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Book: 20260617 to 20260713, "Decisive Moments in History" by Stefan Zweig

 20260617 - Foreword 5 20260617 - Flight into Immortality 7 He knows that this 25th of September will be an important day in world history, and with wonderful Spanish pathos this hardened, unscrupulous adventure manifests how fully he grasps the meaning of his timeless mission. p22 But most people have no idea about Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and that date, and his adventure. I doubt how much importance he really realized, although he was the first European who saw the Pacific Ocean from America continent. The governor Pedrarias opens the trial for alleged rebellion; the case is conducted quickly and unjustly. p31 What's the real reason that Pedrarias killed Balboa? The only one who can benefit from it is the king of Spain. All current top leaders believe that they will own whatever they have forever. But no cell can own the whole body, no matter how strong and how smart it is. How about AI? 20260618 - The Conquest of Byzantium 33 AI: The Fall of Constantinople (1453), as ...
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Book: 20260531 to 20260630, "1929" by Andrew Ross Sorkin

  20260531 - Prologue The almost singular through line behind every major financial crisis is one thing: debt. p14 At the moment, AI related companies are borrowing a lot of money to build AI centres. This year it's over $150B, which is more than the sum of the past 2 years. Will this cause trouble in the near future? https://x.com/_FORAB/status/2060960266322588048 20260531 - Part I 20260531 - Chapter One: February 1, 1929 20260601 - Chapter Two: February 14, 1929 20260531 - Chapter Three: February 16, 1929 20260601 - Chapter Four: March 4, 1929 So far, the only issue I found is leverage. All other factors are fine. 20260606 - Chapter Five: March 5, 1929 20260607 - Chapter Six: March 26, 1929 20260607 - Chapter Seven: March 29, 1929 "The stock market will not have a very material decline unless and until there is an adverse turn in business," p101 Can interest rate changes affect companies' profit? Yes, of course. Why most of the smartest people in 19...
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Book: 20260528 to 20260612, "In defense of food" by Michael Pollan

  20260529 - Introduction: An Eater's Manifesto In 2005 we learned that dietary fibre might not, as we'd been confidently told for years, help prevent colorectal cancers and heart disease. p5 Interesting! I don't know this. Part One: The Age of Nutritionism 20260529 - 1. From Foods to Nutrients 20260529 - 2. Nutritionism, Defined 20260529 - 3. Nutritionism Comes to Market 20260529 - 4. Food Science's Golden Age 20260530 - 5. The Melting of the Lipid Hypothesis In pace of those fats, they consumed substantially more vegetable oils, especially in the form of margarine, sales of which outpaced butter for the first time in 1957. p46 Maybe it's not that animal fat is better than seed oils, but that people should eat less. 20260530 - 6. Eat Right, Get Fatter 20260530 - 7. Beyond the Pleasure Principle 20260530 - 8. The Proof in the Low-Fat Pudding 20260531 - 9. Bad Science To really know what a person is eating you'd have to have a second invisible per...
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Book: 20260524 to 20260611, The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton

  20260525 - Introduction to the Paperback Edition xi The solution is obvious: the economy desperately needs more fiscal support. p. xv Not just that. When factories all locked down, there were not enough goods produced. Thee goods in warehouses were close to exhausted. MMT doesn't tell us what we should do. It shows us what we can do. p xx Good point. 20260525 - Introduction: Bumper Sticker Shock 1 But evidence of overspending is inflation, and most of the time deficits are too small, not too big. p9 Inflation could be delayed by other countries' "oversea currency reserve". Without the protection of tariff, MMT doesn't work. 20260527 - 1 Don't Think of a Household 15 That can help manage inflationary pressures, by balancing the strain on our economy's real productive capacity. p33 Why does government tax normal people? To reduce the pressure of inflation. Why does government tax rich people more? To redistribute wealth from the rich to the poo...
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Book: 20260120 to 20260516, "An Immense World" by Ed Yong

20260121 - Introduction: The Only True Voyage 3 They are like discerning personal assistants who come to the brain with only the most important information. p9 That's how people get addicted to screen. The Umwelt concept can feel constrictive because it implies that every creature is trapped within the house of its senses. p14 What's Umwelt? Subjective environment. This is one of the reasons that Robots/AI can easily beat human in everything. 20260124 - 1 Leaking Sacks of Chemicals: Smells and Tastes 17 Horowitz found that dogs became more optimistic after just two weeks of nosework. p22 Our habit changes our attitude. Taste is reflexive and innate, while smell is not. p47 We are trained to learn how to handle an odor. In different environment, the same odor may have different meaning, so we learned to love or hate or ignore it. But taste is different. Sweet is always good, and bitter is always bad. In a way, we see by smelling light. p52 Amazing! 20260206 - 2 Endless Ways of S...
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Book: 20260115 to 20260503, "The Technology Trap" by Carl Benedikt Frey

20260115 - Preface 20260115 - Introduction ......adult male workers lost out: the share of children workers rapidly expanded, reaching about half of the workforce employed in textiles during the 1830s. p9 I never thought of this! Sending children to school killed two birds with one stone. And more broadly, cascading competition among nation-states made it harder to align technological conservatism with the political status quo. The outside threat of political replacement became greater than the threat of rebelling workmen from below. p19 The political elites never back off unless they are under existential external threat. All the same. Part I. The Great Stagnation 20260120 - 1. A Brief History of Preindustrial Progress - 33 What's the difference between labor-saving technology and enabling(capital-saving) technology? Labor-saving technology use power from sources other than human. This power includes both energy and intelligence. Fierce war and competitions crash the restrain...
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Book: 20251226 to 20260428, "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand

20251231 - PART ONE - Peter Keating, p15 To hide the joints in wood - when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. p23 It's hard to believe that the archtects in 1940s didn't change their design with new materials coming out, such as steel and concrete, considering that Empire State Building was build in 1931. Howard Roark follow the first principles. That's good. He doesn't care other people's opinion, if those opinions are obviously wrong. That's also good. But no need to let other people realize that directly. We can stay humber, and ignore the objections from others. For example, he should take one year break from school, instead of being kicked out of school. Howard Roark lacks soft skill, such as communication skill and empathy. Keating has both soft skill and hard skill, although his hard skill is far behind Roark. Howard Roark is the modern version of Nikola Tesla, and Keating is more like Thomas Edison. Most of CEO only hav...
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