First and four-most was Norman Doidge’s The Brain’s Way of Healing.
Inspirational and a solid mix of anecdote, science, and useful information that you can apply in your everyday life, though it is far from a self-help book. A book about cutting edge neuroscience and the remarkable new therapies that can awaken dormant brain cells. It might even make you cry, from happiness.
In the same vein of helpful science, but requiring quite the well-worth commitment of time and effort, was Gary Taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health.
Taubes explains why we get the often erroneous advice we get (usually a form of sunk cost is to blame) and just how wrong it often is, backing up theory with science and excellent investigative journalism. A quick easy introduction can be found at econtalk.org, where he was interviewed by Russ Roberts:
Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about why we get fat and the nature of evidence in a complex system. The current mainstream view is that we get fat because we eat too much and don’t exercise enough. Taubes challenges this seemingly uncontroversial argument with a number of empirical observations, arguing instead that excessive carbohydrate consumption causes obesity. In this conversation he explains how your body reacts to carbohydrates and explains why the mainstream argument of “calories in/calories out” is inadequate for explaining obesity. He also discusses the history of the idea of carbohydrates’ importance tracing it back to German and Austrian nutritionists whose work was ignored after WWII. Roberts ties the discussion to other emergent, complex phenomena such as the economy. The conversation closes with a discussion of the risks of confirmation bias and cherry-picking data to suit one’s pet hypotheses.
This book didn’t exactly change the way I ate, I had already been suspicious of carbs, and way back in the karate days had changed my body composition by going almost Atkins, a change that has persisted to this day. I am now too skinny, after a life of being possibly on the plump (for Ontario standards, which turn out to be pretty darn anorexic) side. But if you have unwanted fat, or know people who do, this book is basically a must. It makes sense of many things you experience in your own body and helps to explain why governments want you to eat so much grain. And for Americans plagued by diabetes, this book should be essential reading.
What is Life, by Addy Pross, was a pleasant surprise and extremely interesting, and moves one from the macro to the micro and back again. His understanding of chemistry is astonishing but the concepts he discusses are for the most part thoroughly explicated, and I thought he did a good job of backing away from the philosophical and sticking with the knowable, but recognizing the inherent questions all answers raise.
The question of how life on Earth (or indeed anywhere else) began is one that has been pondered and debated by scientists, philosophers and the common man throughout history. The title of this book repeats that of an essay written by Erwin Schrödinger in the 1940s. While it is not necessary to have read Schrödinger’s essay to understand this book, anyone interested in the knotty problem of life’s origins should probably take a look.
In Schrödinger’s essay, written before the structure of DNA was known, he tries to relate the macroscopic process of heredity to the quantum worlds of physics and chemistry. In his turn, Addy Pross addresses a related problem – what is it that makes some arrangements of matter ‘alive’? What (in the chemical sense) differentiates living matter from the same set of chemicals in a dead organism, or a piece of inanimate matter that has never been alive?
Pross suggests that there are two aspects to the origin of life problem. The first is historical – how did life actually emerge on Earth just over 4 billion years ago? To this, Pross claims we will almost certainly never find a satisfactory answer. The second, more important, question covers the general chemical principles and processes by which life could emerge, and identifying the driving force behind why it should do so in the first place – seemingly in defiance of the laws of thermodynamics.
And finally, rounding out the top four books that brought science to Xty’s life in 2015, in more ways than one, I am currently listening to, and mostly greatly enjoying Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics, by Richard Thaler.
Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans—predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth—and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.
Traditional economics assumes rational actors. Early in his research, Thaler realized these Spock-like automatons were nothing like real people. Whether buying a clock radio, selling basketball tickets, or applying for a mortgage, we all succumb to biases and make decisions that deviate from the standards of rationality assumed by economists. In other words, we misbehave. More importantly, our misbehavior has serious consequences. Dismissed at first by economists as an amusing sideshow, the study of human miscalculations and their effects on markets now drives efforts to make better decisions in our lives, our businesses, and our governments.
Well that should keep you busy for today and tomorrow. The fiction review will have to be short. And I must confess that a few books need to be finished, before that review can be complete, one of which is currently sitting on the sail boat, where it reads best: a good friend sent me Passage to Juneau, by Jonathan Raban, and while I am not sure I like the protagonist and he seems to name drop his history rather than introduce the reader to it, it is full of fascinating sea-faring stuff. Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World is absolutely charming and holds up extremely well. The Aubrey/Maturin series, of which Hollywood made but the one movie, Master and Commander, has gotten a little silly as Patrick O’Brian moves away from the historical time line, but as we approach the end of the series, having made it through The Wine Dark Sea, I heartily recommend them, especially in audio and especially if you can get them read by Simon Vance.
Outside of sailing, well mostly, surprise joy was found in Around the World in 80 Days, Dracula, and perhaps inexplicably, I still think about that irritating book Babbitt, and the growth of American conformity that it examines. 20 Gazillion Nonsensical Leagues Under the Sea, however, I can only say is an historic curiosity, and in that vein and taken with a gallon of sea salt, can be approached, but with extreme caution. Likewise The Black Arrow, and especially The Last (thank zeus) of the Mohicans. I think I would have preferred the second to last:
And finally podcasts. What a great resource. Econtalk, Sawbones, Radiolab, My Brother, My Brother and Me, Serial, The Adventure Zone, Trends Like These, Judge John Hodgman, The Ancient World, Doorway to The Hidden World … I am sure there was much more. But a cornucopia of entertainment and information, and I am sure you will be able to find something of interest in the heap. All free from iTunes, but you can always support young comedians if you feel like it …
Have a happy and interesting New Year’s Eve, and don’t be falling for mandatory drinking! Be safe and warm and do no harm, even to yourself.
*I cannot understand why some of the links are displaying oddly. They look fine in preview and do work. First it was Dracula, and I was able to fix it. Now it has spread but the html is the same for both the correct and incorrect, so I am a little stumped and will stump around in the snow with the dog and see if that helps!
Aha … something to do with Project Gutenberg links perchance, as altering Dracula to link to wikipedia has fixed the strike through, if not the colour. For my own sanity’s sake I will tackle this … but after the snow tromp.
Song that i love for many reasons that i cannot explain.
And so long Woodpecker. I tried and really cared.
“Somewhere down the road without that load” (Neil Young)
A Very Happy New Year to All!
Lang may yer lum reek …
And yes, we both really did try and care. And that is all one can do. I hope he is doing okay and getting help and can find his way back to the rational world that really does exist to the extent that one can live in it and function and which can be tested through repetition. And I really hope he is able to keep his new job.
A nightmare in many ways but there is lots of daylight to be found. The problem really lies in that once the brain is making wrong connections, most attempts to help appear threatening, and the closer your relationship the more suspect you become. Can you imagine living with someone who thinks you are an imposter, for example? There was a famous, or perhaps infamous, television star who thought his family had been replaced by identical strangers and it turns out to be a known disease … and there was no happy ending to that one. It is tricky to correct brain chemistry and the earlier generations of drugs had terrible side effects that aren’t as bad now, but still affect people terribly if the dosages are high. In fact many of the motions we associate with mental illness are brought on by the drugs that cause twitching and involuntary movement and slurred speech. But these things are all workable and not everyone needs medication for the long haul. I just really hope he is somewhere safe. He has left the blog alone now, and I am assuming that medical attention has been sought.
What a way to end a year and things were looking up it seemed. Puts things in perspective and we must keep on keeping on …. There was a campaign in Ottawa a few years back to try to get the stigma out of mental health issues, with prominent people stepping forward, but it is a fairly natural fear when someone is just not making sense. And bipolar has these aggressive tendencies that make it most unfortunate as an illness. But it was all there … the grandiosity, flight of thoughts, increased libido, aggression, staccato writing and thoughts, and then the scariest stuff was about me being inside his head and affecting his breathing and his computer … drifting into very dangerous territory once you think there are voices and external things talking to you through objects. I shouldn’t go on, but man it did get to me.
I know I am delusional but I made a crossword puzzle (or I should say a clever algorithm I found on the web made a crossword puzzle) out of the last 40ish words of the day, and I put it in the side bar. I didn’t remember at least half of them. But the torture is there for any one in need of odd entertainment.
Good Afternoon. Slow day, but yoga and exercises done and banana bread baked, for the first time, because in all honesty I don’t much care for bananas. I do like them fried. But this worked out pretty darn well, and nobody was going to eat those tired bananas. A banana rebirth. To go along with the bun rebirth that Greg Smithey of Buns of Steel fame promises and still makes me laugh.
Good morning.
Wishing the very best to Woodpecker, and hoping he has found what he actually needed.
I was thinking (working without tools, I know) about the past year and one of the significant things that happened and would have made for a really bad photo was being able to stop taking Lyrica. What a nightmare that turned out to be, and I am finally mostly free of it. Just thought I would mention it.
So the take away from Misbehaving, the book about behavioural economics, seems to be that people weight the present too heavily, according to the theoretical best behaviour of what the author terms “econs”, people who behave “correctly” according to economic theory. But that begs the question: have economists correctly assessed risk, or does common sense suggest that Snoopy was right to eat his dinner now, in case the cat next door got it instead? Being too impulsive is clearly a problem, but ignoring now is also a problem.
Well isn’t it just Monday. Good morning, all the more.
A surviving colleague of my dad sent me this, and for those who have forgotten, my dad was a (dare I say the) expert on John Stuart Mill, and his love for Mill certainly influenced my upbringing for the better.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/10/06/right-again
It is a hard thing, being right about everything all the time. Nobody likes a know-it-all, and we wait for the moment when the know-it-all is wrong to insist that he never really knew anything in the first place. The know-it-all, far from living in smug superiority, has the burden of being right the next time, too. Certainly no one has ever been so right about so many things so much of the time as John Stuart Mill, the nineteenth-century English philosopher, politician, and know-it-all nonpareil …
Good Morning, except off to the dentist for what I hope is the last restoration needed after that dagnabbed Lyrica ate my teeth. But thank Thor I get to go … need to wear my perspective hat, but I sometimes don’t find it very flattering.
But first to the post office to send a birthday package off to offspring #1 who is back in NFLD, but in the most beautiful Burin peninsula. And there is just a chance they can get it there in time. But one can see how it is a bit of a challenge …
Good morning.
Good Saturday Morning. Just leaving up the books for a bit, in the blind hope that someone will want to read one of them.
Wishing the woodpecker well, and hoping the sun can shine on him today, metaphorically speaking.
I have just finished listening to Oliver Sacks, Awakenings and it is kind of terrifying what the mind can do to itself with a little help from external stimuli. Heartwarming and depressing at the same time. But the advances in treatments since the 1970’s when these patients were mostly being treated is astonishing, and it is hard not to see these poor folks as guinea pigs, but guinea pigs who contributed mightily to brain science.
There but for the grace of god … well, and a lot of hard work. There is great irony in the sentiment that god only helps those who help themselves ….
Good morning. Think maybe I over did my leg … but where it used to be three steps forward and one backward now it is more like 6 steps forward and one back, so definitely much better. Just ouch today.
Well I hadn’t really planned on self-improvement, but as I have certainly gone on about in the past we tend towards the hoarding side, and Audible got me with a sale, and for $4.95 Canadian, so about 3 cents, I am subjecting myself to The Hoarder in You, while tackling the basement in a fairly deep way. This is embarrassing, but we still had VHS tapes, but haven’t had a VCR in possibly a decade. This I am remedying, and when you dislodge things you haven’t used in a decade, it is a little exciting, if you like dust and spider webs and remembering to throw things out sooner.
If I told you I found a vcr in the depths of the dust, would you judge me?
I think it will be quietly evicted from the premises, and the tapes are sorted and done. Some to St. Vincent’s and most to the trash, but I did bother to pull off the cardboard covers for recycling, to assuage my guilt. Two lego tubs are now one, and I just can’t part with the lego. Couch moved and vacuumed under, lightbulbs arranged on shelf, and recent purchase of too much toilet paper (is there such a thing?) now stacked where it sort of belongs. Tapes and dvds of the kids playing hockey at the Canadian Tire Centre found, as well as recording of Mikey singing with the Barenaked Ladies at their Christmas concert back when he was in Grade 3 found and preserved. Good memories … the bass player let him jam with him briefly back stage after the rehearsal when we chased him down for an autograph. But just like the irritating lady says in her irritating book, when you keep too much you often destroy or lose precious things through accident and neglect.
Good Morning. It is far offsprung offspring #1’s birthday today, one of my great accomplishments, even if I am resting on my laurels.
And wonders of modern life, I was able to send her an audiobook that was automatically delivered today … even in Burin. Had to pay an arm and a leg to get a parcel there. It was either three days and key body limbs or two weeks by horse and mule, but I parted with the moolah. One day I can live in her basement.
Well it is an ongoing process, but I did get around the corner onto the next wall, but I am at that stage where cleaning up is making more mess. Having emptied what passes as a craft shelf, and removed the dust, I am going to refill it, but with an attempt at being honest about whether Model Magic still has a place in my life. Or casting plaster. The fact that I greatly enjoyed homeschooling my kids and helping them with busywork projects once they were in school, or once build a three dimensional map of Middle Earth for a geography project in Grade 8, isn’t necessarily relevant when it comes to keeping stuff. As the ghastly book said, the memories aren’t in the objects, but in you, and if you aren’t using something maybe someone else could, before it turns to junk.
Easier to say than to do.
And good later morning. I am a spoiled human and have a friend who comes every other week to help clean the house, and it is a great motivator to get the floors clean. But now I need to get the other surfaces to match. It is his day to be here, so a flurry of cleaning took place already, and now I am going to mellow for a moment. Hubby has been working at home and is out today and I think Mr Green is about to visit.
Ahh.
Who knew that cardboard recycling day could make one so joyful!
Found my mum’s journals, and her old Havergal College year books, and feel they can be kept. Discarded at least two sewing projects, as in gave away the materials, etc., keeping at least four, but making sure all the material could fit in one tub.
Got rid of a heap of books, but kept those actually authored by parents and grandparents, but not if only edited by same. Except for a collection of writings by John Stuart Mill that dad edited and that looked like a fine thing to pretend to have read.
Found a silly but very comfortable pair of travel socks I had been given years ago, and a xs Jams World dress that I had forgotten I owned, and since we are throwing caution and pennies to the wind and going to visit the in-laws in the Bahamas in February, will be most welcome. Treasures and trash, and now distinguishable, one from the other.
And good morning.
good morning.
Oh what a perfect day!
Bob bits. Hard to believe it’s still on the tube.
Bob usually gets scrubbed …
It is a snowy day here, and the perfection is yet to be determined. But a happy good morning to you!
And finally a new and too apropos word of the day. Enough to make you not believe in coincidences, just when you are discussing how they usually are just random. But a lovely word for a dreadful problem nonetheless.
just had a 1/2 hour conversation with mom and it was quite delightful, and we do need to love and appreciate the ones that we have while they are still here. And too much bad news about ones that i care for. Very close to home.
And i think thats why i love those lyrics ” Grab what you have and hold it fast”
And sometimes i have no idea what you are talking about….
Oak logs in the fireplace and jams on the wireless speaker from my incredible baby sis.
That’s okay … I have a random brain and sometimes forget to include the bridges between things.
Sorry about the bad news and so yes about loving what you have while you have it, and good to hear your mum is in fine fettle. While cleaning up I am dealing with a fair amount of mum memorabilia, and it is mostly great memories which makes it so much easier.
We also had a fire for the first time yesterday. Marvellous. And just to be bloggy, I make very useful fire starters out of those tiny wax dixie cups and old candle ends, melting the old candles and filling the cups about a third full. The cups light easily and the wax burns for ages. And it satisfies my Scottish heart to use up the candle ends.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marvelous 🙂
Dang. Those drattttted double letters!
yepss. almann bro’ss
Now that’s an amaryllis! Not as tall as last year’s, but suddenly magnificent.
wait a minute, imgur … no view post on imgur … give me a minute …
Good Morning again.
And again.
No fire works here folks – just compassion and best wishes.
Well it looks like the voyeuristic tempest in a teapot has slowed. I hope compassion and not mockery was on display at the swamp, but have me doubts. Mental illness is not really separate from physical illness and it is odd that we try to pretend the brain isn’t part of the body. I heartily recommend Brain on Fire to anyone who thinks crazy people are just deliberately not coping.
How many people are institutionalized because the cause of their distress goes untreated and undiagnosed? How many old brain injuries re-emerge in later life, or chemical mishaps and misfires that create permanent or semi-permanent changes that slowly but surely isolate people from their surroundings?
Awakenings by Oliver Sachs will also blow your socks off:
Perception is reality in a very real sense, and when your perceptions are faulty, so is your reality.
link to Awakenings