Chris L.

still a good book

Revisado: 03-06-22

As pointed out, this is the first, not second, edition. that means the anecdotes from WWII are not present, and another later chapter that covered the indirect strategy in WWII was not there. However, there were no huge chunks missing in the analysis of general strategy, and it is, overall, quite complete. Even though it's the first edition, it's still well worth a listen!

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that narrator.....aghhhhh!!

Revisado: 02-22-22

This was required reading in my CS degree, so I was thankful to find it on Audible for ease of reading. It's a short introduction to data science and, although a little sandpaper dry, was generally informative.

HOWEVER, the intonation, nasal vocal inflections and accent of the narrator makes me want to scrape my face across a bed of nails! It's even worse than early 1990s Michael Kramer! Its also monotonous, disinterested, and repetitive! If this wasn't required reading, I'd return it. As such, I'll just bear it and take LOTS of breaks.

Publisher, if you're reading this, for the love of God, re-do this narration!

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Great book, disastrous narration

Revisado: 12-15-21

The narration was a complete disaster. Not only did she sound completely disinterested and as uncharasmatic as you can imagine, but also the editing was a mess. There were long mid-sentence pauses and no gaps between subsections, often switching from one subsection to another, including the subsection title, in the same breath. For a book on charisma, this disaster was especially ironic!

The book itself is great though!

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Clichéd wonderland

Revisado: 11-03-21

Nyah, not really for me. There are some things about the way this was written that I really didn't click with. I couldn't get passed chapter 4. I really tried but i couldn't.

First, it felt grossly under-researched.
For example, AI was talked about like it was a "thing." AI is not a thing, it's a field of study. It is an area of many possible tools for a certain type of task automation by computers. A scientist in the field referring to his work as "AI" is a little like a molecular biologist referring to his field as "science." It felt like early 1980s Terminator-esque naivety that doesn't reflect even the current-age understanding of the area. I got a similar feeling about the use of "operating system." Also, the constant use of the term "megacity" with every city name. Shanghai is technically a megacity, yet nobody in Shanghai would ever refer to it as "Megacity Shanghai." Such poor choices of terminology prevented world building and felt like constant and unnecessary exposition.

Then the "war" showed an abandonment of modern strategy. It forms on battlefields, with lightsaber swords and on horseback, based on attrition with decisive victories. Humans haven't had a major war of attrition since WWII, nor have decisive victories been a major strategy since Vietnam. Modern military strategy and psychology of deterrence have largely superseded such approaches. It felt as though the author hadn't looked at either military strategy or current military technology and its strategic use in battle, nor AI, in any real depth before deciding to write a book about a war over AI.

If you think the story will save it, think again. It immediately jumped into warrior ethos tropes. The "bad guys" are savage monsters - greedy and merciless occupiers - and faceless nobodies for the "good guys" to shoot or decapitate, who have no value for human life, despite human life being at the center of their core ideological drive. The "good guys," on the other hand, are heroes with honor, with quirky personalities, like the "A-Team" but with a samurai warrior thrown in, who, strangely, regularly chant brain-washed statements of unity that feel like they were taken straight from Maoist China.

Each scene was so ladened with clichés that the ridiculousness of the narrative was easy to miss. For example, right at the very beginning, when the sister of the "great scientist that will save the world" was dying, why was she making it all about him? Was she not her own person? Did she not have others she loved? Did she not have value in her own life to spend her final moments reflecting on her own experiences and her own achievements? Couldn't the brother give her the final kindness of reminding her that she mattered? Nope. She was just there to fulfill his project. A tool for his own ideologies and she was immediately objectified as such, without her permission, of course. I mean, consent isn't for "heroes," right?!

Also, the whole "the world is saved by a single genius scientist" trope doesn't reflect reality. All major scientific endeavors involve large teams of brilliant people. The same trope was used with the "one enemy doctor" creating Frankenstein-esque "beasts."

If this was written 40 years ago, these issues could have been overlooked. As it is, however, this was just too much of a flattened caricature of reality for me. If you like stories that follow the same clichés as movie franchises made 3 or 4 decades prior, then this is for you.

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Cringeworthy self-glorification

Revisado: 10-18-21

It was a little painful hearing the constant, smug self-glorifying accounts of Dell's triumphs in the face of countless "doubters," and how he "stuck it" to everyone and "showed everyone" his brilliance. Yet when he started to tell the story of Carl Icahn, it became gut-wrenchingly cringe-worthy. His openly personal insults: his wife's cooking, Icahn as a terrible husband and father, how he immeditely outwitted him with his brash forwardness, revealing how he had no plan apart from greed as a corporate raider... and so on... it wasn't professional, it wasn't dignified, and it showed Michael Dell's true character. I found it tough to listen to before this point, but after, I started to loath the book and every double-edged vindictive statement made. This should never have been published.

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Dogmatism with no revelations

Revisado: 08-27-21

Overall, this book, aimed at new subsidiary managers or mid-sized business owners, takes a North-American ethnocentric humanistic view that fits most modern corporate models in the West. As pointed out by other reviewers, it can be a little too vague at times ("respect your employees") and gimmicky in other places ("be a level-5 leader"). Jim's additions both modernize the content while being stomach-churningly dogmatic.

Quite truthfully, I really struggled with the way Jim narrated his work. He tends to repeat his own jargon for leadership constructs and use repeated sentence structure to drive home his point (such as his repetitive statements on paradoxes), which was painful to listen to in places. I didn't disagree with anything he said, for the most part - although I take a stance against the top-down leadership simplicity he adopts at times - but, the strong, repetitive dogmatic way he delivered his points was so obnoxious that it made me want to disagree with him at every opportunity I could. I frequently went into eye rolls and skipped chapters or skipped forward until he'd finished speaking, unfortunately missing the original content, which wasn't separated into its own chapter, just to avoid Jim's rants and aggressively repetitive statements.

The original content, narrated by Paul Michael, was much more pleasant to listen to.

All in all, this was a real struggle to finish, mainly because of Jim's dogmatism and repetitive emphasis and use of jargon, as well as frequent peddling of his other works. If I had known, I would have skipped this version and just bought the original.

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Some errors and plagiarism but overall not bad

Revisado: 08-22-21

This is a real mish-mash of beginner concepts. There are a bunch of mispronounced words, which is a little unfortunate, considering the author is reading his own work. His understanding of gluten networks is basic to the point of inaccurate. For example, he perpetuates the very incorrect idea that kneading is required to stretch glutens. This is a complete myth that will not die. Kneading serves as mechanical action that hydrates the gluten-network proteins and incorporates air into the crumb. This distinction is important, as it impacts our process. Due to his misunderstanding of glutens, the introduction of the Chorleywood bread process is equally inaccurate.

Then there is also outright plagiarism, where whole sections of Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking were transplanted without reference or citation. That was a little disheartening.

The sections are a little all over the place. It's hard to see what the point of each chapter is. Each chapter has subsections that feel disparate and difficult to draw a single theme that allows you to better remember the points in which you're expected to remember. For anyone completely new to food science, this is an okay overview. For anyone that's already graduated from McGee's, This', and Mhyrvold's classes, you'll find this completely wrong in some areas and basic to the point of frustration.

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Porter brings Taylor's wit and sarcasm to life

Revisado: 08-20-21

This is a sensational piece of sci-fi. You have the technical accuracy of hard sci-fi alongside the moral questions of soft sci-fi (similar in that sense to Ian Banks' Culture series) as well as straight comedy. It blends a straightforward narrative that's articulate and dry-witted, a little like a blend between John Scalzi, Orthon Scott Card, and Douglas Adams). It's never a strain listening along or understanding the narrative as it can be in other sci-fi audiobooks. Comparisons aside, the story had me hooked from the get-go. It's a non-stop brain-stimulating adventure! I'll avoid any spoilers, but the way the story develops is sensational!

Ray Porter quickly 'became' Bob. There is no way I could imagine him any other way now. His ability to switch accents, throw in sarcasm, and carry the wit of Taylor and the character Bob is second-to-none. Porter transformed a great story into an amazing performance!

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Good content but lacks structure

Revisado: 08-17-21

There's plenty of good content here, although it lacks a memorable structure. The chapters are too broad and encompassing, and you often end up wondering what the purpose of the chapter is. There's too little there for your memory to attach to any strong concepts and it's delivered in a way that lacks practical application. Summaries at the end of each chapter might have helped with this. Also, there's too heavy a dependence on interviews. It felt too much like an extended magazine editorial, as opposed to a book from which you're expected to take away some key concepts.

I also agree with other reviewers that the narration by Jonathan Yen was really inappropriate for the theme and topic. It felt patronizing and as though it was trying really hard to make the content entertaining, which at times felt like a children's TV presenter delivering a chemistry class to adults.

All in all, despite the richness of the content, I can't say I really learned anything. The facts were too disparate to associate to my daily life, and the ideas were so dilluted with interviews that I couldn't remember what was an account of an interview and what was a key body of knowledge that the chapter and interviews were attempting to deliver. In other words, it's inappropriately delivered through its narrative and narration despite being rich in interesting knowledge.

This should be re-written, and if coming back to Audible, re-narrated.

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Beautiful storytelling

Revisado: 08-15-21

I made the mistake of listening to the first chapter in the morning when I had a few spare minutes. Let's just say that the rest of the day had to be postponed. It was tough to peel my headphones off for bed at 2 am.

Despite the synopsis being as ridiculous as a Douglas Adams novel, this is quite serious literature. It combines a powerful narrative, beautifully delivered by Christopher Lane, with just the right tone in a dialogue-heavy, first-person narrative that conveys so much more than what is said. It flits along the fine line between giving enough information while being absent of superfluousness. It grips you at every point, satisfying every fantasy you may have ever had about being the older you in your younger self, alongside adventure, intrigue, and mystery. There's a lack of clichés and 'bad guy' tropes, despite there being antagonists. They just don't dominate the impetus of the protagonist. The protagonist's arc is both predictable yet unexpected, as it's drawn through a believable set of events, which is also unexpected considering it involves time travel, aliens, and serial killers.

The science and math, despite attempting to explain constructs that simply don't exist, also convey an air of believability. You can tell that Merrit is comfortable in the technicalities of physics, at least to the level that satisfies the idea that the protagonist is. It also carries the wisdom of age alongside some deeper philosophical musings, but not to the degree that it ever detracts from the story. In other words, you really feel that the protagonist is 80 years old.

All in all, this is storytelling at its best. It's easily in my top 10 best sci-fi novels. I'm not easy to impress and I'm a hard critic of fiction; yet, impressed I am.

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