-
Archives
- January 2019
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- February 2018
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
-
Meta
Category Archives: Nonfiction
Book Review: North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society by Jieun Baek
Up until I read this book I hadn’t really put any overly critical thoughts into how North Korea functioned. I had pretty much painted the entire country as a giant prison camp and local life was basically just A Day … Continue reading
Book Review: The Future of Violence by Benjamin Wittes and Gabrielle Blum
Look at the title of this book. The Future of Violence. War, war never changes, but violence? We are absolutely brilliant about coming up with ways to cause grievous harm to one another. What cool military and privatized inventions await … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Nonfiction
Tagged Benjamin Wittes, Drones, futurism, Gabriella Blum, Germs, Hackers, Military, politics, Privacy, Robots, science, terrorism, The Future of Violence
Leave a comment
Book Review: Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram by Iain Banks
If you picked up this book and wanted to read about whisky/dram/scotch then I have little doubt that, after reading it, you are probably more than a little disappointed. If you picked up this book because you are an Iain … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Nonfiction
Tagged Dram, food and drink, Iain Banks, In Search of the Perfect Dram, MacGuffin, Mostly drink though, petrol head, politics, Raw Spirit, Scotland, travel, Travel Log, Whisky
Leave a comment
Book Review: King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
I don’t demand much from my nonfiction. If you’re teaching me something and can convey it even in a lightly poetic prose then I’m going to love you. Maybe I’m just cheap, maybe I’m just easily impressed by people … Continue reading
Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Half Holocaust chronicle, half psychoanalytical pimping, this book straddles a strange place stuck between delving into the human condition and feeling good like some sort of literary infomercial. Fortunately, what it’s selling isn’t vulgar and is ultimately as ethereal and … Continue reading
Book Review: The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab
You remember the capitalism from the 1950s? No? Me neither. I’ve heard loving stories of a by-gone era, but I was born in the eighties and the capitalism I grew up with was the kind that meant morality is only … Continue reading
Book Review: The Fourth Transformation by Robert Scoble & Shel Israel
Words are confusing. Between pleonasms, epizeuxis, and tautology it is a marvel we accomplish as much as we do as a species. This very same confusion must be what led Robert Scoble to diagnose himself as a futurist when, I’m … Continue reading
Book Review: The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth by Robin Hanson
You want to know how to get me to hate you? Tell me about how shitty science fiction is at predicting the future and then smugly espousing just how much more right you are than anyone else. At that point, … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Nonfiction
Tagged Arrogance on such a scale as to render me incapable of anything but the most base and primal urge to scream, Artificial Intelligence, Emulated Humans, Emulations, futurism, hate, Hubris, nonsense, philsophy, Robin Hanson, Robots, Technology, The Age of Em
Leave a comment
Book Review: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
*Insert Overly-Emphatic Political Treatise Here* See what I mean? No? That’s fine. I’m not here to change your mind. Hell, I’m barely here at all. Life has me scared and I’ve pretty much taken to books, booze, and checking and … Continue reading
Book Review: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
In an interview, Wright mentioned that he was using three tome-filled bookcases in order to do research on the book that would eventually become The Looming Tower. Now, I’ve never written a non-fiction book, hell, by any reasonable standard I … Continue reading
Posted in Book Review, Nonfiction
Tagged 9/11, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, american history, Extremism, history, Islam, Lawrence Wright, politics, religion, terrorism, The Looming Tower, war
Leave a comment
A Land of Rum and Writing 