[lbo-talk] What are you reading now?

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Fri Sep 14 04:19:04 PDT 2007


On 9/12/07, John Adams <jadams01 at sprynet.com> wrote:
> Beautiful Evidence, by Edward Tufte (again, not assigned for class, but
> on topic and pure genius)

I like Tufte's ethical economics, right in the beginning of the book:

"Making an evidence presentation is a moral act as well as an

intellectual activity. To maintain standards of quality, relevance

and integrity for evidence, consumers of presentations should

insist that presenters be held intellectually and ethically

responsible for what they show and tell. Thus /consuming/ a

presentation is also an intellectual and a moral activity."

This was in the economic context of "producer and consumer" of evidence.

Speaking of him, I'm curious whether Christopher Alexander's _Nature of Order_ is worth reading... http://books.google.com/books?id=rVv9ylH5YHUC&pg=PP10&sig=Kx6Nh7pxTdaD79o1DckTh0dnOoI


> I just picked up and am anxious to start The Social Life of
> Information, by John Seely Brown (who signed this library copy!) and
> Paul Duguid

In-ter-esting...

Some books I've been looking at recently:

* The Professional Chef * Larousse Gastronomique * Hotel Management and Operations, Rutherford * Remembering Tomorrow - Albert * Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D.990-1990 - Tilly

Yeah, want to finally read the whole thing beyond what's available

from Google Books.

* What Is Mathematics, Really? - Hersh

In contrast to the platonist/formalist/intuitionist philsophical

views, this guy argues for the humanist view. An amazon reviewer

heatedly called it a "Political Manifesto of the radical

socialistic, liberal, 'modern' teacher's misconception of what it

means to teach." Cool!

* 18 Unconventional Essays on the Nature of Mathematics

http://books.google.com/books?id=ebKbDCbEI2gC&pg=PP1&dq=reuben+hersh&sig=eR5krLDc_ajjn5in_tWzd2_37Gs#PPP1,M1

'The authors are philosophers, mathematicians, a cognitive

scientist, an anthropologist, a computer scientist, and a couple

of sociologists. (Among the mathematicians are two Fields Prize

winners and two Steele Prize winners.) None are historians, I

regret to say, but there are two historically oriented articles.

These essays don't share any common program or ideology. The

standard for admission was:

'Nothing boring! Nothing trite, nothing trivial!

'Every essay is challenging, thought-provoking, and original.'

* The Mathematical Experience - Davis, Hersh * Apocalypse Array - Morehouse

I want to believe that I'll one day find a cyberpunk book I'll

enjoy. Trying my luck with this...

* Pattern Recognition - Theodoridis, Koutroumbas

People I work with are using this for a fairly ethically

questionable application.

* Guns, Germs and Steel - Diamond

I like Harry Potter, yet I'm suspicious of this book because of

the "hype"... Go figure.

Tayssir



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