book: Gabor Mate, Scattered Minds

 

A book written by a doctor that has ADD himself, and it shows.

I was annoyed in the first half by his incessant use of anecdotes to prove that ADD is not genetic. It felt like he had to convince himself, and it read as an excuse for his actions as a father.

He uses clear and obvious examples of how not to raise a child (often with himself as the child or the father) to play on the readers emotion. Most of these examples are not even related to ADD.

But in the end, definitely the second half, it is a good book. Most people will recognize several situations and often it does make one think about life choices and interpretation of actions and emotions.

So for those getting past the disorganization (yes there are parts and chapters in this book, but most of it feels randomly disorganized), the second half of the book is a worthy thought provoking read.

four books

 

Charlie Mackesy - The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse (2019)

In so far as you can read this book, I read this book. This book allows you to read one page, and then ponder on it for a week. It's a story, but it is also not a story but more a psychological insight into humans. I will probably open this book again several times this year to discover even more about the meaning of a single page.

Brian W. Kernighan - Understanding the digital world (2021)

Kernighan is famous for co-authoring "The C programming Language" with Dennis Ritchie in 1978 and I have always looked up to him.

In this book he gives an excellent overview of computers and networks, including an easy to read introduction to programming, cryptography and (digital) privacy. I would not advice this book for IT-nerds, since it is way too simple. It is though as good an overview as is possible in 260 pages.

David Kushner - Masters of Doom (2003)

Well this was an excellent read! Enjoyable, intriguing, educational and probably only for fans of Doom or of John Carmack.

The book tells the story of the two John's that created the DooM game in the early nineties. David Kushner interviewed a lot of people to get a complete picture of their youth, their first meeting, the development of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D and of course DooM, and also many games after that like Quake and Heretic.

This book is a nice combo with Sid Meier's Memoir.

Sid Meier's Memoir (2020)

I wanted to link to my tiny review of this book, which I read in 2021, but it turns out I have not written anything about it yet.

The story of the creation of the civilization series of games is a really good read, though probably only if you lived in this era and played some of the early Civilization games. Or earlier 'versions' like Empire or Empire Deluxe, which are mentioned in this book for serving as inspiration for the first Civilization game.

I like the 4X turn-based system of gaming, too bad there are almost no other good games using this (Chess comes close though).

three books

 It took a while, but here are three books I've read.

Kevin Mitnick - The Art of Invisibility (2017)

I have been interested in Kevin Mitnick since his 1980ies hacking. He is mentioned in several books that I read in the past.

This book is about all the personal data one leaves behind when using the internet (or devices connected to the internet). It is a rather simple guide on how to increase your privacy or how to aim to become almost invisible on the internet.

I would not advice this book for nerds, or for IT security experts, the book is probably not aimed for those people anyway. People who know close to nothing about computers/networks could benefit from this guide. 

Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (1974)

Now this is an interesting read. It is not about motorcycles, in fact it is perfectly fine if you replace the word motorcycle by 'smartphone' or 'computer' or 'internet privacy and tracking' in the first half of the book. There are some very insightful comments about how people react in different ways to technology.

The main part of this book though, is not the motorcycle trip with his son through the United States, but his alter ego named Phaedrus. The writer was diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia and received electric-shock treatment. In the book he remembers fragments of this Phaedrus personality (with an IQ of 170).

The second half is a tough read. I often needed to reread several sentences to grasp what he was saying. (Which was never the case in the Mitnick book above.)

Prusa 3D printing handbook

I finally bought a 3D printer and would advice this to anyone who has lot's of time. Yes, this is not yet ready for end users that only want a 'File - Print' option on the computer. But a whole new world opens, at least for me it's a new world with many possibilities and adventures.

It's a small booklet, but I mention it anyway because it is really good, as are all the follow-up guides on prusa3d.com.

Drie boeken

Door omstandigheden wat minder kunnen lezen, maar bij deze nog eens drie boeken:

De Hel van Deurne-Noord is een verzamling getuigenissen van voetballers en trainers, en reporters, over hun ervaring op den Bosuil. Het dateert van 2016 ofzo denk ik, dus het is vooral dromen van een groot Royal Antwerp FC. Ik denk niet dat er toen iemand was die Naingolan of Alderweireld als spelers van den Antwerp zag.

Het boek leest zeer vlot, elke getuigenis is maar een blad of twee, soms drie. Ideaal voor bus en treinritten.

Ons Antwerpen heeft me blij verrast! Dit is een van de beste boeken dat ik al gelezen heb. Het dateert van rond 1931, de auteurs zijn dus al lang dood, anders had ik hen zeker bedankt.

In dit boek wandel je rond in het Antwerpen van 90 jaar geleden. Er wordt bijvoorbeeld gezegd dat er plannen zijn om een Rubenshuis te maken in de buurt van de Meir/Wapperstraat. Het plein dat nu 'Wapper' heet, bestond nog niet. Er is ook geen Astridplein (dat heette toen Statieplein), maar ze hadden wel net meer dan tienduizend schepen gehad in Antwerpen op 1 jaar tijd.

Ik ben zinnens eens met dit boek rond te lopen, want echt elke straat waar ze zijn wordt vermeld, tot huisnummers toe. De weg zou dus helemaal moeten te volgen zijn.

Starten met C is mijn introductie tot programmeren in C (ik kende totdantoe enkel Basic, Assembler en PASCAL, ah en COBOL). Dit was ons cursusboekje in Leuven in 1991 denk ik... en maakte mij een grote fan van C.

Ik ben het terug aan het lezen nu en beleef er weer veel plezier aan. Nog steeds fan van C dus, helaas ben ik momenteel niet zo'n goeie programmeur. Nu het bijna uit is, zal ik mijn odio applicatie maar snel aanpassen, voordat iemand deze klucht kan zien :)

Three books

 Two books about The Witcher and eentje over onze maatschappij.

 

I never played The Witcher game, but I did see the TV-series' first season in the months before Covid-19. The books are about the same characters, Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer and the others, but the story details differ from the TV-series. I saw the second season before I read any of the books.

Some dialogues are identical in both books and TV. And yes, the books also mix time periods! Anyway, so far these books are entertaining and I will definitely read more (I got eight, which is all of them I think).

While looking for wine in Antwerp I came across a 'Books & Wine' store. I did not find the wine I was looking for so I bought this book.

Bart Verhoeven is een millennial (een dertiger vandaag) en geeft zijn kijk op onze maatschappij. Hij slaat met momenten de nagel op de kop en het was leuk om typische Gen X observaties te lezen, maar dan geschreven door een snotneus. Het boek mocht ook 250blz langer zijn.

Hier en daar had ik wel mijn bedenkingen, zo kon ik me niet identificeren met de 'typische mens' in het begin van het boek. Ik laat immers mijn gsm achter als ik de stad in ga (het is rustgevend om offline te zijn in First life) en heb bijna nooit een smartphone bij.

Three books

An emotional book about shame, a historical book about Constantinople and an interesting take on prehistory (and society).

 

 

Brene Brown has a world famous Ted talk, though I must admit I didn't really understand it back in 2010. But when a beautiful South American lady gives you a book, then you read it. I read this in the summer of 2019 I think, before Covid-19.

This book about vulnerability, about shame, gave me a lot of insight in human behaviour, including my own. I did not realise how important shame was in life. Thank you Brown for writing this.

 

Lost to the West was upvoted on Hackernews as an interesting read. I was not disappointed. The book is about the East Roman Empire, on which we did not spend much time in school. We studied Egypt, Greece and Rome in detail, but only the Western part of Rome until the split in East and West Roman Empires. School only mentioned that the Eastern Empire lasted for 11 centuries, but that was it.

Some people may find this book with 1100 year history of emperors boring, there is a lot of repetition, but the message is intriguing. Constantinople, now Istanbul, and sometimes called Byzantium, really did shape Western Europe. This empire is at least as important as the Greeks and the (West)Romans to the current society in Europe.

The Sapiens book has been recommended to me by several people. I like prehistory a lot, it's my favorite time period. The book is interesting, and really easy to read, but is it science? I don't know. It's a good book though!

 

Three books

 One book about science, one book about spying and eentje over mensen.

I finished "Lost in Math" by Sabine Hossenfelder last month. It is a story of her interviewing scientists that try to find order in (mainly) the smallest of elements. The gist is that while there is a lot of (mathematical) beauty in science (think how nice the atoms are for example), that most scientists are distracted by beauty while there is a real possibility that breakthroughs are going to be ugly (e.g. the standard model of Fermions and Bosons).

 

I am late to the party for reading "Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden. He tells his life story, from his first connection to the Internet, to being a 'document manager' in the NSA. The first half of the book is predictable, the second half is exciting. I learned that he never meant to go to Russia, he just got stuck at the airport in Moscow because the USA had revoked his passport.

Strange world though, I grew up with Russian dissidents fleeing to the *free* West. Today Snowden (and Assange in a way) are making the reverse journey.

In het derde boek "De meeste mensen deugen" van Rutger Bregman zit ik nog maar aan blz 70, maar ik wou toch al een citaat meegeven; blz 28:

"Koningen en dictators, gouverneurs en generaals denken dat gewone mensen egoïstisch zijn, omdat ze dat zelf zo vaak zijn. Ze gebruiken grof geweld omdat ze iets willen voorkomen dat zich alleen in hun eigen fantasie afspeelt."

Yep, niet alle koningen uiteraard, maar ook heel wat managers, vrees ik.

EDIT: Dit boek is zeker de moeite om te lezen. Het geeft een originele kijk op een tiental zeer bekende psychologische experimenten. Helaas komt het allemaal wat sensationeel over; boeiend en leuk dus, maar misschien niet correct.

Reading books

This post is meant to encourage me to read a bit more (paper books). By the way, I thought I was reading four books simultaneously, but when I put them next to each other it turned out to be seven.

Form left to right (writer-title(year) pages read-total pages):

Daniele Benedettelli - Creating Cool Mindstorms NXT Robots(2008) 24-575
Leo Tolstoj - Oorlog en Vrede(1869, NL translation 1973) 115-462
Dirk De Wachter - De kunst van het ongelukkig zijn(2019) 35-101
Allen/Fonagy/Bateman - Mentaliseren(2008/2019 edition) 30-368
LEGO and philosophy(2017) 56-226
Charlie Mackesy - The Boy, the mole, the fox and the horse(2019)
Michael Collins - Carrying the Fire(1974) - finished

Personal goal: finish at least three more of these before 2022.

I just finished Michael Collins - Carrying the Fire and it took me five weeks, which I consider a bit too long for a 470-ish pages book. It was a very good book though. If you're into space travel, then I would definitely recommend it. It also proves how the Sixties was vastly different to today, for example of the fourteen astronauts selected in 1963, four died during training. Two of the nine also died. Such numbers are unacceptable in 2021, even for 'dangerous' jobs.

The Daniele Benedettelli book is about programming Finite State Machines using Lego robots. I don't know much about programming, but this looks like fun. Thing is I need to build some Lego robots (like this one) to continue this book.

And I probably need to start from page 1 again in War and Peace because of the many characters that I forgot.

Some other books that I read the past three years are:

Celestin-Westreich/Celestin - Observeren en Rapporteren
Dick Swaab - Ons creatieve brein

Dirk De Wachter - Borderline Times
Dirk De Wachter - De wereld van De Wachter
Etienne Vermeersch - Over God
Etienne Vermeersch - Provencaalse gesprekken
Jan Van de Craats - Basisboek wiskunde
Jude Woodward - The US vs China
Paul Verhaeghe - Autoriteit
Paul Verhaeghe - Identiteit
Randall Munroe - Thing Explainer
Randall Munroe - What If
Rebecca Smethurst - Space, 10 things you should now
Robert Bly - De Wildeman
Terry Goodkind - Law of Nines
Terry Goodkind - Severed Souls
Terry Goodkind - The first Confessor
Terry Goodkind - The Omen Machine

Terry Goodkind - The Third Kingdom
Terry Goodkind - Warheart
Thomas D'ansembourg - Stop met aardig zijn

Most of it non-fiction apparently. I really enjoyed 'Borderline Times' and both books of Paul Verhaeghe and Dick Swaab. I couldn't really get into Robert Bly or Thomas D'Ansembourg (but collaborative communication gives me a lot of insight in people).

David Eddings

I disagree with the sound of one hand clapping, David Eddings is getting better after the first three books. I hesitated to start reading Castle of Wizardry, but since the new Trudi Canavan and the new Terry Goodkind are not yet available in pocket, I decided to trust stormy voices praising David Eddings.
Well, book four in the Belgariad is a lot better than the first three!

It was a dark and stormy night

It was a dark and stormy night. A cunningly rigorous gang of nerdy friends had deviously gathered in the Kulminator. Malevolent glasses were filled with beer, brains osmosing in alcohol. Dragons and lasers turned out to be a worthy definition. How else would you classify sci-fi from fantasy ? Enlightened stories surfaced, tackling torture and Marion Zimmer Bradley , praising Piers Anthony and frowning on Zardoz. Sanity returned briefly before babbling on Airplane! silently recovering with Neal Stevenson, James Joyce and Franquin. Experts agreed on two liters of water to let the storm pass. So long and thanks for all the cheese.

Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg

Ik hou van epische, zeg maar lange verhalen. The Sword of Truth is zo een episch verhaal, uitgespreid over elf boeken. De laatste bladzijde is gelezen. 8069 bladzijden liggen achter mij.

Het ging over magie, over draakjes en eieren, over de Mud People en de Baka Ban Mana (later de Baka Tau Mana), over witches en wizards, Sisters of the Light en Sisters of the Dark, over Nicci, Cara, Denna en Kahlan, ook over Jennsen, Richard, Chandalan en over Rachel, Chase, Zedd, Adie en ook Oba, Fitch, Rikka en uiteraard Nathan, Ann, Jagang en Jillian.

Er waren de Boxes of Orden, the Sword of Truth (uiteraard) en de Stone of Tears, maar ook de Boundary, de Temple of The Winds en de Dominie Dirtch.

De leukste was zonder twijfel de gar Gratch "Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg!"

Bedankt Terry Goodkind voor dit verhaal!

Soul of the Fire

Wow now this is a good book! Soul of the fire, fifth book in the Sword of Truth series, and definitely the best of the first five (reading number six Faith of the Fallen now).

three eighties books

The Cuckoo's Egg is a book written by Cliff Stoll. The book is written as a good novel, with suspense, thriller, politics and even love, but can also be seen as a documentary. Cliff is probably one of the first system administrators that had to deal with hackers from another continent.

Cliff also put some autobiographic stuff in the book, some of which is extremely funny (like the tomatoes or the comparison between a jogger and catholics). The brownie recipe is also useful.

But ninety percent of the book is about computers, the internet and tracking a hacker (with the help of FBI and many others). And it all starts with a little accountancy problem, a couple of cents are missing...

Ah, did i mention that this book was released in 1989...when there were thousands of computers networked worldwide...


Cyberpunk is written by Katie Hafner and John Markoff. The book is from 1991 and is actually three true stories. All three about computer-people in the eighties. This book is a good read for people interested in eighties networks, culture and computers, but it does not read as a good novel. Sometimes, this book is just stating facts...

The first part is about Kevin Mitnick, although i'm not so sure he likes the way in which he is depicted in this book. In short, Kevin Mitnick was (or is...) a hacker with expertise and experience in social engineering.

The second part is about Pengo, and the German hacker scene. There are references here to the Chaos Computer Club from Hamburg, the KGB in Eastern Germany and Cliff Stoll is also mentioned.

I found the third part the most interesting. It's about Robert Tappan Morris, one of the very first people to write a virus that spread across the internet.


The third book is Das Chaos Computer Buch from 1988. (I read it in Flemish not German). It is a collection of about fifteen topics on computers, hacking, viruses, networks and the Hamburg Chaos Computer Club. It is probably one of the first books about hacking and cracking into computers. It mentions VAX commands and connections into NASA.

This decade marks the change in perception of the word hacker. Until the eighties, hackers were people able to find clever solutions (like MacGyver). Now most people think of computer criminals when they hear the word hacker.