Hi, I'm Dominik Schwind, friend of the internet. I'm sending out my weekly post by email - if you like getting mails from me, you can do so on the weeknotes page.
The prefered way would probably be with a feed reader - here is my RSS feed.
If you need more direct access, you can follow me here with Mastodon or similar sites: @dominik@nona.social. You can also follow this blog via @dominik@lostfocus.de.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
I’m not sure how this might have shaped me but I read it a lot when I was younger, so it must have.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
Michel aus Lönneberga is probably my mother’s favourite children’s book, so she read that to us a lot.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
The Scarry books are fantastic and formed my knowledge that there are many, many different jobs and we need them all for our society to work. Plus, they were always quite funny in a weird, dark way.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
This book still informs how I think about websites – the techniques of the books are old by now, the spirit of thinking about websites isn’t. And all other ideas that came after it – progressive enhancement, responsive design etc. – carry that spirit with them.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
Another stand-in for a whole series, actually an author’s whole œuvre – Agatha Christie taught me that rich people are just petty folks killing each other for the dumbest of reasons.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
A rather calm work week ended with watching the most unhinged Olympic opening ceremony ever. I loved it more and more with every weird little detail and in the end I was sold – I’m now suddenly interested in watching all of this, which I wasn’t beforehand.
And because I can get carried away once I start to get into something, don’t expect too much from me in the next couple of weeks.
I’ve been writing small blog posts as companion pieces to the #20books posts and I have to admit – I’m quite struggling with it. (As you can tell by the fact that I haven’t even found the last two books, yet.) It’s supposed to be books that shaped me and I’m not even sure how to judge that. Oh well.
It’s a bit older but I just found Chronologically Lost – someone has edited all of Lost in chronological order and it is quite something.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
I’m not quite sure what to say about this one – I was actually quite late to Gibson, having played Shadowrun before reading the sprawl trilogy. And of course like every little nerd I was extremely fascinated by cyberpunk and am now extremely worried by how prescient a lot of it was.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
When the movie came out, I was hooked. After watching it I read and watched basically everything I could find about the process of making the movie. Articles in movie magazines, books about the special effects, books about the accuracy of the dinosaurs, everything. It took me a while to get around to reading the novel, though. And when I did, it was probably the first “real” novel I read in English outside of school. Luckily the language isn’t too complicated so it gave me the confidence to continue reading books that have been written in English in their original language.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
As a little nerd I was interested in everything computer-related. I don’t even remember when this book suddenly appeared (yes, 95. Thanks) – probably they gave it to my dad when he bought Office 95. Now let’s get it out of the way: Access is probably not the height of awesomeness when it comes to databases, but it was the first relational database I’ve seen and I was blown away. Access (and this book) built a solid base for my database knowledge.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
Probably one of the earliest “thrillers/crime books” I ever read. Set in a fancy hotel in the Hamburg of the 50s it’s the story of a crime caper, it’s a fun book for children. I don’t think I have read it since my early teens but I’m sure it is part of why I still like to read adventurous thriller books.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
A small-ish compilation of legends from classical Greek and Roman times, retold in German. I was always quite fascinated with that part of the history (I know) and knowing these stories helped me out quite a lot later on, when translating from Latin and Classical Greek and when comparing contemporary literature to these old stories.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Sometimes I wake up with little patience and today is one of those days. This can only end well.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
I’m now unsubscribing from all blogs that use AI generated images in their posts. I don’t need to see that slob.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
The Diercke Weltatlas doesn’t need all that much extra commentary. It was the atlas we bought for school and there were many maps from all over the world in there. Magical! Mine vanished at some point, likely being used by one of my sisters, so sometimes I wonder if I should get a copy somewhere. Looking at maps in a big book is still quite different from looking at them online.
Dominik
@dominik@lostfocus.de
Over on the fediverse (or at least the German speaking part of it) there’s a bit of a challenge going on: post 20 books that shaped you, but only their covers without any comments. Now of course I won’t be able to skip the comments, so here they are. (Think of them as the DVD extra to the post.)
Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett stands in for the whole series of Discworld books. There was a time in my life where these books were a lifeline and I’m quite sure I’d be a worse person if I hadn’t read them. Meeting him was easily one of the highlights of my late teens.
