by Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1998
A feel-good guide to doing business in the post-industrial age. A new economy is emerging, say the authors, every bit as world-changing as that created by the Industrial Revolution, and they call this new economy BLUR. It’s characterized by Speed, Intangibles, and Connectivity. Speed is the shrinkage of time through near-instantaneous communication and computation. Connectivity is the shrinkage of space with the advent of the Web, E-mail, beepers, and other media of communication. Intangibles are values without mass, most importantly knowledge and its mobility, made possible through Speed and Connectivity. Throw away your business economic texts, say Davis and Meyer—the world of BLUR makes them obsolete. Companies prosper by not owning vast amounts of productive capacity. Nike, for instance, is a sort of Seinfeld of the business world, making nothing, but prospers by selling image and design. In the world of BLUR, work and home become one; consumers sell and sellers buy; workers become entrepreneurs selling their skills temporarily to the highest bidder and then moving on; competitors cooperate. The only certainty is uncertainty, but if economies, companies, and individuals embrace this uncertainty, and think creatively about and within it, they will prosper. The authors are on to something here; they’ve seemingly caught the Zeitgeist. Yet in their enthusiasm they may overstate just how BLURred (as they say) the economy actually is. Yes, Nike sells image, but somebody is making those expensive sneakers, and they are not to be heard from here. Consumers sell information back to producers, which they in turn use to improve what they sell, but does that fundamentally change patterns of concentrated economic control? And while we can buy groceries over the Internet, how many people do? (The book is devoid of statistical or quantitative analysis.) As a guide to surviving in the new business world, this is most intriguing and entertaining. As a careful analysis of what’s really going on, it falls short. (illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-201-33987-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1998
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by Lulu Miller illustrated by Kate Samworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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