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An entertaining collection of Amis’s writing on what seems to have been one of his favorite topics and pastimes.

Free markets, free elections, and peaceable relations among sovereign states are the “Wilsonian triad”, three inter-locking proposals made by Woodrow Wilson in his failed attempt to establish the League of Nations on a sound footing. Mandelbaum’s thought-provoking case is this: the trio did eventually succeed in defeating all comers, at least to the point where they have hegemonic, if not universal, status with no credible alternatives in sight.

A cracking good sci-fi novel and my first book read on my new Kindle.

How the redwood canopy was discovered and explored. Absolutely fascinating.

A quirky little WWI-era mystery, sadly marred by clunky writing. The author does finally hit a stride and delivers a pretty good ending.

Part 20: Wheels within Wheels: Twisted and Erlang

This continues the introduction started in the first part. You can find an index to the entire series.

Introduction

One fact we’ve uncovered in this series is that mixing synchronous “plain Python” code with asynchronous Twisted code is not a straightforward task, since blocking for an indeterminate amount of time in a Twisted program will eliminate many of the benefits you are trying to achieve using the asynchronous model.

The rise and fall of Pablo Escobar. I had no idea.

Part 19: I Thought I Wanted It But I Changed My Mind

This continues the introduction started in the first part. You can find an index to the entire series.

Introduction

Twisted is an ongoing project and the Twisted developers regularly add new features and extend old ones. With the release of Twisted 10.1.0, the developers added a new capability — cancellation — to the Deferred class which we’re going to investigate today.

A compelling argument for addressing sustainability with new approaches to design. The book itself is not made of paper, but of re-usable waterproof plastic.

The true story of one of the most successful pre-Madoff confidence games ever played, and the strange man who played it.