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Slashdot Asks: What Are Some Books, Movies, Documentaries and Shows From This Year That You Liked and Recommend To Others?
As we prepare to end the year, several readers have suggested we asked one another about the things we liked. We encourage everyone to participate.
Books: Black Widow and House of Spies by Daniel Silva Film: John Wick Chapter 2 TV: haha, none
I read this after over a decade of software development. Despite already following a number of good practices and writing functional code sans a bug here and there, my code has markedly changed and has become easier to read and test.
Homo Deus is a powerfully insightful book that brings down the curtain on modern man and contemplates the species that will replace us, some sort of artificially-evolved, highly-augmented, post-human organism. When our descendants are indistinguishable from Gods, their motivation becomes a matter of great importance.Harari asks the profound question: "What do we want to want?" This is a dazzlingly brilliant book.
Brilliant documentary by Adam Curtis. Long, but worth it: https://vimeo.com/191817381
The Undoing Project by Michael lewis -- made me rethink everything I thought about how human make decisions,
The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carre -- his amazing life, wonderfully told by the author.
So, Anyway , by John Cleese -- his funny autobiography
Ghost of the Tsunami, by Richard Lloyd Parry -- the saddest story ever, of school children lost in the Tsunami.
The Island at the Center of the World, by Russell Shorto -- Dutch New York was way different than whatever you think it was.
And The Weak Suffer What They Must?, by Yanis Varoufakis -- How the world's money systems actually work.
The Quartet, by Joseph Ellis -- the story of the US Constitution.
Ratification, by Pauline Maier -- about the miracle beyond miracles that the US Constitution was ever ratified.
A Legacy of Spies, by Le Carre -- The final finale of the George Smiley story.
Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande -- the cary end of life decisions we all get to make.
BBC America's Orphan Black. The series ended this year, if you never heard of it, best you watch the first few episodes of Season 1 before you look to see what is is about. All I will say it is a SIFI type series that what goes on in it is either possible now or will be in the near future.
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
The Genius (South Korea) is probably the smartest television show I've ever seen. They did four seasons from 2013 to 2015. Each season, 13 players (many minor celebrities/presenters, some non-celebrities) are brought in to play social/intellectual games (no physical challenges or stunts. It's all about how smart you are and how social you are.) Each week, they play one Main Match, where there are one or more winners and one or more losers (and everyone else, who are neither winners nor losers that week.) Out of the losers, one is chosen as the Elimination Candidate, who picks one of the non-winners to compete against in the Death Match, a 1v1 game that sends the loser out of the competition.
A very nice lady who goes by the nickname Bumdidlyumptious subtitled all four seasons. Most of her episodes recently got taken down from DailyMotion but you can easily find download links for episodes on Reddit. Here's her YouTube Season 1 playlist (her stuff is still up on YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9suu7e7YWZ0rw06g9_cOi_cnzpeXeUCc
Season 1, Episode 7 (Open Pass Game) probably has the greatest 3 minutes of television I've ever seen.
Zero chance they ever make anything like it here in the US because we are idiots who cannot have nice things.
CaptainDork snorted:
... try me again next year.
Movies: Colossal, Dave Made a Maze, Atomic Blonde (despite the critics' naysaying), and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, just for starters. All excellent in their very different ways.
TV: Legion, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (season 2 - or "series 2" in Brit-speak - was even crazier than season 1), Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell, Ken Burns' The Vietnam War, Marvel's The Defenders, The Orville (uneven, and it suffers from some pretty lame scriptwriting, but I expect it to improve in future seasons, as Seth Macfarlane shows always do), and BBC's The Alternativity (I've only seen the doc, not the performance that goes with it), off the top of my head. I'm sure I could think of more, if I tried.
Neal Stephenson's The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., and his three-volume masterpiece The Baroque Cycle (not new for 2017, but the best thing he's ever written, IMnsHO). I could go on here, too, but I'm being called away for Xmas brunch.
Cynicism and snarkiness are not nearly as hip - or as entertaining - as you might believe ...
Check out my novel.
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