Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Pick up a physical slice of humble pi and learn some math

Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors by Matt Parker

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Math is everywhere. It is a part of everything we do now. Math developed the roads and bridges we drive on. Math created the buildings we work in (or used to work in, pre-pandemic). Math forms all the technology we use without a second thought. But what happens when the math goes wrong? When someone fudges the numbers or uses the wrong unit? Or when data get deleted? Sometimes what happens is a mild inconvenience that is easily rectified but other times, the results are […]

cbr12bingo – How To!

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems by Randall Munroe

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Randall Munroe, the engineer/author/cartoonist extraordinaire (most importantly- the creator of the excellent webcomic xkcd) is at it again with How To. He takes all sorts of simple questions and expands, explodes, and/or completely blows up the possible answers into a cacophony of hard science and absolute absurdity. Say you want to throw something really far- he starts out with an anecdote about George Washington hucking (technical term) a silver dollar across a river, which turns into a breakdown of how far silver dollars could be […]

It makes sense that my US History teacher would love this book so much

The Eight by Katherine Neville

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One of the last things I did before graduating high school in 2009 was to ask all my favorite teachers what their favorite novels were. My US History teacher said that the book she goes back to over and over is The Eight by Katherine Neville. This book has been on my TBR list since then but I have never gotten around to reading it. I can finally take it off that list. This book is expansive. From 18th Century nuns to 20th computer experts, […]

Middlegame was solidly middle of the pack

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

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Roger and Dodger are twins skilled in two separate fields: language and mathematics. Roger understands language: its nuances, its layers, its multitudes. Dodger understands mathematics: its rigor, its structure, its flow. Together they encompass the world, and their “father”, Reed, intends to shape them into gods whether they want to or are ready. Together, Roger and Dodger endeavor to discover themselves and their purpose in a world that either wants to control or destroy them. When I first heard about Middlegame, I was immediately excited. […]

Sudo read this comic if you don’t already

XKCD Volume 0 by Randall Munroe

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Since starting to work from home full time in March, I have gotten a little out of the habit of checking the XKCD web-comic regularly. I’ve forgotten how I first found it; I suspect my brother forwarded me one he thought I’d like and the rest, as they say,… Anyways, I realized that I had XKCD: Volume 0 on my shelf, and I don’t think I’ve ever read it through until very recently. The tagline on the webcomic is “A web-comic of romance, sarcasm, math, […]

If you’ve seen the comic, you know what this book is

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This book kept popping up in my Amazon Prime as a free download, but I never payed it any attention until KimMiE” reviewed it a month ago and mentioned that the author was the guy who makes the XKCD comics. That was all I needed to hear. Taken from the “What If?” Section of the website, where he answers the internet’s most inexplicable science-ish questions (for instance: what would happen if everyone actually had one soulmate, one random person in the world?). His answers are […]



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