The Leap by Chris Turner - Book Report #242

The book’s subtitle - “How to Survive and Thrive in the Sustainable Economy” makes, what the author calls The Great Leap Sideways, a bit scary.

To the contrary, Turner shows us that the leap to a sustainable economy is well underway, we just can’t really see it.  Part of the reason is that things are still very much in the grass-roots phase, but those roots have spread everywhere.

Our entire way of life, and when I say "our" I mean the entire planet, is based on the gift of stored energy that are fossils fuels.  These fuels power, transport, light and heat our entire lives.  Without it we would be in caves.

But we’ve reached the limits of what fossil fluels can do for us.  Yes, climate change.  Yes peak oil.  Yes pollution.  Believe them or don’t - it really does not matter.  Things will change because they must.  

If you find all of the news stories about the end of life as we know it keeps you up at night, Turner will help to ease your fears.  He gives many examples, primarily Denmark and Germany, of how our way of life can not only continue but expand in harmony with nature.

And if you think about it, the opportunities to make money and change the world are nearly limitless. All we have to do is reinvent everything.  The internet did that to communications and knowledge, changing the energy structure will be profoundly more lucrative and it will guarantee humanity’s survival.

So, if you are a climate change denier, believe that alternative forms of energy will wreck our economy or that there is no way it can take over from fossil fuels, don’t bother reading this.

My belief is that it will happen regardless.  The pure economics of maintaining the status quo will become too expensive anyway. 

This book is brilliant and inspirational.

Chris Turner

The Inevitable by Kevin Kelley - Book Report #166

This was an important book to put today's technology and it's underlying trends into focus.

Kelly showed me how the new normal needs to be accepted, maintained and upgraded.

Staying up to date requires a constant willingness to learn and adapt.

What really hit me was chapter 5 - Accessing.  It is here that he laid out why streaming music is such a strong trend.  Without even being conscious of it we are shifting from a society that owns things to one that pays to have access to things.

The "sharing economy" fits into the world of access over ownership.  You don't have to own a car if you have access to Uber.  You don't need to buy a DVD if it is available, on demand, on Netflix.

I paid for Apple Music just to see what the fuss was about but I kept thinking that I didn't OWN the music which plays contrary to how I grew up.  You build a collection, it sits on a shelf, it's something you access and it's something that speaks to others of your tastes.

The difference is, with ACCESS to everything, you can let your imagination run wild.  You hear an old Willie Nelson song in a movie and you look it up.  You can then add the song or the entire album to your virtual collection.  If it is there.

In the fullness of time everything will be available for access.  Today it is kind of lumpy and you might have accounts with more than one service.

Anyways.  The book put the trends into focus and also gave me some idea of where things are going.

Kelley explores such subjects of AI and it's inclusion into everyday objects.  Tracking and surveillance.  How screens are changing the world.

As the subtitle says: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future.

The future looks pretty cool.

Recommended.

Kevin Kelly's website is here -  http://kk.org/

Beyond: Our Future In Space by Chris Impey - Book Report #163

14/15/2016

I found this book to be a page-turner.  The subject of space exploration; past, present and future has always captured my imagination.

Impey did a nice job of informing the reader on how we got to here without getting bogged down in the details of the history of space exploration.

These broad strokes of background expertly puts today's program, both government and private, into focus.

The near future looks to be held back only by money and a bit of engineering.  I found myslef wishing that it's five years from now.  I want to know how it all turns out.

Where the book lost my interest was the final section, which looks at the far future.  One where we are no longer content with our solar system but are now making moves to interstellar travel.

My own personal interest is in the near future; how do we go back to the moon and then Mars?  Asteroid mining and generally moving human activity off the face of Earth, that's what really intrigues me.

The book would have felt funny if Impey did not tackle the subject of voyages beyond the solar system.  Most science fiction is based on this type of journey.

The book is very approachable, well written and makes a complex subject come into focus.  There is no doubt about where we are going, the sub-title says it all:  Our Future In Space.

I enjoyed the book very much and I am glad I was able to read it.

Chris Impey's website -  http://chrisimpey-astronomy.com/

Chris Impey

Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku - Book Report #143

Once again, in an effort to see the good in the world, I turned to Kaku's book about the future.

He covers eight broad subject areas, looks at where the technology is today and a year or two from now.  Then he takes on the futurist role and expands the subject to the near future (present to 2030) followed by mid-century predictions (2030 to 2070) and ending with speculation on the far future (2070 to 2100).

The book looks at the future of:

The Computer
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Medicine
Nanotechnology
Energy
Space Travel
Wealth
Humanity


He ends the book with a bit of creative fiction; a day in the life of a regular office worker which brings all the technology discussed and shows how he interacts with it.

I liked the book but I did not love it.  But that's not really a flaw of the author or the book, it's just that some areas, like nanotechnology and space travel, are either in their infancy or have been so neglected that it's difficult to believe some of the changes predicted.  Some of the topics lent themselves to believable extrapolation while others felt like pure guesswork. 

Each topic is its own entity and does not lead into the next, meaning you can pick and choose which chapters to read without losing anything by skipping one or reading them out of order.

The strength of the book is that it will give you a sense of wonder and hopefulness for the future.

Now if only we can get humanity to just get along with each other we can get down to the business of creating the future depicted by Kaku.

You can find the author's website here:
http://mkaku.org/

The Bookless Library

I just read a very interesting article by David A. Bell in The New Republic magazine's website about the impact of ebooks on public and research libraries.

Well worth the read.

Find it HERE

The New Republic website is HERE

Information on the author can be found HERE