Conor Cox

A few gems but extremely mixed quality

Revisado: 01-23-25

This collection is a mixed bag—when it shines, it truly captures the complexity and humanity of AI interactions with a cleverness, empathy, and originality that few authors manage. However, some stories feel shallow and uninspired, with familiar ideas that don't break new ground. If you're new to sci-fi, there's plenty to enjoy, but seasoned readers might a lot of stories a little overly predictable or shallow. Moderate spoilers below.

"To Run Again" is a terrible opener and the weakest story by far. It relies on characters being almost comically stupid for the plot to function. It follows almost perfectly the classic "scientists gone too far" trope, and there’s little to recommend here. The premise falls apart under mild scrutiny.

"Commercialopolis" is enjoyable, reminiscent of The Cyberiad but with less whimsy. It's serviceable but lacks depth in exploring the machines it introduces, ultimately failing to leave a strong impression.

"Alignment" is one of the standouts. It’s a thoughtful and insightful analogy for humanity’s potential confrontation with ASI—without explicitly naming it. Clever, fun, and deeply human, it’s one of the most engaging reads in the collection.

"Early Adopter" is the strongest story by far. It’s incredibly relevant to our interactions with LLMs and similar AI tools, raising ethical dilemmas about control, freedom, and responsibility. A must-read.

"The Terminal on Europa" is enjoyable but ultimately unconvincing. The characters are too fully invested in the story's concept, and it doesn’t seem sure of what it's trying to say. The setting is intriguing, but the narrative direction feels like it picked the least interesting part of the world to dissect.

"The Final Artist" is my third favorite. It captures the complexities of AI-generated art with precision and creativity, presenting the arguments in a clever and engaging format. A standout in the anthology.

"Homonoia" is another take on the "science gone too far" theme, but it’s executed convincingly without relying on characters making dumb choices. The premise is somewhat unique, and the human experience of the impossible is handled with gripping writing and solid pacing.

"The Emulated" (Parts 1 & 2) treads familiar ground with the "what if we created a simulated world?" trope. While the perspective is interesting and the writing solid, the outcome is entirely predictable. This concept rarely offers surprises, and this version doesn’t break the mold.

Overall, if you read a lot of sci-fi, you'll find a few standout stories that are worth your time, but the rest don't offer much new. However, for newcomers to the genre, the anthology might offer some fun surprises.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Eye opening

Revisado: 05-28-23

As someone who has generally not thought much about these issues it was great to see the nuance and sophistication of this exploration of a culture that has dived deep into the world or beautification. The author does a great job of digging into the history and empowerment of the makeup and plastic surgery industry and it's potential external negativities. She manages to explore the culture through the lens of her own life while not overly centering her own story over that of the culture she's profiling.

My eyes were really opened to the idea of a world where our appearances could be as fluid as our careers or lifestyles. But at the same time it's frightening to imagine a culture or world where we are mandated to look a certain way to satisfy others or a vague culture norm.

I think the most fascinating part by far was the discussion of how Korean high school graduates are pressured to get plastic surgery before entering the job market, or are expected to compete not just on talent but on looks. It was also cool to see how the new generation is embracing and reshaping those cultural norms and rebelling against them,

I also really liked the exploration of how Westerner's have tried to claim the beauty standards of other countries as trying to look more like them and how that's probably just a weird projection instead of a reality. The author does some brilliant cultural exploration there to dismantle that.

Also her chapter on how 70 year old's present a clever path forward for beauty norms was absolutely brilliant and a delight.

The book convinced me to maybe look into doing more than just a some lotion in the morning because plastic surgery and beautification is so broad and complex and safe relative to what I've heard. But to only focus on getting things done that make me happy and help push towards the vision of myself I want instead of some broad cultural standard.

I don't always like when author's read their own book. But in this case the author did an amazing job. Their pace was perfect, clarity was strong: I listened at 2x and it was still completely understandable, and they put a lot of emotion that a reader would not have. It made the story more rich.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

British take on modern neuroscience

Revisado: 05-10-23

the history section of the book was really good, but once it started hitting the modern stuff the coverage was extremely limited. And was largely focused on the British side of things leaving out many many advances. also focused on the most modern gee wiz technology most of which is already irrelevant.

while the overall hypothesis that we still don't know much is good, it would have been nice to see a more in-depth coverage. Also was weird to basically ignore all electrophysiological and biochemical data and results which have shown huge amounts of progress relative to the more broad circuit approaches which are still relatively nascent.

finally, the coverage of deep learning was shallow which turned out to be kind of comical given how things have gone the last couple years.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

fine murder mystery

Revisado: 05-01-23

enjoyable enough take on the murder mystery. very much a cozy mystery genre book.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Good information, bad organization

Revisado: 09-03-19

Reading this book I was constantly struck by 'I wonder what that is' and 'aha' moments. It also really deepened my picture on how the heart works and what modern medicine is trying to do with the heart.

That being said the information is presented in a seemingly random order. Threads are started full steam, the author has a long discussion about why HDL levels might or might matter, then abandoned. He never summarizes things at all. There is several hours of discussing back and forth over which treatments work in clinical trials and which don't and he never summarizes with: 'these are the drugs/treatments with good evidence. these are the ones with bad'. There is no coherent overarching picture of the heart presented that all the findings and later discussion tie into, just a brief anatomy lesson at the beginning.

Further the author seems more interested in peppering the book with random jabs and asides than actual advice. He says stress doesn't cause heart disease, except when it does, but again he never pauses and discusses stress as a physiological feature he just rants about how everyone else gets stress wrong. Similarly, he says 'diet and exercise good for LDL and blood pressure' but never touches on the myriad number of diet and exercise programs running around and which have better or worse outcomes.

The anecdotes were good but presented in a seemingly random way throughout the book with patient's cases often started then abandoned for the author to wander off and complain about some other thing bugging him.

The whole premise of the book: 'heart disease is getting worse' is kind of sketchy. Like yea there are more people with heart disease but 'something' is going to kill us and since it's increasingly less cancer and bacteria it would only follow that heart disease would get more prevalent. Age controlled population studies would help this claim instead of just 'people are unhealthy etc etc' but I guess he didn't need that study in a book where he talks about how studies trump vague claims. (I'm not suggesting he's wrong I'm just saying it would be nicer to see the evidence he's right and more specifically which lifestyle factors are contributing most to heart disease, is it obesity? smoking? animal products? lack of exercise?) He also spends a lot of the book talking about how people are at fault for their own heart disease then transitions to how that isn't a very useful mindset in the last two chapters. Again the whole thing is just not very well put together.

If anything this is a good book for understanding what your doctor is coming from: they are distracted, filled with tons of semi-contradictory studies with lots of patients dying on them and lots of new treatments coming online with unclear side effects and a strong belief that a lot of what they are seeing is placebo, and with the view that most of their patients won't listen to them and are at fault for their problems while still trying to emphasize. The anecdotes in the book are the most useful as they show you how patients successfully managed their doctors and what your actual options for heart disease are.

If you have heart disease and want to know more or if you just want some cool facts about the heart and state of heart research this is great, but if you want a coherent picture of how the heart works and how it breaks down and how you can change your lifestyle to mitigate and fix that, this isn't your book.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

A nice summary but too shallow and repetitious

Revisado: 12-16-18

If the names flying around the news related to the Trump investigation have left you scratching your head and you need a quick summary of the who is who, this is the book for you. If you wanted a deep dive into Russia's motivation and world moves or Trump's and his surrounding players backstories, this is not that book. If you've been more or less keeping up with the Trump story, then there is nothing new here.

He misses broad swathes of history including why the Maginsky Act was passed, Putin's wide spread interference in elections around the world, and Russia's kleptocratic political system. In Trump's backstory he only bothers going back to 2006, totally ignoring the fact that Trump had already run for president in 2000 and had extensive contact with criminal elements throughout the 90s. He doesn't even touch on the colorful back stories of Flynn, Manafort, and Prince.

Meanwhile (and maybe this was a quick of the audiobook) he repeats himself over and over sometimes saying literally the same sentence 3 times. I kind of wonder if he just compiled his tweet threads into a book, but you'd think an editor would have fixed that. It makes the early part of the books a complete slog.

I like Seth Ambramson and wanted to love this book but I wish he had put a little more effort into it. It just feels lazy and slapped together.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 12 personas

Good but repititious probably better in paper

Revisado: 10-04-18

If, like me, you are new to the vast world of legal cannabis this book will give you the basics you need to begin exploring the world of legal weed.

That being said it's depth is hugely inconsistent, it glosses over edibles and their ratios and effects but goes super in depth on top 10 strains of weed. It's also crazy repetitious often repeating the same sentence not 5 minutes apart. Also, a lot of the best info I felt like I wanted to bookmark for visiting later.

I think overall, this would be a really nice paper reference. It's nice light reading at 2x speed but for a 7 hour book it gives a surprisingly shallow introduction to cannabis where you'd expect an in depth guide to it.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

A book on cooking theory and improvisition

Revisado: 08-06-18

This book has massively improved my cooking, it takes a different appraoch than your standard cookbook and instead lays out why you should be doing what the recipes tell you more than following exactly what the recipes say. I've followed the tips in this book and I've got to say, the taste and quality of my cooking has massively imrproved. The salt and acid sections are really the tops of the book. I did not really understand how to use acid and that different grains of salt could be used differently. Even the advice of which salts to buy and when to use them is worth the price of admission.

That being said, it's not a perfect book, the author is sometimes pretentious to the point of obnoxiousness demanding steps and ingredients that I've tried and not been able to tell the difference on, the fats section is the worst for this. Also at one point there is a just a radom recipe shoved in the middle of the book, I get that it's there in the text but reading a recipe outloud is pretty useless. Similarly, the author takes a pretty cavilier/dismissive attitude twoard eating healthy which is a little annoying.

Overall, there is no audiobook and perhaps no book quite this short that will improve your cooking quite this much. I'd reccomend this to everyone from those who are just starting in the kitchen to those who have been coooking for years and want to push thier cooking to the next level.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Arsonist lullaby mixed with saccharin anecdotes

Revisado: 07-22-17

The thing that struck most about this book was that it proposes nothing, it takes no idea to its logical conclusion to propose a clear policy goal. It's all bitter rage directed at specific people and groups with no real attempt at reasoning. Mixed throughout are feel good stories of the authors childhood that are supposed to illustrate something? The whole book feels unfocused and pointless. At the same time it's filled with half truths, fallacies, and attempts to be funny. If that's what you want, you could read Ann Coulter at least she's funny and has the guts to take a stand on policy positions.

In a way, it explains why the tea party can't govern. As this book lays out, the tea party isn't 'for' anything they are just against lots of things. Further, they think they are the 'real' Americans and everyone else is a smelly corrupt demon.

Skip this book and if you really want to know what the writer is about just go read their blog, this book feels like a bunch of glued together blog posts anyway.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Fantastic exploration of man and nature

Revisado: 09-10-15

Domesticated explains how man domesticated animals and himself. The ideas are presented well and he drives home important points many ways so that they really get into your head. I've been excitedly telling people about the ideas of the book already and I suspect I'll end up buying a few copies of this. The chapter on camels and cats were particularly amazing and it's clear the author was both knowledgeable of and having fun with them.

Eric Martin was competent, a couple times the audio got choppy and the pauses at the ends of sentences got distractingly long. I listened at 1.5 speed and the reader was still very articulate. He certainly isn't dry and manages to emphasize points well.

The chapter on humans was fairly weak and I wish he had just skipped it and done birds or something. It falls into tight scientific arguments and wanders in uninteresting ways. Also watch out there is an appendix that is not that well labelled a the end (last 45 minutes).

I'd strongly recommend this book to any biology lovers, anyone who has wondered how domestication has changed animals, or where all the breeds of dogs cats and horses come from. It might be one of the better and more thorough biology books written in the past few years.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 10 personas