Inside the mind of an Asperger: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

I got The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time as a present for my birthday. My kids were polite and only later told me it was a children’s book. My son said he had read it for his English class. 51js6g5i9pl-_sy344_bo1204203200_
Mark Haddon has created an extraordinary story about a boy with Aspergers syndrome. I had read two books with a comparable first person perspective of a person with Asperger: The Rosie Project (Which I actually selected hurriedly in an airport kiosk for it’s interesting cover design) and the Dutch book Wat Is Er Toch Met Kobus (What’s wrong with Kobus). The first is written from the perspective of a full-grown scientist, with a light Asperger syndrome. Kobus is even more similar  to The Curious Incident: in it’s first person narrative form, and the young main character is a highschool boy.

Little Insight from Insight Selling

I will (and believe can) summarise Insight Selling by Mike Schulz and John Doerr with a few quotes.51fhppsuv2l-_sx333_bo1204203200_

I managed to get halfway through the book. Concurring with Naval Ravikant who does not read business books as ‘they are very simple ideas wrapped up in a lot of pages’. I also agree to not read books that are not keeping your attention.

As in Tas Universum

Jelle Brandt Corstius fietst naar de Middellandse Zee met een koffiekopje van de as van zijn vader in zijn fietstas.

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Onderweg kijkt hij terug op het Opperlands universum van zijn vader, Hugo. Hij leert fietsen. Hellingen beklimmen. Leest ondertussen de gedetailleerde wereld van Knausgård. (Wiens vader ook van alles blijkt te verzinnen.) Maakt zich steeds zorgen over de gevoelloze lul die hij na elke dag fietsen in zijn broek vind. Geeft een lesje klimmen voor beginners.

“Het klimmen kun je beter in een rustig verzet beginnen, om daarna de berg te ‘voelen’. Op een gegeven moment heb je een een ritme waarvan je weet dat je dat een half uur kunt volhouden – langer is zelden nodig. Over het algemeen hebben bergen een redelijk constante hellingsgraad, behalve helemaal aan het eind: daar komen de haarspeldbochten. Daar moet je je laatste energie voor bewaren.”

Jelle vertelt over de continue pesterijen van zijn vader. Dat dit niet alleen in diens columns aan de orde was maar dat dit door ging in zijn dagelijks leven. 

Over het plezier dat zijn vader beleefde aan burgerlijke ongehoorzaamheid, hoe hij dit zich als doel op zich leek te maken.

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Het eigen Malle Hugo universum van zijn vader. Waar waarheid en fictie doel elkaar lopen. Waar wereldvreemdheid en publieke figuur met elkaar in gevecht zijn. Waar onverklaarbare zaken werden afgedaan met de uitleg: “Pirelli”. Waar kinderen kunnen weglopen en naar huis terugkeren zonder dat vader iets in de gaten heeft gehad.

Maar die ook een vader is die zijn kinderen leert te overleven door ze naar spartaanse zomerkampen te sturen.

Opperlandse Taal en Letterkunde stond bij ons thuis in de boekenkast. Ik vond het een heerlijk voorbeeld van zinloze wetenschap. Toch fantastisch dat iemand zoveel tijd besteed om met zoveel precies de meest onwaarschijnlijke taalwereld te scheppen.

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Jelle heeft ook zijn universum, en lijkt de denken dat zijn universum de normale wereld is.
Het is een universum van een vriendelijke vervreemde reiziger, verdwaald in de echte wereld. Waar hij zich verwonderd over mondaine zaken, maar waar hem net als zijn vader vreemde zaken overkomen omdat hij vreemde zaken onderneemt.

Hugo Brandt Corstius./Hugo Brandt Corstius.

“Waarom trek ik toch altijd dit soort mensen aan? Zijn het de vragen die ik stel? Of is het andersom? Ben ik zelf op zoek naar dit soort mensen?”

Het is een universum dat ik ook vind in Murakami. Maar in Murakami overkomt het de protagonist echt.

Jelle is een zelfverkozen Murakami-karakter met een eigen wil, omringt door gekken. Geen gevaarlijke gekken, maar vriendelijke gekken.

The lightness of Purity

I wrote about the darkness of suppression of a totalitarian regime and how that influences the lives of people, when I discussed The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes and Jonathan purity-franzen-650Doerr’s All The Light We Can Not See.
Purity by Jonathan Franzen is the third book I recently read that is dominated by the totalitarian overcast. In this case the dictatorship is the DDR, East Germany during the times of the iron curtain.

All The Light disappears in a fountain of earth

All The Light We Can Not See by Anthony Doerr is one of the 3 books I recently read in which the tyranny of a totalitarian regime shapes the life of the main characters.
The other books are The Noise Of Time by Julian Barnes and Purity by Jonathan Franzen.

All The Light is is V-shaped book. The legs of the V are the lives of the two protagonists. A German boy grows up under the Nazi regime. A French, blind girl lives in Paris. The story develops, we follow there lives and finally they meet. As if their lives we only meant for that one special occasion.

Purity vs Dark Brown suppression – The Noise of Time

I somewhat randomly bought the The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes. Barnes is one of the writers on my ‘read anything they write’ list (another one is Haruki Murakami, yet another Douglas Coupland).

So I did buy the book for its main topic – a fictionalised biography of Dmitri Shostakovich. Actually, as I had not read any review of the book nor its cover, it took me a couple of pages to reach the point where I realised this was about Shostakovich. Or probably more precisely, about his moral struggle with the Soviet government.

The beginning breathes the dark brown stifling atmosphere of Kafka’s The Trial. Desperate, helpless, surrendering to untouchable power of bureaucratics.

Barnes writes how Shostakovich becomes famous as a composer but is not able to enjoy his success. He gets to visit the United States, but as a total puppet of the USSR politics. He holds speeches drenched with political statements, but including nothing of his own vision. The composer seems to half realise what he is doing, and seems to justify it for his family. So the story turns to Shostakovich courage, or lack thereof, his cowardness, betrayal, moral shame.

Barnes describes wonderfully how the oppression permeates every hole in the life of Shostakovich. It makes me wonder how he was still able to write such wonderful music.

Who does art belong to? The people? The state? The ‘big goal’?

Music in the USSR is played ‘as meant by the artist’, or ‘ strategic’ – meaning in accordance with the norms of socialist art.

But in music there is an purity. Something that can not be washed away by norms, politics, ethics, violence. A purity that stands the Noise of Time. Eternal. Context free. An undebatable truth.

And this purity in music probably explains how Shostakovich was able to continue to make his wonderful music, while being oppressed by this totalitarian regime.

163 Reasons To Love Reading Little BIG Things (ok, a few less)

Of course Tom Peters doesn’t need an introduction. He wrote In Search of Excellence with Bob Waterman, a monumental book from 1982 reporting on the key characteristics of
successful companies. I would summarize it as: well-run businesses don’t bullshit around.

In 2010 Tom Peters gathered his thoughts in 163 categorized topics, The Little BIG Things. I reread all the Things recently. It has been a fun read again, and here’s a list of the things I like so much about this book.

More than nothing learned from Tim Kreider’s We Learned nothing

Not sure where I dug up the reference to Tim Kreider’s We Learn Nothing, but I am sure it was a reference from a self help book.cover_welearnnothing_pb-199x300

So when I began with this book I was quite confused. It was like taking a sip coffee, expecting the bitterness of a black coffee but testing the sweet creamy flavor from the choice of you friend opposite you with your cup and a disgusted frown on his forehead after tasting yours.

So this is not a self-help book. They are essays about the strangeness in Tim Kreider’s life. Just to mention a few:

Sloppy Lifebox print, excellent read from Rudy Rucker

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Annoying: pages 237 through 240 are shuffled in my print of The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul. Though not entirely surprising, the crumbly paper was an indicator of a sloppy edition. Maybe it is a collector’s item now. Mail me and you can have it.

I bought it about ten years ago, and recently reread Rudy Rucker‘s The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul It is a very interesting book, although it smells odd here and there.  

Rucker writes about Alan Turing that Turing ‘apparently was given to bringing home sexual partners he met in the streets.’ What does he mean with that phrasing? For historical facts on Turing, I prefer to rely more on Turing’s biographer Andrew Hodges who wrote the respectable biography Alan Turing: The Enigma. Hodges pictures Turing as naive in confessing his homosexuality (for that time), but also describes him to be rather restraint in getting involved in sexual relationships. What I am sure I haven’t read anywhere is that Turing would go skimming the streets looking for ‘sexual partners’ (sexual partners – is that really correct English?).

Also the idolizing references to Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science are unnecessary. Wolfram generously takes care of that himself.

Also, Rucker’s habit of regularly quoting his own Science Fiction stories to illustrate his theories begins to annoy me at some point. I understand his frame of reference, but he is not very scientific in this way of providing ‘proof’.

But, as said, the book offers a number of very interesting ideas and visions. I realize I sound so negative, but I really enjoyed the book.

Rucker confirms that Artificial Intelligence – the discipline in Computer Science – has not achieved a lot. After my personal introduction to scientific AI, I became very suspicious. I found it odd that AI was dealing with decision rules, (fuzzy) logic, and the like. And used this awful programming language Prolog. Wasn’t there anything better to focus on in Artificial Intelligence? Cognitive is hot these days, but is it really Artificial Intelligence? A step forward, probably.

Rucker describes the life box—a device that captures every aspect of your life. I’m not sure if he invented the concept, but it is the first time I saw it described in such a realistic, predictive way.

This book has become history. The lifebox is there. People like Cathal Gurrin are walking around with cameras and devices recording everything they do all day.

Limit, a big fat Science Fiction Eco thriller

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It has been staring at me for months, Limit from Frank Schätzing this fat bodied eco thriller. A gift. So thick I had to bring myself to starting it, knowing I could not get let go until I had finished it.

Abundance is the word that comes too mind. Almost too much for me.

The first half is a slow starter and introduces the reader to (semi) science. I was waiting for the action. The second half is a thriller.

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An English space company Orley has build a space station attached to earth. Invite billionaires of earth to invest. The Chinese and the US want to join. China and US are in a sort of cold war. They do no seem to have a balancing economic dependency any more, like there is today, where is it gone?

Funny references: a Fernando Botero figure? Had to look that up.

The Truman show. Not named but a reality show of people that do not know they are actually in a reality show.

A sketch of Russia after Putin and Medvedev.

The future fantasies of Erich von Däniken.

A scene from Tomorrow Never Dies. Spectre. And a media concern that wants to dominate the world’s media very much like the Carver Media Group Network (CMGN).

A sketch of future living on planets, very much like the ideas of Peter Diamandis? Mankind live in space ships, mine planets for raw materials but do not live on these planets.

David Bowie performs Space Oddity for the guests in the space station. Age 78.

Partially a detective. A Chinese dissident girl is on the run for the Chinese government. Being chased by her father’s detective and another  unknown entity has hired a hunter. She is Internet specialist, a hacker. Lives in Shanghai.

An unclear relation to the space story.

In the story some interesting forward looking views on what life on earth will look like in 2025. Cities are massive and rural areas empty. Some parts of cities are forgotten and have become worlds in themselves. Virtual reality has become mainstream to a point where people get addicted to living in cyber worlds.

Interspersed with thrillerlike pursuits and shootings. Limbs are lost.

Second Life has developed into a parallel universe. Artificial intelligence is developing it further. Singularity there, at last.

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A post-oil era where electricity is now dominant, generated by helium 3 excavated on the moon, name made accessible by the new space station.

Political views of post oil situation.

A race on the moon. I recently watched The Martian and reminded me of this book. Human trying to make a living in space.

In the end the bad guys are the oil industry. The Prize comes to mind.

I am supersaturated. My stomach feels like I have eaten a 3 pound steak. I must lie down.