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Books I loved reading this year

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Re: Books I loved reading this year

#51

Post by cridenour »

fernandotakai wrote: post #42
adamgordonbell wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Hail Mary was so good. I loved The Martian but Artemis not as much. By that measure Project Hail Mary was a return to form. It was just a fun, breezy read that hit the problem solving part of my brain in just the right way, but with a different angle on things than "The Martian".

project hail mary's audiobook is the best audiobook i've ever listened to. it's.... incredible. they adapted parts of the book that were kind of hard to "get" perfectly (and for people that read it, i think you know what i mean). i totally recommend it.

Yea when they added that element I first assumed my Airpods were dying or Audible was broke. Really loved it in the end.

Re: Books I loved reading this year

#52

Post by BoiledCabbage »

criddell wrote: post #31
localhost wrote: post #14

I was disappointed by A Thousand Brains. The last part of the book veered into ... I don't really know. On the other hand, I loved Jeff Hawkins' earlier book on this topic: On Intelligence [1]. It's easily one of the top 5 books that I've read and the first part of A Thousand Brains recaps much of that work, so still relevant today according to the author. [1] https://numenta.com/resources/on-intelligence/

How well regarded is the Numenta software regarded in the AI community?

It seemed like the ideas from On Intelligence were ahead of their time. I'm surprised it never seemed to pan out into anything industry leading (at least as far as I can tell).

Did it just not get enough eyes and resources? Was it a flawed premise? I'd be curious to know more.

Re: Books I loved reading this year

#53

Post by reggieband »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #30
rememberlenny wrote: post #25

- List for the lazy - A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir.

Project Hail Mary was so good. I loved The Martian but Artemis not as much. By that measure Project Hail Mary was a return to form. It was just a fun, breezy read that hit the problem solving part of my brain in just the right way, but with a different angle on things than "The Martian".

I was going through goodreads yesterday and came across my review of The Martian there. I gave it 5 stars because I use what I understand is the Roger Ebert style of rating. The Martian is imperfect, pulpy and at times a bit over sentimental. But it succeeds at exactly what it sets out to achieve. It isn't Dostoevsky or Proust but it isn't trying to be. It made me laugh, kept me engaged and turning pages. It made me think, this situation is impossible but if it was possible then this is about as realistic as I could expect a novel to portray. In exchange for suspending my disbelief it gave me an enjoyable diversion.

All that to say, if Project Hail Mary is equivalent to that, it is going on my to read list.

Re: Books I loved reading this year

#54

Post by chestertn »

CrazyStat wrote: post #43
chestertn wrote: post #24

> The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. The Nobel prize should have gone to Francis Mojica. Of course, he does not have all the PR machine that Doudna has, the futuristic TED talks and all.

Why? Mojica did important work on CRISPR, yes, but Doudna and Charpentier were the ones who showed how to use it as a DNA editing tool, without which very few people would care about it.

He did not just "do important work". He discovered and described the CRISPR mechanism. Without CRISPR, there is no CRISPR-cas9.

> showed how to use it as a DNA editing tool

Don't we care about basic research anymore?

Re: Books I loved reading this year

#55

Post by hyperbovine »

davemp wrote: post #39
greedo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, MS no longer controls computing in the business world? Show me a Fortune 1000 company that doesn't use MS extensively.

Google?

I'd hazard a guess there are thousands of machines running Windows to be found somewhere within Google--they write plenty of software for that platform after all, and most on the sales/biz side are going to be trained on it too. Plus a lot of engineers using VSCode. MSFT also own GitHub, and, well, https://github.com/google. Same goes for pretty much all companies listed in the sibling comments as well.

Re: Books I loved reading this year

#57

Post by pchristensen »

reggieband wrote: post #53
adamgordonbell wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Hail Mary was so good. I loved The Martian but Artemis not as much. By that measure Project Hail Mary was a return to form. It was just a fun, breezy read that hit the problem solving part of my brain in just the right way, but with a different angle on things than "The Martian".

I was going through goodreads yesterday and came across my review of The Martian there. I gave it 5 stars because I use what I understand is the Roger Ebert style of rating. The Martian is imperfect, pulpy and at times a bit over sentimental. But it succeeds at exactly what it sets out to achieve. It isn't Dostoevsky or Proust but it isn't trying to be. It made me laugh, kept me engaged and turning pages. It made me…

It is, very much so.

Re: Books I loved reading this year

#58

Post by pchristensen »

fernandotakai wrote: post #42
adamgordonbell wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Hail Mary was so good. I loved The Martian but Artemis not as much. By that measure Project Hail Mary was a return to form. It was just a fun, breezy read that hit the problem solving part of my brain in just the right way, but with a different angle on things than "The Martian".

project hail mary's audiobook is the best audiobook i've ever listened to. it's.... incredible. they adapted parts of the book that were kind of hard to "get" perfectly (and for people that read it, i think you know what i mean). i totally recommend it.

I listened to Audible, and that made me wonder how effective it would be in the book, or how it would be written in the book at all.

+1 for Audible.

Re: Books I loved reading this year

#59

Post by 0xFACEFEED »

talor_a wrote: post #40
adamgordonbell wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Hail Mary was so good. I loved The Martian but Artemis not as much. By that measure Project Hail Mary was a return to form. It was just a fun, breezy read that hit the problem solving part of my brain in just the right way, but with a different angle on things than "The Martian".

artemis was disappointing, Weir seems like he has no idea how to write a female protagonist. this was my introduction to his work, seeing that others feel the same way makes me think it was probably just the wrong pick and I should try his other books.

Project Hail Mary is worth a read. Totally different vibe.

It felt like he was trying to do something very different with Artemis and failed. I rarely have to put a book down but I just couldn't finish Artemis. The whole scene with the "strong" cop holding her down had my eyes rolling so hard they almost got stuck.

Re: Books I loved reading this year

#60

Post by 0xFACEFEED »

gwbas1c wrote: post #13

I partially liked Hail Mary. Most of the book was good, but I found Eva's character too hard to suspend my disbelief. IMO, I found her character "lazy" on Weir's part. I wish he tried a little harder to make her easier to believe as a real person.

Agree, but Weir isn't very good at writing women. I'm glad that he kept her character relatively simple and as a sort of driver for the narrative. Had he attempted adding more depth she'd end up in a cringey love triangle or something.
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