Liar's Poker

Before Michael Lewis was a popular non-fiction writer, he worked on wall street. Liar's Poker is the story of wall street of the 80s and his experience there. The language and the characters involved are all of the salty, unsavory types. These are not the people you would want to meet your family. They were a frat in all the bad ways. Yet somehow they managed to make tons of money. (However, they could just as easily lose a lot or see the great money-making scheme whisked away from them.) Some traders manage to be in the ideal middleman position where they can make money with minimal risk.

Lewis manage to get the job through personal connections. The procedure could be cut-throat, with the littlest thing disqualifying you for the job. His description of the interview process sounded more like a hazing. You had to rise up the ranks through force of will. You just don't want to get banished to Dallas.

Part of the the book then goes on to describe bond trading and mortgage backed securities. Solomon Brothers happened to be at the right place and the right time, ready to lead off the boom in mortgages. By bunching them together, they could get people the investment that they wanted. (Of course, a couple decades later, the whole thing would come crashing to the ground.)

After reading, I'm left thinking that "we are letting these guys manage our financial systems?" scary.

Purple Cow

Purple cows are so unusual that you can't help put notice them. In this book, Seth Godin argues that businesses need their "purple cow" to differentiate themselves. However, he also cautions that their must be some meat behind it to keep it from becoming too common place. (A purple cow store stood out and was known for its great service. However, as it expanded it lost it's service edge, and became "normal".

The author spends a lot of time saying that the "TV" era is over and that you can't force somebody to like something just by buying a huge amount of ads. You must actually make something that stands out and that people remember and like.

It all seems like common sense. Perhaps people that have been entrenched in the marketing world too long started adopted to their tried paradigms and forgot the real purpose for what they were doing. This book reminds them that there has to be some meat behind the marketing. For the rest of us, there is really not much here.

Upon This Rock: A History of the Papacy From Peter To John Paul II

Upon this Rock is a Modern Scholar offering presenting the history of the papacy. The papacy is tightly interwoven with the history of Europe, from the heyday of Rome to the rise of modern "Empires" and modern Europe of today. At first, the church was a minor sect. The pope had little real power outside his local flock. Gradually, the Roman ruler began to become more aristocratic and assume a greater role in society. In part due to Constantine's conversion and subservience to the church in religious matters, the pope and the church grew to gain even more strength. The papacy was the de facto government of Europe during the middle ages. The church even had its own papal lands.

Alas, at this time, the popes became more regal, worldly figures, and forgot about their pastoral missions. This led to the reformation. At first, the reformation looked like the mumblings of a few scholars. (The church did heavily support scholarship - even if at times it seemed accepted teachings.) However, things began to really catch on - especially among some leaders who say a great chance to take some of the church riches. Eventually the popes had to come back down to earth and focus again on their religious mention, and so they did.

Hammer of God

A big object in space is on

a collision course for earth. Astronomers with their fancy equipment fail to spot it. However, an amature did notice the oddity and now the earth is on high alert. They decide to use a super powerful missile to destroy the object and save the earth. The bulk of the book is the build up to this event. It feels like a downer when it finally occurs and the novel ends.

Ok. That was it. Done.

In the process, there were a group of people that were located close to the object and willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of all. Luckily for them, the missile impacted the object, but the warhead but didn't explode. It did however, manage to nudge it a little off course of the earth. It did cause a lot of destruction, but most people survived.

The book took lots of break for social and scientific commentary. This may have actually been some of the better points of what was not a very good story in itself.

Ready Player One

Read Player One is set in 2044. However, it really feels more like 2010 meshed with the 1980s with a few "futuristic bits" thrown in. Clearly the author grew up in the 80s and enjoyed the classic video games of those days. Modern video games don't play a huge role.

The novel starts with the death of a major video game designer. He is a billionaire who made a fortune from this game (and even the associated schools.) However, he died without any heirs. There are however, easter eggs in his famous video game, Oasis, and whoever finds them first, inherits his money. The novel is the story of the boy who found it.

It seemed like a great topic, but it wasn't executed well. The setting just wasn't convincing. Laptops? Really. Those probably wont make it to 2020 let alone 2040s. I liked the 80s games, and could see this as an alternate universe where we just went straight from that. But this setting is not convincing. Some of the philosophizing and language gets tiring also. It does, however, succeed as an 80s nostalgia piece. Just turn off the part of your brain that wants something at least remotely believable and you'll be entertained.

The Ascent of Money

The Ascent of money tells the story of the rise of finance as a key part of our economy. It starts with the basic trading units, and then goes on to the derivatives and the derivatives of the derivatives. As finance has become more important, people have continued to react irrationally to things. People also tend to underestimate the irrationality of others, leading to financial crises.

This book covers the rise of money in many parts of the world, from western Europe to Incan America to China. The focus is on the major events - often when one group gains or loses a large amount of money. From conquistadors to corrupt Savings and Loan owners, there is almost always somebody that tries to beat the system (often to be beat themselves by the system.) Often it is the very rules to protect that lead to future problems.

Words of Radiance

Words of Radiance is written as a number of interleaved stories that eventually come together at the end of the book.
As with the first book in this series, I liked the story of Shallan best. I had trouble distinguishing among some of the light-eyed nobles. We also learn more about the Voidbringers. They seem to be a bad force that destroys the world, but we also gain some sympathy towards them.

We see the characters go through great trials and emerge the more powerful. Khaladan, in particular, must repent from his approval of an assassination attempt in order to regain his powers. (And in the process, it seems like a new "bad guy" is being set up.

It is a very long book. The start is a little tough to get through, but it does pick up the pace and moves along well afterwards.

The Men Who United the States

Simon Winchester applies his a rambling, personal style to the history of the United States. Here, he focuses on some key people and events that shaped the culture that people live in today. The builders of roads, telephones, telegraphs and radios all get attention here. The politicians? Yeah, they are mentioned. However, the inventors and entrepreneurs are the ones that have helped to give America its current flavor. The work has some good historical stories tied together with modern experiences. (We get the story of the first person who flew across the United States tied in with the September 11, 2001 attacks.) The narrative itself is loosely tied together, though it is more of a collection of short essays.

1066: The Year That Changed Everything

The Teaching Company course on 1066 is one of the shortest courses I have listened to. It provides some background to the William the Conqueror's invasion of England as well as a bit of the aftermath. William had a claim to the English thrown, though it was not a strong one. The English had just completed a major victory and were a little full of themselves (as well as a little spent.) The Normans were originally from the Viking lands, but they had quickly assimilated into the French culture. (Would we consider it like Americans and British? Or perhaps German Americans and Germans would be a better comparison today.) In the end the Norman's come over and continue to merge some cultures that were already merging.

These lectures are a quick overview of 1066. There are a few new things and new ways to look at things, but it mostly an overview of the key events of the Norman invasion.

The Way of Kings

The Way of Kings is long - fantasy long. And this is only the first of a multi-volume saga. This was much harder to really get "into" than Sanderson's other books. It does, however, seem to borrow from some of his other ideas and even names. (Occasionally, I think I remember a character or event, only to realize it was from another book.) By the end, I was eager for the next book in the series.

The novel is told from the point of view of a number of different characters that (at least initially) seem to be unrelated. I found the story of Shallan to be my favorite. I was eager for more "installments" of this arc while going through other sections. Shallan is attempting to steal a Soulcaster from Jasnah, a heretic nobel academic. She apprentices herself to Jasnah to become close to her. In the process, she comes to become attached to her master and enjoy her studies. She also gains feelings for the ardent Kabsal. However, it turns out Kabsal was trying to kill Jasnah with poisonous bread. (The antidote is in the jam - Jasnah is known to not like jam.) Jasnah soulcasts the jam into something else, and Kabsal ends up being the one that dies. (Jasnah soulcasts Shallan's blood to heal her.) From this episode Shallan begins to learn that Jasnah and herself can soulcast without a soulcaster.

The other arcs involve an assassin, a nobel who has dreams, and Kaladin, a slave. Kaladin was initially the son of a "dark eyes" surgeon. (In the society, light eyes were nobles. Another society was mentioned where leadership is entirely based on age. It seems very open, until one realizes that the dominant clan simply kills off other pretenders before they get too old.) He joins the army to help protect his younger brother who was drafted. However, he gets in trouble, especially as his powers begin to manifest themselves. Eventually, he helps train a lowly "bridge crew" to be brave fighters. They come back and rescue the army of a rival ruler (even though they could have just escaped to freedom.) After doing this the ruler buys their freedom and gives them a spot in the military.

These arcs all go together for a large story about a society that is cycling through a fall. They are fighting a human-like class of people called parshinde (who happen to be similar to their docile servents the parshmen.) There are, of course, some magical and supernatural powers. And there are a number of philosophical questions involed. Many of the characters are torn by situations that do not have clear cut black and white morality. (Is it okay to harm somebody to prevent them from harming other people in the future?) The philosophical interludes slowed the action, but they could often be more interesting.

My biggest complaint of the novel is the bizarre names. This seems to be an issue with all Fantasy works. There are so many "odd" names that I have trouble telling them apart. With the many different stories going, I'd think the names were the same, when they weren't (or that they were different, even though they were the same.)

I also see elements of many of Sanderson's other novels here. You could almost create a unified universe by adding in Mistborn and even the Alcatraz series. Alas, this is "long fantasy". But, as far as fantasy goes, it is pretty good.

Hellstrom's Hive

Hellstrom's public persona is an insect afficionado that spends most of his time making nature documentaries from his isolated compound in a remote corner of Oregon. The locals pretty much ignore him and let him go about doing what he does. However, the happenings inside this compound are much more complex than first meets the eye. He is part of a community of humans acculturated to an insect-like behavior. Through a number of biochemicals, people are brought into the fold and their behavior is controlled. Breeding is carefully carried out to maximize the most desirable traits. (Breeding with outsiders is also encouraged in order to bring in valuable mutations.) The compound is built primarily underground, with a number of tunnels and elevators leading to different areas, including one area carrying out research in advanced weaponry. Even dead bodies are sent to the vats to become the next meal. Resources are very efficiently used. Anybody that stumbles into the area is often exterminated (and thrown to the vats.)

Into this setting, we have some agents of a super-secret government agency. They managed to uncover portions of the plans for the weapon that were accidentally left on the desk of an MIT library. The first agent was put to the vats, so a new crew was sent out. This crew didn't make it, so another crew came out. A large team ended up descending on the compound, though not many survived. (Hellstrom's compound also had a number of security measures, including radio blockers as well as audio listening and communication equipment.)

The novel ends as Hellstrom's group sets off a major explosion in Asia and the government workers invasion fails. During the story, we find ourselves sympathizing with Hellstrom, in spite of the community that seems to go against the core beliefs of western society.

What could become of this society? Would it eventually encompass all of humanity? We see that the insect-like humans still maintain some of their free-thinking. They occasionally violate hive orders (though is that for the betterment of the hive itself.) They also allow an agent to escape the hive, due to a limited chemical treatment. (He was weaned off the control chemical, but maintained the "member" chemical. Thus, the drones ignored him, even as he retained the ability to act on his own.

The society reminded me a little of the Formics in Orson Scott Card's Ender books. (However, in this case, they are true humans rather than an alien species.)

The book also provides some criticism of the politics of both the left and the right. Being in the early 70s, Hippies and Vietnam would have been on people's minds. The Hive is the hippie commune taken to extreme: everyone is totally free to do what they want - as long as they do it the hive way. The secret government agency is plagued by infighting and internal conflict and ends up seeking its personal goals, rather than what is best for the country.

This Book is Not Good For You

A Tuning "Fork" that can make anything taste delicious. Chocolate that can transform a boy into a Samurai warrior. A secret chocolate plantation hidden in a theme park. It all comes together to make zany, entertaining children's novel.

The plot centers around three kids: Cass, Yo-Yoji, and Max-Ernest. They are a member of a secret society and protectors of the secret (though they do not know the secret.) Cass accidentally lets something slip about the tuning fork when they during a cooking class. It turns out the supposedly blind chef is actually a member of the bad guy society. A few things happen, and Cass's mother gets kidnapped. They demand the tuning fork to get it back. It turns out the principal has it. The kids get it, but the mother is not released. They eventually infiltrate a wild animal theme park to get it.

The story is quite good. However, the deliver is even better. There are asides, random factoids thrown in and even interjections by "the bad guys" to plead there case. It all makes for a great book for young and old alike.

Purpose and Persuasion: The Power of Rhetoric in American Political History

Professor Masugi traces some of the rhetorical "trends" in some of the key American political speeches. He attempts to provide a politically unbiased view of what actually made a good speech. He also emphasized how speeches were a product of their time. As time progresses, society often tends to "remember" speeches in a way different than they were heard at the time. Lincoln's Gettysburg address uses language that to us sounds archaic. However, to his audience, the biblical language was not all that unusually. The allusions to biblical versus also helped to give more power to his views.

Often in US history, big shifts in the political leanings are accompanied by a master speaker. The powerful speeches often have a way of drawing the listener to independently generate the exact thoughts that the speaker desires. In the case of Frederick Douglass, he began a speech be giving many points critical of Lincoln and his "lax" attitude towards freeing slaves. Then he turned it around and praised him for doing exactly what needed to be done at the time to maximize the freedom of his people. The speech was thus able to unite an audience of divergent views.

Franklin Roosevelt gave speeches couched in patriotism, while indirectly calling his opponents unpatriotic for not supporting his agenda. Reagan later turned the tables, telling the people how his conservative ways were the true American ways. Both were master speakers that lead to big shifts in the country's political leanings.

Obama is also a master of oratory. An the campaign trail, he stressed the unity of the country torn by a sharp political divide. His speeches are often politically neutral (often to the extend that many could have just as well been given by his opponent.) By staying away from the controversial views in his speeches, he can steer the message in the direction he desires, while the dirty work gets done elsewhere.

In the day of modern technology, we get our political information from many different sources. However, in spite of a bad reputation, political speech making remains important.

Wealth of Nations

Knowledge products created a course that provides background information on Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations. The focus is on the views of Smith that seem to fly in the face of the modern pop culture view of him. We get details of Smith's disdain for businessmen and respect for common laborers.
Our modern environment seems to fly directly in the face of his views. Even the most "right wing" companies tend to want deregulation only as it benefits them. They are happy to make "regulatory sacrifice". Far from being benevolent, they are merely eyeballing the regulations as a convenient way to raise barriers to entry of new competitors.
Smith also disdained excessive profits. These were seen as a failure of the free market. Instead, these profits should have led to higher incomes for workers and increased competitors. This favoring of workers, however, did not extend to unions, which he saw as placing a barrier to the freedom of workers.

The audiobook is a nice intro to Smith that leads you to rethink common knowledge. Now I want to read the real thing.

Distrust that Particular Flavor

These writings were primarily Gibson's articles for wired magazine. Many of them were written in the early days of the internet (even including the pre-web days.) He made some interesting observations, some of which seem to have come to fruit. In this selection, we get the raw articles, along with some of some present day commentary looking back at them. In some cases, he admits to getting things totally wrong. In other cases, he confesses to being somewhat of a "luddite" with regards to technology - but that is a good thing.

In addition to technology, there is also a focus on different societies, especially Japanese. Again, with some things he seems to admit to having gotten some things wrong. However, most of the descriptions are his personal feelings about places he likes.

While there are a couple clunkers in here, most of the writings are pretty good. The commentary helps everything to flow together well, making it a nice readable work.

Planet Thieves

This book felt like it should have ended multiple times. However at the last minute something comes up and prevents a conclusion. When it finally does end, it feels incomplete. Instead of ending, it just sets things up for a sequel.

As for the story, a boy tries to play a prank on his older sister. Only this seems to occur right as everyone is summoned for a major battle. Did I mention they were on a space ship? Some aliens were attacking them. The aliens and the earthlings both wanted the other planet to relieve their population pressure. However, the aliens have a trick up their sleeve and move earth itself to a different star system. The boy becomes a hero in various ways and ends up becoming in charge of the ship. He also discovers that the aliens look a lot like a friend of his - because the friend happens to be the king's daughter. They also discover that the aliens and humans descend from the same people. There are some other horrible beings that they barely manage to keep at bay.

Lots of stuff. It gets confusing at times. There are seeds of a good story, but it does not produce much fruit.

The Power of Small

The Power of Small posits that the small things we do can have oversize impacts. This thesis is backed up almost entirely by anecdotes. We hear about a woman with a boyfriend that would not commit. After she helped out a homeless man, he suddenly asked her to marry him. The "small thing" of helping the guy was the big trigger for the big life-changing event. We also hear of the IT guy who was interest sales. After getting a fancy haircut, he had confidence in himself and ended up becoming the top sales guy in the company.

There are many other anecdotes of small things that end up leading to life-changing events. Just being friendly to people you regularly meet can create connections and help you to achieve big goals. The small details can also help you to be more friendly. The failure to pay attention to details can also be devastating. An example was given of a prospective medical student who was rejected due to a typo in his application. After correcting it, he was finally admitted. There was also an ad-campaign that created all sorts of controversy because a black child was wearing a confederate uniform.

The science to back up these claims? Well, it is missing. The authors are, after all, advertising people. Science does not matter didly-squat if you cannot convince somebody to buy your product. Anecdotes rule the field. This book takes advantage of that and gives us a nice story. It is a fun read and contains plenty of entertaining tales. Some of it might even be applicable to life.

Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe

Where did computers come from? Despite Turing having his name in the title, this book focuses on the roll of John von Neumann. A math genius as a child, he played a central part in bringing about the early computers. There were also other players who helped influence the computer revolution. The recruiting of refugees from Europe to American universities helped get the brain power together. The need to rapidly calculate trajectories for warfare helped to provide a goal (and a source for funding.)

The book suffers from not knowing what it wants to be. At times it is a history of the origin of the computer. Then it switches to biography mode, providing intimate details of the lives and relationships of the people involved. Then it makes another abrupt turn and decides it is going to talk about the philosophy of the digital universe. Perhaps each of these could have made a compelling book. Alas, all three together do not work well.

It actually makes sense to implement your own sort

My mantra with algorithms is usually "somebody has probably already done it better." Why implement a sort algorithm if one already exists in your language?

With that it mind, it was a mere academic endeavor to implement Quicksort in JavaScript. I tried populating an array with a million random numbers, fully expecting Array.sort() to blow away my custom quicksort.

But guess what?

It didn't.

I ran some tests in node.js, and Array.sort() always came in last.
Array.sort() converts numbers to strings and then sorts them. For string sorting, it would probably blow away anything you could implement in JavaScript. However, for numbers, a custom sort wins.

Here are the times (in milliseconds) for sorting 1,000,000 integers

array sort (function(a,b) {return a-b;}): 518
quickSort: 235
array sort: 930

The native Array.sort() is the slowest. It returns invalid results with 999 showing up near 9996 since it is a text rather than numeric sort.

Ok, so if you are going to be sorting a huge number of integers, making your own quicksort is the way to go. But if you are looking at strings, the native sort is the way to go, right? Alas, no. For the next sample, I created 1,000,000 strings of 13 random uppercase characters and ran them through our three different scenarios. The quicksort could be used as is (the comparisons work on strings just as well.) The named sort function needed to modified slightly to handle the new sort:


function(a,b) {
if(a<b) { return -1; }
if(b<a) { return 1 };
return 0;
}


In this case, I'm just using capital letters. If there other characters involved (such as umlauts or accents), localeCompare should be used to get more appropriate results.

text sort of text array: 6625
quicksort sort of text array: 4091
named function sort of text array: 5007

Again, quicksort was the fastest, a custom function came in second, and the native sort was last. The percentage difference was not as great as with the integer sort, but the overall time difference was even greater.

The moral of this story: In most cases you will want to use your own sort function for both speed and accuracy. If you are sorting a small number of items, simply plugging a compare function into sort is probably all you need. If there are a large number of items, it would pay to implement your own sort code.

Data Structures and Algorithms with JavaScript

I was hoping this would be a nice advanced JavaScript programming book that would cover implementing common algorithms and data structures in JavaScript. Alas, it is instead geared towards the beginner college student. The coding examples all seem to "work" as stand alone exercises. However, they are coded in a global style that would not allow them to be extended. They use an "Easy to read" object-oriented style that flies in the face of best practices. Many also seem to reinvent the wheel. (Why create a meta-list structure that merely duplicates the pop and push operations found native on an array?)

The algorithms are also quite basic without going into great detail or even providing optimal implementations.

A much better place to look for algorithms and data structures in JavaScript is the Computer Science in JavaScript series of posts by Nick Zakas.

JavaScript Patterns

JavaScript Patterns focuses on patterns used to solve problems in JavaScript. The focus is on the language itself, with only a single chapter dedicated to browser. This is a "quality" book for advanced JavaScript programmers. It presents many of the appropriate patterns unique to doing things the "JavaScript way". It also contains a chapter on traditional object oriented design patterns in JavaScript. (These are covered in a chapter. Some are still useful in JavaScript, while others tend to be more of an academic exercise.) This book was written by somebody that knows their stuff.

High Performance JavaScript

Since this book was written in 2010, a lot has changed (and a lot has remained the same.) There are some small tweaks outlined that help gain a few microseconds here and there. Alas, many of these were already being "tweaked" out of the browser as this book was written and are now fairly irrelevant. (The applications that would benefit the most are probably not even going to be able to run in Internet Explorer 6, thus making some of these fixes totally moot.) Other bits are, however, still relevant. I'd put it more on a continuum. Some things are pretty much not worth your effort today. Others are absolutely worthwhile. And in between there are plenty of ideas that may be good in special cases.

The book includes chapters written by a number of different co-authors. Many of these authors were working at Yahoo! - back when Yahoo! was a strong innovative company. (There is still some innovation going on at Yahoo! Alas, it seems the ratio of innovation to "junk" has been decreasing.) Each author has his own style.

This book is a good candidate for a "new version" that spends some more time on algorithm enhancements, and particular areas of improvement.

The Book of A Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights), Volume 01

Excruciating is the best word to describe my experience listening to this. The librivox recording of the Burton translation was fairly well performed. There were some really good sections and no all-out-bad sections. However, the content seemed to meander through nowhere. There are a few stories that stick out. But, a lot of it seems like the work of a junior high student with a thesaurus. I think I'm going to skip the remainder of the volumes of this and opt for another translation.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

I had thought I wrote about this book earlier. I guess I just have a habit of delaying. Hopefully this book will get me out of the bad habits.

The book is grounded in the science of how habits influence and control our lives. Even after severe brain trauma, some habits can remain, allowing us to perform tasks without thinking. These "automatic" behaviors are a result of the habits that we have developed. Typically, the behavior starts out as a planned action until it is gradually repeated enough to become an ingrained habit. These habits are often difficult to control or change. Sometimes the only way to alter damaging habits is to run "indirection". An alcoholic may seek alcohol after a stimulus. The drinking is the habitual activity used to produce the response. To rewire the brain an alternate activity needs to be habitually substituted for the negative one in order to provide the appropriate response. Often faith in a higher power is needed to help fully rewire the brain from addictive behavior.

Habits can also be beneficial. Professional football players perform better when they let their well-trained habits guide them rather than trying to over-analyze the situations. We can all create positive habits in our life to help us to achieve our goals.

While the title of the book includes "business", that appears to be habitually tagged on to drive sales. This is a book geared primarily towards the individual seeking to improve their life and fill it with good habits.

Physics of the Future

This book would make a great source of inspiration for science fiction novels. There are chapters here about energy from space, nuclear fusion, nanobots and all sorts of technology. The author even peppers the book with actual science fiction allusions. (Star Trek - money? What's that. Nanobots can make everything. However, an emotionless android would not be capable of being a good crew member. Honey I shrunk the Kids? Nope, physics would be totally different at the small level. Terminator? AI research is probably a long way off from getting a senscient computer.)

The book's fault is that it seems to be extremely optimistic towards the progress of science. It does acknowledge the "caveman principle" that we may like contact and physical stuff. Some inventions like the paperless office are doomed to fail because of this. (Or are they? Offices do seem to be getting more and more paperless. It is just not a sudden thing.) Face to face visits are still needed for all the personal contact. However, even beyond these there is the cost of the "Technology". Even if we could create technology to eliminate all our work, would we? If nanobots could produce anything for nothing, accumulation of "stuff" might be simple. But what about property? That is still scarce. We seem to be drowning in too much affluence. We could make automatic cars, but what about the roads? Where would we park all the cars? Reducing pollution might be a nice goal, but what about all the other impacts of cars? And what if medicine could cure just about every disease automatically through little chips. Would we simply become computers? Maybe our destiny is to design the new computers that will be our robotic progeny? Or perhaps a terrorist will use some of it to wipe out most of the earth, and send the world back into a dark age. Or we may even go the way of the dinosaurs.

I want to check out Jules Verne's Paris of the 20th century. I wonder how accurately his view of the future sounded. The problem with future predictions is that it never really goes forward linearly. Some new idea may disrupt the entire train of research. Or a physically inferior form of technology may get a huge amount of money behind it and inflict itself upon the market. Looking at what science can logically be able to do may be a good start. (I didn't realize we actually had fusion now, just not practical fusion.) However, things are never that linear in real life.

He also talks about the phases that things go through. At one time books were precious commodities. Then the price came down where everybody could afford them. Then everyone could afford a library. And now paper is a number one source of trash and books are often more about "fashion statements". He predicts computer chips will follow the same path. They will become embedded everywhere and eventually become a source of much trash. However, he predicts Moore's law will eventually collapse, bringing down much of Silicon Valley with it. (Ah, there is an issue. Silicon Valley has become more of an "innovation" and software hub than a chip producing location. Less rapid increases in processing may change some of the focus on computing, but probably wont be vary disastrous on the area as a whole. Even recently, focus has downshifted to the less powerful mobile devices. If hardware innovation slows, we can expect a lot more in the software innovation front.)

Discussion of economics also gets a little fuzzy. According to the author, all economic bubbles were caused by technological innovation. The previous generation's bubbles were forgotten and thus a new bubble. The bubble happens when the financiers of the new technology have more money than they know what to do with. The actual use of it happens later. The 19th century panics were caused by railroad money. However, the railroad was eventually expanded, providing the benefit. The real estate bubble was caused by internet money needing a place to go. This explanation makes sense on the surface, but seems a little too simplistic in practice.

This book does provide a good overview of technologies that are on the cusp of widespread commercialization. It has, perhaps, a little too much faith in its scientific predictive powers (especially when it veers into the social realm.) However, it still provides lots of fodder for futuristic immaginations.