"Cadáver Exqusito" de Agustina Bazterrica en GoodReads (Español)

Cadáver exquisito by Agustina Bazterrica
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Este libro es brutal, espeluznante.

Se trata de un futuro distópico, donde una enfermedad deja a todos los animales incomibles y entonces se comen a la gente. Los imigrantes, los pobres, los que no podían defenderse.

El canibalismo es ley y ahora hay dos grupos de personas, los que comen y los son comidos.

Marco Tejo es el encargado de un frigorifico, su esposa lo ha dejado y de repente un día recibe de regalo una mujer criada para ser consumida. Marco tiene que decidir como actuar, hacer lo conveniente o lo que le pide su conciencia.

Para mi lo horrible no es solamente el canibalismo, si no como el lenguaje es utilizado para oprimir y para evitar que la gente piense en los que están haciendo. La autora quiere que el lector comprenda como el consumerismo hace que nos devoremos entro nosotros. La alegoría es sutil y brutal a mismo tiempo.

Uno de los libros mas aterrorizantes que he leído.

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My review of "Don't Believe Everything You Think" by Joseph Nguyen on GoodReads

Don't Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I got a lot out of this book. I have been my own journey working on living life as a stoic. Putting my energy into the things I have power to control and letting go of the rest.
However, I got an insight reading this book. For me (YMMV) I tend to overthink everything and it's easy for me to get anxious. It's hard for me to let things go. The simple lesson here helped me out, Ill put it here for free. Thinking is Suffering. If you don't think, you don't suffer. Of course, this idea can be taken too far, and god knows that we need more thinking in our public discourse. But for me, a person who ruminates and thinks and overthinks and always in my head, this gave me a path to clarity. If I let go, I can find peace. The second insight, which could be considered a trite cliche, I know. Is that chasing fame, money, pleasure is a longing for something else, something that we already have: joy, love, fulfillment, inner-peace, we don't need external factors to get that, who we are and what we have is enough.
This helped people with my mindset and my personality, I'm always worried and anxious about something, about doing a good job at work, about being a good dad, good husband a good person. Worried that I'm not good enough if I don't make enough money, that I need people to like me and approve of me in order to feel good about myself. All that is in vain, you already have all the ingredients to have a life full of peace and free of suffering.
I am still a realist, an inquisitive skeptic, but this book helped me control my anxiety, because I understand that over-thinking is the root cause. After reading this book I have decided to choose inner peace, I have decided not to suffer for things that are not happening. Understanding that suffering is all in my head.
I liked this book and I recommend it to people who like me, worry a lot.

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My Review of "Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men" by Caroline Criado Pérez

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book showed me how we are failing half the world population.
Women get ignored when they should be seen and they are harassed when they should be left alone.

A lot of the stuff in this book is not new to me, but I still managed to be surprised about the ways in which we leave out women when we are testing drugs, researching the human body, writing laws, designing products, using algorithms. In short, men have by design created systems that subjugate, exploit and objectify women.

The thing is, the patriarchy hurts everyone, not just women. Current events have me convinced that if women ruled the world, (presidents, Corporation CEO's) we wouldn't have the problems we have. Men are too emotional and brittle to run countries (look at Trump, Putin, Musk) Anyway, I digress.

This book is not a feel-good read, but it has given me more awareness. Unlike other social issues, I have hope that progress is inevitable, but we have to make it happen.

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My Review of "What is ChatGPT doing and Why Does It Work" by Stephen Wolfram

What Is ChatGPT Doing... and Why Does It Work? by Stephen Wolfram
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This books aims to provide a clear, plain English layman's terms explanation of how ChatGPT works.
I am not very sure how well it achieves its goal. I heard about neural nets when I was an undergraduate studying computer engineering in the early 2000's. Back then the term "AI" was not used in engineering research unless you wanted to not get funding. In Grad School "Pattern Recognition" was the name of the class that taught neural nets as an after thought right after liner regression, and SVM's (Support Vector Machines).
Anyway, I did enjoy reading this book, I learned a few insights, and I was able to get intuitions about why it's hard to explain. I studied "Machine Learning" at the University of Washington in 2015 and I was up to date until ChatGPT. As a person who has used ChatGPT at work (made a cool prototype in a hackathon) I didn't know how they made it work so well. This book offered a good explanation.
Stephen Wolfram is a tad pompous, and sometimes I got lost in the details, but overall this is a good book for anyone with enough curiosity.

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My Review of "AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference" by Arvind Narayan

AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book showed me how to be more critical of AI hype. (Snake Oil) People seem to think that the authors are against tech or AI in general, but that's not the case. The book is aimed at debunking myths about AI, and it is very critical of those who makes misleading claims about AI when they should know better.

This book is credible because the authors have the right credentials, a PhD student and professor of Computer Science from Princeton University teamed up to study all the ways in which AI fails to do what their marketers promised it could do.

The examples are compelling enough to make the reader see that if unregulated bad algorithms can literally cost people's lives. Just like the FDA doesn't let you sell items with misleading labels, there should be regulation aimed at protecting humans from computer algorithms.


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My Review of "The Island of Dr. Moreau" by H.G. Wells on GoodReads

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book has aged surprisingly well. It's no wonder H.G. Wells is considered one of the "fathers" of science fiction (along with Jules Vernes, Mary Shelley should be given more credit for starting this genre, but I digress)

The setting: 1887, an island somewhere in Pacific Ocean. The main character, is a London-educated scientist named Edward Prendick. The boat he is in gets in a shipwrecked, he gets rescued and finds himself stuck in an island with Dr. Moreu, a mad scientist performing horrible experiments.

I just learned that there was a public outrage when this book came out in 1896. I am not surprised at all. You can see how the state of science in that era influenced the story. It brings up evolution, the role of humans in nature and culture. I'm ngl, there is some racist undertones, but it's subtle enough to ignore. This classic has inspired a bunch of movies and books, but I honestly had not really heard about this book until I learned about The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia so I wanted to get the background before reading that.

Good book, if you are a fan of sci-fi.

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My Review of "Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous" edited by Gillian Anderson

Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous by Gillian Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reads like a Post-Secret compilation, curated by Gillian Anderson. Interesting read. This is like Nancy Friday's "My Secret Garden" but includes inputs from a more diverse group of women. WoC plus LGBQT folks. Fascinating look into the human psyche. Our brains are the sexiest organs for sure.
Interesting take aways is that is totally normal to have fantasies, and that queer people fantasize about heterosexual sex (sometimes?) Not every fantasy should be turned to reality, or in other words, fantasies are safe and the creator has complete control of what happens. That's not always the case in real life. I was going to say something about how women still feel shame about their fantasies even in today's age. The truth is, society is regressing a bit when it comes to social values and women's rights. That sucks, but in any case, there's a lot less stigma around sex in general if we compare society today to 1973 when My Secret Garden came out. It's surprising to compare what has changed and what stays the same. You'd have to read the book to know.

Good read.



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My Review of "The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endagered Resource"

The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an informative book about Attention, what it is, how it works, and how recent changes in tech transformed attention into a commodity to be taken, traded and commodified.

This shift from survival mechanism to coveted valuable resource is making our lives less enjoyable.
Chris Hayes gives us a lot of information to think about, along with supporting data, quotes and apt metaphors.

I really enjoyed the analogies to labor (it's a monetized commodity) and food (we evolved not needing a lot, now there's too much information)

The last chapter, is the weakest, but I think it's up to the reader to judge for themselves. The question in the last chapter can be summoned as "Okay, now what do we do about this? " There isn't much new, just be intentional about what you pay attention to. There's a call to regulate tech companies as well.

The information in this book is important and the issues called out in here need to be addressed.

Good Read

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My Review of "Feeling Good Together" by Dr. David Burns on GoodReads

Feeling Good Together: The Secret of Making Troubled Relationships Work by David D. Burns
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This self-help book will give you tools for improving communication with people you care about.
I enjoyed the audible version. It was filled with amusing stories that help cement the strategies and techniques from the book. Well, written, well presented and very insightful. It's an excellent reference for being a good listener and a good communicator.

The Section of the book that explains the "Five Secrets of Effective Communication" is my personal favorite. I am doing the exercises and I am going to apply it as much as I can. The "Disarming Technique" was an eye opener.

I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to deepen their relationships.

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Everyone is a Creator

 I love this passage from Rick Rubin in his book "The Creative Act: A Way of Being"

Those who do not engage in the traditional arts might be wary of calling themselves artists. They might perceive creativity as something extraordinary or beyond their capabilities. A calling for the special few who are born with these gifts.

 

Fortunately, this is not the case.

 

Creativity is not a rare ability. It is not difficult to access. Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human. It’s our birthright. And it’s for all of us.

 

Creativity doesn’t exclusively relate to making art. We all engage in this act on a daily basis.

 

To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before.

 

It could be a conversation, the solution to a problem, a note to a friend, the rearrangement of furniture in a room, a new route home to avoid a traffic jam.

 

What you make doesn’t have to be witnessed, recorded, sold, or encased in glass for it to be a work of art. Through the ordinary state of being, we’re already creators in the most profound way, creating our experience of reality and composing the world we perceive.

The rest of the passage is wonderful. What a moving idea! We can all create, it doesn't have to be perfect, or celebrated, rather, to make is to be human. I. love. that. 

So, creativity is a way of being. Reading this book hit differently. This was one of my favorite books of 2024. I think I am going to keep it in my reference shelve so that I can refer to it often. 

 

Resist

 

Don't let evil go unchallenged. Fight against it. 

-JV

My Review of "None of This is True" by Lisa Jewell

None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Alix is a famous journalist/podcaster when she meets her "birthday twin" a lady that was born on the same day at the same hospital as her. Then things get weird. This is an entertaining page-turner with some dark turns along the way. It's funny and sad at the same time.

I am not sure about the narration structure, the book presents the story as the screenplay for the Netflix documentary for the story. So, it's a story told inside a story of a podcaster. It's unique, it did not quite feel gimmicky, but at the end I wondered how much this helped the story/plot.

For me, I am starting to see a pattern, I think I am drawn to "crazy women doing crazy shit" genre.
Like "All fours" by Miranda July or all the people in Mary Gaitskill's stories. I liked the pace of the story, I liked how the mystery slowly unravels creating even more questions as you go.

I liked this book, it was a good story, I gave it three stars because I thought the author could have done without the unusual narrative format. I could not fully relate to the main character specially her relationship to her husband Nathan. I don't want to give away spoilers, but, I did not like Nathan.

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My Review of "Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created and Empire and Transformed Pop Culture" by David Kushner

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the story around the people who created the game Doom. John Romero and John Carmack.
The book starts with a short bio of the two Johns. And covers the stories around the creation of their first game, the company they started and the famous public fallout.

I like the idea that the game and the company worked because both founders had opposite views and opposite approach to the game. Romero was "design is king" and Carmak was the "Engine Guy" One thought that the design of the game is the only thing that matters and tech was just a tool to get the game you want to create. Carmak was the opposite, for him the tech was the main thing, the story is not that important if you don't have the tech to make it stand out.

I didn't like the people in this story, the sterotype of the programmer as the socially-inept genius, the nerd that has the last laugh hurts the tech industry. I liked that I read this book, but I was not inspired by the people or the story. For me this is a history lesson and how to suck at managing.

Good read for sure, I recommend it to those who are in tech as a cautionary tale.


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20 Years of Blogging

 Wow, 20 years go by so quickly. 

I started writing this blog in 2005, my life was changing...for good, but it was happening so quickly I realized the magnitude of what was to come. 20 years ago I had been married for a little over 2 years, October would be the 3 year anniversary. But we really started living together as a married couple March 2004 when I got back from Iraq. In May 2005 we would learn that my wife was pregnant, 20 weeks along and we didn't know it! We had put money down for our first home, it was a pre-construction in Margate FL. I had  a 6-month "Co-op" (longer internship) with IBM, my first tech job. I had completed roughly half of my undergraduate classes. It was really my wife and I. 

The thought of becoming a parent changed the way I saw myself and the way I saw the world.  I wanted (I still do) to be a good father. To be a better father than mine, I wanted to raise good people. I was looking for a way to discover myself, since I thought there is no "handbook" to being a parent. 

Well it turns out, there have been pretty good books written on the subject, I just didn't know it. I now realize that yeah, everyone's life a bit different and you have to make decisions on a case by case basis. That doesn't mean that you can't educate yourself. 

In any case, 20 years have gone by, my oldest daughter is a freshman at UW and my youngest is a Senior in high school. I am very proud of them. 

Now begins a new chapter. We are going to be empty-nesters. New transition in life. I look forward to it, but I am a bit scared, same as I was when my kids were about to be born. 

We put so much of our personality and efforts into being parents, once the kids are gone, what is left? 

There are many things to do, places to go, sights to see. I look forward to see what's in store. NGL, it's intimidating. 

-JV

10 New Books to Feed Your Mind

This is probably spam, but this article came up on my google chrome feed:

The 10 New Books to Feed Your Mind

Since I'm a sucker for reading lists, and this is a subject dear to my heart, I'm gonna go ahead and copy/pasta the whole thing here. (sorry not sorry)

One thing we can all control this year is the information that we let into our heads. As I reviewed this winter’s new releases, I had three filters: screen out what’s inaccurate, impractical, and uninteresting.

My recommended reads to start 2025 are brimming with thought-provoking ideas and data points—and they won’t put you to sleep. The common threads are improving communication and relationships, increasing happiness and well-being, and igniting change.

Communication and Relationships

1. Calling In by Loretta Ross (February 4)

This book is the ultimate antidote to cancel culture. Drawing on her extensive experience talking people out of hate, a teacher and activist offers profound insights about how to get through to others—and maintain your own dignity along the way.

2. Validation by Caroline Fleck (February 18)

Warning: reading this book may make you a better parent, partner, colleague, and friend. A talented therapist offers a crash course in important and neglected skills for building, maintaining, and repairing relationships.

3. Ping by Andrew Brodsky (February 11)

Finally: an evidence-based guide to having better conversations by text, email, phone, video, and yes, even social media. An expert on virtual communication offers surprising insights and useful tips for avoiding misunderstandings and making genuine connections.

4. Outraged by Kurt Gray (January 14)

A riveting read on the roots of our bitterest conflicts—and the remedies for them. A leading light in moral psychology overturns widespread assumptions about why we’re divided and illuminates how we can come together.

Happiness and Well-Being

5. Shift by Ethan Kross (Feb 4)

If you think you can’t control what you feel, get ready to think again. This is a page-turner from a top psychologist that’s grounded in science and filled with practical insights on managing emotions.

6. Life in Three Dimensions by Shigehiro Oishi (February 4)

It turns out that there’s more to life than happiness and meaning. Building on his pioneering research, this psychologist introduces a third dimension of the good life: having new and interesting experiences.

Change

7. Defy by Sunita Sah (January 14)

A powerful book about overcoming peer pressure by a physician turned management professor. If you’ve ever compromised your principles to please others, Defy will give you the will—and the skill—to stand up for yourself.

8. Reset by Dan Heath (January 21)

One of my favorite behavioral science communicators explores how to fix what’s broken. It’s the long-awaited sequel to Switch.

9. Make Work Fair by Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi (January 28)

Whereas many discussions of DEI are driven by ideology, this book is grounded in evidence. It’s a timely resource for building workplaces that create opportunities for everyone to succeed and belong.

10. Superagency by Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato (January 28)

The influential entrepreneur-investor highlights the risks of not making advances in AI and reveals how it’s poised to transform our lives. It will leave you more informed—and excited—about the revolution that’s already underway.