types of people

There are two types of people.  There are people who don't believe in putting others into boxes and prefer to see everyone as unique individuals, and the other type  . . .

xkcd today has a great take on this concept:

"According to my unsupervised K-means clustering algorithm, there are currently about 8 billion types of people in the world."

Finally, chatGPT says: "People categorizers always have a map to make sure they never get lost in their own classifications."

Maelstrom by Peter Watts

I enjoy Peter Watts' books.  The background and world building are thought-provoking, exhilarating, and well-crafted. The characters are well-motivated and richly textured. I wish he did better research into computer science and engineering.  However the "mindless" wildlife net software is eerily prescient of well-trained large language models and chatGPT. The biology is a little simplistic but still fantastic as one would expect from Watts' background. 5/5 Stars.  I look forward to reading the next book.

Voodoo Warfare by Nick Cole

Slow start but fun story, with great one-liners and dialog, 4/5 Stars.

Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force 5) by Craig Alanson

There were way too many near-death experiences in the story line.  I need to put this series down for a little while. The "awe and wonder" space opera mystery stuff is still fun; 3/5 Stars.

Intelligence & Personality

This fascinating preprint appeared today in psyarchiv (https://psyarxiv.com/ar6g3/).  Personally, I have always found personality intrinsically interesting and I am very grateful Psych research has emerged from its history of weak science; Psychology is leading many other areas in combating the reproducibility crisis in science.  For the impatient, this preprint's results are:

Results showed that openness (ρ = .20) and neuroticism (ρ = -.09) were the strongest Big Five correlates of intelligence and that openness correlated more with crystallized than fluid intelligence. At the facet-level, traits related to intellectual engagement and unconventionality were more strongly related to intelligence than other openness facets, and sociability and orderliness were negatively correlated with intelligence. Facets of gregariousness and excitement seeking had stronger negative correlations. . .

Black Ops (Expeditionary Force 4) by Craig Alanson

The desperate trouble and bizarre events continue in book 4.  The inconsistencies of the magic system are starting to wear thin but the story is great, and the bro banter is still entertaining.  This one ends in a cliffhanger so I must start the next one immediately. 4/5 Stars.

Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know about the Word

The information in this book is mostly covered in Peter Zeihan's The End of the World is Just the Beginning. But the numbers themselves are interesting and there are other interesting facts. 4/5 Stars.  Vaclav should keep the numbers updated online.

Gangsters vs Nazis by Michael Benson

Fun, interesting, well-researched history of a fascinating time in early to mid 20th century USA politics and social dynamics. It is unfortunately not well-written or edited and reads too much like a colorful textbook.  Despite the "Barbara Tuchman Telephone Book" style, I really enjoyed the anecdotes, stories, and commentary. 4/5 Stars.

Ihre Letzte Chance von Blake Pierce

Rachel Gift setzt ihre Abenteuer fort und versucht, Serienmörder zu stoppen, während sie an einem Hirntumor im Endstadium leidet. Ein sich langsam auflösendes Mysterium mit melodramatischen Familiendrama und mittelmäßiger Übersetzung. 1/5 Sterne. Ich muss bessere deutsche Originalbücher in meiner Bibliothek finden. Ein Freund hat mir https://www.ardaudiothek.de/ empfohlen, dass ich mir Hörbücher ausprobieren werde.

Lay the Hate by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole

Fun story, lots of action. 4/5 Stars.

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

Lots of 1947 swashbuckling adventures along with Indios dream mythology.  Well-crafted and fun, I did not like any of the characters, though; 3/5 Stars.

Trouble on Paradise by Craig Alanson

The misadventures of the humans stranded on "Paradise" continue without the main characters of the series.  More mysteries and political intrigues are started and the backstories of minor characters are fleshed out. Enjoyable, 4/5 Stars.

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

The story is exciting and dramatic. But the historical settings, travel, and technology of the era are poorly researched and inaccurate.  I also found the excessive racism and some of the one-dimensional cardboard characters unappealing and boring.  2/5 Stars. 

Paradise by Craig Alanson

The silly, funny dialogue, good space opera plotting (complete with awe, wonder, & mystery) continue. 4/5 Stars.  I shall read all the others in this series.

Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte

Tiago's book is a nice manifesto about why you should take notes and organize them for yourself in the future, especially if you have no external process and structure.  I especially appreciate Tiago's technology-independent library of tools and approaches to each element of his system. 3/5 Stars. The book is a good edition to your "self help" library if you read in the genre.

The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre

The best of Macintyre's books yet.  Extremely interesting, informative, and entertaining. 5/5 Stars.

SpecOps by Craig Alanson

Fun, interesting, entertaining. 4/5 Stars.

Eine unbeliebte Frau von Nele Neuhaus

Die Hauptfiguren sind sympathisch, das Ermittler-Duo +Team sind erfreulich normal und der Kriminalfall bleibt auch lange Zeit spannend.  Leider war die Geschichte ein bisschen zu kompliziert. Das Buch ist jedoch sehr gut geschrieben und unterhaltsam. 4/5 Sterne.