When I studied the US Constitution for the first time in the late 1990s as a high-school student, I noticed that it gave Congress, not the Presidency, the responsibility of declaring war. This seemed contrary to my experience, in which the President led the nation into war. It is commonly said that the UN Charter, ratified by Congress, supersedes this earlier practice. Beschloss seeks to tackle this inconsistency head-on. By providing detailed historical analysis, he…
DevOps is a movement about the management of computer programmers. It basically says that Development (coding) and Operations (deployment and maintenance) should communicate more and better. Such workability allows for better error detection, swifter deployment of code, etc. Interestingly, I’ve worked mainly in research environments where I’ve been in charge of both Development and Operations at the same time. I worked in a corporation with separate Dev and Ops for a few years – and…
To understand and appreciate Russian author Leo Tolstoy, one has to understand and appreciate Russian history. Leo Tolstoy was born as a part of the aristocratic class in Russia, yet he spoke up for the serf. Russia has millions of uneducated serfs – and has had for generations. Most viewed them as worthless. Like Abraham Lincoln, Tolstoy saw value in their lives; he, as they say, saw their humanity. Even though many did not read…
I reviewed this novel earlier in this blog. I also wrote a lengthier review at the Englewood Review of Books that was just published. I’d be honored if you checked it out!
Being an outlier means being a non-conformist. One hears this kind of advice all the time. So many people buy into conventions that they forget the reasons behind the conventions. Gladwell seeks to critique the standard story of an outlier’s success. As normally told, outliers start doing there own thing; they work really hard and persevere; then in the end, they end up successful while all the world is envious of them; their story is…
My research work is moving from writing code to explaining the software that I’ve written. In general, I enjoy learning about language, and I picked up this book to extend my knowledge as well as to refresh myself on good practices for scientific writing. Scientific writing is often dry and difficult to understand – but as Greene points out, it doesn’t have to be. By following good writing practices (in the tradition of the famed…
Teddy Roosevelt set the agenda for twentieth-century America. After assuming the presidency because of an assassination (McKinley), Roosevelt provided a successful progressive trajectory for the coming century. Because of him, America prospered and prospers still. He impacted just about every major area with his touch. He helped start the area of land conservation. He introduced legislation to improve transportation by ending the railway trust. In foreign policy, he mediated negotiations to end the Russian-Japanese War…
Epistemology. It’s a big philosophical word that addresses the basic question, how do you know something? It’s a huge and complex question in the world of medicine. How do you know one way is better than another? It applies to individuals approaching diagnoses and treatment plans; it applies to doctors seeking advice about specific diseases; and it applies to researchers seeking to guide collective judgment about possible outcomes. This book tackles this problem head-on with…
This highly acclaimed work (winning a Pulitzer Prize) deserves every one of its adulations. It is not only personal, erudite, and interesting; it is also inspiring and well-written. Mukherjee attempts to present “a biography of cancer,” starting from its first mention in the historical record (a Queen of Persia). A practicing oncologist, he also ties in patient stories to advance the narrative in appropriate places. Generally, he tells the tale of how humanity and science…
First, this work is intended for a very niche audience. It is for computer programmers who are web designers and who want to learn not just basic CSS (how webpages are currently styled) but advanced CSS. As becomes the O’Reilly book series, Verou is fortunately a master of CSS and of technical communication. Her wit makes learning how to make the most out of CSS entertaining, intriguing, and extensible to new situations. Verou, a member…