Scott J. Pearson

Developing Apps with GPT-4 and ChatGPT: Build Intelligent Chatbots, Content Generators & More

By Scott J. Pearson | December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Everyone today seems to want to do something with artificial intelligence (AI), but few seem to know how to do it well. We’ve started to see how AI bots can induce horrors, and business leaders plead to avoid those risks. ChatGPT, packaged from OpenAI, remains the dominant, most trusted AI tool even though many other versions exist. It’d be nice if we software folks could stop and get a masters degree in AI, but life…

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

By Scott J. Pearson | November 28, 2025November 28, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

The Spanish Civil War was a historical precursor to World War II. Franco’s fascism for a time united disparate opposing groups like anarchists and communists. The opposition attracted volunteers from across Europe. However, these groups began infighting among each other, and the opposition ultimately failed. As with most failures, the blame game ran deep among groups. The great English writer George Orwell’s first-hand account provides as much light as can be shown upon the whole…

Healthcare Society

The Political Determinants of Health

By Scott J. Pearson | November 23, 2025November 23, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

In scientific circles, the “social determinants of health” is a common phrase used to describe how one’s zip code can have more impact on health outcomes than one’s personal health. This book plays off that title by describing how America’s political situation – whether one is part of a favored class or note – can influence health outcomes. It takes particular aim at health inequities in American history. Daniel Dawes describes attempts in American history…

HIV/AIDS

World AIDS Day 2025

By Scott J. Pearson | November 20, 2025November 20, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

I’m not your usual AIDS activist. First of all, I’m actually a terrible activist who rarely, if ever, takes to the streets. Second, I grew up on the political and religious right. Third, I’m a white heterosexual cisgendered monogamous male, not really in any risk group. So why do I care deeply about HIV? I grew fascinated with the complex science involved during medical school. I loved studying – and often forgetting on tests! –…

Humor Science

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems

By Scott J. Pearson | November 18, 2025November 18, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Ever wonder what it takes to land a plane on top of a train? Or what’s the best way to send nuclear waste to the sun? Or how to take a selfie with yourself and the moon? Well, Randall Munroe has answers, filled in a humorous tone. The beauty of how science generalizes – particularly, physics – is how it applies to all sorts of absurd situations. Munroe understands how to create such situations in…

Leadership Management-Business

Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness

By Scott J. Pearson | November 15, 2025November 15, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

When observing the world, many see that true leadership does not reflect positions of power; rather, it reflects a quality of personal character. Robert Greenleaf looked at 1970s America and the 1970s world and observed a lack of leadership. We had educated talent out the wazoo, but lacked people able to usher in lasting, good change. He wrote this book to cultivate such leadership qualities in its readers. Leadership, to him, was of a servant’s…

Leadership Management-Business

Simply Managing: What Managers Do- and Can Do Better

By Scott J. Pearson | November 12, 2025November 12, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Most contemporary management books from scholars tend to center on a central “secret of management” upon which an entire philosophy is built. Henry Mintzberg instead flips the idea on its head and observed dozens of managers from various industries in the field. Then he tried to describe what they were doing empirically. Then he made that into a framework. In this bottom-up approach, he observed managers doing all sorts of things throughout a day, without…

Biography-Memoir Religion-Philosophy

A Summer with Pascal

By Scott J. Pearson | November 10, 2025November 10, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

I’m a huge fan of French polymath Blaise Pascal simply because he provokes thought. Besides his scientific and mathematical contributions, he died before forming his greatest philosophical work into a coherent defense of the plausibleness of Christianity. Instead, they were left as a series of fragments for us to ponder in the following centuries. Simply titled Pensées (or “thoughts”), they give us insight into the spiritual life of one of history’s greatest scientific geniuses. This…

Artificial Intelligence Science

AI for Scientific Discovery: Proceedings of a Workshop by the National Academies

By Scott J. Pearson | November 8, 2025November 8, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine guide America’s federal research policies based on identifying challenges in the field. This 2024 workshop looked at opportunities within scientific research for artificial intelligence (AI) to contribute. It was led by national experts discussing use cases in their research and attempted to generalize based on those experiences. Most use cases were from American-based science, but AI in Africa was a recurring theme. Overall, the abundance of unique…

Artificial Intelligence Software-Technology

AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models

By Scott J. Pearson | November 4, 2025November 8, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

It’s always daunting to pick up a technical book that’s over 500 pages long or 21 hours long. However, this book did not disappoint. Not every section, of course, addressed my particular needs. However, the entire treatise was clearly communicated with a broader technical audience in mind. That should be no surprise because Chip Huyen, besides being an AI expert, taught graduate school classes in AI at Stanford and writes science fiction as a side…