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Sally Strange

SallyStrange@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 9 months ago

Interests: climate, science, sci-fi, fantasy, LGBTQIA+, history, anarchism, anti-racism, labor politics

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Sally Strange's books

Currently Reading (View all 8)

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: The Disordered Cosmos (Hardcover, 2021, Bold Type Books)

From a star theoretical physicist, a journey into the world of particle physics and the …

This chapter about melanin is so fascinating and surprising. Melanin is a conductor, that is also an insulator, depending on the presence or absence of water? Melanin could be a building material? Melanin could be the key to constructing materials for bioelectric implants? Awesome stuff, and Dr. Prescod-Weinstein is right to consistently rail against the exclusion of Black people from academia and physics in particular. Damn, Fedi, she was here and then she left. Imagine how much cooler this place would be if us white folks had been a smidge more hesitant to do microaggressions, a tad less disbelieving of the direct first-hand reports of racism and white supremacy from her and others like her.

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Lisa Feldman Barrett: How Emotions Are Made (AudiobookFormat, 2017, Brilliance Audio)

The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the …

Fascinating Theory with Practical Applications

Even though it's been a few years since I listened to this one, it often resurfaces in my thoughts. In short, the theory of #emotion presented in this book is powerful because of its flexibility and its ability to explain: - how #reframing is even possible - how there can be such large #emotional differences between cultural groups - how it could have been possible that the way humans construct emotion has changed over the course of #history

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Anil Ananthaswamy: Why Machines Learn (2024, Penguin Publishing Group)

A rich, narrative explanation of the mathematics that has brought us machine learning and the …

A mathematical look at how machines learn and make decisions.

A fascinating book that looks at the history of Machine Learning (ML) to show how we arrive at the machine learning models we have today that drive applications like ChatGPT and others. Mathematics involving algebra, vectors, matrices, and so on feature in the book. By going through the maths, the reader gets an appreciation of how ML system go about the task of learning to distinguish between inputs to provide the (hopefully) correct output.

The book starts with the earliest type of ML, the perceptron, which can learn to separate data into categories and started the initial hype over learning machines. The maths are also provided to show how, by adjusting the weights assigned to its testing input, the machine discovers the correct weights which can allow it to categorize other inputs.

Other chapters then cover other ways to train a machine to categorize its input is shown, based on …

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Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon The Deep (Paperback, 2020, Tor Books)

Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where …

Sci-fi classic I can't believe I didn't read before

I have so many questions. Sound-based thought waves? The galaxy has speed zones? Ultimately though it was such a good story that I don't care much about the answers. I was super impressed by (since he was writing in 1993) and absolutely love Vinge's idea of a galaxy-wide internet that's hundreds of millions of years old and nobody knows who started it. That to me seems extremely plausible, given a universe with multiple sentient space-faring species. This was SO much fun, and anyone who loves science fiction should definitely read it.

reviewed Zero Sum Game by S. L. Huang

S. L. Huang: Zero Sum Game (2019, Tor Trade)

Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head …

Mercs and psychics, oh my!

Mostly action adventure with scifi accents. Cas makes a sympathetic protagonist, and there is some good character development. The background info about the scifi stuff leaves us wondering and wanting more, but that's a pretty minor concern since the action scenes are top notch. Fun read.

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Oscar Wilde: The uncensored picture of Dorian Gray (Paperback, 2012, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)

More than 120 years after Oscar Wilde submitted The Picture of Dorian Gray for publication …

"I worshiped you with far more romance of feeling than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow, I had never loved a woman."

This version is based on the manuscript, rediscovered in 2017, from before the magazine editors started chopping out all the scandalous bits. The censored short version that was used against Wilde at his trial was then censored more when it was expanded into a full novel.

So now we get to see Wilde's original baby! Despite the censored version still causing a scandal and being used to convict Wilde, this is of course still tame by modern day standards (alas, where is my purity!) but far more explicit when it comes to things like Basil's romantic affection for Dorian. It's certainly fascinating to see what was triggering the poor little editor (being far more concerned about illicit hetero affairs than the gay stuff!) and also the stylistic changes. But either way, like much of Wilde's writing, it can't go a page or two without a little monologue of his witticisms …

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Erich Fromm: On Disobedience (2010, HarperCollins Publishers)

Interesting, but not great

Repeats some points made in "Escape from Freedom", with less of the psychological insight. The last chapter is very particular - it veers off into proposing a political program for the Socialist Party-Socialist Democratic Federation to develop what he terms Humanistic Socialism. One of the most notable points is his constant warning of the danger of mass manipulation by subconscious means.