[ZGB]∎ [PDF] Acts of the Apostles Mind over Matter Series John F X Sundman 9781929752133 Books

Acts of the Apostles Mind over Matter Series John F X Sundman 9781929752133 Books

Download As PDF : Acts of the Apostles Mind over Matter Series John F X Sundman 9781929752133 Books

Acts of the Apostles Mind over Matter Series John F X Sundman 9781929752133 Books

This is a great 'the science fiction future is upon us' story. It's fast paced and the first that I know of that engenders thought about the actual ramifications of what could be in store when the tunnels of bio-technology and computer science meet with some material science helping them both along.
A funny book, you'll laugh, and a sobering book. If some of the ways that people are acting with the technology in hand doesn't give you pause already then this book will give you a framework to view these times with.

I have to add something here. I think this book should be required reading by all students. Maybe a course with Acts of the Apostles, Why The Future Doesn't Need Us, Bill Joy's essay, the work of John Searle and Ted Kaczynski's manifesto set against the writing of Marvin Minsky and Ray Kurzweil would be enlightening. Hopefully it would help those who are coming into this technology to think and think hard about the ramifications of the fields they want to pursue. The Atom and Hydrogen bombs were and are so clearly contrary to human interests and survival but computer and biological technology has slipped so comfortably into our arms. A hammer can drive a nail or smash in a skull, it's how we decide to use it. Our "policy makers", who have less than a clue, can't make these choices. We have to and we have to make them face them.

It all looks so damned inviting until some child is molested by someone pretending to be a friend on Face Book or on Pokemon Go. Or everyone discovers through a courageous individual that the NSA is looking at all your emails or that Face Book etc are selling your most fervent hopes to advertisers. This is just the beginning and the folks we have running for the highest office in the U.S. use Twitter to snipe. These are serious times folks. Wake up, pay attention, read this book and tell your friends and families to read it as well. If nothing else it's a fun read. If you read a level or two deeper you'll see it's a somber situation.

To return to Minsky for a moment, back in the early 70's he spoke at my college. I was a Physics major who had just aced his first Fortran IV class on an IBM 360. Computers turned me on. I was totally curious about Minsky and his ideas. At some point during the Q & A someone asked him about the human element in his message and he replied "I'm as equally concerned about the electrons running through the transistors in my computer as I am in the blood running through my children veins." At the time I thought he was going for the drama and shock and I think he was. I think Minsky was a decent man. But I'm not certain that those who follow will be so.


Tags : Acts of the Apostles (Mind over Matter Series) [John F. X. Sundman] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. As American-led forces assemble in Saudi Arabia for the largest military operation since Normandy, computer designer Todd Griffith discovers a secret function burried within the Kali chip. That night he is shot. Five years later,John F. X. Sundman,Acts of the Apostles (Mind over Matter Series),Rosalita Associates,192975213X,Fiction,Mystery and detective stories,Nanotechnology,Persian Gulf syndrome,Science Fiction - High Tech,Thrillers,Religion,Fiction Science Fiction Hard Science Fiction,Fiction Thrillers General

Acts of the Apostles Mind over Matter Series John F X Sundman 9781929752133 Books Reviews

Quite the interesting read. It combined the knowledge of a technology nerd with mystery writing. I had to keep reminding myself that the book was written in the mid 1990's but I was reading it July 2016.

The author proved to be quite prescient in that he was predicting in the mid 1990s how technology would be effecting our lives in the future, Fast forward to 2016 and such mid 1990's predictions for which he was probably ridiculed, have indeed come to fruition.

Having said all this regardless of your technology interest and\or knowledge, Acts was a great read. The author has able to thoroughly develop his many characters (not just the protagonists). This ability only enhanced the enjoyment of the book. Great read with some interesting twists that will have you thinking about the book after you have finished. You might even re-read certain sections to determine why you did not originally catch such twists.
What first struck me when I started reading this book was the talk of bacteriophages and attaching Richard Feynman's name to a nano-robot modeled from them. So I set off looking into my favorite internet search engine and found that Richard Feynman actually did molecular biology work with bacteriophages, and modeling nano-robots around them had been proposed in the 1980's. So I started checking as I read and found that most of the science that is mentioned, the molecular biology, the neuro-science..., even some of the more "far out" concepts, is being and was being pursued by scientists when the book was written in 1999. Since the setting is the early '90's, after the Gulf War but around the time when Usenet newsgroups were what the internet was about, all the futuristic material lies in the scheme of an evil character to using existing advanced technology, including a very nice speech by the character Rachel Tryson that starts at around 2/3rd of the way through the book with the profound statement "Computation is the future of biology; biology is the future of computation". Not only did the science almost all check out, but so did the military locations and history, and Basil Fasnacht, a Swiss version of the Carnival, looks to be much as described. John Sundman must have done a lot of research for this book, and particularly considering how much less easily accessible the information was when the book was written, the number of technologies explored and merged to fit the storyline is impressive.

There is speculation in some of the other reviews about what real-life corporate situation the plot could be based on. I believe John Sundman once worked for Digital Electronics Corporation, and since one of the companies mentioned in this book is "Digital Microsystems", I would not doubt that there may be some inspiration from John Sundman's Digital years. This quote-- "Since when are you a writer? You sling code." "English is code." -- could perhaps allude to the transition from a technical career to that of an author. John Sundman has made the transition well, maybe the above quote is correct, as he has written an exceptionally important book that points out the direction it looks as though technology is taking us may not be one that is what most would want.
This is a great 'the science fiction future is upon us' story. It's fast paced and the first that I know of that engenders thought about the actual ramifications of what could be in store when the tunnels of bio-technology and computer science meet with some material science helping them both along.
A funny book, you'll laugh, and a sobering book. If some of the ways that people are acting with the technology in hand doesn't give you pause already then this book will give you a framework to view these times with.

I have to add something here. I think this book should be required reading by all students. Maybe a course with Acts of the Apostles, Why The Future Doesn't Need Us, Bill Joy's essay, the work of John Searle and Ted Kaczynski's manifesto set against the writing of Marvin Minsky and Ray Kurzweil would be enlightening. Hopefully it would help those who are coming into this technology to think and think hard about the ramifications of the fields they want to pursue. The Atom and Hydrogen bombs were and are so clearly contrary to human interests and survival but computer and biological technology has slipped so comfortably into our arms. A hammer can drive a nail or smash in a skull, it's how we decide to use it. Our "policy makers", who have less than a clue, can't make these choices. We have to and we have to make them face them.

It all looks so damned inviting until some child is molested by someone pretending to be a friend on Face Book or on Pokemon Go. Or everyone discovers through a courageous individual that the NSA is looking at all your emails or that Face Book etc are selling your most fervent hopes to advertisers. This is just the beginning and the folks we have running for the highest office in the U.S. use Twitter to snipe. These are serious times folks. Wake up, pay attention, read this book and tell your friends and families to read it as well. If nothing else it's a fun read. If you read a level or two deeper you'll see it's a somber situation.

To return to Minsky for a moment, back in the early 70's he spoke at my college. I was a Physics major who had just aced his first Fortran IV class on an IBM 360. Computers turned me on. I was totally curious about Minsky and his ideas. At some point during the Q & A someone asked him about the human element in his message and he replied "I'm as equally concerned about the electrons running through the transistors in my computer as I am in the blood running through my children veins." At the time I thought he was going for the drama and shock and I think he was. I think Minsky was a decent man. But I'm not certain that those who follow will be so.