This book’s full title is Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History and Civilization. He has his own we website. He has put lots of information about this book there.
I found this book interesting. However, he does not always get his history right. After I saw some mistakes, I decided to note the next one. He said (page 297 my copy) that rulers in Delhi converted to Islam, but India was conquered by the Islamic Mughals. Just little things, but annoying. I do know a lot of history as I read a lot of history.
He talks about the 4 stages of literature. The first stage was dominated by small groups of scribes who mastered a difficult writing system and control the texts they assembled. In the second stage there were charismatic teachers such as Buddha, Socrates, and Jesus whose followers developed news styles of writing. In the third stage individual authors emerged supported by innovations that made access to writing easier, such as Lady Murasaki in Japan and Cervantes in Spain. The fourth stage made use of the widespread use of paper and print and ushered in an era of mass production and mass literacy with newspapers and broadsides.
There are a lot of interesting reviews of this book on Good Reads. There is a short description of this book on Kirkus. There is a podcast at Harvard Edu with an interview of Martin Puchner by Robin Kelsey. On the Writ Large site, Zachary Davis interviews Martin Puchner about his book. There is a podcast and the script from the podcast.
Martin Puchner explains the History of the Written World on YouTube for Cambridge Forum. He starts speaking at 1.14 minutes in to almost 40 minutes. I found interesting is the discussion on Charismatic teachers that appeared in writing cultures, but these teachers did not write. Their student did write what that said later. These teachers appear around the same time and they included Buddha in India, Confucius in China, Socrates in Greece, and Jesus in the Near East. Here Kameel Masr interviews Martin Puchner and this is sponsored by the Curiosity Foundation. Martin Puchner is interviewed at Harvard by Miles Osgood. This is shorter at some 14 minutes.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Friday, May 14, 2021
Friday, April 9, 2021
Machine Platform Crowd by McAfee and Brynjolfsson
This book’s full title is Machine Platform Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson. There are three separate subjects of machines (i.e., computers),
Machine is talks about cheap and powerful computing and AI. Computers are expanding their capabilities. For example, they can now beat in the game of Go. Platform is about network platforms. Examples are Uber and Airbnb. The third section is about crowdsourcing. You can crowd source to do work or for funding. If you want to catch up on what is going on in the Tech world, this book might be for you.
Daniel Patton on YouTube reviews this book. He was not very pleased with it. Madanmohan Rao on Your Story writes a long and more positive review of this book. Wang Xiwen Wendy Medium also does a longest review and is pleased with this book.
Machine, Platform, Crowd with Erik Brynjolfsson talks on YouTube. This is a short video of under 10 minutes and a great overview of this book. Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee speak at Google. Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee speak at MIT under the MIT Sloan Expert Series. They are interviewed by Rebecca Knight. This 30 minutes session is the most interesting one.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Machine is talks about cheap and powerful computing and AI. Computers are expanding their capabilities. For example, they can now beat in the game of Go. Platform is about network platforms. Examples are Uber and Airbnb. The third section is about crowdsourcing. You can crowd source to do work or for funding. If you want to catch up on what is going on in the Tech world, this book might be for you.
Daniel Patton on YouTube reviews this book. He was not very pleased with it. Madanmohan Rao on Your Story writes a long and more positive review of this book. Wang Xiwen Wendy Medium also does a longest review and is pleased with this book.
Machine, Platform, Crowd with Erik Brynjolfsson talks on YouTube. This is a short video of under 10 minutes and a great overview of this book. Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee speak at Google. Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee speak at MIT under the MIT Sloan Expert Series. They are interviewed by Rebecca Knight. This 30 minutes session is the most interesting one.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Friday, March 5, 2021
Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robinson
This book’s full title is Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. This is a great book and quite insightful. I very much like the idea that inclusiveness works. I am an old fashion liberal, a capitalist and a strong believer in the rule of law.
Basically, this book puts forward to the idea that the successful nation are inclusive nations. The includes both economic and political inclusiveness. The more inclusive a nation is the better it is for all the people of the nation. In inclusive nations, everyone gets a chance to rise to elite status. You never know where the next great ideas or next great leader could come from.
I live in Canada, a land of immigrants. Sometimes we have been more or less accepting of new immigrants and sometimes we have been incredibly awful to new immigrants. What we need to realize is that we would all be better off if everyone got a chance to contribute to our society. We put too many people in jail, especially from minority groups and natives. And, even though our last liberal provincial government throw a lot of money at education, we still have poor schools in poor areas.
There is a lot we need to fix. However, I am still grateful that I live in a country like Canada. We are quite provincial, but we do generally live a good life. We have a diverse population, which is our greatest strength. However, I do not think we use this strength as best as we could.
The authors also believe in “creative destruction”. This is a process in which industry continuously destroy the current industries and incessantly create new ones. There is an article on Wikipedia about this subject. I know a number of reviewers had problems with this book. See Randal Samstag’s long review on Good Reads, I must admit I greatly enjoyed reading this book and I think that their main points about inclusivity is good.
This book has its own Wikipedia page. It is very long, but worthwhile reading, or worthwhile reading parts, especially some of the criticism near the bottom of the article. There is a much shorter and very good review of the book by Warren Bass at the Washington Post. There are some really good reviews on Good Reads.
Daron Acemoglu gives a short overview of this book at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) . James Robinson at Ted Talks talks about this book. There is a speech by James Robinson at Carnegie Middle East Centers in Lebanon. Daron Acemoglu discusses Why Nations Fail at MIT Center for International Studies. Q&A starts about 45 to 46 minutes into this video. Daron Acemoglu discusses Why Nations Fail at The Cato Institute. The second lecture is shorter version of the one at MIT.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Basically, this book puts forward to the idea that the successful nation are inclusive nations. The includes both economic and political inclusiveness. The more inclusive a nation is the better it is for all the people of the nation. In inclusive nations, everyone gets a chance to rise to elite status. You never know where the next great ideas or next great leader could come from.
I live in Canada, a land of immigrants. Sometimes we have been more or less accepting of new immigrants and sometimes we have been incredibly awful to new immigrants. What we need to realize is that we would all be better off if everyone got a chance to contribute to our society. We put too many people in jail, especially from minority groups and natives. And, even though our last liberal provincial government throw a lot of money at education, we still have poor schools in poor areas.
There is a lot we need to fix. However, I am still grateful that I live in a country like Canada. We are quite provincial, but we do generally live a good life. We have a diverse population, which is our greatest strength. However, I do not think we use this strength as best as we could.
The authors also believe in “creative destruction”. This is a process in which industry continuously destroy the current industries and incessantly create new ones. There is an article on Wikipedia about this subject. I know a number of reviewers had problems with this book. See Randal Samstag’s long review on Good Reads, I must admit I greatly enjoyed reading this book and I think that their main points about inclusivity is good.
This book has its own Wikipedia page. It is very long, but worthwhile reading, or worthwhile reading parts, especially some of the criticism near the bottom of the article. There is a much shorter and very good review of the book by Warren Bass at the Washington Post. There are some really good reviews on Good Reads.
Daron Acemoglu gives a short overview of this book at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) . James Robinson at Ted Talks talks about this book. There is a speech by James Robinson at Carnegie Middle East Centers in Lebanon. Daron Acemoglu discusses Why Nations Fail at MIT Center for International Studies. Q&A starts about 45 to 46 minutes into this video. Daron Acemoglu discusses Why Nations Fail at The Cato Institute. The second lecture is shorter version of the one at MIT.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Murdered Midas by Charlotte Gray
This book’s full title is Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise. It is a Biography of Harry Oates. I do not often read biographies. I am not much interested in them. However, Charlotte Gray spoke at one of the Meet the Author breakfasts held by Ben McNally Book Shop at the King Eddie. Because of her talks I bought the book and found it quite fascinating.
This book is a great way to learn a bit about Canadian History. I read a lot of history, but little about Ontario, the province where I live. There has been little written about it as far as I can see, so I was quite interested in this, especially in the history of Kirkland Lake. My father’s family came from Switzerland in the 1880’s and settle into farm life just south of North Bay. Some of the family spread out farther north into Kirkland Lake, Long Lac and Thunder Bay. This book contains some history of Kirkland Lake, New Ontario, Niagara Falls and Bahamas.
I had never heard to Harry Oakes before I heard Charlotte Gray speak at the Ben McNally breakfast. I found her talk very interesting and that is why I bought the book. I also very much enjoyed the interview she had with Steven Paikin on The Agenda and there is a link to that below.
There is a review of this book by John Law on The Standard of St. Catherine. Another review is by Megan Moore Burns on Quill and Quire. Sharon Hanna on the Canadian History site compares this book to the Missing Millionaire by Katie Daubs. It is an interesting comparison.
There is a great interview by Steve Paikin on The Agenda of TVO. Charlotte Gray on her book "Murdered Midas talks on the St. Campus of U of T. Charlotte Gray reads from her book on YouTube. This is a short but interesting video. Charlotte Gray is interviewed in Niagara Falls.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
This book is a great way to learn a bit about Canadian History. I read a lot of history, but little about Ontario, the province where I live. There has been little written about it as far as I can see, so I was quite interested in this, especially in the history of Kirkland Lake. My father’s family came from Switzerland in the 1880’s and settle into farm life just south of North Bay. Some of the family spread out farther north into Kirkland Lake, Long Lac and Thunder Bay. This book contains some history of Kirkland Lake, New Ontario, Niagara Falls and Bahamas.
I had never heard to Harry Oakes before I heard Charlotte Gray speak at the Ben McNally breakfast. I found her talk very interesting and that is why I bought the book. I also very much enjoyed the interview she had with Steven Paikin on The Agenda and there is a link to that below.
There is a review of this book by John Law on The Standard of St. Catherine. Another review is by Megan Moore Burns on Quill and Quire. Sharon Hanna on the Canadian History site compares this book to the Missing Millionaire by Katie Daubs. It is an interesting comparison.
There is a great interview by Steve Paikin on The Agenda of TVO. Charlotte Gray on her book "Murdered Midas talks on the St. Campus of U of T. Charlotte Gray reads from her book on YouTube. This is a short but interesting video. Charlotte Gray is interviewed in Niagara Falls.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Friday, January 15, 2021
The Money Plot by Frederick Kaufman
This book’s full title is The Money Plot: A History of Currency's Power to Enchant, Control, and Manipulate. A wild romp through mankind’s history with currency. It is how money is about storytelling. The book covers mostly a western story but it is enchanting.
It is fun to read for all the references and words I had to look up, like metonymy, catachresis and anagogical. It sort of comes down to money is what we say it is. And by the way, this is not an investment book. However, you might understand things like Bitcoin better. It is interesting that the reviews that are on the negative side all come from finance and views on the positive side do not. Just saying.
David E. Spiro does a great review of this book on New York Journal of Books. There is a good review also on Kirkus Reviews. Joel Schlesinger at Winnipeg Free Press does a great review. This is the best review as he seems to understand this book better than other reviewers.
A talk by Frederick Kaufman called The measure of all Things: Sustainability, is at Ted Talks. Nick Licata interviews Frederick Kaufman at Elliott Bay Book Company. The interview ends at around 35 minutes and then you start to get questions from the audience. It is worthwhile seeing this until the end although it is over an hour. Fred Kaufman is interviewed by Charlotte MacLeod on Investing New Network. This is a shorter (25 minutes) interesting interview and it is interesting as it is an investment approach rather than the approach on Elliot Bay Book Company which approaches the book from the English Literature angle.
Fred Kaufman does a presentation for Georgia Center for the Book. The presentation starts at 2:50 minutes and goes to 40 minutes. Then there are questions from the moderator, Joe Davich and questions sent in. This is a good video as Frederick Kaufman talks about the origins of money with illustrations from his computer.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
It is fun to read for all the references and words I had to look up, like metonymy, catachresis and anagogical. It sort of comes down to money is what we say it is. And by the way, this is not an investment book. However, you might understand things like Bitcoin better. It is interesting that the reviews that are on the negative side all come from finance and views on the positive side do not. Just saying.
David E. Spiro does a great review of this book on New York Journal of Books. There is a good review also on Kirkus Reviews. Joel Schlesinger at Winnipeg Free Press does a great review. This is the best review as he seems to understand this book better than other reviewers.
A talk by Frederick Kaufman called The measure of all Things: Sustainability, is at Ted Talks. Nick Licata interviews Frederick Kaufman at Elliott Bay Book Company. The interview ends at around 35 minutes and then you start to get questions from the audience. It is worthwhile seeing this until the end although it is over an hour. Fred Kaufman is interviewed by Charlotte MacLeod on Investing New Network. This is a shorter (25 minutes) interesting interview and it is interesting as it is an investment approach rather than the approach on Elliot Bay Book Company which approaches the book from the English Literature angle.
Fred Kaufman does a presentation for Georgia Center for the Book. The presentation starts at 2:50 minutes and goes to 40 minutes. Then there are questions from the moderator, Joe Davich and questions sent in. This is a good video as Frederick Kaufman talks about the origins of money with illustrations from his computer.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
The Wake by Linden MacIntyre
This book’s full title is The Wake: The deadly Legacy of a Newfoundland Tsunami. I have read a lot of history, but I must admit I have read little about Newfoundland. This book was an eye opener into some of the history of the Island. This is a vivid and heartbreaking story from this island. It was well written and interesting to read. Of course, like a lot of other people, I saw the play, Come from Away.
This book is about ghastly stores from Newfoundland of a tsunami, rescue at sea, and cancer from mining, with awful and uncaring government that was falling apart and an American false savior by the name of Walter Seibert. I had heard about the rescue at sea of American sailors in 1942. However, all the other stories were new to me.
There is a great review on Words Pages Books by the website’s owner Monika. There is a brief review on TLS by Nathan Greenfield. There is another review on The Girly Book Club by Michaela Keegan. There is a short written interview of Linden MacIntyre on Zoomer.
On Bookshelf there is a short interview with Linden MacIntyre about this book. There is also a short video about the 1929 Tsunami at Burin Peninsula. Linden MacIntyre gives a Key Note speech at St. Francis Xavier. Linden MacIntyre talks on Fifth Estate . Linden MacIntyre talks on CBC.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
This book is about ghastly stores from Newfoundland of a tsunami, rescue at sea, and cancer from mining, with awful and uncaring government that was falling apart and an American false savior by the name of Walter Seibert. I had heard about the rescue at sea of American sailors in 1942. However, all the other stories were new to me.
There is a great review on Words Pages Books by the website’s owner Monika. There is a brief review on TLS by Nathan Greenfield. There is another review on The Girly Book Club by Michaela Keegan. There is a short written interview of Linden MacIntyre on Zoomer.
On Bookshelf there is a short interview with Linden MacIntyre about this book. There is also a short video about the 1929 Tsunami at Burin Peninsula. Linden MacIntyre gives a Key Note speech at St. Francis Xavier. Linden MacIntyre talks on Fifth Estate . Linden MacIntyre talks on CBC.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Monday, December 7, 2020
The Great Rupture by Viktor Shvets
This book’s full title is The Great Rupture: Three Empires, Four Turning Points, and the Future of Humanity. Do we need to be Free? He has a web site here that you can explore. You can explore the major themes of the book. If you find this interesting, you might want to get the book to read.
The site Book Authority list this book as one of the 16 Best New Economic Development Books To Read In 2021. The site The Capital Spectator features this book and other economic books.
This book is rather depressing in the end as he thinks that we do not need to be free. The West will end up like China. 1984 here we come. We here in Canada, the US and EU all seem to be going left and socialist. However, Margaret Thatcher was right. Socialism only last as long as there is other people’s money to spend. Politian’s are all talking about taxing the rich to pay for all our desires. This will end badly.
Only the Nordic counties have a form of socialism that works. But everyone pays a large part of their earnings. The Nordics are also quite capitalistic. They have little in the way of corruption. On the other hand, Canada, US, and EU are filled with extractive elites. We also have huge tech companies that are sucking every last bit of data they can from us to monetize.
He thinks that AI will make it possible to control markets better than a free market system or capitalism. I worked with computers my whole adult life and any AI so far is just algorithms. Any AI will take process to a logical conclusion. AI will never think that just because they can do something should they? AI with Algorithms will never question their answers as to whether they make any sense. They could come up with stupid answers and never know that. Stupid answers are something a human can easily recognize. At least we are good at that. However, under communism people would not dare say anything the party thought up was stupid, so we may have that problem with AI. Sounds like this is what is happening in China currently.
Of course, the future is going to be different than the past. It has always been that way. I understand where he is going because of the changes our current technology is making in our lives. However, he paints a very bleak picture of our future and I do not believe that. However, we should be thinking about the future and how we will handle and adapt to a future of technology that is coming. Trying to deny new technology has not worked in the past and will not work now.
He paints a good picture of the past history and how we ended up where we are. Why certain countries are ahead. This will give you a great economic view of why the west is currently ahead. This book is well worth reading for this coverage of the past. The future is harder to know. We are going ahead to a very different future. He wonders if non-western cultures are better suited to our coming future. It is an interesting question. Whatever happens, we are certainly in for turmoil and disruptions with the new technology coming in the future.
There is a good review of this book on African Eye Report. There is a post on this book by John Aidan Byrne on GRIPT. This includes a review of the book and a podcast interview with Viktor Shvets. Alan Kohler at Eureka Report interviews Viktor Shvets. This is a podcast, plus also they show the full podcast in print. On the John Tread Gold website there is an review of this book and a interview podcast with Viktor Shvets.
There is an interview with Viktor Shvets by Gareth Vaughan on Interest. This is a good interview and Viktor Shvets views of the future is not so bleak. Viktor Shvets is interviewed on BNN. This is from August 2019. Viktor Shvets is part of the Macquarie Group, a Sydney-based investment bank. He is Managing Director at Macquarie Securities in Hong Kong. On Hamilton Wealth Partners Viktor Shvets speaks about his book through the Though Leaders Series.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
The site Book Authority list this book as one of the 16 Best New Economic Development Books To Read In 2021. The site The Capital Spectator features this book and other economic books.
This book is rather depressing in the end as he thinks that we do not need to be free. The West will end up like China. 1984 here we come. We here in Canada, the US and EU all seem to be going left and socialist. However, Margaret Thatcher was right. Socialism only last as long as there is other people’s money to spend. Politian’s are all talking about taxing the rich to pay for all our desires. This will end badly.
Only the Nordic counties have a form of socialism that works. But everyone pays a large part of their earnings. The Nordics are also quite capitalistic. They have little in the way of corruption. On the other hand, Canada, US, and EU are filled with extractive elites. We also have huge tech companies that are sucking every last bit of data they can from us to monetize.
He thinks that AI will make it possible to control markets better than a free market system or capitalism. I worked with computers my whole adult life and any AI so far is just algorithms. Any AI will take process to a logical conclusion. AI will never think that just because they can do something should they? AI with Algorithms will never question their answers as to whether they make any sense. They could come up with stupid answers and never know that. Stupid answers are something a human can easily recognize. At least we are good at that. However, under communism people would not dare say anything the party thought up was stupid, so we may have that problem with AI. Sounds like this is what is happening in China currently.
Of course, the future is going to be different than the past. It has always been that way. I understand where he is going because of the changes our current technology is making in our lives. However, he paints a very bleak picture of our future and I do not believe that. However, we should be thinking about the future and how we will handle and adapt to a future of technology that is coming. Trying to deny new technology has not worked in the past and will not work now.
He paints a good picture of the past history and how we ended up where we are. Why certain countries are ahead. This will give you a great economic view of why the west is currently ahead. This book is well worth reading for this coverage of the past. The future is harder to know. We are going ahead to a very different future. He wonders if non-western cultures are better suited to our coming future. It is an interesting question. Whatever happens, we are certainly in for turmoil and disruptions with the new technology coming in the future.
There is a good review of this book on African Eye Report. There is a post on this book by John Aidan Byrne on GRIPT. This includes a review of the book and a podcast interview with Viktor Shvets. Alan Kohler at Eureka Report interviews Viktor Shvets. This is a podcast, plus also they show the full podcast in print. On the John Tread Gold website there is an review of this book and a interview podcast with Viktor Shvets.
There is an interview with Viktor Shvets by Gareth Vaughan on Interest. This is a good interview and Viktor Shvets views of the future is not so bleak. Viktor Shvets is interviewed on BNN. This is from August 2019. Viktor Shvets is part of the Macquarie Group, a Sydney-based investment bank. He is Managing Director at Macquarie Securities in Hong Kong. On Hamilton Wealth Partners Viktor Shvets speaks about his book through the Though Leaders Series.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
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