books

So far I was able to stick to my routine, but I will not fill this blog with book reviews; others have written them already.

Victor posted a review of "Edward O. Thorp: A Man For All Markets" and Dave wrote his own review.

Also, I do not need to review "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA", because the CIA has already posted one.
But I want to mention that their review has the title wrong - it misses the "the" of "the CIA". Of course, this is a minor issue and of little importance compared to all the blunders and mistakes the CIA made according to the book.

Btw my favorite story in the book is not about the CIA, but about its WW2 precursor OSS.
At some point it developed the plan to burn down Tokyo, which consisted of mostly wooden houses at the time, using large numbers of bats with modified small firecrackers mounted on their backs; the bats would hide under the wooden roofs and, hanging upside down, ignite them after a while. We don't know how exactly the plan failed, but it was some kind of blue print for several harebrained schemes and blunders to come ...

Alice, Bob and Lenny



added much later: GR=QM ?

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