In his book Jon Gertner details the history of the Bell Labs   , an industrial research lab created by AT&T in 1925. Well-funded by AT&T’s monopoly on telecommunication in the US, the researchers at Bell Labs worked under the unique combination of available capital, freedom to explore ideas, and a long time horizon for projects. This attracted many PhD graduates (at one point more than 1000) to join the Labs and subsequentyl make several breakthrough discoveries: vacuum tubes, transistors, solar cells, fibre optic communication, radar, communication satellites, deepsea cables, the laser, UNIX, C, and the development of information theory.

Gertner explores how the lab was set up (having many researches of different departments in the same building and encouraging cross-department collaboration and serendipitous discovery) to achieve these inventions and whether innovation can be planned.

Another theme of the book is AT&T’s struggle with the US government to keep its monopoly on telecommunication. For many decades the government agreed to the monopoly because of the natural monopoly of long-distance communication lines, AT&T’s committment to improve communication technology for its customers and its strategic importance during and after WW2 (they also famously guaranteed not to enter the computer market). This constant struggle reminded me of the situation with the US oil companies in Yergin’s The Prize where the US government faced a similar strategic dilema (more competition vs. strategic and military importance).

Jon Gertner gave a talk about his book   at a Google event.

Following Seveneves and Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon is the third Neil Stephenson book I have read. Weirdly, I stumbled over all three books in different second hand book shops.

The story is built around the theme of cryptography. The author takes you into two major storylines. The first is about the encryption arms race between the Allies and the Axis forces during World War II. In the second storyline, which plays in the late 1990s, the characters use encryption to build a secure data haven. Established in a authocratic South East Asian country this data haven is built to host permissionless files and establish a digital currency pegged to gold.

I read this book during my trip through India whenever we were driving between places. I enjoyed the character and relationship development and the nerdy explanations of the different technologies (one time pad encryption, van eck phreaking, etc.) at play. While India is not The Philippines, reading this book in a hot and busy country brought the main characters’ adventures in the Philippines to life even more.

I read this book to prepare for my trip to India next week. I didn’t know very much about India’s history other than a vague notion of Alexander The Great trying to invade it, the Mughals ruling it at some point, and then first the East India Company and last the British Empire colonizing it.

Zubrzycki gives a decent high-level overview of India’s history from the Harappān civilization (c. 3300 - 1300 BCE), via subsequent Muslim invasions via modern-day Iran and Afghanistan, then British rule, and lastly its independence in 1947. He also explains Pakistan’s origin story and its dispute with India over the Kashmir region, and intra-India Hindu-Muslim tension.

In abundant detail Yergin describes the history of oil in the late 19th century, and how it created economic growth worldwide, played a central role in world war strategies, and shaped political outcomes in many countries. A very dense book, but I learned a great amount.

As a European I only have surface level knowledge of American history. I learned about for a semester in high school and watched the movie Lincoln   . So I did have a sense of Abrahan Lincolns role in the civil war and in the abolishing slavery.

This book gave me a much deeper insight into the political struggle to end slavery and how Abraham Lincoln managed to balance competing factions in his own cabinet, in parliament, and in the country.

Abraham Lincoln won the presidency to the surprise of most observers at the time. He carefully positioned himself as a down-to-earth, quirky character in just the right political niche to get support from the different political groups when they realised that their favorite candidate wouldn’t be able to get a majority. After he won the presidential election in 1960 he did something unusual. He installed some of his opponents from the presidential race into key positions of his cabinet (This is where the book title comes from).

The first part of the book is about him gaining the respect of his contemporaries that underestimated him for a long time. It’s also about his clever interactions with the key characters in the cabinet to keep them aligned and utilise their individual strengths.

The second part of the book goes deeper into his role during the civil war where he has to make difficult military decisions, like firing generals, and keeping the Confederance internationally isolated. While at the same time waiting for just the right moment when public sentiment was ready to support the abolishment of slavery.

I learned a lot about political decision making and balancing power.

I wrote about this book in Book notes: How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner .

Annie Jacobsen describes the operational chain-reaction that would be caused by a North Korean nuclear attack on Washington D.C.. In her scenario a nuclear war between North Korea, the US, Russia, and Europe would be underway within one hour of noticing the North Korean ICBM on the early detection satellite (She doesn’t mention China’s reaction). The dust blown into the atmosphere after a nuclear exchange with ~2000 nuclear warheads would cause the global temperature to drop significantly. This combined with limited access to fresh water, crops, and livestock will make most places on the globe uninhabitable for thousands of years.

Her minute-by-minute account of the operational protocols explains why the equilibrium of nuclear deterrence is unstable and spirals out of control once perturbed by one irrational actor. In this scenario, a revengeful and jealous North Korean leader.

The problem is that once the deterrence paradigm is broken, all actors follow policies developed during the Cold War ( Launch on Warning   ) that compel them to retaliate within minutes. Moreover, the decisions are made by Heads of State that are not prepared for the situation and before the full extent of the attack and its intent are known. Jacobsen adds insufficient communication between US and Russia and inaccurate Russian satellite intel as compounding factors to her scenario.

The book contains short explainer sections on why it’s near impossible to defend against ballistic missiles, how the Nuclear triad works, and the dangers of a satellite-launched EMP strike.

The book is a fascinating read, but it gave me nightmares. The current accepted status quo of mutual self destruction appears like an example of a nonlinear system resting in an unstable equilibrium from Steven Strogatz’s book   . The other aphorism that came to my mind was

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Carl Sagan

Only because deterrence has worked so far doesn’t mean it will work over long periods of time with changing (possibly irrational) players. It only has a track record of 80 years.

I finished this exciting book in three days. The incredible story of the British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to cross the Antarctic continent. He and his crew of 27 get stuck aboard the Endurance. The ship is stuck in the ice in the middle of the Weddell Sea. Their survival attempt includes camping for months on different drifting ice floe. Then sailing in three lifeboats to the uninhabited Elephant Island, sailing another 800 miles to South Georgia Island, and then being the first to cross the South Georgia Island by foot. The author Alfred Lansing benefits from the fact that many of the crew wrote their diaries, kept navigation logs, and took photos. This allows him to give a detailed account of the daily challenges the crew faced: tiredness, ongoing anxiety about finding food, navigation in probably the most dangerous part of in the world, boredom, and not knowing when help might arrive.

I learned about Shackleton’s leadership style and ability to base his decision in how it will affect morale and safety of the crew. When to push them and when to let them rest, when to ration food and when to celebrate, and how to deal with potential troublemakers. Shackleton seemed to feel a deep burden until the last day to get everyone back to safety. I was also impressed how Stoic and contend the crew remained among all the challenges that they encountered. It’s ironic that Shackleton and his crew failed with their original expedition, but achieved something more remarkable and with a lower chance of success with their struggle for survival.

Here are two quotes from the book that I liked:

“For scientific leadership, give me Scott. For swift and efficient travel, Amundsen. But when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems to be no way out, get on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”

Sir Raymond Priestley

and

“That evening a crude reception was held [on South Georgia island]. Four white-haired, veteran Norwegian skippers came forward. Their spokesman, speaking in Norse with Sørlle translating, said that they had sailed the Antarctic sea for forty years, and that they wanted to shake the hands of the men who could bring an open 22-foot boat from Elephant Island through the Drake Passage to South Georgia. […] the whalermen of the southern ocean stepped forward one by one and silently shook the hands with Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean.”

It’s cool that the geographical locations of their journey were recorded and that photos are available. You can really nerd out and get a better idea of what it must have been like for the Endurance crew. Here is a map   of their journey. There are some photos available here   . And some photos   about the Endurance22 mission that found the ship wreck in March 2022.

I wrote some notes about this book here .

I bought a beautiful copy of this book at the Shakespeare and Company   bookshop in Paris. This is a collection of timeless advice from Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher whose life included episodes of extreme wealth, power, and tragedies. I found his advice on how to lead a good life very readable and practical. I was surprised several times how the major themes of his writing have equal importance in modern life, e.g. building good friendships, aquiring a good character, dealing with wealth, success, adversity, and mortality.

Interesting account of Boris Herrmann on his first attendance of the Vendée Globe in 2020, a single-handed nonstop unassisted round the world yacht race. The race typically takes longer than 70 days. It’s mind-boggling how he organizes his sleep patterns, how he keeps himself entertained, and how he deals with loneliness and the inavitable damages to his yacht. He also talks about his search for Kevin Escoffier who had to abandon his sinking yacht, and how the race turned into a rescue mission.

An excellent biography that captures both the military genius and administrative prowess of Napoleon. Roberts does a masterful job of balancing the personal and political aspects of Napoleon’s life.

A great collection of science fiction short stories by Ted Chiang. I particularly liked “Understand” which is about a man who takes an experimental drug and gets exponentially smarter, and “Tower of Babylon” in which he describes the building process of the Tower of Babylon and the consequences after the project goal is reached.

I would rank the stories in the following descending order:

• Understand
• Tower Of Babylon
• The Evolution of Human Science
• Liking What You See: A Documentary
• Story of Your Life
• Hell Is the Absence of God
• Division by Zero
• Seventy-Two Letters

I wrote down some notes here .

I wrote down some notes here .