book

Finished reading: I like the idea of Origin Uncertain by Anatoly Liberman. The book really demonstrates well the fluidity and creativity of the English language. The chapters do get daunting though. Lots of details that are hard to keep track of and a bit of a slog 📚

Finished reading: The Casino Shift by Brian Goldman is a rather sobering look at the poor state of emergency medicine in Canada. Seems like a disaster waiting to happen through neglect, partly motivated by ERs’ amazing ability to adapt and get by with less, until they can’t anymore 📚

Finished reading: The Notebook by Roland Allen is a comprehensive look at how physical notebooks have affected culture over centuries that was more interesting than I’d expected.

I’ve been using physical notebooks, with varying levels of enthusiasm, for decades. These days, I mostly use a Field Notes notebook as my primary capture. I use a light structure of an underlined date and Patrick Rhone’s Dash/Plus system. Then I have a Shortcut that takes a photo, transcribes the text, and sends it to other apps for further use on my iPhone. Works well for me and I like relying on the physical notebook while still having the benefits of the digital 📚

Finished reading: Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts has an intriguing premise – a voice emanating from a black hole – that didn’t quite pay off for me. The theology of the ending seemed too contrived 📚

Finished reading: Hostages to Fortune by Peter C Newman really helped me better appreciate the role that the Loyalists had in shaping Canada. Much more extensive than I recall from my history lessons in school 📚

Using Claude to help finish book series 📚🤖

Although I don’t have much use for AI, and certainly have many concerns, I’m also quite curious about it. As an experiment, I pointed Claude at my list of blog entries on books I’ve read, asked it to identify any series from the list, and find the next book in that series. I sometimes lose track of which series I’ve started and wanted to see if I’d missed any.

Claude quickly and correctly identified all of the series I’d started. Other than a strange confidence that Alecto the Ninth had been released (I had to point it to the Wikipedia entry to get it to admit the mistake), it also correctly listed the next books in any unfinished series. Also, it helpfully noted that I’d read a few books in the Culture series, but had missed a couple of the most highly rated books. I’ve added these to my “Want to Read” list.

This isn’t using AI to code up my own blog engine. But, it is using AI to help me answer an actual question, based on my own information, that was important to me. And, although, it was quick and effective, the societal, political, environmental, and economic costs are all very valid concerns.

Finished reading: The Republic of Alberta by Tyler Dawson make a compelling case that the rest of Canada needs to be paying attention to Alberta separatism. I remember how traumatic this was with Quebec and am not keen to do this again 📚