Reading List

A trip to a transnational bookseller yielded a variety of books for us today. I’ve been working through Collapse after having finished Guns, Germs and Steel. They both aren’t exactly light-reading, and at least so far have left me somewhat depressed for the future of humanity. But then so does watching the news segment of The Daily Show most days.

• A Brief History of Time
  Somehow we didn’t have a copy of this on the shelf anymore. This is the layman’s guide to 20^th century astrophysics. Apparently Eileen’s knowledge of physics is underappreciated by her coworkers and this book may help alleviate some of that.


• The Universe in a Nutshell
  A plain-spoken review of the big questions (circa 2001) about how the universe is put together. I think it may be worth looking for an equally plain-spoken guide to what’s changed in physics since the publication of the book somewhere on the internet.


• Marooned in Realtime
  The sequel to ”The Peace War” which I read and enjoyed in the last several months.


• Cryptonomicon
  The premise seems interesting and apparently I’m going to finally get around to reading this. This author (and this book in particular) is widely read among computer-oriented folks, so I should probably read it too. Baaa!


• The Statistical Analysis of Experimental Data
  This book has seemed to have a good review of statistical math with some example applications. My day-to-day work is starting to demand that I remember things that I haven’t used since the two weeks of the college course that covered it. The goal here is to help jog those 8 year old memories.


• Death March
  I saw this while browsing and it seemed applicable to every technology job I’ve held at one point or another and every software development group on one project or another. Having some understanding about how a locomotive works will instruct you on how best to keep from getting crushed by one, and if you’re smart (and lucky) how to make it a little bit better.