Book: Gates of Fire
Historical fiction recounting the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Pretty good stuff.
Historical fiction recounting the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Pretty good stuff.
A wonderful collection of essays and short stories about mind, consciousness, and the possibility of machine intelligence. Each selection is followed by commentary by either Hofstadter, Dennett, or both. Includes pieces by Borges, Rudy Rucker, Alan Turing, and the amazing, inimitable Stanislaw Lem.
An odd little story written by a Grateful Dead lyricist in monosyllabic verse.
An introduction to several strands of mathematics and computer science which have parallels in nature and biology. The topics covered include:
+ Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem
+ Fractals
+ Chaos
Because of the breadth of topics, the subject matter is sometimes treated fairly lightly. Although this sort of introductory treatment was exactly what I wanted, I occasionaly found the explanations to be too hand-wavy, especially some of the philosophical asides.
This is an excellent book on good negotiation techniques. The techniques described here have a lot in common with current practices in mediation.