Justin Lloyd's Thinkering

Somebody needs to think about this stuff...

Reading

I made it a goal in 1985 to read one book a week.

Generally I have managed to stick to that goal for the most part.

Some years I couldn't get as much reading done as I wanted to.

My GoodReads list shows that I have a smidgen under 3,500 books that I have read.

And there are at least 300 books on my GoodReads list I have yet to tackle.

So much to read. So slow a reader.

Due to dyslexia I am not a particularly fast reader.

I plod through books at a pedestrian pace. I am jealous of people who can read quickly and I have no clue how people are able to speed read and retain all that information.

It's only dogged persistence that lets me get through a book some days.

Read – The Lord of the Rings

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Today I finished reading “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien

Update: Apparently I am informed this is a trilogy. Not just one book.

Read – The Mythical Man-Month

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Today I finished reading “The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering” by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

Some very interesting points raised in this book.

Interestingly I am not the only person (or even the first person) to realise that adding more programmers to a project that is running late just makes the project later still.

It’s also interesting to note how Brooks points out that people who are invested will produce some of the best work.

Read – The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms

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Today I finished reading “The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms” by Donald Ervin Knuth

Hard to read.

Even harder to implement all of the algorithms in BASIC or 6502 or Z80.

But I did it!

I now have a book festooned with post-it notes and scribbled notes in the margins.

Need to track down the 2nd volume.

Update: Well shit! There’s three volumes in this series.

Read – Winnie-the-Pooh

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Today I finished reading “Winnie-the-Pooh” by A. A. Milne

Re-read actually, because you don’t appreciate the art and the stories and the characters when you are six years old and nostalgia (even for a few years ago) is a powerful force.

Nostalgia is a powerful force if you do any kind of product marketing.

Evoking a simpler time, or harkening back to an earlier point in someone’s life, especially their childhood or adolescence (their formative years?) is a huge marketing lever you can use to sell products.

And I think I just had an epiphany of how to sell my video games.

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