Book Notes

Recently read or spotted:

As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial is a graphic novel written by anarcho-primitivist Derrick Jensen and illustrated by Stephanie McMillan.  It offers up some stark truths about the environment to help you debate your friends who think we'll save the earth simply by switching to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, buying hybrid cars, and carrying our groceries in $1000 "green" canvas shopping bags.  Jensen also educates us on animal rights, corporate power and other issues -- the book is none too subtle.  The graphic format and occasional bits of humor are what saves this book.  I don't think I could stomach larger does of Jensen (e.g. his  Endgame) and I dislike his defense of violence and other radical actions.

Usability and design guru Donald Norman's latest book, The Design of Future Things, is excellent, though a bit slim for a pricey hardcover.  Norman focuses in this book on new "intelligent" technologies that we don't just interact with -- we communicate with them, or rather they communicate with us when they deem it necessary.  Most of his examples are of sophisticated AI systems in cars that do things like: stop you from changing lanes unexpectedly, adjust the automatic cruise control according to the distance to the car ahead, or even a system that monitors video of the driver to spot when he nods off.  All of those systems are in cars now and others are on the way including cars that communicate with each other and drive themselves in swarms down the highway.  The book also contains chapters on smart houses and home robots.  Norman draws from cognitive psychology and human factors engineering to illustrate the risks of bad designs in such systems, and he offers up several guiding principles.  Norman doesn't question the need for any of these new technologies; for him the benefits always outweigh the risks and the emphasis is on achieving good designs.

Other interesting books spotted:

New essay collection by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins: Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health.

A Guinea Pig's History of Biology by Jim Endersby.

Rethinking Expertise: "Harry Collins and Robert Evans offer a radical new perspective on the role of expertise in the practice of science and the public evaluation of technology."

Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy by Gwyneth Cravens is the latest environmentalist-turned-pro-nuke conversion story.  I find the factoids and links offered up on the website underwhelming, and a quick look through the book gave me the impression it's more of a personal narrative with reassuring exhortations from experts than an in-depth analysis.  But I could be wrong.