Amazon.com: Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century 9781594201981: P. W. Singer: Books.

Another great recent read of mine.  I highly recommend this book if you are interested in how combat is going to be (since it has already changed) 5-10-20 years from now.  The book gives a great overview of what is in use today, the ethics of continuing down the autonomous war fighter path, the unanswered legal questions present today, and of course the Skynet conversation.

Highly recommend iCon, even though it is slightly dated (does not have the iPhone in it.)

Avoid “How to lie with Statistics”  — it is from the 1920s and it shows with all of the lame, dated examples.

The Liberation Trilogy, by Rick Atkinson.

Just finished volume two of The Liberation Trilogy last night. An excellent continuation and bridge for what most expect to be the third volume, France/Overlord.

While this book is excellent in everyway, I feel as though I enjoyed “An Army at Dawn” more — I think only because I really came to dislike General Mark Clark through the reading of this book.   With that said, this book is still an amazing recount of the Italian campaign (you know, Anzio, Salerno, etc!)  Atkinson blows me away with his level of detail and ability to tie source material together (the notes section of this book is beyond impressive, a chapter or two in its own right.)  I anxiously await volume number three for as I said, it will most likely be about Overlord (recall that Overlord started the day after the 5th Army took Rome!)

Quick read, but I have to admit, became rather boring about 2/3 of the way in.  The book is written entirely in interview format (hence the ‘Oral History’.)  The reader pieces together the whole war by putting together all of the various interviews.   No real hidden humor in this book like The Zombie Survival Guide, but an entertaining read for the most part.

Being a closet Steve Jobs fanboy, I have to admit I couldn’t put this one down.  The book runs from Steve’s childhood through Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, so no mention or even allusion to the Jesus phone.

How to lie with statistics

This book is very light, being 100 or so half pages, but it is quite dated with all of the examples being from the 20s through 50s.   The concepts are obviously the same and the book itself is a good refresher on the most basic principles of statistics, but it really could use a “modernization” update (I realize the author is probably either ancient or has passed away.)