Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Review: The Fifth Season

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I maintain that N.K. Jermisin was robbed of her Hugo in 2011 for her amazing work, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms . Well, her talent has been...
Monday, October 30, 2017

Review: The Rise and Fall of DODO

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The Rise and Fall of DODO is a collaboration between Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland. The novel is about the existence of magic: that ma...
Friday, October 27, 2017

Review: Einstein

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Einstein is Isaacson's biography of the famous scientist. It covers all aspects of his life, from his birth, the Annus Mirabilis  which...
Thursday, October 26, 2017

Swimming: A Parent's Job Begins Where Lessons End

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After I taught Bowen how to swim last summer, I nevertheless still had to take him to real swimming lessons to teach him correct stroke for...
Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Review: On Power

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On Power is Robert A Caro's hour and a half lecture about his two Pulitzer prize winning books about Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson ....
Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Review: The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

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Audible was giving away The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up , so I picked it up. I had run out of things to listen to, so this became a bo...
Monday, October 23, 2017

Lighting for Bicycles in 2017

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In the past, I've recommended Exposure Lights for bicycle lighting. In 2017, my recommendation has changed dramatically. Part of it is ...
Friday, October 20, 2017

Review: How Emotions are Made - The Secret Life of the Brain

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How Emotions Are Made describes a new theory of how emotions are provoked, evoked, and created in the brain. The classical view, which is t...
Thursday, October 19, 2017

Review: The Dispatcher

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After giving up on several audio novels, I finally came across The Dispatcher , which for whatever reason was a free audio book on Audible. ...
Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Review: The Home Front

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I'll admit that I don't manage to get through most Audio Books. Fiction is a non-starter, and most non-fiction books don't work ...
Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Review: Memoirs of a Theoretical Physicist

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I met Joe Polchinski on a bike ride some time back in 2010. We rode together several times but then he dropped off the radar at one point. ...
Monday, October 16, 2017

Review: Brush On Block SPF 30 Mineral Powder Sunscreen

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I was at Costco and they had a 2-pack of Brush On Block SPF 30 Sunscreen on sale. I was really skeptical, but on examining the ingredients ...
Friday, October 13, 2017

Review: The Body Builders

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The Body Builders is an optimistic book about the possibility of improving the human body and brain through engineering. It explores the cu...
Thursday, October 12, 2017

Review: The Secret Race

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I remember once being on a bike ride with a colleague and discussing the doping scandals in professional bicycle racing. "It's a go...
Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Review: Your Name

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I rarely review movies, but Your Name is an exception. It was Japan's highest grossing movie in 2016 and was apparently a hit in China ...
Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Review: English Grammar Boot Camp

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It took me several tries to finish English Grammar Boot Camp . This isn't because Professor Curzan's a boring lecturer, or because t...
Monday, October 09, 2017

Review: The Jungle Book

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I started reading The Jungle Book to Bowen, interspersed with viewing the recent movie , which once he had read the book, made him realize ...
Friday, October 06, 2017

Review: Kingsman The Secret Service

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I saw an ad for the Kingsman movie , and since it was based on a comic boo k, I went for the comic book at the library to see if it was actu...
Thursday, October 05, 2017

Review: The Genius Dialogs

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The Genius Dialogues is a series of interviews by Bob Garfield of various MacArthur Fellows, the winners of the so-called genius prize. I p...
Wednesday, October 04, 2017

Reread: The Player of Games

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I started reading The Player of Games to Bowen at some point during our bike trip, because I thought he might find it interesting, since he...