In the holidays I read (among other things) the following two books: "Tyrannosaur Canyon" by Douglas Preston and "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong" by James R. Hansen. Both are interesting and impressive. I was surprised that the former novel takes place near Santa Fe. It is a "techno-thriller" with a lot of tension and high scientific accuracy - like a mixture of a Michael Crighton and a Dan Brown novel. Is there really a tyrannosaur canyon near Santa Fe or somewhere else in New Mexico ?
The biography of Neil Armstrong was also very interesting. It is a bit disillusioning and thought-provoking to see how little a single person can do, and how much a whole country can accomplish. There were so many people involved in the space program - the American people, the congress and the government who financed it, the industry who built it, the space agency who controlled it, the astronauts who used it, etc. Although astronauts are often seen as real heroes, they can accomplish little without their rockets and the large teams of engineers and rocket scientists behind them. What is an astronaut without a spaceship ? After Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong didn't really know what to do with his life, but there were countless disputes about totally meaningless details - who has taken pictures of whom on the moon, who has stepped out first, was it all a hoax or not... Can we learn something from this for (massive) multi-agent systems ? -J. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
