gleaned
A staid fool's repository of book-summaries.
Shannon proposed an unsettling inversion. Ignore the physical channel and accept its limits: we can overcome noise by manipulating our messages. The answer to noise is not in how loudly we speak, but in how we say what we say.
— Soni, Jimmy. A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age (p. 158). Simon & Schuster.
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10 December 2018
Fermat's Last Theorem
Simon SinghA highly entertaining, informative and gripping account of how one of the most celebrated problems in mathematics was solved by Andrew Wiles. In addition to being sprinkled with memorable anecdotes,... -
30 November 2018
Of Mice and Men
John SteinbeckFiction. Short. A story of two men and how they stick together through trying times. The ending was surprising despite being somewhat predictable. Nicely written but certainly not my taste.... -
05 October 2018
One, two, three ... infinity
George GamowA gripping and short account of all the human knowledge about our world. Should be of interest to both, the initiated and the novice. Some discussions can get a little... -
02 August 2018
A Mind at Play (Shannon's)
J. Soni and R. GoodmanThis book is magical. Whenever I felt like the authors were going on about something uninteresting, the chapter would end. Jimmy and Rob have meticulously fused the life of Shannon,... -
16 July 2018
What is life?
E. SchrödingerAn interesting short book. Enjoyed almost all of the "What is life?" part. The "Mind and Matter" part has some rather boring things (for me that is) but then some... -
15 June 2018
Dorothy Hodgkin, a life
Georgina FerryYou see how it is not the circumstances but the people themselves that matter. For me the thrill of scientific discovery was the most enjoyable and the ability of great... -
14 March 2018
My stroke of insight
Jill Bolte TaylorThis book rather interesting for me personally. It gave a neurological explanation of what I can't even conceive. A world without reason, without language, without the notion of past and...