I skipped a post on this topic in 2023 and don’t really remember why - probably just laziness.The retrospective this year is shorter than it was in 2022. For a good reason, the year was busier and probably even overwhelming in its second half, I became a dad.

Chemistry book

I have been eager to check ““Laboratory Guide to Enzymology”, expecting some sort of reincarnation of the Copeland’s classic. Unfortunately, it was not. Instead, I am going to hail another all-time classic.

Irwin Segel’s “Enzyme Kinetics: Behavior and Analysis of Rapid Equilibrium and Steady-State Enzyme Systems” exists in two prints; sometimes, marketplaces list them as the “first” and “second” editions. This year, I got a paper copy myself. Don’t follow my mistakes, skip the 1993 edition (“Wiley Classics Library”) and go for the original one from 1975. The older print has fine binding, a hardcover, and the content is hardcore enough to shield it from undergrads and preserve pristine after 50 years. At least, these are are my grad school memories. The “newer” edition (if “newer” applies here indeed) is a loose reprint, poor typographically and with a sloppy cover, with all 1000 pages under a simple glue binding.

Nevertheless, Segel itself is perfect, it plays well as deep and detailed reference material. Ample of hypothetical - and not-so-hypothetical - systems and models are examined there (“hyperbolic competitive inhibition in multisite enzymes,” anyone?). Assuming parallels can be drawn between the biochemical/biophysical assay and a system described, the book is useful for assay design and interpretation of experimental artifacts. Half a century old, it is still an excellent companion and, probably, a staple for a quantitative bioassay scientist.

Non-fiction book

“Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime”, by Peter Gotzsche. Sounds like a pamphlet full of conspiracy theories, doesn’t it? Actually, this year I read also “The Real Anthony Fauci”, and it was exceptionally bad, composition-wise bad, I am not commenting on the content. “Deadly Medicines…” is not “The Real Anthony Fauci”. This book collects murky stories from the business and marketing sides of the pharmaceutical industry, written in a quite opinionated manner. Maybe too opinionated, but strong language is paired with strong arguments. Overall, the text is structured very well, the reasoning and thought are refined. I’ve read a handful of documentary books about “bad big pharma”, and Gotzsche is on a much higher level. The author has a rich academic and public background, so perhaps it should not be that surprising.

The book was essentially summarized by the author himself in a study here. By the way, it is hosted on the website of the Danish Parliament. Somehow, I failed to find the manuscript on the Cochrane website, where it was originally deposited. No conspiracies here!

Fiction book

More on speculative fiction, the year was rich. I managed to read a bit. And, importantly, I made a personal discovery.

I bought “Perdido Street Station” by China Mieville in 2021, and the book has lived on the bookshelf since. Someone recommended it, and though I’m not a big fantasy guy, this summer I finally picked it up. Reading it then was almost a religious experience, which is funny considering the political stance of the author.

The main arc and bits of Lovecraftian horror were not that engaging. The novel is often praised for its world-building, turned out that this is something I didn’t care much about. The lore is good, fact. I loved the characters most, vivid and noteworthy. But what made the book my pick of the year was its literary value. Mieville’s language simply startled me, I had a genuine aesthetic pleasure while reading.

Vox populi states that the following Mieville novels are even better. I’m really looking forward. To exemplify, “City and the City” gathered an impressive set of awards including 2010 Hugo. The last time I enjoyed a science fiction or fantasy book this much was five years ago, when I finally read Dan Simmons’ “Hyperion”. “Perdido Street Station” is that good.

Whatever runs on (blue) screens

This time, I have absolutely nothing to say about the media. I simply did not watch anything memorable this year.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” series was alright. I started watching “3 Body Problem”, and could not get past the first episodes. The show is probably good. But I’ve read the first part of the trilogy some time ago, and I can’t experience the intrigue again. “The Three-Body Problem” is a fine story, an instant sci-fi classic, owing exactly to the buildup of suspense. A fun fact for Russophone fellows: the Russian translation was not done from Chinese, but from the English translation.

And I actually can’t remember a single feature film I’ve watched, not that I did not watch any.

Game

Videogames-wise, none. “Baldur’s Gate 3” is still not finished, a couple more cRPGs were started but never completed either.

In contrast, an interest in Magic: The Gathering has rekindled. We will see how it goes into 2025, in line with Hasbro trying to actually destroy the future of the game. But I enjoyed MTG this year, even though I strongly preferred Netrunner in past (Hasbro, thank you again).

Computers

I distrohopped, for the first time in many years. The argument is a little convoluted and rooted in the drama related to Russian maintainers delisting in the Linux kernel. To put things straight, its happening is clear (yet, the public communications were far from clear). However, the whole situation made me think about the legal pressure that FOSS projects may experience.

For years, I have been using Fedora. Fedora, with its splash into commercial space, has to follow a set of specific laws. Following a childish libertarian impulse, I switched to a fully community-managed distribution and went with Debian. But of course, both Debian and Arch are represented by SPI, Inc., a US organization with similar obligations.