Month: August 2018

Humanities

Gestalt Psychology: The Definitive Statement of the Gestalt Theory

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

by Wolfgang KoehlerCopyright (c) 1947. I picked this book to read because I was interested in how the average computer user approaches a computer screen. I’ve been convinced for some time now (maybe 15-20 years) that people approach computers not through user manuals nor even through tips on how to use it. They approach the computer through their intuition. Intuition has a lot to do with the psychological concept of Gestalt, so I’ve learned. The…

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Software-Technology

Advanced R

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

by Hadley Wickhamhttp://adv-r.had.co.nz/ Hadley brings an in-depth analysis of the R statistical language in this book and opens up more questions as it enlightens the reader to possibilities with R. This book is only for the nerds of the nerds as it explores the R programming language, a language used mainly by non-programmers for statistical analysis. As such, the readership for this book is presumably small. Nonetheless, it fills a need as it supplies R…

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Healthcare

The Epidemic: A Global History of AIDS

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

by Joanathan EngelCopyright (c) 2006.  Although this book is a little over a decade old, most of its history is still relevant to the equation when one speaks of HIV/AIDS. The history of the male-homosexual community combined with the history of IV-drug-user community combined with Asian/African transmissions is still locked in many of the same patterns that were present in 2006. Engel does a strong job of telling their stories and in so doing, telling…

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Healthcare

A History of Global Health: Interventions into the Lives of Other People

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

bg Randall M. PackardCopyright (c) 2016. I chose this book to read because I wanted a tutorial to the field of global health, and I find that histories are interesting tutorials to subjects. The author, unknown to me, is a Johns Hopkins professor of medical history and is known for writing a work on the history of malaria. The book meets my already-high expectations. Written well, it chronicles early attempts to control disease in “foreign”…

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Software-Technology

R Cookbook: Proven Recipes for Data Analysis, Statistics, and Graphics

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

by Paul Teetor Copyright 2011. I picked up this book with the intention of learning intermediate R. I was past the novice stage of learning the language, but I was still short of learning Advanced R. This book gave me the confidence to read R code more quickly and to understand more nuance in this (fun) language. This book is written by a quant (Wall Street data analyst) who has Masters degrees in both statistics…

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Economics

Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

by Jeffrey D. SachsAudiobook(c) 2016. I voted for Hillary Clinton twice in 2016. She beat Bernie Sanders in the first race, only to lose to Donald Trump in the second in a close race. Bernie Sanders relied on Sachs’ economics advice. Therefore, I find it important to educate myself on the issues in this democracy and to read this book to illuminate my ignorant mind. Sachs lays out a powerful and persuasive case for engaging…

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Software-Technology

ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

by Hadley Wickham(c) 2016. This is another book that applies to one of my nascent passions: Statistical programming with R. This book brings forth the central visualization package in ggplot by its author Hadley Wickham. Like most of Hadley’s works, the book is meticulously researched and extremely clear. It is a winner in  accomplishing its goals of introducing visualization in R. It even contains a short section on modeling in R. For those who don’t…

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