Amazons, Abolitionists and Activists

 Amazons, Abolitionists and Activists: A Graphic History of Women's Fight for Their Rights, Mikki Kendall and A. D'Amico, Ten Speed Press, 2019

In graphic novel form, this book presents the history of women's fight for their rights, from Ancient Egypt to the present.

Lady Xian of China is credited with ending human trafficking in southern China before she died in the year 602. She is still honored today. Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who died in 1204, was one of the most powerful rulers in British history. The Dahomey Amazons were an all-female regiment in what is now the Republic of Benin. Started in the 1600's, the regiment lasted until 1894. The book also explores slavery, the women's suffrage movement, the settlement house movement, Margaret Sanger and family planning, the Harlem Renaissance, Jim Crow, Japanese intermittent camps, etc., up to the present day.

This is a gem of a book. For any young person who has been exposed to real American history (more than what is taught in school) and wants to learn more, here is a wonderful place to start.

The Survival Guide for Christians Living In a Fallen World

 The Survival Guide for Christians Living In a Fallen World, Melvin Douglas Wilson, Yorkshire Publishing, 2021

These are difficult times to be a Christian. This book offers some ways to do something about it.

It all starts with the clergy sex abuse scandal (nothing more needs to be said). The author has noticed a rise in the number of rappers, and young people in general, who wear crosses around their necks. These people have little, or no, idea what the cross actually represents. The author has little use for people who consider the cross to be a fashion statement.

The number of Christian cults in America has been rising rapidly in recent years. They may say, and do, all the right things, like advocating equality for all, and helping the poor. Do they read from the Bible? Do they worship God? If not, head for the exit, as fast as you can.

The author gives a brief history of the Peoples Temple, run by Reverend Jim Jones. From the outside, it sounded very liberal and progressive. As time went on, the idea was to worship Jim Jones, not God. Jones learned how to exert nearly total control over the lives of his parishioners. Things ended very badly.

There is also a brief history of Mormonism. The author has nothing against the religion. There are many similarities with Christianity; there are also big differences. Wilson considers it to not be a Christian religion.

The book includes many Bible passages, and other things people can use to stay pointed toward God, when there are many temptations to go in another direction. Yes, this is very much worth the time.

Undercover Lion

 Undercover Lion, Antoinette George, Brangwyn Press, 2021

Part 2 of a series, this novel takes place in early 1800's England and France. Nicholas de Bresancourt is a French duke with no lands or manor house to his name. Living in England, he is an occasional spy against the French, under Napoleon Bonaparte.

Nicky is sent to Spain, to look for a very elusive French agent, who has been causing the British a lot of trouble. His name is Bernheim, a well-known, and very feared, name to Nicky and his adopted family. After several months of diligent searching, Nicky finds Him, and is able to severely disrupt his plans. Nicky almost dies, after being shot by Bernheim.

After months of recuperation, Nicky returns to England, and to Bella, his wife. He learns of Bella's secret identity (read Part 1), and sets new records for being angry. She loves him a lot more than he loves her. Nicky takes out his anger on Bella, sexually, several times.

Suddenly, Nicky travels to France, to see about getting his family's land back, and get his manor house rebuilt. Just as suddenly, he disappears, and no one knows where he is. Bella goes to Paris to look for him. Nicky is still not happy to see her. Bella seriously considers going back to England, when things get deadly serious.

Here is an excellent novel. After four books in a previous series, and two books in this series, there has been no lessening in the quality of the storytelling. There is lots of good writing, and this is very much recommended.

The History of the Future

 The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality, Blake J Harris, Dey St. Books, 2019

Over the past twenty or thirty years, virtual reality has become something of a joke. Many companies promised that they would be the one to make it a reality; all have failed. A California teenager named Palmer Luckey was determined to do something about it.

In 2012, he turned the trailer he was living in, sitting in his parents' driveway, into a VR workshop. Teaming up with legendary game designer John Carmack, early demos of the headset were very favorable. Gathering a colorful group of fellow employees, they decided on Oculus as a company name. Thus began the usual entrepreneurial journey of ups and downs. Reactions to the Oculus headset from those who tried it, continued to remain very favorable (the phrase "game changer" was a common reaction. Their Kickstarter campaign was very successful.

The company was eventually sold to Facebook for more than two billion dollars. The reaction of many in the hardcore gamer community was outright hostility. In 2016, Luckey did something very normal and reasonable (and very legal), but which created a public relations firestorm. Luckey became the most hated man in America. Things did not end well for him.

This is a wonderful book. For anyone who has ever dreamed of virtual reality, this is a must read. It also works very well as a purely business book. Maybe virtual reality's time has (finally) come. This is very highly recommended.

Artificial Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction

 Artificial Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction, Margaret A Boden, Oxford University Press, 2018

Many advances in artificial intelligence have been made over the past several years, starting with Siri and Alexa. This book gives the details.

The science of AI involves many other sciences, including neurophysiology, logic and psychology. A major problem is how to present a problem, or a question, to a computer in a way that the computer will understand. Another problem is how to show things like emotion and creativity. What is consciousness? Is intelligence more than just IQ or the Turing Test?

Robot designs have had better luck creating robots that resemble insects, with six or eight legs, than in creating robots that look human, with two legs. When is The Singularity coming? When is Skynet coming? The general answer from this book is: not anytime soon.

This is a very well done introduction to the world of artificial intelligence. Some of it gets rather technical, but most of it is good for the general reader. It is very much recommended for anyone who wants an introduction to AI. Veterans of the field might also learn a thing or two.

The Machine Murders

 The Machine Murders: Island Buoys, CJ Abazis, Publisto Ltd., 2021

Set on the Greek island of Mykonos, this novel is about a man named Manu Manos. He is Greek, and works for Interpol in Singapore. He is attending the destination wedding of his roommate from Stanford, and there is an international conference on criminology also happening on the island.

A dead body is found, underwater, killed in a particularly gruesome way. The local police are better at handling drunk tourists than investigating a murder. Manu becomes the official head of the investigation, even though he is more comfortable with data sets and probabilities than interrogating suspects. 

As Interpol's computers scour the world of social media, and start to reduce the suspect list, another body is found, and another. There is seemingly no connection between the victims. Manu is continuously in contact with Singapore, where, interestingly, a copycat killer is found.

Suddenly, Lena, Manu's girlfriend, and the bride, have disappeared. Can Manu find them before they get added to the victim list?

Here is a gem of a story. It has plenty of suspense, an exotic location and dead bodies. This will keep the reader reading long past bedtime. 

The Drive-In: The Bus Tour

 The Drive-In: The Bus Tour, Joe R. Lansdale, Subterranean Press, 2005

Part three of a series, this is about a group of people living at a drive-in theater after an unspecified apocalypse.

Their school bus has some gas in its tank, so some of them decide on a road trip to see if anyone else is out there. A very swollen river picks up the school bus, and deposits it in the ocean. Way off in the distance is what looks like a suspension bridge, like the Golden Gate Bridge. The current is slowly sending them in that direction. Before they can get there, the bus is swallowed by a giant catfish. 

The travelers find a group of humans living inside the catfish. The fish is partly artificial, like the builders didn't finish the job. The humans have also reverted to cannibalism. As the days go on, the travelers get the impression that the natives (for lack of a better word) are looking at them, not as friends or allies, but as lunch.

There are only two ways out of a giant fish, or other large animal. Going through the mouth means fighting their way past the natives. The travelers choose the alternate route. Do the travelers make it out of the fish alive? Is there to be a Part Four to this series?

Here is some serious horror, so this is not for the faint of heart. It's nice and weird, with lots of satire, and good writing. It is also full of poo, lots and lots of poo. For horror fans, this is very much worth the time

The Big Nine

 The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, Amy Webb, Public Affairs Books, 2019

This book is all about the present state of artificial intelligence (AI). It is a lot more than just Alexa and smart thermostats.

China has made no secret of its plan to be the world leader in AI in the next few years. They are spending hundreds of billions of dollars at it. They are also building alliances with countries all over the developing world that may be rich in natural resources, but have not much infrastructure. America's response is to cut federal funding for basic scientific research, walk away from international treaties and alliances, and build a wall to keep people out of America.

Despite all the talk about getting women into STEM fields, AI is still very much of a boy's club. The percentage of women in the field is pretty dismal, and, for people of color, the numbers are even worse. The author presents three scenarios for the future of AI. Does America "get it," and build international alliances, on the way to becoming the world leader? Does China become the world leader, and control or occupy, the whole world, including America?

What can America do about it? Get away from the requirement that a company like Google or Apple must release a new AI gadget each year, or the stock price plummets. It takes time to do AI properly. Colleges currently restrict AI students to just technical courses. It must be possible for students to do a double major, like AI and politics. Ethics should be a central part of the curriculum, not just a one-semester course.

This book is very easy to read for everyone, not just people in the AI field. This easily reaches the level of Required Reading, in the classroom and the boardroom. 

Supreme Damages: Rescuing Representative Government from Judicial Overreach

 Supreme Damages: Rescuing Representative Government from Judicial Overreach, Thurman Leonard Smith, Independently Published, 2021

For many years, there have been complaints about the US Supreme Court. Under conservative and liberal majorities, it has been accused of judicial overreach, or simply going too far. It's job is supposed to be to interpret existing law and the US Constitution. It is not supposed to make new laws. That's what this book is all about.

Roe v. Wade is here, along with Bush v. Gore. National Federation of Independent Business et al. v. Sebelius (the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act) is also here.

Have you ever wondered how children born on American soil, even if their parents are undocumented, can automatically become US citizens? That comes from a case called Plyler v. Doe.

If a state wants to change the law about public morality, for instance, the right way to do it is to go through the state legislature, or by holding a state-wide referendum. Using the courts is not the way to do it. Lawrence v. Texas, in 2003, legalized same-sex sexual activity. That led to 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage, nationwide.

The Comprehensive Crime Control Act allows law enforcement agencies to divide seized cash and other assets. The threshold for suspicion is extremely low, and encourages law enforcement to abuse the power. It's called civil asset forfeiture. In Bennis v. Michigan, a man had sex with a prostitute in the back of his car. The car was "guilty," so it, and not the owner, was punished (the car was forfeited).

This is a very interesting book. The author sticks to the facts as much as possible, chronicling the travels of a case through the legal system. For those whose only exposure to Supreme Court cases is through TV news reports. this book is well worth checking out.  

World of Engineering

 World of Engineering: Historical Development, Challenges and Strategies in Modern Society, Baruch Karp (et al.), Samuel Neaman Institute, 2021

The field of engineering (which covers many sub-fields) has two important aspects: science and design & art. This book also looks at the history of engineering, along with engineering at the present time.

Th science part is pretty self-explanatory. The design & art part comprises competencies like decision-making, creativity, societal considerations, self-learning and teamwork.

This book explores the missions of engineers during the lifetime of a system, sub-specializations that cross disciplines and the engineering hierarchy. Failure is a part of life in the engineering world. Did just one part fail, or was the whole system a bad idea? It's also important to learn from past experience. The book also looks the history of engineering education, from before the Scientific Revolution to the present day.

Here is a very specialized book. For anyone involved in the engineering world, whether student or actual engineer, this book is well worth checking out. For the average reader, well, maybe not. This book gets 4.5 stars.

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet

 Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, Claire L Evans, Portfolio/Penguin, 2018

The history of computers has always thought to be full of men doing amazing things. This book shows that plenty of women were involved, from the beginning.

Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper make appearances in this book, along with the "ENIAC Six." They were six women who did the actual "programming" of ENIAC, housed at the University of Pennsylvania, in the mid-1940s. It involved actually moving, and reconnecting, sections of the room-sized computer for each new computation. During the war, a computer was a woman who sat at a table and computed ballistics trajectories by hand. There was no ENIAC manual to consult, so they got very good at knowing how it worked. They also got none of the public credit. After the war, the women, plus Hopper, moved to the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, the world's first big computer company. After a few years of being very busy, financial problems forced the company to sell itself to another company. Remington-Rand made business machines and didn't know what to do with computers (or these free-thinking women). Things did not end well for the women.

In 1980s New York City, Stacy Horn loved connecting to the WELL, the famous West Coast BBS (bulletin board system). But the long-distance phone bills were getting out of hand. So she started ECHO, one of the first social networks, out of her apartment. 

Girls like playing computer games just as much as boys (perhaps with less emphasis on death and explosions). Some game manufacturers noticed, and tried to take advantage of this untapped market.

This is an excellent book. It expertly punches holes in the all-male mythology of Silicon Valley. For anyone interested in how the future is really made, start here. 

A People's History of Computing in the United States

 A People's History of Computing in the United States, Joy Lisi Rankin, Harvard University Press, 2018

Long before the days of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, America had an active computer culture centered around academic computing. This book tells the story.

In the 1960s, computer usage involved batch processing. A person would type a program on punch cards, hand them to an operator, and wait several hours, or overnight, for the result. At Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, time-sharing made it possible for for multiple terminals, actually teletype machine, to interact with the computer, a GE mainframe, at the same time. A person could now get their answer in minutes, instead of hours. The network grew to include colleges and all-male prep schools all over New England. The BASIC computer language was developed to give the average person the ability to actually do computer programming. 

Minnesota was already familiar with computers, being the home of corporations like Honeywell and Control Data. Starting with a connection to the Dartmouth computer, a state-wise high school and college computer system was developed. It was started by using a mainframe owned by the Pillsbury Corporation.

While the system that became ARPANET was having compatibility problems, a parallel system called PLATO, centered at the University of Illinois, was humming along quite nicely. It had terminals with working touch screens. It also had all the elements of a present-day online community, including email, file sharing, computer games, flame wars and gender discrimination.

This book shows that there is a big difference between a history of computing and a history of computers. It is very easy to read and understand. It is also eye-opening in that it shows that the stereotype of computers being an all-male field is not accurate. This is very much worth reading.

Weapons of Math Destruction

 Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, Cathy O'Neil, Crown Publishing, 2016

Big data and algorithms are supposed to be the "savior" of our modern world. With them, a corporation, or a government, is supposed to be able to measure and analyze nearly anything. What if those algorithms are very flawed?

Among the suggestions to fix American education is to get rid of bad teachers. Standardized test scores are one way to find those bad teachers. What if the students didn't learn the basics of math, for instance, in a lower grade? What if the teachers in that lower grade blatantly corrected the standardized tests, before submitting them, to make themselves look better? If the test scores for a class are not as good as the algorithm predicted, then that teacher is out the door.

Crime prediction software sounds like a godsend to cash-strapped police departments. Why not concentrate resources in areas where there is predicted to be a better chance of crime, instead of everywhere? If the police department includes "nuisance" crime, like underage drinking or pot smoking in public, the algorithm will send units to that neighborhood on an increased basis. If it happens to be a minority neighborhood, and is otherwise law-abiding, the residents can expect more incidences of "stop and frisk." Again, changing that algorithm is not possible. 

At work, it is not possible to change the algorithm that makes the schedule for the employees because this person has transportation issues or that person has child care issues. "Clopening" is when an employee of Starbucks, for instance, closes the store at 11 PM, then has to return in a few hours to open up the next morning, and work a full shift. 

Algorithms have their good and bad parts. The biggest bad part is that there is no way to change them, and get them to conform to the real world. Written by a data scientist, this book is a big eye-opener and is very much worth reading.