28th June, 2007
The Wild Trees
The Wild Trees by Richard Preston.
A smallish book that is (mostly) about the redwood trees found on the U.S. west coast and the rather surprising (to me, at least) environment and denizens of the upper foliage of these majestic trees. Up until fairly recently, no one knew much about what goes on in the tops of such trees until a small group of people began climbing and exploring the heights. The biggest problem with studying these trees is their height (well over 300 feet in many cases, with no branches even vaguely near the ground) and being able to physically get to them. This is what happens when the timber industry clear-cuts every damn tree they can reach, leaving only the most inaccessible trees standing. There is a startling amount and a large variation of life up in the crowns of the trees, including some species that do not exist anywhere else, and the growth patterns of these ancient trees create some hauntingly beautiful and unworldly environments.
To be honest, this book was a bit of a letdown. I had heard a couple of interviews with the author during his promotional tour and each time I listened to the way he described the book and his adventures with the scientists up in the trees, I was quite intrigued by the passion he displayed during the interview. Upon reading the book, I’m left with mostly a flat experience, highlighted by a few, brief moments of excitement and passion. (No, there is no porn in this book). The book spends a bit too much time chronicling the lives of this small handful of redwood explorers and not enough time dealing with the trees themselves. To be fair though, the subtitle of the book is “A Story of Passion and Daring”, not “A Story of the Redwoods”.
I haven’t read any other his other books (The Hot Zone, The Demon in the Freezer…) which also received favorable reviews so I’m not sure if this book is indicitive of his writing style or if it is more of an anomaly. Maybe I had just hyped it up in my mind too much. Whatever the case, it just wasn’t as good as I had hoped.
3/5 gogs.
Posted at 5:08 am | Comments (4)
27th June, 2007
Oh, Microsoft. How do I love thee?
Errors like this make troubleshooting Active Directory fun for all ages!
Posted at 5:20 am | Comment (1)
14th June, 2007
Feets and Soles
My apologies for the title. Lack of sleep makes me slaphappy. – -
Today, I’m going to talk about Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman which is the first book in a new trilogy by her.
The story takes place in a fantasy setting where there are two types of magic users: witches, whose power comes from their own life force; each time they use it, they draw closer to death, and, magisters, who draw power from other people’s life forces. So far, things seem to be following the “typical” fantasy storyline of an-ancient-evil-awakens-and-is-intent-upon-destroying-the-world-if-
not-for-those-meddling-kids. There are several ethical quandries thrown into the mix which livens things up and Friedman’s smooth writing style makes this book a quick read.
At this point in the story, plots are a bit muddy and it isn’t clear who will emerge as the (anti)hero(s). A fair number of characters are also killed off by the end of this volume – plot twists aplenty! A good start to what I hope is another great trilogy by Ms. Friedman.
4/5 gogs.
Posted at 5:35 am | Comments (4)
4th June, 2007
Black and White
Book review, the second.
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo.
You can always tell that you’ve picked up a social science book when the title is something along the lines of: “My Cat Puked on the Carpet: The Paradigm of the Human Experience” or “Sipping Through a Paper Straw: Why Closeted Dorks Never Get Any”. I’m not sure why they do this, perhaps it is a requirement of the publisher, but this seems to be the formula they always follow. A clever bunch, those social scientists.
Philip Zimbardo is probably best known for his role in the Stanford Prision Experiment in the early ’70s at Stanford University. If you are anything like me 3 weeks ago, this statement will mean absolutely nothing to you. Maybe I slept through that discussion in my Psych 101 class all those years ago, but I had never heard of this guy until now. That being said, lets get into the review.
The book is mostly comprised of two parts: a detailed telling and analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), followed by discussion and analysis of the events at the Abu Ghraib prison where he draws parallels between the two. There is also some discussion of other atrocities around the world and a section on what one can do to act as a “hero” when faced with such situations.
At this point, it is probably beneficial to give you an idea of just what went on during the SPE: Build a prison-like environment in the basement of an old building. Recruit some college-aged men, screen out the wackos. From your screened pool of volunteers, randomly assign “guard” and “prisoner” roles. Drop them into your “prison” and watch what happens.
The SPE was originally scheduled to run for two weeks. A week didn’t even pass before it had to be shut down as things were spiraling out of control. The rapid transformations that occured in the volunteers (both “guard” and “prisoner”) were astonishing and the results of the entire experiment were truly eye-opening. There is some really good stuff in here.
To be honest, once I hit the analysis portion of the book, I started losing interest pretty rapidly. I’m not sure if I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind at the time or if the material truly was lacking. Either way, it just wasn’t doing it for me and I ended up skimming through the majority of it.
In all, a pretty good book, but I’m knocking off half a gog for making me sleepy.
3.5/5 gogs.
Posted at 5:30 am | Comment (0)
