Daily Thoughts 07/05/2015

 The reading room on the RMS Olympic  photographed by William H. Rau in 1911.

Daily Thoughts 07/05/2015

I stayed up late and read The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin.  The premise of the story is enjoyable.  The best part of the story is the raw economic fantasy.  The backstory sounds great.  Everyone is incorporated and the government only takes 5%.  It is kind of a corporate, libertarian paradise.  Because it is set in science fiction everything works wonderfully, and it sounds great.  It is purely utopian.  Part of the reason it works is because of fantastic technology, fusion, nanotechnology, gravity manipulation, and other things throughout the story.


I rather like that in this story, virtual reality is an illegal activity  because it is hyperaddictive.  The background and technology are very interesting.  The book is part of a series.  It won the Prometheus Award in 2010.  The science fiction is focused on ideas.  It is not an action novel.  The central character, Justin Cord, will do what it takes to not be incorporated and owned by others.  He wants to be a free man.  I am looking forward to reading the other books in the series.  Like so many books with a back story that is economic, the economics can sound great but not work in the real world.  I could say that this book has the same kind of effect which fictional accounts of economic ideals does.

I also have been reading Inequality What Can Be Done by Anthony B. Atkinson.  I am reading about how which basic technological research we do affects future employment.  For example if the government invests in robotics, less people may be employed than if we invest in advanced power tools which humans have to be educated to use.

I started reading Dead Wake the Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson.   I am reading it for a book club on Thursday, June 23, 2015 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

I am about half way through The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer.  This is a story about a young boy who is in the process of becoming a bard.  He is captured by norsemen.  The writing is excellent.  It is part of a trilogy. I enjoyed reading Nancy Farmer's young adult book, The Eye, The Ear, and The Arm which was a Newberry honor book.  I placed requests for The Land of the Silver Apples and The Island of the Blessed.


Web Bits

Not Fade Away... How Robots are Preserving Old Newspapers
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/05/british-library-digitising-newspapers-boston-spa