The New Northern Rambler

2022-03-28

"The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves" by J. B. MacKinnon

Publisher: Random House Canada

ISBN: 9780735275539

This was an extremely interesting book to read, and opened my eyes to a lot of things that go on in the world that I never really paid much attention to before. In addition the fact that it is so current takes into account the effects of the Covid 19 virus and how it has changed the world.

The book is divided into four sections First Days, Collapse, Adaption, and Transformation. As you can likely figure out the first talks about what would happen when people did stop shopping. Examples are given from various industries and how they coped or didn't when certain things such as the pandemic happened. It does however look at more than Covid and takes into account things like the Mideast oil embargo that happened in the early 1970s for example. One of the chapters in this section was very interesting and that dealt with the effects of stopping shopping on the climate. When for example residents of some of the world's most polluted cities saw clear blue sky.

The second section deals a lot with the economics of stopping shopping and how this will effect both macro and micro economies. It takes a hard look at the Finnish Depression of the early 1990s. Then goes on to look at advertising, and how people will adapt to not shopping.

Adaption deals with as the title suggests how people will and have adapt(ed) to not shopping as much, and looks at the concept of planned obsolescence and how it has been forced upon us. It also looks at a couple of programs in England called Worn Again and Every On Every Day.

The final section Transformation starts off by talking about whaling and how it decimated the population of Right Whales, and then talks about even when petroleum became common the whaling industry went into even higher production as they could now go further. It gave me a fair bit of insight into the way I consume things and I've found out that I would likely be considered a down-shifter, or a simplifier.

This was an extremely interesting book to read, and I plan on reading the others books that the author referenced within such as Vicki Robin's "Your Money or Your Life" and Michael Lee's "The Simple Living Guide."

2022-03-21

"Domesticating Dragons" by Dan Koboldt

Publisher: Baen Books

ISBN: 9781982125875

This is Mr. Koboldt's first fiction book, and it's a great one.

He previously wrote a non-fiction book entitled "Putting the Science in Fiction: Expert Advice for Writing With Authenticity in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Other Genres" which I reviewed back in December 2021, and which I found extremely interesting as it dealt with exactly what the Science Fiction genre has been lacking in for many years - science. Yes, it's in the title, but that doesn't mean it in the vast number of stories.

Domesticating Dragons looks at genetic engineering and the premise is that dogs have essentially become extinct due to a disease that swept through their species. Because of this, and because human still wanted animal companions a company found a way to custom design and "build" dragons for various roles in society. Enter Noah Parker who has an ulterior motive for wanting to design dragons (a good one) and who gets a job at Build-A-Dragon which is run by Robert Greaves (who has some not-so-good ideas).

As I said in the beginning this is a great book, and I'm looking forward to whatever Mr. Koboldt writes next.

Highly recommended.

2022-03-14

"The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit" by John V. Petrocelli

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

ISBN: 9781250271624

This book was quite informative, and well worth having to wait to get my hands on. The examples, and explanations for how people are fooled, and react when presented with even subtle forms of bullshit was very well done. I've always thought that I was pretty good at detecting false claims, and other misdirections, but this book opened my eyes to a number of things that I had never even considered.

Mr. Petrocelli dives the book into a number of different sections such as the "Costs of Bullshit" in which he discusses price markups, wine tasting, and psychological testing. "Why People Bullshit" in which he discusses how you can detect their lies. He then gives the reader some examples of some rather famous Bullshit Artists such as Douglas Biklen, Donald Trump, and Deepak Chopra. Following this he takes on various common examples of bullshit such as TED Talks (some of which are quite valuable, but others which are ripe examples of bullshit), and more.

Throughout this book I was presented with lots of information that was very valuable, and I would seriously recommend this title to anybody who is interested in getting to the truth.

2022-03-07

"Time's Eye" by Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) and Stephen Baxter

Publisher: Ballantine books

ISBN: 034545247 X

"Time's Eye" is the first book in the Time Odyssey trilogy and is rounded out by Sunstorm, and Firstborn. It tells the tale of a cataclysm that sees the world being carved up in time and reassembled much like a jigsaw puzzle. All over the world different periods in time lie next to each other, and the inhabitants of those times are forced to interact with each other, and survive.

Some of these groups consist of three members of the UN peacekeeping force who's helicopter is shot down, three cosmonauts who have just left the international space station, part of the Indian army from 1885, Genghis Khan and his troops, and the army of Alexander the Great.

The answers are all the quests seem to lie in the city of Babylon, which is a long ways away from where ever they were when the Kataklysm happened.

Very interesting book. Time travel books have always been one of my favorites, as it's always interesting to see how authors perceive the interaction between various cultures, and various time periods. For the most part the culture part is ignored by many authors, typically much to the detriment of their plotting and storyline.

I'm looking forward to reading the next two books in the series.

2022-02-28

"The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times" by Adrienne Mayor

Publisher: Princeton University Press

ISBN: 9780691150130

This was without a doubt one of the better books on the history of palaeontology I have read recently. I came across this pretty much by accident as I was looking for some reference material that would give me insight into where the origins of the mythology of dragons might have come from as at the time I was writing an article on the subject. I'm not exactly sure as I write this exactly what got me interested in the topic to begin with, but then again that was a few years ago, but it likely could have been something one of the school children asked me while I was touring them through the our lab. Prior to finding this book, I was getting rather frustrated as there didn't seem to be much material on the subject - which was rather annoying to say the least.

After finding this resource things began to click into place, as there really isn't a whole lot of information on the topic. As I learned from this book there is a great deal of fossil evidence in the Mediterranean basin with regard to palaeomammalogy, but very little prior to this as the area was quite geologically active. It also didn't help that many palaeontologists weren't overly interested in the topic, which was a shame.

This book has given me sufficient that I believe the mythological Griffin could easily have been influenced by the discovery of either Protoceratops, or Psittacosaurus, both of whom are from the Cretaceous period. But this still didn't satisfy my curiosity about dragons, after all they supposedly looked quite a bit different. As I moven through the text I feel it is rather likely that "dragons" were possibly influenced by prehistoric mammals such as Samotherium a giant Miocene giraffe found as the name suggests in Samos Greece - at least the skull sure looks like the head of a classical dragon, and with a long neck I feel it's a pretty good candidate.

Dr. Mayor has done a fantastic amount of valuable research on this topic, and this book is well worth reading and would make a great addition to any library. I would also recommend it as reference material to any Classics, Archaeology, or Palaeontology professors as a great resource. I look forward to reading her other work.

2022-02-21

"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir

Publisher: Ballantine Books

ISBN: 9780593135204

A fantastic story. Mr. Weir once again takes on the world of science fiction, and scores another hit by putting the science back in science fiction. Odd as it sounds, having a science based theme in the science fiction genre is something that has been sorely lacking for many years, it is great to see an author that cares about doing their research.

This story tells the tale of an Earth in what we assume is the not too distant future, when the environment is pretty much the same state as ours is in today - lousy and getting worse. Then a new threat is discovered - one that will essentially eliminate over half the life on the planet as it is having a direct and very detrimental affect on the sun itself.

Ryland Grace - a science teacher - is drafted to assist in solving the problem as when he was a former PhD student, he published a paper that was dismissed by the scientific community, as it went against the status quo. However it turned out to be a partial solution to their new problem. Grace ends up going on a mission to find the ultimate solution to Earth's problem, but without any memory of who he is, or how he got there - definitely a bit of a problem.

I don't want to give away anything else in this story as is was such a great read. But I will say that just like he did in his best seller "The Martin" he explains the scientific concepts behind what goes on so that virtually anybody can understand them, just like a good teacher should. The ending was a bit of a surprise, but it was so well integrated into the storyline that it made complete sense. This was one of those books that was extremely difficult to put down (luckily, I have a job where a little less sleep doesn't matter very much).

With two hits in a row I'm definitely looking forward to whatever he does next as I'm sure it will once again be both entertaining and and educational.

2022-02-14

"The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World" by Virginia Postrel

Publisher: Basic Books

ISBN: 97815416117605

This book is without a doubt absolutely fascinating, it takes you on a guided tour through history of how textiles of all kinds were discovered, and developed.

The first three chapters look at how fibres were developed, how the spinning industry made these into threads, then goes on to how cloth was made and how it developed throughout history.

After we humans had cloth Ms. Postrel goes on to examine the process of dyeing and the methods that were used historically, and then right up to modern day. She then moves on to looking at trading and how that affected the world over. This is a topic which is frequently and unfortunately glossed over in school as they typically mention only "The Silk Road", but trade was widespread throughout the world, and it is a shame that students aren't taught this type of thing, as maybe then they would have more of an appreciation of how the world works.

After trade her next focus is on consumers and how they see fabrics, how they guide the industry and influence changes in the market (and vice versa as well).

The last chapter deals with the innovators that are currently developing new and what I consider to be amazing fabrics. Such as ones that will allow sweat to easily evaporate from your skin thereby keeping your cool, but will also protect you from UV radiation. New fabrics, and new techniques that will result in a revolution in the fashion industry and the environment (for the better, I'm glad to note) when some of these hit the market.

An excellent book, highly recommended.

2022-02-07

"Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

ISBN: 9780815633112

This is one of the very first vampire stories ever written, and is credited with having influenced Bram Stoker in the writing of "Dracula" in 1897.

Carmilla was originally serialized in 1871 through 1872 in The Dark Blue, and then went on to be published in its entirety in J. S. Le Fanu's 1872 collection "In A Glass Darkly". It isn't a long story, and today would likely be classified as a novelette, but it is well written and a very enjoyable read.

The Carmilla of the story is a vampire, however we don't learn this until the end. Throughout most of the story she is simply a rather sickly young lady who befriends Laura the daughter of widower, after a chance meeting outside their estate following an accident with their coach. Leading up to this time the reader learns a mysterious illness is present in the land and a number of young women have succumbed to it, but no explanation for it can be found. Readers of Dracula will likely be able at this point to see the connections, however this story was written twenty-six years before, so in some respected was responsible for introducing the general public to the vampire.

The influences on Stoker's Dracula are fairly obvious but he took the concept of the vampire and embellished it to a much greater degree than Le Fanu. I don't know which is the more accurate based on the folklore, as for example Carmilla doesn't change into a bat, or wolf. In fact we only see her referred to in a couple of scenes as "a dark shape". On the other hand, like in "Dracula" she is immensely strong. There is also no mention of silver, crosses, or garlic so this too might have been added by Stoker, or it possibly represents a different source of vampire lore.

Well written, and interesting to read.