Michael Scott > Recent Status Updates

Very difficult to read, with all sorts of distractions, but the information is very interesting. Let's see how this continues.

Very, very good. Pourvu que ça dure.

Each step seems better than the previous. Great read so far.

So far, very good. Captures much of my experience in science, misses out perhaps only on multidisciplinary aspects and fourth-paradigm science (computer-driven, for both data and computation, an approach which was not invented at that time).

Awesome.

The great Kim Stanley Robinson couldn't make bureaucratic procedures seem fun, and there we had all the enthusiasm of smart, professional people, colonizing Mars. I don't know if Stephen King could have made this Earth-gone-to-dust appealing, but currently it isn't.

It moved into the occult, and it became a slog.

About 40 chapters into it, and I'm not sure I'm learning anything. Dull and gore so far. Well-written, but...

And there's people, so many different people. Who die. But everyone's a pandemic expert now, so not sure we'd agree the facts stack up. Let's see what happens next.

It's slow story-wise. Bit too slow. But the writing is smooth. Bit too smooth.

What is it with all these post-apocalyptic books with artists as lead characters?! Why should Candace Chen be a Visual Studies major?! What's wrong with being a plain old farmer, hunter, engineer, or scientist... y'know, someone with decent skills to survive the collapse of the human-world systems. And, if she has to be that, could those skills be put to at least some use?!

Curious how the new theme of climate change (contributed to by Gilead) and the trope of men with guns will evolve. The rest reads much the same as the Handmaid's Tale, so far.

Gaspard De Prony? How Hollerith's census machine produced the correct but unanticipated result, and was thus scorned by mass media and the masses reading it? Already nuanced and deep information, and the book has barely started.

"Beauchard"

After many pages of dull text, in which the only heroes seem to be the people finding the bones, this book shifts to much higher gear and finally it starts cruising. The shift happens around Tyrannosaurs and in particular T.rex, and results in a wealth of description of the creature itself (what we know), and also the techniques and the technology used to make the findings (how we know it). Good stuff, finally!

1834. William Whewell coins "scientist" to review Mary Somerville's book.

Darwin. Web of complex relations. Humboldt. Web of life.

Darwin's writing is modeled after Humboldt's Personal Narrative.

Anthropogenic climate change: deforestation, irrigation, gas emission by industry. 1830s.

Invention of isotherms.

Claim Personal Narrative inspired Charles Darwin to join the Beagle campaign.