Click here for a PDF version of this post. Crank history is big business and it's getting bigger. For reasons that infuriate skeptics there is a never-ending parade of pseudo-historians spouting rubbish that is eagerly devoured by a credulous pig ignorant public. Gavin Menzies' ludicrous tome, 1421: The Year China Discovered America, (also titled 1421: … Continue reading 1421: The Crank History of Gavin Menzies
Category: Books
Open Source Hilbert for the Kindle
David Hilbert While searching for free Kindle books I found Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg offers free Kindle books but they also have something better! Would you believe LaTeX source code for some mathematical classics. The best book I've found so far is an English translation of David Hilbert's Foundations of Geometry. Hilbert's Foundations exposed some … Continue reading Open Source Hilbert for the Kindle
A Peculiar Book Club
While holed up in a rehabilitation hospital recovering from a nasty fall a coworker invited me to a noon-hour Bible study group. The group conveniently met in my rehab hospital so I rolled upstairs in my wheelchair and started attending their meetings. When I told my wife about this peculiar book club she thought I was suffering from post … Continue reading A Peculiar Book Club
Anathem: Plato’s Parallel World
About the best thing anyone can do for you is to suggest a good book. When I was in my teens my aunt pointed me at Tolkien: a shrewd call. I was at the perfect age for a romp in Middle Earth. In the 1990’s a consulting client introduced me to Neal Stephenson. I started … Continue reading Anathem: Plato’s Parallel World
Soon we will all be Software Archeologists
One of my pet peeves is the ridiculously short lifetimes of digital media. I remember 9 track mainframe tapes and 5.5 inch floppies: technologies that thrived in an ancient bygone epoch known as the Eighties. Good luck trying to read 9 track tapes or 5.5 inch floppies today! You will have better luck with older … Continue reading Soon we will all be Software Archeologists
C. K. Raju: Genius or Crank (Part 1)
Click here for a PDF version of this post. Euclid's first proposition Lately I have been amusing myself by working through Euclid’s Elements. Despite studying mathematics in university, teaching it in high school and occasionally using it in my software-soaked day job I never got around to reading Euclid. Euclid is routinely lionized as the … Continue reading C. K. Raju: Genius or Crank (Part 1)
This Herodotus is a Hoot!
Yesterday, while driving to the mall with my wife, I launched into a lecture on why the iPad and it’s Kindle’ly kindred will never replace books. As you are reading this on a 21st century blog you can infer that I am not a technophobic Luddite. Devices like the Kindle are another way to read and … Continue reading This Herodotus is a Hoot!
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 