What I’m Reading – 12/5/17

My first post for December! Spent the weekend absorbed in Christmas decorating and I’m pretty happy with the results. Hopefully this is the first of many great Christmas tress I’ll have in San Francisco.

Besides that not much else has been going on. Chelsea play their final match in their Champions League group stage today. A win would put Chelsea on top of their group although even a loss still means they’ll make it to the knockout stages. Either way the opponents in the next round will be difficult. Honestly, even a quarter final appearance this year would be a pretty good showing. Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 11/30/17

I thought I was done for November, but I found six more articles I really wanted to share! I don’t have much else to share in the way of personal details today; I’ve mostly spent the week doing shopping for Christmas decorations for the tree. I do have a few things to say about Bitcoin and the markets today, though.

We’ve had a crazy few days on the markets as Bitcoin blitzed to $11,000 to the dollar and then pulled all the way back to $9,000 all in the span of 48 hours. Anyone still seriously looking at this as anything other than a severe bubble is likely to get burned badly. Remember, if Bitcoin bursts this is going to have big ramifications for the rest of the crypto-markets as mainstream investors move away. If crypto takes a hit, make sure to re-assess any positions you might have in AMD or Nvidia since the two major GPU makers have received a huge boost from crypto-mining over the past year and a half.

In other news, tech stocks pulled back a fair bit both in China and the US as investors decided to take profits. It looks today that any profit-taking has ended temporarily and we may be heading higher before the end of the year. Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 11/28/17

Feels good to be back to work after the holiday. I spent the weekend eating great food with Sydney’s folks at her house and finally finished the Hamilton biography I’ve been starting and stopping for ten years. I have to say the first half of his life was definitely more entertaining the second, although for someone who died at age 49, Alexander Hamilton lived an incredible life. If you never saw the musical or read about his life, I highly recommend it.

This week is all about getting decorations ready for Christmas and hopefully putting together a surprise for Sydney (don’t tell her). Other than that, I’ll be going to see the Disaster Artist later on this week. If you haven’t seen the previews, the Disaster Artist is about Tommy Wiseau and the making of The Room, one of the most notoriously bad movies of all time.

I haven’t really kept up too much with the news over the weekend, so I’ll leave off this section for today. Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 11/22/17

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hopefully all of you are safely with your family or friends and ready to enjoy the holiday. I’m trying to get this written while packing up, so I’ll keep it short. The week has been busy on the production side of things and equally busy in the news. We’ll most likely be paying more for our internet service going forward if the FCC repeals Net Neutrality later this week. For those of you who aren’t up-to-date on that issue, I’ve included a link on the issue in today’s set.

Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 11/18/17

Originally this post was supposed to have photos from a trip to the MOMA this weekend, but considering we didn’t finish making breakfast until 2pm today, it’ll have to wait for tomorrow. Instead, we watched Chelsea thump West Brom 4-0 in the Premier League with a beautiful assist from Alvaro Morata leading to an Eden Hazard goal. The win takes Chelsea to third in the table, as Spurs lost to Arsenal 2-0. Currently four teams are within one point of 4th place in the league which will definitely make for an interesting Christmas run of games. By the way, if you only read one link this week, I highly suggest reading the final article on finding lost trade cities of the Bronze Age.

In other news, Mugabe is definitely going to be ousted in Zimbabwe and the controversial Roy Moore is trailing his Democrat opponent by something like 5 points in the polls, which would add to Republican woes as the Democrats ready themselves for a midterm challenge. In business news, Tesla, under pressure for Model 3 production problems, unveiled a new electric semi truck picking up exploratory orders from the likes of Walmart.

Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 11/15/17

Finishing three days of Scala training today. I’ve been mostly writing Ruby for a few months now so it’s nice to have gotten the refresher on Scala topics. No language is perfect, but I have to say I’d take Scala every day over Java if given the choice. Readability is just on another level when compared to the more verbose languages.

In other news, it appears that Zimbabwe is currently undergoing a military coup. The army has captured Robert Mugabe and apparently is attempting to arrest members of the existing elite, including Mugabe’s ambitious wife. Worth keeping an eye on Zimbabwe; this could mean a new chapter in its history.

Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 11/12/17

Last night Sydney and I celebrated our one year anniversary. It was a great night; we had an early dinner at the Cliff House, caught the sunset, then went to see Aladdin at the Orpheum. They’ve changed the story of Aladdin a fair amount to fit a less cartoonish interpretation, replacing the tiger and monkey with groups of singing and dancing friends instead. The flying carpet is reduced to only two appearances as it carries the main characters around the stage in a pretty convincing way. The genie is no longer blue, but instead wears a blue outfit. To be honest, the genie’s character seemed heavily inspired by Titus Andromedon from Kimmy Schmidt. The sets and costumes both looked great and functioned well. The crew even included a hefty amount of pyrotechnics in the act. Overall, definitely worth the money to go see it.

In other news, the link I’ve included are from the week, but since I had them already set aside I thought I’d include them in a post. Trump was in Asia this past week, fleeing from negative press at home and trying to make some progress on his foreign policy objectives. So far, the trip has been heavy on positive rhetoric from all parties, but not necessarily equally heavy on details. Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 11/6/17

What a let-down Halloween turned into… Sydney and I did wind up going out, but to be honest most of the crowd was either not in costume or wearing some sort of cop-out costume. I guess the holiday falling on a Tuesday this year thinned the herd a bit. We wound up making the best of it, but hopefully next year people are more enthused.

In other news, it seems like every week we find out more about how corrupt the rich and powerful are these days (maybe always?). One of the Panama Papers journalists was killed in Malta two weeks ago in a car bombing, while this week a new set of files detailing offshore tax havens was leaked. This time even Queen Elizabeth II got in on the action. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince made more headlines by purging 80-something members of the royal family and ruling elite in a “corruption” crackdown. More realistically, this is an attempt to centralize power before the ambitious royal begins his push for massive reforms. Nonetheless, what a world when Saudi Arabia can hold it’s leaders accountable, but we Americans cannot. Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 10/30/17

This year will hold the record as the most disorganized Halloween ever. Our famous workplace Halloween event was renamed “Fall Festival” this year for reasons completely unknown causing many of us to not even know it was happening. Great success. Likewise, I’ve noticed maybe 5 merchants with a few lazily set-up decorations with the vast majority doing nothing at all. Has culture died in this country or are we just too lazy to care anymore? The most popular outfit I saw over the weekend was a collection of animal onesies worn by 30 year olds, presumably because they were also too lazy to do more than spend $30 on Amazon. Despite this, Sydney and I will be out the night of Halloween. I’ll be going as OG Mad Max, although don’t expect it to be cosplay quality. I did the best I could with the time I had.

In other news, I’ve stayed out of the news cycle for the most part over the past few weeks, opting instead to make dinner and play some cards at night. I’m definitely happier for it. Anyway, here are the links:

What I’m Reading – 10/19/17

First post since getting back from Disneyland and Phoenix last weekend. Of course, two weeks so packed with activity were guaranteed to make me sick and here I am. Luckily, I think I’ve finally turned the corner in time for this weekend. There’s some excitement going on this weekend; Sydney and I will be down in San Jose checking out the Earthquakes play against Minnesota United to secure a playoff spot. I’ve never watched the Earthquakes play so I’m excited to be able to actually make it to a match finally. Broadcasters being what they are, it’s often nearly impossible to watch our local games on streams or TV without the use of a VPN.

Anyway, here are the links: