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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Nate Silver shifts from prediction to betting and risk taking. I really liked this book, the anecdotal stories serve well to illustrate his broader points. The book is well structured and connects the dots between gambling as a hobby or a game and risk taking as an important part of every day life and society at large.
I loved this book. Once again Neal Stephenson has managed to combine an education on historical, scientific, technological and societal events with a gripping tale of intrigue and adventure. The story itself includes fascinating settings and characters from a little told tale of a forgotten time leading up to World War 1. Looking forward to the next chapter in the Bomb Light series.
From a New York Times bestselling author, a fresh and detail-rich argument that the best …
An interesting analysis of historical events that show how a fair approach to managing people and distributing benefits can yield superior outcomes over income maximizing approaches. It suffers from being cherry picked and anecdotal . While the case studies are well researched and valid examples, without considering counter examples more broadly the argument is less than convincing.
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!
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants is a 2013 nonfiction …
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.
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.
The inside story of the largest law-enforcement sting operation ever, in which the FBI made its own tech start-up to …
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.
Some interesting points about how voice systems and voice interfaces in general are important and applicable in many places you would not expect. Pretty dry overall.
The tendency to synchronize may be the most mysterious and pervasive drive in all of …
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.
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.
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 …
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 facts and has built itself a defense built on narrative story telling and identity-based cultural elements. I found his recounting of the Chivalry and the southern honor culture well done in this regard. Overall I really liked this book and feel Larson has earned another feather in his cap with this one on narrative history telling.
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 …
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 was a satisfying story that felt complete in and of itself.
Set in an addicts' hallway house and a tennis academy, and featuring one of the …
This books is amazing in many ways but is hard to compare to other more conventional stories and novels. It has a unique narrative structure and a radically chaotic use of language. I have to say I was skeptical at first and nearly gave up on this at several points, but it drew me in and by the end I was in love with its weird, quirky natures. The story itself is disjointed and a bit uninteresting when distilled from the way it is told and language used to tell it. That said it draws you in and is strong enough to hold up the novel through what is a marathon length telling. A lot of what happens in the book seems to be in service of some other purpose than serving to move the story along. It seems to be making points about society, human nature, morality and humanity …
This books is amazing in many ways but is hard to compare to other more conventional stories and novels. It has a unique narrative structure and a radically chaotic use of language. I have to say I was skeptical at first and nearly gave up on this at several points, but it drew me in and by the end I was in love with its weird, quirky natures. The story itself is disjointed and a bit uninteresting when distilled from the way it is told and language used to tell it. That said it draws you in and is strong enough to hold up the novel through what is a marathon length telling. A lot of what happens in the book seems to be in service of some other purpose than serving to move the story along. It seems to be making points about society, human nature, morality and humanity in an almost back handed way that seems like an afterthought at first, but as this pattern becomes more and more common, it becomes apparent that these statements are more the point than the telling of the actual story. I loved this book and do not regret the 60 hours I put into listening to it.
From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly …
I love calculus and I loved this book. If you do not love calculus you might not, but I feel like he does a good job of trying tell a story that is accessible even if you do not have a mathematical background. It is impossible for me to separate myself from my own mathematical background which is so intertwined in my personality, so this judgement on accessibility may need to be taken with a grain of salt. I do feel like the book is well organized and the chapters have good narrative structure. Objectively good on these matters of structure and story telling, I would be interested in how others who do not have maths backgrounds found this argument that he makes that “calculus is important and foundational to everything we do in the modern technological world.” and that “Calculus is truly the language of the universe”