Saturday, March 16, 2024

Rob Copeland. The Fund.

     During the assault on the Trump presidency, the "New York Times" made "sensational" accusations of the collusion of his team with the Russians. The proofs could have made the stage-managers of Stalin's show trials blush. One had an e-mail account on a different name, another met Russian Ambassador (at the Washington diplomatic corpse assembly in official capacity) and so on. 

        The book by Rob Copeland is a similar hack hit job. First, he describes Ray Dalio in the terms usually reserved for the serial killers and drug lords. Then, at 200 pages of his book he lists his high crimes and misdemeanors. What are his trespasses? Sometimes, he was rude and/or insensitive to his associates. He made occasional wrong decisions overriding his colleagues. Ray fired a mid-ranking executive without a reasonable cause, according to the fired individual. Who in the position of power over people, even a manager of a warehouse, or a restaurant did not? 

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Chris Impey. Worlds without end: exoplanets, habitability and the future of humanity.

  A very good book in its first half. Contains a lot of useful popular information on exoplanets and how they are discovered and investigated. The second half is dedicated to unrestrained speculation about humans role in the Cosmos.