What I've Been Reading, April 2019

Links

Miscellaneous

• The Barely Hidden Flaws in Jordan Peterson’s Scholarship, by Emily Pothast, Medium—Culture
  "Peterson’s philosophy, while it may inspire motivation at the individual level, is a deadly engine of status quo maintenance and self-justification at the cultural level. It is an ideology that denies it is ideology, hissing insults and flinging lawsuits at those who challenge its god-like powers of complacency."

Collapse

• The end of industrial civilization, by Nils, Small Precautions
• In Defence of Inaction, by Dave Pollard, guest post on Damn the Matrix
• NASA Study Concludes When Civilization Will End, And It's Not Looking Good for Us, by Tom MacKay, Mic.com
• , by Nafeez Ahmed, The Guardian
• , by John Beddington CMG FRS, Government Office for Science (in the UK)
  "It is predicted that by 2030 the world will need to produce around 50 per cent more food and energy, together with 30 per cent more fresh water, whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change. This threatens to create a ‘perfect storm’ of global events (Figure 7). The key questions for policy makers and scientists are these:
  • Can 9 billion people be fed equitably, healthily and sustainably?
  • Can we cope with the future demands on water?
  • Can we provide enough energy to supply the growing population coming out of poverty?
  • Can we do all this whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change?"
  To me, it seems extremely improbable that we will succeed n all these efforts. And collapse seems inevitable.

Responding to Collapse,

• A Palliative Approach to the End of the World, by Eric Demore, Medium—Human Parts
• C5’s Incredibly Boring Food Storage, by C5, Dark Green Mountain Survival Research Centre
  Boring, maybe. Practical, very.
• C5 Gets His Final Apocalyptic Wood- P-II and 2/3, by C5, Dark Green Mountain Survival Research Centre
• C5 Says, If I Cant Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Apocalypse, by C5, Dark Green Mountain Survival Research Centre
• C5 Says, If You Don’t Like Bicycles, Just Try Walking To Town- Part I, by C5, Dark Green Mountain Survival Research Centre

Peak Oil

• The true feasibility of moving away from fossil fuels, by Gail Tverberg, OLur Finite World
• Oil Prices Rise as U.S. Allows Iran Waivers to Expire, by Nick Cunningham, The Fuse
• The biggest Saudi oil field is fading faster than anyone guessed, by Javier Blas, Bloomberg, MSN

Climate Change

• PBO: Most Canadians To Get More From Rebate Than They Pay In Carbon Tax, byMia Rabson, Canadian Press, Huffington Post
• Climate change deniers are increasingly angry and hostile, by Michael Barnard, Medium
  "Cognitive dissonance at being forced off of position after position is leading to anger "
• Why desperation could be the key to tackling climate change, by Cam Fenton, Open Democracy
  Extinction Rebellion, student strikes and the Green New Deal show that desperation is starting to define climate politics. This could be a game changer.
• We Can Limit Human-Induced Global Warming to 1.5℃, but It Will Be Painful, by Keith Shine, The Wire
  "The report is sensitive to the fact that changes required to meet 1.5℃ must be consistent with the UN’s wider sustainable development goals. Limiting climate change will help meet goals associated with health, clean energy, cities and oceans. But there are potential negative impacts on others (poverty, hunger, water, energy access) “if not carefully managed."
  And that's about the most you're going to find anywhere in the climate change discussion about the consequences of doing something about climate change. I would say we really need to face up to how very painful it is going to be, that the idea that we can maintain and even increase prosperity while solving climate change is bizarre. But realizing at the same time that if we do nothing, it will be even worse.

Hazard and Risk

• How Marketers Use Fear Of Chemicals For Profit: 3 Easy Steps, by Alison Bernstein and Kavin Senapathy, Forbes
• Risk Assessment Methodologies Part 1: Understanding de minimis risk, by A Chemist in Langley
• Risk Assessment Methodologies Part 2: Understanding “Acceptable Risk”, by A Chemist in Langley
• Risk Assessment Methodologies Part 3: the Risk Assessment Process, by A Chemist in Langley
• Risk Assessment Epilogue: Have a bad case of Anecdotes? Better call an Epidemiologist, by A Chemist in Langley

Agriculture

Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for by Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its product. Millions of dollars are being spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.

• Mythbusting 101: Organic Farming > Conventional Agriculture, by Christie Wilcox, Scientific American
• Farming First: A Recipe to Feed a Crowded World, by Timothy A. Wise, Medium—Heated
• On Green Dread and Agricultural Technology, by Andrew C. Revkin ,The New York Times
• Farm Babe: Hey Natalie Portman, here’s why your term ‘factory farm’ is so offensive, by Michelle Miller, Farm Babe, AGDaily
• Farm Babe: Liquor store stands with farmers while refusing to stock ‘non-GMO’ Smirnoff vodka, by Michelle Miller, Farm Babe, AG Daily,

Practical Skills

• Net Making, by Johnny Debt, YouTube
• Net Making—another way to tie the knots, by Gunner17722, YouTube

Debunking Resources

These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.

• Debunking, Wikipedia
• Pseudoscience, Wikipedia
• List of topics characterized as pseudoscience, Wikipedia
• Rational Wiki
• Science Based Medecine
• Quackwatch
• Snopes, debunks or validates urban legends
• Bad Astronomy
• The Skeptics Society

Science Based Medicine

• The Scientific Truth About Toxins, by Kate Morgan, Medium Elemental
  "Your body doesn’t need as much help removing them as you might think"
• Fish And Chips Aren’t Giving You The Flu, by Gid M-K; Health Nerd, Medium

Lacking an Owner's Manual

The human body/mind/spirit doesn't come with an owner's manual, and we continually struggle to figure out how best to operate them.

• How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger, by Michaeleen Doucleff and Jane Greenhalgh, NPR
• Stop Telling People They Need to Wake Up Earlier, by Birttany C., Medium—Self

Gender and Sexuality

• Why the church’s teachings on same-sex relationships are profoundly flawed, by Charles Fensham, Open Democracy
  "On what basis do Christians believe they have a right to do things that harm others to the point of suicide?"

There is No God, and Thou Shall Have No Other Gods

I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I am an atheist, but I may not have made it clear that I think any sort of worship is a bad thing and that believing in things is to be avoided whenever possible. Indeed, I do not believe in belief itself. That's what the "Thou shall have no other gods" is about—it's not enough to quit believing in whatever God or Gods you were raised to believe in, but also we must avoid other gods, including material wealth, power and fame.

• On Losing My Religion, by Rebekah Hayden, Medium—Spirituality
• Is God Really That Shallow?, by Donald Unger, Medium—Religion
• It’s Time to Start Calling Evangelicals What They Are: The American Taliban, by J. C. Weatherby, Church and State

Refugees and Migration

• Building walls to keep climate refugees out, DW.com

Puerto Rico, Venezuela

• Living Off the Grid and Safe From Hurricanes in Puerto Rico, by,
  "In this jungle community, self-sustaining homes are built from trash and can withstand the deadliest storms."

Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Housing

• One in 200 people now homeless in Britain as crisis deepens, by Matthew Robinson, CNN
• Homeless activists outside Notre Dame demand ‘a roof too’, Associated Press

Autonomous Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence

• The Tesla bombshell almost nobody is talking about, by Hans van de Bruggen, Medium—Self Driving Cars
  Strikes me as extremely improbable.

Humour

• Who’s Going to Tell Trump?, by Calvin Trillin, The Nation
• Conspiracy-Theory Conspiracy Theories, by John Klossner, The New Yorker
• Controversial uncle speaks at Easter dinner, by Alex Huntley, The Beaverton

Books

Fiction

• Red Bones, by Ann Cleeves
  Book 3 in the Shetland mystery series
• Blue Lightning, by Ann Cleeves
  Book 4 in the Shetland mystery series
• Thin Air, by Richard Morgan
  Morgan's new science fiction novel, the first one in a long time, set inthe same universe as Black Man.
• Join, by Steve Toutonghi

Non-Fiction

• Team Human, by Douglas Rushkoff
  I very much on side with what Rushkoff is suggesting in this book, but I am afraid he uses a lot of outright woo to support it. A pity, since his position can easily be supported without any woo at all. I suspect this is a case of virtue signaling—saying certain things because your audience expects to hear them.
• The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould
  I almost didn't read this book, based on what Murray and Herrenstein had to say about it in the Bell Curve. But like so much of what is in the Bell Curve, their comments on The Mismeasure of Man were just plain wrong. Gould's book was definitely worth reading.

What I've Been Reading, May 2018

This note used to say that the links below appear in the order I read them and was meant imply that they were more or less random in their subject matter, other than being of interest to me. Recently I started a few new sections at the bottom of the links on subjects that are of particular interest to me. But I can see that as time passes I am moving to a greater degree of "curation", which the dictionary tell me is about organizing and maintaining a collection. Applied to this collection of links and books I guess this will mean selecting links less randomly and trying to make them relevant in the context of this blog and whatever is going on in the world during the month.

Links

• Art Berman: Think Oil Is Getting Expensive? You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet., Art Berman interviewed by Chris Martenson,
  A global supply crunch approaches...
• How babies learn—and why robots can’t compete, by Alex Beard, The Guardian—The Long Read
  "If we could understand how the infant mind develops, it might help every child reach their full potential. But seeing them as learning machines is not the answer."
  This one could have gone under Intelligence or Artificial Intelligence, so I put it here instead.
• Rotten results: Sainsbury's drops project to halve food waste, by Rebecca Smithers, The Guardian
  "However, the year-long experiment fell far short of its 50% target, with households believed to have cut food waste by only 9% – and telling Sainsbury’s the issue was not a priority for them."
• Do we need science and scientific discoveries to survive as a planet? Would we have been better off without science?
  A Quora Question with some excellent answers. I do think all the answers are missing the distinction between science and technology, and the idea that much technology was developed before the existence of science as a formal discipline.
• Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers backfires, by Jerry Z Muller, Aeon
• You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to, by Daniel DeNicola, Aeon
  "If some beliefs are false, or morally repugnant, or irresponsible, some beliefs are also dangerous. And to those, we have no right."
• 10 Best GMO Memes, by Stephan Neidenbach, Medium
• A Half Dozen Reasons to Reject the “Dirty Dozen”, by Kevin Folta, Medium
  "An activist marketing campaign harms food choice."
• 100 million Americans have chronic pain. Very few use one of the best tools to treat it, by Brian Resnick, Vox
• Were you GMO fooled this year? Here are the biggest GMO jokes to watch out for, by Michael Stebbins, Medium—GMO Answer
• Beyond the Label: 3 Truths & No Lies About GMOs, by GMO answers, Medium
• The EmDrive, NASA’s ‘Impossible’ Space Engine, Really Is Impossible, by Ethan Siegel, Medium
• Bananas have died out once before—don’t let it happen again, by Jackie Turner, Aeon

Intelligence

• The unwelcome revival of "race science", by Gavin Evans, The Guardian
• Socioeconomic Status Modifies Heritability Of IQ In Young Children, by Eric Turkheimer et al, University of Virginia
  "Results demonstrate that the proportions of IQ variance attributable to genes and environment vary nonlinearly with SES. The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance in IQ is accounted for by the shared environment, and the contribution of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost exactly the reverse."

Poverty, Homelessness, Minimum Wage

• Old and on the Street: The Graying of America’s Homeless, by Adam Nagourney, New York Times
  The emergence of an older homeless population is creating daunting challenges for social service agencies and governments already struggling to fight poverty.

Puerto Rico

• We Don’t Always Have Electricity, But We Accept Bitcoin, by Anne Mueller, Medium
  "The strange dynamics of survival and growth in a post-catastrophic Puerto Rico."

Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles

• Frontier AI: How far are we from artificial “general” intelligence, really? by Mark Turck, Medium—Hackernoon
  
• Did Google Duplex just pass the Turing Test? by Lance Ulanoff , Medium
  The answer is no, getting closer, but only in very specific, narrow domains.
• No, Google Duplex Hasn’t Passed the Turing Test, by Junaid Mubeen, Medium
  "We’ve just relaxed our human ambition."
• Tesla Model S With Autopilot Slams Into Fire Truck At 60mph As Another Key Exec Departs, by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
  To be fair, we don't yet know (as of this moment) whether the car was on autopilot or not.
• Witness recalls horror of Tesla crash that killed two teens, by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
  Again, we don't yet know if the car was on autopilot, but it is interesting to note that car caught fire, even without a tank of gasoline. Clearly an issue with the Tesla itself, not the autopilot.
• Tesla’s Autopilot engaged during Utah crash, by Julian Hattem, Associated Press, The Detroit News
• Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser, by Brittny Mejia, LA Times

Books

Fiction

• Step to the Stars, by Lester del Rey
  I originally read this when I was about 10 years old. Re-read it purely for nostalgic reasons.
• Nemesis Games, by James S. A. Corey
  Book five of the Expanse series.
• On a Red Station Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard
• Into the Fire, by Elizabeth Moon
  Another episode in the "Vatta's Peace" series
• After the Last Day, by Don Hayward
  The author is a fellow I actually know, who lives in Goderich, the next town south from Kincardine along Lake Huron. What mainly attracted me to the book, though, is that it is a story of life after the collapse of civilization in the area where I grew up. It starts in the town where I went to high school, and then the plot expands to include most of Southern Ontario and a small part of Northern Ontario. Don has done a pretty good job of sketching out the events following a major financial collapse.

Non-Fiction

I'm still wading slowly through The Bell Curve, in order to be able to criticize it with some degree of credibility. This has also lead to reading some scholarly articles about IQ on the web, further slowing down my other reading. So I didn't read any other non-fiction books this month, even those I have a growing pile that I'd like to get to. To make up for this lack, here is a short list of some gems from my bookshelf:

• Yes, We Have No Neurons, by A. K. Dewdney,
  An Eye-Opening Tour through the Twists and Turns of Bad Science
• The Quark and the Jaguar, by Murray Gell-Mann,
  Adventures in the simple and the complex
• Visions of Caliban, by Dale Peterson and Jane Goodall,
  on chimpanzees and people.
• The Homebrew Industrial Revolution, by Kevin A. Carson
  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
  Also available as a free ebook or pdf
• A Matter of Scale, by Keith Farnish
  A book, A Solution. A Future.

What I've Been Reading, February 2018

Links

These links appear in the order I read them. You may find some of the best ones are near the bottom—it varies from month to month. Last month I started a section at the bottom of the links on a subject that particularly interested me. This month I've added two more.

• Teachers Are Being Trained to Shoot Their Students, by Patricia J. Williams, The Nation.
  Within the first 23 days of 2018, there were 11 school shootings in the United States. In lieu of any serious discussion about gun control, there has been instead a proliferation of laws and bills that would arm teachers, and train them to be able to kill.
• Phobic Christian, While You’ve Been Busy Bothering LGBTQ People…, by John Pavlovitz, johnpavlovitz.com
• The Science of Happiness, created by Happify, at happfiy.com
  
• Honeybees Help Farmers, But They Don't Help The Environment, by Dan Charles, NPR, The Salt—What's on your plate.
• Flu and fish-mato., by mem_somerville, Medium—The Method
  Conspiracy theories have real public health consequences. Stop it.
• How Will the World Feed Itself in 2050?, by NT Franklin, Medium—The Method
  "The Method" refers, of course, to the scientific method, and the writers under this banner are taking a reality based approach—just the sort of thing I'm looking for.
• Farmers are Environmentalists, by NT Franklin, Medium—The Method
  Some interesting discussion in the comments on this one, but unfortunately, you have to be a Medium member to access it.
• 2017 flu vaccine effectiveness—getting the facts straight, by Skeptical Raptor , skepticalraptor.com
• Heat Down, by RE, Doomstead Diner
  
• Linguists Discover Previously Unidentified Language In Malaysia, by Camila Domonoske, NPr, The Two-Way
• Food Insecurity and Rice, by NT, Medium
  
• What are the liberals' main gripe with the conservatives? , a question on Quora which got 49 answers (so far).
  The second one, by TJ Fuller is my favourite.
• The CANADALAND Guide to Jordan B. Peterson, a Canadaland podcast with Jesse Brown.
  Why did an obscure Canadian psychology prof suddenly become an international media star? It’s a much better question than “is he right or wrong?”
• Funnily? Really?, by Dictionary Eyes
  Because funnily is a word that people use and have been using for quite some time, it goes in the dictionary, and quite rightly so. That does not mean, however, that it is satisfactory. Presence in the dictionary is not a free pass out of dictionary eyes jail. Not all words are equal, and not all them should receive the same score. I have long been a believer that all words in the dictionary should be accompanied by a score from 0–6 that evaluates what people will think of you if you use them. It’s a public service. Funnily receives a 0.7.
• Why People Keep Misunderstanding the 'Connection' Between Race and IQ, by Brink Lindsey, The Atlantic
  Jason Richwine's IQ-based argument that American Hispanics are less intelligent than native-born whites has been called racist. It's also wrong.
• Cryptocurrencies don't make sense, by Jon Danielsson, VOX, CEPR's Policy Portal
  Cryptocurrencies are supposedly a new and superior form of money and investments – the way of the future. The author of this column, however, does not see the point of cryptocurrencies, finding them no better than existing fiat money or good investments.
• Survivor Libary, by Rocky Rawlins, Survivor Library
  or... how to survive and prosper without modern technology.
• Yes, we do have tomatoes – but not GM ones – says riled bio-blogger, by Bob Edlin, AgScience, The NZIAHS blog
  Pointing out the kind of outright lies I've come to expect from many of the anti-GMO folks.
• Godless yet good, by Troy Jollimore, Aeon
  There’s something in religious tradition that helps people be ethical. But it isn’t actually their belief in God.
• Genetically modified organisms can help with food security, by Sami Zaatari, Staff Reporter, Gulf News—Environment.
  Reporting on a talk by Nina Fedoroff.
• Why We’re Underestimating American Collapse, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia & Co.
  The Strange New Pathologies of the World’s First Rich Failed State
• Photographer visits lost Mongolian tribe, captures stunning photos of their life and culture, by Jenny Brown, Shareably
• Islands Not sinking: Climate Change Demonstrated to Be a Hoax, by Ugo Bardi, Cassandra's Legacy
  Have you ever wondered how it is possible that coral islands lie flat just a little above the sea level? It is not a coincidence, the coral reef that forms the islands is alive and it can adapt to variations of the sea level. According to some people, that demonstrates that climate change is a hoax (??).
• Glyphosate Vs. Caffeine: Acute and Chronic Toxicity Assessments Explained, by Alison Bernstein, PhD, Food and Farm Discussion Lab
  A good discussion of chronic toxicity.
  "...caffeine is 40 times more toxic than glyphosate. However, this is only a useful number if we know our typical exposures. The exposure numbers above show that we don’t give a second thought to consuming caffeine at levels hundreds of times higher than the oral RfD, but are simultaneously worried about exposures to glyphosate that are 100 times lower than the RfD. In discussions of toxicity, we must use the correct data to back up our points to step outside the cycle of misinformation."
• How do North and South Korea's Footprints compare?, by Global Footprint Network on YouTube
• Can You Make a Wind Turbine Without Fossil Fuels?, by Robert Wilson, The Energy Collective
• Community Resilience in an Era of Upheaval
  This is a recording of a webinar I sat inn the other say, featuring Richard Heinberg and Rebecca Wodder
  Good stuff!

Minimum Wage

• Alberta hasn’t suffered for raising the minimum wage, by Ian Hussey, The Globe and Mail
  The problem for critics of minimum-wage increases is that history doesn't back up their sky-is-falling claims.
• Why a $15 minimum wage is good for business, by Armine Yalnizyan, Macleans
  Boost the minimum wage and you boost the economy from the bottom up, writes economist Armine Yalnizyan. That means more demand for what businesses have to sell.

Homelessness

• Stop Lying to Yourself: When You Snub Panhandlers, It’s Not “For Their Own Good”, by Tim Wise, Medium
  "This idea that the poor should enjoy no indulgence, exhibit no vice, and partake in no pleasurable diversion whatsoever — be it a drink, a cigarette, or a cell phone — while still expecting our sympathy, comes very near the definition of sadism."
• Why the ‘Housing Crisis’ Is Really About Globalization, by William E. Rees, TheTyee.ca
  Free-flowing capital breaks the link between prices and local incomes — and most of us are shut out.
• I’ve been homeless 3 times. The problem isn’t drugs or mental illness — it’s poverty , by Veronica Harnish, Vox
  A rising economic tide doesn't lift all boats — it merely drowns the poor.
• Poverty is Policy-Based, by Veronica Harnish, Car Living When There's No Other Choice
• What To Do & Who To Contact If You Are Homeless Right Now—Or About To Be, by Veronica Harnish, Car Living When There's No Other Choice
• San Francisco’s ‘Diseased Streets’ Are Being Compared to Some of Worst Slums in the World, by Joe Seyton, The Western Journal
• As homeless camps explode in L.A. suburbs, residents fear they will become permanent, by Melissa Etehad, Los Angeles Times
  
• Making It Illegal to Sleep in Cars and RVs, by John Vibes, The Mind Unleashed, Anti Media
  
• Cold comfort: U.S. homeless shelters overwhelmed in brutal weather, by Scott Malone, Reuters
  
• Los Angeles Blames Wildfire on Homeless, But Evicting Them Won’t Solve the Real Problems: Climate Change and Urban Sprawl, by Alleen Brown, Eric Preven, Joshua Preven, The Intercept
  "Indeed, in a world increasingly altered by climate change and minimally controlled development, the rush in L.A. to blame a population of vulnerable people for a phenomenon that challenges the very way we live on the land may be a sign of what’s to come."
• San Diego mayor outlines impending crackdown on homeless, by Meenakshi Jagadeesan, World Socialist Website
• Homeless deaths skyrocket in major Canadian cities, by Janet Browning, World Socialist Website
• Oregon woman evicted from senior housing for $328 in late rent freezes to death in parking garage, by Admin, Bloomsmag
• Visible Homeless in Tokyo, Japan, by Life Where I'm From, YouTube
  
• Why Japan's Homeless are Different from North America's (Part 1), Life Where I'm From, YouTube
• Who are Japan's Homeless? (Part 2), Life Where I'm From, YouTube
• Housing Japan's Homeless (Part 3), Life Where I'm From, YouTube
• Meeting and Helping Japan's Homeless (Part 4), Life Where I'm From, YouTube
  
• Why Are There Still 5,534 Homeless People in Japan? (Part 5) , Life Where I'm From, YouTube
  

Puerto Rico

• Maria’s Bodies, by Mattathias Schwartz, Photographs by Matt Black, New York Magazine
  The hurricane in Puerto Rico has become a man-made disaster, with a death toll threatening to eclipse Katrina’s.
• I Won’t Leave Puerto Rico in the Dark, by Mónica Feliú-Mójer, Medium—Bright
  
• The Media Really Has Neglected Puerto Rico, by Dhrumil Mehta, FiveThirtyEight
• The Military Was Ready in Texas and Florida. What Went Wrong in Puerto Rico?, by Richard Parker, Politico Magazine
  When Hurricane Maria struck, the U.S. military called off the huge resources it had mustered for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
• Puerto Rico pays taxes. The US is obligated to help it just as much as Texas and Florida, by Alexia Fernández Campbell, Vox
  FEMA is required to treat the territory like any other state.
• How Low Will Puerto Rico’s Population Go?, by Lyman Stone, Medium—in a state of migration
• Behind the Scenes— Hurricane Recovery in Puerto Rico, by Senator Chris Murphy, Medium
• Puerto Rican Governor calls for the closing of a quarter of the island’s public schools, by Rafael Azul, World Socialist Website
• FEMA Contract Called for 30 Million Meals for Puerto Ricans. 50,000 Were Delivered., by Patricia Mazzei and Agustin Armendariz, The New York Times

Books

Fiction

• Leviathan Wakes, by James S.A. Corey
  
• Convergence, by C. J. Cherryh
  

Non-Fiction

• Surviving the Future, by David Fleming
  "Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy"
  An absolutely brilliant book that is unfortunately sprinkle throughout with little nuggets (turds) of crunchy nonsense.