non-fiction

Everybody Lies

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 21:26 on 14 May 2018, kitt created this:

Okay, unlike the last big data book I read, this WAS the big data book I wanted to read. While it does describe the mathematics used in the different ways big-data affects society, it does show how big data, how using small bits of innocent data can reveal surprising truths about who we are and what we really think.

If you start with the assumption that everybody lies on surveys (and this isn't a bad assumption, people mess with surveys all the time, to make themselves look good, to make someone else look bad, to withhold information for ulterior reasons, or really just to f--- with the survey data), then the fundamental data from which theories and beliefs develop is wrong.

But put people in a place where they believe their thoughts are anonymous, truly believe the data they provide will not be traced back to them, then said people become more open and, well, more honest with what they are thinking.

Which is where Stephens-Davidowitz's data research idea came from, to use Google search data as a research source, and where many assumptions about what people are thinking can be debunked.

And the results are fascinating.

Stephens-Davidowitz provides a number of examples of "here's common knowledge, everyone knows this," and shows where, with big data, the "knowledge" is wrong. Either we aren't the same as when the knowledge was first determined, or it was declared as true based on something unknown, or simply accepted as true based on some voice of authority. Regardless of the source, the actual data, the actual numbers, show a different story, and that is the fascinating part.

Black Hole Blues

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 14:40 on 7 May 2018

When I joined the Caltech Alumni Book Club, I didn't realize what the theme of the book club would be. After this book and the last one, I can say with a good level of confidence that the theme is "has to do with Caltech." And really, that's expected and probably in the book club description that I didn't read when I joined ("A book club? SQUEEEEE! Join!"). The book club reads more slowly than I read, which is to say, more slowly than the maximum library checkout time, so I've been finishing these books faster than the book club. Not a great thing when I want to be participating in the book club.

Phew. That all said...

This book is, unsurprisingly, about the gravitational wave experiments, the people involved in it from the beginning, the stumbling blocks, the successes, and the failures. It's a great scientific tale that I enjoyed reading about.

That some of it occurred while I was AT Caltech reminds me of just how f---ing oblivious I was when I was at Tech, as well as how oblivious I must still be about my world. I want to believe I'm more aware, and more appeciative, of things around me. NO IDEA IF I AM.

That this book was published before LIGO succeeded is delightful. That LIGO succeeded is even more delighful. I enjoyed this book, enjoyed reading about people who love science as much as I do, and had the courage to pursue that love.

I recommend this book to anyone who has a slight interest in the biographical information about the LIGO project, black holes in particular, or science in general. Fun read.

Weapons of Math Destruction

Book Notes kitt decided around 14:42 on 3 May 2018 to publish this:

Okay, this book has been on my to-read list for a long while. I bought it I don't know when, with the intent of reading it, but it just lingered. When Suzanne said her session of the book club she and Bob are in, is reading it, and that the session would meet the Monday I'm there, well, I pulled out the book and started reading.

It was not what I was expected, which is fine, really, most books aren't quite what I was expecting. This one, however, caught me more off-guard than I was expecting. I thought this was a book describing the mathematics used in the different ways big-data affects society. Instead, it is a book describing the ways mathmatics is used in big data to disadvantage the already disadvantaged.

It is, at its core, a book about the growing unfairness of big-data in our lives. It is about the ways the poor are kept poor, the rich can stay rich, the powerful abuse their power, and society continues to stratify, all with the help of numbers and math and statistics and data.

The first session of the book club summed up the book as, "It reads like a novel, and is mostly about the unfairness of big-data, it's a social justice book." Bob commented, "Yep, we're done, I don't think there's anything else to talk about." I agree. The book was example after example of the ways big-data is problematic. The examples are important to know. I recommend the book.

Math provided a neat refuge from the messiness of the real world.
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I can understand this desire to leave the messiness for the beauty of mathematics.

Dark Money

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:43 on 27 April 2018

While I do have a reading goal this year of having one third of the books I read be non-fiction books, I was really planning on reading more science books than politics books. When Bob said this was one of the books he was reading for his local book club, I checked the library and was delighted that it had a short wait time for the book. The next day, I had the book. Unfortunately, I managed to finish it only just before arriving in Pasadena.

Reading this book is like talking with Dad about politics, which was interesting to me because I now understand where he gets the crap he spouts. I had commented to him a couple years ago that he doesn't have any original thought it in head, he parrots back whatever hate he's getting from somewhere without thinking through the unintented (or intended, actually) consequences of his ideas. Well, the political agenda this book chronicles is pretty much what Dad is parroting. Dad is the type of person the conservatives targetted with their hate. This book describes the origins of that hate, not the reasons for it, but how it came to be and how it grew into the abomination that it is.

Abomination? Is that the correct word to use? When you have 27 families in a country of 360,000,000 million people able to stop the government and services of said country, yeah, you have an abomination.

This was a hard book to read, mostly because I kept wanting to throw it against the wall. I wanted to participate in Bob's book club, though, so I kept reading.

It comes down to this: liberals fundamentally believe that everyone can govern themselves, conservatives believe only they can govern and everyone else should bow to them. It's a matter of trust.

Flat Broke With Two Goats

Book Notes kitt decided around 10:40 on 22 April 2018 to publish this:

This book was a Libby app Big Read, where pretty much every library on Libby (might have been all of them, might have been only five, my sample size is small) offered the book to read or listen to, regardless of the number of copies the library actually had. It was billed as a worldwide book club, with this as The Book.

I thought, uh, okay, sure, why not. I'm trying to have a quarter of my books this year be non-fiction, and this is a memoir, so, okay. I checked it out from the library, then was surprised when it was auto-returned for me less than two weeks later. Turns out, that was a glitch, and the book was back in my reading queue a day later.

I read it today and was entertained. The book is the arc of a woman going from the "typical" American suburban (not really) housewife to a level of acceptance and enlightenment of the world. While there is some level of "ehhhhhhh, how could you not know?" McGaha does comment many times that, yeah, she should have known, should have done this or that, probably this and probably that.

Included in most chapters are recipes related to goats, who don't appear until the end of the book, and there are mreo than two of them, or the topic in the chapter. While most of recipes weren't particularly interesting to me, the presentation and story around them were amusing.

This isn't a book I would normally pick up, and wouldn't have read if it weren't blasted in my face every time I loaded Libby on my phone (which would be blasted in my face 3-4 times a day), but it was a fun read. If you're stuck on a desert island, you could read this one multiple times and still be entertained.

NOT "Just Friends"

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:47 on 19 April 2018

This is a hard book review to write and a somewhat difficult book to admit to reading. People will make all sorts of assumptions about the book, about the topic, about people who must be involved if someone is reading this book, about me.

To which I would like to comment, you have it all wrong. If you don't believe you have it all wrong, then accept you have about 91% of it wrong, and you'd be 91% closer to being right.

This is a book about affairs, the infidelity kind not the state or paper kind. The book describes how they happen, how we don't recognize the slippery slope of relationships, how affairs differ in our society than they did from a century ago, how to recover from said infidelities, and how a relationship can survive.

The process isn't pretty, it isn't fast, and it isn't easy.

It is, apparently, doable.

I've read this book a couple times now. Please don't read more into the fact that I read it to assume anything. The book is about recognizing the differences between people, setting boundaries, understanding different approaches to relationships, and, let's admit it, accepting losses.

Those losses don't need to be physical object lossses, they can be the loss of youth, the loss of a love, the loss of opportunity for adventures, the loss of a fantasy of the perfect partner, the loss of a dream, the loss of comfort, the loss of trust, the loss of a belief about another person.

So many losses, but also opportunities for a better relationship with a chosen partner.

Emotional infidelity is a big part of this book and is part of affairs. It is nice to have someone who listens, who makes you feel like the most important person in the world. How sad that we don't all have that person, that we can't always be that person for the one we love most.

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