From d523b2bf2f6a1cec12ed2e849caaa3ef2ce09cee Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Smaug123 <3138005+Smaug123@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2024 22:54:35 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Update film and reading list --- hugo/content/films/index.md | 1 + hugo/content/reading-list/index.md | 1 - 2 files changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/hugo/content/films/index.md b/hugo/content/films/index.md index 5bd45c1..89a17e8 100644 --- a/hugo/content/films/index.md +++ b/hugo/content/films/index.md @@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ layout: page This page holds a list of films I have watched, spoiler-free, starting from 9th January 2015. +* [Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2906216/): Really rather good! As they say, "Consider this fan serviced". Light-hearted, plenty of flashy callouts. * [The Grand Budapest Hotel](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2278388/): This is one of my favourite films. In general I find Wes Anderson a bit hit-or-miss, but this film is sublime. Excellent characterisation, quick deadpan wit. Ralph Fiennes is just glorious here. * [Argylle](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15009428/): Sadly disappointing. This film was at least twice as long as it should have been. A good version would have been a short funny pastiche; what we actually got was a long boring film punctuated by moments of glorious whimsy. diff --git a/hugo/content/reading-list/index.md b/hugo/content/reading-list/index.md index a609f21..4cbe2e4 100755 --- a/hugo/content/reading-list/index.md +++ b/hugo/content/reading-list/index.md @@ -79,7 +79,6 @@ This page holds a list of the books I am reading, and a list of books I have rea * Accelerando, by Charles Stross. Weird book, which I guess is the point. I had to struggle through the first few decades, because I found the style very offputting. (Even later, the gratuitous use of jargon like "ackles": I know what an [ACL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access-control_list) is, and perhaps such words will indeed be common in the future, but it really felt like the author was "just showing off" some basic computing knowledge.) The general idea was pretty cool, though! * Red Side Story, by Jasper Fforde, the second in the Shades of Grey series. I'm afraid I didn't enjoy this as much as the first book. There's a bunch of gripping worldbuilding here, but the first book was full of endearing naïvité from all characters, and this one was more "serious characters who happen to be in a whimsical setting". * Now It Can Be Told, by General Groves. I wasn't as taken with this book as I was with _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_; this book contained a bunch more individual callouts and "this particular person did a brilliant job" than are really necessary fifty years later. Still a bunch of excellent quotes, e.g. around how the US government paid him $35mm personally to get around procurement rules; _that's_ how you really try to win when you have trust in your employees! -* Red Side Story, by Jasper Fforde (sequel to Shades of Grey). Solidly as I expected it to be; fairly enjoyable. Plot was largely predictable. * [Planecrash](https://www.projectlawful.com/). It turns out that self-insert sex fiction is not actually much better if you are self-aware about it. There's some excellent readable story in here, but you have to wade through hours and hours of sex and sex-politics to find it. Absolutely not worth reading from start to finish; just find someone to link the "dath ilan society description and basic coordination classes" highlights. These authors *really* need an editor; the work is literally at least 10x too long. * Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, interpreted by Ursula Le Guin. Her poetry is *beautiful*. Not an easy read: I felt I was rushing at two hours for thirty-odd chapters to get the bare minimum of comprehension, but it's deep enough that each chapter would reward an hour of study. I'm currently going to improv classes, and this feels like it is secretly a book about improv! * Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke. Wonderful. Ethereal (but in a sort of grounded way), beautiful.