The Chemistry Test

Penny is disabled and confined to a wheelchair. She has other medical problems. But she wants to push past her limits and attend college. Luckily, she is very smart. So, she is fine academically. She meets Cam during her first semester there. At first, he is mysterious.

It turns out that Penny runs an online help site. Unbeknownst to them, they had been talking online at Penny's site for a while. Cam is still getting over the death of his grandmother. He was very close to her. She helped him get into the movie business. Cam is on a terribly famous series.

As an aside, Penny gets involved in public speaking. Cam reacts badly and ghosts Penny for a while. Then some other guy in the public speaking team appears to move in on Penny romantically. Cam finally gets up the nerve and shares his feelings with Penny. Penny shuts him down, thinking her disability would hold her back.

Of course these two get together in the end. She had promised to attend a public release of the latest season of his show. At this red carpet even, Cam is able to pin Penny down and address her reservations at them dating.

More Joel on Software

This is a book about running an independent software vendor company. The author is Joel Spolsky. He is co-founder of Fog Creek Software. They make boring bug tracking software. Joel is big on running the company in a way he would want to work there.

Joel's writing comes mostly from his blog, Joel on Software. The posts are 20 to 25 years old. However, they have aged well. This book is a sequel to Joel on software, which followed the same format. Ten years ago, Joel handed over the running of the company to somebody else. He then went on to lead Stack Overflow.

The Idea Factory

Subtitle of the this book is "Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation". The book covers many decades and scientists. These include famous people such as Shannon and Shockley who worked there. Most of the story happens in New Jersey.

Bell Labs worked on serious phone company future plans. They wanted to communicate overseas. The proposal was laying cable under the sea. They needed to build in repeaters to keep up the signal. They also researched ways to use satellites.

There was research on how to transmit signal over what would become fiber optic. Some research was not necessarily specific to the phone industry. To replace vacuum tubes, they invented the transistor.

The book covered government attempts to break up the monopoly. This somehow included AT&T. Eventually some parts would be in a merger of Alcatel and Lucent.

A Girl of the Limberlost

Elnora wants to go to high school. But it is expensive. Her mom is worried about the high cost of taxes for the property she owns. Even when Elnora somehow is able to get past school tuition, things like books costs a fortune.

Elnora starts looking for paid work. There is a Bird Woman who pays handsomely for specimens from the woods. Or in this case, from the wetlands know as the Limberlost. Elnora sells things such as rare moths to the Bird Woman. She can afford books and clothes and more.

When Elnora graduates, she finds her funds have dwindled to nothing. She wants to go to college. But the costs are even higher. She is trying to finish putting together a collection of moths. She finally has the most rare one. But her mom thinks it is some predatory animal and destroys it.

Elnora's aunt finds out what happened. She then goes to Elnora's mom and tells her about the details of Elnora's father's death. Apparently he was cheating on his wife. This is why he took a dangerous route through the wetlands and dies. Eventually her mom understands everything, and reconciles with Elnora.

Elnora decided to take a year off from school. She meets Phil, a handsome Harvard grad. Phil is on rest at his uncle doctor's advice. He needs some time outdoors in the south. Phil knows a lot about moths. He assists Elnora in her collecting for a whole summer as he is recuperating from his illness. He has a fiance back home in Chicago.

Before leaving to go back home, Phil seems to express romantic in Elnora. She shuts it down. Back home, Phil breaks up with his girlfriend. He returns to the Limberlost to marry Elnora. However, Elnora is not convinced as he has been engaged for most of his life. She needs to speak with his ex-fiance. 

Joel on Software

Since getting sick, I have been on a bit of a hiatus from reading paperback fiction books. I just started reading a paper book on TypeScript. They really want that skill on the new GUI team at work. A while back, I downloaded a copy of "More Joel on Software". It is kind of a sequel. So, I decided to read the original Joel on Software book. I had a PDF copy somehow.

Joel is the founder of a software company in NYC. Their main product is FOGBUGZ, a bug tracking software. Joel himself is famous for his blog, Joel on Software, which covers software development. I think this book is mainly a collection of articles from his blog.

Joel talks about running a small company in New York. He also tells us stories from his past employers, which include Microsoft. He explains why writing most code in Visual BASIC is an advantage. His team is not afraid to write small parts in C++. Joel confesses he is not well versed in ATL.

I just finished this book. Time for "More Joel on Software".

The Spotify Play

I watched a movie based off this book. Thus, I decided to read it. The book chronicles the history of the company Spotify. Specifically it covers the CEO Daniel Ek. He started out working for another company. But he soon went out on his own. He built some company whose goal was to make him money when he sold it. After 1 year, he sold it for around $1M.

A guy who ran the company who bought Daniel's startup later invested in the starting of Spotify. Their goal was to make a great music listening experience. The needed to have their site immediately start playing any music, without lag.

Spotify had always had a problem with record labels. Spotify wanted to provide the music for free and make money off ads. The music industry was vehemently opposed to this. Eventually, Daniel and co had to get one of the major labels to agree to license their music. The label got partial ownership of Spotify, and had a lot of guarantees that they would get paid, even if users listened to music for free.

Eventually Spotify had to compete with other music vendors like Apple and such. Spotify went public on the New York Stock Exchange. They offered shares directly to the public initially. The company was worth $20B, and eventually climbed as high as $50B. Daniel became a billionaire many times over.

The Time Machine and Other Stories

I got this book due to the author. It is written by H.G. Wells, of War of the Worlds fame. The format was not what I had expected. It has a good sized story - The Time Machine. Then there are a lot of other short stories. I will only comment on The Time Machine.

There is some professor like dude. He invents a time machine. He returns to the present in bad shape. After he gets ahold of himself, he tells his story. He traveled far into the future. Initially he met these aimless little creatures. They slept at night and feared the dark. His time machine gets stolen.

He saves one of these little creates from drowning. She then follows him around. At night, the professor discovers that some monkey like beings come out from the depths underground. He figures these are the beings of industry. As the aimless creatures do not seem to do any work.

The professor goes down into a shaft. The monkey creatures attack him. They are susceptible to light. And he has some matches. He is able to climb back up to the surface. At night, they pursue him out into a forest. He eventually is able to survive a battle with them. He cracks open some statues and finds where the monkeys hide his time machine.

People in the present are not sure whether to believe him or not.