Archive for the 'a life in books' Category

The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss

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The previous post advertising the Perimeter Institute’s Master’s program reminded me of this book, which continues my series “a life in books”.

The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss is geared more towards Star Trek fans than towards physicists… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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Horizons: Exploring the Universe, by Michael A. Seeds

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It’s been a while since I’ve made a post in the series “a life in books”.

This textbook was a gift from Dr. John Percy, professor of astronomy at the University of Toronto. I did some research on Be stars with Dr. Percy while I was in high school, and I had expressed to him my interest in studying astronomy and astrophysics in university.… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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Two popular books on fuzzy logic

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These are two popular books on fuzzy logic: Bart Kosko’s Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic, and Daniel McNeill and Paul Freiberger’s Fuzzy Logic.

Fuzzy logic was pioneered by Dr. Lotfi Zadeh, whom I met when he gave a lecture at the University of Toronto… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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365 Ways to Kiss Your Love by Tomima Edmark

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This was a gift from my ex-girlfriend while we were still dating. The lip print on the transparent card is actually hers, and the silk handkerchief is what the book was wrapped in when she gave it to me.

It was a very thoughtful and romantic gift… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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Funk & Wagnalls Canadian College Dictionary

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I had actually obtained this book shortly after arriving in Canada at the age of eight. I think it was either a gift or a hand-me-down, but I don’t remember exactly how I got it… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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Object Oriented Turing

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I suppose that this post is a continuation of the one on old software and books.

The Turing programming language (named after Alan Turing) was developed at the University of Toronto as an introductory language for teaching computer programming at the high school level. It was (and apparently still is) widely used in Ontario… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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Web of Hate and Dragons of Crime

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Continuing on the Nazi theme established by the two previous posts, today we have Warren Kinsella’s Web of Hate, which is about Canada’s “far right” network, a book that was controversial when it was first published and continues to be controversial today… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, by Art Spiegelman

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Merging the Nazi theme from yesterday with the comic book theme from the previous post, today we have Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, one of the most famous and significant graphic novels of all time… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

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This post continues the series on “a life in books”.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, by William L. Shirer, is one of the standard reference books on World War II. The book that I owned was actually the illustrated and abridged version of this work. Abridged versions of books are very rarely better than the original, but this one is an exception, due to the inclusion of many large high-quality colour photographs which the non-abridged edition does not have… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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  1. A life in books
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162 Flags of the World

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I’ve actually been writing these posts a few days ahead of time, but limiting my posting to once a day to space them out. It’s a coincidence that this particular post appears on 9/11, but given the world-changing nature of the event, it’s interesting to look at the flags of the world from 1977 and compare them to the flags of today — and also to think about what the flags of the world might look like in 2041, another thirty-two years from now.

Since the post mentions Iraq and Iran, and today is September 11, I want to point out that no connection has ever been found between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Iraq, despite the apparent belief of many people to the contrary. I also want to point out that Iran and Iraq are in fact two entirely separate and distinct countries, with different histories, languages, cultures, and religious and ethnic compositions — again, contrary to the apparent belief of many people.


This isn’t a book, but a sheet of stickers with flags of the world’s nations, circa 1977, which I’ve had since I was a child. I recently threw it out along with some outdated books… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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