I recently read Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life, by Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard. Written during the 2008 recession, it's so much more than a business book. It highlights in detail how the financial industry at large leeches so much wealth for itself while creating so little, and offers insights from someone truly introspective of life, business, finance, and the future of the country. Highly recommend a read/listen.
The title "Enough" made me think of this great poem/story from Kurt Vonnegut:
True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!
— Kurt Vonnegut
So what does this Methuselah have to say to you, since he has lived so long? I’ll pass on to you what another Methuselah said to me. He’s Joe Heller, author, as you know, of Catch 22. We were at a party thrown by a multi-billionaire out on Long Island, and I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to realize that only yesterday our host probably made more money than Catch 22, one of the most popular books of all time, has grossed world-wide over the past forty years?”
Joe said to me, “I have something he can never have.”
I said, “What’s that, Joe?”
And he said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
His example may be of comfort to many of you Adams and Eves, who in later years will have to admit that something has gone terribly wrong — and that, despite the education you received here, you have somehow failed to become billionaires.
Check out The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care - And How To Fix It, for a similar story and crisis facing the healthcare industry right now. Written by a Johns Hopkins professor and surgeon.
Doudna has her own memoir, "A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution." Why would you read Isaacson's third-person account, when you can get the information from the scientist herself?
Well, I read both books, and Isaacson's is much better. In fact, Doudna's book was largely written by her coauthor, her then-graduate student Sam Sternberg, based on long interviews. This is the same process Isaacson used. But, in my opinion, Isaacson does it better, incorporating more of Doudna's personal anecdotes with similar levels of science.
Isaacson has a knack for writing flowing non-fiction prose that make for a great read. Sometimes the detail can border on excruciating but he seems to have resolved this in his later works.
Project Hail Mary was so good. I loved The Martian but Artemis not as much. By that measure Project Hail Mary was a return to form.
It was just a fun, breezy read that hit the problem solving part of my brain in just the right way, but with a different angle on things than "The Martian".
I was going through goodreads yesterday and came across my review of The Martian there. I gave it 5 stars because I use what I understand is the Roger Ebert style of rating. The Martian is imperfect, pulpy and at times a bit over sentimental. But it succeeds at exactly what it sets out to achieve. It isn't Dostoevsky or Proust but it isn't trying to be. It made me laugh, kept me engaged and turning pages. It made me think, this situation is impossible but if it was possible then this is about as realistic as I could expect a novel to portray. In exchange for suspending my disbelief it gave me an enjoyable diversion.
All that to say, if Project Hail Mary is equivalent to that, it is going on my to read list.
project hail mary's audiobook is the best audiobook i've ever listened to. it's.... incredible. they adapted parts of the book that were kind of hard to "get" perfectly (and for people that read it, i think you know what i mean).
I liked a lot of the ideas in PHM. I found the protagonist insufferable throughout, though. Perhaps Weir was going for a more flawed character after Watney? (Never read Artemis, so I can't comment there.)
I still think it's a good book, and well worth the read. But man did that character grate on my nerves.
artemis was disappointing, Weir seems like he has no idea how to write a female protagonist. this was my introduction to his work, seeing that others feel the same way makes me think it was probably just the wrong pick and I should try his other books.
We're reading this one for my at-work bookclub, looking forward to it. We did the Martian back when and people enjoyed it. Although easy reading it has enough depth to spark a good discussion.
================= Begin of the Interesting Part, Discussion & Recommendations ==================
Above parent nothing but man mumbling after famous persons to invoke the Goddess of transitivity of all properties.
Seriously though, i brought this upon myself by opening one of the fanboi threads <Famous Name> does/reads/eats, but how do i filter out the filler more efficiently?
Project Hail Mary was a fun read but at times it felt like a high school essay or someone practicing creative writing. Even the science bits didn't feel like in The Martian, here they were scattered around sometimes not linked to the story.
Regardless, I do recommend it.
I was disappointed by A Thousand Brains. The last part of the book veered into ... I don't really know. On the other hand, I loved Jeff Hawkins' earlier book on this topic: On Intelligence [1]. It's easily one of the top 5 books that I've read and the first part of A Thousand Brains recaps much of that work, so still relevant today according to the author.
I think the most important part of 'kilobrain' was the clear description of a single Functional Unit, that appears to be replicated throughout the neocortex and, ultimately, performs all functions we consider 'higher'. This, in a way, reduces Applied Intelligence to building an actual 'Function Unit' in something other than meatware (e.g. CMOS); and having high-bandwidth ways to hook FU's together to build (at first) sub-parts of the brain (e.g. maybe the auditory system). This would be an "MVP" type proof-of-concept that 'should' allow construction of a Full Brain. Now, exactly how such h/w would be 'programmed' (or trained) to perform said function -- that, I don't understand yet.
I had a similar reaction. I very much enjoyed reading On Intelligence shortly after it was published and was eagerly waiting for A Thousand Brains, but it left me with a conflicting impression. I found some of the details I was looking for missing and it seemed like the book was sort of all over the place (especially in the second half). I was reading another book on related topic (how the brain operates and why/how the consciousness has evolved) at about the same time (The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness) and had a much more positive impression with a good picture on what the author was trying to convey.
It seemed like the ideas from On Intelligence were ahead of their time. I'm surprised it never seemed to pan out into anything industry leading (at least as far as I can tell).
Did it just not get enough eyes and resources? Was it a flawed premise? I'd be curious to know more.
Something I remember from Netflix's documentary Inside Bill's Brain- He reads really fast and synthesizes really well...That's a gift to read 150 pages an hour...90 percent retention.
I follow his lists/ recommendations and in the process have read some very good fiction/non-fiction books.
I haven't even finished it yet, but my favorite book of 2021 is certain to be Rutger Bregman's Humankind. If you are feeling cynical about your species thanks to climate change, COVID, etc. it may be exactly what you need.
I'm somewhere in the early middle of it. It's dense but incredible. I also read Humankind. Funny enough both of these books are sitting on my desk right in front of me.
Both provide ample hope that humanity can mature (back) out of some of the destructive states we've found ourselves in, and provide historical context and supporting evidence.
The Dawn of Everything is already becoming one of those books that I'll remember forever as one of those identity-shaping texts that most readers will be familiar with. And I'm not even halfway done.
I had very high expectations from the book because of Graeber (the Debt book fame).
I’m happy to report that it’s surpassed it. It’s not an easy read, need to take it slowly. But what an incredible achievement. That book, if I may say so, is a celebration of ordinary humans. Can’t recommend it enough.
It's on my list. The reviews have indeed been rapturous. Before "Dawn of Everything" (his final book) was published this year, Graeber (an anthropologist with a specialty in economics) had already been long acknowledged as one of the world's best and biggest brains.
Something that I have read, and highly recommend, is Steven Pinker's latest book, his 17th: "Rationality." As a person who considers himself to be coldly rational, I found the book quite humbling.
+1 for Humankind, read that at the beginning of the year in between lockdowns and it really helped make me feel more positive about humanity in general. It's not always as bad as we think it is.
Struggled to get into his next book "Utopia for Realists", might need to give it another whirl.
What if I'm feeling cynical about humankind but for very different reasons? Like historical trajectory, discrepancy of growth between technology and culture, or even cynical about the very idea of life?
So I was excited about Project Hail Mary and went to the Wikipedia page [1].
Can someone who has read the book tell me if the current intro is a spoiler, or something we learn in the book's first third? ("He gradually remembers that...")
I know Wikipedia doesn't put spoiler tags, but they are usually confined to the "Plot" section.
I loved PHM and was particularly relieved that it was great after the letdown that Artemis was. It's definitely a much more fanciful story than The Martian (you know what I mean if you've read it), but I think it's a good balance of still being totally believable and plausible.
Yes, very slight spoilers but probably not much more than you'd deduce from reading the jacket of the book. Certainly something that you find out from the first few chapters. Basic progression without too much spoilers is main character wakes up and deduces that:
1. He is not on earth
2. He is on a spaceship
3. He is not in our solar system
4. He is there for a reason
Mojica did important work on CRISPR, yes, but Doudna and Charpentier were the ones who showed how to use it as a DNA editing tool, without which very few people would care about it.
Readit News
https://amazon.com/John-C-Bogle/e/B001H6NWEM
https://commencement.me/kurt-vonnegut-at-rice-university-199...
So what does this Methuselah have to say to you, since he has lived so long? I’ll pass on to you what another Methuselah said to me. He’s Joe Heller, author, as you know, of Catch 22. We were at a party thrown by a multi-billionaire out on Long Island, and I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to realize that only yesterday our host probably made more money than Catch 22, one of the most popular books of all time, has grossed world-wide over the past forty years?”
Joe said to me, “I have something he can never have.”
I said, “What’s that, Joe?”
And he said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
His example may be of comfort to many of you Adams and Eves, who in later years will have to admit that something has gone terribly wrong — and that, despite the education you received here, you have somehow failed to become billionaires.
A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins.
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson.
Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell.
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir.
Well, I read both books, and Isaacson's is much better. In fact, Doudna's book was largely written by her coauthor, her then-graduate student Sam Sternberg, based on long interviews. This is the same process Isaacson used. But, in my opinion, Isaacson does it better, incorporating more of Doudna's personal anecdotes with similar levels of science.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30971755-a-crack-in-crea...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54968118-the-code-breake...
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It was just a fun, breezy read that hit the problem solving part of my brain in just the right way, but with a different angle on things than "The Martian".
All that to say, if Project Hail Mary is equivalent to that, it is going on my to read list.
i totally recommend it.
I still think it's a good book, and well worth the read. But man did that character grate on my nerves.
Fantastic couple of books.
Above parent nothing but man mumbling after famous persons to invoke the Goddess of transitivity of all properties.
Seriously though, i brought this upon myself by opening one of the fanboi threads <Famous Name> does/reads/eats, but how do i filter out the filler more efficiently?
Enter: Dang from Hammerspace
Deleted Comment
[1] https://numenta.com/resources/on-intelligence/
I think the most important part of 'kilobrain' was the clear description of a single Functional Unit, that appears to be replicated throughout the neocortex and, ultimately, performs all functions we consider 'higher'. This, in a way, reduces Applied Intelligence to building an actual 'Function Unit' in something other than meatware (e.g. CMOS); and having high-bandwidth ways to hook FU's together to build (at first) sub-parts of the brain (e.g. maybe the auditory system). This would be an "MVP" type proof-of-concept that 'should' allow construction of a Full Brain. Now, exactly how such h/w would be 'programmed' (or trained) to perform said function -- that, I don't understand yet.
Did it just not get enough eyes and resources? Was it a flawed premise? I'd be curious to know more.
I follow his lists/ recommendations and in the process have read some very good fiction/non-fiction books.
The articles I read about was thinking it was superlative.
- history is not a linear progression and narrative, sometimes things happen in leaps and also can go "backward"
- farming was something that was dabbled in for a millenia before fully committing to it
- the idea of "egalitarianism" is quite vague and can be understood in many ways
- ideas about egalitarianism moved from native americans to the french .. not they other way around
- lots of very interesting stories about how our ancestors were not stupid
- lots of questions about how archeology has been interpreted and how a lot of the evidence does not support the mainstream narrative
- gives examples of societies where "leadership/politics" was actively avoided
- has a nice background on different ingredients of statehood and how they manifested in history
I have a feeling this might be the seminal book for having a fresh analysis and reassessment of lot of what is called "prehistory".
Very highly recommended from my side. I will re-read it a few times probably and gift it to a few friends.
Both provide ample hope that humanity can mature (back) out of some of the destructive states we've found ourselves in, and provide historical context and supporting evidence.
The Dawn of Everything is already becoming one of those books that I'll remember forever as one of those identity-shaping texts that most readers will be familiar with. And I'm not even halfway done.
I had very high expectations from the book because of Graeber (the Debt book fame).
I’m happy to report that it’s surpassed it. It’s not an easy read, need to take it slowly. But what an incredible achievement. That book, if I may say so, is a celebration of ordinary humans. Can’t recommend it enough.
Something that I have read, and highly recommend, is Steven Pinker's latest book, his 17th: "Rationality." As a person who considers himself to be coldly rational, I found the book quite humbling.
Struggled to get into his next book "Utopia for Realists", might need to give it another whirl.
Can someone who has read the book tell me if the current intro is a spoiler, or something we learn in the book's first third? ("He gradually remembers that...")
I know Wikipedia doesn't put spoiler tags, but they are usually confined to the "Plot" section.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Hail_Mary...
1. He is not on earth 2. He is on a spaceship 3. He is not in our solar system 4. He is there for a reason
He remembers that within the first few chapters, well before you're a third into the book.
The Nobel prize should have gone to Francis Mojica. Of course, he does not have all the PR machine that Doudna has, the futuristic TED talks and all.
Mojica did important work on CRISPR, yes, but Doudna and Charpentier were the ones who showed how to use it as a DNA editing tool, without which very few people would care about it.
> showed how to use it as a DNA editing tool
Don't we care about basic research anymore?