Jekyll2024-01-03T13:15:37+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/feed.xmlAdam WalkerJust learning things and writing about them.
{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}Books I read in 20212022-01-05T00:00:00+00:002022-01-05T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2022/01/05/books-read-in-2021<p>I’ve written before about my love of reading. And last year, I did a short roundup of some books I’d read throughout the year, the good ones, bad ones and a few other noteworthy ones. So here are some books I read in 2021</p>
<h2 id="the-good-ones">The good ones</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Elemental: How the periodic table can now explain (nearly) everything</strong> by Tim James. I enjoyed chemistry in school but didn’t take it very far, I was always more of a physics person, so I enjoyed the opportunity to learn some more about chemistry. The book covers some history of the subject and how our knowledge of elements, chemicals and the things they can do developed over time. The author also writes in a pretty conversational style which helps avoid any dryness traditionally associated with the subject.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Letters from an Astrophysicist</strong> by Neil deGrasse Tyson. After reading it, I wrote about this one <a href="/2021/10/09/letters-from-an-astrophysicist.html">here</a>, but I still wanted to mention it. Not a book in the traditional sense, rather a collection of letters written over the years organised by theme. Most are responses from Tyson to queries he receives as a public scientist, some are letters he wrote to publications, and a few miscellaneous pieces are thrown in too. Overall I think it’s excellent and an intriguing look at the kinds of questions and answers a public scientist receives.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Elements of Style</strong> by Strunk and White. A classic on writing well, which is a skill I’m trying to improve. It was first written a century ago and is sometimes called out of date, but I disagree. Anyone who writes should read this. There may be differences in the way we communicate today, but clarity in communication is every bit as important now as it was then.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="the-not-so-good-ones">The not-so-good ones</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Theogony</strong> by Hesiod. It’s probably the oldest thing I’ve ever read, written in approximately 700 BCE. It tells the story of creation according to the ancient Greeks. How the gods came to be, and how they relate to one another and their domains. It’s a significant historical text, and there are interesting stories within it, but there are also a lot of dry passages such as listing a god and their fifteen children. Kind of like reading Tolkien’s appendices without the rest of the book.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="some-other-noteworthy-ones">Some other noteworthy ones</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Life 3.0</strong> by Max Tegmark. A book about the potential futures of AI and the debates currently going on within the field. If you’re interested in AI or the future of technology, it’s definitely worth reading.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Strong Towns: A bottom-up revolution to rebuild American prosperity</strong> by Charles Marohn. I like to think of myself as a curious person, and I enjoy learning about all kinds of different things, but I didn’t expect urban planning to be one of the standout books this year. Charles Marohn is an engineer who is on a mission to convince Americans that how their cities are designed is failing them. His thesis is that municipalities in the US have seen a growth explosion following the post-war boom, which focused on giant suburbs and car-centric design rather than the walkable neighbourhoods of European and historic US cities.
I found the argument to be very convincing, and his recently published follow-up book is sitting patiently on my shelf to be read soon.</p>
</li>
</ul>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}I’ve written before about my love of reading. And last year, I did a short roundup of some books I’d read throughout the year, the good ones, bad ones and a few other noteworthy ones. So here are some books I read in 2021On Books: An Addendum2021-12-07T00:00:00+00:002021-12-07T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/12/07/on-books-an-addendum<p>I <a href="/2021/11/23/on-books.html">recently wrote</a> about my love of books, buying and reading them. But I completely forgot to mention the type of books and the challenge of selecting which ones to read and which ones to miss.</p>
<p>Unlike other forms of media, books tend to require a more significant investment of time to complete. You can watch a film in two or three hours. Most reasonably sized books will take twice that, if not much longer, and that’s for an easy-to-read novel. If you’re reading something more complex, it will take longer to process.</p>
<p>It’s also a matter of priorities, I suppose. Film buffs understand technical things like aspect ratios and camera angles. They are more likely than an average person to have high-quality home cinema equipment, and they probably watch more classic movies than the rest of us. That’s what they value, so they make an effort to expose themselves to the best that cinema has to offer. I don’t care about film that much. I enjoy movies, but I don’t know much about them, and I’m okay with that. I value books, so I try to expose myself to excellent pieces of writing.</p>
<p>Because of this, I am selective about the books I spend my time on. There is only so much time I can spend reading and so many books that I can read in my life. If we make a pretty optimistic estimate that I can get through one book per week for the rest of my life, that is likely to be somewhere around 52 x 60 = 3120 books I have time to read. That’s not so large a number that I can read everything I come across.</p>
<p>Your mileage may vary, but for me, it’s crucial to try to read only the books that I am most interested in or those from which I expect to get the most value.</p>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}I recently wrote about my love of books, buying and reading them. But I completely forgot to mention the type of books and the challenge of selecting which ones to read and which ones to miss.What Might Perfect Security Look Like?2021-11-25T00:00:00+00:002021-11-25T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/11/25/perfect-security<p>I’ve been thinking recently about security and how it simply gets in the way of what we try to do in so many instances. Want to buy this thing? Please verify your identity, then do it again via this text message. It isn’t very pleasant, to say the least.</p>
<p>I am increasingly of the opinion that the most important thing we can do to improve security is to make it easier to use. If for no other reason than people don’t use things that are too complicated. Passwords should’ve gone extinct a long time ago, but here we are at the end of 2021, still using them every day.</p>
<p>For a moment, let’s consider how perfect security might look. I’d argue that it would be impossible to tell the difference between perfect security and no security at all in regular use. Imagine if every computer unlocked for you when you interact with it, your every online account automatically loaded, or any online purchase handled without asking a single question.</p>
<p>Perfect security should work in the background to handle any verification necessary without bothering the user so they cannot even tell it is happening. I don’t expect this anytime soon, but it might be good to remember now and again as a guiding star for the direction security should head.</p>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}I’ve been thinking recently about security and how it simply gets in the way of what we try to do in so many instances. Want to buy this thing? Please verify your identity, then do it again via this text message. It isn’t very pleasant, to say the least.On Books2021-11-23T00:00:00+00:002021-11-23T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/11/23/on-books<p>There is something profoundly satisfying about books. They have a good feeling to them, in a physical sense. Their weight in the hands is pleasing. The aesthetic joy of a fully stacked bookshelf is hard to overstate. I’m not sure why I feel so strongly about books when many people I know don’t seem to care at all about them. Part of it is the joy of reading. To me, there’s something singularly special about the written word over other forms of media. The art of writing is challenging, so producing a complete book with actual honest to goodness words inside is a big deal, at least to me.</p>
<p>My love of books has been pretty constant for most of my life. Some people don’t read at all, and I cannot wrap my head around why. It’s such a bizarre thing that we seem to be ok that a portion of society has essentially no interest in reading anything. Maybe it’s a smaller proportion of people than I think, or perhaps it’s ok because they read the news or Twitter. I’m not sure, though. I think we’d find it strange if somebody said they never listen to music or watch movies. Not just rarely, I mean if they did not watch a film or listen to a single song in an entire year. It would be bizarre, yet with books, it seems not entirely uncommon.</p>
<p>Anyway, my enjoyment of books comes from several reasons. I love the sight of a well-filled bookcase. It takes effort to fill a bookcase. It may be for aesthetic purposes only, in which case that would be a shame, but still, a filled bookcase is more likely to lead to reading than an empty one. There’s some folk wisdom that you shouldn’t date someone if they don’t have a single book in their house. It may be a little reductive, but for quick ways to determine what someone values, it seems like as good a way as any to me.</p>
<p>Not only do books look great on shelves, they feel great in hand. There is a tactile joy in physically holding a book and turning its pages. Feeling the texture of the paper, the strength of the binding. And every bookworm knows the smell of a book as their happy place. Years of Pavlovian self-training to associate the smell of books with a cosy armchair and the joy of reading is hard to overlook. It’s a solid reason to prefer physical books over digital ones.</p>
<p>On the subject of e-readers, I recognise them as being in most ways technically superior to a physical book, but I am certainly not running out to replace my library with a kindle. It may be cheaper, more accessible, and easier to transport, but I simply don’t care. Instant coffee is cheaper and faster to make than anything else, but try asking a coffee fan if they prefer a cup over their favoured roast sometime. Books are not about practicality. Well, they’re mostly not about practicality. The act of perusing a bookshop, buying and storing books is an integral and enjoyable part of the process. Just because I could find a pdf copy somewhere doesn’t mean that I will enjoy it all the same. Practicality is important, but I only value it in specific instances such as reference material while working or studying rather than maintaining a purely digital library of books.</p>
<p>One exception to this digital book aversion is with audiobooks. Since they’re such a different way of experiencing a book, I consider them an entirely different medium. I enjoy audiobooks when I’m walking; they let me focus on something and help eat up the miles without noticing how far I’ve gone. Though I mainly use them for fiction rather than non-fiction which is easier to remember after I’m done.</p>
<p>In short, reading is something that I find pretty indispensable to my daily life. I enjoy books and reading for their own sake, but also for the educational or entertainment value they provide. So go and read more, thank me later.</p>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}There is something profoundly satisfying about books. They have a good feeling to them, in a physical sense. Their weight in the hands is pleasing. The aesthetic joy of a fully stacked bookshelf is hard to overstate. I’m not sure why I feel so strongly about books when many people I know don’t seem to care at all about them. Part of it is the joy of reading. To me, there’s something singularly special about the written word over other forms of media. The art of writing is challenging, so producing a complete book with actual honest to goodness words inside is a big deal, at least to me.On Consistency2021-11-17T00:00:00+00:002021-11-17T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/11/17/on-consistency<p>Being consistent is a remarkably powerful way to work and is probably the key to doing anything significant. The person who puts in an hour of practice every day will consistently outperform the person who tries doing ten hours per day but quickly burns out and gives up. The most significant difference between a peak performer and an amateur is consistency. The peak performer puts in the practice, day in and day out, over a long time, and they get to reap the rewards.</p>
<p>The power of consistency is that it lets you focus on the process and not only the result, which helps with spotting mistakes and making improvements. I remember reading somewhere that natural talent will only take you so far against somebody who practices every day at something they love. In that spirit, I’m going to be more consistent with writing and publishing my thoughts here.</p>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}Being consistent is a remarkably powerful way to work and is probably the key to doing anything significant. The person who puts in an hour of practice every day will consistently outperform the person who tries doing ten hours per day but quickly burns out and gives up. The most significant difference between a peak performer and an amateur is consistency. The peak performer puts in the practice, day in and day out, over a long time, and they get to reap the rewards.On Societal and Technological Maturity2021-11-09T00:00:00+00:002021-11-09T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/11/09/societal-and-technological-maturity<p>I have been thinking a lot recently about the transition of society from one era into another and how a period of change can happen faster than the people living through it can keep up.</p>
<p>It seems clear we have reached a point where our technological progress is vastly outpacing our societal and cultural progress. As to how long this can last, I don’t know. Will we forever be playing catch up with technology, or will it turn out that we just need time to adjust to the new world?</p>
<p>The ways we learn, communicate, work<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> and otherwise live our lives have been so fundamentally altered by technology that I think many of the problems we’re struggling with stem from the dissonance between the modern digital world and our older cultural and societal norms.</p>
<p>Take our ideas of ownership, for example. In many ways, they simply don’t make sense for a digital world. What does ownership mean for something that can be perfectly and infinitely replicated at zero cost? Or how can you steal something that remains with the owner? We see these problems with copyright laws<sup id="fnref:2" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote" rel="footnote">2</a></sup>, which are supposed to help creators protect their work but now seem to cause more problems than they solve for many creators.</p>
<p>A hazardous example is the use of algorithmic content promotion to spread dangerous misinformation. Is this something we just have to live with until such a time as society figures out how to responsibly handle instantaneous mass communication?</p>
<p>Sadly I don’t have the answers to these questions. Although I do suspect that a large part of the problem is the transition from the old analogue 20th-century world into the digital-first 21st century. Maybe we just have to identify dangerous uses of technology and minimise their risks until society catches up.</p>
<h3 id="footnotes">Footnotes</h3>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>I think in particular our conception of work is going to have to fundamentally change in the coming years as automation renders huge numbers of people unemployable. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote">
<p>The law is a big part of the problem here I think, since it tends to take significantly longer for the law to progress than technology. <a href="#fnref:2" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}I have been thinking a lot recently about the transition of society from one era into another and how a period of change can happen faster than the people living through it can keep up.Spooky Reading2021-11-01T00:00:00+00:002021-11-01T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/11/01/spooky-reading<p>Over the past few years, I’ve developed something of a tradition of reading something spooky on Halloween<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>. I didn’t have any particularly long horror novels to read this year, so I decided to do some spooky short stories instead.</p>
<p>So throughout Halloween, I read Lovecraft’s <em>Call of Cthulu</em>, which I had somehow managed to unintentionally avoid for years despite having worked my way through most of his short stories. It’s obviously a classic, and I have a particular enjoyment for his ideas of cosmic horror.</p>
<p>I also have a collection of short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, so I read <em>Metzengerstein</em> and <em>The Pit and the Pendulum</em>, both of which I felt had the spooky atmosphere I wanted.</p>
<p>Finally, I read something much scarier than the others. I started reading a collection of essays and articles I have recently gathered about Facebook and the Metaverse - truly a frightening subject. These ideas around the future of the internet, greater interconnectedness and VR experiences would be less troubling and more exciting, I think, if they weren’t coming from <del>Facebook</del> <em>Meta</em>. Anyway, I have lots of thoughts about this, but they deserve fleshing out on their own another time.</p>
<h3 id="footnotes">Footnotes</h3>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>It started as an excellent excuse to drink red wine and read Dracula <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}Over the past few years, I’ve developed something of a tradition of reading something spooky on Halloween1. I didn’t have any particularly long horror novels to read this year, so I decided to do some spooky short stories instead. It started as an excellent excuse to drink red wine and read Dracula ↩Obligation to Engage2021-10-30T00:00:00+00:002021-10-30T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/10/30/obligation-to-engage<p>It’s not exactly a surprise to most people when the news comes out that many organisations, particularly governments, have been doing shady shit regarding technology. Creating drones with an increasing level of autonomy to decide for themselves who gets to live and who gets a missile to the face. Intercepting internet traffic from everyday, law-abiding citizens to find any criminals in the worlds most enormous haystack. Facial recognition vans being used by the police without a specific target in mind, just monitoring everyone.</p>
<p>There are many reasons to be concerned about this state of affairs for those of us who value our privacy and have a healthy mistrust of authority. It’s no surprise then that when large tech companies win military contracts, such as Microsoft announcing they will build high tech hololens-style headsets for the US Army, their engineers revolted and demanded they drop the contract. If I were an engineer at a tech company, who joined to work on exciting problems to make the world better, I would be pissed to discover my bosses actually want me to build things to help kill people. This dilemma comes up rather often. Big tech companies tend to have the most resources and talented engineers around, and it’s not shocking that governments have all kinds of problems they’d like to solve with technology.</p>
<p>The question is, if we care so much about the use and misuse of potentially dangerous technology in society, do we have an obligation to engage with the process of creating it? On the one hand, refusing to work with or for organisations that do work you find objectionable as an engineer seems to be a pretty standard position. If you don’t want to build weapons technology, don’t work for a company with contracts to build them, right? On the other hand, has that made any significant change to the way these technologies are used? Would it not be more effective to get involved in those organisations and change the direction from within? Decisions are made by those who show up after all.</p>
<p>For sure, there’s no shortage of questionable or blatantly unethical uses of technology all around us, so clearly, the technology is still being built and deployed. Maybe the refusal of ethical engineers to work on these systems is actually causing more problems by ensuring that only unethical engineers are creating them instead.</p>
<p>I suppose this all relies upon the assumption that the employees within these organisations could influence the things they build. Perhaps if development teams for a project refused to create what they consider unethical technology, such as surveillance systems, they might be able to make a change. Or they might be fired, who knows. In one respect, it may be like asking whether police officers can impact what laws are passed. If the entire police force collectively refused to enforce a given law, then what would happen? I don’t know.</p>
<p>Either way, it’s a problem that I’ve been pondering for a while. I also think it’s necessary to ask the question because there are many unethical applications of technology. If those of us who have the knowledge to help produce such systems don’t take our role seriously, then we’re all pretty much screwed.</p>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}It’s not exactly a surprise to most people when the news comes out that many organisations, particularly governments, have been doing shady shit regarding technology. Creating drones with an increasing level of autonomy to decide for themselves who gets to live and who gets a missile to the face. Intercepting internet traffic from everyday, law-abiding citizens to find any criminals in the worlds most enormous haystack. Facial recognition vans being used by the police without a specific target in mind, just monitoring everyone.Letters from an Astrophysicist2021-10-09T00:00:00+00:002021-10-09T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/10/09/letters-from-an-astrophysicist<p>I recently picked up a copy of Letters from an Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson, so here are a few quick thoughts about it.</p>
<p>The book is slightly different from his usual work; there is no consistent topic but a collection of letters instead of a typical book. The letters are primarily responses to queries he has received over the years, with a few open letters thrown into the mix.</p>
<p>Each chapter of the book focuses on a particular theme, such as parenting, science denial or philosophy. The queries are shown in full or briefly summarised and accompany their response from Tyson.</p>
<p>The letters are all remarkably engaging. They are pointed and concise, providing a thoughtful response to the sender. Some are very short, others several pages long, but each makes an honest effort to answer the query or politely rebut a false claim. The way he writes is immediately familiar to anyone who has read his other books or heard him speak. As a fan of Startalk Radio, the book was a delightful read.</p>
<p>After I started the book, I found it hard to put down, each letter was interesting, and I read the whole thing in an afternoon. If you’re interested in science or want to think about the world more scientifically, this is well worth reading.</p>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}I recently picked up a copy of Letters from an Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson, so here are a few quick thoughts about it.Building a Learning Workflow2021-09-05T00:00:00+00:002021-09-05T00:00:00+00:00https://adamdwalker.com/2021/09/05/consistent-learning-workflow<p>Over the past year, I have put a lot of time into personal growth and learning. I decided if I am stuck at home due to the pandemic anyway, I should take advantage of the time saved travelling and use it to learn things.</p>
<p>One problem I have encountered over this time is building and optimising a workflow for learning. One of the biggest lessons I learned from university is that scattered, disjointed studying is nowhere near as effective as a focused process<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>.</p>
<p>So I’ve spent time trying out different processes throughout the year to see how they go. Probably the most important thing I’ve learned is the power of a workflow. You can use as many fancy to-do lists or organisation techniques as you like, but if they don’t fit together, then it doesn’t matter; it’s merely a collection of disconnected processes. The overall workflow is greater than the sum of its parts.</p>
<p>The way I currently study is to do at least 30 minutes of dedicated reading on a morning. I do this as a habit to make sure I am always making progress and treat it as mental exercise - it is good for me whether I enjoy it or not. While reading<sup id="fnref:2" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> I make sure to have a physical notebook to hand for taking down any notes or ideas that come to me as I read. It may seem like this slows my reading down, and it does, but it helps enormously with understanding and retention over the long term.</p>
<p>Later in the evening, I spend another 30 minutes reviewing the notes I took that day and transforming them into more comprehensive, fleshed out notes with references that I can keep in my digital notes database. I find that spending the time to let the ideas percolate in my head for the day is more helpful than simply digitising the notes immediately, and if I do it the same day, I haven’t forgotten anything yet.</p>
<p>I apply this process to anything I am trying to understand. The more widely I can use this workflow, the more effective it becomes to focus on the process and make progress through consistency.</p>
<h3 id="footnotes">Footnotes</h3>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>A big revelation, right? <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote">
<p>Or listening to podcasts, watching videos, etc. <a href="#fnref:2" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>{"name"=>nil, "email"=>nil}Over the past year, I have put a lot of time into personal growth and learning. I decided if I am stuck at home due to the pandemic anyway, I should take advantage of the time saved travelling and use it to learn things.