Zach Weinersmith's Blog, page 330
January 14, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Stolen Purse
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Hovertext:
And those shoes. Do you really need nice shoes?
New comic!
Today's News:
Hey look, Kelly helped discover a terrifying species of parasitoid.
January 13, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Losing My Faith
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Later, God becomes a Wiccan.
New comic!
Today's News:
Thanks for all the amazing BAHFest proposals, Londonites! We'll have our selections done shortly, and then tickets will be on sale!
January 12, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - The Pleasure Button
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Hovertext:
Hey venture capitalists! I have an idea: New social media that ONLY shows you things that allow you to wallow in misery. As far as I can tell, that's what people want anyway.
New comic!
Today's News:
Wednesday Book Reviews!
(belated again, because I'm an idiot)
A Numerate Life (Paulos) [image error]
What a fun and strange little autobiography. Paulos is a mathematician and writer whose books I’ve enjoyed in the past. They’re word books, and they’re not for everyone. For instance, this book has a (quite clever!) section on transhumanist pickup lines.
You may ask what that’s doing in an autobiography. Well, this isn’t *really* an autobiography. It contains a few stories from Paulos’ life, but the bulk of the book is either digressions into topics that interest Paulos or discussions of why memoirs are probably mostly false, in that they rely on flawed memories and attempt to create cogent narratives of haphazard lives. In some ways it reads like a long chat with a beloved grandfather who’s quite quirky. All in all, the terrible puns notwithstanding, that’s a pretty good thing.
The Undoing Project (Lewis) [image error]
This book is a telling of the story of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, as they created prospect theory, and all that came with it. On the one hand, this ground has already been covered in other books (including one by Kahmeman himself!), but on the other hand… it’s Michael Lewis. I dunno. It’s weird. Like finding out there’s yet another book about Einstein, but it was written by Mary Roach.
In any case, it’s definitely a fine book, and it contains a lot of information I was not aware of, including in depth discussion of the intellectual love affair and later falling out between Kahneman and Tversky. I’d have to say I recommend it if you’re not familiar with the topic. Lewis always writes well, and the subject matter is interesting. But, if you’re in any way up to date on this stuff, a lot of the stories will be familiar to you.
We Have No Idea (Cham, Whiteson) [image error]
I’m trying to figure out how I should handle books by people I know, given that it means I’m not a reliable source. I think from now on, I need to just have a blanket caveat.
So, here goes: I know the author (one of them, anyway) so I am not a reliable source.
Bam. OK, so this is a sort of quick primer on all sorts of areas of particle physics and cosmology where we don’t have a good sense of what’s going on, such as with Dark Energy or the nature of time. It is peppered with jokes and comics to lighten things up a bit. So, if you’re a fan of Jorge Cham and want to learn some physics of the universe, I recommend it!
A Contract With God (Eisner) [image error]
I think this book must be read as a historical document, as it’s sometimes considered the first serious graphic novel. Given that pedigree, it’s interesting to point out that the book is in fact somewhat transitional between books and comics, containing large sections of (hand-drawn) text, with somewhat simple drawings. I didn’t find the stories themselves particularly amazing (sorry if that’s heretical to say!) but they aren’t bad, and they are well drawn. And, as a window into the history of comics, it’s quite good. Incidentally, if you are interested in the history of Jewish New York, there’s a lot here for you as well.
January 11, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - A Sample
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Hovertext:
Zach Weinersmith was relentlessly dedicated to intellectual comedy.
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January 10, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - The Strangest People
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Hovertext:
I'm just saying, we don't know this isn't what happened.
New comic!
Today's News:
Last day to submit for BAHFest London! We will probably not be extending the deadline.
January 9, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - The Consolation of Philosophy
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Hovertext:
Of course, I personally would never go out in the cold.
New comic!
Today's News:
Two days left to get in your BAHFest London proposal!
January 8, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Perception of Time
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Hovertext:
FIGHT ME, INTERNET
New comic!
Today's News:
Just two days left to submit a proposal for BAHFest London!
January 7, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - The Portrait
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Hovertext:
Zach forgot to update his own website . So hey, it's Kelly! Hi, everyone!
New comic!
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January 6, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Sociology
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Hovertext:
Really, social scientists should be avoided in polite society.
New comic!
Today's News:
Just a few days left to submit your proposal for BAHFest London!
January 5, 2017
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Bad Parents
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Hovertext:
When Telepathic Social Media happens, I'm becoming a Morlock.
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Wednesday Book Reviews (on Thursday, because I'm dumb):
Two Cheers for Anarchism (Arthur)[image error] This was a fun little introduction to ideas of anarchism. It’s a short book, and I don’t have too much to say about it, other than that I’m sympathetic to the idea of having as much as possible accomplished by free association between voluntary actors. Whether it’d work for a large of people, I haven’t got a clue.
Calvin and Hobbes (Watterson)[image error] You may have noticed my artwork’s gotten a little more… painterly? I’m not sure the right word. But, I wasn’t sent this book and decided to read every page. It’s interesting to see Watterson’s early style - he’s still finding his way, and doesn’t yet have that calligraphic style he eventually mastered. Of course, it’s still ten times better than me, but you can see where he’s still figuring out how to do things.
We Can Build You (Dick)[image error] This book is all over the place, and it is very hard to follow. If I were more concerned about the appearance of intelligence, I would call it “post-modern.” As it is, I just found it confusing. What *is* interesting, is that it has a lot of the motifs that’d later appear in Dick’s magnum opus, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, including the concern over whether oneself is in-human, and the emotional tests used to detect machines. It even has the motif of the spider that’s so crucial in that later work. But, as a book alone, it’s not solid gold. It’s almost like a dream about that later book - a sort of creative fluid that needs to congeal into something more graspable.
Genius at Play (Roberts)[image error] I just absolutely adored this biography of John Conway, the great mathematician. It’s been a while since I read a great memoir of a scientists. They’re typically written without much love or understanding of the work. The other of this book had many many interviews with Conway, in addition to doing an immense amount of research. It’s just delightful, and I recommend it.
Feynman (Ottaviani and Mirick)[image error] This comic book is a sort of dreamy stringing together of some of the famous Feynman stories and lectures. I definitely enjoyed reading it, though I found it hard to tell if the comic book format added to that. It also (necessarily, but…) ends up painting a picture of Feynman as he saw himself, and mythologized himself, for better and worse. I did really enjoy it, though.
Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End (Worth)[image error] Well, the first book in this series was great, the second was solid, and this one ends up somewhere in between. It’s really a return to more stories of midwifery, and this is facilitated by using stories from other people alive at the time. I don’t know to what extent they are fictionalized, and I frankly don’t care. They’re great little stories. Worth also takes a strong stance for legal abortion, which is bolstered by horrifically detailed tales of what abortions were like in her time, when performed in secret by women with little to no medical background, using literally medieval methods.
