Money and Finance
- The Jevons Paradox
I haven't read this yet, but if Vaclav Smil and Joseph Tainter both approve, it's a model worth having in one's head. Link to book: The Myth of Resource Efficiency: The Jevons Paradox'This book is the most comprehensive attempt at...
- Bill Gates: The Seven Best Books I Read In 2013
Found via Farnam Street. Link to: Bill Gates: The Seven Best Books I Read in 2013 .......... The books: The Box, by Marc LevinsonThe Most Powerful Idea in the World, by William RosenHarvesting the Biosphere, by Vaclav SmilThe World Until Yesterday, by...
- Jeremy Grantham, Starving For Facts – By Vaclav Smil
A big thanks to Kent for passing this along. Two guys I really respect, with two very opposing views. Grantham’s article that Smil is referencing is available HERE. Link to: Jeremy Grantham, Starving for Facts – By Vaclav Smil ...
- Vaclav Smil's “energy Myths And Realities” - A Review
Found via Chris Martenson.Vaclav Smil, professor of Environment and Environmental Geography at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, has written a new book called “Energy Myths and Realities.” In the book, he looks at a number of things he considers...
- The Man Who’s Tutoring Bill Gates
Found via Simoleon Sense. The most-published and least-known thinker in Canada doesn’t want to be interviewed. He says he has 77 deadlines to meet (perhaps an exaggeration, but probably not) before he flies off to a scientific conference in Europe....
Money and Finance
This Is the Man Bill Gates Thinks You Absolutely Should Be Reading
“There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil,” Bill Gates wrote this summer. That’s quite an endorsement—and it gave a jolt of fame to Smil, a professor emeritus of environment and geography at the University of Manitoba. In a world of specialized intellectuals, Smil is an ambitious and astonishing polymath who swings for fences. His nearly three dozen books have analyzed the world’s biggest challenges—the future of energy, food production, and manufacturing—with nuance and detail. They’re among the most data-heavy books you’ll find, with a remarkable way of framing basic facts. (Sample nugget: Humans will consume 17 percent of what the biosphere produces this year.)
His conclusions are often bleak. He argues, for instance, that the demise of US manufacturing dooms the country not just intellectually but creatively, because innovation is tied to the process of making things. (And, unfortunately, he has the figures to back that up.) WIRED got Smil’s take on the problems facing America and the world.
- The Jevons Paradox
I haven't read this yet, but if Vaclav Smil and Joseph Tainter both approve, it's a model worth having in one's head. Link to book: The Myth of Resource Efficiency: The Jevons Paradox'This book is the most comprehensive attempt at...
- Bill Gates: The Seven Best Books I Read In 2013
Found via Farnam Street. Link to: Bill Gates: The Seven Best Books I Read in 2013 .......... The books: The Box, by Marc LevinsonThe Most Powerful Idea in the World, by William RosenHarvesting the Biosphere, by Vaclav SmilThe World Until Yesterday, by...
- Jeremy Grantham, Starving For Facts – By Vaclav Smil
A big thanks to Kent for passing this along. Two guys I really respect, with two very opposing views. Grantham’s article that Smil is referencing is available HERE. Link to: Jeremy Grantham, Starving for Facts – By Vaclav Smil ...
- Vaclav Smil's “energy Myths And Realities” - A Review
Found via Chris Martenson.Vaclav Smil, professor of Environment and Environmental Geography at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, has written a new book called “Energy Myths and Realities.” In the book, he looks at a number of things he considers...
- The Man Who’s Tutoring Bill Gates
Found via Simoleon Sense. The most-published and least-known thinker in Canada doesn’t want to be interviewed. He says he has 77 deadlines to meet (perhaps an exaggeration, but probably not) before he flies off to a scientific conference in Europe....