Monthly round-up · All months
Books podcasts were talking about in December 2019
In December 2019, podcasts featured discussions on artificial intelligence, robotics, human memory, and literature. On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Melanie Mitchell spoke about her recent book, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, and also recommended Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies for insights into copycat mechanics, while noting her own academic background reflected in her PhD thesis-based book Analogy-Making as Perception. Sebastian Thrun additionally appeared on the Lex Fridman Podcast to discuss his background in robotics, mentioning his authored work Probabilistic Robotics as a survey-driven approach to the field. On The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan and his guests explored various narrative and educational works. Rogan mentioned listening to an audiobook by Carlo Rovelli titled The Order of Time, noting how the concepts left him fascinated yet pondering the elusive nature of time. Rogan also highlighted Bryce Courtenay's The Power of One as one of his personal favorite audiobooks. Furthermore, discussions touched upon creative storytelling and autobiographical performance, such as Mike Birbiglia's work stemming from popular blogs. Across these various conversations, podcast guests and hosts emphasized foundational technical texts alongside deeply engaging narratives that explored human perception, time, and artificial intelligence.
Lex Fridman Podcast
-
Artificial Intelligence
Discussed“...including her recent book simply called artificial intelligence a guide for thinking humans”
-
Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies
Discussed“so there's a Douglas Hofstadter's book called fluid concepts and creative analogies talks in great detail about copycat”
-
Analogy-making as Perception
Discussed“I have a book called analogy making as perception which is a version of my PhD thesis on it”
-
Probabilistic Robotics
Discussed“um prior to me working on self-driving cars I was a roboticist in a machine learning expert and I wrote books on robotics something called probabilistic robotics the survey methods driven kind of viewpoint of the world”
-
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Discussed“one of my favorite quotes is from Tess of the d'Urbervilles and it's along the lines of the the measure of your life depends on not your external displacement but your subjective experience If I am happy and those that I love are happy can that be enough”
The Joe Rogan Experience
-
Sleepwalk with Me
Discussed“and he was to write a blog and his blog became really popular might what was it what was it my it was he would read it on Bob and Tom who's [ __ ] here”
-
Conversive Hidden Non-Markovian Models
Discussed“if you go to audible.com and go to the great courses I listen to these courses I just listen to 48 lectures by a guy named Robert Buchholz who is this [ __ ] amazing professor on the foundations of Western civilization”
-
The Order of Time
Discussed“just listen to this book about time and these concepts just came up swear that you're talking about after the whole book I was more confused about time the order of time but by the way that's a great name Carlo Rovelli”
-
The Power of One
Discussed“you ever done the power of one oh yeah I've read that was a couple of years ago yeah my favorites yeah it's great audio book -”
-
An Ethnography of Living and Working in a Group Home for People with Down Syndrome and Dementia
Discussed“Just look right here I had this author in the other day his name Sam Sam Quinn he wrote this book empire of the summer moon it's [ __ ] amazing man it's about the Comanches and it's about the the war they had with like through Texas and Oklahoma and went on forever like a ganancias were the last”
-
The Strongest Shall Survive
Discussed“so bill Starr who was a huge name in the game he he was a former top weightlifter in the United States back in the 60s later on very successful coach strength coach and author The strongest shall survive His book on strength training for football remains one of the best strength training books”
-
A Plausible Autobiography of Earl Callen
Discussed“I am a fan of books by old-time strongman Not all of them of course but some of them are just remarkable Earl Lederman he was an American strongman an educator He wrote a book back in 1925 called the seekers of strength and it's an awesome book”
-
The Quick and the Dead
Discussed“And your most recent book my most recent book is the quick and the dead total training for the advanced minimalist but that is for the advanced minimalist so I presume that's not for the majority of of listeners”
-
Kettlebell -
Discussed“so I also bought the same time came out with an updated edition of my kettlebells simple and sinister and that I believe firmly believe is the book for most people to most people whether it's grandma Betty or Ranger Joe that to train on to get started on”
-
American Serengeti
Discussed“He's got another one what is this other book about the the various large land animals that went extinct here in North America”
-
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Discussed“I think people are often used to the burry my heart at Wounded Knee narrative of the of Native Americans which is as victims”
-
The Heart of Everything That Is
Discussed“yeah let's see the center of everything that is the heart of everything that is which is which is a version Well not a version but it was a it was a kind of doing for the Sioux what what this book did”
-
Hymns of the Republic
Discussed“I have a new book out called hymns of the Republic about the final year of the war”
-
Rebel Yell
Discussed“I wrote a biography of Stonewall Jackson and so I've been kind of I took I took a right turn”
-
Crazy Horse
Discussed“Larry McMurtry wrote a pretty good book about Crazy Horse a small volume”
-
The Plot to Seize the White House
Discussed“the book that it's called um like the time the conspiracy to overthrow the government and then it's all it's all about him it's a really long book that just came out about like overthrowing FDR”
-
The Paleo Cure
Discussed“so can we just go into your study sorry your e-book on b12 you basically said I don't know where you got that study from your b12 eBook opened with the exact same study”
