Not really designed for someone who took physics in college. If you have no base of physics this might be good. Though it was a good refresher and in Not really designed for someone who took physics in college. If you have no base of physics this might be good. Though it was a good refresher and in a few areas useful. Eg I knew about dark matter but not dark energy.
There were some fun tidbits too - I found it fascinating that the Moon is 1/400th the diameter of the Sun, but it's also 1/400th as far away from us, so they look the same size in the sky - a pure coincidence. Can you image how weird it would be otherwise?
Another one was how there is a high probability of a killer asteroid hitting earth within the next 100 million years. But that probability would be much larger if we didn't have big brother Jupiter in our system - who is so large that it acts as a shield and bats many asteroids out of harms way.
One of the best sports biographies I've read. I was a huge Agassi fan growing up, not because of his flair or haircut, but because of his amazing topsOne of the best sports biographies I've read. I was a huge Agassi fan growing up, not because of his flair or haircut, but because of his amazing topspin and his tenacity. So to get the inside story on where he got both of those, was fascinating.
The first thing to realize about Agassi, is that like many tennis players, he got good, then bad, then really bad, then good, then bad, then good, etc. In other words, he loses. A lot. But the fascinating part of his story is what motivates him to keep going. Because, as he says, he hates tennis. Full disclosure, I don't fully believe him when he says that, I think at a level he likes the game and winning. But his motivation switches over the years - from wanting to please his dad, to wanting to get to the top, to needing to find new motivation in his team, and ultimately, with his charitable work. I love how in the end his comeback is motivated by wanting to win for his center, to be able to give more to the kids - that's fascinating, cool, and admirable.
Another interesting aspect of Andre is how loyal he is to his team - to Gil, to his coach, his wife, etc. He needs them for confidence, and for strength - more for emotional strength than physical - in a way that was striking. He makes a lot of statements like:
The romance of his decade long chase of Steffi Graff was fascinating to read about, and in the end, incredibly romantic as well. The notion that he had such a crush on her from the beginning, and chased her for that long, was - well, sweet. And then there was this gem of prose, describing their first rally together:
I decided to give up eating processed sugar for the month of January, and so reading a book with this title seemed like it would help me adhere. And nI decided to give up eating processed sugar for the month of January, and so reading a book with this title seemed like it would help me adhere. And not only did it succeed in that goal, but I think it put a permanent, deep scare in me about sugar. The book basically argues that sugar is the root cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even a lot of cancer.
What is interesting is while all of us know that sugar is not good for us, the only thing that people officially blame on overconsumption of it is tooth decay. Obesity is highly correlated with diabetes, heart disease, and a number of other bad things. If you Google for the cause of obesity, you see statements like “Obesity is generally caused by eating too much and moving too little. If you consume high amounts of energy, particularly fat and sugars, but don't burn off the energy through exercise and physical activity, much of the surplus energy will be stored by the body as fat.” This book makes the argument that a calorie is not a calorie, that sugar is actually toxic, but unlike other toxins it takes decades of overconsumption to show up - which has made it hard to prove.
The statistics are fascinating. Fifty years ago, one in eight American adults was obese; today the number is greater than one in three. Diabetes has gone from 1 in 2,000-3,000 to 1 in 7-8, which is an astounding increase. The book listed numerous examples of native populations that suffered from a similar diabetes epidemic after adopting the “western diets and lifestyle”. What is it about western lifestyle that has done this? The culprit is almost certainly something in the diet, and linked to processed foods - and after reading this book, it seems very logical that sugar is either the root or one of the main root causes.
“By the late 1970s, though, sugar had mostly vanished from the discussion. Dietary fat had been implicated as a cause of heart disease. Nutritionists and public-health authorities responded by rejecting the idea that sugar could be responsible for the diseases that associated with heart disease, which included both obesity and diabetes.”
The book gives a fascinating history of how nutritionists and the government have viewed sugar as largely harmless. This included an impressive amount of lobbying from the sugar industry to vindicate themselves. Mind-blowingly, the sugar industry back in the 50’s actually advertised sugar as a great, healthy way to get calories. Sugar has never, and largely is still not thought of as a root cause of obesity - the narrative is still more about fats and “lifestyle” (i.e. lack of exercise).
“To the sugar industry, it has been the gift that keeps on giving, the ultimate defense against all arguments and evidence that sugar is uniquely toxic. This is the idea that we get obese or overweight because we take in more calories than we expend or excrete. By this thinking, researchers and public-health authorities think of obesity as a disorder of “energy balance,” a concept that has become so ingrained in conventional thinking, so widespread, that arguments to the contrary have typically been treated as quackery, if not a willful disavowal of the laws of physics.”
“Fat” is often the culprit named for people getting fat (even the word is the same!), and thus was born a processed food industry that touts “low-fat” items (which are then rich in sugar+salt to offset the bad taste). But looking at populations that eat high fat content but low sugar, shows lower rates of obesity and heart disease. For instance, the French.
“When researchers realized that the French had relatively low rates of heart disease despite a diet that was rich in saturated fats, they wrote it off as an inexplicable “paradox,” and ignored the fact that the French traditionally consumed far less sugar than did populations— the Americans and British, most notably— in which coronary disease seemed to be a scourge. At the end of the eighteenth century, French per capita sugar consumption was less than a fifth of what it was in England. At the end of the nineteenth century, even after the beet-sugar revolution, France was still lagging far behind both the British and the Americans— thirty-three pounds for the French compared with eighty-eight for the English and sixty-six for Americans.”
Interestingly, when we say “sugar” we can actually be referring to a number of things: fructose, glucose, or sucrose. Glucose is used to refer to blood sugar levels in blood, and also comes from eating carb rich foods like bread or potatoes. Sucrose is table sugar, which actually made of part fructose. Fructose is the scary one because “it is very different from other sugars because it has a different metabolic pathway and is not the preferred energy source for muscles or the brain.”. Fructose is found in fruit but as such low levels that it isn’t harmful, plus its offset by rich fibers. But high fructose corn syrup? Avoid at all costs.
The logic is basically: IF excess sugar (fructose notably) leads to insulin resistance, THEN we can say with confidence that it is likely a root cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer, as it’s been proven to be correlated with all those things. High fat diets - particularly the wrong sorts of fats - are also involved if eaten in excess. The logic seems solid - and yet even searching “what causes obesity” you don’t see sugar named as a key cause. I’d be very curious to learn from nutritionists what the think of this logic.
“Is it that we’re all simply eating too much and exercising too little, which is the one simple answer that the nutritional establishment will embrace in the face of so much evidence to the contrary? Another simple answer, and a more likely one, is sugar.”...more
This is a book that is powerful because its engrossing, fast paced, entertaining, humorous at times, and yet totally gives you a new perspective on SoThis is a book that is powerful because its engrossing, fast paced, entertaining, humorous at times, and yet totally gives you a new perspective on South Africa. Also, you have to listen to it on audio as Trevor narrates it himself and does everyone in South African accents that makes it so much more real.
South Africa is not a place I know much about, but I feel like I know it better now. Growing up in Apartheid as a coloured person (half white was apparently its own race) sounded extremely tough. As did surviving in the hood as a hustler, getting thrown in jail for "stealing" your father in laws car, and so many of the amazing adventures he described.
But what I most appreciated was how he really attributed so much to his mother, who was a tough, independent women who didn't let him believe that his destiny wasn't in his own hands. That seemed like the major thing that set him apart, and I loved reading all the build-up to that. Highly recommended! ...more
Kevin Kelly, who is a Wired co-founder, lays out technological trends that are "inevitable". Like too many nonfiction books, I found a few chapters toKevin Kelly, who is a Wired co-founder, lays out technological trends that are "inevitable". Like too many nonfiction books, I found a few chapters to be worth reading, and a few not to be. I enjoyed the sections on AI and books. And sometimes just zooming out to get bigger perspective is engaging, which was the case for me in the sections on VR/AR and tracking. Much of the rest of the book seemed geared for people less technically savvy, which was my only complaint as it really drew the book out.
There is a famous saying in software said by Marc Andreeson that "software is eating the world". Kelly predicts, I believe correctly, that the next phase of this will be AI: "It is hard to imagine anything that would “change everything” as much as cheap, powerful, ubiquitous artificial". Kelly's perspective here that while it might feel like innovation in technology is slowing to some, it is much more likely that we are on the brink of the next renaissance, and we will all be "taking X and adding AI", much as happened with electricity and then the internet.
Kelly correctly identified the three key trends that are making AI an exciting space today: processing power (GPU's), data, and better algorithms. However he didn't dive more into the longest pole: how to get a lot more data than we have today - that seems to me to be the key. But cool to get an overview. He did address one of the big fears about automation that many people have today: will computers take all our jobs? The quick answer is yes, but we'll have new ones. This has already happened multiple times in history. I agree with this, but think the more interesting question is what will happen when we can provide most people the basics (food, water, shelter) for very little cost. This was predicted in Diamond Age, and the answer was "parking lots and chaos", and a lot of people with no purpose in life.
Another big idea that Kelly hits on that I think is big and inevitable is how each book will become networked, much as the WWW has. Once we have ability to have pointers into and out from each sentence of a book, the speed at which ideas will fly out of books will step function.
A beautiful story. Neil Gaiman is truly a unique storyteller. I did a combo of reading and listening to this story, and Neil is great at reading as weA beautiful story. Neil Gaiman is truly a unique storyteller. I did a combo of reading and listening to this story, and Neil is great at reading as well. I got interested in this book after seeing the movie, which I really enjoyed. The book is similar - maybe a bit more poetic - but I think the plot in the movie is a bit improved (not much, but a bit).
I imagine this book came about because Neil read the below poem that he includes in the beginning, and then he invented a plot around it. The result is the book reads like a epic poem - it's creative, magical, and really, just right.
Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No where Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go, Though at next door we might meet; Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three.
Recommend this highly for anyone who works in a technology or creative field. Pixars track records is unparalleled - 14 movies and all of them have beRecommend this highly for anyone who works in a technology or creative field. Pixars track records is unparalleled - 14 movies and all of them have been massive hits. I had two important takeaways from this book: how to build a great, lasting culture, and how to build a creative company.
Catmull's philosophy both around creating movies and managing his company, is to be relentless about remembering that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. In creating a movie, you don't know what it will be when you start. In creating a company, you similarly don't know what it will be, especially at first. But equally importantly when you are scaling it, you don't know the dynamics of what is happening throughout the company - you will have a filtered view based on the (always) incomplete picture you can see. So you have to relentlessly have the mindset to remember that there are dynamics at play that you don't know, and look for them.
So how did Pixar build 14 hits in a row? They created a highly leveraged feedback loop. They created a culture of open feedback, and encourage anyone in the room - regardless of rank - to have an equal voice. They have lots of ways to get feedback on the film and iterate on it: from daily standup every morning to review scenes, up to braintrust meetings with all the best directors and creative minds to review the story. They spend a lot of time - years - iterating on and nailing the story before putting it into production - and even then they keep iterating. Nothing trumps good story.
The stories about Steve Jobs were great. Made you respect him even more. For taking a huge financial risk to spin Pixar out of Lucasfilms and then personally float it for a long time, taking even more risk. I loved hearing about how much foresight he had with regards to Disney and negotiating that deal. I also loved the story about the wide screen - basically how Steve responds to passion, and pushes people until he finds where it is. This quote explains it well:
Mark Watney is a steely-eyed missile man. A man's man. A badass mechanical engineer botanist astronaut who is stranded on Mars during a Nasa mission gMark Watney is a steely-eyed missile man. A man's man. A badass mechanical engineer botanist astronaut who is stranded on Mars during a Nasa mission gone wrong, and left to fend for himself. I listened to this on audio on a roadtrip, and it flew by - what a fun story. Not surprised at all it's being made into a movie directed by Ridley Scott starring Matt Damon. Also pretty amazing is that it was self-published.
There were two great things about this book: the humor and the science. The science appealed to the mechanical engineer in me - Watney is a bit like McGyver except he knows a lot more about chemistry and botany. I didn't double-check all the science, but loved the descriptions of all the math: calorie calculations, creating water, etc. Just fun stuff.
But the humor was top notch. Weir does a great job portraying a stranded man trying to remain upbeat by talking to himself in log entries. And the excellent audio narrator only made it better.
In the end, a well told story of survival against the odds. And one of belief - I liked the CNN Mark Watney watch - you could totally imagine how into this story the media would get. We humans love a good surviving against the odds story. ...more
A hilarious and book from Tina Fey - definitely worth listening to over audio as she reads it herself. She makes fun of herself a lot, adds lots of liA hilarious and book from Tina Fey - definitely worth listening to over audio as she reads it herself. She makes fun of herself a lot, adds lots of light humor, and of course shares TMI.
The most interesting bit was hearing the behind the scenes of Saturday Night Live, and how she was a joke writer there for 3 years before they gave her a role on the show, which was only doing the news. Her breakout occurred after she had already left for 30 Rock, when she did the Sarah Palin impersonation. Tina is clearly an example of someone who has worked long and hard to get where she is. ...more
Loading...
