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xylogx

xylogx@bookwyrm.world

Joined 6 months, 3 weeks ago

An IT pro with 20 years of experience and Uni degrees in Math, Physics and CompSci. I love Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Non-Fiction tales of science, math, technology and history.

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reviewed Supremacy by Parmy Olson

Parmy Olson: Supremacy (2024, St. Martin's Press) 5 stars

An even treatment of a much-hyped topic

5 stars

This is a great telling of the race to create a general purpose artificial intelligence that sparked the ChatGPT LLM frenzy that is fueling a craze for AI. It is interesting how two companies both approached the challenge with a focus on AGI and safety and how they both ended up getting co-opted by the very tech giants they were seeking to shield the technology from. Well-told and well-researched, I really enjoyed reading this. The book does a good job at not taking sides as either a techno-optomist or and AI-doomer and presents both sides evenly. Well done!

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finished reading Dark Wire by Joseph Cox

Joseph Cox: Dark Wire (Hardcover, 2024, PublicAffairs) 5 stars

The inside story of the largest law-enforcement sting operation ever, in which the FBI made …

Loved this book. It is a gripping cyber-thriller about how the FBI infiltrated criminal organizations using encrypted communications. I tore through this and thoroughly enjoyed it. The material is factual and follows real events while still being structured effectively in a compelling narrative.

#Bookwyrm #bookstodon

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Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass (2015) 5 stars

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants is a 2013 nonfiction …

A Powerful Journey

5 stars

I love nature and I love books.If you do too, you might love this book. Told with a almost mystical reverence for the natural world, but with the voice of a scientifically trained botanist it weaves a story that while tragic at times is hopeful and uplifting. I feel like I struggled along with the author as she told her story and came out a better person in the end because of it. The audiobook is narrated by the author and that adds an extra dimension to the book and makes it more enjoyable, something rare for author narrated audiobooks.

#Bookwyrm #bookstodon

Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass (2015) 5 stars

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants is a 2013 nonfiction …

A Powerful Journey

5 stars

I love nature and I love books.If you do too, you might love this book. Told with a almost mystical reverence for the natural world, but with the voice of a scientifically trained botanist it weaves a story that while tragic at times is hopeful and uplifting. I feel like I struggled along with the author as she told her story and came out a better person in the end because of it. The audiobook is narrated by the author and that adds an extra dimension to the book and makes it more enjoyable, something rare for author narrated audiobooks.

#Bookwyrm #bookstodon

Rutger Bregman, Erica Moore, Elizabeth Manton: Humankind : A Hopeful History (Paperback, 2021, Little, Brown and Company) 5 stars

Better than Batter Angels

5 stars

Loved this book. I feel like this book did a better jobs than the more well-known Better Angels of Our Nature by Stephen Pinker at making the case that people are basically good. Pinker fell in the trap of trying to present specific evidence from research that was impefrect and most of the arguments against his thesis have been around that evidence and the validity of that research. Bregman does a good job of avoiding that trap without presenting unsupported arguments.Also, the way he structures the book helpds. Pinker was saying look at this macro evidence we are clearly good on average, whereas Bregman breaks down human behaviors in a micro way and shows the roots of these behaviors. It is a more satisfying approach and I feel more effective.

finished reading Dark Wire by Joseph Cox

Joseph Cox: Dark Wire (Hardcover, 2024, PublicAffairs) 5 stars

The inside story of the largest law-enforcement sting operation ever, in which the FBI made …

Loved this book. It is a gripping cyber-thriller about how the FBI infiltrated criminal organizations using encrypted communications. I tore through this and thoroughly enjoyed it. The material is factual and follows real events while still being structured effectively in a compelling narrative.

#Bookwyrm #bookstodon

Steven H. Strogatz: Sync (Paperback, Hyperion) 5 stars

The tendency to synchronize may be the most mysterious and pervasive drive in all of …

Interesting and eye-opening

5 stars

As an avid reader of science and math books who also has a degree in Physics and Maths, I often end up reading books about topics I have some level of familiarity with. This research into the science of sync was totally new to me. This was also my first Steven Strogatz book. His writing style is great. He is able to communicate the most complex of ideas using simple easy to understand language. I loved this book and am looking forward to reading other books by this author.

Thomas Halliday: Otherlands (Hardcover, Random House) 4 stars

Clever telling of a science story

4 stars

I really enjoyed this book. It is packed with science but presents in a well-organized and interesting way. Zooming through eras and eons it does not try to be comprehensive in its telling but focuses on a number of narrative threads. The approach is unique and refreshing and in the end an enjoyable ride.

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Mary Oliver: Upstream 4 stars

A relaxing take of viewing nature and life.

4 stars

Haven't read her before but I understand that she's a poet; I picked this up first to see if I'd be interested in her poetry, and I think I'll check it out. (Wanted to read the essay collection first since it's been years since I've looked at poetry.)

Mary is very in touch with the natural world around her and how it shapes her perspective.

reviewed Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

Erik Larson: Demon of Unrest (2024, HarperCollins Publishers Limited) 4 stars

A gripping story of narrative history

4 stars

In the prologue Larson explains that he was inspired to tell this story by the events of Jan 6th as a way to compare the current election certification crisis with the last time it happened in order to show the mood of the country and the factors that lead to its happening. After completing the story I feel like he largely succeeded. Through his usual brand of narrative history telling he focuses in on a few points that illustrate how the different sections of the nation were thinking and the divide between them. While I feel like the telling of the southern viewpoint is well told, I think it is pretty far from today’s political climate. I find it more akin to the current denialism of climate change and vaccinations. In both cases you have an opposition that has convinced itself of viewpoint that is vulnerable to rational arguments using …

Harry Harrison: Astounding : John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology of Science Fiction (1973) 4 stars

A very personal telling

4 stars

The story telling was very personal telling that gave a snapshot of several key figures lives including Isaac Asimov, Rob Heinlein, and L Ron Hubbard but most of all Joseph Campbell. It does not try to tell the story of all science fiction or tell an overly broad story but for the lives it focuses on it lays out the story of their lives and their interactions in a clear and thoughtful way. An avid science fiction fan, I grew up reading some of these stories and remember them fondly. That said, I only read a fraction of the books they discuss in this story. That said, I did not feel like that diminished the story or in any way hindered my reading of this fascinating tale. In the end, while I was left wanting to hear these stories in the broader context of science fiction as a whole, it …