Recommendations you can check.
British open-standards and open-source technologist, formerly of the UK Government Digital Service and the W3C Advisory Committee; blogs at shkspr.mobi.
7 things
ActivityPubBook Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou has the unenviable task of making the whole ecosystem easy to understand. Thankfully he does that well. Things are logically laid out, there are comprehensive descriptions of even the most obscure parts of the spec, and it builds up nicely from the fundamentals.
One of his weekly star-rated book reviews; the "Get the book" links on the page carry his Amazon affiliate tag.
2026-09-01·shkspr.mobi ↗
A City on MarsBook Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith
They excel at making the dull delightful. There are a lot of big and serious facts to get through, but they have a gift for communicating them simply and eloquently. I just wish they'd've come to a different conclusion.
One of his weekly star-rated book reviews; the "Get the book" links on the page carry his Amazon affiliate tag.
2026-07-18·shkspr.mobi ↗
The Great WhenBook Alan Moore
It is an epic tale full of rogues and reprobates. The story is excellent even though the plot follows a fairly basic structure. Although set up to be a series, it is a satisfying stand-alone tale.
One of his weekly star-rated book reviews; the "Get the book" links on the page carry his Amazon affiliate tag.
2026-06-18·shkspr.mobi ↗
The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'Book Sidney Dekker
This is such a useful book. It makes the case that there's no such thing as "human error" - instead most catastrophes are caused by system issues, misaligned incentives, and unrealistic processes. You are not the custodian of an otherwise safe system that you need to protect from erratic human beings.
One of his weekly star-rated book reviews; the "Get the book" links on the page carry his Amazon affiliate tag.
2026-08-03·shkspr.mobi ↗
An Immense WorldBook Ed Yong
This is a funny, heartfelt, and (perhaps overly) thorough book. It will gleefully send you down rabbit holes
One of his weekly star-rated book reviews; the "Get the book" links on the page carry his Amazon affiliate tag.
2026-08-21·shkspr.mobi ↗
Dungeon Crawler CarlBook Matt Dinniman
It is mostly pretty good fun. The tropes are goofy, the gore is splattertastic and only rarely ventures into torture porn, the villains are suitably campy, and the wisecracking sidekick doesn't become too annoying.
One of his weekly star-rated book reviews; the "Get the book" links on the page carry his Amazon affiliate tag.
2026-07-26·shkspr.mobi ↗
Coding LiteracyBook Annette Vee
This is a disappointing and frustrating book - not least because it so nearly hits the mark. The subtitle is "How Computer Programming Is Changing Writing" - but it never gets close to discussing that topic, let alone deeply examining it.
One of his weekly star-rated book reviews; the "Get the book" links on the page carry his Amazon affiliate tag.
2026-08-13·shkspr.mobi ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
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The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
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