This is the cutest book ever. You really have to read it out loud, in your best terrible French accent. I love that Escargot asks you to participate (This is the cutest book ever. You really have to read it out loud, in your best terrible French accent. I love that Escargot asks you to participate (give him a little push, let him kiss your cheek, etc.).
My 4-year-old was charmed, except for being terrified(!?) when Escargot asks you to make a fierce face at the carrot and I overdid it.
As for myself: I did not know that what I needed was words of validation from a cartoon French snail, but I've gotta admit, they genuinely made me feel better. That's life in 2021......more
YES. THIS. I crack up every time I read Shane's ridiculous tumblr posts about and and . So I asked fYES. THIS. I crack up every time I read Shane's ridiculous tumblr posts about and and . So I asked for this book for Christmas, expecting merely a few more silly jokes.
Instead, I got an incredibly well-written and thorough (but still funny!) overview of the realistic possibilities and limitations of what's currently being hyped as "Artificial Intelligence"*... It's not what I expected, but definitely wonderful.
I was looking for a resource like this to give to my students & colleagues who think the singularity is looming (it ain't!)... or who think that progress in Machine Learning and AI means that you don't need Statistics anymore (statistical thinking is exactly what you need to address AI's shortcomings, from biased data to inadequate testing/evaluation and beyond). Much of it was stuff I already know but phrased more effectively and humorously than I ever could---however, some of the particular foibles of neural nets were new to me, and I really enjoyed learning about them from Shane.
My college would like to be a leader in AI education among small liberal arts colleges. I can't imagine a better way to start than by requiring *each* of our students to read this book. (I'd also like them to read O'Neil's Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy and , but Shane somehow manages to be a gentler, friendlier intro while also going deeper into technical details. Genius.)
*(One quibble: the term "Artificial Intelligence" has a long history, and it used to mean the kind of rules-based programming that Shane explicitly *excludes* from her definition of AI. This is fine---she's clear in the book that she uses "AI" as shorthand for the methods that are being hyped in today's AI revival---just be aware that not everyone who works on AI would use the same definition.)
Tysiac razy tlumaczyla Ludka, ze Cyryl nie jest zadnym smokiem i nie moze nim byc, bo smokow w ogole nie ma, a Cyryl jest. Olimpiadzie jednak br
p.31:
Tysiac razy tlumaczyla Ludka, ze Cyryl nie jest zadnym smokiem i nie moze nim byc, bo smokow w ogole nie ma, a Cyryl jest. Olimpiadzie jednak brak wyobrazni. W swiat bez smokow nie wierzy.
p.226:
-- Zdawalo mi sie, ze Pif-Paf, stary i niedolezny, nie potrafi juz rozbawic publicznosci. Przeciez ja tez czulem sie odpowiedzialny.
-- Zle pan rozumial swoja odpowiedzialnosc -- skarcila go Ludka.
-- To prawda -- przyznal Dyrektor Cyrku. -- To sie juz nie powtorzy.
Read it a few years ago, then again in 2016 for our department book club.
I still find it riveting. There's a certain pleasure in intentional confusionRead it a few years ago, then again in 2016 for our department book club.
I still find it riveting. There's a certain pleasure in intentional confusion, story fragments coming rapid-fire one after another, beloved characters twisted into new roles or seen from different points of view. Imagine an improv troupe given the stage set & costumes for the Iliad & Odyssey, making up new stories and variants as they go along. The Odyssey as spiteful imaginings of a furious blinded cyclops, the Iliad as a Jewish folk tale, Odysseus as coward or bard rather than hero, and even other Greek stories such as Medusa's tale from her own side... It's an engaging show to watch, a nice way to spend the evening. But now that I'm supposed to come up with discussion topics for book club, it's hard to think what to say besides, "My, wasn't that clever and fun?"
We can ask: Was the idea executed effectively? How much do you get out of this book if you never read/studied Homer in school? Do the footnotes help or distract? Does the language, word choice, sentence-level writing all flow smoothly? (I liked the writing, though I see other Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reviews annoyed by the faux-academic footnotes and writing style.)
We may wonder: Did you ever emotionally connect to the characters? (Apart from the fun of puzzling out allusions, I was moved by a few of Odysseus' alter egos and their sadness, nostalgia, dealing with betrayal or loss. Maybe thanks to my lifetime of frequent moves, I empathize with a character who just wants to get back home, or who finds himself still lost even once he arrives.) Do you see Odysseus as stuck in a hell, endless islands and dangers when all he wants to do is get home---or in a paradise, an endless chain of opportunities to save the day with clever wit and quick action, with homecoming as merely a secondary goal?
Maybe we can connect this book with other theme-and-variations novels, like Invisible Cities or Spoon River Anthology. Or other stories with unreliable narrators: Rashomon? Memento? As readers we're not sure which version is "true" and even Odysseus himself admits to being unsure, in different ways, in several of the chapters. Or other retellings of well-worn stories; Shakespeare and Jane Austen seem to get this treatment a lot, as do fairy tales. Are such retellings necessarily just cleverness, or can they transcend that? I mean, Shakespeare himself stole stories shamelessly and made them into something more. And it sounds like Greeks themselves retold these stories a zillion ways already:
[apparently even the traditional Odyssey itself imagines alternate versions of the story and casts doubt on the reliability of Odysseus as narrator] so maybe the idea of "one true official version of the story" is a sham, a recent invention of our times? And how much does form matter---what's different about our experience of the same material when we read a modern novel, hear a folk tale, see a play, watch a movie, recite an epic?
Also from the link above: "At the heart of [the Odyssey's] narrative Russian dolls and suggestive punning is a profound, ongoing exploration of identity: what does it mean, after all, if your cleverness, the trick that at once defines you and which you need to stay alive, reduces you to being “no one�?"
Delightfully disorienting. It's a longer batch of the same kind of amusement, vertigo, and wonder I felt when reading Delightfully disorienting. It's a longer batch of the same kind of amusement, vertigo, and wonder I felt when reading :
These ambiguities, redundancies and deficiencies remind us of those which doctor Franz Kuhn attributes to a certain Chinese encyclopaedia entitled 'Celestial Empire of Benevolent Knowledge'. In its remote pages it is written that the animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.
Or, similarly, :
The person can drink sake for the following five reasons. First of all, for the national holiday. Moreover, it fills with the nectar. Finally, for reasons. Next, to heal the dryness of the place. After that, to refuse the future.
~~~
Rereading in 2019 and found an extended quote that might amuse students in my Statistics class:
"From now on, I'll describe the cities to you," the Khan had said, "in your journeys you will see if they exist." But the cities visited by Marco Polo were always different from those thought of by the emperor. "And yet I have constructed in my mind a model city from which all possible cities can be deduced," Kublai said. "It contains everything corresponding to the norm. Since the cities that exist diverge in varying degree from the norm, I need only foresee the exceptions to the norm and calculate the most probable combinations." "I have also thought of a model city from which I deduce all the others," Marco answered. "It is a city made only of exceptions, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions. If such a city is the most improbable, by reducing the number of abnormal elements, we increase the probability that the city really exists. So I have only to subtract exceptions from my model, and in whatever direction I proceed, I will arrive at one of the cities which, always as an exception, exist. But I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit: I would achieve cities too probable to be real."
OMG so good. Still holds up well decades later. It's the right fairytale parody for a kid who wonders why usual fairytale characters don't just stop aOMG so good. Still holds up well decades later. It's the right fairytale parody for a kid who wonders why usual fairytale characters don't just stop and think before rushing into action -- but it's still warm and kind, not smart-alecky. When my younger self read it in middle school, the romance mostly went over my head, but on re-reading now it's quite sweet and legitimately good role modeling....more
Fantastic! If I'd read this in high school I would definitely be a biologist by now. Often I agree with Dawkins' views on creationists, but usually he'Fantastic! If I'd read this in high school I would definitely be a biologist by now. Often I agree with Dawkins' views on creationists, but usually he's an obnoxious ass about it. Thankfully, in this book he only disses them occasionally. For most of the book he sticks to his strengths, i.e., clear and exciting explanations of the beautiful yet structured diversity of the natural world.
Lots of nifty thoughts about how evolution works and how mind-shatteringly cool life is. There's an interesting structure to the book, traveling backwards in time from today to the origin of life, and telling tales or lessons from each of our major ancestors along the way. It made me appreciate how much more there is to life than the small handful of mammals, fish, birds, and trees we usually think about....more
The pedagogical theories in this book may have helped temporarily make me a punky upstart who didn't pay attention in what was possibly my most intereThe pedagogical theories in this book may have helped temporarily make me a punky upstart who didn't pay attention in what was possibly my most interesting undergraduate course... oh, and I cussed out the professors publicly on our official class blog. Sorry, Chris and Ben!
Even so, and even though the plot is not that exciting, the philosophy in this book is edge-of-your-seat mind-blowingly fascinating.
~~~
Edit: want to read it again now, a decade later. I'm older though not necessarily wiser :P but at least I've actually read some of the Aristotle that Pirsig's characters complain about....more
Even if I weren't Polish, this book still would have broken my heart. It must have been insanely crushing to be a Pole fighting hard alongside the othEven if I weren't Polish, this book still would have broken my heart. It must have been insanely crushing to be a Pole fighting hard alongside the other Allies in World War II with one goal in mind - the return of your homeland's independence - and yet, despite being on the "winning" side, to have Churchill and FDR hand over your country for foreign occupation by Stalin (certainly with no legal authority to do so). This book tells the story well; not much previous knowledge of Polish history is required. Despite the title, only about half of it focuses in detail on the pilots of Kosciuszko Squadron in the Battle of Britain, while the other half gives plenty of context about the other Polish military troops, the in-country resistance movement, and the government-in-exile, describing how they fight bravely and how it comes to pass that they are denied the one thing they ask in return. This is a tragic story that makes it much harder to take freedom for granted - and to take "common knowledge" of history at face value....more
Guys, please, read this book. It will give you lots to think about regarding some problems with our society's ideals about what it means to be a "realGuys, please, read this book. It will give you lots to think about regarding some problems with our society's ideals about what it means to be a "real man." AND it's uplifting - unlike many books complaining about society's problems, Jackson Katz actually gives reasonable, concrete suggestions about what to do about it.
In particular, I was impressed with the tone of this book. Acknowledging that obviously *most* guys aren't rapists or abusers, Katz doesn't attack men - he simply issues a challenge to us: do we have the courage to stand up against male violence? It's easy to divide the world into "bad guys" who hurt women and "good guys" who don't, then pat yourself on the back for being on the good side. But Katz asks us to go further and speak up when our guy friends engage in sexist behavior. Unfortunately there's a perception that it's normal and natural for "real men" to disrespect women; and if you challenge such behavior you're at risk of losing your status as "one of the guys." (You're also likely to be called gay; this doesn't follow logically and should be irrelevant anyway, but homophobia is another unfortunate part of today's definition of a "real man.") We're at a point where many individual guys don't really want to be sexist, but we're afraid of the social consequences for rocking the boat.
Story time: When Miller came out with Miller Lite, there were many guys who did want a less filling beer, but they wouldn't order one because it would be seen as a "girly" drink. So Miller ran a successful advertising campaign with well-known, respected, and very manly football players drinking Miller Lite in a bar with their friends, to show that it's okay for real men to drink light beer. In the same way, Katz suggests, if you're a popular, respected, or otherwise powerful guy, you could do a lot of good by being a good role model who actually steps in to prevent, discourage, or outright stop violent or sexist behavior. If we had a lot of role models showing us that it is good and proper for real men to respect women, then much violence could be prevented: 1) individual guys might be less likely to consider using force against a woman, and 2) their friends might be more likely to speak up and stop them from doing something stupid instead of thinking "There's nothing wrong with it" or "It's none of my business." Katz describes the training programs he's helped create to pass on this way of thinking to popular/powerful guys in groups like athletic teams and the military. There are some good suggestions for how to react in such circumstances in your own life.
Those are some of the major points, but there's LOTS more to this book. It's full of sobering facts about men's violence, but also contains many inspiring success stories and useful prevention ideas. Read it!...more
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