I came to recognize Azziz Ansari through Amy Poehler’s book, “Yes, Please” and the TV series “Park and Recreation” where he acted as conniving colleague of Amy and tried to sabotage whatever she was promoting – building a park. Turned out he’s a pretty funny Indian comedian, who even produced his own series “Master of None” in a Netflix TV series. In this book, Azziz went into the key differences in today’s romance/dating scene, mostly due to the mobile technology and how people are handling it internationally: Japan, France, and Brazil. It’s a fairly entertaining book for me who has passed through that stage and still find that stage of life challenging for those people old and young looking for love in all places. Hopefully, this book shed some light or provide some antidotes for those who face the difficulties. I know it does for me.
A quick summary of this book.
– Historically, people marry someone in their neighborhood or small circle of friends, friends’ friends. We now have more choices and supposedly have a better chance of finding our own soul mates.
– Texting to “hookup” or date and even break up is a norm. Making a phone call and handling face-to-face conversation seems to have taken a backseat.
– New tools on our cell phone like Tinder App with a simple swipe to connect or reject people. Neat! Of course, the downside is relying just on the looks.
– Men in Japan are less aggressive in asking women out, partially due to economic uncertainty and fear of rejection. The official label for such men (60~70% of all 20~30-year-old men) are call “herbivores” who lack interest in getting married and finding a girlfriend. At least, Azziz got to eat lots of Raman.
– People in Paris/France tend to be more tolerant of infidelity or open to “open” relationship, which doesn’t seem to work here in U.S.
– Women in Brazil were “harassed” more often by men due to the culture and probably lack of stigma against it – yet.
– It’s not just a “laugh-it-off” type of book but a reasonably-researched, coupled with some experts’ (sociologists’) findings and advises.
– If you read the audiobook version like I did, you would be picked on by Azziz like most comedians for being a “lazy fuck” and not wanting to read the book.
– In the conclusion, Azziz encourages people to take the time to know the real person behind the pictures and texts in the mobile. It may be worth the investment and enjoy it!
Eddie Chapman is Agent Zigzag, the central character in this double-agent intrigues between the intelligence agencies of Germany and Britain during World War II; he’s a likable character, but a scoundrel nevertheless. This is a fine book and a fun read if you’re into spy novels especially around World War II.
Spoiler alert: don’t read below if you plan to read the book after all.
Key Takeaways:
– Eddie Chapman, in his 20’s, committed a crime (among his many offenses) and was put in Jersy Island (near France) prison. When the entire island was invaded by Germany, he offered to spy for Germany to get himself out of the prison. He was probably selected because of his charm and his ability in making and handling bombs. He then trained under this guy, Stephan von Groning, training him to become a spy to sabotage the Mosquito plane facility, a facility manufacturing the annoying wooden, undetectable planes. He parachuted in the farm fields and actually contacted MI5, the British secret agency during the war. The agency eventually and reluctantly hired him as a double agent to spy on the Germen. With the help of a magician, he and the MI5 faked an explosion of the “Mosquito” factory. This won Chapman some trust from the Germans and eventually with a great effort returned to Germany, then Oslo where the secret agency relocated. He reunited with von Groning and enjoyed a nice time off and hooked up with his new Norwegian girlfriend. At this time, Norway has fallen into German’s hand and his girlfriend was one of the underground rebel organization. Chapmen eventually came back to England as the World War II drew to a close.
– The intrigues of the story lie in how Chapman won the trust of both sides: Britain, his main loyalty and German, where his “friends” were. The conflicts within him must be hard to manage.
– Chapman seemed to fit the profile of a secret agent, intelligent with criminal history and little to lose and eager to please. To survive, he volunteered to become an agent for German when German invaded Jersy island where he was serving his sentence.
– Intricacy of wireless radio code transmission was described in good details. How he made a mistake in the beginning, forgot to code in the preemble of “FFFFFF” code to indicate he’s still on the German side, not captured by the British. This misstep did not cause any trouble for him.
– Chapman became financially successful after the war, probably through illegal means, as it’s probably the only way he knew how.
– There were many characters in the story including his 3 girlfriends and his “handlers” when he was spying for both sides. Characters were well developed considering the entire story happened more than 60 years ago.
– What would Eddie Chapman be if he were to live in today’s era instead of during World War II? The war turned a people like Chapman into a hero.
A French blind girl without her loving dad and an electronic wizard orphan boy without his supportive sister came together from two different background and met in one place in Saint Malo, France in the middle of World War II. For just a brief day, they met and shared a can of peaches, then they went their separate way never to see each other again. Until the last few chapter, two separate stories are being told of each character. Somehow, the readers know they will meet someday but I didn’t know it would take this long.
It’s a really long book and difficult to read in the beginning because of mix of French and German languages and the story took place so long ago during 1940’s. It takes a little while to get into the story but it’s all worthy it at the end.
Switching between the two stories of Werner and Marie-loure is an excellent technique to keep the readers interested like having two cameras back and forth between the two central characters.
The World War II did a lot of damage to the people of France and Germany, especially those of disadvantaged: the blind and orphans. People are crude to one another fighting for survival, when the best and the worst of human drama happened.
The Sea of Flame diamond and the myths surrounding it make the story rather interesting. And there are the supporting characters:
– the locksmith with skill in woodworking, turning an entire neighborhood into a a small model to get her blind daughter familiarized with neighborhood
– the great uncle, Etienne, with a phobia of public places but a renowned science broadcaster, turned out to be the link between the blind girl and the boy – who listened to his broadcast in Germany as a child.
– a friend, Frederic, with a passion for birds, turned into a brain-damaged boy because of the hatred and bullying of the military school classmates.
– At the end, the two girls of significance to the boy met long after the end of the war, when the boy (Werner) was declared dead, though I kept hoping that he would turn out alive. That would be truly good ending.
– Like a good novel, there were lots ironies. The most unfortunate ones and least likely to survive in a war turn out alive like the blind girl, Marie-Loure, Jutta, and Frederic.
The book is beautifully written and words so well crafted that it’s no surprise it won the Pulitzer price. Highly recommended if you have some curiosity in the war-torn France and believe, just so slightly, if the myths are being tested.
This is the second time I read this book, first time being more than 20 years ago. This time I am motivated by the movie, “Martian.” The underlying thesis of the book appears to be still valid, although it’s now in its 10th anniversary edition from its original 1988 edition. Many of the theories are still difficult to understand for me even with my years of engineering/physics study. Some of the topics are a refresh for me like Uncertainty Principle.
My key takeaways are:
1. The universe is still expanding.
2. No absolute time and space.
3. Grand unified theory is very difficult to prove (takes as much energy as the solar system).
4. Black holes are not so black.
5. No single theory on how the universe began.
This is quite an interesting book for those with some background in physics and curious about the universe and how it all started.
A summary:
1. Our Picture of the Universe: Some history of how humans come to the understanding of the universe since the Aristotle time and the two theories that describe them: Newton’s Gravity (large scale) and Quantum Mechanics (small scale).
2. Space and Time: Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light if the source is traveling – can’t add to the speed of the source. Unfortunately, Newton’s gravity theory goes against the idea because the gravitational effects is instantaneous or infinite speed. General Theory of Relativity gets rid of absolute time and Newton’s Laws of Motion puts an end to the absolute position. Everyone carries on his/her own clock measuring time depends on where he is and how he’s moving.
3. The Expanding Universe: By looking at the stars’ spectra (red-shifted due to the Doppler Effect), astronomers can tell the stars from other galaxies are mostly moving away from us. Otherwise, the gravity would cause the universe to collapse. This may explain why the universe looks similar in all directions or receives the same amount of radiation from all directions. This leads to the possibility of a singularity or the Big Bang as the origin of time, when general relativity breaks down.
4. The Uncertainty Principle: Heisenbger’s theory that the more accurately you try to measure the position of a particle, the less accurate you can measure its speed, the product of the two are the Plank’s constant. The quantum state is a combination of position and velocity. Electrons orbiting around the nucleus like a wave, with a wavelength that depended on its velocity number.
5. Elementary Particles and the Forces of Nature: Four categories of force: 1) gravitational, 2) electromagnetic, 3) weak nuclear force (responsible for radioactivity), 4) strong nuclear force, which holds the quarks together in the proton and neutron. Lots of discussion about anti-matter or anti-quarks.
6. Black Holes: Lights have a duality of particles (bent by gravity) and waves of quantum mechanics. When a star loses its energy, it starts to cool off. But the Pauli exclusion principles keep particles away from one another, maintaining at a constant radius. If it’s less than Chandrasekhar limit, it would turn into a neutron star. If more, it may explode or break up to under the limit. Moving objects send out gravitational “waves” that eventually reaches a steady state as it loses energy like Earth around Sun and crushing into Sun in 10^27 years. Black holes can be deduced by observing a star orbit around on its own – most likely orbiting around a black hole.
7. Black Holes Ain’t So Black: Black holes can emit radiation because of conservation of energy. What goes in as particle mass due to gravitational force must come out as radiation or anti-particles.
8. The Origin and Fate of the Universe: The universe started out in a big bang and very hot. As it expanded, it cools. Lots of discussion about anthropic principle (we can explain it because we exist); it’s hard to explain why the universe is the way it is. The total energy of the universe is a big zero. Classic theory of gravity, the universe may have existed for an infinite time or begins in a singularity. By quantum mechanics, there may not be a boundary condition nor edge.
9. The Arrow of Time: The increase of disorder or entropy with time gives the direction of time – thermodynamic sense of time, different from cosmological sense of time (universe expanding) and psychological sense (we feels time passes).
10. Wormholes and Time Travel: Cosmic strings are discussed. Wormholes may be the way to warp space time to travel back in time. Lots of discussion about time traveling forward and backward using various theories. No conclusion.
11. The Unification of Physics: String theory can be used to unify the physics theories. Even we could find one, we may not be able to prove it.
Conclusion:
The days after we discover the unify theory, we may be able to discuss why we and the universe exist – a true triumph to the human race.
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