Software developer in need of enlightenment.
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A very good overview of the topic of the Soviet Union side of world war two, and the many contradictions therein. It's a little difficult to say more, and I don't know how well it can be judged for factual correctness as I'm not a historian. But nonetheless this was a useful book, and I, at least, enjoyed reading it.
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those …
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches …
A very readable journey into a possible future. A very interesting narrator, an artificially intelligent humanoid with good observational abilities but limited reasoning, which ultimately allows her to draw some curious and false conclusions.
Minor things about the proposed future slightly irk, for example we seem to have autonomous artificial friends, but driving is still something done by humans. Walking around is likely more difficult to automate than driving around, though companionship does not appear to be as difficult as we might have thought/hoped. That said, the future inhabitants all have something called an 'oblong', which seems to be roughly a futuristic smart phone. Do we then really need the artificial friends to be humanoid in look? Why can the artificial friend not simply be interfaced with through the oblong? Lastly, it seems that the artificial friends can perform chores if asked, why then does the main family still have …
A very readable journey into a possible future. A very interesting narrator, an artificially intelligent humanoid with good observational abilities but limited reasoning, which ultimately allows her to draw some curious and false conclusions.
Minor things about the proposed future slightly irk, for example we seem to have autonomous artificial friends, but driving is still something done by humans. Walking around is likely more difficult to automate than driving around, though companionship does not appear to be as difficult as we might have thought/hoped. That said, the future inhabitants all have something called an 'oblong', which seems to be roughly a futuristic smart phone. Do we then really need the artificial friends to be humanoid in look? Why can the artificial friend not simply be interfaced with through the oblong? Lastly, it seems that the artificial friends can perform chores if asked, why then does the main family still have a housekeeper? Why does not everyone have a robotic maid?
Still these are just nitpicks about the possible future, the main throw of the work, and the pleasure of reading it, is not significantly affected. At times, the book may seem to belabor about the point a bit. Perhaps some scenes could have been cut, or perhaps I am just missing their significance.
This was a pretty enjoyable read. I'm generally a bit of a sucker for war related stories. This is basically the author's imagination of how Josef Mengele's time in South America went. It's pretty readable, but there isn't much there to takeaway. He was mostly in hiding, leading a pretty simple life. But that much we probably already guessed. I guess I was hoping for something a bit more surprising.
This was pleasant enough to read, but I was really hoping for more depth. There are 52 rules, each of which are just 2 small pages, about 3 paragraphs worth. My problem here is that for me, I knew pretty much everything in the book, with a few small (but interesting) exceptions. I suspect that's probably true of most people who would decide to read this book.
I read this after reading an article that gushed about this book and in particular the differences between the book and the Disney film. I was a little underwhelmed, this it is different from the Disney film, some of the animals are killed by other animals not just the hunter, and the hunter does rescue a fawn. So the characters and the story are more nuanced than the film, and in that sense the book is for a more mature audience than the film.
That said, for the most part, I was kind of just a bit bored. Not very bored. I guess, there isn't much of an actual story here. Bambi's life, just isn't particularly compelling, it's that of an ordinary male deer. Probably not a bad book for an adolescent to read, i.e. not a children's book, but a teenager may take more from this than an adult, …
I read this after reading an article that gushed about this book and in particular the differences between the book and the Disney film. I was a little underwhelmed, this it is different from the Disney film, some of the animals are killed by other animals not just the hunter, and the hunter does rescue a fawn. So the characters and the story are more nuanced than the film, and in that sense the book is for a more mature audience than the film.
That said, for the most part, I was kind of just a bit bored. Not very bored. I guess, there isn't much of an actual story here. Bambi's life, just isn't particularly compelling, it's that of an ordinary male deer. Probably not a bad book for an adolescent to read, i.e. not a children's book, but a teenager may take more from this than an adult, though getting a male teenager to read this is probably not easy.
