about like Replate, TalkingPoints and CommonLit.
Back to the Future: Unix Wildcards Gone Wild
Do you know about shell wildcard argument injection? I didn't. Leon Juranic explains what it is (commands hidden as file names, injected through wild cards), gives a simple example (recursive unlinking) and then some real-world cases. I'm going to be careful with this one!