Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies that'll improve or ruin everything by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith (2017)

Fun romp through emerging revolutionary technologies by the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoonist and lawyer wife pair. Lots of funny anecdotes.  Like most popular science, the predictions in the book were overtaken by events since it was published, so it's not nearly as good as it was in 2016.  3/5 Stars.

A City on Mars by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith (2023)

This book is well-researched and comprehensive. My personal experience with International Law is that there basically are no rules. Nation State leaders do whatever they want.  Therefore, I don't completely buy into the detailed analysis of the policies and laws of nation state actors in space. I do agree with the game theoretic analysis, including the "company towns" analogies.  The data and tech are very interesting.  And, of course, the snarky prose is wonderful. 4/5 Stars.

Interstellar by Avi Loeb (2023)

Professor Loeb is a great astronomer, scientist, and organizer.  He has some interesting philosophical ideas and fun speculations about society and the nature of existence. This book sometimes drifts into odd rants unrelated to his speculations but his reformulations of the Drake equation and sci-fi ideas are fun.  3/5 Stars.

Die Heilung der Welt von Ronald Gerste (2021)

Jemand schlug mir vor, „Wie Krankheiten Geschichte machen" zu lesen. Als ich nach diesem Titel suchte, fand ich in der Bibliothek dieses Buch desselben Autors. Es ist interessant und gut geschrieben. Wie Wladimir Lenin zum Thema politische Geschichte sagte: „Es gibt Jahrzehnte, in denen nichts passiert; und es gibt Wochen, in denen Jahrzehnte passieren." Das gilt auch für die Geschichte der Medizin. Es gab Jahrhunderte, in denen keine Welt verändernde Entdeckungen oder Technologien entdeckt oder angewendet wurden, und es gab Jahrzehnte, die die Gesundheit und das Wohlergehen der Menschen mehrfach völlig veränderten. In diesem Buch geht es um die medizinischen Revolutionen, die die moderne Welt von 1840 bis 1870 prägten, es enthält jedoch eine kürzere Berichterstattung über die Ursprünge der medizinischen Wissenschaft in den 1790er Jahren und die Ergebnisse bis in die 1920er Jahre. Das Buch ist manchmal etwas zu explizit und ekelerregend, aber insgesamt lohnt es sich. 4/5 Sterne.

Code Breaker buy Walter Isaacson

I think Brian Keating's Losing the Nobel Prize is slightly better. But this Jennifer Doudna story is pretty good.  I finished reading the book a few days before the patent office's final ruling on whose patent takes precedence for applications of CRISPR Cas9 for human gene editing (Doudna lost).  And I had no idea about the Biohackers who are editing their own genes.  The competition and races for her discoveries are fun, but the entire second half of the book, examining bio ethics, is a little boring.  It's still entertaining and fun, 5/5 Stars.

shade California's aqueducts with solar power

According to this interesting pilot and proposal, the drought-stricken state could save 63 billion gallons of water from evaporation by adding some shade.  So why not generate 13 Gigawatts of power at the same time?  It's a win-win-win and a great step towards renewable energy.

Losing the Nobel Prize by Brian Keating

I saw Dr. Keating's Lex interview and decided to get the book.  The book is gripping and fantastic.  Dr. Keating is a great "popular science" author, bringing the difficult and complex topics of physics and cosmology accurately and simply into layman's terms. The drama and analysis of the Nobel Prize and the new privately funded larger collaborations opposed to the insane competition in science are very-well presented.  5/5 Stars, very highly recommended.

Rationality by Steven Pinker

Great book. Dense, hard-hitting, actionable. 5/5 Stars.

Science Fictions: How fraud, bias, negligence, hype undermine the search for truth by Stuart Ritchie

This book is the best non-fiction  book I have read in 2022 (so far). The suggestions and concepts to repair the economics, expectations, incentives, and ecosystems of our severely flawed institutions in science are brilliant.  Highly recommended, 5/5 Stars.

Flight Proven

This stuff never gets old.

But this part continues to be amazing

A Thousand Brains: A new theory of intelligence by Jeff Hawkins

I think this book was on Bill Gates' annual "best books I read list" of 2021.  The author is proposing a much-different and enormously rich, dense mechanism for how our neocortex is self-aware and intelligent.  It's a great theory and does fit most of the phenomena observed in neuroscience. When Hawkins wanders into ethics and philosophy, his writing is not as strong.  4/5 Stars.  I bought the hard back as a gift for someone special.

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

The updates at the end belong embedded in each chapter.  Getting the 1994 version of the science, and then reading the appendix with updates is unsatisfying and lazy editing. Overall the book is extremely interesting and entertaining, dense with facts, data, and humor.  5/5 Stars.

Interesting article in Nature

This week's Nature has an interesting and comprehensive paper about my son's research in organoid development using pressure and geometric constraints.

The Heilmeier Catechism

George H Heilmeier directed the United States Defense Advanced Research Project Agency from 1975 to 1977.  He created the following 9 questions for the agency and grant applications to evaluate research programs:

• What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
• How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
• What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
• Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make?
• What are the risks?
• How much will it cost?
• How long will it take?
• What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success?

These questions became known as the "Heilmeier Catechism" and we still use them.

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

I really enjoy Pinker's books; this one was recommended by a family member.  Pinker's fantastic reasoning, exposition, and championing of evidence-based approaches to understanding and tradeoffs in policies is refreshing.  5/5 Stars.  Pinker should provide similar analysis and exposition of other persistent myths and doctrine that prevent progress in the enlightenment ideals.

the meaning of it all by Richard Feynman

I am a big fan of Richard Feynman.  It's wonderful to read more of his fun essays.  5/5 Stars.  Too short, as always.

augmenting our bodies

In his first book, More than Human in 2010, our buddy Mez took us on some great thought experiments about the promise of brain-enhancing drugs and body-enhancing prosthetic devices such as exoskeletal limbs.  We are starting to see early prototypes of concepts beyond simple enhancements and towards additional functionality.  The third thumb project is one example.

as the basis for a manned lunar lander, being able to land is good

The SpaceX "starship" prototype rocket landed successfully today. 

Gerry's Kids

As I mention from time to time, my youth and values were shaped by our mid-20th century enlightened optimism and confidence in our better future shaped by science & technology. This new documentary about Gerard K. O'Neill is a wonderful story that communicates the attitudes & feelings we had during that time.  Reading The High Frontier was one of the most life-changing events in my life.  It is no coincidence that the founders and leaders of all of the trillion dollar companies in the world today "bet the company" on big hairy audacious goals that required inventing new technology.  They are optimistic we can invent and engineer our way into the vision.  A simple example is that consumer Starlink satellite dishes currently sell for much less than their cost to manufacture.

Steven Pinker's Psych-1 Class Lectures are Free Online

As a big fan of Steven Pinker's popular science writing, TED lectures, and enlightenment ideas, I was thrilled to discover that Harvard has made all of the videos from his new Freshman college class on Psychology freely available.  Many of the lectures are stand-alone, intrinsically interesting subjects.  I wish I had time to watch all the lectures, sigh.