Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon

A few weeks ago I had a training in communication at work. The most memorable parts were about active listening and I-messages. They are also covered in the first chapters of Parent Effectiveness Training - I guess it is not a coincidence. I loved that book - if we believe in democracy then we should not teach our children that coercion is the way to resolve conflicts.

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver

I've finished "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't" by Nate Silver. It was a good read - a systematic introduction to making statistics based predictions, easy to follow and quite interesting.

Why Aaron Swartz is my hero

Morozov recently so described internet activism:

This lack of curiosity about how the world works is the most pernicious feature of Internet-centrism. Armed with the Internet, its proponents do not much care about the larger objective of their reform. They prefer to notice only those elements amenable to Internet interventions and discard all others.

Compare that with Swartz book reviews. I wish in the Pirate Parties there were people like Swartz.

My new blog - BrudnopisPirata

For notes in Polish - http://brudnopispirata.blogspot.com/ (url updated).

Geeks contra SOPA

Today half of the Hacker News first page is about SOPA and in particular about call to boycot GoDaddy which appears to support that act.  This seems like a very effective strategy, because lot's of geeks do control websites hosted at GoDaddy and they have the power to push them out of business.  What is even more important is that it is such a good story: it is simple, unexpected, concrete and emotional - if reported by a credible source that would cover all the points that make a message stick.

Update: Apparently the geeks won this time: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_internet_wins_godaddy_flip-flops_on_sopa.php

Update: GoDaddy in damage control mode: https://plus.google.com/111996409013825587891/posts/7AMw7gDQ7Bi 

Occupy Wall street and the Orange Alternative

This is an image I found at Matt Stoller: #OccupyWallStreet Is a Church of Dissent, Not a Protest - a report about the OccupyWallStreet.

I was very young at this time, so maybe I did not understand all the politics going on - but for me ever after The Orange Alternative it was obvious that Communism is over.

Last week I finished reading Religion Explained

Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I have to agree that it is a really good explanation. The only deficiency I find in it is the insistence on being the only explanation - the reasoning does not exclude other factors collaborating in the evolutionary process and so does not exclude other explanations adding to this one.



View all my reviews