What does a CV/resume from the 1500s look like? Well if you are Sofonisba Anguissola, it looks like this:
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This book, along with the artwork of SWhat does a CV/resume from the 1500s look like? Well if you are Sofonisba Anguissola, it looks like this:
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This book, along with the artwork of Sofonisba Anguissola, have impacted me deeply and, I think, permanently. In a time when women were not allowed to be educated, not allowed to paint, and not allowed to do anything that tied them to the wider world, there existed a girl who would break so many rules and leave her mark upon the world.
The above painting by Sofonisba Anguissola was sent to Michelangelo, in the hopes he would give her some pointers. In contrast to paintings of women at this time, and for hundreds of years to come, Anguissola painted herself as serious, capable, passionate, and driven. Michelangelo indeed thought her talented. He challenged her to paint a weeping boy and gave her some notes on painting techniques. She was of course rejected often and ridiculed for being a female who dared to paint, but eventually Anguissola was appointed a court portraitist in Spain for Philip II and Elisabeth of Valois (de' Medici). Some of her paintings were attributed to men, including the one she did of King Philip himself, an injustice that was not corrected until the 1990s! Just decades ago, museums finally displayed her paintings under the correct name of the artist, Sofonisba Anguissola.
Weirdly enough, I came first across an Anguissola painting while playing Civ 6. I was playing as Hammurabi (my very favorite character) and while collecting art, I ended up with this painting of *women* playing chess. It said, "Anguissola," and incorrectly reported that it was from the 1800s., even though it was painted in the 1500s.
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After seeing the Chess painting, I wanted to know who Anguissola was and I HAD to own a print of this painting, as well as the self portrait she sent to Michelangelo. Finding out that Civ 6 had mislabeled it, and that in fact it was women playing chess in the 1500s and not the 1800s, I grew more curious still. I had to know what artist painted women as objects possessing intellect and curiosity and not as mere sex objects. Discovering that Anguissola was a woman, that she exploded the glass ceiling by painting at a time when it was absolutely not allowed, made me so curious about her. I found this book and looked at her works of art as I read about her life. Anguissola's father was a tireless champion of her painting. He suffered insults but did not care. He got her a painting tutor, unthinkable to get a female a painting instructor. It just...was....not...done.
In addition to being revolutionary for simply painting as a woman, Sofonisba Anguissola was an extremely progressive painter. Adding to what I already mentioned about how she portrayed women differently, she also was an out of the box type of thinker and it reflected in her art. Pictured below is a painting that blew the minds of humans back in the 1500s. Anguissola painted her instructor, painting her. This is an easy concept for us to understand in 2021. However, back in the 1500s, people were like, "Wait a minute! Are you telling me that the person who painted this is the very person who is sitting in the chair? She painted her instructor painting her? How is this even possible?" To them, it seemed like a magic trick. It was so inventive!
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In her life at Court, Sofonisba Anguissola became a close friend and confidant of the Queen, who died young in childbirth. She helped raise the royal daughters and taught them how to paint. I don't want to say too much more about her life, because it's a far better experience to just cuddle up with this book and a laptop, so that you can look at each work of art as it's discussed. There were so many aspects to this book that seemed exaggerated or made up. How could a woman in the 1500s accomplish this much and be this close in proximity to the leaders of countries? And yet, I looked it all up and verified the information I was reading, and, if anything, DiGiuseppe unplayed so much of it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Thank you DiGiuseppe for bringing to life this incredibly important and immensely talented artist.
One last note, if you want to be extremely disappointed in humanity, feel free to look up a WaPo article/ art review from 1995 in which Paul Richard, self important art critic, played down the importance of finally giving Anguissola her due and compared her unfavorably to Cezanne, who lived hundreds of years after Anguissola, centuries in which techniques had been tested and developed. I like Cezanne, but I encourage you to look at his artwork side by side with Anguissola, who painted hundred of years before he did. Her work definitely holds its own. In my estimation, it's far better in every way except for use of color. The sexism and arrogance that dripped from every paragraph of this article made me feel really sad because Anguissola's works waited 400 years to be correctly attributed to her, a fact that made me feel a a profound sense of joy and relief upon learning it, and Paul Richard simply dismissed her, as so many had during her time and in the more than 400 years since. What a shame that he was the voice of The Washington Post's art page.
People love Matt Ridley. I almost feel bad for rating this so low, but he is really in tight with the old guard, Dawkins et al. I thought this would bPeople love Matt Ridley. I almost feel bad for rating this so low, but he is really in tight with the old guard, Dawkins et al. I thought this would blow my mind. It didn't. It had the potential to, if newer and more progressive science were included, but Ridley is very scientifically conservative.
This is a book about innovation; and yet, it is not very innovative itself. I like that he included life, but even this is nothing new. It was an a pretty standard history of innovation, written about extensively elsewhere. He threw in some Neil Shubin ideas-- innovation is not a lone accomplishment; you could never make an iPad in the stone age; ideas are usually floating in the air. But Shubin wrote about that years ago.
It's not that I didn't like the history of innovation. I LOVE the invention of the steam engine. It is actually one of my favorite things in all of life. I am obsessed with innovation in general. I just really thought this book would have included so much more insight into the nature of innovation than it did. ...more
This book examined the politics of getting funding, public support, and the right expertise to beat the Russians and send the first human to the moon.This book examined the politics of getting funding, public support, and the right expertise to beat the Russians and send the first human to the moon. The story centers on an unsung hero who chose not to follow the normal chain of command and relentlessly champion his correct idea for how we could safely create a spacecraft that was very small yet could carry a lot of fuel. People were not listening to him, and in fact were chastising him when he tried to discuss his ideas. He sent his ideas the top man in charge and, because of recent political happenings, was able to get his idea fast tracked and that is what helped us got astronauts to the moon in the 1960s. ...more
If you have not read this but are at all interested in the history of medicine, particularly the germ theory, put this book at the very top of your liIf you have not read this but are at all interested in the history of medicine, particularly the germ theory, put this book at the very top of your list. What an absolutely exquisite book that both delivers a thorough history of the life of Joseph Lister and the history of surgical knowledge and technique.
There are many wonderful and informative books that detail the history of medicine, but this was particularly exceptional. Fitzharris taook the reader into early operating rooms where anesthesiology was not yet a thing and the best surgeons were the ones who worked and lightning speed to free patients from their limbs in order to save their lives. The only trouble was, the surgeries themselves ended up killing so many because of subsequent infections. It would be a while before the best surgeons were hailed for their skill in generating the best survival rates.
Then along came humble and curious Joseph Lister, the son of supportive and loving Quaker parents. Lister's parents did everything in their power to help Joseph attain the very best education. Things were not always easy on that front. Lister almost gave up education and devoted himself entirely to the Quaker ministry. His father convinced him to continue his studies, which ended up doing far more for human kind than any act by a preacher from any religion could have done. Lister became obsessed with the high mortality rate after surgical procedures. Along with Louis Pasteur, lister worked diligently to develop the germ theory. They did this in the face of very harsh criticism from doctors who did not want to acknowledge that their own actions were causing the deaths. It's so interesting how much framing could have changed the acceptance of germ theory. Even though the germs doctor's carried on their hands, clothing, and surgical instruments was the cause of infection and death, the doctors had no way of knowing that, since no one had previously seen the germs that were viewable only under the microscope. If only there was a way to have paid homage to the surgeons and educate them at the same time. Perhaps saying how honorable the surgeon is and how as people of science, they are exceptional at synthesizing new scientific evidence into their practice? It's hard to say what might have worked. I often wonder what type of framing might change the Blue Code in which police officers protect the most corrupt among them because they don't want the public to think all officers are corrupt. But by protecting the corrupt ones, they make themselves, as a group, more corrupt. Something similar was happening in the medical field centuries ago.
This book is filled with such a deeply researched portrait of Lister's personal and academic life, as well as a portrait of the politics of innovation. It's interesting to see how one university could be accepting of students from less wealthy backgrounds, while others only accepted very rich white men. Some universities encouraged progressive thinking while others made it seem like any innovation was an insult to the practices of famous and well established doctors.
Lister's ability to employ the scientific method, back in the 1800s showed how ahead of his time he was. His method of studying carbolic acid was fascinating to read about and extremely well written. I particularly liked the story of how Lister operated on his sister. This was one of the best biographies I have ever read. ...more
If you haven’t read this book yet, I suggest you begin now. The future is so fast that if you haven’t read this book, you’re already pretty far behindIf you haven’t read this book yet, I suggest you begin now. The future is so fast that if you haven’t read this book, you’re already pretty far behind.
These authors are not going to identify anything that could go wrong with the technologies of the future. If you have read their last two books, you will know by now, they are interested in looking at the potential progressing technologies bring to society, but they are not at all interested in troubleshooting the potential problems that will accompany many of those technologies. As long as you are not expecting a critical but exciting view of the future, then I highly recommend this book. It brings all the excitement without weighing itself down by potential issues with future technology. I mean, I for one and eagerly awaiting zooming along in my flying Uber car that can reach speeds of more than 150 mph, fit for passengers, cost 44 cents a mile to Operate, have multiple rotors so that if one rotor fails I can remain in the air and not crash, and charge in seven minutes flat. But, I, like Elon Musk, do worry that until flying cars are truly ready for primetime, there might be a lot of issues that could potentially harm passengers below. I think Musk might have used the example of a hubcap falling off? Idk, maybe I am misquoting him. I don't worry so much about that because I assume cars will be made in a way that pieces can't just come flying off.
If you are looking for a book that introduces mind blowing future tech and also introduces concerns we should anticipate, I recommend Yuval Noah Harari's 21 lessons for the 21st Century.
Diamandis and Kotler always deliver an excitement filled journey into the future. Their books fill me with anticipation and awe. Always a joy to read. ...more
Harari began this book by telling the reader that it is incumbent upon him and other social scientists to sound the alarm about the potential dangers Harari began this book by telling the reader that it is incumbent upon him and other social scientists to sound the alarm about the potential dangers of future technologies. His warning was so ominous, I thought maybe he had become a "all screens are bad; so get back to nature," type of author. Far from it. This book takes the reader on a tour of the 21st century including all the cool tech we can expect while brining up very sound concerns about how that tech might be used if people don't make themselves aware of the motives of greedy corporate types.
A main theme was how emerging AI will result in your technology knowing you better than you know yourself. I think there are some potential problems with this idea. For example, if Netflix knows you better than you know yourself by tracking your watching habits, they need to have a lot of information in addition to if you finished the movie or stopped halfway through. I have watched the beginning of certain shows that I loved so much, I stop them and then watch with a friend on a different account. Netflix might think I don't like the show since I never finished it on my account. Similarly, I like to put on a very boring show that has no loud sounds, such as sirens, horns, screaming, etc so that I can have background noise to nap to if I am particularly sleepy. Netflix might think I love the boring shows that I really don't care anything about except for the fact that they provide great background sound. All of that aside, it was exhilarating to read about the advances in AI and in tech in general.
I had almost as much fun reading this book as I did Sapiens. Harai is such a skilled writer. He never seems to waste words. I hang on every one until the book ends. I hope he is hard at work on the next one. ...more
Thank you Richard Munson for bringing Tesla to the reader with the incredible passion and excitement that dripped from every page. Munson managed Thank you Richard Munson for bringing Tesla to the reader with the incredible passion and excitement that dripped from every page. Munson managed to create sensationalism without sacrificing facts. From the first page, Munson made clear that his intention was to separate fact from myth. In doing so he set the record straight about the accolades attributed of Edison and Marconi that should really be attributed to Tesla. For example, Tesla's engines run our motors and our factories yet Thomas Edison gets the credit for it (unless the company owner is Elon Musk, who gives Tesla his due.), and Marconi received credit for inventing the radio yet a court ruled that Tesla's pattens first describe a system for transmitting wireless signals across long distances. Munson is not merely interested in busting those myths however. He is merciless when it comes to how Tesla might have created his own myths that turned out to be exaggerations. The resulting biography, with one exception I will address in a moment, is one that provides a truly in depth portrait of one of the most important humans to ever make his mark on this world. If you like Tesla (my like for Tesla borders on obsession), then you will find this book addictively readable.
The one problem I have with Munson's narrative is that he wrote so little of Tesla's fantasy world. Tesla himself wrote of his imaginary friends, who were as real to him as if they were flesh and blood. Yet, Munson seemed so out of touch with Tesla's fantasy world, that he failed to understand that Tesla might not have needed real world lovers because the people living with him, in his home, were as real to him as if they took up the physical space that he did. Munson seems fairly sure Tesla was gay. for all we know Tesla might have been, but Munson's reasoning for such a claim is questionable and lacks a true understanding of the way Tesla related to the world and even related to his own brain. Even though I found his lack of understanding disappointing, I enjoyed the hell out of this book.
The reader will of course be treated to the saga that plays out like A Wonderful Life in which Edison and J.P. Morgan take on the aspects of evil Mr. Potter and George Westinghouse and Tesla represent the George Baileys of the world. Beyond that well told tale, Munson brings alive the magic of each Tesla invention and infuses it with the drive and joy Tesla felt during and while showing off his creation. For example:
During a contest in which participants used remote controls to sail their boats, all of the other engineers devised rudimentary wireless systems that transmitted in only one frequency. Tesla, on the other hand, figured out a way to take advantage of the fact that the boat could receive electro magnetic signals from a transmitter. Tesla developed an extraordinary disk that could distinguish among multiple signals and direct the boat to flash its lights, rotate the rudder, as well as engage the propeller. The mechanism, according to Munson, is “among the most sophisticated of teslas inventions.“ Ever the showman, while whirling his boat around the pond, Tesla had an audience member ask what the cube root of 64 was. He had the lights flicker four times. It was like magic to all who witnessed it. Observers were certain that the boat moved by magic and some even suggested it had a tiny monkey driving it from inside. When reading about this, it's impossible not to feel, truly feel, Tesla's pure delight at seeing the awe on everyone's face.
Mark Twain is likely the first person to have received an x-ray. Initially Tesla had not realized the implications of a film left on tubes on which he had been working. If he had looked closer or gave it more thought, he would have discovered x-rays. Someone else beat him to the punch, but as soon as he realized his mistake, he jumped into action and became obsessed with creating x-ray technology. He was hanging out with Twain, after curing him of constipation (using electricity to do it of course), and decided to use Twain as a guinea pig for his new x-ray device that could see bones under the skin.
Using Niagara Falls to generate electricity (a lifelong dream of Tesla's).
(My favorite) When Tesla invented his alternating current coils, the Tesla coil, it created a bright light inside the tubes that encased the coils. He kept his invention secret and sent his lab assistants out to lunch. When they returned, he was holding two blowing tubes and waving them around like swords. IMO, Tesla was the inventor of the light saber!
There are so many tales like this throughout the book. I could read 100 books on Tesla and never get tired of reading about his beautiful brain and all the inventions that resulted. ...more
Exceptional, brilliant, tragic, and mind altering.
I first watched the movie by the same title and felt as if I missed so much. It turned out to be thExceptional, brilliant, tragic, and mind altering.
I first watched the movie by the same title and felt as if I missed so much. It turned out to be the case. The entire first half of the book was about Ramanujan's life before working with G. H. Hardy. So many shocking details; not the least of which was that fact that no university in India would allow Ramanujan entrance because he continued to fail his English exams. It was heartbreaking to read about his shame, which was so profound, he took a train and ran away.
The second half of the book dealt with the groundbreaking mathematics worked out by Ramanujan, despite the shocking lack of education to arrive at these ideas/equations. To call it astonishing would be to minimize his accomplishments in a severe manner. He is often referred to as the 3rd most brilliant human who ever lived. However, considering where he came from, I personally view him as more brilliant than Newton.
Another aspect of the book that you won't see in the movie is the wonderful biography of G. H. Hardy. He was a brilliant mathematician but an even more brilliant humanitarian, fighting against people in his own institution to champion Ramanujan and later fighting against people on multiple continents to help Jewish academics escape Nazi Germany.
Because of the importance of the ideas of both of these men to society as a whole, I consider this book a must read.
This is journalism done (mostly) right. Not every journalist has the time to devote to a single subject. This is why, despite doing their best at coveThis is journalism done (mostly) right. Not every journalist has the time to devote to a single subject. This is why, despite doing their best at covering various scientific papers in the media, journalists often get the details wrong. They create headlines that are sensational or represent findings that are not justified by the papers they have read. I think they do what they can to be educated but they are journalists, not scientists. And so, their knowledge about science and methods is often limited. David Wallace-Wells is a journalist who has focused o the problem of misunderstandings and misrepresentations generated by the media, when they are conveying the facts of climate change to the public. Wallace - Wells has written an alarming, depressing, and eloquent book to clear up the many misconceptions humans have about the changing climate on their home planet.
According to Wallace - Wells, three misconceptions about climate change that are held by the general public are:
First, humans tend to believe that climate change is slow. It takes decades or centuries, leaving us with a lot of time to invent fixes while it is happening. But in reality, more than half of all the fossil fuels emissions that we put in the atmosphere, throughout all of human history, have been put out in the past 25 years. This is rapid damage, meaning it will give us very little time to deal with the problem. If we make policy to allow more carbon into the environment, it will make it that much harder to try to find ways to keep the climate steady enough for humans to continue to inhabit the earth. If you want to read more about climate models that are trying to figure out if we are past the point of no return, follow Adam Frank's work and read his book Light of the Stars.
Second, is a misunderstanding about the scope of the problem. Humans often think climate change is just about arctic ice and sea level. But, it affects so much more. Hunger will be a huge issue. After warming, we will have half as much grain to feed humans. The damage caused by warming will cost about $600 trillion. Wallace - Wells also tried to associate problems of increased violence to warming. I am not saying that will not happen, but I am saying that I am concerned about the methods used to make such an argument. On page 129, he claims, "Heat frays everything," because it brings about every type of violence you can think of -- large scale wars, domestic violence, etc. But, I would have to look at these methods. I think he should kept this out of the book because I can easily see this being refuted if the methods that generated this result are not absolutely solid. Having studied violence and causation, my guess is that it will be fairly easy to dispute this claim. If this claim can be disputed, then it will leave the rest of the arguments open to vulnerability by climate change denialists who will point to the one non-credible thing he put in this book, and use that one thing to discredit the rest of the book. If these denialists were only to peddle their straw man arguments to the scientifically minded, those arguments would soon lose steam but there is a not insignificant proportion of the public who will be swayed by these arguments. Considering that, adding the violence studies to what was an otherwise exceptional book may end up doing more harm than good.
Third, humans tend to misunderstand the severity of damage that can and will be caused by warming. Usually when talking about climate change, journalists refer to the two degrees of warming as the threshold of catastrophe. We would need to take great measures to stay below those two degrees. Wallace - Wells reminds us that thinking about more than two degrees of warming is too ugly to contemplate. But, even if we change out all our dirty energy for clean, we will sill have trouble staying under that 2 degrees of warming threshold. If we stay the course we are on now, we will liking be looking at 4 degrees of warming. At one degree above the preindustrial average, where we find ourselves currently, we are already witnessing a new wave of extreme wether and natural disasters. A rise in warming will, without question, compromise the habitability of our planet, but a four degree rise in warming, by century's end, will result in a catastrophe we can scarcely imagine, let alone deal with. How would we manage the relocation of 1 billion climate refugees or places of the world that have six climate driven natural disasters at once. Flooding is going to be a very serious and costly problem. In fact, the financial impact of warming could hit us much harder than the great depression.
Bitcoin, as awesome as it is, is contributing more than you may realize to warming.
To fix the warming problem, we need to think about the global practices of every nation. China is right now responsible for 1/4 of greenhouse gas emissions. People in China and the developing world will begin to fly more, consume more beef, and engage in other practices that pump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. It is merely what happens as we continue to build civilization. It was what continues to build the global middle class, which improved the quality of life for humans all over the globe, which includes less poverty, more education, better healthcare, lower mortality. But even though it is necessary to consume energy and expel the waste into the atmosphere in order to see progress, we need to be mindful of -- and enforce policies to control -- the effects of pumping out so much waste/greenhouse gasses.
It used to be that it was far too big a burden for poorer countries to use cleaner fuel sources. However, clean energy is becoming more and more affordable. So, going forward, we can try to get countries like China to use cleaner sources of energy. I will never forget learning about how expensive air filters were for American factories. Americans enacted policies that required companies to use these filters so they did not pollute the air, poisoning the earth and its inhabitants. So what did Americans do? We outsourced the making of our products to other countries who did not have clean air restrictions, such as expensive filters. And so, those countries burned coal and used other dirty energy sources to create the products we Americans demanded. In turn, countries like China became heavily polluted. Circulating clouds pick up some of that pollution and spread it around the globe. I cannot imagine any good fix to our climate problem that does not involve helping or forcing countries to use clean energy. I have always believed that if America has a pollution policy, that policy, such as the requirement to use air filters, should apply to any American, even if that American uses a factory outside the U.S..
China has been making strides to enforce policies that support fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Wallace - Wells hopes that the authoritarian rule present in China will be more effective at implementing policy change than other countries who have a more consensus centered government.
Our economy is built on fossil fuels. A lot to lose. There will be pushback. No excuse for continuing to subsidize the fossil fuel industry. We are rewarding companies for making Earth uninhabitable. Redirect that money into clean energy or negative emission (take carbon out of air). We pay out 5 trillion to subsidize fossil fuel industry. There is a technology that costs 3 trillion a year that will remove carbon from atmosphere (think big filter). If we redirect the money, we could easily pay for it.
The following link is for a talk given by Wallace - Wells. I highly recommend pairing this talk with the book. I wish I had watched Adam Fran's talk while reading his book, Light of the Stars. It would have provided an even better reading experience like Wallace - Wells' talk did for his book. I hope to get around to it soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRb9X...
I also recommend reading Varun Sivaram, who wrote Taming the Sun, could list a few challenges society would face if they implemented Wallace - Wells' suggestions to fix climate change. I like all the fixes Wallace - Wells proposed in his talk, but I kept imagining Sivaram chiming in with considerations we would need to think about if we want to carry out these changes as effectively as possible. ...more
I didn't realize how much I didn't know about harvesting the energy of the sun. Without exaggeration, my very favorite thing in the world to think aboI didn't realize how much I didn't know about harvesting the energy of the sun. Without exaggeration, my very favorite thing in the world to think about and study is how forms take in, circulate, and expel energy. It's an obsession really. People, especially people in my family, are sick of me talking about it. I want to think about it and talk about all day.
---------- Sivaram started off by providing a history of how human's tried to harness solar energy:
- Mostly civilizations focused on using the sun to heat water. - 3000 years ago, the Chinese used mirrors to direct sunlight to start a fire, which is the oldest known form of solar energy. - In the 7th century BCE The Chinese also had summer and winter houses with different pitched roofs to either block out the sun or let the sun come in and warm everything, which is an indirect way of trying to harness solar energy or shield oneself from too much of that energy. - The Romans used a glass to build their buildings called bathhouses because the glass allowed fairly effective capture of the sun's heat. - Eventually, civilizations began to learn how to convert solar energy into mechanical work. In the 1st century CE, Hero of Alexandria built a solar siphon that heated air, which expanded to propel water from one Chamber to another. I read about this in Smil's Energy and Civilization and this engine has been my cover picture on Facebook ever since. It's beautiful. I recommend searching images. - Leonardo da Vinci built a 4 mile long mirror to heat a factory's boiler. He never finished it. - August Mouchot made the most progress when envisioned three uses of solar power that are still being used today; driving a heat engine, generating electricity, and producing portable fuels. In 1874 he built the first solar engine using 8 foot mirrors to focus the suns energy on a boiler that drove a half horse power engine . That is roughly enough energy to run a machine in a woodworking shop. - In 1879 Mouchot figured out how to convert solar radiation into electricity by reflecting sunlight to heat the junction of two metals soldered together, generating and electric current. He used this electricity to split water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen, and planned to use the hydrogen as fuel. None of his applications were cost effective, but they served to inspire modern uses of solar energy (this reminded me of Elon Musk). - First solar panel, was developed 60 yrs ago but it’s been in the making for centuries.
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After recounting the history, Sivaram examined the practical nature of solar panels:
- It is not enough to really produce more solar panels. We need a lot of other aspects to fall into place for solar energy to really take off and become more officiant, and reduce our reliance on fossil fuel’s. - There was a solar war but ended in bankruptcy or some pretty important companies in 2013. China one out with their cheaper solar panels. And amid this disruption solar power came of age - There are two ways in which solar panels work. One way is to heat up water and produce steam. The other way is to convert the suns energy directly into electricity. - Rooftop solar panels overloads the grids in local neighborhoods, the local grits. - Utility scale solar might be helpful
------------- How do solar cells work and how effective can they really be?: (this is the stuff I LOVE. I did know the following, but it fills me with sheer bliss every time I read about anything that resembles the process that generates ATP)
(I am trying to quote page 148, but I took the notes by dictation on my phone, so forgive any typos) "Silicon cells convert sunlight into electricity by using two particles, the photon and the electron. Photons are wispy particles of light with different wavelengths. Energy is directly related to what color the photon is. For example, blue photons are a shorter wavelength and have more energy than red photons . Invisible ultraviolet photons have even higher energies, but infrared photons, which are also invisible, are low energy . .......
The electron is negatively charged and surrounds the positive protons . A solar cell recruits both particles by transferring the energy from each incoming photon to an electron (remind anyone of the awesome electron transport chain?:). Once endowed with an energy boost, the electron can break free from its atom end can leave the solar cell. The stream of electrons leaving the solar cell represents the electricity, and the amount of energy pumped out by the solar cell depends on two values. First, the 'electric voltage" is tied to how much energy is in each electron that flows out of the solar cell. Second, the "electric current" depends on the total number electrons leaving the solar cell each moment. The power output of a solar cell - how much electric energy is pumped out every second - is just the voltage multiplied by the current.
If a solar cells could transfer all of the energy from every single incoming photon to an electron, and make sure that every energized electron could leave the cell and do useful work, it would maximize its electric voltage, current, and power output to be 100% effective. But, even the very best silicon cells can muster only 25% because they are a semi conductor , A material that can toggle between acting as an insulator and a conductor. This allows electrons to switch between staying put and moving around when photons strike them . And semi conductors have a fundamental feature that limits their efficiency. The more photons the cell absorbs the less energy Per for time it can transfer to electrons . In other words, there is a trade off between The maximum current in the voltage that a solar cell can produce, even though both quantities matter for the cell power output.
The more current there is the less voltage. The more voltage the less current. Because electrical outlet is simply voltage times current, you can never reach 100% proficiency.
The voltage current trade off stems from the semiconductor property called the band gap. The amount of energy and electron needs to break free from its post at him and contribute to the cells Electric output . A photon with less energy than the band gap will flow right through A solar cell. A photon with more energy than the band gap will transfer only a band gaps worth of energy to the electron , thus wasting the rest of the photons energy because it is released as heat and does not transfer to the electron .
Think of the band gap in a solar cell as the amount of energy needed to get the flow going, just as you would get ketchup flowing. If you hit the ketchup with just the right force it will start the ketchup flowing out of the bottle. If you hit the ketchup bottle with two little force, you won’t get the catchup flowing. If you hit it with just the right force you will get the ketchup flowing (this reminds me of action potentials in the brain). If you hit the ketchup with a sledgehammer, you will still get the catchup flowing but you will have a high cost of waste for that energy. That is like a high energy ultraviolet photon transferring its energy to an electron. There is a lot of waste . To make affective solar cells that can transfer a high percentage of the suns energy, researchers need to choose materials with the right band gap. If the band gap is too high, most photons Will lack the energy needed to eject photons from the cell and generate a very low current . If the band gap is too low, most photons will set electrons free but they only transfer a dribble of energy to each one resulting in a low voltage. Silicon happens to have a decent band gap somewhere in the middle, although it is a little lower than some ideal materials such as gallium arsenide which is used to make more efficient solar cells but unfortunately it’s too expensive to have commercial success. So you have to weigh your options with cost and efficiency."
----------- News from Caltech:
Nate lewis is looking into how to create a machine that would convert the suns energy just like plants do by taking in water and sunlight and spitting out gaseous oxygen and hydrogen. “No bugs, no wires“ meaning that unlike plants in nature it would outperform natures best plans.
Plants are shockingly terrible at converting the suns energy into work. Photosynthesis is in efficient . For example black leaves would be far better at absorbing the suns rays. Yet, a plants leaves are green. Plants turn carbon dioxide into sugar. Even the most efficient plants convert less than 1% of the suns energy. Early on in photosynthesis plants split water and release oxygen to the atmosphere and hydrogen that goes into reactions.
Nature is not a pyromaniac and has found a brilliant way to stop combustion. First, it separates the two reactions into different photo systems, photosystem one and photosystem two. This design keeps hydrogen from combusting in the presence of oxygen . Second, Also each of the photosystems where light is absorbed, also contains catalysts , which are molecules that speed up the respective Half reactions. In fact we can thank the manganese catalyst that speeds up accelerates the plants production of oxygen for all of the oxygen in the earths atmosphere. (Wow, I never thought of the manganese catalyst as producing all of the oxygen in our atmosphere). Third, plants separate the 2 half reactions with a membrane that not only keeps hydrogen and oxygen apart, but also allows charged ions to pass through it , which is important to avoid an imbalance in charge that would halt the 2 half reactions. ( I love this!) Constantly creating this equilibrium to create energy potential‘s. (Nature is the fucking bomb!)
To mimic this, Nate lewis wants to create a solar fuel generator /hydrogen generator with two photo electrodes immersed in water. to absorb light energy to perform each of the two half reactions to split water. Two catalysts would speed up each of those half reactions. And, and a membrane stops the whole contraption - called a photo electro Chemical cell (PEC) - from exploding.
But the similarities and there.... Just like when we invented flight we modeled birds but far surpassed them by constructing planes. Nate Lewis thinks we can model our generators from plants and surpassed them. PECs of the future probably will not use two green photo electrodes that compete with each other to absorb the same part of the sun spectrum. Rather, one of them, the anode , which creates oxygen from water, should harness high energy photons, leading Low energy photons pass through it to be absorbed by the other One below, the cathode , which produces hydrogen. (I was unaware of Nate Lewis and want to keep following it.)
--------- Be carful! Think about safety:
PEC’s are not very safe . To keep oxygen and hydrogen from combining an exploding, a PEC needs a membrane to keep them separated. But the half reaction that produces oxygen from water, of course leaves a lot of hydrogen. We know that hydrogen makes that water very acidic . Where as the half reaction that produces hydrogen turns the water basic. Acids are what digest food in your stomach and bases are what clean your drain . If safety were not a concern and the membrane could be eliminated, the acids could combined with the bases and neutralize each other . But with the membrane in place scientists have to find materials for electrodes and catalysts that do not get Dissolved or corroded in acidic or base conditions . That rolls out the many cheap materials that would not survive these conditions .
A PEC could actually achieve 30% efficiency if you can buy the right parts for the membrane .
-------- Are microbes the answer?:
Can genetically modify microbes act as catalysts. If so, using GMO microbe/catalysts could really raise efficiency, but some organic catalysts were incompatible with inorganic catalysts, which produced forms of reactive oxygen that destroyed the bacteria's DNA. So, it took some pretty ingenious work to find appropriate catalysts. Finally they found a phosphorus cobalt catalyst that seem to work very well - this catalyst not only left the bacteria unharmed, but also self assembled out of solution, mimicking The self healing catalysts found in nature. (That is amazing !) The catalyst and bacteria working together in harmony has boosted efficiency to 10%. That is actually an incredibly high efficacy rate in converting sunlight into alcohol fuels . With this bacteria and in organic catalyst combination, we might be able to fix nitrogen! Which means that sunlight instead of fossil fuel’s could fix nitrogen. This would be huge . But biological things tend to be sensitive and difficult to work around. Bacteria is sensitive to acids and other things in the environment.
------- The author also discussed, at length, the super grid pros and cons, which led nicely into discussions about the pros and cons of decentralized grids.
Page turner. Reads like fiction. I have not enjoyed a book this much since American Kingpin by Bilton. Want to meet the smarter and female version of Page turner. Reads like fiction. I have not enjoyed a book this much since American Kingpin by Bilton. Want to meet the smarter and female version of Donald Trump? Let me introduce you to Elizabeth Holmes, the mastermind behind Theranos -- a company that pretended to have labs that developed a new (fake) method to revolutionize blood testing. Holmes was able to recruit two former people who held the title Secretary of State, former U.S. senators (one of which was a heart surgeon); former Secretary of defense; a U.S. Admiral and U.S. General; top people from Stanford, Wells Fargo, Bechtel Group, American Association for Clinical Chemistry, The CDC (the former director for god's sake!), and other well known and respected companies. She partnered with Wallgreens and the Cleveland Clinic, and Blue Cross. They had a device approved by the FDA and won 2015 Bioscience Company of the Year. If this were a fiction book, people would criticize it for not being realistic enough to believe. It is kind of what it was like watching House of Cards before and after Trump became president. HoC seemed so outlandish and sensational. After Trump took office, HoC seemed boring because real life was far more sensational.
How was Holmes able to assemble a group of people that would lend her snake oil scam credibility? She was charming and able to deflect (a lot). She attended Stanford and knew all the right people. I guess if you put enough money behind something and control the outflow of knowledge (and man did she control the outflow of knowledge!), you can run a con for a while.
Throughout her run, various people were able to peek under the veil. They could not prove she was a fake, but they made a swift exit, taking their fine reputations with them, before she had the chance to ruin their credibility. Others, especially a former Secretary of State, refused to bring her to task even when confronted with evidence of wrong doing. Why stay in something illegal when you know someone has enough evidence to bring everything to light? I don't know who I was more fascinated by, brilliant con artist Holmes, her odd boyfriend, the whistle blowers, or the people who stayed and defended her even after they were confronted with disturbing evidence. Learning about the strong arming that went on to keep the truth from getting out was probably one of the greatest life lessons any book could have provided. This is often how the world works. Money and power can do a lot to shape the world. The truth won out in this case, but reading how this company was run, and reading about all the laws put in place to protect companies (truly shocking), made me wonder how common it is to hide at least some facts about a company that allows it to scam people to much lesser degree but for a much longer time period. ...more
Comprehensive history of how factories changed society on a local and global level. Freeman delved deep into how factories changed not only human's ov Comprehensive history of how factories changed society on a local and global level. Freeman delved deep into how factories changed not only human's overall quality of life making useful products but also into how all of this intersected with workers rights, child labor laws, moral expectations of factory workers, and what it meant for the landscape of places where factories were popping up. He looked at how different companies tried to address efficiency issues (turns out the Ford Model of business was something to be emulated), which forced them to learn to spend money in the right places, demand enough from their workers but support their workers enough to create a lower turnover rate. I was surprised at how much drunkenness was an issue for factory owners who had to figure out how to get their workers to stay sober enough to work. With little pay, cramped conditions, and long working hours that leave little time for recreation, and little investment in the future of the factory worker, it is easy to understand why it was hard to find people who would consistently put up with these conditions. Freeman discussed how owners had to come up with the right incentives and acceptable conditions to recruit the best workers available. Ford seemed to be one of the first to understand how to begin to achieve this. They didn't always succeed but seemed to learn more from their mistake than other companies.
Every time I read about what it was like for people who lived in generations past, I imagine my life in their time -- being chained, as a child, to a coal mine and forced to work all day long; working a factory where I am locked in and sweating to death and people are watching my every movement whether I am at work or in my "free" time; working a field since there is no grocery store; etc. It all seems horrible and I am so thankful for everyone who suffered so greatly so that more and more humans can have leisure time. I wonder if generations from now humans will have more and more free time. To think that kids were forced to work in mines and doing other jobs while today's children sit in school or home on their iPads. We have come a long way in so many respects. We still have a long way to go if we want to see that kind of privilege spread globally.
Freeman illustrated some examples of factories in the recent past and in the present day that have faced the same issues of factories when they first appeared on Earth. It was interesting to read about the different conditions around the world and the different stages of progress each country is experiencing. He talked about what are assumed to be horrific conditions in Chinese factories but said it was hard to verify because of lack of access. Russia had a rough time gettin their factories to run like the ones in America. There were so many promising aspects of factory building in Russia. It was one of the better parts of the book....more
So far I have not come across a book about a startup that can beat Nick Bilton's Hatching Twitter, but this was pretty good, definitely better than StSo far I have not come across a book about a startup that can beat Nick Bilton's Hatching Twitter, but this was pretty good, definitely better than Stone's book about Amazon.
In Upstarts, Stone weaved the parallel stories of airbnb and Uber from their inception to almost current day. Fast paced, very readable, informative, and addictive. Definitely recommend....more
My first exposure to the cellular mechanisms churning within yeast was in an epigenetics course. Prior to that, I had no idea how interesting their liMy first exposure to the cellular mechanisms churning within yeast was in an epigenetics course. Prior to that, I had no idea how interesting their life cycles and mating were or how useful they are in biological research. Money has written a wonderfully comprehensive and interesting history of human's relationship with yeast, and he included lots of detail about the biochemical nature of yeast cells. Money achieved the perfectly balanced book with his blend of science and social history. In this book you will learn how yeast revolutionized baking and drinking by including it in the making of breads and alcohols. You will further find out how different religions reacted to yeast (really interesting perspective). Money also discussed the role of yeast in vaccines and in producing biofuels. One thing Money did particularly well was provide an overview of what a general eukaryotic cell is like and then discussed the complexities of the yeast cells specifically. This was unquestionably the best part of the book for me. Loved this book!...more
Oh how I wish I had read this book right before reading The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality. IOh how I wish I had read this book right before reading The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality. It would have been the reading experience of the year! Reading it after Wheeler and Feynman made me miss so many things I could have thought more about if I had read this book first. Feynman idolized Fermi and after reading this book, which detailed Fermi's life, his discoveries, and even his political views, it is clear to understand why . I think anyone interested in physics cannot help but idolize Fermi.
Oddly enough, when reading about Fermi, I cannot help but think of how a receptor and ligand on the membrane of a cell act. The downstream signal created by the pairing of the receptor and ligand recruit other molecules to the receptor. The action the molecules take inside a cell can lead to huge changes within the cell or within a larger multicellular body. Similarly, if you have ever seen the movie field of dreams, the main character kept hearing a voice that said, "If you build it, they will come." He built the baseball field and all the players were magically recruited to that field. These two scenes, molecules being recruited to action inside a cell and the voice from Field of Dreams, played in my head on repeat as I read about the actions Fermi took to bring physicist from all over the country together to create a network of curious minds who would help humans gain a better understanding of the world and larger universe. If you build it, they will come. Fermi built it and they came! And, it was glorious! Building the network that Fermi worked so hard to create was not an easy task. In order to gather and disseminate knowledge, so much had to occur! Fermi's papers had to be translated into other languages to get rid of the language barrier that kept many physicists from understanding each other's work. He created institutes and lectures to attract other minds interested in the problems in physics. Fermi had to seek out funding in a time when funding was not as easy to come by (he found out where Mussolini would be, went there, and made a successful pitch that led to significant funding of his seminal work). To make the discovery that protons transformed into neutrons in fusion or that neutrons bombard the nucleus of an atom in fission, Fermi had to build different devices, like the device that could shoot alpha particles (what a thrill to imagine building the device and carrying out the experiments).
To think that all of these discoveries were going on at a time when people were being oppressed and killed, makes these discoveries even more unimaginable. Fermi was married to a Jewish woman and had Jewish children. He did his very best to help Jewish scientists escape by securing them jobs in America.
This book deserves a better review than I can give it, but if you read it, you won't be sorry. I try not to idolize people like others idolize god, but sometimes people are so great that I can't help it. The Pope of Physics indeed! I bow down at the Fermi alter. ...more
Possibly one of the best books I have ever read. Even better than Hidden Figures. Thank you Jason Fagone for bringing Elizebeth Friedman into my life.Possibly one of the best books I have ever read. Even better than Hidden Figures. Thank you Jason Fagone for bringing Elizebeth Friedman into my life. When I first picked up this title, I thought maybe Fagone found a woman who was impressive, but not necessarily one of the most amazing women to ever live, to make the subject of his new book. It seemed possible that perhaps he was overselling her accomplishments and underselling the recognition she received in the history books, all in an effort to sensationalize his book and boost sales. Indeed the claims he made in his heartfelt introduction about Elizebeth Friedman were fleshed out and brought to life in each stunning chapter of her unbelievable existence.
Why should you love this book? Because it was hard enough for women to even force their way into universities that would allow them to get a degree. Even when, against the odds, they received that degree, it was difficult to get a job. If they passed even that hurdle, once children came along, they usually had to leave their jobs to be good mothers. Fathers were "good fathers" if they provided. A woman was a bad mother if she went to work and provided. She had to stay home in order to be considered a good mother. Even if women got the degree, got the job, and survived in that job despite having had children, their accomplishments of a lifelong career could still be discounted. Elizebeth Friedman's life long career involved *creating* the models we use today (and that the FBI used and stole credit for!) and using those cyphers to help win WWI and WWII. Despite her contributions and her lifelong career, she was still be written out of the larger history and men were given credit for her work. I think we are all aware of how unfair the pay has been for women throughout history. Hell it's still unfair. Yet, I had no idea how unfair it really was. This book makes the pay disparity crystal clear. It was rough being a woman.
Just think back to Marie Curie. Why was she able to make a name for herself in science when so few women had that chance? Why did women like Mileva Maric, who were smart, get relegated to wiping poop off baby butts instead of engaging with the wider world? The women like Curie and Elizebeth Friedman had what Virginia Wolf called "A Room of Their Own." The men in their lives valued them enough to free them from being only a mother or housekeeper. The men in their lives supported their efforts to use their brilliant minds and engage with hard problems the world needed solved. Other men, like Maric's husband Albert Einstein (who I love despite my criticism) focused on their own careers and had zero problem making the raising of babies (that they helped create) the mother's problem. They did nothing to ensure equality or give support to the women they claimed to love. Someone had to raise the kids and by God, it sure wasn't going to be them.
Elizebeth's mind was nothing short of genius and her husband William knew it. While I generally dislike romance novels because they seem unrealistic and are usually aimed at women who need an escape because their lives are unfulfilled, this is my kind of romance novel! It reads nothing like an actual romance novel (Outlander, Fabio type books), but I am in love with the relationship of William and Elizebeth Friedman. They are my new all time favorite couple.
Fagone draws on diaries, letters, and other documents from WWI and WWII to uncover the role Elizebeth Friedman played in the development of cryptography as a science, in catching pirates (so good), in teaching cryptography to special intelligence agencies like the FBI and CIA, and in breaking the codes that helped win WWI and WWII. He used those documents to present a biography of her whole life, both professional and personal to paint a picture unlike any I have yet read.
You will get to know Elizebeth's quirky nature that resulted in her being very annoyed when people didn't use the right words. She hated politers, people who used pleasing words to soften what they really meant. A friend was not indisposed at a party. They were drunk off their ass and you should just say so. A loved one did not just pass away. They died. Accept it and own it. When you have a husband who gives you his heart and soul and it translates into some pretty good sex, you should accurately call him your "lover husband." What a character!
I am not sure what was more interesting to me, her incredible brain and the work she did that ended up being a significant contribution to society, as well as our American society's very survival, or the fact that she did it while caring for her husband William, who was brilliant in his own right (and oh so loving- can I go back in time and hook up with William, please!!??), but who had some significant mental health challenges, namely major debilitating depression.
I have to relate some of their more loving and sweet moments as a couple taking on the world together:
While in the presence of another colleague, William was captivated by her, he could not help but rip off a scrap of paper and secretly scribbled a note to her. When their colleague was not looking, he passed her the note which read, " I am studying your features, you are perfectly beautiful. " She quickly tucked the note away in her pocket and later stuck it between the pages of her diary on the page she used to write about how she felt about this wonderful gesture. He told her almost daily how brilliant and beautiful she was and called her, "Dearest Woman in the Universe." Before they had children, he told her he knew he didn't make very much money working for the army as a code breaker, but he would work very hard to make sure he could hire someone to help look after the kids and take care of the house so she could be free to use her brilliant brain and write books or do something intellectually minded that would be deeply satisfying (this is a Room of One's Own). The descriptions of his earnest wish for her to have this type of life was so beautiful, it actually made me cry. Just wonderful. He told her that home is not a place where the wife cleans and the man comes home from work to be served. Rather, home is a place where two hearts beat in unison. And she should be spending her time with her intellectual pursuits so that there are two hearts can be in unison.
At this point in their lives, the electron was just beginning to be understood and, in a letter, he asked her if she knew what an electron was and how incomprehensibly small it was. He told her that as incomprehensibly small is that electron is his love for her is in comprehensibly large. He worried most days that he wasn't enough for her. He was filled with as much insecurity as he was love. He told Elizebeth that *every* accomplishment he made was only because she was with him because he truly believed that without her, he could not function as a whole human being. Reading about him and his mental health issues, this seems to have been very true. This gives new meaning to the phrase, "You complete me."
Elizebeth's work life was far more challenging that her romantic life.Though she and William had equal intelligence (many argue hers was superior and I tend to agree), and even though they had both been equally involved in creating cyphers to break codes, and were both equally good at breaking codes (she surpassed him in this ability by all accounts), it was only William who was asked to move to France to help his country decipher messages in WWI. Up to that point, Elizebeth had done just as much decoding for the war effort and was one of a hand full of people *in the world* who had the skills to break the codes that could keep our United States from being attacked. And yet, she *still* was not allowed to serve her country. She wrote to the Army to challenge their decision and informed them that she had the expertise and would very much like to serve her country. They replied that since she was a woman, it was simply out of the question. She was infuriated. Reading that, I could not help but be infuriated too. William's name would be the one who ended up on all the papers and in all the history books. He was the one who received the praise back then. Through it all, he worked hard to get people to understand that she was equally brilliant and made sure to tell her that all the time.
Having no luck convincing the Army that she was more than fit to serve her country as a codebreaker, she was hired by the Coast Guard to bust pirates who were smuggling goods. What a job! What an experience! I believe this moves her from the status of being a significant figure in history to being a legend! Little did she or anyone else realize that her taking the job to catch pirates would lead to her biggest successes in her entire career. Because she was in the Coast Guard, and because she was their top codebreaker (in truth one of the top codebreakers in the entire world), and because they had the best technology at the time, Elizebeth became possibly the most valuable codebreaker in WWII and certainly contributed as much as Alan Turing to win the war and save American and British lives. She did all of this as Hoover claimed credit, credit for the lives saved, credit for the creation of *her* codebreaking models, and credit for the ability to break codes (which was only possible if they used her models).
One of the best characters in the book is Fabian. If he were not a real person in history, you would think he was too far-fetched a character to make up. I am now compelled to see if there is a biography of his crazy life.
I highly recommend this book and would even classify it as essential reading. If you don't read it, you are really missing out on one of the best biographies of any person who has ever lived. A++...more
Not quite as good as Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs but pretty darn good. What does it take to become Amazon? A whole lot of money and determination. BeNot quite as good as Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs but pretty darn good. What does it take to become Amazon? A whole lot of money and determination. Bezos is a force to be reckoned with. This is the story of how his vision to outsell Barnes and Noble turned into one of the most grand visions anyone on Earth has ever had, to be the seller of just about everything-- everything legal that is. While reading, I could not help but continually recall the story of Ross Ulbricht, who built the Silk Road, the everything store for everything not sold by Amazon. If you have not read American Kingpin by Nick Bilton, I highly recommend it. No matter how interesting the story of Bezos is, the story of Ulbricht is even more interesting.
Bezos could not have started Amazon without the help of his very wealthy parents. They gave him an initial $100,000 investment. (This reminded me of how any contribution to our society-- be it science, a book of literature, or an invention-- required that someone fund the work. Darwin had a family trust; Virginia Wolf had a Room of One's own where she had time to write; Galileo was given money by the government, Marie Curie had an unusually supportive husband and parents who raised her children, which is what allowed her to be one of the very few women in science who could make a real contribution to society). While Bezos put his parent's money to good use, he still needed to tap his mother's trust for more money. She readily gave it, giving him time to secure more investment money. It was clear though, unless you have drive and vision, the money can only get you so far. Bezos lived and breathed Amazon. Always finding loopholes in rules and finding ways to suffer and survive through the toughest of times, times that threatened to bankrupt him time and time again, he employed crafty and at times brilliant solutions to seemingly never ending problems. More importantly, his confidence never seemed to waiver.
When Bezos came up against Barnes and Noble, an established store with far more funding, he knew how to cut them off at the knees. In a way, it reminded me of how the smaller revolutionary war army, of what would become the first Americans, beat the much larger and much better provisioned English troops when they fought the war of independence. Bezos knew he lacked monetary resources, so he focused on strategy. He knew Barnes and Noble had to split their focus between a physical store and an online store. Bezos could focus 100% on online. In order to win the online war, Bezos had to take financial hit after financial hit. This pattern of taking a loss to gain customer base would become the essential pattern that, imo, defined the Amazon business plan. For example, when Bezos went after Toys R Us and later just about every other retailer as a collective entity, he spent money to save his customers money. The losses were not small. He bought toys at market price sometimes, just so he didn't have to be sold out. He took on an entire industry of physical shops, including supergiant Walmart by offering free shipping to Prime members. I recall wondering how in the world Amazon could be making money off me when I no longer had to pay for shipping. My Prime membership paid for shipping many times over. My son got his own Prime account for free because he was a college student. It seemed crazy to me, and still does, that I can get sent just about anything (in 2 days!) for no shipping cost. Well, I found the answer in this book. Amazon lost a ton-- so, so much-- money on shipping. It cost them a great deal of their profits to ship packages. So what could be the reason for this business model. It turned out that an investment in shipping costs (in which Amazon foot the bill instead of its consumer) created a huge-- more accurately, colossal-- customer base. With that cost but brilliant decision, Bezos paid to steal the customers of Walmart, Target, CVS, and all the mom and pop shops. He got the lions share of the business. So while he paid for shipping, he made up for it many times over in new sales and loyal clients who now shopped on Amazon more than anywhere else- buying item after item that would have been bought elsewhere. Brilliant.
It was interesting, in general, to hear about the different struggles endured and solutions attempted over the years. I am always interested in how the concentration of power in the hands of of an individual of small group of individuals can have such powerful outcomes that can affect entire countries or an entire globe of people. Sometimes the outcomes are very bad (dictators, monopolies, etc), sometimes they are good (more availability of medicine for people around the globe, better food production, increase in overall health, etc), or a mixed (better accessibility to things that make life easier but maybe at cost of mom and pop shops and inhumane working conditions for some of the producers). I will read just about any book that focuses on some aspect of progress or the building of civilization, especially if it has the pros and cons of that progress and growth. This book didn't really address possible negative affects of the existence of a large company Amazon, but that wasn't really its goal. It was a biography of Bezos and a fairly good one, except that his personal life felt more like a drive by writing job than his accomplishments. However, if I had to choose, I would rather know about his decision processes that led him to construct one of the most successful businesses on the planet than his relationship with his wife, kids, or estranged father.
My favorite story was about how Pokemon Jigglypuff almost ruined Christmas and put Amazon into a significant financial crisis. Make sure to keep your eye out for that retelling of Christmas past. ...more
I was so excited to read this book. Sadly, the delivery of the material didn't live up to the subject matter. There is little I love more than the groI was so excited to read this book. Sadly, the delivery of the material didn't live up to the subject matter. There is little I love more than the growth of civilization and a discussion of how innovation facilitated that growth. Wilson reached far back to when our ancestors cooked over fire and then proceeded forward to show how we changed tools and the environments in which we cook. Makes you glad to be alive now, when you can just whip up a gourmet meal using the oven and stove in your modern kitchen, with relatively little effort. The problem with the book is that all this wonderful information could have been presented in a much more magical way-- a way that highlighted how awe inspiring the journey from stones over a hot fire to pans on a flat cooktop really is....more
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