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Arduino, Qualcomm, Enshittification
I use Arduinos in many projects, including robotics. Recently, Qualcomm acquired Arduino. It did not take long for Qualcomm to update its Terms of Service to dramatically shift from one of the most open source platforms to a highly restricted one. Here is a link to a reddit post that describes the current situation pretty…
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How Everything Gets Enshittified — and How We Can Fix It
Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification isn’t just a rant about Big Tech. It’s a field guide to how our digital world curdles over time—and how we might reclaim it. I purchased the Kindle version of this book. After I read the book, I started trying to withdraw from Big Tech. In prior book reviews, I put the…
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What Goethe Can Teach Us Today
I had once read that there were three men who were geniuses in three distinct disciplines. Goethe was one, along with Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer. Goethe has also been cited in several of my other, recent readings. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was no ordinary writer. As Rüdiger Safranski shows in his masterful biography, Goethe…
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Hype, Hope, and Hard Truths: What Smil Teaches Us About Innovation
I am a fan of Bill Gates. His solutions to some of the world’s greatest problems are thoughtful and interesting and on a grand scale. Not solutions available at a personal level. One of his favorite authors is Vaclav Smil, which prompted me to read this book. In Invention and Innovation, Vaclav Smil slices through…
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Adventures in Computation: Stephen Wolfram’s Vision of the Future
I have always been interested in computation and information, which attracted me to this book. I found Adventures of a Computational Explorer, interesting, though Wolfram’s style and egotism wore thin after a while. Towards the end I found myself skimming more than reading. Though the various software programs he developed seem effective enough, I am…
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Richard Feynman: Revolutionizing 20th Century Physics
In reading or listening to anything on 20th century physics, Richard Feynman and his physics play a prominent role. With this in mind, I listened to Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman. When we think of scientific genius in the 20th century, Richard Feynman stands out not just for his intellect but for…
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Exploring Chaos Theory: From Niagara Falls to Science
My wife and I recently took a trip to Niagara Falls, staying on the Canadian side. I also just finished reading Chaos: Making a New Science, by James Gleick. As I looked at the falls and the rushing Niagara River, thinking about all of that turbulence enhanced the experience. James Gleick’s Chaos: Making a New…
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Observing Dryad’s Saddle: The Forest’s Spotted Surprise
You can see my observation on the iNaturalist site here. A Welcome Sight in Spring Today’s woodland walk brought a delightful surprise: a beautiful cluster of Dryad’s Saddle mushrooms, also known as Polyporus squamosus. This impressive bracket fungus often appears on dead or dying hardwood trees—particularly elm, maple, or box elder—and is a welcome herald…
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Derek’s Stuff
I have mentioned Derek in an earlier post about my cherry/purpleheart dining room table. In this short clip from his most recent YouTube video, you see his stone kitchen sink. I have been impressed by Derek’s metalworking and blacksmithing, and am amazed by his stoneworking skills. You can see more of his work on his…
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DeAngelis Family Tech Interests 