Free Thought
jdupuis | December 11, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: San Francisco Chronicle Biographies, Essays, History, Nature, Architecture, Travel.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
South With the Sun…
jdupuis | December 10, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Sustainable Cities Collective Best Books 2011.
Landscapes in Landscapes by Piet Oudolf
The Altered Landscape: Photographs of a Changing Environment by Ann M. Wolfe
Field Notes from Science and Nature by Michael R. Canfield (Editor)…
jdupuis | December 9, 2011Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following:
New Statesman
Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris
Great Railway Maps of the World by Mark Ovenden
Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard LayardNational Book Award
Radioactive:…
jdupuis | December 8, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: The Independent Biography: Near-deaths and divine rebirths, History: Countries of the mind, Science & Nature: Planetary possibilities.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by…
jdupuis | December 5, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: The Guardian Books for giving: science, Biography, History, Nature.
Incoming!: or, Why We Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Meteorite by Ted Nield
Survivors: The Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind by Richard Fortey…
jdupuis | December 2, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Library Journal Business, Consumer Health, Sci-Tech.
In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Stephen Levy
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Book Collective
Your Medical Mind: How To Decide What Is…
jdupuis | December 1, 2011Another couple of lists for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following:
Indigo Best of 2011: Books
The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
Knocking On Heaven's Door: How…
jdupuis | November 30, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Booklist Online Biography, Environment, Business.
Galileo by John Heilbron
American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park; What Our Gardens Tell Us about Who We Are by Wade Graham
Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig,…
tlambert | November 29, 2011Deep Climate dissects Ross McKitrick's deceptive quoting from the emails stolen from CRU in 2009:
In one particularly outrageous and error-filled passage, McKitrick accuses IPCC AR4 co-ordinating lead authors Phil Jones and Kevin Trenberth of selecting their team of contributing authors solely on the basis of whether they agree with the pair's scientific views. He even goes so far as to accuse Jones of "dismissing" (i.e. rejecting as a contributing author) one qualified expert who, supposedly in Jones's own words, "has done a lot, but I don't trust him."
But the record clearly shows that it…
jdupuis | November 29, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: Boing Boing Gift Guide 2011.
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson
The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser
Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army &…
jdupuis | November 28, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: The Financial Times.
Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier by Edward Glaeser
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson
DarkMarket: CyberThieves, CyberCops…
jdupuis | November 28, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: The Globe 100.
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet by Tim Flannery
The…
jdupuis | November 24, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and isn't a science book…
jdupuis | November 23, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011.
The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son by Ian Brown
Destiny of the Republic: A…
jdupuis | November 22, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and isn't a science book…
jdupuis | November 18, 2011It is time. The season of lists begins!
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
From the beginning it's been a pretty popular service so I'm happy to continue it.
For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation…
jdupuis | November 10, 2011Welcome to the latest installment in my very occasional series of interviews with people in the scitech world. This time around the subject is Michael Nielsen, author of the recently published Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science and prolific speaker on the Open Science lecture circuit. A recent example of his public speaking is his TEDxWaterloo talk on Open Science.
You can follow his blog here and read his recent Wall Street Journal article, The New Einsteins Will Be Scientists Who Share.
I'd like to thank Michael for his provocative and insightful responses. Enjoy…
tlambert | November 7, 2011In a piece ironically titled "Be prudent with climate claims" (behind The Australian's paywall, search for the title if you want to read it) George Pell declares that, unlike him,
"many politicians have never investigated the primary evidence."
However, if you look at the sources he cites, you'll find that by "primary evidence" he means claims made by Monckton and Plimer, not peer-reviewed work by climate scientists. He only manages one cite to the IPCC reports and that is just to quote an out of context sentence to make it look like the IPCC as saying that climate is no more predictable…
stoat | November 1, 2011In Memoriam, John McCarthy.
Eeee, those were the days.
[Late update: I've just gone through and re-read that P3 post. To anyone who knows my style and mt's, its pretty obvious who wrote which bits. But anyway, I've found my original email so this was my version:
An appreciation of John McCarthy from sci.environment
Recently two major figures from computing have died: Dennis Ritchie (C) and John McCarthy (LISP). As far as I know, DR had nothing special to do with the environment, but John McCarthy was a denizen of the usenet group sci.environment in the days when usenet was the premier online…
jdupuis | September 27, 2011Computer science and computer science education are a couple of my evergreen topics here on this blog, as you can see by perusing the computer science tag.
And of course, my trip to Harvard for LIAL this past summer perhaps has that institution on my radar a bit more than usual.
So how wonderful is it to find a way to connect those two things?
Along comes Hacking Stereotypes by Steve Kolowich.
It's about a program called HackHarvard which is part of a series of efforts at Harvard to encourage technology entrepreneurship: and increase enrollments in their basic computing course,
HackHarvard,…