Archive for the ‘books’ Category
Just Finished Reading: Flash Forward #books
I saw the TV series Flash Forward before I got to read the book Flashforward
Every man, woman and child on the world is suddenly knocked unconscious by an “accident” in the LHC, which causes everybody to have a vivid dream of the future. Many die due to accidents. The scientists at the LHC try to discover what happened, and whether it can happen again.
Naturally the premise and the science in the book are charmingly flawed in some ways, the TV series has the advantage that it aims at the lowest common denominator in terms of the science, a mistake or leap of faith that the book needs to make. Not that it detracts from the book, which is intelligently written and contains a level of humour and speculation which can be expected from a book.
I have read nothing else from Sawyer, based on this book I compare him quite favourably to Michael Crichton.
Image source: Amazon
Just Finished Reading: “The Lucifer Effect” #books
I’ve been reading Philip Zimbardo’s book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
I was amused to not see a reference to Game Theory in Zimbardo’s book, as the Prisoners Dilemma is the most “fundamental problem in game theory that demonstrates why two people might not cooperate even if it is in both their best interests to do so.”[1] The Prisoners Dilemma is a game with cooperation being a strictly dominated strategy – dominated by abuse in the SPE game – this doesn’t entirely translate to the SPE. The Guard does better than the Prisoner in most strategies both, although cooperation strictly dominates all other strategies.
The influence of role on the game is clear from the experiment, and many other examples, this means that role-based actions will influence strategy, this could be called a role-based strategy. The role-based strategy does not necessarily correspond with an optimal strategy, the fable of the the scorpion and the frog is an instance of choosing a strictly dominated role-based strategy.
Good read, food for thought.
Voyages Trop Grande/Viaggi Troppo Grandi/Too Great A Journey
Perhaps it was the first time there he grasped it clearly. He felt coupled to the last wagon of a luxurious train to some marvellous destination, and distracted he watched the landscape sliding backwards, as it fell faster behind him. With most of all the detail lost he could have created a new world, yet didn’t need it. In his role, which he played with the greatest seriousness, he escaped it.
In the greatest stations, there was not enough uproar to affect him; he could better understand the solitude of the white houses on the ridges of valleys. Where the meandering sea is defined only by the sails of boats which border it.
He stands motionless; it’s much too large for his eyes, for his heart. His mind must remain empty, nothing could fill it up.
When finally – the task is finished, the day has ended – he returned from whence he came, he did not think that next to the little corner of earth which contained his life – would lie the most beautiful place to die.
(Copyright © 2007, first appeared here.)
Just Finished Reading: Mariposa #books
I received Mariposa
This book looked interesting in that it main theme is that big government consists of bureaucrats and big corporations consist of henchmen. The secondary theme a commentary on the world’s reliance on technology and the entanglement of it in our lives.
The last theme highlight is Mariposa, which is the Spanish word for butterfly. Taking multiple innocuous sources: programmers; cola; politician; FBI; banking and morphs them into something unexpected, in the world Bear creates even a bullet is not what it seems.
A good read.
Just Finished Reading: Moonwalking with Einstein #books
I’ve had an interested in memory for as long as I can remember, so when I saw Joshua Foer on The Colbert Report I went straight to the store to get myself a copy of his book Moonwalking with Einstein
Through out the book Foer briefly dips into techniques that he used to improve his recollection, although he calls it memory in the book. He starts with Simonides’ memory palace as his basis and continues by learning the Major System, below, and the PAO system – where every two-digit number from 00 to 99 is represented by a single image of a person performing an action on an object – which he uses for committing cards to memory three at a time.
Although the book is mostly about how Foer trained to become the US champion in one year – and it only touches on the underlying techniques used – it shows the power of not just the mind, it shows that perseverance can make the unlikely possible.
Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next—and disappear. That’s why it’s important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.
A great read.
Just Finished Reading: Comedy Writing Secrets #book
I was given this book sometime ago, Comedy Writing Secrets
The main focus is writing, and it covers stand up as this is the primary way that comedy is usually delivered. I felt there could be an advantage to most of my work, whether this is written or spoken. The jokes in the text make it a joy to read, and the exercises helped to engrain the lessons in my mind.
A great read.
Still using Dvorak. 😉
Image source:
Science Fiction Authors: The Architects of the Future
As I was watching TwiT recently and I think it was Tom Merritt who said this, it inspired me to continue on this theme. I believe it’s correct, however misguided people may think that the current opinion or the knowledge of current technology of science fiction writes is. Science fiction writers are the inventors of the ideas that are considered improbable or impossible.
They are still the inspirers of the scientists on inventors of the future, whether it’s the space travel of Jules Verne, the extra dimensional spaces of Robert Heinlein, the robots of Isaac Asimov or the Start Trek communicator. These ideas and many others have continued to inspire me and others.
What did Science Fiction inspire you to do?
Image source: Don Pezzano
Just Finished Reading: Small Is The New Big #marketing #business
I just put down the book Small Is The New Big
So I’ll highlight some of the (reworded) soundbites which inspired me:
- Find products for customers rather than customers for products
- Your references are attached to you resume, aren’t they?
- Eliminate error pages, if you must give an error page, such as no search results found, give something that can be used
- Yak Shaving
- Figure out the always. Then do something else.
Inspirational book! Bad Seth for not putting or removing the links! 😉
Today’s Noise, Tomorrow’s Dinosaur #programming #business
I was inspired by Driving Technical Change
Expertise, even for the very experienced, is a fluid thing. With the exception of abandoned technology, every tool, technique, or product that you are trying to push is changing everyday. The producers are adding more features. The community is posting more commentary. Users discover bugs, and product teams fix them. Nothing is static. Therefore, even the most expert of experts is only as good as the last thing they read. There is no standing still as an expert. And yesterday’s expert is tomorrow’s dinosaur after as little as two years of not keeping up.
I think this is a sweeping generalization which I believe is wrong, and I know is wrong for me. I regularly go on sabbatical for 3-6 months where I don’t or hardy use a computer, with hardly I mean I checked my mail once after 3 months. In this time due to the fact that I’m traveling I don’t read computer books or magazines. Coming back after this time I notice one important thing, nothing has changed except the version numbers. New features have been added to old software, new design patterns have been thought up and new frameworks have been created, whole sections of the linux kernel have been rewritten. And with in a week I am at my expertise level, and a week later I have covered most of the important things I’ve missed.
People who follow changes live are often stuck in the noise of the present, which for an expert a timeline can often look like this:
- Somebody suggests or codes a feature
- Feature is discussed on a mailing list and in chat
- Feature is attacked for obvious weaknesses
- Feature is tested and updated
- Feature is implemented in the alpha
- Feature breaks when combined with other updates or breaks other features
- Mails/articles are written for and against the change
- Patches are exchanged and evaluated
- Feature undergoes further testing
- Feature reaches the beta
- Discussions on the direction of the software
- Possibly a branch is created
- Feature is updated in next beta
- Discussions on the feature
- Articles are written about the new features in the next release
- Feature is released
- Articles are written about the new feature
- Revisions of books on the software or framework are written which include the new feature
This can take anywhere up to 6 months for larger features or changes to large frameworks. Following the noise allows you to adapt to the change over a longer period of time, and allows you to experiment more with the feature. This same result can be reached by reading the articles which are published round the time the feature is live, with the exception of the generated noise. One of the advantages is that this noise can be used for reference material, when the noise is of good quality. And this example covers only one feature for one software package or framework.
Being caught up in the daily noise also has a bigger problem. In some cases I may not be a direct contributor to a software package or framework and this noise can reduce the time that I can spend learning other things from the new books or articles which cover the other areas in which I consider myself an expert.
Something which is also neglected in the statement above is that experts have often been their and seen that. CVS works similar to SVN, which with a context shift works similar to Git. Each solving a different problem, and with the knowledge of the problem being solved it is easy to apply previously learned unrelated knowledge to new software or a new framework.
A great book!
Just Finsihed Reading: “Fooled by Randomness” #books
For Christmas my girlfriend’s mother followed the advise I long ago gave to my girlfriend: “Only buy a book for when you don’t understand what it says on the cover.” That resulted in the book Fooled by Randomness
One of the point that Taleb makes is one that Bruce Schneier also makes: the difficulty for people to understand causality and correlation. It is such a difficult subject that even Taleb confuses correlation with causality when it comes to smoking, for which I assume he has a distaste, and this exactly proves the point that his book is making.
Brilliant book!
General Musing 