A brilliant talk from Yale Patt – The future of “Computer * ” (Are we in serious trouble?) – about computer education avaliable from the Computer Society. Funny, insightful and discussing something which is particularly important these days in western european countries – the reduced number of students enrolling engineering degrees.
Monthly Archive for September, 2006
Music:
- Paul Simon – Surprise – I don’t fancy the earliest S&G albums but I’ve always enjoyed Simon’s latest solo albums. After the tropical landscapes of Rhythm of the Saints, and the African with Graceland he now partners with Brian Eno for a brilliant album;
- Ali Farka Tour̩ РSavane Рthis is a masterpiece from one of the most brilliant african composers of all times that recently died of cancer;
- Clap your hand and say yeah – Clap your hands and say yeah – this a 2005 record from a band almost entirely launched on the internet. A nice record which sound a lot like Byrne and Eno.
- Bob Dylan – Modern Times – another old timer that came back to the scene with another brilliant album.
Books:
- Malcolm Gladwell – “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” – another brilliant book from Gladwell, this time about how our brain thin-slices, which is “the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and people based on very narrow ’slices’ of experience”;
- Barry Schwartz – “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less” – well I’m reading about decision making you might have guessed and this is an interesting book that explores why we have difficulties making choices with too much information;
- Gary Klein -”Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions” – another book about how people make decisions, this time Klein explores naturalistic decision making through a discussion of his own research with firefighters, nurses, nuclear power plant operators, pilots, etc.