Other books that might interest you

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  Borders - A Very Short...

  Joshua Hagen, Alexander C. Diener

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  First published in 2012, Borders: A Very Short Introduction began with the premise that "we live in a very bordered world." The intervening decade has witnessed a flurry of events and developments that continue to highlight the centrality of borders in contemporary domestic and international affairs, as well as the interstices between the two, including sudden surges in migrant and refugees flows; renewed emphasis on traditional border security and wall construction; growing tensions concerning maritime sovereignty; rapid advances in cybersecurity, surveillance, and biometrics; expanded detention and deportation infrastructures; proliferation of transborder organizations; revived populist and nationalist sentiments; and protectionist and integrationist trade practices, to name some prominent examples from recent headlines. 
   
   
   
  This revised edition accounts for recent developments including Brexit, the 2015 migration crisis across Europe, efforts to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico, growing isolationist and nativist sentiments, demands for indigenous homelands, transnational protest movements, Russian cross-border incursions, and insurgencies and rebellions across much of North Africa and Southwest Asia.

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  The Analysis of Mind

  Bertrand Russell

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  "The Analysis of Mind" by Bertrand Russell is a philosophical book that explores the nature of the mind and consciousness. In this work, Russell argues that mental phenomena can be analyzed and understood through the principles of logic and mathematics. He posits that the mind can be divided into two categories: the "conscious mind" and the "unconscious mind". The conscious mind is the part of the mind that we are aware of, while the unconscious mind is the part that we are not aware of but which still influences our behavior. Read in English, unabridged.

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  Chickens: An Antidote to Life’s...

  Tedra Hamel

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  In this 2024 conversation with Justine Willis Toms, Tedra Hamel tells us that keeping chickens in an urban setting has become increasingly popular in recent years. They not only produce eggs, they give us the delightful pleasure of their company. When feeling stressed and anxious just take a moment or two to pull up a chair outside a chicken coop and let these feathered friends entertain you, erase your anxiety, and connect you to nature. Chickens are full of surprises in their intelligence and emotional capacity, their gorgeous feathers and variety of colors, and their inquisitiveness. Chickens even dream, dance, and meet in circles. Flocks of chickens are even being used for emotional support in care facilities. They help us feel less lonely as we delight in observing their highly social behavior. Here we explore the therapeutic benefits of chickens in promotin emotional comfort, connecting us to nature, and adding fresh eggs to our diet.  
  Tedra Hamel (known as Teddi) is a critical care nurse in Washington state and a backyard chicken enthusiast. Through the inspiration of her feathered friends she has become an artist, and her hens have established some fame on Instagram. She is the author and artist illustrator of Therapy Chickens: Let the Wisdom of the Flock Bring You Joy (Quarto Publishing Group 2024) 
  Interview Date: 3/20/2024   Tags: Tedra Hamel, pecking order, chicken coops, roosting, chicken poop as fertilizer, egg laying, Hen Power, community chicken coops, Animals, Community, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Personal Transformation

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  Bring Me Back Home New Orleans -...

  Asia Briana Brown

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  “Dear New Orleans, I miss you. Crescent City, I love you.” On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated a number of homes and communities, scattering families as they sought refuge. Bring Me Back Home, New Orleans, is a Katrina survivor’s story of loss told through poetry, a reflection on home, and an ode to New Orleans.

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  Artificial General Intelligence...

  Julian Togelius

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  Artificial intelligence surrounds us. More and more of the systems and services you interact with every day are based on AI technology. Most AI is narrowly specific; that is, it can only do a single thing, in a single context. For example, your spellchecker can't do mathematics, and the world's best chess-playing program can’t play Tetris. Human intelligence is different. We can solve a variety of tasks, including those we have not seen before. In Artificial General Intelligence, Julian Togelius explores technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence and asks what general AI would mean for human civilization. 
   
   
   
  Togelius starts by giving examples of narrow AI that have superhuman performance in some way. He then discusses what it would mean to have general intelligence, by looking at definitions from psychology, ethology, and computer science. Next, he explores the two main families of technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence: foundation models through self-supervised learning, and open-ended learning in virtual environments. The final chapters of the book investigate potential artificial general intelligence beyond the strictly technical aspects. The questions discussed here investigate whether such general AI would be conscious, whether it would pose a risk to humanity, and how it might alter society.

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  The Icarus Syndrome - An...

  W. D. Smart

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  This book was written to bring to everyone's attention our obsession with technology, which is destroying our planet's biosphere and will eventually, in the author's opinion, bring about the extinction of most species on Earth, both plant and animal, including, of course, our own. Clinging onto the belief that we will soon develop some new technology that will provide us with a free and unlimited source of energy and "save" us is just pure folly. Technology cannot be the solution to our environmental problems – it is the cause. 
  In the meantime, we should not even consider venturing too far into outer space. Until we learn to live both socially and environmentally compatible with the Earth, any attempt to spread our species to other worlds should not be called "colonizing." It would more accurately be termed "metastasizing."

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