Chris Orwa

Charles Ponzi, perhaps a man best fitted in PR that got his hands into finance and launched the greatest money swindling scheme of his time. Hats off to his confidence, demeanor and candor. His pitfall was such that he couldn't find a business model fast enough to turn into a legitimate businessman.

Madness! Madness! Madness

The prose poetry employed by Gibran in his letters makes them an engrossing read. Whether corresponding with fellow poets or simply responding to his father and sister's inquiry, Kahlil never fails to put his metaphorical mind to action.

A glimpse at the rare book world. The book lacks depth but makes it up on ease of reading - with no proper ending, the books bounces through the various aspects of what make people become rare book collectors and what motivate others to steal from the collectors.

When an exposé is written it ought to be complete with all facts of the events. The book is slant towards exposing the character of Julian Assange - much is not spoken about the leaks, their preparation, and impact. In the end, Julian Assange is portrayed as neurotic activist who founded WikiLeaks and his character led to the demise of the whistleblowing platform. It doesn't go by saying WikiLeaks is described as a highly disorganised institution.

A tragic tale of love, lust, and life's vagaries. In a jolly setting in colonial Kenya, Murder puts an end to the drug induced orgies in Wanjohi Valley more commonly referred as Happy Valley Set. Josslyn Hay, later the 22nd Earl of Errol met his demise at the junction of Ngong Road and Karen Road on the early morning of 24th January 1941.

A cuckolded husband, Sir Jock Delves Broughton is suspected of the murder and put on trial but the verdict is of acquittal. The mystery thus sets in, who killed Joss? A series of characters are explored for possible motive and opportunity, but all evidence points to Jock. In the exploration of the suspects, the authors takes the reader through the life and times of early settlers in Kenya and the later immigrants who formed the libidinous ‘Happy Valley Set'.

If uncertainty lived anywhere it would be in this book. Example after example provide a wider perspective on unpredictability of events and the complexities layered upon them. The first book I gave a five star rating, just for the examples - highly informative and uncommon.

Poetic wisdom. Kahlil reminds the reader on the duality of everything on earth. In few words, more has been said in short Q & A style of writing.

This book is not about a bookseller, nor is it about books, but rather about life in Afghanistan from the perspective of one family headed by a bookseller. It cuts through ordinary life, the mundane, the things that keeps everyday life going on. It is the portrayal of ordinary life that makes the book a worth read - no heroes, just everyday people.

Much has been written about this book and perhaps enough has been said. So nothing to add here.

The book is a warning on ascribing success to a method yet it could be a result coincidence - even if the “success” runs for several years.

Randomness creates opportunities for coincidence (spurious correlation), and thus accidental millionaires. Can repetition vindicate the successful ones? The book argues no, without further information about the sample size from whence the successful person emanates, it is impossible to ascribe success to a method.

A successful person from a large initial sample size has a higher chance of being successful as a result of chance. Smaller initial sample size indicates method. A befitting summary of the book is found in the phrase “it is better to be lucky than competent”.

A watch is a commonplace item in the modern life, but in the 18th century it played a great role in preventing ships from getting lost in high seas. Known as The Longitude Problem, there was no practical means to ascertain longitude at sea which prompted the British parliament to set up the Board of Longitude to administer a prize for anyone who could determine longitude at sea.

The solution came from an unexpected quarter - a carpenter named John Harrison took it up on himself to build a watch so accurate that it could withstand the vagaries of the sea's conduct. His watch names H4 became a masterpiece of keeping time and helped the British Empire conquer the sea. Despite it's success there was a fierce competitor - The Sextant. This device was able to tell longitude by measuring the distance between celestial bodies and the sea's horizon. While dependable, it required training and took many hours to make a reading.

This book is about the huddle that John Harrison had to jump in order to win the Longitude prize money of 20,000 pounds and ensure his innovation becomes the de-facto instrument for measuring longitude at the sea.

A good book about a good man and a bad man whom fate brought together to build the most authoritative and historical book on the English Language - the Oxford English Dictionary. The book is a recollection of events and digs through the history of both men and their relations, a good means to provide context. Though good in context, the book has a thinner coverage on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The book reads like a continuation of Ted Kaczynski's manifesto ‘The Industrial Society and Its Future'. This time focusing on machine learning and its use in coercing behavior change as well as discriminating the poor and disadvantaged. From the examples provided in the book, there are three categories of Weapons of Math Destructions (WMD).

First one is poor statistics. These are incorrectly calculated stats which are used to infer human behavior and performance. In them are lack of understanding of how certain statistics are interpreted or validated. A good example are proxy variables such as geography used to infer purchase power, reoffending propensity et cetera.

The second WMD are correct statistics that are misused. These seem to be the majority of the cases. It is more of an ethical issue rather than machine taking over of lives. When a company utilizes zip code to steer customers to high interest loans, that qualifies us an ethical use of machine leaning output and no necessarily anything wrong with the machine leaning process.

The last WMDs are dataset. From the book, certain attributes within data should never be used for prediction purposes, e.g race, gender, income, and zip code since they likely to correlate with outputs connected with discrimination.

In the end, machine learning is hailed as tool that can be used for social good - with several examples provided.

The world's oldest profession helped Nairobi during its nascent years maintain labor force by providing companionship to the burgeoning bachelor migrant labour. In doing so, they accumulated wealth and became the first African landlords in colonial Nairobi. The African neighborhoods (estates) in Nairobi were largely shaped by prostitute activities - Pangani, Kilileshwa, Pumwani and Shauri Moyo were setup to accommodate the demands of landlord prostitutes who were providing services that reproduced labor for the colonial government.

Over the years, different forms of prostitution emerged to accommodate changing landscape, economics and population of the young city. The most successful of the prostitutes became a lady in her forties living in Eastleigh who bought a secondhand Mercedes-Benz in 1960.

The book provides great framework for thinking like an above average forecaster. Focus is on probabilistic prediction on geopolitical events and how a keen mind of an ordinary person may beat the forecast of well trained intelligence analysts. An outstanding part of the book are the examples provided to solidify what makes a good superforecaster.

It is worth noting that the Good Judgement project on which this book is predicated upon got the Trump election wrong. The superforecasters gave Hillary Clinton a 97% probability of winning the presidency. In addition, the forecasters gave a 70% probability that the winner of the electoral vote will also win the popular vote.

The book covers a great deal on why some forecasts go wrong and how to avoid these pitfalls that may skew a superforecaster predictions. My greatest takeaway from the book is the ‘Brier Score', a means of evaluating how consistently a forecaster is good.

An exception account on the powers of observations. In this fictitious plot, Sherlock Holmes emerges as the Primus Inter Pares among Victorian sleuths to solve the most uncanny of crimes. Sir Author Conan Doyle's style of writing that withhold all facts of a case until the end of a story makes for god suspense. Among the eleven short stories in the book, two of them make it to my list of must reads - ‘The Stockbroker's Clerk' and ‘The Naval Treaty'. In both stories, the reader discovers an alternative plot of a case of the very last page of the stories.

The general book makes for a quick read. Had to pick a dictionary to understand some of the 20th-century English words that appeared quite often such as hansom for a two-wheeled cab, ‘by jove' meaning in God's name et cetera.

The stylistic devices employed in telling the story are quite captivating. Historical and current events are interwoven into a single continuum giving the past freshness of the present and vice-versa. The book tells the story of World War Two in a rather rare perspective on how the German society justified and supported the invasion of the Soviet Union and other smaller states. With it comes the psychotic details on the endeavors of Martin Kirsch while treating ‘terminally insane' patients. At the end it is a tragedy as Albert Einstein is drawn in to the plot.

Perhaps the most honest of thoughts put to paper. You might say Socrates reborn as Kahlil Gibran dissects all facets of life delivering succinct answers to questions put forth to him by citizens of the imaginary city of Orphalese. After the read the meaning of prophet is flipped in the mind, not the archetypal religious zealot but a philosopher with unbiased view on life.

Who would have thought a man walking around asking questions would give us the definition of justice. Socrates' dialogues with the citizens of Athens as recorded by Plato are akin to peeling an onion, one question leads to another until the topic of discourse becomes clear. This ended up being referred to a Socratic Questioning and like all philosophers, he's not the custodian on knowledge rather the midwife to bring it forth.

In the Republic, Socrates undertakes to indulge different high standing members on the society on their understanding of justice and makes follow up inquiries to get to the atomic and universal definition of justice. Is the world a just place?..... He relates justice to all facets of life and considers it the foundation of building a proper republic (christened The Republic according to Plato).

Is it just for subjects to obey their rulers? ...........................................

The Ancient Greek philosopher Zeno postulated that happiness is not a proper goal for humans - when subjected to happiness, man does not strive for prosperity - he becomes complacent. Nassim Taleb takes this idea further with the birth of the term ‘Antifragile' - a middle ground between fragile and rigid. Fragile people break under pressure, rigid people don't learn from mistakes, but antifragile people benefit from stress by learning from the experience. Nassim advocates for constant subjection of stress to political, economical, and social systems in order to make the antifragile. A sort of balance providing adequate problems to challenge life and enough enthusiasm to tackle them.

It affirms the Darwinian mantra “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

All the evidence points to the mysterious Russian as the author of this terrible series of crimes. The missing logic in the book is whether the mysterious Russian was capable of writing the ripper letters - that hasn't been properly dissected.

A good read but some parts feel repetitive and the chronology of events is not well broken down - at least the parts that dissect the evidence.

The level of mannerism in the book makes gives it a hearty touch, even for the monster Dracula who addresses his prisoner with civility. In the end, it is a game of wits between a Transylvanian nobleman turned monster and the gentry of London chaperoned by a highly intelligent Dutch medical doctor.

The best summary of a detective work as penned by the writer ‘The real business of a detective is the invention of a plot'. Indeed Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher dreamed up a plot which turned out to be closest to the truth when everyone had alternative theories on the Murder of Francis Sauville Kent. When everyone thought otherwise, the inventive detective saw through all the puzzle set by the shoestring evidence to pin the murder to the cold sister Constance Sauville.

A rollercoster ride in the life of middle class Victorians English people obsessed with murder. One may be mistaken to think is the work of fiction from Charles Dicken's pen but this was an actual murder with a real detective - the first of their kind when the Scotland Yard was formed.

This book is not about the Roman Pro-consul Gnaeus Pompeii Magnus nor is a precursor to the movie Pompeii but the ancient city of Pompeii and its unstable underbelly. The book traces the work life of a young aquarius (plumber) Attilius and his journey to save the Roman empire from poisonous water raging havoc in its cities. Peel by peel the story unwinds from the gentile Roman society life to the centre of the most violent volcanic eruption recorded in human history. In a nutshell the book is about water,earth, fire, and air...told the Roman way.