![]() Because this book is about the evolution of the public perception of forensic toxicology and not just the science behind it, I could overlook the scientific stumbles.Īs a laboratory professional, I loved reading about the early days of forensic science and forensic toxicology. One must remember that Blum is a journalist, not a chemist I tend place blame on the publisher’s fact-checker as well as the author. ![]() ![]() While my own knowledge base isn’t wide, even I notice a few inaccuracies (HCN isn’t a “potent” acid, for example). Several of the reviews of this book note Blum’s lack of chemistry knowledge, and I can’t disagree. I found this particularly fascinating not only were people willing to risk their lives to drink alcohol, the government tried to dissuade people from drinking by actively poisoning the supply. Blum discusses Prohibition at length and its contribution to poisoning deaths in New York City. Over time, poisoning deaths decreased due to public awareness as well as the realization that murderers were increasingly likely to get caught. ![]() ![]() Blum weaves several cases into a narrative that covers several poisons used during the 1920s and ‘30s. Gettler transformed death investigation from a good-old-boy coroner system to one based on science and data analysis. I recently read The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum, a book about poison and forensic investigation in Jazz-age New York City. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Não sei qual o problema das pessoas em fazerem listas de recomendações e apresentá-las com pequenos textos introdutórios e indicativos. Read the book and learn about oracles, genies, singletons about boxing methods, tripwires, and mind crime about humanity's cosmic endowment and differential technological development indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation and technology couplings Malthusian economics and dystopian evolution artificial intelligence, and biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence. Will it be possible to construct a seed AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation? To get closer to an answer to this question, we must make our way through a fascinating landscape of topics and considerations. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. ![]() ![]() As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of our species then would come to depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. ![]() The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. ![]() ![]() Women’s bodies, therefore, become the framework of the way we perceive women, the roles they play within our society, and how they even perceive themselves. ![]() Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (U of California Press, 1993) is put together by Bordo’s various lectures, talks, and published essays on the liberal feminist ideology that the female body is a cultural construct designed by Western culture-its prejudices and misconceived ideals-towards women and the place of their bodies. ![]() ![]() To do this, he takes the reader through where the emissions come from and examines ways to work through each of those areas, which he breaks down into making things, plugging in, growing things, getting around, and keeping warm and cool. This book essentially details his plan to reduce the carbon footprint from 51 billion tonnes today to zero by 2050. In his own words, achieving net-zero by 2050 is a hard challenge. His writing exudes urgency and intent to get started on curbing carbon emissions. Gates deserves praise for deciphering the technicalities of carbon neutrality and for fashioning a book that anyone with any background can read and understand. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5☌ between 20 if it continues to increase at the current rate.Īn increase of 1.5☌ does not exactly sound intimidating, but it can inflict irreversible damage to our planet’s ecosystems. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – a body whose data Gates frequently cites in the book – presented a report presented to the UN on Global Warming. I will come to that in a while, but first things first. That said, the fact that Bill Gates is at the helm does impinge on some of the content matter in the book. ![]() It reveals a lot about how the world governments are poised to take on the challenge. It is a great primer for anyone who seeks to upgrade his knowledge on Global warming and Carbon neutrality. Bill Gates’ new book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is informative and engrossing. ![]() ![]() One example is when Peter Gabriel of Genesis at the Friars club in Aylesbury on 19 June 1971 stage dove during the end of their song " The Knife", landing on his foot, thus breaking his ankle. Stage diving has occasionally caused serious injuries. ![]() Initially seen as confrontational and extreme, stage diving has become common at hardcore punk and thrash metal performances. Iggy Pop is often credited with popularising stage diving in popular rock music. Jim Morrison was an early performer known for having jumped into the crowd at several concerts. Many musicians have made stage diving a part of their stage act. Long before the word was invented, public stagediving took place during the first Dutch concert by The Rolling Stones at the Kurhaus of Scheveningen on August 8, 1964. It is often the precursor to crowd surfing. ![]() Stage diving is the act of leaping from a concert stage onto the crowd below, which occasionally causes serious injuries. Method Man preparing to dive into the crowd at the Tweeter Center during Rock the Bells 2007 ![]() ![]() ![]() As we meet her and the team she works with, they are on the cusp of a major breakthrough in communicating with the dolphins. Once all of those have been captured in multiple scenarios, then start the translation process using an advanced artificial intelligence program". ![]() ![]() Shaw's specialty deals with what she calls IMIS, or Inter Mammal Interpretive System "IMIS works by recording all of the recognizable sounds from our dolphins all of their clicks, whistles, even postures. She is 25 years old at the time and about to get a whole lot older (well, madder anyways). We first meet Shaw at a marine research facility in Costa Rica. They are mentioned here because the adventures mentioned above will involve them along with the humans Shaw and Clay. They have no last name that I am aware of and probably don't care since 'Dirk and Sally' are just what the humans call this pair of bottle-nosed dolphins what they call themselves is also not known. I should probably mention here Dirk and Sally. When these two individuals finally get thrown together they will go on to have a series of exciting adventures together, escapades which will have major impact to the world around them. ![]() ![]() She writes in Presence that she was able to persevere because she found something that she loved to study - psychology with, due to her injury, a focus on issues of presence, power, and doubt. Impostor syndrome kicked in: Cuddy worried she wouldn’t be able to succeed academically, because she was a lesser version of her former self. In her sophomore year at the University of Colorado, she was in a serious car crash and sustained a head injury that caused her to fall two standard deviations - about 30 points - on the IQ scale. Some of the advice laid out in Presence is advice Cuddy has herself had to take. ![]() ![]() ![]() This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. ![]() ![]() ![]() His methodical newspaper research habits carried over to his fiction. ![]() It took eight years for Herbert's insights to gain mass and momentum and to become focused in a single story. Nonetheless it was no easy jump from the tight little world of the Fenian Ram to the parched wastes of Arrakis. Ramsey's rejection of the paternalism of psychology and his analysis of the subtug crew's dependency on their captain anticipates features of Dune's portrayal of the human love affair with messiahs and supermen. This concern with the dangers of hero worship is already evident in Under Pressure. I had this idea that superheros were disastrous for humans. ![]() Recalling the origins of Dune, Herbert says: It began with a concept: to do a long novel about the messianic convulsions which periodically inflict themselves on human societies. Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, it is considered by many to be the greatest work of science fiction ever written. Herbert's success with Under Pressure was only a shadow of what was to come with his second novel, Dune. (Out of print.) Chapter 3: From Concept to Fable The Evolution of Dune Copyright © 1981 by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc. ![]() ![]() ![]() įoster returned to the franchise for the prequel-era novel The Approaching Storm (2002), and also wrote the novelization of the first sequel trilogy film, The Force Awakens (2015). ![]() Foster's story relied heavily on abandoned concepts that appeared in Lucas's early treatments for the first film. However, Star Wars was a blockbusting success, and The Empire Strikes Back (1980) would be developed instead. It would be akin to a contractor demanding to have his name on a Frank Lloyd Wright house." įoster also wrote the follow-up novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978), written with the intention of being adapted as a low-budget sequel to Star Wars if the film was unsuccessful. Not having my name on the cover didn't bother me in the least. When asked if it was difficult for him to see Lucas get all the credit for Star Wars, Foster said, "Not at all. He has written several book series, more than 20 standalone novels, and many novelizations of film scripts.įoster was the ghostwriter of the original novelization of Star Wars, which was credited solely to George Lucas. Humanx Commonwealth and Spellsinger seriesĪlan Dean Foster (born November 18, 1946) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction. ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s a message Baldwin’s black readers picked up from the beginning. Nestled in the manuscript, Baldwin’s fifth novel, were rebukes such as this one, perfectly suited for the holiday: “Who ever discovered America deserved to be dragged home, in chains, to die.” Acknowledging he sounded like the “witness as prophet,” Baldwin called Beale Street “the strangest novel” he had “ever written.” If Beale Street Could Talk may have been a story about the redemptive power of love, but it was written in the absolute conviction that “blood” was “on the wind” and that the powers that be were not long for this world. From his home-in-exile in France, James Baldwin wrote his brother David to announce that he had just completed his first novel in five years. ![]() Roman Polanski, David Bowie, and a New Solution to the Problem of Art Made by Monstrous Men Guess What? This Mystery Story Written by Robots Is Kind of Good! The Four-Month Scandal That Made Martin Amis the Center of the Literary World ![]() He’s One of Twitter’s Most Beloved Writers. ![]() |