One of my colleagues, upon seeing this book, said “The title makes me think it’s bullshit.” However, this book is actually a pretty careful look, not at wild speculations of crackpots about what QM could mean, but at the more widely-accepted wild speculations of the highly respected scientists who have worked on QM over the years. We don’t need crazy extrapolations here, as the actual positions held by various scientists are plenty weird enough.

I’d say that one of the weirdest ones to me is the position that physics can never say anything about Reality anyway, making such discussions moot. I agree with the author of this book that such positions seem “intellectually safe but ultimately sterile”.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a very lucid, if somewhat out of date, look at what real quantum physicists have to say about the nature of ‘real’ Reality.

I’ve been drinking at least a little tea more or less every day all summer. I will give school one month to break me of the habit before declaring this goal accomplished.

I know Boolean algebra and Propositional Calculus, at the very least, but I want to learn more about the various types of logics that have been devised to deal with uncertainty and time-dependence, like fuzzy logic and temporal logic.

I’ve been doing this for the last year, working on a very interesting project with Prof. Crandall @ UNM studying Chinese Internet censorship. That said, I’ve only made the slightest bit of progress and have so much more work to do….! It’s fun, but wow, it’s not easy to do.

This book is filled with fascinating stories of the more bizarre side of human life. The thing I like most about this book is the author’s well-researched, opinionated approach to the subject.

JUST the way I like it, when a book has a large Index and Bibliography full of other good books to read. Colin Wilson is quite an author, judging by this and The Mind Parasites, and I will have to consume more of his work.

The Puppet Masters is one of the legendary books that any Sci-Fi fan should read! I would be hard-pressed to say anything about it without feeling like I was giving something away, however.

This book was awesome on the surface, but I don’t think it’s really about alien invasions. Try reading it a few times if you don’t believe me.

The Front is a very cool guy. I went and geeked out seeing him at a show, and even got him to sign my duct tape wallet and Frontalot CDs! This was, however, like a year-and-a-half ago, so this is here mostly for historical purposes. I’d love to meet him again sometime!

Working on Getting more organized

Slowly (very, very slowly) reading and adapting the practices of Getting Things Done. Been using Remember the Milk as my primary tool for a while and it has been working well, but I’m looking into moving to another one, which incorporates goals. Woo! I hope I get better at organizing my physical goods next. :(

Anybody out there got any good hints for keeping your crap together?

Sleep more
I committed to this goal some time ago, and felt I better update myself on the situation.

I hadn’t done much to work on this goal, admittedly. I’ve been sleeping more this past week, but at what cost? I’ve barely gotten any of my chores done, but my wife has helped pick up the slack, so I’ve only lost study-time and playtime. She says it’s been good for my shattered health; I can only hope she’s right.