Continuations

Having enjoyed Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” on psychedelics (in particular psilocybin), I was intrigued by a book that goes much broader on drug use: Dr. Carl Hart’s “Drug Use for Grown Ups.” Hart is a professor of psychology at Columbia and is basing this book on both his research and his extensive personal experience. While I have one criticism (more on that later), the book makes a very strong case that drugs should be decriminalized broadly: not just marijuana, but everythin...

We are about to go away on a three week trip. Long trips have been a wonderful aspect of homeschooling our children. We are fortunate to have the means to show them different parts of the world and this year we are going to Southeast Asia, which will also be new to Susan and myself. During our travels I also tend to detox from the Internet and find time to read. I already have a couple of books with me about the region we are going to, but am looking for a few more recommendations (I will als...

I love reading science fiction for two reasons: first, because of what I learn about the possible future and second, because of what it says about the present. For instance, I read a lot of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and they correctly predicted the current rise of China, global Megacorps and crypto currencies (and we are making headway on AR and VR). I have just finished works by Neal Stephenson and Cixin Liu that give me a lot of pause about the present. I recommend them highly, but ...

I used to be highly skeptical that one could be reading more than one book at a time. But in the last couple of years what I have found works best for me is to have 3-4 non fiction books going simultaneously. I tend to pick books on quite different subjects so I that there is no confusion. Progress on each book is somewhat slower than reading just one but not by as much as I would have thought and my completion rate is way up. Here is why I think this works. When you have only one book and yo...

We took a bunch of days off for a family vacation. We went down to the Turks & Caicos and had a fantastic time with a great mix between just hanging out / reading and sports / adventure activities. For the first time on a vacation I actually missed blogging, which I guess is a testament to the power of habits. Still as I was trying to minimize my time on a computer and had to do a bit of email it was blogging that took the hit (except for announcing our investment in Firebase yesterday). Book...