Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
Right before Christmas break, I finished reading Chris Anderson’s book The Long Tail: Why The Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. I’d heard about this book from various sources, such as my Wired Magazine subscription, and through related web-searches regarding concepts of non-gaussian distributions from Nassin Nicholas Taleb’s Fooled By Randomness and Benoît Mandelbrot’s The Mis-Behavior of Markets such as power-law distributions. Suffice to say, this book held up to my expectations, and is still challenging the way I think.
The Long Tail is about how information technologies are transforming many markets, and about the true shape and character of market these technologies reveal.
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Tags: Amazon, Benoît Mandelbrot, Books, Chris Anderson, demand, eBay, economics, filter, Fooled By Randomness, Google, information technology, iTunes, markets, Movies, Music, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Netflix, power law, Rhapsody, search, supply, the long tail, The-Mis-Beahvior of Markets, Wikipedia, wired, YouTube
Posted in Books, Geek-ness, Innovation, Nifty | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008
During this past month I got around to reading Jeff Goodell’s book “Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future“. I came across this book after reading “Power To Save The World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy“; it seems appropriate to read up on what’s actually powering us now, instead of the ideal power source.
Jeff Goodell is a contributing editor to both Rolling Stone and The New York Times. He wrote the New York Times bestseller book “Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith“, which covered the Quecreek Mine accident of 2002. From this writing experience, he became interested in the coal industry as a whole. What he finds there is a grim reminder of America’s energy reality.
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Posted in Books, Civics, Education, Energy | No Comments »
Monday, November 3rd, 2008
I finally resumed and finished reading Steven Strogatz’s book “SYNC: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order“.
Dr. Strogatz is a professor at Cornell University, and has had a prolific career examining complex systems in diverse fields such as circadian rhythms, Josephson Junctions, and “small-world networks“. This book captures many of the stories of progress in these and related fields of today’s progressive minds.
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Posted in Books, Geek-ness, Innovation, Math, Science | No Comments »
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
I just finished reading Gwyneth Cravens‘ “Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy“.
Gweneth Cravens is a writer and journalist, and was a anti-nuclear activist. She met and debated the merits of nuclear power with Dr. D. Richard (Rip) Anderson over the course of many years, and eventually one day Rip asked her: “Why don’t you go on an American nuclear power tour?” This book is the result of that journey.
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Tags: Energy, global climate change, Gwyneth Cravens, Nuclear, power, Power to Save the World, Rip Anderson
Posted in Books, Education, Energy, Nuclear | 1 Comment »