You know you love it. In addition to the Geeky Lefty Triumvirate of The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper’s, sometimes we read crap:

In which normally unacceptable books become desireable

We’ve been sucked into another series mostly on account of the bad-but-kinda-ok TV adaptation. Bonus: noticing how much backstory they’re leaving out on the television. Honestly, Butcher’s not a bad writer, and the books are pretty well plotted. They’ll do as an adjunct to our traditional travel potboilers, of which we’re sadly running short.

What’s on deck

A test run at a no-doubt turgid fantasy series that we’re told is coming to HBO. We haven’t been able to work up the nerve to dive in yet.

And also

Scalzi, about whom everyone says fine things. We’ll let you know.

And last week?

Dreaming in Code, which is so true it hurts. Mitch Kapor has been able to fund Chandler pretty well, which insulates it from the sorts of constraints that usually form software projects. As a direct consequence, they’ve been building for years without actually creating much at all in terms of usable software. In the interim, some have come to embrace those constraints to great effect. It’s by no means clear that Chandler will ever see the light of day, and even less clear that it’ll be useful when it does, but the basic idea sure is neat.

Upcoming in the same vein

Earned Value Project Management, as prep for moving back into software project management. We hope it’ll provide the optimistic counterpoint to Rosenberg’s work.

Why we don’t just watch the goddamned TV like a normal American

There’s no Tivo in hotels. Dammit. We can’t abide the commercials.