I read a couple of books (but haven't reviewed them yet) on the trip. I ripped through Battle for Corrin on the plane flights out. The coverage of the beginnings of the Spacing Guild, House Corrino, the Bene Gesserit and the Mentats was interesting. But the pacing was inconsistent and I found that one central plot point in the book, the battle against the last AI on the planet Corrin, was just a thin veneer on top of a justification for our war in Iraq.
I then read Cube Farm which was excellent. It's the work experience of one engineer riding the tech bubble from interviewing through to the eventual layoff. There are great horror stories, quotes and sage advice along the way.
On the plane back I read Spam Kings which was longer than it should have been, and didn't explain some confusing interchanges very well. It's a book about spammers and the anti-spam people that hunt them. At times it was difficult to tell who was who in some of the dialogue, particularly when both individuals used abusive low-brow language. I didn't learn anything new about fighting spam. I personally found that the anti-spammers had conducted themselves poorly over the course of the five years. And the conclusion was depressing as it is clear that the spam situation only worsened over the period the book covered and continues to worsen.
My personal experience is that my spam level is once again on the rise, even with three spam filters. After all of the filters I still get about 50% spam on any given mail download. As I was writing this I got a spam advertising a training course for becoming a TSA agent. Haven't seen one of those before.
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