Status Anxiety

By Alain de Botton

Botton is at his best when he writes about his direct experiences. Lately, he's been philosophizing more and visiting less. This is still a good book though.

Why do we feel so anxious about our status? If we can be happy living simply, then why do we try to achieve so much?

There are sights of a life well lived. There are a signs of a life gone wrong. You can live simply, but if you don't have money, then if things go wrong, you can be in trouble.

Botton has a good chapter on the Bohemians. They were intensely passionate about being counter culture. Yet that drive slammed them into a wall. They appeared to have no purpose other than to mock culture, so when mainstream culture stopped caring for them, they had to become more extreme.  Some Bohemians tried to start their own farm. They intended to spend lots of time reading and making art however they didn't know how to grow food, so things went bad fast.

And that is the challenge of living simply—much of what we take for granted—security, health care, food, building materials, only exists because of much effort from many people. We can  try to live simply, but unless we want short lives, we need these complexities.  

Hillbilly Elegy.

By J.D. Vance

Through his biography Vance discuss the challenges that the Appalachian poor face. Ultimatly he asks his fellow hillbillies to stop blaming Obama or Bush, or companies, or whatever for their problems. The problems they face are caused just as much by their own poor choices—drug usage, violence, mocking  education. Only they can solve this for themselves.

He has a great comparison between the elite and the hillbillies and how elites put their children on the road to success. Elites teach their children to network. They teach them to control their emotions. They provide a stable place for their children to grow up. Hillbillies on the other hand seem to put pride first. If someone insults you, its OK to beat them up. Failure is deeply embarrassing. What you think others think of you, is very important.    

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich

By Norman Ohler.

 

The Nazi's used lots of drugs. What surprised me is that todays big German drug companies (Merek, Bayer) produced high many high demand drugs (Heroin, Methamphetamine, OxyContin, etc) at that time.

 

The book follows four paths…

 

1. The use of Pervitin (Methamphetamine in pill form) by soldiers and pilots. This drug would allow the military to stay awake for days and was important part of how the Blitz over France succeeded. Of course there were the long term problems—addiction, psychosis, cardiac problems.
2. Hitler's use of drugs, starting with injections of vitamins and glucose and working his way up to many other drugs to help manage his illnesses. Hitler wanted to be strong and healthy at all times. This meant his personal doctor had to give him the right drugs to help him power through life's ups and downs. Eventually and unknowingly he became and addict. He experienced severe withdrawal symptoms when his supply ran out as Germany was collapsing.   
3. Experimenting with next generation super drugs on prisoners of war. The Nazi's would give Jews various combinations of cocaine, meth, OxyContin and other drugs then observe them over a 60 mile 2 day march.
4. The last desperate attempts to attack England using many two person mini subs. The plan required the soldiers to stay awake for four days using the best combinations of stimulants that the Germans knew of. Many of the soldiers got so disoriented from the drugs that they became disoriented, drown, or surrendered.

 

 

 

Reality Is Not What It Seams & Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

Both by Carlo Rovelli

In many ways these are the same books, with content rearranged and reworded for different audiences. Not that this is bad. The content is very deep, and at times, technical. To even start to understand it I must go through it multiple times from different perspectives.

Rovelli weaves the points he wants to make in with the stories of their discoveries. Giving the history of each lesson helps inform the reader on the problem the lesson solved, and the thinking that lead up to the solution.

1. The Gravitational field is not diffused through space. The gravitational field is space itself.
2. The fundamental quanta of space doesn't always exist. It only exists when it interacts with something else.
3. The sun, earth, moon & stars are not unique. There are billions of them. Trillions?
4. There is no such thing as empty space. Even in a void particles wink into, and out of, existence.
5. Space has grains. There is a smallest quanta of space.
6. Heat and chaos give us a hint as to what time is. Time doesn't exist on the quantum level. It may be the product of entropy.

Rovelli has a bit of a frustration with quantum theory. Relativity is a theory with great simplicity and beauty. On the other hand, Quantum Theory appears to be an adhoc patchwork. Yet it can make extremely accurate predictions. And so it stands. He believes that the ultimate theory of everything will be a combination of Relativity, Quantum Theory and Thermal Dynamics. 

I love the audio book version of "Seven Brief Lessons On Physics" Rovelli reads it himself in a voice with a beautiful Italian accent.

Sapiens: A Brief History Of Human Kind

By Yuval Noah Harari.

An interesting history of our Sapien species from origination to the current times. It gets a little philosophical at the end but, it makes some interesting points...

1. For all of our technological and societal improvements we may be not be much happier than our ancestors. Happiness is a biochemical process in our brain. Our history and our technology haven't selected future generations for more happiness. If anything, every time we become more prosperous, instead of putting the new resources into happiness, we put them into raising more babies.
2. Talk about living "According to Nature" or according to certain principals (Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, etc) can cut short meaningful discussions about how we actually ought to live and deal with the consequences of our choices. Unless we are very intentional, we will live according to the will of evolution and our genetics. These processes don't care about our happiness or well being. They reward those who have more babies with the tendency to have more babies. 

Happy Money.

By Elizabeth Dunn.

A good book. Well researched. It easily lends itself to a dense summary…

1. Buy Experiences. People are happier buying experiences over things. Be aware that there are things that lend them selves to experiences—Bicycles for example
2. Make it a Treat. You will be much happier with a latte you buy once a week than a latte you have every day.
3. Buy time. Spend money outsourcing your most dreaded tasks—cleaning, taxes.
4. Pay Now. Consume Later. You will be happier purchasing a vacation well in advance.
5. Invest in Others. You will be happier buying a gift for others, then for yourself.

 

On Trails: An Exploration

By Robert Moor

I go this book from my library during a phase when I was reading many books on hiking and trail running. This book is not a practical trail guide. This book explores the science, history, process and people trails.

Science of Trails? What were the first creatures to make trails? How are trail routes chosen? The trails built by ants and elephants leading them to food and other resources are every bit as efficient as trails laid out by modern designers. Why is that?

The heart of the book is around the history and future of the Appalachian Trail. How it came to be. The first people who hiked it. It's future—organizers are tying to create trails all around the Atlantic ocean all loosely tied together under the http://www.iat-sia.org/ organization.

The end of the book concludes with an interview with Nimbleweed Nomad. A man who has given up most of his possessions and happily hikes thousands of miles a year.  The Nomad lead a normal life with a wife, son and career. Then he retired. He started going on longer and longer hikes. Eventually he divorced his wife and gave away most of his possessions. He has hiked all around the US, the ACT, the CDT & the PCT.

Some thoughts…

What is the difference between a permanent thru hiker (Like the Nomad) and the homeless? Choice? Mental Inless?

The wilderness as we know it is constructed. Mankind chooses that which is wild and that which is domesticated. Natural is a new concept. Before Columbus, the American Indians tended to North America. Plains and forests were cleared by fire. Useful plants were fostered. Not useful plants were tilled. For thousands of years the Americas were tended to.

Earth worms and Honey bees are European. Beavers and Fire used to be far more common. At a fundamental level, the wilderness we know today was very different than the wilderness that existed millennia ago.

We have to be careful then about arguing about being Natural. What is Natural is very subjective and changing. It also shuts down any meaningful dialog about the way we should live.

What is freedom? We feel free on trails, yet trails really only offer us two choices—to carry on, or to go back. There is freedom that comes from having no commitments. But, there is also a freedom that comes from having commitments, from building things, raising children, mentoring. There is a selfish freedom where you do what you want and don't need to care for others. There is also a giving, freedom or happiness that comes from giving to others, being social. Working with others.

10% Happier. How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story

By Dan Harris.

Part Biography of Dan Harris. Part guide to secularish meditation. The book spends the bulk of its time on Harris's experience learning and practicing meditation.

I enjoyed.

• Think of mediation as practice concentrating. The part when you notice your thoughts going astray, and then bring them back—that's meditation. It's not the part where your mind goes blank and you zen out.
• You have to be practical through all of this. The goal of detachment, of mindfulness, isn't to become disconnected. It's to not let your choices be so emotionally driven.

Harris thinks of Buddhism as advanced common sense.

The Big Fat Surprise. Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet

By Nina Teicholz

Not a diet book. This is really a book that covers western food science for the past 50 years. It has issues with the low fat diet, arguing that it is less healthy than a diet with beef and saturated fat.

How did we get here? How could 50+ years of research still not conclusively settle our diet debates. It's long and complex.

The nutritionists have always known that it would take decades to settle the questions about what diets are best for your health. The hypotheses, (guess really) that fat makes you fat, isn't a bad one as fat affects total cholesterol, which at one time was the only predictor for heart disease.

But the study results are never clear cut. While low fat diets lower your cholesterol, they don't lower mortality.

The book also covers the history of trans fat. The science on trans fat is far less settled than you'd think. The author doesn't like it, but she is more concerned that we have replaced trans fat with an array of processed fats and other chemicals that we really know nothing about.

The book also covers the Mediterranean diet and it's history. Apparently there are other local diets (German, Serbian) that result in just as little heart disease. However various Mediterranean authorities (From Italy, Spain & Greece) put much time and money into selling the Mediterranean diet.

I'm a little worried that parts of the book are very thick on the rhetoric. Small studies that support the safety of saturated fat "Raise intriguing questions." While Small studies that support low fat diets "Have too little data to be considered valid." I wish she would have been more consistent with the standards uses.

What do I think? I think that food science is very unsettled. You can swap butter for Olive Oil all you want, and the impact won't be as great as if you eat a variety of foods, especially vegetables, in moderation.

 

 

Wishful Drinking

By Carrie Fisher.

 

Wikipedia calls this an autobiographical humor book.

 

I can see that. It's pithy, jokie, lots of small stories about the insanity in her life and a few great observations about addiction.  Reading this after Fisher's death makes it as memorable for what she left out as what she wrote down.

 

What's odd is that she avoids discussing the painful parts of her life. She discuss the painful parts of her mothers life, for example. But she never really covers the details of her addictions.

 

 

Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics

I like this book. It's a little more math heavy than most layman's physics books. Since I have a strong math background this gave me a deeper understanding. The book offers a good intro to Lie Groups and Gauge Theory.

With Einstein and relativity, Einstein had a deep insight—light always travels the speed of light regardless of your frame of reference. As he explored this insight he created special and general relativity which were validated with some amazing predictions.

The Standard Model of physics is different. It's more like the physicists are observing the data and then retro fitting models to explain that data. After a century they have created the Standard Model. This is frustrating in that it all feels very ad hoc. It doesn't offer deeper insight on why this should be so. On the other side, the Standard Model is very accurate. It has predicted many Deep Down Things with great precision.

The book stops with the Standard Model. It doesn't cover string theory and entanglement.

 

 

1493

 

Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

By Charles C Mann

How has the world changed since 1493? Since Columbus introduced east and west? In many deep and broad ways…

The honey bee and the earth worm are both European. How North America soil turns over is fundamentally different than 500 years ago. This used to be driven by fire, beavers and other insects. Think of beavers building ponds everywhere. Think of fires (driven by Native Americans) being lit every fall.

Slavery—Black slaves were more immune to malaria and yellow fever giving them an advantage in the south and the carribean.

The introduction of bouncing. Latex and rubber balls were first invented in South America. When Europeans first saw rubber balls it caused a small bouncing craze.

The introduction of global trade. The book has a very nuanced view on global trade. Not black or white. Of course global trade gives its partners access to economic opportunities that didn't exist before. It also upsets long standing relationships. Trade is often the tool of Governments and the elites. Global trade creates a new way for countries to interact and manipulate each other. Sometimes conflicts result.

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. -Michel de Montaigne

There is something that I like about this quote. It's pithy and too the point. Yet you could guide your life by it or build a philosophy on it.

The Art of Strategy

A game theorists guide to success in business and in life

"It is only okay to speak the truth when it doesn't matter."

From an ethical view, game theory raises concerns. Game theory presumes people don't do things because they are right. They do things because it's in their selfish best interest. All relationships are transactional.

In practice this is true. We don't like to admit this. Perhaps it's better to say that your  service will suffer if your interactions with  someone are not in their best interest

The book covers many cases… Games, Auctions, Voting, Transactions, when does a system support honesty? Deception?

It helped put a nice bow on the whole Bush/Gore/Nader discussion. Recall, Nader cost Gore the election since he directed votes away from Gore. Three (or more) way elections are always a challenge since they have many corner cases that allow for strategic voting and not honest voting. So, if you had to choose between Nader and Gore, should be vote honestly, or strategically? This leads to the above quote "It's only okay to speak the truth when it doesn't matter." You must accept the fact that when being completely open and honest, you may hurt some of your desires. You may hurt those who need your help elsewhere. Is that being dishonest or manipulated? Or is that accepting the fact that life forces hard choices. We don't get everything we want.  

I watched Wonder Woman over the weekend. A very fun movie.

I've been thinking about Wonder Woman and the purpose of criticism. The movie had some faults that bugged me-- they could get anywhere in about a day. They place a phone call from behind enemy lines. Wonder Woman's super powers seemed to scale to meet the size of the villain. She is always just a little weaker than the villain until the last second.

Asking a superhero movie to be water tight is like asking a roller coaster to not have plot holes. The question misses the point. Don't take it so seriously. Relax and go along for the ride.

Still I'd like to know "What is the moral perspective of a roller coaster ride?"

Walden & On the duty of Civil Disobedience.

By Henry David Thoreau.

No firm conclusions on these books. They frustrate me a little. Part of me agrees with Thoreau that we can live well be living simply. Party of me grew tired of his preachy voice as he looks down on those who don't live as he wishes.

His strong individualism runs through his writing. It's to the point that you can tell he was never married or had children. Strong individuality is great for some people.  Others love society. How should they live?

 

 

Gratitude

By Oliver Sacks.

When Oliver Sacks discovered he was terminally ill with cancer, he had a last chance to write a few things. This book is a collection of these essays.

He was very thankful for his life.

Books like these make me look over my left and forward to me death. How will I die? How do I want to live? All this makes me melancholy

 

 

Black Hole Wars

By Leonard Susskind.

 

This is a discussion of Black holes, quantum physics, the holographic principle and a disagreement between Susskind and Steven Hawking. Susskind, being prone to hype things up, calls this disagreement a war.

 

I read this book to learn more about the holographic principle—the idea that the total entropy in a region of space is limited by the surface area around the region, and not the volume I don't quite understand this—many of the analogies in the book are a little broken. But I got the gist—as entropy goes up, mass goes up. If there is enough entropy in a region of space then a black hole will form.

 

The book has a few thoughts on Hawkings. He is brilliant, but getting older. His communication challenges are slowing him down. This is frustrating many physisists, since Hawkings carries outsized influence.  

 

 

Life Reimagined. The art, science and opportunity of mid life

By Barbara Hagarty.

It starts off as a narrative pop-sci/pop-psych books but ends up- very personal.

The author took some time off from her regular job at NPR to write this book. She starts off exploring the science of midlife. What do we know about how to get the most out of mid life to launch us into a great old age (Have many friends, stay engaged intellectually, push yourself)

But then life intervenes. Her employer offers her a buy out package to leave the company. She breaks her collar bone. Soddenly, the author must reimagine her midlife.

Seveneves

Long book. I loved the first part. The 2^nd and 3^rd parts were OK.

In part 1, the moon blows up. No one knows why. People realize than in a year or two the lunar debris will destroy the earth in a "Hard Rain" There is a mad scramble to send enough people and equipment up into space to keep humanity going.

Part 2.. the Hard rain destroys the Earth.  The people in space try to establish them selves as a civilization. Conflict, bolides an other challenges kill off all of humanity until only seven woman are left—the Seven Eves.

Part 3… Its 5000 years later. Humanity has recovered. 3 billion people are living in space stations around the earth. For the past centuries they have been terra forming the earth to make it habitable again.

Some parts of Seveneves probably say more about the author than about his fictional universe. The world of Stephenson Seveneves has a hard break between religion, emotions and technical perspectives. Very explicitly, in Seveneves the human races that are bread for emotions all end up being the bad-guys. Religion and the spiritual is literally killed off. Stephenson doesn't realize that scientists and technocrats have emotions too. That emotions give us energy, focus, purpose. The emotional intelligence and leadership isn't about manipulating people. It's for taking control of our energy, or focus, our purpose. We are not machines. 

Blockchain Revolution

By Dan Tapscott and Alex Tapscott

 

Block chains are the tech behind services such as Bitcoin. They offer a way a way for value and trust to be established and traded between different people without 3^rd party oversight.

 

The book is very speculative and forward looking—trying to project out how blockchains could revolutionize the economy, banking, music, government, the list goes on.

 

I was frustrated that the the book does not deeply dig into block chains, their strengths and there limitations. For example, Bitfinex had $60m in bit coins stolen from it in 2016. How does that happen? What are the limitations of blockchains that such a large theft could happen? How can I tell if a particular blockchain service is safe? These questions need to have solid answers for blockchains to grow beyond speculative use.

 

The State of the Art

Iain M. Banks.

 

TSOTA is collection of short sci fi stores from Banks. Several of them take place in the Culture universe.

 

Some of them don't. A few of them end with very weird twists. The titular story—"The State of the Art" is a prequel of sorts of the novel "Use of Weapons" There are a two other Culture stories in the book, though they are disconnected from the other Culture novels. This seems to confirms my theory that when Banks wants to write a sci-fi story, he uses "The Culture" as background. So he doesn't have to invite a whole new universe. He doesn't write about the Culture because he has a grand end to end vision.

 

 

 

Tools of Titans.

By Tim Ferris.

 

I think that Tim is the near the peak of infotainment. I always enjoy reading him. I even get the feeling that I'm learning things that will help improve my life. But, every now and then, I get the feeling that I'm being sold self-help with celebrities.

 

None the less, this is a good read.

 

Look To Windward

By Iain M Banks.

This was a satisfying Culture Novel. The were fewer diversions and extraneous characters than usual.  The store was interesting and straight forward. For some reason Banks loves to alternate between back story and the main story. In this case it made physical sense as the lead characters was regaining his memory of the past.

I think the whole dirigible megasaurus storyline could have been excised and the whole novel would have been better off for it.

 

 

 

I spent two days now and 1000 bucks on Day labor, all to get the stuff out of the house. It's all garbage. I repeat that over and over again. It's all garbage. Sure there are things in the mess that aren't quite garbage, but the time it would take to get it out, clean it up and find a buyer just isn't worth it.

Interesting quote from "Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers"

Hi – I'm reading "Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers" by Timothy Ferriss, Arnold Schwarzenegger and wanted to share this quote with you.

"The Battle of Algiers."

Start reading this book for free: http://a.co/2ji51UI

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Interesting quote from "Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers"

Hi – I'm reading "Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers" by Timothy Ferriss, Arnold Schwarzenegger and wanted to share this quote with you.

"If This Is a Man and The Truce (often combined into one volume) by Primo"

Start reading this book for free: http://a.co/5OxbCBu

--------------

Read on the go for free – download Kindle for Android, iOS, PC, Mac and more
http://amzn.to/1r0LubW