Your Wit is My Command - Tony Veale ***

This book had so much potential as a popular science title, but the way it is written limits its audience. Instead of being the fascinating narrative it could have been, it comes across as a textbook lite with a few popular science moments - so it is unlikely to really appeal to either audience. It was certainly hard going for a topic that should have been such fun.

What Tony Veale tries to do is understand and analyse the nature of jokes (the subtitle says sense of humour (well, humor), but the focus is primarily on jokes, which isn't quite the same thing) by looking at how computer software can be made to produce humorous text. There are some insights here, but the trouble is that it is necessary to wade through far too much description of what was necessary technically, which will only be of interest to computer scientists, and even when Veale is discussing what makes something funny, he relies on very stuffy-sounding theory which doesn't really chime with the general reader.

As an example of a limitation, although the subject is supposed to be a sense of humour, there is very little discussion of how this varies between people. For example, I hate The Office-style embarrassment humour, or humour that is dependent on someone getting physically hurt - but I know that some people love this. It would be interesting to know why. Equally, many of the examples in the book that are supposed to be funny really didn't chime with my sense of humour.

The whole exercise is not devoid of interest. I found the way that twitterbots could use material from Twitter to generate potentially funny tweets interesting, for example. But I think it would have been far better either to write a good popular science assessment of the possibilities (for which, I suspect, Veale would have needed a co-author) or to go full textbook on us. The hybrid approach simply didn't work.

Hardback:

Bookshop.org

Kindle:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

Mathematics with Love – Mary Stopes-Roe *****

Admittedly it’s early days (this review is written in January), but this, for me, is the surprise hit of the year so far! I approached this book with trepidation, but found it absolutely delightful. It is described on the cover as the “courtship correspondence of Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb”, and contains a series of letters between Wallis and his cousin and eventual wife Molly Bloxham, along with some useful annotation by their daughter, Mary. The courtship itself is not without difficulties, as Wallis was 18 years older than the 17-year-old Molly at the start of the correspondence, and her father, not surprisingly, wasn’t too pleased about the interest of such an elderly suitor, but that isn’t the only reason the letters are interesting – it’s also because of maths, and Wallis’s position in the UK as the engineering hero of the Second World War. (Incidentally, it seemed very strange to see letters addressed to “Barnes” – I had always assumed Barnes Wallis was a ...

Data Empire - Roopika Risam ****

The central thesis presented by Roopika Risam is that information gives us (and particularly countries) the power to organise, control and dominate others. Although I have a couple of issues with the presentation, this is a genuinely interesting trip through the history of our use of stored information from the earliest tallies to the latest information technology. I loved a quote from Lisa Gitelman that data is is always 'cooked' so 'raw data is an oxymoron'. This neatly underlines Risam's thesis that data and information are not neutral facts, but rather tools that (like everything from fire to electronics) can be used for good or evil. As we are taken through the historical context, it can sometimes be a little difficult to judge whether Risam regards a particular example as bad or good, even when the outcome is disastrous. One thing I didn't like too much is the adherence to a popular science writing approach that has got distinctly hackneyed: opening chapte...

Andrew Jaffe - Five way interview

Andrew Jaffe is professor of astrophysics and cosmology at Imperial College, London and director of the Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology. His new book is The Random Universe. Why science? I’ve always been interested in science, in particular in astronomy, astrophysics, and space. One of my earliest memories - back in nursery school in New Jersey, I think - was watching one of the moon launches. I wanted that excitement to be part of my life! I never got to be an astronaut, but I did get to be part of the Planck Satellite team, and was privileged to be able to travel to the ESA Spaceport in French Guiana to watch the launch. In between, I was lucky enough to have a supportive family, get a good education, and find inspiring teachers, mentors, and collaborators. They helped me model the universe, and helped me learn how to refine those models in the face of experimental and observational evidence. That is, they taught me to be a scientist. Why this book? The Random...

Search This Blog