Sunday, September 29, 2013

Book Review: Nexus

I really enjoyed Ramez Naam's debut novel, Nexus. As a novel it's a solid debut if a bit formulaic, but as sci-fi/futurism Naam really hits it out of the park.

Nexus is about a bio-tech hacker/researcher who is coerced into working for the government to spy against and ultimate thwart those leading development in his field of research. In this way, it's a very standard average-nerd-in-over-his-head, espionage action-adventure. And even if evaluated only at that level, it's a solid work. If this type of book is your thing, you won't be disappointed.

But what I really loved was the sci-fi trappings of the book. The bio-tech posited in Nexus is a technology to run software on the human brain, to read or change what it's doing, or to run alternate software on it. Three areas are then explored in various ways. The first and least surprising is behavior modification (think of The Matrix's "I know Kung Fu" and you get where this is going). The second is that of the hive-mind, and Naam follows this down several paths of exploration. The third is the concept of a virtual machine. In the ultimate take on "what if you are just a brain in a jar" explored by The Matrix and many others, Naam asks "what if you are just a brain in a jar, and that jar is just a VM running in your REAL brain", he then riffs on this with all the issues around real VMs (rootkits, back-doors, etc). Fun stuff.

Naam uses this sci-fi premise and story to make some points about progress, change, blind obediance to authority, civil liberties and the like. All interesting and most valid, but for me the it was the instruments he constructed to have these discussions that really set the book apart. I can't way to see what he comes up with next.


Friday, September 27, 2013

Book Review: Who Owns the Future

This is strike two for me with Jaron Lanier's books. It's too bad, because I really admire his thinking, but I gave a weak review to You Are Not a Gadget, and have to do the same here.

In Who Owns the Future?, Lanier posits that several technology trends threaten to have a long-term negative impact on the middle class, and on the economy in general (which is highly dependent on the existence of a thriving middle class). He asserts that (a) many of today's disruptive technologies and services constitute what he calls "Siren Servers", luring users in and making it difficult to escape, (b) that these do not give fair value back to users for what they put in, and (c) that the result is not going to net out to the new jobs replacing the old, but rather a more efficient system where the middle class loses money to a priviledged few that control those servers.

While initial idea of Siren Servers is one I agree with, and serveral of Lanier's observations are astute, that's where I start to part ways with his thinking.

Many of his arguments and suggested solutions are not only lacking in data, he hasn't even an attempted a simple modelling of them. At the same time, he dismisses the arguments of others for the same reason. For example, he dismisses the claims of those that say musicians can replace lost CD revenues by instead doing live performances, but then asks readers to accept that they can replace those revenues through a system of micro-transaction revenues magically piggy-backed onto the Internet. While proposing this, he offers even a high level examination of the technical feasibility nor a rudimentary attempt at the business model.

As a book that offers some provocative ideas and alternative ways of looking at technology and its impact on economics, it offers some value. But the solutions proposed are as pie-eyed as flying cars and teleportation without providing more than a hand-wave.

 Who Owns the Future?

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Book Review: The Blind Giant

A while back I read (and subsequently reviewed) Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway. I loved it so much I looked into what else he'd written. I found out that he had a non-fiction work about the impact of technology on business and culture, and so gave it a read.

It's hefty piece of work, talking about the impact of technology on a very wide range of subjects, from the publishing business, to our ability to learn and concentrate, to the impact on politics and life in the public eye. His view of the impact of tech on the publishing business is especially well done, as he's grown up in and around that industry as one of the 'disruptees', and yet is also a technology proponent.

Through the book, the author takes a nuanced, even-handed look at most of these areas of controversy, showing both sides as having some merit. He also tackles it in a way that is entertaining, and still goes deep enough to show that he's done a fair amount of research and thinking on the subjects.

The down side is that he covers broad ground without really reaching a hard conclusion. that might be OK though - as the point is to show that we are evolving in our relationship with technology, and that we don't necessarily know where it will end up, and that it's neither all good nor all bad, but somewhere in between, as will be our end destination.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Book Review: Becoming a Supple Leopard

I finished the book a while back but am just getting around to posting a review.

Kelly Starrett is really well known in the Crossfit community. As a Crossfit gym owner and Doctor of Physical Therapy, he has carved out a really niche of expertise as being the "joint, form and mobility guy" of crossfit. In addition, he has posted a ton of really useful videos to youtube over the past couple years that have made him a well known name. So, when he announced the book, many people pre-ordered and I was one of them.

The book is good, though it has a couple flaws (I'll get to those later). It's organized in two main parts.

The first section deals with categorizing all the major crossfit movements from gymnastics, olympic lifting, etc. Deadlift, Clean & Jerk, Pullups, Handstand Pushups, and many more are organized based on the degree of difficulty (mostly having to do with how dynamically one has to stabilize the load & form). I liked this section, as the logic made a lot of sense, modulo the flaws below.

The second section discusses all the major muscles & joints in the body, and covers a range of techniques of how to better stretch, mobilize, floss, and otherwise work them into better range of motion and stability. This section was also useful, but made less sense to read logically back to back, rather than a reference to build a program from and/or to mix up a program of mobility work.

The flaws I found with the book are threefold. Two are relatively minor.

First, Starrett uses a little too much 'bro-speak' in his language. It's fine, and what we've come to expect, in his videos, which are quite conversational in tone, but in print it feels a little cheesy. This is a minor complaint

Second, given the huge number of videos he's posted in the past, there's probably very little here that you can't get by watching all the videos for free. However, I didn't mind paying some extra to have all of the same information in a logically organized form. It would also be nice to provide some reference/link to any youtube videos where those made sense to add clarity to the text/pictures in the book.

My third, and only major complaint, is that the book could have really benefited from spending some money on an anatomical illustrations. When Starrett talks about torque in the shoulder capsule, it would be nice to have some actuall "under the hood" illustrations.

These things aside, I still found the book useful and would recommend it to all crossfitters.