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How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
Jordan Ellenberg is one of the rare university professors who also publishes prodigiously for the public. Much of his writing comes together in his book, How Not to Be Wrong. A collection of mathematical history, practice, and theory, the book is engaging and provocative. Ellenberg’s writing style allows him to present a seemingly bland topic…
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Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
Part history, part memoir, part management guide, Creativity Inc. is an engrossing read filled with behind the scenes tours and sage advice. The authors (Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace) mix detailed examples of Ed Catmull’s management philosophy with background on Catmull’s path to Pixar, Pixar’s development, and their transition to working within Disney. This book…
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Blockchain Revolution
The big question facing technology following the huge changes brought by the expansion of the internet is what will be the “Next Big Thing”? The Blockchain Revolution seemed like a good juxtaposition to the open hardware revolution detailed in Makers: The New Industrial Revolution (My Review Here). The Tapscotts make the problem the Blockchain Revolution…
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Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in just Five Days
I was excited to read Sprint. It promised “How to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days.” It wasn’t a big problem, but we recently got a big slobbery dog who makes us change the water frequently. I wanted a better solution on how to save some of this water. It…
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BattleBots
Nerdy. Cheesy. Fun. That’s essentially all you need to know about the first episode of this year’s BattleBots. I missed it live so watched it on ABC’s website. The first 10 minutes is full of completely cheesy build up, but as the episode progresses the terrible poetry of introductions gets more humorous with each battle.…
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Fish!
We were in line at Half-Priced Books and I couldn’t find the generically titled “Fish” on my phone at the library. We’ll call it an impulse buy. Only two dollars and it was Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller. A one-day read, Fish! was a cheesy but interesting read – worth the two dollars for a…
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Makers: The New Industrial Revolution
In Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, Chris Anderson presents a future of inventor-entrepreneurs spearheading the return of manufacturing to the United States. Customizable goods made by desktop fabricators like 3D printers sold globally on the Internet allow artisan manufacturers to occupy a space between mass produced oversees goods and specialty handmade items. Though his historical…
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Changes
After almost a year of no posts (and no contact with my advisor), it’s time my blog catches up with my new post-academic life. So I’m embarking on a new blogging adventure. I’m diving into a variety of things like Maker culture, design, coding, gardening, home improvement, reading! We’ll see where it goes… Me leaving…
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The Office Space Myth
During the first weekend of the Humanities Without Walls pre-doctoral workshop, I caught the last half of Office Space on television. The fear of becoming a corporate drone is one many academics likely identify with. But the choice is not between Initech and academia. (Even if it were a choice between only those two options,…
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Who’s Afraid of History?
Contemporary US society. (That’s who) The College Board revised the AP history exam to better reflect actual historical knowledge and scholarship. Manufactured political outrage convinced them to water it down with nationalism. From NPR: For example, in the 2014 version Europeans “helped increase the intensity and destructiveness of American Indian warfare.” Now it says simply…
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Brian Sarnacki 