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.