Great things and people that I discovered, learned, read, met, etc. in 2016. No particular ordering is implied. Not everything is new. *also: see the lists from [2015](http://blog.fogus.me/2015/12/29/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2015/), [2014](http://blog.fogus.me/2014/12/29/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2014/), [2013](http://blog.fogus.me/2013/12/27/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2013/), [2012](http://blog.fogus.me/2012/12/26/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2012/), [2011](http://blog.fogus.me/2011/12/31/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2011/) and [2010](http://blog.fogus.me/2010/12/30/the-best-things-in-2010/)* Great blog posts read --------------------- * *[AlphaGo under a magnifying glass](http://deeplearningskysthelimit.blogspot.com/2016/04/part-2-alphago-under-magnifying-glass.html)* - *In a year filled to the brim with garbage news and events, one very bright spot for me was the [Lee Sedol vs. AlphaGo match](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqYmG7hTraZA7v9Hpbps0QNmJC4L1NE3S). There were many articles about the theory and implementation of AlphaGo, but the "under a magnifying glass" series was my favorite.* * *[Literate DevOps](http://www.howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/literate-devops.html)* - *Over the years I've vacillated between love and not-love for [Literate Programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming), but its use in DevOps seems very compelling.* * *[Developer hiring and the market for lemons](http://danluu.com/hiring-lemons/)* - *Dan Luu's site is my favorite technical writing on the web at the end of 2016. I doubt that standing will change any time soon. The whole site is amazing, but his writing are especially thoughtful and nuanced.* * *[Tiny Lisp computer](http://www.technoblogy.com/show?1GX1=)* - *plus ([part 2](http://www.technoblogy.com/show?1INT=) -- In the lead as my hardware project for 2017.* * *[The secret lives of Tumblr teens](https://newrepublic.com/article/129002/secret-lives-tumblr-teens)* - *Being a teen has always sucked, but it's especially hard in a world of ubiquitous computing, social media, and superficial connections.* * *[A glimpse into the Apollo guidance computer](https://medium.com/@borja/a-glimpse-into-the-apollo-guidance-computer-8ee06e5e1a5c#.rnk364s9j)* - *A very nice overview of this [historic code](https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11) and information about it.* * *[Alan Kay's comments on HN](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=alankay1)* - *Yes. Alan Kay occasionally posts on Hacker News.* * *[The glorious horror of TECO](http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2010/11/30/the-glorious-horror-of-teco/)* - *Any program as influential as TECO and described as a "glorious horror" is worth at least checking out for a hot-second.* * *[Jack Kerouac's home-brew tabletop baseball game](https://generationjonesmusings.com/2014/05/11/jack-kerouacs-homebrewed-tabletop-baseball-game/)* - *Kerouac spent a large portion of his life developing a baseball simulation that he would play in his spare time and write fake sports news about.* * *[Is the competitive Bridge world rife with cheaters?](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/02/competitive-bridge-cheating-scandal)* - *Spoiler: probably.* * *[Frameless geodesic dome](http://rigsomelight.com/2013/09/09/frameless-geodesic-dome.html)* - *WJW.* * *[The David W. Niven collection of early Jazz legends](https://archive.org/details/davidwnivenjazz)* - *A list that should take me 10 years to work my way through.* * *[Deep Learning in Clojure With Cortex](http://gigasquidsoftware.com/blog/2016/12/27/deep-learning-in-clojure-with-cortex/)* - *My co-worker Carin Meier knocks another out of the park - this time trying to distinguish cats from dogs!* * *[Contempt culture](http://blog.aurynn.com/contempt-culture)* - *People in general are haters. However, when paychecks are involved then all sense of decorum in online discussions revolving around tech fly right out the window. Tech is not a meritocracy but instead a culture of contempt whereby "merit" is defined in terms of arbitrary, inconsistent, and fleeting Venn diagrams.* Most viewed blog posts by me ---------------------------- I've been scaling back on blogging the past two years and have tried something different instead - [Read-Eval-Print-λove](http://www.readevalprintlove.org). That said, there were a couple of high-traffic posts on my blog. * [Clojure/West 2016](http://blog.fogus.me/2016/04/22/clojurewest-2016/) - *My overview of the conference and the things I saw and heard.* * [Link Age 001 - 010](http://blog.fogus.me/tag/linkage/) - *Just a series of link aggregation posts.* Favorite technical books discovered (and read) ---------------------------------------------- I've intentionally reduced the number of technical books that I consume, but there are a few that I "found" in 2016 that are stellar. * *[Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems](https://www.amazon.com/Site-Reliability-Engineering-Production-Systems/dp/149192912X/?tag=fogus-20)* - *A books that's often quite specific to the Google experience, but that has a enough thought-provoking gems of wisdom around systems building and systems thinking to last a career.* * *[Geeks bearing gifts](https://www.amazon.com/Geeks-Bearing-Gifts-Ted-Nelson/dp/0578004380/tag=fogus-20)* by Ted Nelson - *The ultimate in tech curmudgeon-hood.* * *[Memory Machines](https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Machines-Evolution-Hypertext-Scholarship/dp/1783083441/?tag=fogus-20)* by Belinda Barnet - *A wonderful history of Hypertext and Hypertext-centric systems.* * *[The Little OS Book](http://littleosbook.github.io/)* by Erik Helin and Adam Renberg - *I am a complete sucker for [hobby OSes](http://fogus.me/thunks/osdev.html) and information on how to create them...* * *[Writing an interpreter in Go](https://interpreterbook.com)* by Thorsten Ball - *... ditto for hobby programming languages.* * *[The RISC-V architecture specification](https://riscv.org/specifications/)* Favorite non-technical books read --------------------------------- * *[Wolf Hall](https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Hall-Hilary-Mantel/dp/0312429983/?tag=fogus-20)* by Hilary Mantel - *(part 2 '[Bring up the bodies](https://www.amazon.com/Bring-Bodies-Wolf-Hall-Book/dp/125002417X/?tag=fogus-20)' is also great.* * *[Girl in a band](https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Band-Memoir-Kim-Gordon/dp/006229590X/?tag=fogus-20)* by Kim Gordon - *The biography of a personal hero.* * *[I put a spell on you](https://www.amazon.com/Put-Spell-You-Autobiography-Simone/dp/0306813270/?tag=fogus-20)* by Nina Simone - *Bought on a whim at [my favorite Seattle book shop](http://www.leftbankbooks.com). A riveting life.* * *[The character of physical law](https://www.amazon.com/Character-Physical-Law-MIT-Press/dp/0262560038/?tag=fogus-20)* by Richard Feynman - *I always find Feynman's enthusiasm infectious.* * *[Wuthering Heights](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/768)* by Emily Brontë - *I'm overjoyed to have finally read this classic filled to the brim with anti-heroes and generally unlikable characters.* * *[100 years of solitude](https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Solitude-Harper-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060883286/?tag=fogus-20)* by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - *An instant top-20 book for me. This one needs deeper study.* ## Number of books read [a bunch](https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/266149-michael?shelf=2016_read&sort=date_read&view=covers) ## Number of books published 0 ## Number of books written 0.01 (an outline) Favorite musicians discovered ----------------------------- * [Kishori Amonkar](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZVXO6?itag=fogus-20) - *A divine voice.* * [Elegi](https://www.amazon.com/Varde-Elegi/dp/B0025Z2E0C/?tag=fogus-20) - *In my ear when I write code.* * [Pakistani Qawalli](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0014D3IBU?tag=fogus-20) - *Transporting* Interesting games discovered ---------------------------- * [King Chocolate](https://www.amazon.com/Mayfair-Games-MFG4137-Chocolate-Board/dp/B018KUDPUS/?tag=fogus-20) - *Ugly as heck, but a fun abstract game about production line management and shared incentives.* * [Patchwork