Information Arbiters (Pools v. Streams)

Why I Still Receive Email Newsletters:
The greatest blessing of the internet carries with it a subtle curse. The explosion of rich and interesting information created a major problem for those who want to understand what's going on in the world but are not in front of their computers all day digesting the steady information stream. On the one hand we have access to all kinds of data and analysis from the most diverse sources but on the other hand, the cost of filtering it is extremely high. This isn't even a comment on "fake news". It's just a note about the difficulty of finding items that are useful or particularly good.

2018 Reading Part II

Two of these books will give you a hint as to why my overall reading volume fell off these six months. Returning to programming and learning coding became my passion project from August through the rest of the year. I purposely chose not to invest time in learning computer science while I was in Afghanistan. Surviving, you know, seemed like it required a greater degree of daily investment than normal life. Anyways, I also spent a good portion of this summer studying for the GRE (again!) before turning to Codecademy to learn Python 3 through their Computer Science Pro and Data Science Pro courses. Satisfied that I've learned enough to be dangerous I'm now engaged in Andrew Ng's Neural Networks and Deep Learning MOOC to get a better sense of the mystery around Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. However, I was able to enjoy more Knausgaard and Vargas Llosa as well as tackle Tyler Cowan's magnum opus.

2018 Reading Part I

Wrapping up my tour in Afghanistan I found this 6 month period to be extremely prolific and fruitful for reading. And I feel like the books I read amounted to an embarrassment of riches. The biggest change was switching to literature and, from the perspective of a father of three daughters, I tried to engage with the work of some of the most famous female authors. Knausgaard continues to be brilliant. Ferrante was an incredible find. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre kept me thinking for weeks and months.