Book reviews
Gonzo Wisdom – Reaching Escape Velocity mini-review in Make
I was most delighted to find my little Reaching Escape Velocity book mentioned in the pages of my favorite magazine — creative makers were exactly the readers I had in mind when writing it. The book covers the art of working with sponsors, volunteers, and media in order to launch audacious gonzo engineering projects… and is…
Read MoreFrom BEHEMOTH to Microship – QST Review
has always been the quintessential magazine of amateur radio, predating me by decades. As such, like all other hams, I’m dabbling in things that have long kept paleogeeks up all night… probing the ether and chasing those elusive DX (long-distance) stations. Of course, some of the things I’ve done with radio have been a bit…
Read MoreFighting Crime with the Cyber.kdz
In Pursuit of Picasso #5 in the Cyber.kdz series by Bruce Balan In a curious twist, I got to be a fictional character… thanks to Bruce Balan, a long-distance sailor and author. This series of six books, released in the late ’90s, was aimed at young hack-savvy readers and related the adventures of the Internet-connected…
Read MoreJourney of a High-Tech Nomad – book review – Computer Currents
This is one of the more touching and insightful reviews of my Computing Across America book, and the author looks past the obvious technomadic content and focuses on the more challenging human issues… matters of the heart, cast into bas relief by a life on the road. As I work on the new book (here…
Read MoreConneXions – Computing Across America review
This short commentary on my book was published the month after the author’s ConneXions piece about BEHEMOTH. Computing Across America: The Bicycle Odyssey of a High-Tech Nomad by Steven K. Roberts Learned Information, Inc. (Medford, NJ: 1988) 347 pp., ISBN 0-938734-18-0 reviewed by Carl Malamud ConneXions – Volume 6, Number 9 September, 1992 Normally, we…
Read MoreThe Adoption Perspective
This is a book review of Computing Across America (by Steven K. Roberts, shown in the photo above at age 1), focusing on the author being an adoptee who tracked down and reconnected with his biological parents back in 1980. The reviewer makes some very interesting observations, and this was published in a newsletter of…
Read MoreComputing Across America – 73 Book Review
A view of Steven K. Roberts N4RVE’s book. Reviewed by Alida M. Jatich KA9KAG 73 Magazine — November, 1989 “Suburbia is not a place; it’s a state of mind… You live in suburbia when the cycle of work and play becomes dangerously unbalanced in favor of work.” (Computing Across America, page 3.) If you’re like me,…
Read MoreComputing Across America book review – Systems Librarian
I don’t know this publication, but have to chuckle at the comment near the end in which they say I must have a thesaurus with which I choose big words for effect. I have found that such comments only come from folks who are a bit vocabulary-challenged… they even misspelled “recumbant.” I last owned a…
Read MorePhotoletter – Computing Across America
Computing Across America ($9.95, plus $2 p&h) by Steven K. Roberts. Steven Roberts rides 10,000 miles across America, conducting business as a writer on a computerized bicycle. The book encapsulates his adventure. Contact: Computing Across America [obsolete base-office address redacted]
Read MoreComputing Across America book review – A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing
I find this review most gratifying, and not only because the reviewer enjoyed my book. Michael A. Banks is a writer I’ve known and respected for years, and his Modem Reference was one of the most-thumbed technical books on my shelf… back before USB <creak>. He was a prolific columnist in the early days of personal…
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