David Deutsch. The Fabric of Reality.

David Deutsch is not Max Tegmark. His book, though full of metaphysical hoey now embellishing any treatise of well-known quantum physicist, does not lose connection with physical facts. But his "multiverse" exercises are poorly compiled.

For instance, he suggests that a quantum computer can perform computations unfeasible to the Turing machine (currently an unproven fact, by the mathematicians) because in alternative universes, other signs can occupy the same physical place on paper and interact with each other. This has nothing to do with paradigmatic quantum mechanics. Paradigmatic quantum mechanics in this instance, simply states that sign is described by the wave function (or density matrix), which contains maximum information we can obtain about a letter sign.

Similarly, he perverts message of mathematical intuitionism. Not being an intuitionist and not understanding enough mathematics to judge one way or the other, I must mention that intuitionism does not claim that natural numbers are finite.

All it claims (contrary to p. 232 of Deutsch's) that there is algorithm allowing to add 1 to any natural number (e.g. 9+1=10) and this algorithm is what we mean by the "natural numbers." Equally, the real number Pi means that we have an algorithm (countable filter by the parlance of the set theory), which allows to compute arbitrary decimal of Pi. Yes, for the Pi+horse such algorithm may not exists and this expression is thus not a real number.

Daniel Shulman. Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty.

I safely can report that I did not read the book. The NPR interview with Daniel Shulman was enough.

Koch brothers can buy everything, especially Utne Reader poor journalist. Similarly to the recent bio of Rupert Murdoch, this opus portrays them simultaneously as

• More powerful than anyone can imagine and
• More benign than everyone thinks of them.

The hack writer gives credence, in particular, to the sincere libertarianism of the Koch brothers. Paraphrasing Schopenhauer, completely consistent libertarian can be found only in a mental asylum (he spoke of solipsism). Indeed, one only has to buy ticket to Somalia or Northern Waziristan to enjoy libertarian utopia.

In fact, Koch brothers continue the deed of their father. During 1940-50s when, because of changed economy and demographics, KKK became uninteresting for anyone but the Southern poor, racist tycoons had to invent other ideology attractive for the new professional middle and upper middle classes. It emerged in form of extreme anti-Communism (Red under the bed), equalizing all forms of social support with Marxism and Socialism and the John Birch society. 

When steam has gone from old-style conservatism (segregation under guise of states rights, anti-Soviet hysteria, etc.) of Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, Koch brothers latched on to libertarianism as an ideology attractive to young and educated. In reality, as do many of the top 0.0001%, they subscribe to the idea of the rigid class society controlled by the compact of the ultra-rich, military and the clergy. To assess how well it works in the long run, one has to look at Latin America between 1800s and 1960s. This thinking was epitomized in Mitt Romney's candidacy--only Harvard, Yale and Princeton educated top bankers, industrialists and politicos are people--but he was not genuine enough to convince many people of the vitality of his agendas.