IBM – DaneCobain.com

Title: Deep Thinking

Author: Garry Kasparov

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count: 294

Rating: 3.5/5

I was expecting this book to be a lot more about artificial intelligence than it actually was, mainly because that’s the way that it’s marketed. Instead, it’s almost entirely about chess, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because I got pretty interested in it and indeed now I’m in the mood to play it, and so I’ll probably rope my other half into a game or two.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of stuff in here about the way that AI works and how it’s revolutionized our society, including a fascinating little section on how automated elevators first became a thing. The technology was available early on, but nobody wanted to get into one unless there was a human operator. Then elevator operators went on strike and public perception changed, and Kasparov says that something similar is happening when it comes to our approach to self-driving cars.

Still, if you’re picking up this book because you’re interested in artificial intelligence, there are definitely better ones to go for. You’re better off going with this if you’re interested specifically in chess, especially because the bulk of this book basically involves going over the lead up to the big competition between Kasparov and IBM’s Deep Blue.

I’m glad that I read it, but I don’t think I would have picked it up if I’d known what I know about it now. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it should certainly give you pause for thought. Other than that, there’s some cool stuff on machine learning and natural language processing, as well as a well-deserved shoutout for Alan Turing. So not bad.

Click here to learn more about Deep Thinking.

Charles Bukowski – Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way | Review

Title: Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way

Author: Charles Bukowski

Type: Poetry

Page Count/Review Word Count: 402

Rating: 5*/5

Charles Bukowski – Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way

This book is one of several poetry collections that were edited together by John Martin, Bukowski’s long-term editor, from a ream of material that he left behind to be published after his death. I actually like most of this more recently published stuff the most, in part because I think he got better with age and in part because I think he left some of his most personal stuff to be published after he was gone.

For the first time ever, I actually tabbed this collection with sticky labels so that I could go back to some of the poems for my video review. That also means that I can spend the rest of this review telling you about some of my favourites. Right off the bat, it kicks things off with So You Want To Be A Writer?, a poem that I’ve seen quoted to death elsewhere by people who’ve searched for “writing quotes” and ended up finding a random Bukowski poem. But it’s a good one.

The Great Escape was another good one, which was about crabs escaping from a bucket and which reflected Bukowski’s own employment at the post office. One Step Removed was about famous writers and the groupies they attract, and A Mechanical Lazarus is about his trusty IBM typewriter which refused to die. A Sickness was also about writers, but it focused more on how they always seem to end up going insane or committing suicide.

Charles Bukowski Quote

Later we have poems about women (Dream Girl) and drinking (Who Needs It?), both of which are pretty much required subjects for a Bukowski collection, but there are plenty of other subject matters on offer too. It’s also split up into sections, which mainly act as dividers to keep the flow of the book going rather than as any official categorisations, but they do somehow add a little something to the feel of the book by highlighting specific lines.

All in all, if you’ve read Bukowski’s work before then you pretty much know what to expect, and if you haven’t then you ought to get started. And this could be just the book to help you with that. Go ahead and buy it.