Magnetic Memory Podcast

Anthony Metivier was good enough to interview me over at Magnetic Memory Method Podcast. We talked about Giordano Bruno, memory palaces, and how you can improve your techniques for learning and memory.

So, if you've enjoyed seeing me burble on in print, now you can get the definitive audio experience as well. Hope you enjoy.

Tatiana Plakhova - Globe

complexitygraphics.com

Best Books of 2014*

The Peripheral William Gibson
Multidimensional shennanigans, in which a possible future outsources work to a possible past, culminating in a series of capers.

 

Nothing is True, Everything is Possible Peter Pomerantsev Nonfiction that reads like fiction. A postmodern horror story about the changes in Russian society in the 21st century, featuring the PR flacks who run the media and opposition parties for the Kremlin, filmmaking gangsters, architectural historians, entrepreneurs hounded out of their own companies and country, and Vladimir Putin. America is exactly half as crazy as the Russia of this book, in many of the same ways.

Deathless Catherynne M Valente
Fiction that reads like the true history of 20th century Russia. Koschei the Deathless, Tsar of Life, marries Marya Morevna. This is the story of their marriage and their war with the Tsar of Death, set against the rise of communism and two world wars. Luxurious, funny and sad. Any book recommended to me by three people is a must read; this book was recommended by many, many more than three.

Redeployment Phil Klay

Short stories about soldiers in or returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are no protocols or etiquette to govern much of the modern experience of war, resulting in a lot of anxiety, restlessness and improvisation. If these stories are collectively about anything, they're about that.

Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism Jennifer Percy

One day, while driving though rural Indiana, I heard a Pentecostal call-in show in which a listener called to ask for an exorcist, because demons were attacking her house right that minute. The hosts of the show promised to send someone over shortly. Apparently, this sort of thing went on a lot around there. Demon Camp describes that same sort of high-intensity, near hallucinatory religious experience among a group of people for whom PTSD, alcohol or sex addiction are caused by demons and healed by ritual.

 

Afghan Post Adrian Bonenberger
Bonenburger joined the military after graduating from Yale. This memoir in epistolary form describes an education before, during and after his wars. Like Jarhead in the previous generation of war memoirs, it's a search for meaning in experience, and for the meaning of one's experiences that drives the book.

 
The Goldfinch Donna Tartt
This was on everyone's Best List when it came out at the end of last year, and deservedly so. Starts with an art heist and kicks into high gear when Boris shows up. One perfect Tartt novel a decade is about right, but I don't know how she can hold herself back from writing faster.

The Bone Clocks David Mitchell
There's always one of the linked novellas in any Mitchell book that make me want to throw the book across the room. Here, its the fourth section, which focuses on the intrigues of a writer who unknowingly writes books about the supernatural conspiracy underlying the other sections of the book. Holly Sykes and Marinus, however, the two main characters throughout, are full people, and worth the read. It's rare to find characters who change over the course of their life as believably as Holly does, or across their multiple lives, as Marinus does. Also on a lot of Best lists this year.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Excellent advice on thinking big and building things that matter. Occasionally slips into Randian sermons, but otherwise one of the better books on entrepreneurship that's out there.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty
The most important book on economics in the past year, even if you don't agree with it. The concentration of wealth in the OECD economies will present a huge challenge over the coming decades, and understanding the history of the issue is a good first step to working our way out.

Derek Jarman's Sketchbooks Derek Jarman
Gay punk filmmaker Derek Jarman made movies of astonishing beauty and invention on a microscopic budget, and in the process turned his entire life into art. Here's what the inside of his head looked like.

What Makes This Book So Great Jo Walton
Literary criticism at its best. This book will remind you why you liked all of those science fiction and fantasy books you read as a kid, and how those informed your life & writing. At least, it did this for me.

The Magician's Land Lev Grossman
Brilliant conclusion to the trilogy. Quentin Coldwater grows up at last, and all of the women wronged in the course of the books end up getting justice. Worlds end, worlds are born, and we find out who's the greatest magician alive today, this side of the Neitherlands.

*Read, not necessarily published, in 2014. This post was originally sent out to my mailing list. To subscribe, enter your email in the form located to the right of this page.

Links for Later 11-2-14

1. Judex: "There has been a bird."
2. "What David Fincher doesn't do"
3. The evolution of Robert Bork's Constitutional and jurisprudential theory. 
4. What is the male equivalent of "distaff"?
5. Underdressed for flying in a Speedo and inflatable ducky.
6. Tim Geithner's uncharitable opinions of everyone else during the crash.
7. Vladimir Putin gives a speech. Club Orlov applauds. Everyone else shrugs.
8. Jeff Hawkins: Why neural networks are not the road to strong AI.
9. Josh Seiden: “When you are writing, you are not a samurai. You are a waterfall or some shit”
10. Keynes was right.
11. Syllabus for an Archives, Libraries & Databases class by Shannon Mattern
12. Alchemical processes represented by birds.
13. Sharp waves organize memory/recall & possibly decision-making as well.
14. Would like to know more about this: "cells from [presumably olfactory bulb] used to regrow man's spinal cord."
15. Better headline: "You have chemoreceptors in every cell of your body. Some of these are also part of your sense of smell."

Laurie Anderson - Another Day in America

A Gentle Risk Assessment

Just a reminder: No matter how many people terrorists kill, the current Ebola outbreak will kill a thousand times more. Where should those dollars and our attention be directed? No matter how many people the current Ebola outbreak kills, AIDS will kill a thousand times more. Diabetes will kill a thousand times more. Which one are you most worried about? No matter how many people all three of these diseases will kill, global warming could kill everyone. Where do you put your attention?

Book Release: Giordano Bruno - On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds

The new English translation of Giordano Bruno's On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds is now available in several locations online and in the real world. Buy it at:

Amazon:

 

Barnes and Noble

For NOOK eBook

 

 

On the Infinite is one of Bruno's most insightful cosmological works. Written in 1584, it argues for a boundless, infinite universe, containing innumerable planets, all of which are inhabited. This was a revolutionary idea for the day, opposed to the traditional Aristotelian model of a unique Earth-centered system, encapsulated within a set of planet-bearing crystalline spheres, and surrounded by an outermost sphere of fixed stars.

Bruno's ideas and struggle with the Church authorities were recently featured on an episode of Cosmos, and excerpts from the book 

73 Questions with Daniel Radcliffe

Q. What's the most American phrase? A. A whole 'nother.

Links for Later 7-28-14

1. The daily routines of Vladimir Putin. Very weird and very sad.
2. "Is Russia Pregnant with Ukraine?" "Like a play we cannot leave."
3. The New York Times calls for legalizing marijuana. Considering how retro their trend pieces usually are, legalization may have already happened several years ago.
4. George RR Martin really feels like he should finish that book now.

Links for Later 7-22-14

1. What Fourier tranforms can do for you.
2. Andrew Gelman: "Bayesian methods are presented as an automatic inference engine, and this raises suspicion in anyone with applied experience, who realizes that different methods work well in different settings" as quoted in this critique of Bayesian stats.

Five for Dinner

Look at this from 10 years ago: Jon Favreau, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck and Kevin Smith. None of them have any idea where they'll be in 2014.

You've been Wrong about Every Prediction in the Last Five Years

Steve Liesman points out Rick Santelli's forecasting record. Paul Krugman points out why the traders (who lost money listening to Santelli) still applaud him

Why You Should Use Tor

The EFF's brief on why and how you should use Tor, the anonymizing & encrypting software for browing securely.

Links for Later 7-13-14

1. The Baroque theater designs of C. Howard Crane.
2. Documentary budgets
3. Terraforming the moon. The surprising thing is that the Moon is not terribly reflective right now, with an albedo of something like 0.1 or less. With terraforming, it would be substantially (>5x) brighter due to the reflectivity of water and clouds, just like the Earth.

Harry Potter Visits Quidditch World Cup

JK Rowling has posted a brief gossip column by Rita Skeeter, giving us an update on 35-year-old Harry Potter and his friends as they visit the 2014 Quidditch World Cup.

Emo Philips on Religion

I've been talking a lot about heresy lately, and repeated this joke without remembering where it came from. Turns out, it was Emo Philips all along.

Links for Later 6-25-14

1. Amartya Sen refutes the Just Desserts Theory of Distribution (via Brad DeLong)
2. David Friedberg of Climate Corporation gives an impressive interview to First Round Review. Pay attention to his strategic thinking. (via Tim Ferriss)
3. Amazon's maximalist bargaining position with Hachette. The POD terms are interesting.
4. All-in bargaining positions like Amazon's tend to win. Here's why you should never go for piecemeal bargaining.
5. Jon Gnarr and the Best Party won big in Iceland's elections a few years ago. They did it by not being serious.

 Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

-Bertrand Russell 

Links for Later 6-9-14

1. China's economy has some big challenges ahead (capacity utilization is at 60%, lots of bad credit on the market, etc.) (via Marginal Revolution)
2. Syllabus for Lynda Barry's drawing class.
3. "Really, Edwin..."
4. Bishop Synesius On Dreams (De Insomniis)
5. Academics getting fed up with the highly profitable academic publishing industry.

Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus

Early alchemical manuscript, part of the Corpus Hermeticum

Isaac Newton's translation, per Wikipedia:

1. Tis true without lying, certain & most true.
2. That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing
3. And as all things have been & arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
4. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse.
5. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
6. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.
7. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.
8. It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it descends to the earth & receives the force of things superior & inferior.
9. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world
10. & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
11. Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing.
12. So was the world created.
13. From this are & do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (or process) is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world
14. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended.