Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite
Weirdness of Programmable Atoms
by Wil McCarthy
On Intelligence
by Jeff Hawkins
Horses Never Lie
by Mark Rashid
Nano
by John Robert Marlow
Crazy
by Pete Earley
The Heartless Stone: A Journey Throught the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desire
by Tom Zoellner
The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and
Save the World
by James Shreeve
Cool: The Story of Ice Cream
by Marilyn Powell
FutureShop: How the New Auction Culture Will Revolutionize the Way We
Buy, Sell, and Get the Things We Really Want
by Daniel Nissanoff
Children at War
by P.W. Singer
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do
by Judith Rich Harris
__________________________________________________
Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite
Weirdness of Programmable Atoms (Paperback)
by Wil McCarthy
From Publishers Weekly
In 1962, Arthur C. Clarke offered three laws of technological
development, the last of which reads: "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic." Expanding on an article
he wrote for Wired, McCarthy uses Clarke's law as a jumping-off point
for a grand tour of cutting-edge "quantum dot" research, a field that
seems like nothing so much as alchemy, 21st-century style. Quantum
dots are tiny pieces of semiconductor that can trap electrons, with a
remarkable consequence: "the electrons trapped in a quantum dot will
arrange themselves as though they were part of an atom, even through
there's no atomic nucleus for them to surround." The result is an
artificial atom, maybe 50 times larger than a natural one, that can
simulate the properties of any element on the periodic table by
catching or releasing additional electrons. McCarthy offers an
extensive survey of both the science behind such "programmable matter"
and the scientists developing it, reveling in applications as
far-ranging as walls that light a room with their own radiant glow,
cars that levitate along magnetic streets, and TV screens that "look
less like a moving picture and more like a window into a real,
three-dimensional space." The author, an engineer as well as a writer,
is a part of the story himself, holding a patent for an application of
quantum dots that he calls "wellstone" (his patent application is
included as an appendix), and he makes an informative but at times
technically dense case for the promising, even magical, potential of
programmable atoms.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to
an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
McCarthy, perhaps best known for his science fiction (see the review
of his latest novel on p.1286), turns his attention to a real-life
scientific revolution somewhere in our future. Eventually, he
predicts, matter will be made programmable--easily changed from hard
to soft, for instance-- by "quantum dots." Readers who are barely on
nodding terms with Einstein need not be deterred. McCarthy employs a
soothing narrative manner that draws readers into the story; even when
the science gets tough to digest, there's enough
"fiction"--freewheeling speculation--to keep you going. As an
engineer, sf writer, and journalist, McCarthy says he has an
"obsession with the future." That's what allows him to take the
quantum-dot theory and run with it, extrapolating how these very tiny
dots will change the ways homes use heat and light, make Jetson-style
transportation possible, and even bring about the development of new
colors. Throughout, McCarthy describes the phenomenon of programmable
matter as a kind of magic. His knack for describing it is magical in
itself.
__________________________________________________
On Intelligence
by Jeff Hawkins
Amazon.com
Jeff Hawkins, the high-tech success story behind PalmPilots and the
Redwood Neuroscience Institute, does a lot of thinking about thinking.
In On Intelligence Hawkins juxtaposes his two loves--computers and
brains--to examine the real future of artificial intelligence. In
doing so, he unites two fields of study that have been moving uneasily
toward one another for at least two decades. Most people think that
computers are getting smarter, and that maybe someday, they'll be as
smart as we humans are. But Hawkins explains why the way we build
computers today won't take us down that path. He shows, using nicely
accessible examples, that our brains are memory-driven systems that
use our five senses and our perception of time, space, and
consciousness in a way that's totally unlike the relatively simple
structures of even the most complex computer chip. Readers who gobbled
up Ray Kurzweil's (The Age of Spiritual Machines and Steven Johnson's
Mind Wide Open will find more intriguing food for thought here.
Hawkins does a good job of outlining current brain research for a
general audience, and his enthusiasm for brains is surprisingly
contagious. --Therese Littleton
From Publishers Weekly
Hawkins designed the technical innovations that make handheld
computers like the Palm Pilot ubiquitous. But he also has a lifelong
passion for the mysteries of the brain, and he's convinced that
artificial intelligence theorists are misguided in focusing on the
limits of computational power rather than on the nature of human
thought. He "pops the hood" of the neocortex and carefully articulates
a theory of consciousness and intelligence that offers radical options
for future researchers. "[T]he ability to make predictions about the
future... is the crux of intelligence," he argues. The predictions are
based on accumulated memories, and Hawkins suggests that humanoid
robotics, the attempt to build robots with humanlike bodies, will
create machines that are more expensive and impractical than machines
reproducing genuinely human-level processes such as complex-pattern
analysis, which can be applied to speech recognition, weather analysis
and smart cars. Hawkins presents his ideas, with help from New York
Times science writer Blakeslee, in chatty, easy-to-grasp language that
still respects the brain's technical complexity. He fully
anticipates—even welcomes—the controversy he may provoke within the
scientific community and admits that he might be wrong, even as he
offers a checklist of potential discoveries that could prove him
right. His engaging speculations are sure to win fans of authors like
Steven Johnson and Daniel Dennett.
__________________________________________________
Horses Never Lie
by Mark Rashid
Horse Previews Magazine, June, 2000
"At $16.00 I think this paperback book might save you a lot of money
on quirts, bits, and spurs."
Book Description
In "Horses Never Lie," acclaimed horse trainer Mark Rashid breaks new
ground by challenging the longstanding belief that a person must
become the "alpa leader" in order to work with horses. Instead,
"Horses Never Lie" teaches you how to become a "passive leader"—a
reflection of the kind of horse other members of a herd choose to be
around and to follow. It's a must read for all horse owners who care
about their horses and the kind of relationship they have with them.
As he did in "Considering the Horse" and "A Good Horse Is Never a Bad
Color," Rashid writes about his experiences with real horses, always
featuring his sense of humor and an overriding compassion for the
horse. His instructive anecdotes reach back to when he was a youngster
under the mentorship of the "old man," and continue to his experiences
today as a horse trainer and a popular clinician who has traveled the
world to teach his remarkably effective methods to enthusiastic horse
owners.
__________________________________________________
Nano
by John Robert Marlow
From Publishers Weekly
Screenwriter Marlow's derivative, fast-paced debut, a near-future
thriller, features the latest thing in tech menaces-nanotechnology.
The assassination of billionaire Mitchell Swain, just as he's about to
unveil microscopic robots that will solve all of humanity's problems,
puts the inventor of Swain's revolution, the geeky John Marrek, in
deadly peril. Agents of an evil U.S. government with their own
nanobots try to stop Marrek from following through with Swain's
program, but he finds supporters in a stereotypically beautiful female
journalist, Jennifer Rayne, a virtuous president and an honest air
force colonel. In chapter after cinematic chapter of dueling nanos,
Marrek's disassembling nanobots wipe out whole teams of government hit
men while the assembler bots cause redwoods to sprout in seconds to
block pursuers. Along the way, Marrek delivers ethical and
informational lectures to Jen, justifying high body counts and
painting a nano-ified future in the brightest of colors as long as
good guys like him are in control. Marrek and the government's nanos
finally square off in the Bay Area, with the fate of the world at
stake. If the politics or science were anything to take seriously,
readers might have cause for alarm. As it is, the action is all that
counts in this slick formula effort, which reads like a novelized
screenplay.
From Booklist
Mitchell Swain, richest man on Earth, is assassinated just before he
can announce a revolutionary new technology, leaving developer John
Marrek responsible for it now. While he is destroying evidence of his
lab, reporter Jennifer Rayne, her journalistic instincts demanding she
discover the motivation for the assassination, interrupts. Because
she'll provide useful second opinions, and she is cute, John decides
to take her with him as he flees those out to stop the release of
nanotech. The chasers pursue, guns blazing, but John has a nanogun,
and it disassembles them. Rogue elements in the U.S. government, some
of them using everything the military has at hand, are after John and
Jennifer, but then John's infant nanotech AI comes online and saves
them by taking over military defenses. The baddies desperately release
nanites that destroy San Francisco and, because of faulty programming,
continue destroying. The AI saves the day, and eventually, John agrees
to work with the government. This reads like a big-budget summer
blockbuster with interesting but overgeneralizing afterwords.
__________________________________________________
Crazy
by Pete Earley
From Publishers Weekly
Suffering delusions from bipolar disorder, Mike Earley broke into a
stranger's home to take a bubble bath and significantly damaged the
premises. That Mike's act was viewed as a crime rather than a
psychotic episode spurred his father, veteran journalist Pete Earley
(Family of Spies), to investigate the "criminalization of the mentally
ill." Earley gains access to the Miami-Dade County jail where guards
admit that they routinely beat prisoners. He learns that Deidra
Sanbourne, whose 1988 deinstitutionalization was a landmark civil
rights case, died after being neglected in a boarding house. A public
defender describes how he—not always happily—helps mentally ill
clients avoid hospitalization. Throughout this grim work, Earley
uneasily straddles the line between father and journalist. He
compromises his objectivity when for most of his son's ordeal—Mike
gets probation—he refuses to entertain the possibility that the
terrified woman whose home Mike trashed also is a victim. And when,
torn between opposing obligations, he decides not to reveal to a
source's mother that her daughter has gone off her medications, he
endangers the daughter's life and betrays her mother. Although this is
mostly a sprawling retread of more significant work by psychologist
Fuller Torrey and others, parents of the mentally ill should find
solace and food for thought in its pages.
__________________________________________________
The Heartless Stone: A Journey Throught the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desire
by Tom Zoellner
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. After his fiancée dumps him and he's left with a
diamond ring to unload, Men's Health contributing editor Zoellner
crisscrosses the globe unlocking the mystique of this glittering stone
"that brings misery to millions of people across the world." Zoellner
probes how "blood diamonds" are used to fund vicious civil wars in
Africa; how De Beers, seeing new markets to exploit, linked diamonds
to the ancient yuino ceremony in Japan and played on caste obsession
in India; and how India is pushing Belgium and Israel out of the gem
trade. The author is expert with vivid prose: Australia's Argyle
deposit is "shaped a little like a human molar"; impoverished urchins
in the diamond-smuggling haven of the Central African Republic get
high on bread-and-shoe polish sandwiches; and a Brazilian miner finds
a rich concentration of river diamonds but fritters away much of the
loot on prostitutes and booze, and eventually is ruined by a dishonest
money changer. Politically conscious consumers can now avoid African
and Brazilian mines teeming with human rights abuses. Canada pulls
$1.2 billion worth of rough diamonds out of the tundra every year
while enforcing tough environmental laws, and a Florida company uses
Siberian high-pressure chambers to create low-cost chemically perfect
diamonds. This is a superior piece of reportage.
From School Library Journal
Historically, the workings of the diamond industry, heavily controlled
until recently by the De Beers cartel, have been filled with
clandestine meetings and covert operations, and its mythos even
pervades popular culture. Zoellner has traveled the globe learning
about the remarkably large supply of diamonds both mined and
manufactured for industrial cutting and the jewelry trade. In the
countries where they are mined, they represent both auspicious wealth
and abject poverty. The citizens have long been exploited by
international corporate investors and bloodthirsty local warlords
anxious to supply the public with a token of eternal love. Teens may
be surprised to learn that the must have diamond engagement ring is
the result of a brilliant 1930s De Beers marketing strategy, which
sought to influence the thoughts, tastes, habits, and fashions of
Middle America. Heavy promotion and forced scarcity continue to fuel
our inclination for the gems. Readers will be alternately fascinated
and reviled by this exposé, which is equally well suited to casual
reading and research.
__________________________________________________
The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and
Save the World
by James Shreeve
From Publishers Weekly
In May 1998, biologist Craig Venter announced that he was founding a
company, Celera, that would sequence the genome by 2001, scooping the
government's Human Genome Project by four years. This inflammatory
announcement sparked a race that was as much about scientific ego and
public recognition as about unlocking the so-called book of life.
Shreeve (Nature) focuses on the tensions between academia and
industry, and the rancor that ensued when Venter, who had previously
headed a nonprofit research institute, changed camps. The synthesis of
business and science posed new questions: can one patent the entire
genome? if so, is protection of intellectual property antithetical to
the advance of science? Industry is controlled by the bottom line;
academia is chained to the politicians who control funding. Both
models must battle a public that doesn't understand the intricacies of
the research. Add to this the race to make one of the ultimate
discoveries, and you get a mudslinging battle of egos. To back this
up, Shreeve gives a healthy dose of the molecular biology involved in
clear and vivid terms. He gives readers a fly-on-the-wall view of the
scientific posturing and agonizing work behind the revelation of the
genome's sequence. Shreeve is more concerned with providing a good
yarn than answering the questions these events provokes, and the
narrative meanders at times, but it gives a compelling look at the
politics and business interests that drive science.
__________________________________________________
Cool: The Story of Ice Cream
by Marilyn Powell
From Publishers Weekly
From ice harvesting to gelato, to the origin of the sundae and the ice
cream soda, to Baked Alaska (first called "Alaska, Florida" of all
things) and ice cream bombes, Powell mixes together everything ice
cream for a sweet, breezy blend of food history, personal anecdote and
cookbook. Few readers will finish this volume without wanting to down
a double-scoop waffle cone, but as there's little history here that's
new, it may also leave them hungry for further reading. The story of
Aunt Sallie Shadd, "a former slave from Wilimington, Delaware who was
famous among the free black population there as the inventor of ice
cream," is just one that will send folks off to the library in search
of more. Though charming and light-hearted, Powell's joviality can
veer into television host vernacular when she pushes too hard ("If
you're getting the impression that Paris was a hub of ice-cream
activity, you're right!"). Despite a few flaws, however, connoisseurs
should enjoy this refreshing treat, just in time for summer.
Illustrations.
__________________________________________________
FutureShop: How the New Auction Culture Will Revolutionize the Way We
Buy, Sell, and Get the Things We Really Want
by Daniel Nissanoff
From Publishers Weekly
In his attempt to take eBay into the realm of social theory, Nissanoff
leans heavily on "temporary ownership," an endless cycle of
consumption where each purchase is looked at not as an acquisition,
but as a stopgap that will be auctioned off after its utility has been
extracted, and the next bigger and better thing will be partially
bankrolled with the proceeds won (at auction, naturally) from the
last. It's sort of "One man's trash is another man's treasure," but
substitute "used designer briefcase" for "trash." Nissanoff stresses
buyers only purchase things that really excite them and carry a high
resale value (big ticket swag from Chanel, Fendi, Rolex, Hermes and
the like). "The money you recoup when you turn in your expensive
stroller, for example, can be put into a new bike for your child." The
book, however, ignores a large segment of society: poor and lower
middle class people, many of whom don't have computers or the means to
buy a $4,600 watch. Similarly, Nissanoff's model assumes people will
want to spend the time and energy tracking auctions, bidding, hawking
their own stuff and making endless trips to the post office to send
off their used handbags. Though it has an exciting promise-people buy
newer, bigger, better, shinier possessions all the time, so why not
put them to work?-Nissanoff's theory is directed at too narrow a range
of consumers to carry a revolutionary consumption wallop.
From Booklist
Ignore the all-too-familiar bizspeak paradigm shift and business model
(among other phrases). Instead, focus on Internet entrepreneur
Nissanoff's germ of an idea, spawned by eBay and a fairly new luxury
auction e-company that just could curb America's love of materialistic
spending. Think of the brilliant "pre-owned certification" programs
hawked by such upscale brands as Lexus, Rolex, and BMW. Consider
millions of gifts and items left languishing in closets, thanks to
duplication or nonnecessity purchases. Remember the rage over Beanie
Babies, a true phenomenon in e-trading. All of those trends, coupled
with a yearning for alte zakhen ("old things"), may well convince U.S.
consumers and companies that temporary ownership has its psychic and
financial rewards. The author is persuasive, acknowledging present-day
e-auction issues such as the lack of true liquidity in specific
categories and forecasting a dramatic rise in auction facilitators,
"dropshops," restorers, and new market channels. But the underlying
question still persists: How many Americans will truly change buying
behavior to create a robust trading marketplace?
__________________________________________________
Children at War
by P.W. Singer
From Publishers Weekly
Over six million child combatants were killed or injured in the past
decade. In this groundbreaking and comprehensive study, Singer, a
fellow at the Brookings Institution and former adviser to the U.S.
military, explores the rise and expansion of child soldiery. Children,
Singer finds, enter armies and militias in numerous ways: as voluntary
soldiers, indoctrinated to kill; as involuntary soldiers, forced into
the militia or military by cruel adults; as child-terrorists; as
members of all-child armies (such as the Hitler Youth); and as sexual
slaves for superior officers. Singer (Corporate Warriors) explores
different means of training and indoctrination, often through
interviews with child-soldiers, as well as with adults who have fought
against them and others who have tried to rehabilitate children forced
into warfare. In the concluding section, Singer notes that instruments
of international law such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the
Child prohibit the use of child-combatants, but that these treaties
have been ineffective in actually reducing the prevalence of
child-soldiers. One hope is that the new International Criminal Court
will be empowered to punish those who recruit children and send them
into battle. However they seek to accomplish their goal, activists
will be aided by the diligent research and reasoned analysis provided
by Singer's study, as will those who fund their work—i.e., anyone who
gives to international aid organizations.
Copyright (c) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier
Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* "The rebels told me to join them, but I said no. Then
they killed my smaller brother. I changed my mind," explains "L," age
seven, in Singer's chilling study of the now-conventional use of
children in modern warfare. Some 43 percent (157 of 366) of all armed
organizations around the world--from Sierra Leone to Colombia, Sri
Lanka to the Congo, Liberia to Sudan--use child soldiers, 90 percent
of whom see battle. In the last decade, more than 2 million children
have been killed in combat, a rate of some 500 per day. Singer,
National Security Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the
Brookings Institution, came upon the phenomenon when the soldiers he
interviewed for his first book, Corporate Warriors (2003), told him of
seeing so many child adversaries. Here he details many of the
underlying causes of the practice, and he explains how the children
are recruited, often simply by whether they are strong enough to carry
a weapon. He explores the full implications for using children in
combat and discusses how the problem can be addressed, such as
treating it as a war crime and punishing those leaders responsible. He
neglects to say, though, that the abuse is first and best addressed by
exposing it to world scrutiny, which this thoughtful and heartfelt
book will do.
__________________________________________________
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (Paperback)
by Judith Rich Harris
Amazon.com
Whether it's musical talent, criminal tendencies, or fashion sense, we
humans want to know why we have it or why we don't. What makes us the
way we are? Maybe it's in our genes, maybe it's how we were raised,
maybe it's a little of both--in any case, Mom and Dad usually receive
both the credit and the blame. But not so fast, says developmental
psychology writer Judith Rich Harris. While it has been shown that
genetics is only partly responsible for behavior, it is also true,
Harris asserts, that parents play a very minor role in mental and
emotional development. The Nurture Assumption explores the mountain of
evidence pointing away from parents and toward peer groups as the
strongest environmental influence on personality development. Rather
than leaping into the nature vs. nurture fray, Harris instead posits
nurture (parental) vs. nurture (peer group), and in her view your
kid's friends win, hands down. This idea, difficult as it may be to
accept, is supported by the countless studies Harris cites in her
breezy, charming prose. She is upset about the blame laid on parents
of troubled children and has much to say (mostly negative) about
"professional parental advice-givers." Her own advice may be
summarized as "guide your child's peer-group choices wisely," but the
aim of the book is less to offer guidance than to tear off cultural
blinders. Harris's ideas are so thought-provoking, challenging, and
potentially controversial that anyone concerned with parenting issues
will find The Nurture Assumption refreshing, important, and possibly
life-changing.