English

AI Snake Oil - What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference

2025-01-12 4 min read Sincheenz

In the introduction, the authors present a witty definition of AI “AI is whatever hasn’t been done yet.” This sets the tone of this book, highlighting the existing hype around AI and the misconceptions that exist. Though the definition of AI is still not universally agreed upon, the authors pose three questions to qualify a product or solution as AI, serving as a starting point for this book: Does the task require creative effort or training for a human to perform? Continue reading

English Deutsch

Homo Deus by Yuval Harari

2024-07-20 3 min read Sincheenz

Homo Deus or Human Gods is a book that discusses what would follow us Homo sapiens as species and the consequences we should be prepared for. It’s an interesting, thought-provoking, and at times, an absurd read. Published in 2016, before the Covid-19 crisis, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the recent intensification Israel-Palestine conflict, the book confirms the fragility and uncertainty of the world we live in. Yuval Harari claimed then less than a decade back, that the future will only focus on intellectual wars rather than armed conflicts. Continue reading

English

Design for a Better World by Don Norman

2024-04-12 2 min read Sincheenz

It is hard to write a book that tries to inform people to change, to move away from the convenience of wastage and being environmentally unfriendly. A great attempt, albeit very tiring to read. It’s as if he just got up one day and decided to actually listen to the fuss being made about climate change, waste production, and more. Then it dawned upon him that it is making sense, and he should actually join in and say something about it too. Continue reading

English Deutsch

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

2024-01-12 2 min read Sincheenz

The first thing that struck me as unusual about the book was its formatting. Chapter headings were right-aligned, sub-chapter headings left-aligned with an indent, page numbers were on both sides, and so on. There seemed to be a lack of consistency. While it didn’t distract me from the content, it was a little off-putting at times. Am I just so accustomed to books formatted a certain way? I picked up a few others I own and noticed their formats were not identical either, though the majority had chapter headings on the left side of the page and there was consistency :-). Continue reading

English

Joy of X by Steven Strogatz

2023-04-01 1 min read Sincheenz

It was a fun book to read. Nonetheless, while I appreciated various concepts as I read, I regretfully struggle to recall much of it. I can recall numerous examples and recognize my own errors in forming conclusions. Yet, I find it challenging to replicate the intriguing quadratic equations or mathematical simplifications presented. I wouldn’t be able to show it to you just like that. I liked the practical techniques for calculating the square of a number close to 50 or manually determining Pi. Continue reading

Older posts