The Broker by John Grisham

I enjoy Grisham's books.  This one had some silly, old (bad) spy thrills and some great scenes in Northern Italy.  A little dated but very enjoyable, 3/5 stars.

A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson

The stories are about the people who discovered our science and much less about the science itself.  The humor, drama and philosophical observations are fun, enjoyable, and captivating, 4/5 stars.

Life on Earth by Sir David Attenborough

Fantastic audiobook, 5/5 stars.  As good as, or perhaps better than, the 4K video series.

The World Inside by Robert Silverberg

I did not like Robert Silverberg at the height of his popularity 30 years ago, though an occasional story was enjoyable.  I read references to this one recently and decided to give him another chance.  The concepts are interesting but very dated.  I was on a long flight and did finish the story. But I still don't like his writing or characters, 1/5 stars.

A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy by Alex White

Gave the author a second chance because of the reviews of this one, still puke awful, 0/5 stars.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

Terrible!  I could not get past the first 50 pages.  0/5 stars.

Tiamat's Wrath by James S.A. Corey

We waited a long time for this installment.  Fun adventure, tragic deaths of characters we loved, great twist to the story line.  5/5 stars.  Can't wait for the fourth season on TV and the next book.

By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber

This one was long and boring.  It moves the story forward and builds the characters. But it was drawn out and much too long. 2/5 Stars.

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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936

Slime mold parallel processing

Associative memory (Hopfield Amari recurrent neural network) in slime mold solves the exponentially complex traveling salesman problem in linear time.  

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.180396

Another biology inspired approach to math where nature and evolution have previously discovered an efficient algorithm.

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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936

Guggenheim museum

After the show we walked through central park to see the Guggenheim museum.  It was a little disappointing, 2/5 stars.

Wicked by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman

Today (Saturday, 4/13/19) we saw a 2pm matinee of "Wicked" on Broadway.  The performance was great but the sound system had issues; luckily we were in the second row and could hear the actors singing.  Having listened to the sound track many times and also having read all of Gregory Maguire's books in the series, I knew what to expect.  Jessica Vosk as Elphaba is not quite as good as Idina Menzel but her performance was still fantastic. We all enjoyed it and I sang along quietly to "Defying Gravity," my favorite.  Highly recommended, 4/5 stars.

Mitch's 5-Star Rating System

How can I give Phantom only 4 stars?  What does my rating system mean?  When I give three or more stars, I recommend the book or play or movie.  I liked it a lot.  It was "good."  One means I did not like it.  Two is on the border.  I don't recommend it but I got all the way through and did not dislike it.  I do not want lots of ties for 5-stars where there is no discrimination.

Merrily we roll along by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth

I really enjoyed this musical despite its shortcomings.  The Sondheim music is fantastic and the story is engrossing.  This New York Times review summarizes the problems the show has.  I disagree with much of the criticism.  As an older person who lived through most of the reverse-chronological events in the show, I felt very nostalgic and swept back into the 1950s, 60's, 70's, and 80's.  I recommend the show to anyone over 50, 3/5 stars.

Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Thursday 4/11/2019 we scored second row center seats at a matinee showing of the "Phantom of the Opera," The  show was fun.  I found it very operatic, especially the visual spectacles.  Ben Crawford is still playing the Phantom! 4/5 stars.

Be more chill by Joe Iconis and Joe Tracks

On Wednesday 10-April we saw an evening performance of "Be more chill."   It is awesome.  5/5 stars.  The $10 million production budget was well-spent.  The costumes, choreography, music, sound, lighting, and stage effects are amazing. The story line is ok (not great).  The science fiction is good.  Don't miss it!

On the Future, prospects for humanity by Martin Rees

Not bad; I appreciated his updated interpretation of the Drake equation and Dr Rees' perspectives.  Easy reading, short book, 4/5 stars.

Balto

We went to the Balto statue in central park that appeared in the 1995 movie "Balto."

2019-04-08 Metropolitan Museum of Art

Monday we were in Central Park and at the Metropolitan Museum of art.  An album of our favorite photos is here.

Advances in Applications of Personality Research: the Light Triad

An interesting and comprehensive research report this week appeared in "Frontiers in Psychology." The authors had been working for quite some time on a counter-balance to the popular and often-cited 2002 research on the Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy. After some excellent, comprehensive, longitudinal, and provably repeatable studies, they have finally written up their results and findings.

One of their interesting results is that their new triad actually measures different characteristics. "The absence of darkness does not necessarily indicate the presence of light," the authors write,  "… there appears to be some degree of independence between the Light and Dark Triad, leaving room for people to have a mix of both light and dark traits."   The authors constructed what they call "portraits of the light vs.dark triad." Participants who scored high on light triad traits tended to be older, female and have experienced less unpredictability in their childhoods. They also tended to report higher levels of: religiosity, spirituality, life satisfaction, acceptance of others, belief that they and others were good, compassion, empathy, openness to experience and conscientiousness. People who scored higher on dark triad traits were more likely to be younger, male and more motivated by power, achievement, superficial sex and short-term relationships. They also tended to be less compassionate, agreeable, empathetic, satisfied with their lives and likely to believe they and others were good.

Darkfall by David Webber

Great prequel short story in the Honor Harrington universe, 4/5 stars.