Masters of Doom is an entertaining, well-written, and insightful story about John Carmack, John Romero, and the other founds of id Software, the makers of Doom and Quake.
The relationship between Carmack and Romero is a good case study of the perils and potentials of founder personality dynamics. Their company was very successful while the two remained together, and failed quickly after their relationship fell apart. The cause of the breakup seems to be 1) Romero lost discipline and focus after their initial big success and 2) Carmack didn’t have sufficient appreciation for Romero’s contributions, which were in the nebulous realms of design and marketing. One crucial component of their collaboration was that Romero, to a greater degree than anyone else including Carmack himself, was enormously enthusiastic and optimistic about the world-changing potential of Carmack’s engineering work. There are a lot of parallels to the Jobs/Wozniak story about Apple’s founding.
Lucien Laubier, Does oasis au fond does mers, 1986. In Russian translation - Люсьен Лобье, Оазисьі на дне океана, 1990. Great short book about ecosystems forming on the ocean floor due to chemotrophic bacteria. Probably quite dated by now, but I would still recommend it for illustrations, clarity and frequent mentions of alternative hypotheses, whether they were proved, disproved, or something else. Would be of particular interest for fans of Peter Watts’s underwater sci-fi.
Very detailed walk through the apparent history of photosynthesis (non-oxygen-producing and oxygen-producing) over the history of Earth with a strong emphasis on the very large unknowns about its timing, the geochemical and biological consequences thereof, and the significance of oxygen-producing photosynthesis in particular (not just allowing multicellular creatures with lots of energy but also long before there was even any oxygen in the air allowing for much higher levels of biomass due to removing chemical limiting factors on biomass production by nonoxygenic photosynthesis).
The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities
Still reading it. For once a reasoned analysis of living and intelligent systems in the universe, given what we know and most importantly what we don’t know.
Lucien Laubier, Des oasis au fond does mers, 1986. In Russian translation - Люсьен Лобье, Оазисьі на дне океана, 1990. Great short book about ecosystems forming on the ocean floor due to chemotrophic bacteria. Probably quite dated by now, but I would still recommend it for illustrations, clarity and frequent mentions of alternative hypotheses, whether they were proved, disproved, or something else. Would be of particular interest for fans of Peter Watts’s underwater sci-fi.
This is a really good read. The author goes into what’s up with modern India. Lots of interviews, its basically a description of all of the things he’s seen in his reporting on India. In particular, he focuses on the damage that is done by the myth of India as this uniquely spiritual land. For me, as a dude from America, where we use a two party system, the chapters on how politics works in the largest democracy in the world (and how it interacts with the caste system) was really interesting.
Nonfiction Books Thread
Masters of Doom is an entertaining, well-written, and insightful story about John Carmack, John Romero, and the other founds of id Software, the makers of Doom and Quake.
The relationship between Carmack and Romero is a good case study of the perils and potentials of founder personality dynamics. Their company was very successful while the two remained together, and failed quickly after their relationship fell apart. The cause of the breakup seems to be 1) Romero lost discipline and focus after their initial big success and 2) Carmack didn’t have sufficient appreciation for Romero’s contributions, which were in the nebulous realms of design and marketing. One crucial component of their collaboration was that Romero, to a greater degree than anyone else including Carmack himself, was enormously enthusiastic and optimistic about the world-changing potential of Carmack’s engineering work. There are a lot of parallels to the Jobs/Wozniak story about Apple’s founding.
Lucien Laubier, Does oasis au fond does mers, 1986. In Russian translation - Люсьен Лобье, Оазисьі на дне океана, 1990. Great short book about ecosystems forming on the ocean floor due to chemotrophic bacteria. Probably quite dated by now, but I would still recommend it for illustrations, clarity and frequent mentions of alternative hypotheses, whether they were proved, disproved, or something else. Would be of particular interest for fans of Peter Watts’s underwater sci-fi.
Oxygen: A Four Billion Year History.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10089.html http://www.amazon.com/Oxygen-Billion-History-Science-Essentials/dp/0691168369/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Very detailed walk through the apparent history of photosynthesis (non-oxygen-producing and oxygen-producing) over the history of Earth with a strong emphasis on the very large unknowns about its timing, the geochemical and biological consequences thereof, and the significance of oxygen-producing photosynthesis in particular (not just allowing multicellular creatures with lots of energy but also long before there was even any oxygen in the air allowing for much higher levels of biomass due to removing chemical limiting factors on biomass production by nonoxygenic photosynthesis).
The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities
http://www.amazon.com/Copernicus-Complex-Caleb-Scharf/dp/0374129215/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464890000&sr=1-1&keywords=the+copernicus+complex
Still reading it. For once a reasoned analysis of living and intelligent systems in the universe, given what we know and most importantly what we don’t know.
Lucien Laubier, Des oasis au fond does mers, 1986. In Russian translation - Люсьен Лобье, Оазисьі на дне океана, 1990. Great short book about ecosystems forming on the ocean floor due to chemotrophic bacteria. Probably quite dated by now, but I would still recommend it for illustrations, clarity and frequent mentions of alternative hypotheses, whether they were proved, disproved, or something else. Would be of particular interest for fans of Peter Watts’s underwater sci-fi.
(Misposted it the first time, sorry)
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Chernow (review)
In Spite Of The Gods, By Edward Luce
https://www.amazon.com/Spite-Gods-Rise-Modern-India/dp/1400079772?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
This is a really good read. The author goes into what’s up with modern India. Lots of interviews, its basically a description of all of the things he’s seen in his reporting on India. In particular, he focuses on the damage that is done by the myth of India as this uniquely spiritual land. For me, as a dude from America, where we use a two party system, the chapters on how politics works in the largest democracy in the world (and how it interacts with the caste system) was really interesting.