The Centre for Independent Studies 2010 John Bonython Lecture with Niall Ferguson. Is the rise and fall of empires cyclical or arrhythmic? How does economic profligacy - whether the result of arrogance or naivety - contribute to the downfall of civilisations? Today Professor Ferguson will argue that great powers or empires are in the strict sense of the word, complex systems. Made up of very large numbers of interacting components that are quite asymmetrically organised. In other words, he continues, their construction more resembles a termite hill than an Egyptian pyramid. They operate somewhere between order and disorder. Moreover imperial falls are nearly always associated with fiscal crises, when there are dramatic imbalances between revenues and expenditures. Thus alarm bells should be ringing in Washington DC but what does that for mean for Australia?
Tags / book:author
Tagged with “book:author”
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Interview with Brian Suda
Scrunchup interviews Brian Suda on his recently published 5 Simple Steps book that has just been published called Designing with Data.
http://scrunchup.com/interview/brian-suda-on-designing-with-data/
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Lightspeed Magazine: More Than The Sum Of His Parts by Joe Haldeman : SFFaudio
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2010 Children’s Book & Author Breakfast to Feature Doctorow | BookExpo America Podcast
Cory Doctorow is an activist, teacher, public speaker, and technology expert. A New York Times bestselling author, he is also co-editor of BoingBoing.net, one of the most popular blogs in the world and recipient of more than three million unique visitors per month, and a columnist for publications ranging from Information Week to The Guardian to Publishers Weekly.
In this podcast episode, we catch up with Doctorow on book tour for his latest novel, For the Win, a young adult book about video-games, labor politics and economics. He will be at BEA 2010, speaking at the Children’s Book & Author Breakfast, on May 26 at 8:00 AM. He will be joined on the panel by Richard Peck, author of Three Quarters Dead; and Mitali Perkins, author of Bamboo People. Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and author of Helping Hand Books: Emily’s First Day at School will be the Master of Ceremonies.
http://bookexpocast.com/2010/05/17/2010-childrens-book-and-author-breakfast-to-feature-doctorow/
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A History of the World in 100 Objects: Lewis Chessmen
Ivory chess pieces found in the Outer Hebrides. They take us to the world of Northern Europe at a time when Norway ruled parts of Scotland. Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, describes the medieval world of the Chessmen and explains how the game evolved. Historian Miri Rubin considers the genesis of the pieces and the novelist Martin Amis celebrates the metaphorical power of chess.
Tagged with history lewis chess book:author=martin amis
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Mary Roach, Author of Packing for Mars: Interview on the Sound of Young America | Maximum Fun
Mary Roach is the author of several best-selling books of science journalism, including Stiff (about cadavers) and Bonk (about sex). Her most recent is Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. It’s an investigation of the science of human travel in space, from the high-minded (cosmic rays, interpersonal relationships, muscle degeneration) to the less-high-minded (farts, poops, barfs).
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Spark | CBC Radio » Joel Johnson and Jonah Lehrer on following complete strangers on Twitter
There’s an old saying: “Don’t talk to strangers!” But what about following them on Twitter?
According to Joel Johnson, there can be real advantages to following complete strangers online:
> One of the best things about Twitter is that, once you’ve populated it with friends genuine or aspirational, it feels like a slow-burn house party you can pop into whenever you like. Yet even though adding random people on Twitter is just a one-click action, most of us prune our follow list very judiciously to prevent tedious or random tweets to pollute our streams. Understandable! But don’t discount the joy of discovery that can come by weaving a stranger’s life into your own.
Beyond the joy of discovery, there may be other advantages. Writing at Wired.com, Jonah Lehrer says that following strangers on Twitter “can actually expand our creative potential.”
For an upcoming episode of Spark, we talked to Joel and Jonah about the upsides of following strangers on Twitter.
Tagged with twitter book:author=jonah lehrer technology
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Mary Roach: Packing for Mars
She took us into the world of cadavers and examined the anatomy, physiology and psychology behind sex. Now, Mary Roach discovers the surreality and weirdness of space.
For example, what happens when you’ve been in space for a year? And is it possible for a human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? From the space shuttle training toilet to NASA’s crash simulation tests, Roach explores the strange universe.
Tagged with book:author=mary roach space gravity survival science nasa space shuttle mars
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New Yorker Out Loud: Oliver Sacks on living with face blindness
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We’ll Always Have Zeppelins — The Incomparable
Climb in your Zeppelin, grab a self-burning book, and prepare for the first Incomparable Podcast, in which we discuss "The City and The City," "The Windup Girl," "For The Win," and more. Plus we mispronounce the names of writers.
The Incomparable Participants: Glenn Fleishman, Scott McNulty, Dan Moren, and Jason Snell. The Incomparable Theme Song composed by Christopher Breen.
Prominently mentioned in this Incomparable episode:
- "The City & The City" by China Miéville
- "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi
- "For the Win" by Cory Doctorow
Also mentioned:
- "Perdido Street Station" by China Miéville
- "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow
- "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow
- "Boneshaker" by Cherie Priest
- "The Gone-Away World" by Nick Harkaway
- "Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi
- "Tongues of Serpents" by Naomi Novik
- "The Dream of Perpetual Motion" by Dexter Palmer
- "A Storm of Swords" by George R.R. Martin
- "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood
- "The Yiddish Policeman’s Union" by Michael Chabon
- "Bitter Seeds" by Ian Tregillis
- "The Adamantine Palace" by Stephen Deas
- "Shades of Grey" by Jasper Fforde
- "Fables" by Bill Willingham and Lan Medina
http://www.theincomparable.com/2010/08/1-well-always-have-zeppelins-1.html
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