Artemis (Andy Weir) – Druhá kniha chlapíka, ktorý napísal Marťana. Tentokrát je hrdinkou mladá žena a dej sa odohráva na Mesiaci. Rýchle a ľahké čítanie, ale ani zďaleka nie také dobré ako Marťan. Príliš akčný film pripravený na sfilmovanie.
By the way, we also hate it when people . . . call Artemis “the city in space.” We’re not in space; we’re on the moon. I’m mean, technically, we’re in space, but so is London.
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On a scale from one to ‘invade Russia in winter,’ how stupid is this plan?
Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) – o tom, aký vplyv majú veľmi nepravdepodobné veci. Človek odchovaný na klasickej štatistike (na to mám aj nejaké papiere) a gaussových krivkách povie, že malý. Ale Taleb hovorí, že treba dávať veľký pozor na takúto intuíciu. Dá sa na ňu spoľahnúť pri číslach týkajúcich sa výšky, váhy, v prírode merateľných vecí, ale zlyháva, keď sa bavíme o akciových trhoch, sociálnych sieťach, predajoch kníh a iných moderných vymoženostiach. Zaujímavé, pár dobrých odporúčaní, ako si dávať pozor na čierne labute a profitovať z nich, ale knihe by určite prospelo zoškrtanie na asi tretinu objemu (text a argumenty sa príliš opakujú) a keby autorovi niekto vysvetlil, čo je to sebareflexia (tak samoľúby a arogantný text, ako bol tento, treba hľadať).
Pasteur said, like all great discoverers, he knew something about accidental discoveries. The best way to get maximal exposure is to keep researching. Collect opportunities
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Look into your own existence. Count the significant events, the technological changes, and the inventions that have taken place in our environment since you were born and compare them to what was expected before their advent. How many of them came on a schedule? Look into your own personal life, to your choice of profession, say, or meeting your mate, your exile from your country of origin, the betrayals you faced, your sudden enrichment or impoverishment. How often did these things occur according to plan?
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Almost everything in social life is produced by rare but consequential shocks and jumps; all the while almost everything studied about social life focuses on the “normal,” particularly with “bell curve” methods of inference that tell you close to nothing. Why? Because the bell curve ignores large deviations, cannot handle them, yet makes us confident that we have tamed uncertainty.
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One useful trick, I discovered, is to avoid listening to the question of the interviewer, and answer with whatever I have been thinking about recently. Remarkably, neither the interviewers nor the public notices the absence of correlation between question and answer.
Deamon a FreedomTM (Daniel Suarez) – takéto knihy väčšinou nečítam: príliš krvavé, zbytočne explicitne hnusne násilné. Ale tento dvojdielny thriller ma chytil na zaujímavý základ. Mŕtvy programátor začne sofistikovane vraždiť. Dokáže preniesť do skutočného sveta počítačovú hru. A v druhej časti to podať tak, že možno je práve toto je to, čo (my, ľudia) potrebujeme… Desivé, uveriteľné, na rozmýšľanie. Chystám sa prečítať si ešte Suarezovu knihu o CRISPR Change Agent.
Now combine an application like that—a widely distributed entity that never dies—with tens of millions of dollars and the ability to purchase goods and services. It’s answerable to no one and has no fear of punishment.
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Humanity had always trafficked in oppression. Before the corporate marketing department got ahold of it, it was called conquest. Now it was regional development. Vikings and Mongols were big on revenue targets, too—but Leland had dispensed with all the tedious invading, and had taken a page out of the Roman playbook by hiring the locals to enslave each other as franchisees.
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We basically used oil and aquifer water to temporarily boost the carrying capacity of the land, all for economic growth demanded by Wall Street investors. It’s a crazy system that only makes sense when you foist all the costs onto taxpayers in the form of crop subsidies that benefit agribusiness, and defense spending to secure fossil fuels. We’re basically paying for corporations to seize control of the food supply and dictate to us the terms under which we live.
Playful Parenting (Lawrence Cohen) – Často ma nebaví hrať sa s deťmi. Alebo som unavená a nechce sa mi. Táto kniha bez akéhokoľvek obviňovania alebo moralizovania hovorí, prečo a ako sa deti potrebujú hrať, dáva konkrétne príklady a ukazuje, ako hranie sa rodičov deťmi môže pomôcť prekonávať rôzne ťažkosti a konflikty. Inšpiratívne pre rodičov detí od škôlkárov po prvý stupeň základnej školy. (Toto bola jediná papierová, ktorú som mala v Thajsku so sebou.)
Children don’t say, “I had a hard day at school today; can I talk to you about it?” They say, “Will you play with me?
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If they don’t think we will play, they may not even ask. They just go about their business, and we go about ours, and we all miss chance after chance to reconnect.
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Using Playful Parenting, we can help children release all this emotion in ways that aren’t hurtful to others. We do this by just spending lots of time giggling together, but also with some specific techniques. To help children with fears, for example, it often helps to play as if you are the one who is scared, and really exaggerate it. Make sure they don’t feel mocked or humiliated. It helps if you don’t imitate them exactly, but just take the general idea and exaggerate it.
The Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson) – Sanderson je môj obľúbený autor. A toto je prvý diel trojdielneho fantasy eposu. Nie je nejako úžasný, je celkom rozťahaný a je o svete so zvláštnou mágiou, dlhou históriou a komplikovanými postavami. Dobre sa číta a dobre sa pri ňom zaspáva (mala som ho rozčítaný už asi od septembra, lebo vždy dám len pár strán pred tým, ako zaspím).
Ignorance is the natural state of human mind.
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Expectations are like fine pottery. The harder you hold them, the more likely they are to crack.
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Words are not meant to be kept inside. They are free creatures and if locked away, they will cause trouble inside.
Robin (Zdena Frýbová) – Od Frýbovej som na strednej škole prečítala všetko, čo mali v mestskej knižnici. Najväčší dojem vtedy zanechala kniha Z neznámých důvodů. Taký, že sa síce chystám niekedy si ju prečítať ešte raz, ale trochu sa bojím do toho ísť, aby som nebola sklamaná. Robin vtedy v knižnici nebol. Kolegyňa mi ho pred vianocami požičala, po tom, čo som jej rozprávala, že náš Kubo nepije vpodstate nič okrem vody. Občas sa dá ukecať na džús a po celkom dlhom skúšaní sa mi podarilo nájsť konkrétny čaj (lipovo-šípkový), ktorý si dá. V knižke manželia, ktorých deti sa už odsťahovali z domu, dostanú foxteriéra Robina. A Robin má ku jedlu podobný prístup, ako náš Kubo ku pitiu. Plus ďalšie humorne zveličené príhody, ktoré zažívajú s tvrdohlavým psom.
Je s podivem, že jsme se nikdy nehádali ani kvůli dětem, ačkoli nám svým temperamentem dávaly pěkně zabrat. Já, jakožto psycholog hlásající, že duše dítěte je křehká a snadno zranitelná, proto se k němu musí přistupovat vždy s laskavým pochopením a vést klidný dialog, jsem na ně ječívala a mlátila je vším, co jsem právě měla v ruce. Honza mi dodnes připomíná, jak jsem ho jednou nakopla, čímž jsem prý doživotně narušila jeho zdravý vztah k ženám vůbec.
Rudolf, hňápajíci se v psychologii lidských vztahů jako slon v porcelánu a proklamující barbarský názor, že děti jsou sběř, kterou je nutno řezat a systematicky decimovat, na ně v životě hlas nezvýšil, natož aby na ně přiložil pravici.
Normální děti by se v takové rodině před matkou třásly a otcem by zametaly. Naše zrůdičky se se mnou bouřlivě handrkovaly, mazlily, hádaly… a k Rudolfovi pociťovaly respekt. Vydal-li výjimečně nějaký příkaz, podrobily se mu, a když došlo na větší průšvih třeba ve škole, úpěly: „Maminko, prosím tě, jen ať se to nedozví táta.” Prostě naše manželství plynulo v pokojném souzvuku, který po odchodu dětí z domova nerušilo už vůbec nic.
To vše se rázem změnilo příchodem Robina. Začali jsme se s Rudolfem hádat.
Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis (Sandra Steingraber) – Túto som nečítala na dovolenke, ale ešte niekedy na jeseň, len som sa nedostala k tomu, aby som si z nej odložila aspoň zopár viet. V každej kapitole sa prelína osobná materská skúsenosť s nejakým problémom týkajúcim sa životného prostredia. Strašidelné, veľmi dobre napísané, len miestami trošku iritujúce (too much privilege).
Here was an interesting truth about entering motherhood for the second time: I was just having a baby; I wasn’t taking on a new identity. Furthermore, I now carried with me a skill set.…
Nevertheless, I was now starting to suspect that having two children was going to require of me something that having only one didn’t. Of course, it went without saying that another baby was going to eat whatever was left of my solitude. That was an easy prediction.
I’d been a mother for fewer years than three. Being a nonparent still felt like my normal state. It was still a surprise to wake up and find a child in my house. But I wasn’t nostalgic. In my experience, a happy single life was like an exotic orchid with particular moisture, light, and temperature requirements. It required a lot of tending. You had to make weekend plans, have a therapist or a pet, and keep track of how many days had passed since you had last dined with someone. Small disappointments had to be monitored lest they balloon into despair.
When you are by yourself, surreal things can happen: You could get lost in a rainforest while hiking to a study site and then step on a snake at the precise moment you realize that you had neglected to tell anyone where you were going. Or an infected salivary gland could send you to the ER on Thanksgiving morning. Five hours later, you might find yourself shivering with fever in a check-out line at a Walgreens, a scrip for antibiotics in one hand, a can of condensed mushroom soup in the other, and a homeless guy in front of you kindly offering to give you, the girl with the puffed-out face, his can of tuna fish. Which makes a nice story but you have no one to tell it to. (Until now.)
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Entire regulatory systems are premised on the assumption that all members of the population basically act, biologically, like middle-aged men. The laws and rules so generated by those systems are thus blinded to the unique characteristics of children that should be obvious to everyone.