Showing posts with label log. Show all posts

Thursday, 29 December 2016

book log: 2016

2016
nonfiction
elon musk bio, ashlee vance

if this is a man, primo levi 
the truce, primo levi

how to create a mind, kurzweil

outliers, gladwell
blink, gladwell
tipping point, gladwell
david and goliath, gladwell 


monkey business, rolfe and troobe
straight to hell, john lefevre

fiction
invisible monsters, chuck palahniuk 
haunted, palahniuk

we, zamyatin yevgeni
fahrenheit 451, bradbury
ready player one, ernest kline
the windup girl, paolo bacigalupi


I am no one you know, joyce carol oates
oscar et la dame rose, eric-emmanuel schmitt 
women, bukowski 

in process 
physics of the future, kaku

for 2017 (?)
do androids dream of electric sheep , p. k. dick
nothing is true and everything is possible, pomerantsev
the captive mind, milosz
the omnivores dilemma 
     
at the existentialist cafe
josefine mutzenbacher
ralph waldo emerson

to kill a mockingbird
the rebel, camus
moonwalking with einstein, 

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year in review: 2016





year of big changes: everything seems to move so slow until you look back and realize everything's different


  • started the year on 01/01 in shanghai, beijing two months and a half, visited xian, home in antwerp for six months, algarve in portugal for a week and ended the year again in shanghai (four months) where I also visited suzhou and beijing again
  • got my bachelor degree in social economics, economics and sociology (sociaal-economische wetenschappen) 
  • read a ton of books 
  • went from very very basic to great at basic conversation in french. estimate learned about 800 words (writing) in chinese. props to german for effort 
  • finished a marketing internship in beijing and a logistics internship in Antwerp 
  • got a full scholarship to go do my masters in shanghai, became financially independent from my parents
  • started attending Toastmasters to work on public speaking. gained confidence talking in front of people 
  • volunteered at a startup conference 



A lot changed. Met people, got a lot of opportunities. I'm lucky and I learned a lot, pushed myself, 
got out of my comfort zone. looking forward to more of that in 2017.



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Monday, 19 December 2016

book log #2

finished
the Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi 
Farang, laowai, gaijin, foreigner, ... this book reminded me that we're all foreigners on this planet. Fans of westworld, the future, ... subtle AI, hints of transhumanism, evolution and mankind meet the end of the world through manmade catastrophies and global warming, great read. Unexpectedly dramatic and realistic.

 “We are nature. Our every tinkering is nature, our every biological striving. We are what we are, and the world is ours. We are its gods. Your only difficulty is your unwillingness to unleash your potential fully upon it.”
Oscar et la Dame Rose, Eric Emmanuel Schmitt  
Broke my heart a little bit. Beautiful book, consists of a collection of letters of a young boy writing to God as he's dying. Read it in French as a step to improve said language. Not too difficult, reminded me of le Petit Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).

 "There's no solution for life except for living it."
"I think we make the same mistake in life. We forget that it's fragile and ephemeral. We make everything seem like we're immortal."
"Life, it's deadly."

“Il n'y a pas de solution à la vie sinon vivre.” 
in process
x

“Je crois qu'on fait la même erreur pour la vie. Nous oublions que la vie est fragile,friable, éphémère. Nous faisons tous semblant d'être immortels.” 
"La vie, c'est fatale"
How to Create a Mind, Ray Kurzweil
Physics, biology and neuroscience for beginners. Great thought experiments on how the brain works. Given the difficulty of the subjects that are touched on, it's remarkable that Kurzweil can still manage to make it all understandable.

 Women, Charles Bukowski
To balance out Kurzweil

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Sunday, 11 December 2016

Book log #1: December 2016




finished

sociological insights and observations on the nature of humanity by an Auschwitz survivor albeit not a tale of survival. A horror of the kind that makes you want to cry while you read it, partly because it's so beautifully written. Some chapters still haunt me.

“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite.”
incredibly inspiring and shows an array of different perspectives on the man
collection of short stories. The Girl with the Blackened Eye is one of them, about a girl who reflects on when she got abducted by a man when she was fifteen years old.



in process 
set in 23rd-century Thailand, global warming has ruined the planet and big corporations are essentially using bioterrorism to gain control of the world.  I'm about halfway through, great so far. Side note: I'm going to Thailand soon and I like the small observations some of the protagonists make into Thai culture.
"sequel" to If This is a Man, written 20 years after the events set in the first book
up next 
At the Existentialist Cafe
The Omnivores Dilemma
Women by Charles Bukowski
Moonwalking with Einstein
x

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