Banned Books Week

By the way, I completely forgot to mention Banned Books Week, which happened last month when I was in hyper-focused GRE-prep mode. I invite you to celebrate intolerance by reading something other people don't want you to. I chose Lysistrata, and it's hilarious.

writes about pop culture and the Long Zoom

Steven Johnson writes about pop culture and the Long Zoom, a way of seeing and understanding over immense ranges. "It is, by any measure, a difficult way of thinking, in part because our brains did not evolve tools to perceive or intuitively understand the scales of microbes or galaxies... But a decade or two from now, when we look back at this period, it is more likely that the work that will fix the long zoom in the popular imagination will be neither a movie nor a book nor anything associated with the cultural products that dominated the 20th century. It will be a computer game."

Beautiful Evidence (review: 4.5/5)

This is such an excellent book. Just a couple days after finishing Beautiful Evidence, I decided to invoke my alumni privileges at Emory's Woodruff Library so I could get my hands on his earlier books. I'm in the midst of Envisioning Information right now, and it's looking to be just as good. Edward Tufte has crafted a reputation as something of a guru of analytic design and information display. His latest work, Beautiful Evidence is about the act of visual communication in all its forms--using image, word, number, line, or otherwise. He's talking about the transformation of observation to presentation, "how seeing turns into showing". This comes out in chapters dedicated to mapped images; links, arrows & causation; corrupted evidence; and more, all calling on case studies from modern science back to ye olden days.

The book itself sets a good model for what it discusses, as a beautifully printed book with thoughtful, purposeful design. Add in some lovely colors and inks on some really nice paper. I liked seeing the "footnotes" placed in the left and right margins vertically parallel with the corresponding phrase, so the commentary is but a glance away. And for the most part, each page represents a full argument. While it can make for some slightly terse writing, I have to admire the editorial restraint to not let the ideas run all over the pages.

I give petty demerits for a little bit of loose organization. The individual chapters and pages are really tight. On the other hand, at the macro-level the book is a wee jumbled. He expands on some incredibly cool ideas on sparklines; but then there's also a reprint of an old pamphlet on PowerPoint; and then there's also an odd dwarf chapter on sculpture. Hmm.

Later, Tufte offers a bit pseudo-inspirational advice on information design: "What would Richard Feynman think?" Well, gosh, Ed. I really don't have a clue. How about a little help? I'm reading your book so you can tell me. Don't make me think! Er...

But really, it's easy to criticise because it's kind of hard to choose which excellent parts to highlight. There's a lot to learn here.

The Wisdom of Crowds (review: 4/5)

James Surowiecki's recent book focuses on the problems faced by groups (namely, cognition, coordination, and cooperation), and exactly what makes good decisions possible (that is, diversity, independence, decentralization). Like some other consilient books I've dabbled in, Surowiecki draws from a bunch of academic and popular work, and uses it to neatly package his ideas for human consumption. In his favor, I really like that he doesn't stretch his research too far. The main idea seems more richly documented and better sculpted than in books like Blink and The Tipping Point. As an added bonus, his writing is more free from chummy background stories--i.e. not all research needs multi-paragraph introductions. Instead, we get a nice solid edifice of ideas--thank you, James.

If anything were missing, I'd say Surowiecki could have been a bit more bold in offering his own views. The writing flows so nicely from the research that a bit more conscious effort to bracket his own prognostication and advocacy wouldn't hurt.

But, alas, one side effect of his thoughtful exposition is that he isn't as entertaining and personable as, say, Steven Johnson. One bright exception was the few pages discussing the "gangster-film theory of business". As a model of the corporation, we have The Godfather, Part II with the powerful Corleone dynasty directing a huge network of businesses (on both sides of the law). Heat provides a model for the agile, intimate workings of small-enterprise. And then we there are groups like in Reservoir Dogs, performing a simple one-off project and disbanding afterward. So perhaps none of those are models of success, but it's great stuff nonetheless.