This book was a great overview of the basics of economics. It covered really well microeconomics, macroeconomics, and the players in economic policy. If you want a full overview of economics I would strongly recommend this book. It has a lot of really well done examples and thought experiments.
This was a fantastic listen for both the storytelling aspects of the lectures themselves, and for the information they convey. The ways in which one can captivate an audience are very well explained and demonstrated. Even without seeing her you know that she is really into the story and making it come alive. That is the biggest thing that she stresses constantly is that the story should be alive to the person telling it so that it can be alive to the people hearing it. There are many ways that you can make it more alive like adding voices, and the pacing you choose at specific points, breaking into character dialog instead of explanation, and visa versa. I’ll have to listen to this one again when I find the time before I tell a story in front of a large group.
This person has a very different view of science than most scientists I’ve known. I think this is because he likes including more of what he does in the category of being science. By his definition a lot more of art can be put into the category of science than I believe should be. Working in the ‘soft’ sciences will do this, as much of what is trying to be shown is not universal laws, but instead deal with conventions and labels. It is hard to describe the difference in a hard way, but politics would be another good example of something that follows a method, but isn’t science. Same can be said for law and ethics.
The book is fantastic at breaking down the history of psychology and how some of the different theories are flawed when you take them to their ultimate conclusions. This is very similar to what can be done with many ethical positions. Even though I don’t agree with everything said in the book, I agree with most of what it implies. I like to think that thinking has more to it than an electro-chemical process. I like to think that I am; not that I am just a mass of mainly carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, with other things mixed in, that happens to be doing what I’m doing.
This lecture series I finished a while ago and never got around to posting about it since I was getting busy and distracted. I enjoyed most of what was said in this book. The series of books I’ve read have built up well, with logic, argumentation, and communication. There was a lot of repitition of concepts from the other books in this one, but it was taken in a new light. Instead of trying to win arguments you were trying to steer conversations. I like this approach much better than the previous ones, and I think it is more applicable in everyday situations. A lot of what is described can be summmarized as just talking to persons, not talking to people.
I had a great time listening to this. It was in a very different direction than Your Deceptive Mind. This was about using the biases and heuristics, along with controlling the conversation. This had a lot more to do with situations where there isn’t Truth but only truth. What I mean by that is this deals with situations where there is uncertainty. It is a really interesting listen.
This was amazing. I got to hear a full explanation of something that I’ve been hearing about for years on Skeptic’s Guide from the host himself. Steven Novella is the man. I really like the way he explained the biases, heuristics, and logical fallacies. He does a good job of explaining how you can avoid the fallacies for yourself.
If there is one issue with the series it is that there is no good explanation on how to get other people to avoid these biases. I guess the point is to just introduce them to this series and have them learn for themselves.
Wow. This book was one of the most confusing, entertaining, frustrating, and comical books I’ve ever read. I’m going to look for a film version of it. The humor is exactly along the same lines as the movie Airplane, and 10 times more than that. I had such a great time listening to it, although I’m sad at how much death there is. I think that is part of the intention of the book is to have the twisted, but logical lookout on life. It is hard to do that without some death. All of the crazy situations in the book follow perfect logical sense, but the premises on which they are based are just slightly off. I’m not sure exactly what the point of the book was, since there was a ton of twisted logic and weird scenarios to think about, but I can now say that I’m 100% sure what a catch-22 situation is.
This book was a great representation of what I experienced at Startup Weekend when I won the gaming vertical in Mega Startup Weekend. There is only one thing they don’t really talk about, and that is how the people you meet and get along with in 54 hours may not be people you get along with in longer term settings. In my case it was a little bit of that combined with the person I started the weekend with not putting me as a founder, but as the first employee. It was a little disheartening; especially since he didn’t officially tell me that until nearly a month and a half later. I did learn a ton in the experience, both worldly knowledge and technical skills. I might even go to another startup weekend event.
I really like the story of this book, but was expecting more of a how to than a long narrative. There was a ton of advice that came from lots of sources in the book, but none of it was distilled to be useful directly in my situation. I think I’d like to give applying to Y-Combinator another go for the upcoming session, but I’m not sure if any of the people I would want to work with are up for that kind of adventure and life investment.
It's an Exciting World 