Inkpool

Not worth it

Revisado: 12-12-24

It has a few interesting ideas of science fiction, and there's a couple scenes I enjoyed. But the overall story is pointless. None of the characters are interesting, and it feels like there's nothing at stake. It's hard to even know which side we should be rooting for. Of the several Alien novels I've read, this is the worst so far. It's too bad because a book that gives more background for the Weyland Yutani Corp has potential. The narrator is good although all his female characters kind of sound the same, and Hideo Yutani is given a British accent for some reason.

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Ground-level reporting on the war

Revisado: 01-26-24

This book gives a sense of what life is like at the front lines and in the towns that have been impacted by artillery fire and aerial bombing. It lends a voice to the many Ukrainian civilians and soldiers who were interviewed and have their personal stories recounted. The narration is good too. Well worth picking up.

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Pretty good, but not for everyone

Revisado: 10-26-21

The book is a difficult read. The story develops slowly, and gets tedious at times. Wherever 10 words might suffice, the author is sure to use 30. I found it boring while listening to it, but after giving it a bit of time to digest I've concluded that I actually like the story and it's ambiguity.

Just don't expect it to be the kind of novel you can curl up with and get lost in. It's more like spending 4 hours staring at a Picasso painting or something. Not exactly the kind of experience everyone will find rewarding.

The narration is well done.

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Unfocused

Revisado: 09-08-21

This book is all over the place, covering a super wide range of topics from literary history, philosophy, mathematics, biology, neurology, and of course computer science. As a result is a lot of the sections are quite superficial. Some of the claims are also unsubstantiated. His attempt to connect computer software/hardware to a dualistic theory of mind is an interesting metaphor, but it doesn't actually make sense if you think about it. And he doesn't seem to think advanced AI poses any risks unless it achieves "consciousness". There's lots of ways a highly advanced broadly intelligent computer could wreak havoc, if it were say programed by a malicious person, subverted by a computer virus, or simply took a very unexpected and disasterous route to achieving it's intended goal.

So the book is a mix of stuff I thought was interesting, and some stuff I didn't like. Most of the interesting stuff was in the second half of the book, the first half deals very little with AI.

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Decent biography, poor philosophy

Revisado: 08-18-21

Besides being a biography of Freud and Lewis, the central argument of this book is that belief in Christianity is logically justified and leads to a happier and more fulfilling life. Armand Nicholi is a psychiatrist and has read extensively the works and letters of the the two subjects of this book. However his attempts at philosophy and religious studies come across as amateurish. He does a terrible job of defining terms. What exactly is a "spiritual worldview"? Is it any theistic belief? Is it monotheism? Is it just a mind-body dualism? He never says, just uses this meaningless term as an antithesis of "materialism". And he seems to think all atheists are materialists, which isn't even true of western atheists, not to mention the many millions of non-theistic Buddhists, Taoists, ect... At times he even seems to conflate philosophic materialism with consumerism. It's a mess.

Just to give one example of bad reasoning, there are multiple times where Dr. Nicholi brings up his research at Harvard where he interviewed students who had a religious epiphany and suddenly converted to Christianity. He determined that these students were much happier and sociable after the religious conversion. He states that delusional thinking is accompanied by self destructive and anti social behavior. Therefore, the students are not delusional, and if they're not delusional, its concluded they must have actually received a divine revelation from God. An absurd non-sequitur.

Needless to say, any arguments made by CS Lewis in favor of Christianity, no matter how superficial, are presented without contradiction. While every argument by Freud against God is countered with another argument from Lewis. And Freud himself is a strange and ill-equipped champion of atheism. Nicholi claims that "in the 20th century and today, Freud is the atheist's touchstone", a title I think much more appropriate for Bertrand Russell, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, or many others.

Anyways, the majority of the book is mostly biographical. The lives and writings of both men are interesting and overall I enjoyed listening to this book (Robert Whitfield also deserves credit for his wonderful narration). It's worth checking out, just be aware that the author does not take a neutral stance on the question of God, and the entire premise of the book is based off a monotheism vs atheism dichotomy that ignores the religious traditions of half the world.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Clearly written and compelling

Revisado: 07-14-21

I found all of the case studies to be very interesting. And they're tied together by the central thesis that to combat cyber crime you must focus on bottlenecks and put incentives on the actors who are most capable of disrupting attacks at those points.

The nature of cyber crime means that this book has to delve into some pretty technical details. The author does a fantastic job of explaining how the security breaches occurred, making the causes and effects understandable to all audiences. No small feat.

The author also does a great job of "finding the story". The text is rich with suspense and drama: hackers battle with security firms, CEOs are fired, government leaders point fingers, millions of dollars are stolen, embarrassing emails are made public, and lawyers file suits. Honestly this would make great source material for a Netflix docu-drama or something, it's like Black Mirror, but IRL.

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Fails to be convincing

Revisado: 04-21-21

I don't think this book will make you better at talking about race. About half the book is personal stories and anecdotes from the author, usually about times she has experienced racism. The other half is far left arguments: why we should redefine "racism" to only include racism that is backed by power structures, why all whites are racist, privileged, ect, there's even a whole chapter about why white people shouldn't rap (because it's cultural appropriation and offensive).

If you adopt these talking points I think it will actually make it much harder for you to communicate with anyone who isn't already on the far left when it comes to identity politics. White people don't want to hear about how racist and privileged they are from someone who's never even met them, it's kind of a conversation ender.

There is a collection of MLK speeches, sermons, and essays called "The Radical King", it's also free with an audible subscription, I recommend listening to that instead.

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Among the best I've read from Wells

Revisado: 04-06-21

I love some of Wells' science fiction and novels, but my favorite of his books are nonfiction. Stuff like the "Outline", "Anticipations", "Mankind in the Making", and this. He had such a talent to see the bigger picture, even in the midst of the Great War in a society that was saturated with nationalistic propaganda, he always sees humanity as it is.

Shelley's reading is excellent and fits the somber tone of the book, although sometimes it made me want to fall asleep.

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Interesting sometimes

Revisado: 03-23-21

I wanted to like this book more. I liked the title character, and some of the other characters, and Wells is one of my favorite authors. But the story just goes nowhere.

The narration is ok. Some of the dialogue is preformed with a little too much emotion.

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Better than expected

Revisado: 03-13-21

The accents are disliked by a lot of people. I think the whole point of them is just to differentiate between when someone is being quoted and the author is speaking. For that purpose they do the job.

I thought the history was very interesting and the antifa viewpoints are well argued. Some of it I found convincing, some of it I didn't, but the author seems like a good spokesperson for the movement. Any reader who is "right of center" will probably hate the book because they see facists and racists as a much lesser threat, and view Marxists and anarchists as the true enemies of humanity.

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