The End of Strife: The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are Famine, Plague, War and Death – pop culture does not always get this right – and after defeating the first three we might now just continue and conquer Death, too, and see, where this leads us as a species. Homo Deus starts with a rather bold claim: throughout history, famine, plague and war were the central topics of human life, and recently, all three of them have ...
Wow, this blog has been quiet recently. At least I have a logo now! And I continue reading cool (and slightly less cool) books, so at least one new review should be up soon. I also plan to write on some general topics, be sure to check back often! Or you could also subscribe to receive updates and never miss anything (there’s a field somewhere on the right)! Besides that I’m still finding out how to fix some technical and ap...
Review I try to review only books that were published in english, but I got this one for cheap and did not notice its language constraints until after I read it. So I thought, whatever. If the book had an english title it would be something along “The Art of Being an Egotist”. Enjoy. The phrase “egotist” is usually understood as an insult. Kirschner tries to put a positive spin on the word, defining it as a person who understand...
Key points People need things from you, and will value your ability to provide these things What you are inside is important, but other people can’t see it Learn, train and improve to make your inner qualities shine Author affiliations David Wong is an executive editor and writer at Cracked.com. Review copy free online article Review It’s April Fool’s Day, but instead of a hoax I decided to do some kind of...
Review First of all, I am a huge Dilbert fan, although I have never read the comics at work, especially not during that dozy hour right after lunch. Maybe you have heard of the Peter principle. People get promoted for being competent at their current position, so it is certain that everybody ends in a job they can no longer fill competently. The Dilbert principle is similar, but postulates an earlier reason for executive incompet...
Review Success is a vague concept, that everybody has their own definition of. Sometimes it means having a lot of money, or being famous, or just being respected by other experts in your field. Tools of Titans is a collection of success stories of different people, focusing on the daily habits they attribute their achievements to. The author suggests you pick and mix the advice you like while ignoring the stuff you think is stupid (whic...
Review There is a difference between the way the world is and the way the world should be. And there are reasons for this gap. Poverty, corruption and inequality all over the world can be explained by the number of people the country’s leader needs to keep power – the essential selectorate. Leaders will do everything to please their essentials, while simultaneously keep the number of essentials as low as possible. This book is a...
Review Psychology can be hard to write about. Unlike many other topics I present here, it is almost a science, and thus deserves a lot more attention. Also, I don’t know a thing about psychology or psychoanalysis and evaluating such a book gives me a hard time. Freud postulated the threefold mind: the id (containing desires and urges), the ego (the conscious self) and the superego (the unconscious framework of rules and ethics). Trans...
Review Apparently, a good portion of current economic theories and models are based on an idealized model of the free market, where consumers and companies have access to complete market information and only make rational decisions. As a scientist, I believe that models should describe reality in a simplified manner. Models can contain a fair amount of idealization (physicists have their pockets full of infinite rods and frictionless sp...
Review Have you ever been to an evening event, and during polite conversation somebody suddenly steers the topic towards modern technology? And while everybody else is excitedly discussing the implications of the latest fad, you find yourself standing silently in a corner, because for you “Big Data” is your collection of adult movies on your harddrive? Do you need a shortcut to sounding like a technology “have”? This book got yo...
