Category Archives: Books

From Carl Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip

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“Tool stood six three and weighed 280 pounds and owned a head like a cinder block. His upper body was matted so heavily with hair that he perspired copiously, even in cold weather, and found it uncomfortable to wear a shirt. Nearly a year had passed since Tool had been shot in broad daylight by a poacher who had mistaken him for a bear. No entry wound had been visible, as the slug had uncannily tunneled into the seam of Tool’s formidable buttocks. Because bleeding was minimal, he elected to forgo medical treatment—a decision that would come back to haunt him.”

— Skinny Dip (Carl Hiaasen)

Breath

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Breath: The New Science of A Lost Art (James Nestor)

(Amazon) “There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.”

“Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.”

I found this book absolutely fascinating. Some of my favorite bits: Continue reading →

Giving up on time

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“He was used to the disappearance of large parts of his life. Sometimes, he passed out at ten o’clock in the morning, and when he woke up, it was nine o’clock in the morning — some other morning. At first, the time changes were disorienting, but over the course of a couple of years, he got used to it. He simply gave up on time — now life was daytime and nighttime, strung along like beads on a string, and the minute, hour, and date were irrelevant.”

— Wicked Prey (John Sandford)

Production-line Education

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“The Industrial Revolution has bequeathed us the production-line theory of education. In the middle of town there is a large concrete building divided into many identical rooms, each room equipped with rows of desks and chairs. At the sound of a bell, you go to one of these rooms together with thirty other kids who were all born the same year as you. Every hour a different grown-up walks in and starts talking. The grown-ups are all paid to do so by the government. One of them tells you about the shape of the earth, another tells you about the human past, and a third tells you about the human body. It is easy to laugh at this model, and almost everybody agrees that no matter its past achievements, it is now bankrupt.”

— 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

“So what next?”

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“The first step is to tone down the prophecies of doom and switch from panic mode to bewilderment. Panic is a form of hubris. It comes from the smug feeling that one knows exactly where the world is heading: down. Bewilderment is more humble and therefore more clearsighted. Do you feel like running down the street crying “The apocalypse is upon us”? Try tellng yourself, “No, it’s not that. Truth is, I just don’t understand what’s going on in the world.”

— 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (Yuval Noah Harari)

Seven Stages of Robot Replacement

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  1. A robot/computer cannot possibly do the tasks I do.
  2. [Later] OK, it can do a lot of this tasks, but it can’d do everything I do.
  3. [Later] Okay, it can do everything I do, except it needs me when it breaks down, which is often.
  4. [Later] OK, it operates flawlessly on routine stuff, but I need to train it for new tasks.
  5. [Later] OK,OK, it can have my old boring job, because it’s obvious that was not a job that humans were meant to do.
  6. [Later] Wow, now that robots are doing my old job, my new job is much more interesting and pays more!
  7. [Later] I am so glad a robot/computer cannot possible do what I do now.

[Repeat]

The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly (2016)

The End of the World

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But here in the calm latitudes of this room
I am thinking that the end could be less operatic.
Maybe a black tarpaulin, a kind of boat cover,
could be lowered over the universe one night.
A hand could enter the picture and crumple the cosmos
into a ball of paper and hook it into a waste basket.
A gigantic door might close. A horrible bell could ring.
We could have fire, ice, bang, and whimper all at once.

— Excerpt from one of the poems from The Art of Drowning

Video

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“It’s hard to explain, but, for me, just aiming a speelycaptor (video recorder) at something doesn’t collect what is meaningful to me. I need someone to gather it in with all their senses, mix it round in their head, and make it over into words.”

— ANATHEM (Neal Stephenson)

To die of old age

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My first blog post back in 2002 was a quote from Carl Hiaasen’s Basket Case. I’m rereading the book for the umpteenth time and came across the following which… resonates.

“Early on I made up my mind not to die of anything but old age. Stopped smoking because I was afraid of the cancer. Swore off booze because I was scared of driving my car into a tree. Gave up hunting because I was scared of blowing my own head off. Quit chasing trim because I was afraid of being murdered by a jealous husband. Shaved the odds, is what I set out to do. Missed out on a ton of fun, but that’s all right. All my friends are planted in the ground and here I am!”