One of the things I like about being in a book club is reading books I would not discover on my own. The travelogue “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific,” by J. Maarten Troost” is a good example of such a book. It was an interesting read, though somewhat frustrating and not entirely satisfying.
To begin with, the cheap gimmick of a misleading sensationalist title sets the tone for a book ripe with embellishment. (“The Sex Lives of Cannibals” has nothing to do with sex and less to do with cannibals. Rather, it is the story of a young American couple that spends two years on one of the poorest and remote islands in the world.)
Quite simply, too much of this book is written in a way that strains credulity. Do I think that the author had difficulty re-adjusting to American life after spending two years on a tiny Pacific island? Yes. But, I’d gladly wager that he is full of it when he writes that upon their return to America, he “made a foray to the supermarket around the corner for provisions. Two hours later, when I had failed to return, Sylvia went out to look for me. She found me staring blankly at a display of maple syrup. My shopping cart was still empty.”
Yeah, right.
This type of thing happened over and over in the book and made reading it frustrating because that type of exaggeration was unnecessary: The tale of the author’s time in Kiribati was often riveting and quiet eye-opening.
The detailed descriptions of life on the island were the best part of the book. It is hard to believe that people live in such poverty and deprivation. The book was so long and was mostly so well written that I almost began to develop island fever myself.
The discussion of government corruption was disheartening. Such self-interest and corruption seems sadly embedded in the human fabric.
The descriptions of the animal life on the island were eye-opening. Especially the survival of the fittest amongst the dog and cat population.
What may be the most important concept in the book was a bit buried in this line: “I soon learned that the greatest beneficiaries of the [foreign] aid were the [foreign aid workers] themselves, and I was excited to finally get a piece of the pie myself.” The author does a nice (if too brief) job of showing how much foreign aid accrues to the benefit of those who dole out the aid.
I find this to be very similar to the American non-profit scene generally, where many non-profit organizations are remarkably inefficient at helping those they are putatively chartered to assist. Too many non-profits take money from the public and then spend it paying full time “staff” to administer programs, when that money can/should be used to help the needy, directly.
I believe that most non-profits should be run the way our founders suggested that our government should be run – by part-time citizen volunteers. Having a permanent ruling class of politicians has not done us well (overall), nor has having a huge number of people working full time for non-profits. But that is a post for another day.
All in all I am glad I read this book. I’d give it four stars but for the exaggerations and the needlessly misleading sensationalist title.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
An Impressive Short Story
Great science fiction writing shines a light on how we live right now by speculating about a possible future where something is . . . different.
For example, we take it for granted that all of us are born as children and live for many decades. But what if there comes a time when most people are born as adults and live only for twelve months? How would their perspectives and priorities differ from ours? What would the relationship between father and son be like?
Similarly, a good writer finds clever ways to show us how concepts that we ridicule today are likely to come to life in the future - albeit in a way we might not expect.
For example, no one seriously argues that telepathy (mind reading) exists today. But does anyone doubt that in the coming years electronic communications devices will get smaller, faster, and more sophisticated? And that at some point biologists and computer scientists will start to interface communications devices with our bodies, such that people will be able to "think" at each other instantly? What would that be like?
A final example relates to extra-terrestrial life. What it would be like if aliens do show up here someday and are wildly different from the childish pop culture depictions so common in today's popcorn flicks? What if the aliens aren't out to eat us or enslave us or probe us? What if they see our planet as nothing more than an interstellar bathroom, and don’t even notice us -- the same way we barely notice colonies of ants in the woods? What could do to prove our sentience to aliens who may be so far advanced that, to them, we are nearly indistinguishable from ants and other lifeforms found on Earth today?
These three concepts (short life, wetware-telepathy, and being unable to get the attention of an alien) are explored wonderfully in a short story that I just read – or should I say listened to: “The Fifth Zhi,” by Mercurio Rivera.
I think the story was first published in Interzone but you can listen to it for free at Escape Pod, and if you are not familiar with the website "Escape Pod," and you enjoy short science-fiction stories, I strongly encourage you to check it out. In addition to new weekly episodes being free, their archive of 200+ shows is also entirely free. A few months ago, I downloaded all their old episodes (stories) and have been enjoying working my way through the archives. It has been an enjoyable journey, especially as the quality of the stories has been steadily improving. I also like how they sometimes post "flash" stories that are generally only 5 minutes long.
If you get hooked on Escape Pod too, let me know which stories are your favorite.
For example, we take it for granted that all of us are born as children and live for many decades. But what if there comes a time when most people are born as adults and live only for twelve months? How would their perspectives and priorities differ from ours? What would the relationship between father and son be like?
Similarly, a good writer finds clever ways to show us how concepts that we ridicule today are likely to come to life in the future - albeit in a way we might not expect.
For example, no one seriously argues that telepathy (mind reading) exists today. But does anyone doubt that in the coming years electronic communications devices will get smaller, faster, and more sophisticated? And that at some point biologists and computer scientists will start to interface communications devices with our bodies, such that people will be able to "think" at each other instantly? What would that be like?
A final example relates to extra-terrestrial life. What it would be like if aliens do show up here someday and are wildly different from the childish pop culture depictions so common in today's popcorn flicks? What if the aliens aren't out to eat us or enslave us or probe us? What if they see our planet as nothing more than an interstellar bathroom, and don’t even notice us -- the same way we barely notice colonies of ants in the woods? What could do to prove our sentience to aliens who may be so far advanced that, to them, we are nearly indistinguishable from ants and other lifeforms found on Earth today?
These three concepts (short life, wetware-telepathy, and being unable to get the attention of an alien) are explored wonderfully in a short story that I just read – or should I say listened to: “The Fifth Zhi,” by Mercurio Rivera.
I think the story was first published in Interzone but you can listen to it for free at Escape Pod, and if you are not familiar with the website "Escape Pod," and you enjoy short science-fiction stories, I strongly encourage you to check it out. In addition to new weekly episodes being free, their archive of 200+ shows is also entirely free. A few months ago, I downloaded all their old episodes (stories) and have been enjoying working my way through the archives. It has been an enjoyable journey, especially as the quality of the stories has been steadily improving. I also like how they sometimes post "flash" stories that are generally only 5 minutes long.
If you get hooked on Escape Pod too, let me know which stories are your favorite.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The God Effect: Quantum Entanglement, Science’s Strangest Phenomenon, by Brian Clegg.
Anton Chekhov once said that if you say in the first chapter of your book that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. In other words, if the gun is not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging prominently on the wall.
With that in mind, I looked forward to the author’s discussion of how quantum entanglement could be seen as evidence of an invisible space deity, and was seriously disappointed that he dedicated but a single sentence to the topic, saying in the preface that entanglement is “a physical phenomenon so strange and all pervasive that this book calls it “the God Effect.””
I found his use of the third person here quite odd. Why does “the book” call entanglement “the God Effect?” Did the book write itself? What does the author think? We never find out, and I suspect that the word was added to the title to be sensationalistic.
Much of the rest of the book was similarly unsatisfying. Some parts were clever and thorough and I was fascinated to learn that mirrors do not really “reflect” photons of light. Rather, each time a photon of light hits the surface of a mirror it is absorbed by an electron. Nearly instantaneously, the electron make a quantum leap to a higher energy state where it becomes unstable and emits a new (different) photon of light to stabilize itself.
That said, I got the feeling that the book was dictated to a research assistant while the author sat before a fireplace with a glass of wine: Many of the chapters started on one topic and then devolved into anecdotes or historical explanations only tangentially related to the concept at hand.
Other ideas were explained in a way that I can only describe as lazy in their reasoning. One example concerns the concept of whether light is a wave or particle, and the concept of superposition, which says that photons fly through the air not as a single particles but rather as a clouds of possibility that coalesce into physical states only when they are forced to, by third-party observation/interaction.
The author describes an experiment in which 45-degree-polarized photons are fired through three slots in different orientations and claims that the fact of some particles getting through the obstacle course proves the concept of superposition.
He may be right that superposition is why it happens but his explanation is incomplete at best. The way he describes the experiment, the answer to what happens could be as simple as “anytime a photon goes through a slot it become oriented such that it can only go through another slot oriented within 45 degrees of the previous slot.”
To make my point let’s imagine high speed racecars instead of photons going 200 mph traveling north through a pair of cones and then trying to make a quick 90 degree turn. They are unable to do it because they are going too fast. Then, we change the 90 degree turn into two 45 degree angle turns, spaced out. Does the fact that some cars are now able to make those two turns mean that they entered a superposition and were simultaneously heading north and east? No, of course not.
The point here is not that the experiment was wrong (I’ve read much better descriptions of this experiment and I’m grudgingly willing to accept its conclusion) but rather that the author does a poor job of explaining how he (or anyone) knows that probabilities in quantum physics are real.
Also frustrating is the fact that the author give no effort to explaining what he (or anyone) thinks is the actual, factual, physical cause of quantum entanglement and spooky action at a distance. How can someone write a book called “Quantum Entanglement, Science’s Strangest Phenomenon” and not discuss the how and why of two particles being separated by great distance, impacting each other simultaneously, seemingly faster than the speed of light?
My layman’s research into this topic is in its infancy, but even I have my wild guesses about what is going on with entanglement (more on that in another post). Unfortunately, this author was more interested in telling stories of the CERN laboratory, the history of the telegraph and typewriter, and explaining how entanglement impacts cryptography than he was in diving in to the meat of how spooky action at a distance works.
In the end I don’t recommend this book to anyone, other than perhaps to those seriously into cryptography. “The God Particle” isn’t a good first introduction to the concept of quantum entanglement and it isn’t a book that dives deeper into any particular concepts. It rants and rambles and tries to mesmerize but in the end failed to interest, intrigue or inspire me much at all, other than to look for more and better books on the subject.
With that in mind, I looked forward to the author’s discussion of how quantum entanglement could be seen as evidence of an invisible space deity, and was seriously disappointed that he dedicated but a single sentence to the topic, saying in the preface that entanglement is “a physical phenomenon so strange and all pervasive that this book calls it “the God Effect.””
I found his use of the third person here quite odd. Why does “the book” call entanglement “the God Effect?” Did the book write itself? What does the author think? We never find out, and I suspect that the word was added to the title to be sensationalistic.
Much of the rest of the book was similarly unsatisfying. Some parts were clever and thorough and I was fascinated to learn that mirrors do not really “reflect” photons of light. Rather, each time a photon of light hits the surface of a mirror it is absorbed by an electron. Nearly instantaneously, the electron make a quantum leap to a higher energy state where it becomes unstable and emits a new (different) photon of light to stabilize itself.
That said, I got the feeling that the book was dictated to a research assistant while the author sat before a fireplace with a glass of wine: Many of the chapters started on one topic and then devolved into anecdotes or historical explanations only tangentially related to the concept at hand.
Other ideas were explained in a way that I can only describe as lazy in their reasoning. One example concerns the concept of whether light is a wave or particle, and the concept of superposition, which says that photons fly through the air not as a single particles but rather as a clouds of possibility that coalesce into physical states only when they are forced to, by third-party observation/interaction.
The author describes an experiment in which 45-degree-polarized photons are fired through three slots in different orientations and claims that the fact of some particles getting through the obstacle course proves the concept of superposition.
He may be right that superposition is why it happens but his explanation is incomplete at best. The way he describes the experiment, the answer to what happens could be as simple as “anytime a photon goes through a slot it become oriented such that it can only go through another slot oriented within 45 degrees of the previous slot.”
To make my point let’s imagine high speed racecars instead of photons going 200 mph traveling north through a pair of cones and then trying to make a quick 90 degree turn. They are unable to do it because they are going too fast. Then, we change the 90 degree turn into two 45 degree angle turns, spaced out. Does the fact that some cars are now able to make those two turns mean that they entered a superposition and were simultaneously heading north and east? No, of course not.
The point here is not that the experiment was wrong (I’ve read much better descriptions of this experiment and I’m grudgingly willing to accept its conclusion) but rather that the author does a poor job of explaining how he (or anyone) knows that probabilities in quantum physics are real.
Also frustrating is the fact that the author give no effort to explaining what he (or anyone) thinks is the actual, factual, physical cause of quantum entanglement and spooky action at a distance. How can someone write a book called “Quantum Entanglement, Science’s Strangest Phenomenon” and not discuss the how and why of two particles being separated by great distance, impacting each other simultaneously, seemingly faster than the speed of light?
My layman’s research into this topic is in its infancy, but even I have my wild guesses about what is going on with entanglement (more on that in another post). Unfortunately, this author was more interested in telling stories of the CERN laboratory, the history of the telegraph and typewriter, and explaining how entanglement impacts cryptography than he was in diving in to the meat of how spooky action at a distance works.
In the end I don’t recommend this book to anyone, other than perhaps to those seriously into cryptography. “The God Particle” isn’t a good first introduction to the concept of quantum entanglement and it isn’t a book that dives deeper into any particular concepts. It rants and rambles and tries to mesmerize but in the end failed to interest, intrigue or inspire me much at all, other than to look for more and better books on the subject.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Age of Entanglement : When Quantum Physics was Reborn, by Louisa Gilder
“This quantum question is so uncommonly important and difficult that it should concern everyone.”
-- Albert Einstein, 1908.
The concepts of quantum mechanics have fascinated me for a great many years. I’ve read dozens of books on the subject but am no closer to grasping the concepts underlying a mystery that perplexed Einstein himself until the day he died.
Einstein spent his entire life wrestling with the issues raised by the initial discovery of quantum mechanics in the year 1900. He was never really able to move past his initial frustration with the fact that under certain physical circumstances, two individual subatomic particles, far apart from each other, act in concert with each other in a way that violates all known explanations.
These two particles seem to influence each other simultaneously and remotely; communicating with each other by an unknown mechanism that would far exceed the speed of light.
Einstein ridiculed this phenomenon as “spooky action-at-a-distance” and called it “a sort of telepathic coupling” in his initial efforts to argue that someone must have had a few too many drinks down at the lab.
The phenomenon has since been proven to exist and this book is the true story of the people who spent (and are spending) their lives studying quantum mechanics, spooky action-at-a-distance, and are trying to make sense of it all. I really hope they figure it out in our lifetime because it is 100% guaranteed to be a jaw dropping revision to our sense of reality. [For a (relatively) quick overview of quantum entanglement, this entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy does as good a job of any on the web: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/]
What may be in store for us is a shock as big as the one that came to the citizens of Flatland in one of my absolute favorite books: The very brief (less than 50 pages) story of Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott.
In Flatland, Abbott describes a world of people who live in a two dimensional world – a flat plane -- where men are polygons and women are line segments. They have no concept of up or down. And then, one day, a three dimensional sphere visits them and it rocks their world as it demonstrates how what they see in two dimensions is proof of a third dimension.
Such a world-rocking is likely somewhere in our future, and some very smart folks (string theorists) think that many additional dimensions exist and that all matter (and especially those spooky particles) is connected through one of those other dimensions.
At first, The Age of Entanglement was not at all what I wanted, because I was hoping for an account of the latest breakthroughs in the field and a description of new quantum theories. Instead I found myself reading a historical account of the characters, featuring a fictionalized recreation of their conversations. (The author drew on actual letters and speeches by the scientists in her effort to recreate various conversations.)
After the initial frustration at this artifice I found myself captivated by the story of how Einstein, Schrödinger, Oppenheimer, von Neumann, Bohm, Feynman, and of course Bell devoted much of their lives to thinking about and discussing the phenomenon of quantum entanglement.
Put another way, I did not want to learn about the historical context of their respective efforts and how they overlapped and interacted with each other. But I’m glad I did.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Good Stuff This Month (April 2009)
I have decided that my monthly posts will not be reviews of each magazine I read, but rather will highlight what I really liked and is possibly worth your time:
Fortune (April 27, 2009)
Great stuff as usual, including:
1. A funny little piece on a company called “Green Grass at Last.” What they do is as brilliant as it is lazy. Banks hire them to go to foreclosed houses with awful brown lawns . . . and spray paint the brown grass, green.
2. A nice interview with Mike Lazaridis, the founder of the company that builds Blackberries. A good nugget: “ Don’t believe what they sayt about entrepreneurs being huge risk-takers. The successful ones don’t like taking risks. But it often doesn’t look that way, because you don’t see the amount of planning and research and analysis they undertake to make a decision, an investment, or entry into an industry.”
3. A trio of articles both terrifying and inspiring, about electric cars, and how Warren Buffett is betting on an obscure Chinese electric car company. Ditto Charlie Munger. And the article on the chances of the U.S. being anything but an embarrassing also-ran in the world of electric cars – truly frightening.
Inc. (April 2009)
Good, inspiring, educational, enjoyable. As usual. One representative highlight: Norm Brodsky’s article “My First Year,” about how his messenger business was almost destroyed by a transit strike that wound up giving him an opportunity to grow in a way he never imagined possible. His salvation – listening to his customers’ needs. As an aside, I’ll mention that Norm is the co-author of “The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up,” with Bo Burlingham. A book I loved so much that I’m thinking of starting a website where regular guys like us as come together to thank their favorite authors.
Scientific American (May 2009)
Lots of great stuff, including:
1. A short note about a study that suggests that people who carry the long version of the gene for the serotonin transporter protein – notice positive things more than negative things.
2. A nice essay by Michael Shermer, who publishes Skeptic, talking about oddly irrational creationists such as the one who told him to ‘not confuse him with those loony American creationists, who think the Earth is only 6,000 years old.’ (This guy worked it out on his own and concluded that the Earth is about 100,000 years old. ) A great quote from a born-again evangelical Christian who wrote The Language of God and formerly ran the Human Genome Project: “Unless one is willing to take the position that God has placed decapitated ARE’s (ancient repetitive elements, of DNA) are in these precise positions to confuse and mislead us, the conclusion of a common ancestor for humans and mice is virtually inescapable.”
3. “The Planetary Air Leak,” by David Catling and Kevin Zahnle. A fascinating and scary look at how fragile our atmosphere is, how it has changed over billions of years, and how much of it was are likely to lose in the coming billion years, regardless of human activity.
4. “What Makes Us Human,” by Katherine Pollard. A fascinating article, written by a biostatistician who discovered that there may be far fewer genes that are unique to humans, and that gave us big advantages. Such as HAR1, which may lead to cerebral cortex folding; FOXP2, which facilitates mouth control to allow speech; ASPM, which drives brain size; LCT, which “permits digestion of milk sugar in adulthood, allowing people to make milk from domesticated animals a dietary staple;” and HAR2, which looks to be key in the development of wrist and thumb dexterity that allow sufficient dexterity to make tools.
5. “How to Steal Secrets without a Network,” by Wayt Gibbs. A creepy look into the world of information thieves who steal secrets by looking through a telescope to see images reflected off your eyeballs, or “listen” with computers to the actual sounds made by computer printers. Way cool.
6. “Powering Nanorobots,” by Thomas Mallouk and Ayusman Sen. An exciting article about one of my favorite subjects. I had never heard of catalytic engines before today and now that I understand their principle, I am duly impressed. The concept of using Brownian motion to create Brownian ratchets is simultaneously brilliant and lazy. Molecules (in liquid form) are never truly still but rather they move randomly. A scientist in Edinburgh is building a tiny machine that allows random Brownian motion to nudge something along a tiny monorail – but in one direction only. Thus, possibly avoiding the need for a tiny self-powered motor.
Asimov’s Science Fiction (June 2009)
Easily my favorite subscription. Every month it arrives and I dive in to find a collection of wonderful short stories. I keep careful track of my favorites, grading each of them, and anytime I need a new book to read I look over the list of authors and go find their books. This month’s best included:
“Cold Testing,” by Robert Brown. A very good story of a robot yearning to feel human emotions. A-
“Going Deep,” by James Patrick Kelly. A touching story of travelers on a deep space voyage, who go in and out of extended periods of deep cold sleep. B+
Analog Science Fiction and Fact (June 2009)
After many years of reading Asimov’s, I succumbed to one of the ubiquitous advertisements hawking back issues of Analog, their sister publication. When the issues arrived I was delighted to find out that I was wrong. Analog isn’t just (or even mostly) essays about science fact. Rather, it is 90% the same great science fiction short stories, and one “real” science essay. This month’s best included:
“But it Does Move,” by Harry Turtledove. This story (actually, a novelette) blew my mind. It was a historical recreation of Galileo’s final days, at the hands of the all-powerful Church, being interrogated by Cardinal Sigismondo Gioioso of Vienna. Easily one of the most moving and chilling stories I’ve ever read. The title of the story comes from the rumor that after “admitting” that, as the center of the universe, the Earth does not move, Galileo said under his breath, "But it does move.” A
“Chain,” by Stephen Burns. Great story about emerging robot consciousness.
“The Cold Star Sky,” by Craig DeLancy. A very good story about humans saving a bunch of arrogant aliens.
“Attack of the Grub Eaters,” by Richard Lovett. Very good, clever story done entirely in the form of modern-day computer users posting comments to an online discussion forum. What starts off as a request for help with moles turns into something deathly serious. A-
IFR (April 2009)
I can’t imagine anyone in the world subscribing unless they are an instrument-rated pilot, other than perhaps an extreme Angelina Jolie fan who learns that she is one, and subscribes in the hope that if they ever meet, they can have something in common.
Good this month:
“A New Pop-Up Trick,” by Kent Nicholson. I cut this out and have it on my bulletin board. A great discussion of how to file a VFR (visual flight rules) flight plan and later turn it into an IFR (instrument) flight plan when the weather turns south. Which happens quite often.
“Forgetting to Cancel,” by Joe Shelton. Making mistakes while flying is a bad idea. Making them while flying in instrument conditions (such as with zero visibility, inside a cloud, at night, 300 feet from the ground) can be deadly. That is one reason that a large chunk of us in the aviation community are fanatical about admitting then analyzing our and others’ mistakes – both individual mistakes and those that reveal patterns about possible systemic weaknesses. In aviation, NASA plays the role of the independent third party that collects anonymous data, through its “Aviation Safety Reporting System.” The way it works is simple. Anytime a pilot or controller makes a mistake of any kind, he/she is encouraged to file an anonymous report with this NASA program, disclosing all details about what happened, how, and why. If the pilot is later busted, certain penalties are reduced or eliminated if they filed a NASA form immediately when the incident happened. The net result is a huge database describing thousands of incidents, from every angle. Many of us in the aviation community believe that if the medical community would adopt a similar system, it could save tens of thousands of lives per year very quickly. I’m happy to write/talk more about this if anyone is interested. Oh, and this article was about the embarrassment of forgeting to cancel one's IFR fllight plan. If you land at a tower airport they close it for you but lots of small airport have no tower and if they don't have a GCO for remote radio you have to remember to call by phone. Otherwise, the airspace closes to other instrument traffic and eventually they begin search and rescue operations. Most of us have done it -- once. A great tip from the author -- if you are flying to a non-tower field, before you take off, call yourself and leave yourself a voicemail saying, "don't forget to close your flight plan."
Fast Company (April and May 2009)
The May issue was hollow, but two items in April were noteworthy:
1. A short piece on “Y Combinator,” which trains early-stage tech startups for a semester. They pick 15-20 groups to fund at once and require them to move to Cambridge or Silicon Valley for three months.
2. Chip and Dan Heath’s piece called “Sell Handcuffs,” about how and why your customers want you to restrain them, through commitment devices. These two are outstanding and I'm itching to contract with them at some point to be consultants. They're that good.
Fortune (April 27, 2009)
Great stuff as usual, including:
1. A funny little piece on a company called “Green Grass at Last.” What they do is as brilliant as it is lazy. Banks hire them to go to foreclosed houses with awful brown lawns . . . and spray paint the brown grass, green.
2. A nice interview with Mike Lazaridis, the founder of the company that builds Blackberries. A good nugget: “ Don’t believe what they sayt about entrepreneurs being huge risk-takers. The successful ones don’t like taking risks. But it often doesn’t look that way, because you don’t see the amount of planning and research and analysis they undertake to make a decision, an investment, or entry into an industry.”
3. A trio of articles both terrifying and inspiring, about electric cars, and how Warren Buffett is betting on an obscure Chinese electric car company. Ditto Charlie Munger. And the article on the chances of the U.S. being anything but an embarrassing also-ran in the world of electric cars – truly frightening.
Inc. (April 2009)
Good, inspiring, educational, enjoyable. As usual. One representative highlight: Norm Brodsky’s article “My First Year,” about how his messenger business was almost destroyed by a transit strike that wound up giving him an opportunity to grow in a way he never imagined possible. His salvation – listening to his customers’ needs. As an aside, I’ll mention that Norm is the co-author of “The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up,” with Bo Burlingham. A book I loved so much that I’m thinking of starting a website where regular guys like us as come together to thank their favorite authors.
Scientific American (May 2009)
Lots of great stuff, including:
1. A short note about a study that suggests that people who carry the long version of the gene for the serotonin transporter protein – notice positive things more than negative things.
2. A nice essay by Michael Shermer, who publishes Skeptic, talking about oddly irrational creationists such as the one who told him to ‘not confuse him with those loony American creationists, who think the Earth is only 6,000 years old.’ (This guy worked it out on his own and concluded that the Earth is about 100,000 years old. ) A great quote from a born-again evangelical Christian who wrote The Language of God and formerly ran the Human Genome Project: “Unless one is willing to take the position that God has placed decapitated ARE’s (ancient repetitive elements, of DNA) are in these precise positions to confuse and mislead us, the conclusion of a common ancestor for humans and mice is virtually inescapable.”
3. “The Planetary Air Leak,” by David Catling and Kevin Zahnle. A fascinating and scary look at how fragile our atmosphere is, how it has changed over billions of years, and how much of it was are likely to lose in the coming billion years, regardless of human activity.
4. “What Makes Us Human,” by Katherine Pollard. A fascinating article, written by a biostatistician who discovered that there may be far fewer genes that are unique to humans, and that gave us big advantages. Such as HAR1, which may lead to cerebral cortex folding; FOXP2, which facilitates mouth control to allow speech; ASPM, which drives brain size; LCT, which “permits digestion of milk sugar in adulthood, allowing people to make milk from domesticated animals a dietary staple;” and HAR2, which looks to be key in the development of wrist and thumb dexterity that allow sufficient dexterity to make tools.
5. “How to Steal Secrets without a Network,” by Wayt Gibbs. A creepy look into the world of information thieves who steal secrets by looking through a telescope to see images reflected off your eyeballs, or “listen” with computers to the actual sounds made by computer printers. Way cool.
6. “Powering Nanorobots,” by Thomas Mallouk and Ayusman Sen. An exciting article about one of my favorite subjects. I had never heard of catalytic engines before today and now that I understand their principle, I am duly impressed. The concept of using Brownian motion to create Brownian ratchets is simultaneously brilliant and lazy. Molecules (in liquid form) are never truly still but rather they move randomly. A scientist in Edinburgh is building a tiny machine that allows random Brownian motion to nudge something along a tiny monorail – but in one direction only. Thus, possibly avoiding the need for a tiny self-powered motor.
Asimov’s Science Fiction (June 2009)
Easily my favorite subscription. Every month it arrives and I dive in to find a collection of wonderful short stories. I keep careful track of my favorites, grading each of them, and anytime I need a new book to read I look over the list of authors and go find their books. This month’s best included:
“Cold Testing,” by Robert Brown. A very good story of a robot yearning to feel human emotions. A-
“Going Deep,” by James Patrick Kelly. A touching story of travelers on a deep space voyage, who go in and out of extended periods of deep cold sleep. B+
Analog Science Fiction and Fact (June 2009)
After many years of reading Asimov’s, I succumbed to one of the ubiquitous advertisements hawking back issues of Analog, their sister publication. When the issues arrived I was delighted to find out that I was wrong. Analog isn’t just (or even mostly) essays about science fact. Rather, it is 90% the same great science fiction short stories, and one “real” science essay. This month’s best included:
“But it Does Move,” by Harry Turtledove. This story (actually, a novelette) blew my mind. It was a historical recreation of Galileo’s final days, at the hands of the all-powerful Church, being interrogated by Cardinal Sigismondo Gioioso of Vienna. Easily one of the most moving and chilling stories I’ve ever read. The title of the story comes from the rumor that after “admitting” that, as the center of the universe, the Earth does not move, Galileo said under his breath, "But it does move.” A
“Chain,” by Stephen Burns. Great story about emerging robot consciousness.
“The Cold Star Sky,” by Craig DeLancy. A very good story about humans saving a bunch of arrogant aliens.
“Attack of the Grub Eaters,” by Richard Lovett. Very good, clever story done entirely in the form of modern-day computer users posting comments to an online discussion forum. What starts off as a request for help with moles turns into something deathly serious. A-
IFR (April 2009)
I can’t imagine anyone in the world subscribing unless they are an instrument-rated pilot, other than perhaps an extreme Angelina Jolie fan who learns that she is one, and subscribes in the hope that if they ever meet, they can have something in common.
Good this month:
“A New Pop-Up Trick,” by Kent Nicholson. I cut this out and have it on my bulletin board. A great discussion of how to file a VFR (visual flight rules) flight plan and later turn it into an IFR (instrument) flight plan when the weather turns south. Which happens quite often.
“Forgetting to Cancel,” by Joe Shelton. Making mistakes while flying is a bad idea. Making them while flying in instrument conditions (such as with zero visibility, inside a cloud, at night, 300 feet from the ground) can be deadly. That is one reason that a large chunk of us in the aviation community are fanatical about admitting then analyzing our and others’ mistakes – both individual mistakes and those that reveal patterns about possible systemic weaknesses. In aviation, NASA plays the role of the independent third party that collects anonymous data, through its “Aviation Safety Reporting System.” The way it works is simple. Anytime a pilot or controller makes a mistake of any kind, he/she is encouraged to file an anonymous report with this NASA program, disclosing all details about what happened, how, and why. If the pilot is later busted, certain penalties are reduced or eliminated if they filed a NASA form immediately when the incident happened. The net result is a huge database describing thousands of incidents, from every angle. Many of us in the aviation community believe that if the medical community would adopt a similar system, it could save tens of thousands of lives per year very quickly. I’m happy to write/talk more about this if anyone is interested. Oh, and this article was about the embarrassment of forgeting to cancel one's IFR fllight plan. If you land at a tower airport they close it for you but lots of small airport have no tower and if they don't have a GCO for remote radio you have to remember to call by phone. Otherwise, the airspace closes to other instrument traffic and eventually they begin search and rescue operations. Most of us have done it -- once. A great tip from the author -- if you are flying to a non-tower field, before you take off, call yourself and leave yourself a voicemail saying, "don't forget to close your flight plan."
Fast Company (April and May 2009)
The May issue was hollow, but two items in April were noteworthy:
1. A short piece on “Y Combinator,” which trains early-stage tech startups for a semester. They pick 15-20 groups to fund at once and require them to move to Cambridge or Silicon Valley for three months.
2. Chip and Dan Heath’s piece called “Sell Handcuffs,” about how and why your customers want you to restrain them, through commitment devices. These two are outstanding and I'm itching to contract with them at some point to be consultants. They're that good.
Friday, May 1, 2009
A Fraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz
This book caused me to miss a flight. Literally. I was reading it on the subway and missed my transfer point and by the time I backtracked and got to the airport, it was too late. Everything worked out nicely, however, as this gave me an extra hour to read before the next flight departed.
There was much to love about this book. The story was, at times, compelling and sometimes riveting. There were many laugh-out-loud moments. Many wonderful turns of phrase. And much philosophizing on the nature of humanity and relationships between fathers and sons. It was beautifully written.
That said, I find myself disagreeing with most of the raving reviews at Amazon.com. On the whole, I give it three stars because (1) the characters were uniformly unlikeable; (2) it didn't make me think; (3) the story was ridiculously unbelievable; and (4) I don't think I learned much of anything.
I can handle crazy plots, where unlikely things happen to people. What I can't handle is a narrator who, at ten years old, spends all day thinking extremely deep complex sophisticated thoughts, but is an abject failure at school and goes on to be an utter zero in every way – except in that he maintains a brilliant and sophisticated inner dialogue about his feelings, and his frustration at the vapidity of the general public.
Ditto the father character who was a ragingly selfish and lazy misanthrope but somehow managed to think endless deep thoughts and write a gorgeous account of his life. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed that the “writing style” of father and son were nearly identical – something that kept me all too aware that this was fiction and kept me from ever getting fully drawn into their world as with a novel such as David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
The 3-star reviews at Amazon do a fine job of summing up my frustrations so I’ll just share a few of the lines and interludes that I really did like a whole bunch, and are apropos of the book’s style:
“So, he’s not insane?” my father asked.
“Oh, don’t get the wrong idea. He’s crazy as a coconut. But open!”
“We’re not violent people,” my father said. “This whole thing is a mystery to us.”
“No man’s life is a mystery. Believe me, there is order and structure in the most ostensibly chaotic skull. There seem to be two major events in Terry’s life that have shaped him more than any others. The first I would not have believed had I not unwavering faith in his honesty.” The doctor leaned forward and said, almost in a whisper, “Did he really spend the first four years of his life sharing a bedroom with a comatose boy?”
My parents looked at each other with a start.
“Was that wrong?” my mother asked. “We didn’t have any room,” my father said, annoyed. “Where were we supposed to put Martin? In the shed?”
***
“I shook my head, stood up, and walked out of the pub. I heard her calling my name, but I didn’t turn around. Outside, I broke into tears. What a hassle! Now I’d have to become rich and successful just so she could regret dumping me. That’s another thing to do in this short, busy life. Christ. They’re adding up.”
***
“Shockingly, almost all my reforms were agreed upon. Criminals would be allowed the option of going into the army instead of being locked up; cash rebates would be offered to those who could demonstrate self-awareness, and the stultified and fearful would be taxed higher . . . every healthy person would have to look after at least one sick person until he died or got better; we would pick people indiscriminately to be prime minister for a day; all drugs would be legalized for one generation to see what happened. Even my most controversial idea was taken up: rearing any child in a religious belief, freezing the child’s mind when it is most vulnerable, would be treated as child abuse. I said all this and people said, ‘OK, we’ll see what we can do.’ It was unbelievable!”
***
“Eddie, that disgusting bastard! That oily, rancid, horny bandit! I felt guilty for my failure to protect that poor girl, but if someone you’ve known since childhood is so determined to commit a crime he’s willing to kick you in the throat, what can you do? Anyway, it was too late now. That field had made away with the girl and left me stranded in the middle of nowhere. And where the hell was I, anyway, other than the exact place where all the heat in Thailand gathered for a meeting?”
In the end, I think that what frustrated me most about this book was that the first 100 pages were fantastic and I had great expectations that were not met. And what did transpire was occasionally spectacular, but in the end unfulfilling.
This having been Toltz’s first book, I am hopeful that his second will be even better, and I will read it for sure.
There was much to love about this book. The story was, at times, compelling and sometimes riveting. There were many laugh-out-loud moments. Many wonderful turns of phrase. And much philosophizing on the nature of humanity and relationships between fathers and sons. It was beautifully written.
That said, I find myself disagreeing with most of the raving reviews at Amazon.com. On the whole, I give it three stars because (1) the characters were uniformly unlikeable; (2) it didn't make me think; (3) the story was ridiculously unbelievable; and (4) I don't think I learned much of anything.
I can handle crazy plots, where unlikely things happen to people. What I can't handle is a narrator who, at ten years old, spends all day thinking extremely deep complex sophisticated thoughts, but is an abject failure at school and goes on to be an utter zero in every way – except in that he maintains a brilliant and sophisticated inner dialogue about his feelings, and his frustration at the vapidity of the general public.
Ditto the father character who was a ragingly selfish and lazy misanthrope but somehow managed to think endless deep thoughts and write a gorgeous account of his life. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed that the “writing style” of father and son were nearly identical – something that kept me all too aware that this was fiction and kept me from ever getting fully drawn into their world as with a novel such as David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
The 3-star reviews at Amazon do a fine job of summing up my frustrations so I’ll just share a few of the lines and interludes that I really did like a whole bunch, and are apropos of the book’s style:
“So, he’s not insane?” my father asked.
“Oh, don’t get the wrong idea. He’s crazy as a coconut. But open!”
“We’re not violent people,” my father said. “This whole thing is a mystery to us.”
“No man’s life is a mystery. Believe me, there is order and structure in the most ostensibly chaotic skull. There seem to be two major events in Terry’s life that have shaped him more than any others. The first I would not have believed had I not unwavering faith in his honesty.” The doctor leaned forward and said, almost in a whisper, “Did he really spend the first four years of his life sharing a bedroom with a comatose boy?”
My parents looked at each other with a start.
“Was that wrong?” my mother asked. “We didn’t have any room,” my father said, annoyed. “Where were we supposed to put Martin? In the shed?”
***
“I shook my head, stood up, and walked out of the pub. I heard her calling my name, but I didn’t turn around. Outside, I broke into tears. What a hassle! Now I’d have to become rich and successful just so she could regret dumping me. That’s another thing to do in this short, busy life. Christ. They’re adding up.”
***
“Shockingly, almost all my reforms were agreed upon. Criminals would be allowed the option of going into the army instead of being locked up; cash rebates would be offered to those who could demonstrate self-awareness, and the stultified and fearful would be taxed higher . . . every healthy person would have to look after at least one sick person until he died or got better; we would pick people indiscriminately to be prime minister for a day; all drugs would be legalized for one generation to see what happened. Even my most controversial idea was taken up: rearing any child in a religious belief, freezing the child’s mind when it is most vulnerable, would be treated as child abuse. I said all this and people said, ‘OK, we’ll see what we can do.’ It was unbelievable!”
***
“Eddie, that disgusting bastard! That oily, rancid, horny bandit! I felt guilty for my failure to protect that poor girl, but if someone you’ve known since childhood is so determined to commit a crime he’s willing to kick you in the throat, what can you do? Anyway, it was too late now. That field had made away with the girl and left me stranded in the middle of nowhere. And where the hell was I, anyway, other than the exact place where all the heat in Thailand gathered for a meeting?”
In the end, I think that what frustrated me most about this book was that the first 100 pages were fantastic and I had great expectations that were not met. And what did transpire was occasionally spectacular, but in the end unfulfilling.
This having been Toltz’s first book, I am hopeful that his second will be even better, and I will read it for sure.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Good stuff I read this weekend
I’m going to go ahead and admit that I absolutely hate reading things on the Internet. Top 10 lists I can do. Emails from friends, family, and colleagues – even very long ones – I enjoy and can focus on. Ditto for technology reviews and articles referenced on Digg.
No matter how much I try, however, I can’t seem to concentrate enough to read essays, thinking pieces, good fiction or critical analysis when they are shown on a screen.
Where this leads is that I sometimes feel guilty because people I and like and respect often blog and tweet about things of interest to them, But I refrain from doing the same because most of what I read and find interesting isn’t available online. Rather, it is usually in a book or magazine, and there’s no good way for me to write about such things and link to them. The end result is that I post status updates on Facebook but I don’t really discuss the things that I find interesting and important.
I’ve decided that this stops now.
I am going to blog about the things I’m reading that I find interesting; mostly for my own sake, but also with an eye on the remote possibility that some like-minded folks out there might find my blog and that could lead to new and interesting friendships. At the very least I will be giving back and tipping my hat to the writers and editors who bring some joy to my life.
Wired Magazine (April 2009)
I subscribed to Wired about a year ago when I realized it was not just (or even really) a computer geek/reviews magazine, but rather a nice journal of big thinking and big dreams that all revolve loosely around technology.
Good stuff in this issue:
· Clive Thompson’s discussion of how Slashdot uses “crowdsourcing” to filter unhelpful comments posted by random chumps. Also impressive is the concept of “selective invisibility” invented by Disqus.
· “The Brain, Revealed,” by Jonah Lehrer. A fascinating article (with beautiful pictures) about the laboratory that Paul Allen founded to help unravel the mysteries of the human brain. Specifically, its physical structures. What I found particularly interesting was the point of view that hardware may matter after all, and that replicating a human brain (or at least self-aware consciousness) with silicon may be much harder than we think. This was not good news for me, as I feel strongly that the ability to transfer human consciousness into a medium beyond our own brains is a matter of “when” and not “if,” and when it happens it will transform humanity beyond recognition. I will write more about this subject in the future, I am sure.
· “Total Recall,” by Gary Marcus. The incredible (and, to me, inspiring) story of Jill Price: A woman who lives now and has a nearly perfect and seemingly infinite capacity for remembering everything that she has ever seen and done. The article itself didn’t have much to say other than “she exists,” but that’s really all it took to get me wondering whether we all have this ability and it is just a matter of unlocking it (or practicing).
Flying (April 2009)
This is one of several aviation magazines I subscribe to, along with Aviation Safety, AOPA Pilot, and IFR. Flying is consistently well-written.
The article I most enjoyed this month was Robert Goyer’s detailed review of the new Cirrus SR22. I am constantly amazed and impressed with the engineering, marketing, and overall intelligence of the folks who created Cirrus from scratch and blew past Cessna to become the most popular and safest general aviation (small) planes in the sky. Their SR22 line inspires lust in most guys like me who fly single engine planes.
A friend of mine owns an SR22 and one of the reasons I work so hard is that I want to own one myself someday.
The heart of the new SR22 is certification for Flight into Known Icing conditions (FIKI). I very much enjoyed reading the technical specifications on the system while imaging using it to continue flying through the winter months instead of cutting back as I always have to do, due to icing at the altitudes I fly.
Most of the rest of the issue was standard fare aviation porn (the new Gulfstream) and valid but boring finger wagging at pilot overconfidence. I will write more on this another time.
Fortune (March 30, 2009)
Sometimes I marvel that they publish Fortune freely and allow people who aren’t rich to read it. The writing is often outstanding and the concepts they cover are often new to me. Fortune’s articles are often long, and take their time diving deeply into analysis of an industry and/or company. Good stuff this issue:
· “My Metric,” a tiny recurring segment each month that asks people for unique indicators into the state of the economy. This issue’s metric was submitted by the founder of Mint.com, a financial management website. He looks at the average balance of his users deposit accounts and reports that it has dropped from $11,000 in August to $4,800 now. Sound like my 401(k).
· “Boondoggle Baloney,” by Allan Sloan. A nice little piece about the stupidity of telling companies that receive bailout money that they can’t take employees on trips to Vegas. I couldn’t agree more with Sloan. First of all, what could be more stimulative than taking your employees to Vegas? Everyone spends their money and it flows to the local economy, which needs it badly. Secondly, these types of occasional trips can be a great fun way to build morale amongst a far-flung group of employees (we did it once at our company). Third, even if it is not productive at all, it can be an appropriate reward for employees or a division that reaches certain goals. I do not think it is helpful or productive for the government to be micromanaging in this fashion. .
Esquire (April 2009)
Esquire has been described as a combination of Maxim and Harpers. (By me, just now.) Its goal is putatively to help modern men look good, act right, and attract swarms of underwear models, all while developing insight into people and concepts that the mainstream just doesn’t cover, or doesn’t cover properly.
Looking back over the last five years I would probably have to say that the five best articles I’ve read in any magazine have all come from Esquire. More than one of them by Tom Chiarella.
Also, in the last five years I’ve written exactly one letter to a magazine. Esquire not only published my letter but highlighted it. That sure made me feel good. (It was appreciation for an article by Tom Chiarella.)
The main drawbacks of the magazine, since you didn't ask, are (1) it tries too hard to be cool, with endless quips and stupid articles such as how to take a punch and how to remove a fishhook from a buddy's finger; (2) it often stinks like cologne; (3) the fashion ads are awful; (4) the fixation on how real men drink certain drinks; and (5) the whole magazine seems to be in the pocket of “Big Watch.” (A topic for another time.)
This month’s highlights:
· Chris Jones’ piece on Jonathan Papelbon was excellent. As a diehard Yankees fan I generally want Papelbon to either fall down the stairs, or, sign with the Yankees. I’ve never known much about Papelbon other than watching his intense pitching and his intense staring. In this article I learned that one of his main motivations is anger. He gets really mad and worked into a frenzy and then goes nuts for an inning or so. I have to say that I respect that.
I also see that as an incredible opportunity for the Yankees. If I were a Yankee I would not get into the box, glower at him, and bear down to wait for his fastball. Rather, I’d yell “Hi Jon!” and wave and smile as I got into the box. Maybe take a bit of the edge off the guy. I loved reading about how, after he pitched the final out of the 2007 World Series and got the game ball, he brought it home . . . and his dog tore it to shreds.
One other thing I respect about Papelbon is his honesty, even when it is not politically correct.
Two good stories here. One is about how, when he was a new player the team asked him where he sees himself after baseball. They were looking for an answer like “selling cars” or “tv commentator” and Papelbon’s answer was he wanted to be in the Hall of Fame. That caused a lot of ruckus but for him it was strange to think that anyone would have any other goal. I love that.
Also, I love how he not only had a custom poker table made for the Red Sox team flights but how he doesn’t hesitate to say of David Ortiz, “I love playing Ortiz the most. He might be the worst poker player ever. Just brutal.”
Papelbon, I have new respect for you and wish you the best. Next time you’re in Yankee Stadium maybe I will be in the crowd carrying a large sign that says “New York likes and respects Papelbon and wishes him all the best!”
· Esquire’s Annual Guide to Music gives me a great way to discover new music that is complex, interesting, and I would otherwise never hear anywhere else. When I have a free hour or two (ha ha) I look forward to listening to a bunch of this music (thanks, iTunes) and then buying the best of it (you’re welcome, iTunes).
· The Packing Orders – “How to combine 8 basic staples into 18 different looks.” I freely admit that I was born without the clothing style gene and that, left to my own devices, I’m likely to revert to what was hot in the 1980s. I also hate shopping and spending money on clothes. So, I need all the help I can get when it comes to getting dressed. This type of article helps a bunch and it is headed for my bulletin board.
Scientific American (April 2009)
I sure love SciAm. A good number of the concepts are beyond my technical reach to understand. And I know that I’m unlikely to ever contribute anything meaningful to a dialog on cosmology or string theory. But I love reading about and thinking about those topics and more. There are few people I respect more than those who toil away in the classrooms and labs doing hard science, and I love peeking into their world and thinking big thoughts from time to time.
Good stuff this month:
· Wayt Gibbs’ article about Gerald Joyce’s groundbreaking work on the role may have played in evolution. Large scale replication has been proven and now the team moves on to prove metabolism is doable. To me RNA has always seemed the more likely candidate, due to DNA’s complexity. It is hard to imagine DNA happening by chance but then again the timeframes that we are talking about are monstrously beyond comprehension. A good topic for another day.
· “Finding Balance,” by Brendan Borrell. An interesting little piece about Thomas Stroffregen’s theory that poor posture control may be a root cause of motion sickness. In an interesting study, Stroffregen showed that students who moved their legs a foot apart, as opposed to standing normally, avoided motion sickness 60% of the time in a simulator. Right now, NASA’s ground tests can only predict with 30% accuracy whether an astronaut candidate will get motion sick.
· “Does Dark Energy Really Exist?” by Timothy Clifton and Pedro Ferreira. I won’t get into the theory of Dark Energy here. I will say that I’m constantly skeptical of it, and continually amazed that we humans are able to do even a half-assed job of studying the structure of the universe while we remain largely trapped on our little rock. Cosmology is one of my absolute favorite topics to read about and this article mostly reinforced my suspicions and also excited me with the news of the Planck Surveyor spacecraft that is due for launch (by ESA) shortly. How cool is it that the echo of the Big Bang is still ringing, six billion years later, and that we can still hear and see it as cosmic background noise?
· “The Evolution of Primate Color Vision,” by Gerald Jacobs and Jeremy Nathan. I am endlessly fascinated by the process of evolution and how it happened to get us to where we are today. The story of vision is a wonderful example. Early everything/everybody was blind. Then one little dude mutated a spot that was vaguely sensitive to light, generally, and that gave him and his kids a nice advantage with the ladies and from the predators. Over very long periods of times, complex vision systems evolved, including ours which is trichromatic, and even better ones in some birds, fish, and reptiles who have not three but four visual pigments, and can see ultraviolet light.
Of course this makes me wonder. Once we crack the DNA code, will we be able to give humans that ability? What about a fifth visual pigment that could let us see infrared?
Interestingly, the authors of this article “were able to create trichromatic mice by inserting a human pigment gene into the mouse genome.” Quite cool.
· “The Dawn of Miniature Green Lasers,” by Shuji Nakamura and Michael Riordan. 80% of the chemistry and physics was over my head but this was still a fascinating story about how a group of researchers attacked the quantum-confined Stark effect which causes electrons to pile up at the wrong end of gallium nitride diodes. It was like a murder mystery except it was true, cool, and something got invented. Bravo.
No matter how much I try, however, I can’t seem to concentrate enough to read essays, thinking pieces, good fiction or critical analysis when they are shown on a screen.
Where this leads is that I sometimes feel guilty because people I and like and respect often blog and tweet about things of interest to them, But I refrain from doing the same because most of what I read and find interesting isn’t available online. Rather, it is usually in a book or magazine, and there’s no good way for me to write about such things and link to them. The end result is that I post status updates on Facebook but I don’t really discuss the things that I find interesting and important.
I’ve decided that this stops now.
I am going to blog about the things I’m reading that I find interesting; mostly for my own sake, but also with an eye on the remote possibility that some like-minded folks out there might find my blog and that could lead to new and interesting friendships. At the very least I will be giving back and tipping my hat to the writers and editors who bring some joy to my life.
Wired Magazine (April 2009)
I subscribed to Wired about a year ago when I realized it was not just (or even really) a computer geek/reviews magazine, but rather a nice journal of big thinking and big dreams that all revolve loosely around technology.
Good stuff in this issue:
· Clive Thompson’s discussion of how Slashdot uses “crowdsourcing” to filter unhelpful comments posted by random chumps. Also impressive is the concept of “selective invisibility” invented by Disqus.
· “The Brain, Revealed,” by Jonah Lehrer. A fascinating article (with beautiful pictures) about the laboratory that Paul Allen founded to help unravel the mysteries of the human brain. Specifically, its physical structures. What I found particularly interesting was the point of view that hardware may matter after all, and that replicating a human brain (or at least self-aware consciousness) with silicon may be much harder than we think. This was not good news for me, as I feel strongly that the ability to transfer human consciousness into a medium beyond our own brains is a matter of “when” and not “if,” and when it happens it will transform humanity beyond recognition. I will write more about this subject in the future, I am sure.
· “Total Recall,” by Gary Marcus. The incredible (and, to me, inspiring) story of Jill Price: A woman who lives now and has a nearly perfect and seemingly infinite capacity for remembering everything that she has ever seen and done. The article itself didn’t have much to say other than “she exists,” but that’s really all it took to get me wondering whether we all have this ability and it is just a matter of unlocking it (or practicing).
Flying (April 2009)
This is one of several aviation magazines I subscribe to, along with Aviation Safety, AOPA Pilot, and IFR. Flying is consistently well-written.
The article I most enjoyed this month was Robert Goyer’s detailed review of the new Cirrus SR22. I am constantly amazed and impressed with the engineering, marketing, and overall intelligence of the folks who created Cirrus from scratch and blew past Cessna to become the most popular and safest general aviation (small) planes in the sky. Their SR22 line inspires lust in most guys like me who fly single engine planes.
A friend of mine owns an SR22 and one of the reasons I work so hard is that I want to own one myself someday.
The heart of the new SR22 is certification for Flight into Known Icing conditions (FIKI). I very much enjoyed reading the technical specifications on the system while imaging using it to continue flying through the winter months instead of cutting back as I always have to do, due to icing at the altitudes I fly.
Most of the rest of the issue was standard fare aviation porn (the new Gulfstream) and valid but boring finger wagging at pilot overconfidence. I will write more on this another time.
Fortune (March 30, 2009)
Sometimes I marvel that they publish Fortune freely and allow people who aren’t rich to read it. The writing is often outstanding and the concepts they cover are often new to me. Fortune’s articles are often long, and take their time diving deeply into analysis of an industry and/or company. Good stuff this issue:
· “My Metric,” a tiny recurring segment each month that asks people for unique indicators into the state of the economy. This issue’s metric was submitted by the founder of Mint.com, a financial management website. He looks at the average balance of his users deposit accounts and reports that it has dropped from $11,000 in August to $4,800 now. Sound like my 401(k).
· “Boondoggle Baloney,” by Allan Sloan. A nice little piece about the stupidity of telling companies that receive bailout money that they can’t take employees on trips to Vegas. I couldn’t agree more with Sloan. First of all, what could be more stimulative than taking your employees to Vegas? Everyone spends their money and it flows to the local economy, which needs it badly. Secondly, these types of occasional trips can be a great fun way to build morale amongst a far-flung group of employees (we did it once at our company). Third, even if it is not productive at all, it can be an appropriate reward for employees or a division that reaches certain goals. I do not think it is helpful or productive for the government to be micromanaging in this fashion. .
Esquire (April 2009)
Esquire has been described as a combination of Maxim and Harpers. (By me, just now.) Its goal is putatively to help modern men look good, act right, and attract swarms of underwear models, all while developing insight into people and concepts that the mainstream just doesn’t cover, or doesn’t cover properly.
Looking back over the last five years I would probably have to say that the five best articles I’ve read in any magazine have all come from Esquire. More than one of them by Tom Chiarella.
Also, in the last five years I’ve written exactly one letter to a magazine. Esquire not only published my letter but highlighted it. That sure made me feel good. (It was appreciation for an article by Tom Chiarella.)
The main drawbacks of the magazine, since you didn't ask, are (1) it tries too hard to be cool, with endless quips and stupid articles such as how to take a punch and how to remove a fishhook from a buddy's finger; (2) it often stinks like cologne; (3) the fashion ads are awful; (4) the fixation on how real men drink certain drinks; and (5) the whole magazine seems to be in the pocket of “Big Watch.” (A topic for another time.)
This month’s highlights:
· Chris Jones’ piece on Jonathan Papelbon was excellent. As a diehard Yankees fan I generally want Papelbon to either fall down the stairs, or, sign with the Yankees. I’ve never known much about Papelbon other than watching his intense pitching and his intense staring. In this article I learned that one of his main motivations is anger. He gets really mad and worked into a frenzy and then goes nuts for an inning or so. I have to say that I respect that.
I also see that as an incredible opportunity for the Yankees. If I were a Yankee I would not get into the box, glower at him, and bear down to wait for his fastball. Rather, I’d yell “Hi Jon!” and wave and smile as I got into the box. Maybe take a bit of the edge off the guy. I loved reading about how, after he pitched the final out of the 2007 World Series and got the game ball, he brought it home . . . and his dog tore it to shreds.
One other thing I respect about Papelbon is his honesty, even when it is not politically correct.
Two good stories here. One is about how, when he was a new player the team asked him where he sees himself after baseball. They were looking for an answer like “selling cars” or “tv commentator” and Papelbon’s answer was he wanted to be in the Hall of Fame. That caused a lot of ruckus but for him it was strange to think that anyone would have any other goal. I love that.
Also, I love how he not only had a custom poker table made for the Red Sox team flights but how he doesn’t hesitate to say of David Ortiz, “I love playing Ortiz the most. He might be the worst poker player ever. Just brutal.”
Papelbon, I have new respect for you and wish you the best. Next time you’re in Yankee Stadium maybe I will be in the crowd carrying a large sign that says “New York likes and respects Papelbon and wishes him all the best!”
· Esquire’s Annual Guide to Music gives me a great way to discover new music that is complex, interesting, and I would otherwise never hear anywhere else. When I have a free hour or two (ha ha) I look forward to listening to a bunch of this music (thanks, iTunes) and then buying the best of it (you’re welcome, iTunes).
· The Packing Orders – “How to combine 8 basic staples into 18 different looks.” I freely admit that I was born without the clothing style gene and that, left to my own devices, I’m likely to revert to what was hot in the 1980s. I also hate shopping and spending money on clothes. So, I need all the help I can get when it comes to getting dressed. This type of article helps a bunch and it is headed for my bulletin board.
Scientific American (April 2009)
I sure love SciAm. A good number of the concepts are beyond my technical reach to understand. And I know that I’m unlikely to ever contribute anything meaningful to a dialog on cosmology or string theory. But I love reading about and thinking about those topics and more. There are few people I respect more than those who toil away in the classrooms and labs doing hard science, and I love peeking into their world and thinking big thoughts from time to time.
Good stuff this month:
· Wayt Gibbs’ article about Gerald Joyce’s groundbreaking work on the role may have played in evolution. Large scale replication has been proven and now the team moves on to prove metabolism is doable. To me RNA has always seemed the more likely candidate, due to DNA’s complexity. It is hard to imagine DNA happening by chance but then again the timeframes that we are talking about are monstrously beyond comprehension. A good topic for another day.
· “Finding Balance,” by Brendan Borrell. An interesting little piece about Thomas Stroffregen’s theory that poor posture control may be a root cause of motion sickness. In an interesting study, Stroffregen showed that students who moved their legs a foot apart, as opposed to standing normally, avoided motion sickness 60% of the time in a simulator. Right now, NASA’s ground tests can only predict with 30% accuracy whether an astronaut candidate will get motion sick.
· “Does Dark Energy Really Exist?” by Timothy Clifton and Pedro Ferreira. I won’t get into the theory of Dark Energy here. I will say that I’m constantly skeptical of it, and continually amazed that we humans are able to do even a half-assed job of studying the structure of the universe while we remain largely trapped on our little rock. Cosmology is one of my absolute favorite topics to read about and this article mostly reinforced my suspicions and also excited me with the news of the Planck Surveyor spacecraft that is due for launch (by ESA) shortly. How cool is it that the echo of the Big Bang is still ringing, six billion years later, and that we can still hear and see it as cosmic background noise?
· “The Evolution of Primate Color Vision,” by Gerald Jacobs and Jeremy Nathan. I am endlessly fascinated by the process of evolution and how it happened to get us to where we are today. The story of vision is a wonderful example. Early everything/everybody was blind. Then one little dude mutated a spot that was vaguely sensitive to light, generally, and that gave him and his kids a nice advantage with the ladies and from the predators. Over very long periods of times, complex vision systems evolved, including ours which is trichromatic, and even better ones in some birds, fish, and reptiles who have not three but four visual pigments, and can see ultraviolet light.
Of course this makes me wonder. Once we crack the DNA code, will we be able to give humans that ability? What about a fifth visual pigment that could let us see infrared?
Interestingly, the authors of this article “were able to create trichromatic mice by inserting a human pigment gene into the mouse genome.” Quite cool.
· “The Dawn of Miniature Green Lasers,” by Shuji Nakamura and Michael Riordan. 80% of the chemistry and physics was over my head but this was still a fascinating story about how a group of researchers attacked the quantum-confined Stark effect which causes electrons to pile up at the wrong end of gallium nitride diodes. It was like a murder mystery except it was true, cool, and something got invented. Bravo.
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