… an architectural and social movement promoting the reduction and simplification of living spaces.
Tiny homes have been promoted as offering lower-cost and sometimes eco-friendly features within the housing market, and they have also been promoted a housing option for homeless individuals. …
Many of the events around the infamous Salem Witchcraft trials actually took place in Danvers, Massachusetts, which at the time was known as Salem Village.
The Proving Ground (2025) is 8th in the Mickey Haller (Lincoln Lawyer) series. Possibly the best yet.
A courtroom procedural. Mikeywith a case against an AI company whose product may have been responsible for the murder of a teenage girl.
It’s set post-Covid. During fires in L.A.
Very contemporary.
… a chatbot told a sixteen-year-old boy that it was okay for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for her disloyalty.
Representing the victim’s family, Mickey’s case explores the mostly unregulated and exploding AI business and the lack of training guardrails.
Along the way he joins up with a journalist named Jack McEvoy (The Poet), who wants to be a fly on the wall during the trial in order to write a book about it.
But Mickey puts him to work going through the mountain of printed discovery materials in the case. McEvoy’s digging ultimately delivers the key witness, a whistleblower who has been too afraid to speak up. The case is fraught with danger because billions are at stake.
I haven’t cancelled J.K. Rowling as she’s not ALL bad. She’s donated much to charity. And may even be a good person who somehow stumbled into this issue, getting it way wrong.
Themes explored in the plot involve Freemasonry, human trafficking, the silver antiques trade, corruption in the media, secrecy surrounding the military and intelligence services, mental health issues …
That said, the book is too long, as are most of her books in this series.
The relationship between Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott is agonizing and stupid. I can’t believe so little has progressed over 8 books.
I used to be sympathetic for Robin, as Strike is such an asshole. But she’s just as bad.
The only person to cheer for is Office Manager Pat. 😀
Worse — perhaps — is the plot. WHY did they take on a case to identify a mutilated corpse? WHY spend so much time and manpower on this case?
Who cares?
Story line convoluted and hard to follow. At the end, I read some explainers ➙ and still can’t be bothered to understand the plot.
IF you can get past those flaws, I actually enjoyed this book.
Tourists feed them directly, risking scratches and bites.
I took in the “animal circus“, as well. Noting that dog tricks seem perfectly acceptable — but that monkey tricks seem abusive. No logic there, I’m afraid.
But even more so, Terry Gou, who, in 1974, founded FoxConn in Taiwan.
Incredibly ambitious, by 2012 Foxconn made up approximately 40% of worldwide consumer electronics production.
Just one of his many huge factories in China produces the bulk of Apple’s iPhone line and is sometimes referred to as “iPhone City”.
Needless to say, there are many abused workers in those plants. They don’t last many months on the gruelling production line.
Over the years, Gou and others steadily wooed Tim Cook and Apple to move manufacturing to China.
Today over 90% of Apple products are made in China. A huge risk for the company if authoritarian dictator-for-life Xi decides to invade Taiwan. Or shut down exports.
Attempts to move production to other nations have been mostly experiments. Or motivated by politics, not business.
In the meantime, Chinese engineers — many trained by Apple — are building cheaper, better Chinese phones in China. They no longer need Apple.
It’s a precarious situation.
Apple in China is a 2025 book uniquely looking at the company from the viewpoint of China.
In her May 15, 2025 review for The New York Times, Hannah Beech called Apple in China “smart and comprehensive,” praising Patrick McGee’s clever and chronologically organized timeline of how Apple’s expansion to China manufacturing facilities under then COO Tim Cook created a global success but also an “existential vulnerability” for the United States.
The FX miniseries A Teacher (2020) was filmed in my old High School, after it had closed and was scheduled for demolition.
… I don’t recall any teachers like Kate Marawhen I was a student. 😀
Set in the span of 10 years, this series follows a female English teacher in her early 30s as she begins to groom and abuse her 17-year-old male student in the fictional high school of Westerbrook in Austin, Texas.
After Animal House, John Belushi had the #1 movie, #1 album, and #1 late night TV show. A huge star.
In The Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood are on “a mission from God” to prevent the foreclosure of their Roman Catholic orphanage.
The Blues Brothers were controversial in a very American way. The intrinsically racist Hollywood film industry assumed they couldn’t sell a celebration of Black music and culture. The industry was wrong.
For example, Ted Mann, head Mann Theatres, refused to book the film as he didn’t want Black patrons. Mann was Jewish.
Starring Margot Robbie as the title character and Ryan Gosling as Ken, the film follows them on a journey of self-discovery through Barbieland and the real world following an existential crisis. …
Like Wicked, I loved the start of the film. The concept. The original look of the sets.
… BUT at some point I got bored. The novelty wore off.
By the end I found it too preachy.
Director Gerwig calls the over the top messaging maximalism.
“heightened theatricality that allows you to deal with big ideas in the midst of anarchic play”
Rick McCharles 