Book Report: The Evolution of Cooperation
It's a book by Robert Axelrod, who set up some groundbreaking game theory experiment/contests back in the day. He set up a computer program that would run other computer programs. Specifically, it ra...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: The Theory that would Not Die
It's a book on the history of Bayes' Theorem. Bayes' Theorem is, roughly, a handy tool for practical probability problems. Suppose you are an email system's spam filter. You see a new email message t...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Brain Storm
This novel is by Richard Dooling, the same guy who wrote Bet Your Life, one of my favorite books of 2003. This book was pretty good, too. It's a legal thriller—hey, come back! It's a legal th...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Hackers
It's another Steven Levy book about the history of technology. As with other Levy books, I keep spotting things that I know are wrong, so it makes me not trust Levy to tell me things I don't know. ...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: The Mythical Man-Month (a Study Guide)
If this book report seems a little heavy on the questions? It's because it's the first draft of a study guide? For people reading the book? Oh man it's way too long? But hey give me a break, it's...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Pattern Recognition
I'd heard that William Gibson had written Pattern Recognition, this book that wasn't science fiction. So I didn't read it. That was years ago. More recently, I read Spook Country that wasn't exactl...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Applied Cryptography
This is an old textbook about applying cryptography; that is, it's about computer security. It's the textbook by Bruce Schneier, the book he later said wasn't so important--you can get this stuff ri...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: The Psychology of Computer Programming
How to get programmers to get along together. Attempts to use psychology to design easier-to-use computer language features. Discussion of which is better for your organization's culture: batch proc...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: The Man Who Loved China
Back in 2002, I went to the British Museum where an old illustration maybe showed a punch-card controlled loom from ancient China--long before such were invented in the West. Bookish fellow that I a...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: iWoz
It is Steve Wozniak's autobiography, as told to Gina Smith. It's a fun read. Keep your wits about you as you read--they didn't fact-check all of this material. So when Wozniak tells you what was g...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Anathem
Yesterday, I watched a co-worker give a "practice" thesis defense. My workplace has plenty of grad students who are just, uhm, taking a little break from school. He's one of them. I, on the other h...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: On the Edge
I posted that link to that "Another Bubble" video. Computer nostalgia is easy, you don't have to look back, the past just keeps coming back. That viper Wade Randlett who spread lies about the "New...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: In Search of Stupidity
I'm not working on gPhone the Open Handset Alliance. There were various internal recruiting drives for the project; I slunk away from those, kept my head down. I've worked on some mobile phone plat...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Core Memory
I like old computers. This is a book of photos from the Computer History Museum. The photographer, Mark Richards, gave a talk at work a while back. When people asked him how he chose which things ...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: The Man Behind the Microchip
Lea W. is in town, visiting from Cincinnati. Several folks gathered at Yancy's Saloon on Irving to kick it with Lea. Michael asked the question: "What do you love to do? There are a bunch of things...
Permalink & Comments
Book Report: Dealers of Lightning
Sometimes, it's good to be wrong. For example, I claim to be pretty jaded. But when I saw a little dog, a Yorkshire terrier-style dog, walking along this morning carrying a rubber chicken, I was fil...
Permalink & Comments
