Sam Warnaars

Finished reading: Magisteria by Nicholas Spencer 📚 — I enjoyed this book. It provides me with a lot of context beyond the simple historic moments in time. I find it helpful to have a long view of how we ended up where we are today, with an account of the various recurring ideas and themes throughout history. 4/5

Currently reading: Magisteria by Nicholas Spencer 📚

Science and region found themselves in various inconclusive — sometimes beneficial, sometimes fracturing — conversations. Whether it was anthropologists plumbing the depths of the past, freudians the depths of the mind, or soviet cosmonauts the depths of space, region and science seemed inextricably entangled and this sense of entanglement only seemed to grow as evolutionary biologists declared that humans were basically genes, neuroscientists: they were basically brain activity and Silicon Valley techno-utopians that they were basically algorithms.

Finished reading: A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr 📚I picked this up after someone blogged about it and finished in with a few days 4/5

Finished reading: Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon 📚This was my summer read. I found it being discussed aa influential in the youth of some of the people I have in high regard for their thinking, without much other additional context. It’s unlike most of the other things I’ve read; disorienting, at times very graphic. Someone described it as an LSD trip. I understand that metaphor. It took about one month to finish, and I am happy I picked the holiday for this read, as it might have otherwise easily stretched out over months. I would recommend it to some people. I guess it requires a specific type of taste. 4/5

Finished reading: EMPOWERED by Marty Cagan — recommended by colleagues; read in order, and see the thoughts about the role of product management develop. I finished the first book, and still have a little to go in the second. I wonder if I should get these in hard copy, because this really is a dense book which I might want to reference in the future. That doesn’t work too well with the audiobook version. 4/5 📚

Finished reading: The Sound of the Future by Tobias Dengel — great examples, and process, but it likely turned old quite quickly as the world is moves on and the technology evolves. There is some mention of the LLM hyped models, but it feels like this is mostly leaning on the smart assistant era where Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri were in the spotlight. Still, it’s a good read, and the author speaks from experience, that’s absolutely clear. 4/5📚

Finished reading: Collaborating with the Enemy by Adam Kahane 📚 4/5

Finished reading: Red Notice by Bill Browder 📚— this book was recommended by a friend a few months ago as a fascinating read on Russia, and mentioned in a podcast as a book a good book to understand ‘the Russian’. While there’s obviously no single way to understand a whole country, this book indeed was a fascinating read. I finished it in little more than 3 days and wonder if I should just continue reading Freezing order by the same author too. 5/5

Finished reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman 📚— It was hard to put away. I like how Neil Gaiman writes and combines a world of Gods, myths and dreams together. 5/5

Finished reading: The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray 📚 — second time that the initial minutes put me off due to the topics discussed (as I’ve had so much of that already), but it was well worth the continued attention. I learned a lot about the various waves of activism, and now have a richer understanding of the various types of groups, and the richness of the facets they contain. 4/5