Updated: 7/6/2005; 10:02:50 PM.
Kevin Schofield's Weblog
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Friday, June 24, 2005

Catching up on my book blogging... about a month ago I read "Dateworthy" by Dennie Hughes.

As a single parent with a demanding job, I go through periods where I simply can't be bothered with dating and take myself  "off the market." That's pretty much been my state of affairs for the last eight months or so.

When things change and I think I'm ready to jump back in again, I find it helpful to pick up a book on dating, just to get my head back in the game again. Almost any dating book will do; if it's good, I get lots of useful tips. If it's bad, it's a great reminder on what not to do.

Dennie Hughes,the author of Dateworthy, is the relationships columnist for USA Today. The book, aimed primarily at women, is her attempt at a philosophy of dating. The first part is really becoming "dateworthy" -- understanding what it is you are looking for, what attributes in a date/partner are "non negotiables" and which are ok to be flexible on (and a good sanity check on whether your lists are realistic). The next part is applying some of the same tests to yourself: getting inside the psyche of the opposite sex and understanding how they will apply the "dateworthy" test to you. Hughes has a whole section to help women understand how men think when they are dating, which I found to be pretty much spot-on from my own experience as a dating guy.

The book finishes up with discussions of how to negotiate an actual date, dating etiquette, and how to think about first dates (& second & third) versus how things change when you get farther into the relationship.

I found this to be a fun and useful read, and I think both men and women would enjoy it. It's also a quick read, and easy to consume in small chunks.


9:29:47 PM    comment []

I just finished State of Fear, by Michael Crichton.

I'm a big fan of Crichton's earlier books (Jurassic Park, The Great Train Robbery, A Case of Need) , and I hated his more recent ones (including Timeline, Airframe, and Prey). I found State of Fear to be most like Jurassic Park -- a thriller infused with science.

At its most simplistic level, the book is about a chase to stop ecoterrorists from manufacturing some serious damage. Above that, it's about a conspiracy within the environmentalist community to preserve and grow their cause by heightening the sense of crisis surrounding threats to our environment. But all of that is basically throwaway plot; the conversation sitting behind all of this is a debate: how much do we really know and understand about the environment? Crichton does his homework and rattles off reams of data showing that the case for man-made global warming is not as strong as we would like to believe.

The major points he makes:

1. We don't understand how our environment works. The information we are working with is woefully incomplete, and there is no model that matches the data that we have. We certainly can't predict with any reasonable level of certainty what future environmental conditions will be. While there is some evidence of global warming, for example, we don't really know how much is man-made and how much is natural.

2. The notion of a "balance of nature" is a complete myth. There is no balance or stasis in nature; it is constantly changing.

3. While there are many cases where man has had a severely damaging effect on his natural surroundings, as often as not the corrective action we have taken has only made matters worse. We often don't realize when we're destroying the environment, and we equally don't begin to understand how to fix it.

One gets the feeling reading this book that Crichton felt that he needed to get full value out of the three years he spent doing research for this book. It is chock-full of references to real research papers, books, presentations, transcripts, and other sources of information. And by the end of the book he is really beating a dead horse when it comes to the forced-dialogue debates on what we know about the environment.

Over the last six months, I've spent a fair amount of time reading up on environmental research on my own. My take on Crichton's three points above:

1. Probably true, though there is enough cause for concern in the data that we do have that we should be careful to minimize our impact on our environment -- simply put, we should not be messing with things that we don't understand. We can't afford to be casual or careless.

2. Absolutely true.

3. Absolutely true. One more reason not to be casual or careless, because if we break it, we can't fix it.

All criticisms aside, State of Fear is an interesting read, and is certainly much better than Prey or Airframe. Jurassic Park is a more interesting story, but State of Fear is more broadly thought-provoking. If you like having your beliefs challenged, definitely pick it up. But be patient, and be prepared to skip some bits if it gets too repetitive.


9:14:53 PM    comment []

On my recent trip to the UK, I read Big Trouble, by Dave Barry.

This book has everything required for great escapist reading: cops, stupid thugs, Russian arms dealers, awkward teenagers, an overworked and underpaid single parent, and a nuclear bomb in a suitcase.

And it takes place in Florida, where as we all know nothing is implausible.

This was Barry's first attempt at fiction (before Tricky Business). It's great fun, and I can tell you from personal experience that it even makes sense through the fog of severe jet-lag.


8:38:26 PM    comment []

Here's a news article discussing the demise of the President's IT Advisory Committee (aka PITAC).

Here's the web site for PITAC. Look at the list of members: a very distinguished set of people representing both business and academic interests.

Unfortunately, the writing has been on the wall for a while. PITAC has recently issued critical reports about the crisis in computer science, and more notably about the Bush administration's inattention to cybersecurity. And we all know that this administration severely punishes any public criticism.

As I have mentioned before, at the recent congressional hearing on computer science research, Dr. John Marburger, the Presidential Advisor on Science and Technology, was specifically asked whether the President would renew the PITAC. Marburger's words were noncommittal, but you could clearly read between the lines that the end was near. And now we know.

One more nail in the coffin of the U.S.'s global leadership in science and technology. This administration simply does not care.

 


8:27:26 PM    comment []

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