These are books I've read and some brief commentary.
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I saw this recommended three times from very different places right after reading the Odyssey. Has to be a sign. Otherwise this book is very out of my normal realm. This is a fan fiction Greek mythology book through the eyes of The Nymph. It wants to be literary but the best I can say is that it is pleasant prose. It goes deeper into all the greek stories and characters. And from there, it's good and I think other stories on this line might do well to treat this as cannon.
Jordan comes confidently with a system for teaching persuasion. Everybody buys for the same checklist of reasons, so use tools to address each reason and sharpen your tools because you will use them over and over. The context for this persuasion is sales, and the medium is a conversation with a prospect. Once you ahve a good prospect, you make the most of your first five seconds with them with speaking words and also careful intonation. This intonation continues speaking for you after your mouth is shut. So be sure they are aligned in immediately building the personal trust, one of the checklist items. From there, get into your presentation, refocus any time it gets off track, and ask to close. // Storytelling is one of the great human feats, maybe the highest level of building relationships between people and culture between generations. So let's look at the most successful salespeople, who live in the first connections of storytelling, and who are easy to see who's best, for inspiration.
This is a guidebook about greek ethics. All of the ethics are focused around the Ithicans, with explanations of the expected behavior. Loyalty is expected of human to god, wife to husband, slave to master, and each failure of loyalty results in death. But there is no expectation of truthful speech. Members of a community may be untruthful without consequence and strangers (including persons in disguise) are never relied on as truthful. Relationships between communities are either neutral with an exchange of revered travelers or hostile resulting in complete conquest. This contrasts with kingdoms, nation-states and other social structures of later times.
This is a tweet-thread telling you that good experiences in your life can be dragged out by breaking them up, interrupting them, and leaving and reentering the scene, this prevents you from habituating. Likewise, bad experiences can be mad tolerable by habituating to them—hold you nose and do it all at once. Somehow this got stretched out into an entire book.
Here's the question: in the history of humanity, coming from the apes, why was it that the Europeans came to dominate and not the Africans, the Australians or the Americans? This book is an answer to this question from looking at the unique geography of these regions and the native plants & animals. Europe was uniquely blessed because of its vast east-west strides, useful mammals and farmable plants. This book looks through specific conquests in history and language & technology developments to find that these were the important factors. There are only so many useful animals on earth for eating and for work. In the beginning they were unevenly distributed, of course nowadays humans bring them wherever they want. Plants are much more productive to farm than chasing animals—allowing for dense societies with armies and organization. But plants only live in specific climates, they die if you take them even a little bit, relatively, north or south. These are the root causes we're given, to review against all the natural experiments from history. Asia is given as a special example (which also has vast east-west mobility, and useful animals and plants). He cites Asia's short coasts, compared to land mass, as supporting a unified government. And this unified government—for most of human history—as an impediment to natural selection of ideas. Maybe peace and unity in Europe today, if it persists over 1,000 years, will cause the same problem. So far we discussed the main part of the book. The second part, only brought up at the end, is that the study of history should be considered a science. He laments that chemistry and biology are sciences because you can do lab experiments, and astronomy is a science because... actually there's no reason for that. He argues that history can be scientific at least as much as astronomy because it builds hypotheses, tests them with evidence, and strives to make a better model of the world.
This book follows Muhammad Amici, a man who made money in the burgeoning telecom industry of post-USSR states, and seemingly uses connections between Russia's government insiders and British party members to profit by passing influence. These facts and representations are covered, but the voice of the author is telling how libel lawsuits can be expensive in England, which can have a chilling effect on journalism specifically because journalists as a whole don't have money but their subjects do. The author says this attacks a pinnacle of democracy because positions require debate to arrive at the truth. All of that so far is the basic story and its characters. Next, here is the dance between the author and the subject where the journalist plays the role of the dispassionate fact finder during their interview. And the subject plays the role of the selfless philanthropist. Both are deluding. Where the author brings up allegations of specific unregistered foreign lobbying, asset laundering and, don't forget, who controls the narrative of the book, the subject plays on major defensive points. "I'm making the world better so judge me on that rather than what laws say." And the much more basic argument "Only prosecutors actually know the laws and how to apply them. I'm not a prosecutor. Therefore I [or anybody] cannot be responsible or liable for following the law." As to asset laundering, his argument is way more constructive. Basically "the west has created and accepts anonymous corporations and trusts, the ingredient for laundry, and therefore capitalist society wants asset laundry." On the offensive he comes back arguing "you have it out for me and you're not a dispassionate journalist." To that, the author refuses to be interviewed. If the purpose of the journalism was to investigate breaking of laws, perhaps maybe just one page or one day's effort could have been devoted to reviewing the merit of those laws, the morals arguments of providing telecom access in these states versus the ills of influence peddling. The journalist did not demonstrate that he took the time to do this. And then also, if the laws are worth being prosecuted, then as a journalist he should have spilled some ink looking into if western society and capitalism actually does explicitly tolerate evilness when allowing for anonymous trusts. Stated the other way, kill anonymous trusts and corporations to improve the western vision of democracy. By failing to look at these topics, the book does bring an adversarial tinge which cannot be said to be fully journalistic. In other words, yes he was out to get him. In all, the real story in the book is timely. In this generation journalism is changing, communication is changing and we will have another major societal revolution on earth soon if it has not already begun. Because of technology. And discussions like Cokooland, whether adversarial or not, must be a sourcebook to prepare how we as a society better understand the human nature and make rules for journalism which I hope still has a strong role in our future.
This author previously published several books looking at political structures across the 20th century, mostly around the world wars. This is his take on Jack Welsh's "Winning: The Answers" sequel to "Winning". All of this is in the context of a therapy session where Tim is personally trying to recover from what he experienced during the 2016 presidential election. This book was published 39 days after the inauguration. And then somehow, without changing the ISBN of the book, in 2020 he added more text about 2020. A major theme of this book is to draw parallels between a recent US president and Hitler.
Vivid and didactic, practical and theoretical. This Marine Corps dissertation starts with a 30-page illustration of the ideas properly implemented AND IMPROPERLY implemented. With this intrigue it goes through to explain the concepts and application. And then, if you're reading the book properly, you go back and read the beginning a second time. This view of generating tempo against an enemy (defined as an opposing will) directly applies to private competitive enterprises as much as making war. This book instructs to use orders which are minimal to accomplish the mission while relying on illustration of the overall goals, shared exformation and a exploratory approach to planning. Likewise I appreciate how this book itself was drafted many times to present this in such a clear, motivational and not so prescriptive way.
This is a picture + commentary book. On the cover you see Lady Liberty drowning in the sea with one hand on the torch and the other hand on a chart showing the down-and-right red line. In Mark Twain's classification of lies, this meets the third order. Rather than providing any meaningful narrative of America's decline, as shown figuratively on the cover, this is rather an expose of statistical biases and failure to identify a control group. Choosing three pages at random to illustrate: "money supply" M2 is shown with no discussion of M2 versus other measures or John William' M3 measure), "marriage rates" with no discussion of aging population, "research affiliations of Nobel laureates" I guess this one is fine. Overall these are mostly not compared to other countries or contrasted against global economic trends. This is a rare book that I din't bother to finish.
Maybe the correct title is: my SEAL training, and nuggets I remember and hold dear. And starting with the top of the day--how making your bed and taking pride in it can be your first achievement and give you something satisfying to come back to after any kind of day. He told us this, but didn't show us. The stories inside are hero tales and full of virtue. But I'm not a hero and full of virtue all the time so I didn't connect. If we had heard of some specific day this author was down all day and this made bed made a differece it could help close the gap. Other stories/prescriptions were similar. So if you open this book more interested in hearing a few portraits of military training from someone who followed through, then this will be a good read.
I didn't watch any movies/plays with Newman and don't know who he is. But read this as a biography of a man that a lot of people know. The main stretch is a collection of stories from people around Paul and turning these snippets into a narrative of how he started in show business, worked professionally and left for machismo somehow landing on salad dressing and charity. This part delivered, I guess, if you cared about his work and wanted to hear the 360 perspectives. And from that I can get an appreciation of acting and his issues with mom. But looking back from the end of the book, there is maybe a whole part missing on his own perspectives, his own contradictions and his own solo personal life. For example, drinking is discussed is detail, including estimates of total lifetime consumption of Budweiser (200,000 cans), neurons killed per night, (unwittingly) stories of drunk driving accidents and many accounts of drinking socially along with a few third-hand accounts of bottles that were leaky. However, smoking a joint (assumingly a solo affair) is mentioned exactly once in the first paragraph and never again. Physique and appearance are a major theme of the book and referenced constantly. But there is only one mention of fanatically spending a lot of time in the gym. If the gym was so important in this person's life, it is underrepresented in the book. For a book from and about a person, I was hoping to find more journaling and grind than revelations and exploits.
An active framework for listening. And how to use sticks in the ground and continuous deflection to make others negotiate without you. I'd like to have seen counter-strategies presented in the book as well--getting to the Nash equilibrium. People were harmed in the making of this book.
This is a collection of three series of essays on sustainability: in ethics, commerce, and governance, using a broad 20th-century view of socialism and capitalism. The first reviews moral absolutism versus relativism, quickly stepping up to the color of ethics in society... which is the starting point for the other essays. But I don't think it is concrete or useful enough to really understand the human condition. Maybe the best book on ethics would start with a study of ducks, and then humbly proceed to humans while realizing that any recommendations or generalizations might be less valid than on the ducks. The next essay is the ethics of production and a market economy. And the book warm up quickly while showing that production/markets is forever linked with ethics... because consumption of food and housing is a life-or-death matter. The final essay denounces "politics"—a Hellenic term that once meant the management of the polis, or municipality, in face-to-face assemblies and publicly controlled councils—is so far removed from our present experience that the word..." and makes the contrast. It is a wholly different approach but gets to the same conclusions as Taleb's Antifragile on the correct size of governments and how momentum drives governance/administration.
Human consciousness has surprisingly little capacity and energy to shape our lives. As a life hack, the brain takes inspiration from life experiences and very purposeful thinking and encodes them as heuristics--burning them into the brain as neural pathways. One kind, an important kind, of heuristic is a habit, which is an inspiration and trigger for action. And so 99% of your life is just execution of these heuristics and habits against whatever environment you are in. This book is a review of this programming--dopamine, triggers, (briefly) energy levels and available energy--and then advice for intentionally setting your own habits. The whole time the book is talking about cue, craving, response and reward... how to strengthen or diminish each part to burn the habit into your brain. But I couldn't help instead reading this as "I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it."
Complete clickbait title. This book was sold as "principles" for dealing with change, and the cover touts the author as "Founder of the World's Largest Hedge Fund" and a "legendary investor", so you should expect that the principles might be somehow related to investing direction you could take. Instead, this book offers only one "principle" (singular, not plural), and that principle is specifically that you should visit his website, I guess to become his client. This book makes very clear that the author has 50 years investing experience (we get it, you're old!) and was honored by meeting world leaders... but fails to provide any actionable advice for dealing with anything. When the book got close to talking about advice, very basic advice like "I saved enough money so I can flee if there is war", then we see his signature which means the book is over and the rest of the pages are notes. Otherwise, if the book was titled as "Short Term and Long Term Cycles" then the book lives up to that. Things in this book are very subjective and presented with authority, lacking error bars. And there was no hypothesis, they are just ideas that were backtested into whatever data was found. With this methodology, any explorer would find conclusive results even if no underlying causes exist. For example, a very specific (overfit) economic model was presented based mostly on major wars in the 20th century. Then as evidence(?) to support the narrative, each of those wars are reviewed, at each phase like "such a move is classic behavior". When you have a system of N variables and N equations, each N is classic! Overall, I can see some effort went into this book. But the presentation would do it much more justice if the "insightful" part was contained to chapter 1 and the evidence was organized by topic showing the actual basis and allowing the reader to determine for themself if, for example, the supposed quantification of change in education levels between 1620 and 1650 in the Netherlands really impacted its military composition in 1680.
A very multidimensional look at Edison, well-known as the most prolific patenter and inventor. While working through (backwards!) his life in tinkering with telegraphs, light bulbs, generators, electric distribution, recorded audio, batteries, minerals and rubber, the real story is in these other dimensions. Really this is a look at is his personality and perseverance/stubbornness. Just a little attention to business affairs would have given him the further resources and autonomy he was always seeking. As for the inventions themselves, due attention was given to comparing Edison's publications to prior art and how he managed correspondence with other inventors. The family was one-dimensional, but maybe that was fair from Edison's perspective. As for personal connections, we see just a few. But overall, the confluence is where the story comes together. When you are reviewing a book, it is important to read at least once backwards, this helps you see another level of detail that you don't get reading forwards. Maybe that's why this book is topically arranged reverse chronologically.
First Principles is a review of Greek and Roman influences on the founders and the constitution of the United States. At first, the influences were direct as the architects had all studied (or passed off as having studied) the Greek/Roman texts. But as the American experiment went forward and unschooled men were elected as representatives, these influences continued through the cultures that were originally set up.
Munroe does not disappoint, so basically I am autosubscribed to read anything he publishes. This book is not much different than What if? 1. Of course it's entirely different but not much different. The premise is still tha same—keep dreaming and if you need to imagine how real life could be like that well then science usually has some helpful comparisons to tell you about. Actually maybe that is saying more about science: science is just taking dreams too seriously.
This is another first encounter book from Card that ends with, I suppose, the opposite ending of Ender's Game. To bring Ender into this story a few thousand years after the buggers, he has become a minister(?) And it leaves one more other worldly encounter left--what happens when the two species he brought together are able to exert their own influences on the worlds.
I suppose the main point here is that your development of values needs to be done in your contemplative, conscience self. The active, propulsive is incapable of making these developments. The first half of the book builds up this idea and calls it stillness. Then at some point, the book just takes every virtue you could want, waves its hands and something something stillness.
This is an introduction and demonstration of some ideas for equity in education and asynchronous learning. I like how it talks through learning generally, which is applicable to and away from classroom learning. Teachers are "facilitators of opportunities". There is limited instructional time. As to the format, it is unsupposing, horizontally laid, many things are kept to one page, there is some economy with the word count. Not bad.
I'm happy I can summarize this book in a quick sentence, "Present context with your information <-- right there.". Overall, it's an expose of typography, sentenceography and communication... challenging writers to break margins and ruthlessly pair supporting context directly next to the information.
All of the fun and exciting application of scientific inquiry across ridiculous topics like "What if". But missing the practical direction of audience questions, and failing to connect good thoughts into topics. I would not have been surprised to find in this book "... so that's why you should never remove your fingernails. Fingernails sounds like snails, which brings us to our next topic...". Lastly, there's an error in the first math equation in the book.
This is a comprehensive user guide for customers dealing in financial options on indexes, debt, credit default, foreign currency and flexibly structured products. This is a rare gem of literature where the authors give you a clear, disinterested, complete and utilitarian view on the topic. If you were considering investing in, speculating on, or hedging with options, you can really feel that the authors want you to be prepared for what might happen. Risks are broken down and separated for each kind of product, including examples. This is the gold standard, and is great to read as compared to other quasi-finance, unregulated blockchain projects that are opaque, incomplete, and deceptive about their disclosures on top of fact that the risks are much more numerous.
First, let's please give props here. The author of A Clockwork Orange wrote a review and spirited resynthesis of Nineteen Eighty-Four. This is a how the literary world should work! Obviously I picked this up because it is the same title and the same topic as a book I also published. It is great to see Burgess's reflection on alternate view of how Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four scenario could have played out. Burgess imagines the collective oligarchy manifested through worker's unions rather than government party tyranny. To be honest, this is a very feasible prediction and this is closer to what has played out across Europe. From his 1970s perspective, this was a very reasonable analysis. In addition to the retold story including a new cast of unions as the tyrants, 1985 includes a vast question and answer section studying the future, human nature around war & cultural transmission, and linguistics.
This thesis is a prescriptive way to run group meetings. Find identifiable things your team can address now (look out the front window) rather than driving focused on results (rear window). Other than that there is basic advice on meetings (how to ask for commitments, how to rally a team). Overall these are good points that somebody who runs meetings needs to know. But I do just hate the format of this and other "business" books. It's too long. And it is missing a four page tear-out section in the front that I can hand to team members. Instead it comes with the standard bland advice: buy this book for everybody on your team, use our monthly-billed software to help you bla bla bla, call us for consulting. When I write my own business book someday I want you to hold me accountable to these criticisms too!
I imagine the story of 'you should design things that everyone can use' could only be told, on a general level, so many ways. Surely motivation is not your reason for picking up this book. So I think some of these contributions might help you better articulate what you're doing or focus your efforts. One is the definition of disability. It is not a personal health condition. It is a mismatched human interaction. Another one was comparing disability in terms of permanent (blind) temporary (ey injured) and indirect (distracted driver). This really brings people that are way out on the bell curve into the spotlight--why help a few blind people when you can help everybody that can't see! There's a lot of okay parts to this book that I just wont mention--I'm sure any book on the topic is going to touch various products and their design history. Something I think would have been much more cool is to include a source book of 'how do people work around poor designs'. Interview one-armed people and tell me how they put on clothes. Ask deaf people what they think they do differently than other people. Watch and document how people use phone while driving. How do people with very dark skin work around all the technology videos we have seen that don't work for them?
I can relate–working on geographically-dispersed teams is different and it has been my primary mode for decades before The Coronavirus. Overall the book tells the stories of how camaraderie through drinking leads to relationship building in teams. But more practical advice for always-dispersed teams working on product development is really good: pick a problem, write the public launch announcement and support page, decide how to measure success of the launch, then build/launch, then measure. Berkun gives a lot of notes on how to make that work smoothly.
Here's what great about this novel: it stays focused. The story is a gossip and he said-she said powerhouse. And no words are wasted to tell you about the trees they are walking by or how the food tastes or what anything smells like. There's no foreshadowing (that I saw). When people are walking down the street, the only thing Jane tells you is who is together and who turned away from the group and what they said. If there is a letter that has one character's testimony or analysis of another character you here about it, and then the rest of the letter is just "etcetera". Austin makes a great contrast between what she shows you and what she tells you. When Elizabeth speaks on topic, Austin quotes 'Let me first see how he behaves'; but for something off-topic you are merely told "Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow". This show/tell contrast is the great tool that implements the focus of the whole book.
This light bathroom reader makes me long for a time when publishing cost money, shelf space was limited and the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today may have actually had books on their list worth reading. An accurate translation of this book's contents would be 'Be an entrepreneur, Yay!'. A 'summary' would imply that I was leaving some details out or was distilling key facts. Such a word is not appropriate. 'Translation' means I have taken the whole book and expressed all their meaning in different words, that's what I have done. Just a slight bit of humble-brag, but this book does not manage to actually do anything—no ideas, no original thoughts, no summary of thoughts, nothing.
More tales from the Big Windy underworld, this follows cons introduced earlier in the series and shows the setup and take down for one big con. There's plenty of planning and some improvisation. But with a score this big it will end with the payout or death, read to see which it is! Iceberg doing the ghostwriting for White Folks is definitely more removed and drawn out versus the stories he tells from his own life. But still it was captivating to follow the con along the rehearsals, and characters that come into it.
Climate and carbon come back into the public focus this year with a vengeance. This book gives a bold goal—zero carbon by 2050—and a common vocabulary we can discuss. Overall Gates makes a great review of where we are and possible technologies that could help in this goal. Of course political will is an important part here and he also does a good job of showing how cooperation could be possible, this is factored into his 30-year horizon. The book could really be improved with a scorecard... here is what 2021 looks like, we need zero new gas/coal electric plants next year, this many countries have cap & trade, etc. Otherwise I'm sure a lot of people reading this will think he left something out. For me, I think nuclear electricity is a straightforward zero-carbon solution that we understand and it could have been put forth as a baseline to compare new technologies against. And lastly, the book could do without a few things--Biden? it's counterproductive to bring a US political party head into this; Mexican immigrants? a few million immigrants decades from now is not relevant; gas mileage of hybrid cars? basically nobody drives hybrids, just compare today's median MPG to the Ford Model T (they're the same).
This book is officially "self help" as labeled on the back. But prose comes through starting as a story, then topically going through specific techniques for honing a craft for optimal competitive performance, and then ends as a demonstration told as a story. He says many times that this is meant to apply to business presentations as much as martial arts training, but it can be difficult to make the connection on how honing one's craft so tightly is necessary for something other than combat. You might think that your job relies on so much creativity, but anything Josh is doing is repetitive and refined. But when you step into a ring the other guy can literally throw anything at you, so here also creativity and preparation are required. I can see the connection a little. There are specific problems you face each day in business and life--delegating tasks, leadership, knowing when to end your work day--and you need to be an expert. If you think of these as championship battles, then your mindset is drawn for the learning this book can help you with.
The first book, Ender's Game was enticing, had a twist, had three dimensional characters and the movie was good. This is the companion to that book. True to its promises, this is a whole new story told from a new perspective encompassing the same characters and timeline as the original. Good stuff. So you are not reading the same thing again. Otherwise, this book is pretty flat. Because the main character is clairvoyant, the book is like a series of short stories with spoiler prologues throughout. I'm invested in the first story so I may continue here even though Bean and other characters were very one-dimensional.
I did it all in the wrong order. Opening this book threw me right back into the beginning of The Matrix and Shadowrun. You always have to put older books into context, put everything out of your mind from the past thirty years and read in the shoes of somebody from 1984. That's the language you're reading. To see what an impression it had on that popular movie and that that successful franchise really shows Gibson's influence. In terms of writing, Necromancer smacked me in the face with the first sentence, and then again a few more times. It's the first time I used a highlighter with a fiction book.Maybe the main theme is science-fiction: cybernetics, artificial intelligence. But really the whole point of fiction is usually just distracting from our current situation to better understand the human condition. On that point, it explores a diverse group of mercenaries recruited to a well-funded, unclear-origin mission attacking a high-profile target, eventually revealed to have a close relationship with the mission originator.
Gates opens up by lamenting how US presidents are quick to rely the military as their primary instrument of power when they want to exert influence outside their country. Then examples are developed on a country-by-country/region basis, across post-cold-war presidents on how they have balanced military and non-military instruments of power. He is authoritative on the topic and this surely brings a great study of the past for future executive leaders. Each example lays out how the conflict played out and how we might rebalance to have non-military initiatives play a primary role in reaching out objectives. In other words, it is "defund the police" on an international level. After circling around the rest of the globe, he lands on China where he simply details their strengths and shows how those will prove to be an enduring advantage over the organization of the US government. This was a big change in the tone of the book because the former examples show countries that we walked into and had a commanding success as per our objectives, or could have if policy was better decided. But for the latter, it shows that we zero advantages or leverage in securing our interests.
I'm not sure how this book gamed the Wall Street Journal's best seller list, but as a reader, your best bet is now to ignore that list entirely. The good parts of this book are the UV gloss overlay on the dust cover, extra bright white paper and use of two colors in text. Now to the bad parts -- the words in the book, the lack of a references or notes section (we've researched "[thousands] of scholarly articles..." see it on our website), and then their website which of course is yet another subscription service.
This is the source reference for most productivity software and websites. When Google is making your email client or someone is making your project management software for your phone... those people read this book and are trying to bring that philosophy to you. The main discipline in this book is: when you are in triage mode, everything less than 2 minutes of work gets done now and everything else goes into a system, and each thing only touches your triage mode once. In this millennium, we have from to a stream of email (that's old) to a deluge of text messages and Slack messages, and most people I know now don't even notice or care what is in their email. So one important modern discipline is missing from this book: keep good relationships with your contacts and set standards with them about what channels they should reach you at regarding actionable items.
Published almost 30 years after the 'author's death, this book is clearly in a different voice than other books from Slim. This is clearly the worst book in the series.
Maybe diplomacy was more straightforward when your allies and neighbors were physically close by and you could only maintain as many relations with states as you could send horses to get to. This book is the guide for stately diplomacy - choosing alliances and committing to your allies -- as well as all domestic affairs. It is short enough that it could be applied generally, outside of just affairs of a government.
This book is the great practical explanation for Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
Skip straight to the timeline at the end, that is the interesting take on technology and humans working together.
These essays from Einstein are all rooted in common sense and contain basically no math. Everyone taking undergrad physics should read this brief book.
This book was published by Pioneer as a guide or manual for setting up and understanding televisions and other electronics in your family room. I probably picked this up from Radio Shack or Silo. It goes through basic details for equipment in your house and how it works, like the difference between AM and FM radio, how a radio tunes into a frequency, and what the difference is between wiring your speakers in parallel versus series. The best part is that you can take apart the TVs and turntables in your house and see that they basically look as described in the book.
For sure this is required reading for any ethics class.
This book extends the concept of Darwin's natural selection from individual species and organisms to ideas.
This is a sourcebook for different approaches to link building. For beginners or experts, it might give you some ideas starting or updating your next campaign, but it is far from a full education on the topic. For the next edition I would like to see better organization (here it is organized by who wrote each word if at all) and more of a guide. Some content is severely dated like mentioning Better Business Bureau -- they have been 10 year irrelevant even 10 years ago, also many links are broken from in the book and on the associated pages. I would be much more interested in reading more actual email campaigns that worked and ones that didn't. Also, I'd like to see metrics -- how can I tell what a good campaign looks like in terms of resources spend and outcomes achieved. Show examples, don't be theoretical. I am planning to create such a guide for internal training based on our team's results.
The first hundred pages pushed through personal stories of people from long before I was born, doing things that do not affect how I live, work and play. After that, things got much better and several case studies are worked through to illustrate how humans bring their own experiences to help how to learn products they interact with, products you are designing. Then great examples come in and towards the end, several nuggets of tools are introduced to help designers close the loop with users to understand them better and make improvements.
There are quite a few ways to read this book: a military history adventure, a wilderness survival guide, subversion tactics against a well-funded enemy, a reminder on the importance of protocols in dealing over a weak communications channel. But, the most basic story is the honor and perseverance of a man which propels him to execute the entire World War II Axis resistance for decades with his own two hands.
This seems to be the final book from Slim. These are the extra people and stories from his life. But also as an OG, he reaches out to interview Black community leaders and give a 1970s perspective of race relations in America. Maybe this has been covered by other historians but coming from Slim, he is probably the most credible source. Compared to his past stories that talk about race wars as specific people doing specific bad things, in this book the volume increased to "everybody is thinking it whether or not they have acted out yet." This is a sad and more cynical view of the world.
This book has a lot of self-promotion for the author's own business. In Philadelphia, we have special name for somebody that does this. Read past all that. The main thesis in this book is: Your body is hard-wired for incredible feats of strength and triggered when your livelihood is at risk, likewise your mind is hard-wired for incredible feats of intuition and triggered when your livelihood is at risk. We call this intuition "fear" and it can be opaque -- the thing you seem to fear might not actually be the thing you are avoiding. Great examples abound of how to introspect this fear and refine it. The context of the book is how to avoid being a victim of violence.
This is Snowden's own account of his life and his whistleblowing. There is much to say on whether he did the right thing and I have a whole blogging website about privacy, but that's a discussion, here this is just a book review. Snowden explains how and why the U.S. government hacks/infiltrates/coerces U.S. technology providers to provide full access to all details/papers/effects of every American's life and keeps it permanently (among other things). ETHICS. Whenever a person takes big and new action which is guided by their morals, we like to read about the origin and development of these morals, it tests us. This book mostly delivers — Snowden the character is developed and we can see how love of the U.S. constitution and a sense of duty to the people, mixed with opportunity, delivered his outcome. Soldiers risk life and limb to protect the American people, so while reading this book you need to ask would they or you do like Snowden did if you had the chance? The book explains most of the ethics and background for you to relate and answer this question. One part that is missing — and I know this sounds stupid — is the explanation of why he bothered to pick up and read the constitution in the first place. Not everybody is civic-minded, and not everybody understands change, idealism and opposition to authority. True patriotism is more than identifying your team and wearing the team colors, it requires knowing and loving your country so well that you would recognize it at another place and time. These explanations are missing and so the full ethical story might be inaccessible to some people. TECHNOLOGY. The book explains enough for anybody to understand what happened and the systems and parts that worked together to do it. STYLE. The prose is mostly open and matter-of-fact. Even at times a fact is included or a tangent is presented at the expense of an important point being made. These informalities make the text relatable. At other times, the text reads slightly guarded. Words are carefully chosen "I could have," or "I would have" versus "I did." Don't break the law when you're breaking the law. Confessing to any other crimes may have detracted from the main message, but the guardedness is visible. CALLS TO ACTION. Reading a book is an investment and if it doesn't change your life it's a loss. Maybe the actions we can take reading this book are to relate to geeky technology people, or approve Snowden's actions, or refine our own ethics, or reform governments everywhere, or contribute to the next generation of tools he is developing for privacy. Maybe the most alarming statement he made is that he could access the personal emails and more of the justices of the U.S. supreme court without a warrant. That is a very specific claim aimed at a very specific, and small group of people. You need a bigger scandal to make the public react. As Snowden himself says, it is not enough to lay out the facts; you must stick around to help your audience with interpreting them. Also he could have been more specific about asking for others to support his cause. While calling out Bush and Obama, with repeats, for supporting unconstitutional surveillance and other crimes, he fails to make a specific case for 45 to take action. And he also fails to make the case for a specific whistleblower, someone that has a specific access he does not. Somebody has access to the search logs and knows whether an agent did in fact access supreme court justice private information, or tap attorney-client privileged communications for a defendant against a federal prosecution, or whether a specific group of people, say blacks, or civil rights proponents, were targeted for parallel construction of minor drug offenses. Snowden could have explained his ethics up-front on whether the person who does have access to that information should make it public.
Good book, clear prescriptions for behaviors managers can implement for managing people. This includes using different kinds of power to steer the behavior you are seeking, and helping the team grow. In school, you learn business administration and management science, but this is the missing book. Just spent $4k on conference tickets as part of this series, if that is a testament to the value of this book. The book could be improved by including a one-page tl;dr at top and reducing to 100 pages. I'm not sure why everybody thinks they need to publish 200 pages for something to count as a book.
This was a present from Mandy, thanks Mandy. There's only so many stories in the history of Berkshire and Buffett so anybody following the topic is sure to sit through some reruns. This book adds to the conversation by introducing some original reporting -- notes from the managers of the Berkshire businesses -- and organizing what is known about Berkshire history into specific character values of the leader. This, The Seven Habits and How to Win Friends are as much help as anyone can get to developing their soft skills. Going forward, aside from the annual reports, probably the only other thing worth studying would be manager direct reports to Berkshire, manager salary negotiation letters and the acquisition offer letters and other interim communications. Values can be studied but behaviors can be emulated.
This is the account of Otis Tilson, edited by Iceberg Slim, and then for some reason re-released by his estate 50 years later. The main theme is the effects of indentured servitude, sexual abuse and parenting on a child that never grows up. This is very peripheral to Slim's life and is surely successful mostly because of his name on the cover. This is barely the Chicago underworld from Slim's other books.
This book is so valuable I almost want to keep it as a secret for my competitive edge. This has full examples, prescriptions and explanations on what men should to do to be prosperous in business. And it proves that any business book, unless it is including raw data, need not spam more than 100 pages.
The book was fun and explored some of the way you should be using JavaScript rather than how JavaScript works. A key topic of the book is to lament certain JavaScript features which then culminates in the definition of a new educational language which transpiles into a subset of JavaScript. I would have been more interested in a call-to-arms which invited participation and hoped to actually produce solve the identified problems. The book recommends reading other people's code as a way to learn -- good advice. In general, the author eschews NPM, running other people's code without reading it, and fully documenting code; but surely he does not audit the JavaScript runtime, the operating system, or the processor running underneath. I purchased and read this book as a means to an ends and can post more about that later.
I need to post more direct-to-PDF publications on this list because some are just as good as books. And also the authors should start registering ISBN numbers for their publications because they are worthy. This book is a shared vocabulary for product-driven project management. If you can adopt this very portable naming scheme for your project stakeholders then it gives you, again very general, a way to manage the commitments and progress reports within and between teams. Then add a few specific rules -- like don't allow anybody to unilaterally make commitments on the team until the next progress report iteration, and workers must regularly forecast if their committed work will be complete by progress report day instead of waiting until that day. Now you have a very usable team dynamic, which is roughly implemented in all modern product development teams. By using the same framework, even across product types, we can now easily describe these processes and learn together.
First, this book is the 2011 Robert Beck Estate version. I saw some complaints that these are posthumous edits. I don't know how this compares to the original Trick Baby: The Biography of a Con Man (1967, Holloway House). This book comes in a slightly different style, and it is from a different voice, the voice of White Folks. But it uses Slim's literary devices (foreshadowing, word choice, detail level). The story is good and, dare I say, informative. I have seen some scams in life and it is interesting to see the other side of these stories. Of course this is just a small slice and there are a lot more stories to tell. I am seeing a theme between this book and the original Slim is substance abuse. It is interesting to compare where people pick up the habit, whether by themselves or by introduction.
The colony has one queen and many workers. To survive, a colony needs to forage for food and find a suitable home among many local options then bring most of the bees there. This book cites past research and adds original research on this topic to explore how honeybees deal with these problems. Biology research in nature is the inspiration for all new drugs. Maybe sociology research in nature can inspire products and systems that require interconnectivity and collective decision-making. It seems like there is much more research to do in this field. I'd be interested to read more about attacks on the honeybees. Maybe other bee species deter honeybees from entering a potential site when there is competition. Maybe predators somehow attract honeybees. Or maybe in a place with limited nesting sites, a rival colony will infiltrate neighbors and trick them to selecting inferior sites, leaving the good ones for the spy colony.
The praise for Slim as the great "black author" or "father of a genre" comes from influential artists, notably in the hiphop world. This wasn't on my high school's required reading list (maybe it was, I didn't read books in high school), but this is clearly a classic. The storytelling is good. If the definition of storytelling is setting up expectations and then breaking those expectations then this story delivers because of how it introduces the characters and even the smaller characters have real depth which lead to conflicts. The book isn't contrived with added details to make it louder than necessary. // The story is about the fast life and some decisions that put the squeeze on Slim. Maybe pimping itself is less prevalent today since we have other ways to get the fix -- but I think human nature does not change, so it is interesting to see the unique people in this life and wonder what the same people would be doing if born in a different place and time.
This is a biography of two people and a game publishing company. They started from scratch and then created Quake, the greatest game of all time. Since nothing better could ever be achieved, the team disbanded and went in various directions. This is a good record for people that grew into computer and gaming subcultures in the 1990s. Maybe these are two of the few subcultures that turned into full cultures.
This is a much better book about leadership. I always thought that leadership is only possible from people that are doers. This story of Welchman is a deeper look than the Hut Six story and gives a chronological and organizational explanation of how British codebreaking efforts helped defeat the Nazis. There is a great explanation of Enigma that really helps explain content in the main text -- read the appendix first!
This is on par with a Jack Welsh book. As far as the content and advice, it is a little too removed and third-person. Being involved with so many situations and having a leadership role with vast expanse it is impossible to execute the position without having strong emotions and actual conflicts in some areas. Unfortunately, this book dances around sensitive topics. I would rather hear Gates' thoughts on matters of conflict than this generic top-down view. A Steve Jobs book with "that guy was an asshole", "their products are shit" candor would be much more valuable and helpful to anybody trying to learn something.
A love story, a patriotism story and the American dream. This book explains the values of one man who came to the states and started a new life -- and it chronicles the good of strangers who helped along the way. It is as much a primer on American culture as Muslim faith.
This book is a constructionist view of the beginnings of America. It starts with the motivation for starting a new country, the Declaration of Independence, and then proceeds through the Constitution. Basic ELI5 commentary is given for each article and amendment. This would make a great substitute for a child's civics class -- of course no child would take an interest in reading this book. The author makes very clear that his favorite amendment was the fourteenth. Upon closer inspection, I found the 'nor shall any State deprive' part applies to 'any person', and this is corroborated in 1 U.S. Code § 8. I did not previously know that the Constitution guaranteed rights to non-citizens. My understanding of world events makes me believe less in the Constitution's standing in this regard. And finally, I find the author's understanding of the tenth amendment very limited.
This is a metaphysics book, it concerns the subjective (conscious) self and the objective universe. Any meditation and learning about the self is knowledge (pure truth, cannot be improved). But any layers and levels (mithyā) of labels we use to describe the universe is necessarily an approximation, and further, void of any actual existence. Then the reduction is explained in full force! The pure way to understand the subjective self is that it excludes your physical body, the chemicals inside you and your thoughts — the same self is in the real world and in the dream world — and therefore it transcends both. This also means that consciousness is a unitary entity — and The Consciousness in you is the same that is in other people and things that have self awareness. Reduction also applies to the objective universe! Truly exists not your sensing of the world, nor the things in the world, nor the molecules, nor atoms, nor particles — existence applies in our universe as well as any possible universe — and therefore it transcends them. This means that existence is also a unitary entity — and The Existence in these particles the same that is everywhere a time and a space are involved.
This is a fun read that leaves you with more questions than answers. In the past 100 years, the amount and color frequencies of light that humans are exposed to has changed drastically. Humans are designed to respond to light and color in certain ways, so this is surely a topic worthy of inquiry. I was 90% expecting to find a foldable spectroscope in the back of the book and was disappointed to only find a picture of how to build your own with a CD and a shoebox.
This is my first book on Hindu studies, it is the introduction for learning Vedanta. Summary of Hindu understanding of the self: humans have body, mind and consciousness; body has needs; mind is limited; humans instinctively believe all three constitute the "self"; this motivates the consciousness to preserve the body. Once you understand that actually only consciousness is the self, then all of your subjective values become objective. This is book is an objective study of the values that you already knew. In other words, it is a reconstruction of the human value system using consciousness rather than intuition.
I've read plenty of books about how to make computers pass the Turing test. This is the first to show humans how to fail it. The main prescription is that organizational leaders should leave all the thinking to their underlings. You pay people to think so you shouldn't do their job for them. Maybe it works. Overall the book is laid out like every other not-scientific book about business and psychology I've seen. There is a modern scientific explanation of something relevant to the book's main theme. Then there are piles of prescriptions that are based loosely on unattributed author experience. Then the prescriptions are summarized with mnemonics and graphics and 200 pages of repetitive text. And the examples read like the author is selling his personal consulting business. The boring format distracted me from the relatively simple message in the book.
I have read this essay over and over. Charlie explores failings of the human mind that rooted in its limited programming space. Shortcuts in thinking and built-in behaviors are convenient and useful but they cause inaccurate reasoning. The essay reviews 25 perspectives on mental misfires that lead to misjudgment.
A great lesson in writing is required for anyone that has serious life aspirations. This book fills that appetite. It demonstrates principles of good communication, spanning from grammarly topics all the way to writing ethics. Unfortunately, writing in English also requires a style guide, so the most discerning grammarian will be unable to write by only consulting this book. However, this books does assist you in organizing your thoughts and making the day-to-day decisions of how to present yourself.
This is more of a scrapbook than a complete story. Maybe people use it as a toilet reader. I took it seriously. I put this book on the desk and read random one page a day. Then I try to work it in. That's just enough to make a dent in my life. Highly recommended.
Here is the quote that sums up the whole book. "In retail, you are either operations driven -- where your main thrust is toward reducing expenses and improving efficiency -- or you are merchandise driven. The ones that are truly merchandise driven can always work to improving operations. But the ones that are operations driven tend to level off and begin to deteriorate." The story is littered with examples of brinkmanship purchasing and ridiculously successful marketing. But actually, it is very candid and open in discussing Sam's successful management approach. This approach involves ownership by individual store owners and very detailed coaching from top management. This level of involvement would require an entire level of district managers in other companies.
The 1950s in the United Status was an amazing time for political and social change, and it marked the the end of the last world war. This book collects essays written between 1920 and 1950 in an interesting format designed to make the case for socialism in the United States. Its author then went on to found The Monthly Review, the most successful socialist periodical in the United States till this day. At that time, there was a notable chance of socialism taking hold in the United States and across the world. This comprised the Red Scare and included support from academics. I think the ideas in this book are very relevant to the United States and world relations in 2016, especially with the current topics in the presidential debates and with the advent of Brexit. The way this book makes its point is very interesting. The author collects several recent published articles and adds a few of his own, then updates the wording for consistency. This is much better executed than the failure that was Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science. Overall, I was very interested to understand the 1950s perspective on what is socialism. People use this word frequently in the US presidential debates and when discussing other countries but it is nice to go back to the original values and understand what the movement originally wanted. Perhaps the most valuable result of economic discourse is to compare societies and to understand their values.
This book falls into the sad category of economics books that are written for normal people and use invented words. True to form, it fails to make any noticeable contribution to economic thought. The main thesis of the book is that market economies incentivize products for poor decision makers. You know you are reading a terrible book when the afterword is dedicated to defending that its thesis even exists or is new, "we will now describe three ways in which this book presents a perspective that is, quite possibly, novel relative to current economics." It also falls into the coulda/woulda/shoulda trap with "had we economists appropriately seen free markets as a two-edged sword, we would all but surely have delved into the ways in which financial derivatives and mortgage-backed securities, and also sovereign debt, would turn out badly." Statements like this are useless, only with time machines is hindsight profitable. Foresight is valuable, it should only be necessary for the authors to tell us how much they bet and profited from these thoughts. As an adult, it was painful to read such an obvious analysis of the result when people with different motives come together. However, I do think this book would be a great study of critical thinking for children before the age of maturity.
This is an oversized book full of illustrations and simple-language descriptions of various things. On many pages it is informative, explaining human cells, nuclear power generation and submarines. Some of the diagrams seem contrived and are perhaps only interesting to modern readers insofar as they are interested in the book's novel format -- various sports, skyscrapers and dishwashers / clothing washing machines. However, the biggest value of this book (which is alluded to several times in the text) is that it is a zeitgeist of the past few hundred years of human science achievements, all shown pictorially and with a small vocabulary of words. It is the perfect book for storing in a time capsule or sending into space.
This is a great book for learning about how a recording studio works. You are the aspiring intern that is learning the practical skills -- microphone selection, microphone placement, client engagement, basic mixing, musician communication -- that will make a recording session successful. Great strengths of this book include a vast dictionary of non-technical words that humans use to describe frequency ranges, frequency response diagrams for popular microphones and absorption coefficients for household materials. This book and YouTube video on wrapping a microphone cable are really enough to prepare you for your first day in the studio. There are even some higher level topics such as step-by-step instructions for a mixing section and answering "how do I know when my mix is done?" Many of the discussions on client interaction are directly applicable to photographers working on a portrait session.
This book is required reading for value investing and includes detailed discussion on portfolio management, human discipline and stock selection. On portfolio management, Benjamin Graham recommends a minimum of 25% allocation in the asset class (equity or bonds) opposite of where you want to invest. In discipline, he says to consider the risk "if there is a fair possibility that the holder may have to sell at a time when the price is well below cost." Since Graham's time, we now have access to myriad investment funds with negligible fees supporting nearly any investment hypothesis. It is nearly certain that in today’s environment, Graham would recommend this investment plan for almost everyone. Graham gives active ("enterprising") stock pickers a plan to improve their stock returns by 5% before tax (p 34) versus indexes, but says this requires significant analysis. Don’t expect to make business profits (above market) from securities unless you have business-level knowledge of them. Napkin math says you need 10 years of your salary saved before this is worthwhile. And that was before your competition had calculators, let alone computers, high frequency trading and relaxed insider trading prosecution. But, you are probably reading this book because you want to beat the market or think you are special. Graham’s approach to analysis and valuation is interesting and useful — and it predates modern portfolio theory and the capital asset pricing model. Graham uses several metrics I have not seen in other modern textbooks including earnings/book (surprisingly resilient over the years), an emphasis on total capitalization in company ratios and showing annual stock prices as high/low ranges. With an investment horizon of 50 years, it is very appropriate to take a look at state-of-the-art analysis from about 50 years ago! Graham’s approach to accounting for warrants is to increase the market capitalization which in turn increases the price per share for common. According to Graham, good equity selection is a matter of finding a company with a strong financial position and the prospect for maintained future earnings which is priced close to its asset value and a safe multiple of earnings. Various litmus tests are provided for a strong financial position: a prominent brand with revenue somewhere near Fortune 500; 10+ years with no earnings deficit; 2+ current ratio; minimize over the past 10 years the maximum drop in EPS vs each's prior three years; long term debt less than equity at book (industrials) or less than 2x equity at book (utilities); 20+ years of continuous dividend payments; clear policy of 66% dividend payout ratio or demonstration that retained earnings increases per-share earnings. Also, there are tests for fair equity pricing: price less than net working capital minus debt (if possible); price less than earnings multiples of stocks with expected growth; price less than 1.33 times book value of equity. For bond selection, 7-year average earnings before tax divided by (fixed charge + 2x preferred) is recommended to exceed: 4+ (public utility), 5+ (railroad, retail), 7+ industrial. Overall, this has been a great starting point for someone interested in investing and stock selection. In modern times you must also consider pension liabilities and special purpose entities because they carry off-balance-sheet claims on future earnings. The additions in the revised edition by Zweig add 60% more text to the book and very little additional insight.
This is the final part in Morris' trilogy depicting the life of Theodore Roosevelt. There are several angles from which to read this book: the story of a man, a historical timepiece, or a guidebook in high-level leadership. On the first two counts, this installment fails to live up to TR's earlier years. Spoilers abound: he travels and meets people, he doesn't get a third term, the progressive party fails to launch, we win the war after a late entry. Because of the fast onset of Roosevelt's political impotency, there is not much story you can hope for while reading. To consider the last angle, Morris' analysis and illustration always exhibit the insight and access that are necessary for high-level leadership. I'll touch on just two items here. Teddy has access to an extensive network of confidants which report to him popular sentiment and the official and unofficial working of countries across the world. He maintained this by extensive writing, and has perhaps "written more than other man in the United States" including 150,000 letters between 1898 and 1915. This access, and his insight, allowed Roosevelt to predict a war and really understand the direction of the countries in the world. Compared to nowadays, teenagers often have friends in other countries or at least people that they idolize or follow. And most today working in an office will send at least that many letters. With only insight, X, and email, anybody is able to be as informed, prepared for the world, and able to understand the tensions in the world as Roosevelt did. Lastly Roosevelt's strong personal ethics are shown strong as ever throughout the book. A patriot signs himself and his sons up for war first. Use your energy propulsively. Read extensively and connect with them to grow knowledge together.
This book is a personal account of poverty and poor decisions and written in "us vs them" style to widen the chasm between "rich" people and "poor" people. It illustrates how a bad situation can easily beget more bad situations, and how lack of a well paying job can create a self-reinforcing bad lifestyle. This review started with one star but two specific stars were added. No attempt at a political solution to America's work problem was ventured. Thank you, just thank you. Reading carefully, it is an effective and enlightening story where you (anybody) can become the coveted "rich" person by avoiding certain pitfalls. "Don't buy the toaster before you can afford bread," "never tell off your boss," "a rainy day fund is more important than anything." Reading the book this certain way makes it useful, just like reading some of Rich Dad Poor Dad.
This is (yet) another story on the psychology and metaphysics of purchasing fractional interests in companies, told by focusing on different archetypes of players in the game. "Yet another" is harsh, because this was written in 1940 and even reminisces of a time before the SEC. Ignoring all the lessons and only comparing the descriptions of who's who versus today, it is interesting to see how little has changed in the investment/speculation business over the years. All this regardless of ever more regulation, Kelly criterion, modern portfolio theory, Black–Scholes, financial engineering, and much faster access to information. Charlie Munger might say: human intuition, save its self-defeatism, will produce better decisions than even tomorrow's financial theory. The major theme of the book is "croupiers get paid, but everyone else on Wall Street is out to get themselves," coupled with "nobody just wants to be the croupier." Over and over there are tales of greed and inflated self-worth conspiring to make people purchase risky assets on credit. This same description is used for most everybody. And quite simply the only constructive advice is to avoid buying on credit.
This book is a collection of scientific articles playing out the absurd physical result of situations dreamed up by, mostly, fifth graders. A typical article includes a line like -- the pile of moles would be attracted by gravity into a sphere slightly larger than the moon with a surface gravity of one-sixteenth of Earth's, but this is where it starts to gets weird... This book immediately consumes all your available time until you have finished reading. And it rewards you with tidbits of information that would be useful in ridiculous situations as well as other information.
This second installment on Roosevelt's life focuses on his US presidency during the years 1901 to 1907. The story details the political feats of a president who succeeded in handling labor and combination domestic issues as well as successful negotiation of the Panama canal against an extorting local government. However, Morris' detailed account into Roosevelt's correspondence and relationships gives new themes and uses for the book. Diplomatic protocols, strategic personal correspondence (p. 692, to Alice), press relations, posterity letters, and personal ethics are all presented in such detail that you could use this book as a guide on each of these topics. Aside from political clout, it is interesting to look at Roosevelt as a man. His success in arbitrating the end of the Russo-Japanese War and the Coal Strike of 1902 were both attributed to his presidency; however, they were won both by the parties' testament to and reliance on Roosevelt's personal ethics. Overall it is great to learn more about this president with long-lasting impacts and a great understanding of naval strategy before America's rise from 5th largest naval fleet to first, especially in this year which will end the 100-year streak of America leading as the world's largest GDP (by PPP).
Robert Gates is a capable writer, able to easily take the storyline of his time as Secretary of Defense and separate it into themes each with their own timelines while maintaining a flow that helps illustrate the complexities of the role. Gates gives an interesting and close look into largest employer in the world by sharing senior tactical decisions used to support the mission. The many interactions discussed let you see how responsibility, accountability and military authorization are shared between bureaucrats and legislators and generals and lower officers. There is also a great amount of information and opinions about some our foreign relations with some friends (Russia?, Saudi Arabia, Israel?) and enemies (Pakistan). A close attention to timing and geography in the book, which includes many such details, versus the names and military ranks mentioned may even provide an unintentional disclosure of military capabilities of the US and other countries. Gates seems to take a reformer's attitude, while understanding that the legislature is required to make real change. While bemoaning lawmakers who vote on defense only to bring spending to their states, "Congress is best viewed from a distance". He carried out a "'zero-based' review of all Defense intelligence missions, organizations, relationships, and contracts" where each program should fight based on its own merits not because it already exists. However, he fails to present a zero-based strategy of US military involvement and instead defers to vague notions such as "we cannot afford to lose" or consequences will be huge like last time. His leadership of the CIA and experience with the Cold War and past US involvement in the Middle East is presented sparingly to help justify why the wars were maintained. For his first post-career memoir and for his level of experience, I was surprised to find a lack of candor in questioning the strategy and his uppers. For example, while specific senators are called out for defending wasteful in-state military spending (Patty Murray, Bill Young) he fails to discuss any perceived conflicts of interest from Dick Cheney favoring a pre-emptive first strike on Syria. Perhaps this is part of making sure the troops "didn't do it for nothing" that he asks of Bush's and Obama's speeches. I was also surprised in a lack of discussion of oil. I don't know anything about the influence of oil on the US's military decisions, but for a book over 600 pages focused on the middle east, it was interesting their major feature, oil, is mentioned only four times in passing. Another omission lies in this quote "the [Iraq] war will always be tainted by the harsh reality that the public premise for invasion ... was wrong" (p 569), emphasis on the word public.
This is a popular science psychology book comparing the scientific-method correct way of making decisions versus the shortcuts that the human mind makes. This is just a drawn-out and illustrated repeat of Charlie Munger's Psychology of Human Misjudgment. I like how both books use the term "limited programming space" to describe the shortcuts the brain takes. A few original thought in here that were interesting: "Memories ... decay. Each time you recall [them], the event is reformed in your mind anew and differently, influenced by your current condition ..." And some good facts are cited like parole judges have a 3x increase in favorable outcomes for defendants if rulings are made right after lunch, and excitement/arousal from circumstances can easily be misattributed to nearby people.
This volume chronicles progress in Mathematics through translations of original works over the past several thousand years. The book opens with Euclid and his work, "The Elements, was the second best selling book of all time, surpassed only be the Bible" and describing it (only) as a collection of past mathematical works. The similarity to Hawking's book is perhaps immodest. The original translations are included verbatim with introductions from Hawking. With time, these texts have gained notoriety however the translations have not been updated. I /hate/ seeing typos and errors in math texts and manuals. Unlike some other reviewers my goal was to read this book entirely and not wince. Cantor was interesting to read while remembering the "refutations" kids often have to him when starting their math learning. I think the best math book that could possibly be written would be a list of question atop blank pages where the reader is asked to solve progressively more difficult problems.
Reading a Taleb book is like holding a conversation with someone with a blood-alcohol level in the sweet spot between being able to speak intelligibly and not being afraid to brag about themselves. He maintains this BAC meticulously throughout the book. Mother nature mercilessly destroys beings and species that are not fit to survive, so beings get stronger. In fact, the more they are tested the stronger they get. A clay pot doesn't get better; after so much testing it will break. The book categorizes things by whether they benefit from being shook up. It is quite roundabout for being "just" a definition of a concept. Throughout the book it is taking street smart concepts of trust and skin in the game and breaking down explanations for things that you basically know already but don't know how you know. Applying to the modern world, there are callouts of who are exploiting the innocent and how to avoid being a sucker in a world of sharks.
With the limitation of having sources and notes for all facts in the book, Morris does a remarkable job of turning Teddy Roosevelt's life, from a pile of correspondence, diaries, and errata, into a lively story. He has no problem pulling in geographical and weather facts as they add color, including detailed description of a weather event that is a turning point in TR's life -- which was written as a perfectly executed interlude. Teddy is the man's man with hunting, travel, taxonomy and cowboy stories and there are great nuggets of insult "[they're a] bunch of shrill eunuchs," "[they are] logical vegetarians of the flabbiest type," "they never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge," and in declining a funeral invitation of a political enemy, "but that does not mean to say I do not heartily approve of it." This is a volume on TR's life before presidency and it touches on the events that shaped his attitude, a father that gave quick and certain punishment for "selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness", family, accomplices. Aside from the meaty story of bravery, suave, physical feats, there are plenty of tricks and social techniques shown, the Russian negotiator (p243), how to call a bluff (p281), running the press (p502), playing both sides of the aisle (p524), kissing ass (p607). In addition to the story of a great republican, it was interesting to read a history of politics, showing for sure that certain parts of the fight never change.
The main argument is: human diet and activities have changed much recently compared to our tried and true upbringings since divergence from the apes (~6m yrs ago) and obesity, lethargy, and other ailments have ensued. Recent dietary changes include popularization of agriculture/grains (10k yrs ago), plant engineering (2k yrs ago), added sugar craze (100 yrs ago), genetics/pesticides/hormones/antibiotics/artificials (60 yrs ago), increased transportation/shelf life of food (30 yrs ago). Recent changes in activity include popularization of not having hunt for food (12,000 yrs ago), machines/bikes/cars (200 yrs ago), TV (60 yrs ago), anti-sunlight/anti-social machines (20 yrs ago). Obviously all these things are working against our health and the book gives you lists of changes to go back to primal living and avoid modern ailments like diabetes, obesity, and fatigue. I think the real arguments to be had are "do the internet, soda, and all this fake food really cause the modern whole new category of diabetes?" and "how many humans would fit on Earth if we were all eating real food like plants and animals?"
Any Apple fan will enjoy this recollection of 30 years from PARC to "Not. Fucking. Blue. Enough." to the post-PC world. The story of Steve goes through LSD, Buddhism, corporate life, and his personality, and how they contributed to his very successful products. The story somewhat comes full circle. In 1984, the launch of the Macintosh was pinned on escaping the world of IBM, boring, ubiquitous products, and "big brother". In 2014, while never boring, Apple is the ubiquitous player, and the public is learning how government and big corporations cooperate in sharing their supposedly private information. The time is ripe for a new Apple. Reading the story makes me think of all the other inspired industrial designers that weren't lucky enough to work in technology and computers, the hottest industry from 1980 to 2010.
This is one of the "big four" Chinese classical books told for thousands of years and finally written down around CE 1400 into a 24-volume story. The full edition includes maps and supplemental biographical summary. Luckily, I found the kid's version in a slick 250 pages (also with map and bio summary). This book is the basis for 三国杀, which is the game I played to learn Chinese and achieve my 15 minutes of fame so early in life. Ok, so the story... this book focuses solely on the rulers of the three kingdoms and their attempts to attack each other. All romance is strictly left out for want for brevity. A great read for anyone who plays the card game because the game's characters faithfully match the story's likeness and behaviors.
This book flows like a loosely connected series of Reader's Digest articles on people that have suffered great adversity. Some nuggets add value to the book and can make it hard to put down. Go buy the FM 21-76 Army Survival Manual, and get the most current, militarized version you have access to. A theme in there and the book in question is that the will to live exceeds the value of any other survival tactic.
Funny shit.
This book's target audience is someone being hired to come and lead a thriving open source project who has no experience in the matter... a little odd. It discusses all the aspects of leading an international volunteer organization with people you will never meet face to face, from facilitating technical discussion, avoiding conflicts and delegating responsibility. There is a thorough discussion of technical options for hosting and SCM, which is useless because you would know all that before picking up this book. Either way, anyone in the profession should be able to pick this book up and find /something/ that could improve how they are working today. And for that, 4 stars.
This is another win for fiction books, it's a political "thriller" that shows the Unites States falling into rule as a people's state. The righteous industrialists stage a strike and hide from society, letting the iron fist rule the sheep, neither being having any productive capacity. Very interesting and there is a 60-page speech near the end where the leader of the strike addresses the public and explains the moral system of capitalism. And, he goes on to compare rule of a people's state to propagation of religion! There's lots of quotable stuff in here. (And when I say quotable, I'm talking about phrases and thoughts you can use in your own arguments some day.)
This is part of my research into blackjack. If you know me personally, you know about the analysis I'm doing right now. This book is a detailed analysis of point systems for blackjack and it investigates the efficiency of these systems in terms of the trade offs that are made to make each system simple for humans. I met Mike Aponte at some Drexel event in early 2011. He said this book and some shuffle tracking books are the latest books on the subject.
This is officially a time management / work-life balance book, but it tries to be more of a life/wasting time balance book. Be aware of the goals you have in life and find some 10 and 30-minute tasks that support those goals. Keep this task list handy and you'll naturally spend less time chit-chatting and watching TV. Nothing in this book is crazy useful for me or expands beyond what David Allen already made obvious, but it does touch on my general interest in post industrial revolution and post internet age anthropology/sociology. Specifically, how does human life change when productivity increases so that every one can eat and have shelter with only 3% of the population employed to enable this? This book in question points to a great quote in 1959 Harvard Business Review, "boredom, which used to bother only aristocrats [will] become a common curse," and then tries to argue this is not the case. Chapter six does give more hard numbers and anecdotes from various sources to show how life has changed over the past 50 years. The most noticeable being a drastic reduction (~40%) in time spent cleaning/tending the house leading to more time at work and with the kids. Google for Good Housekeeping 1960 and just look for yourself.
This was a recommendation when I was interviewing to work at CDI. It is an in depth look at the players in the mortgage-backed securities madness happening in the 2000's. More reading: Munger. The Psychology of Human Misjudgment; Grant's Interest Rate Observer. Michael Burry's letters to shareholders. Funds that shorted MBS: Whitebox, The Baupost, Passport Capital, Elm Ridge, Elliott Assoc., Cedar Hill Capital Partners, QVT Financial, Philip Falcone Harbinger Capital
If you are not a C-level executive at a Fortune 200 company and you don't have one in your phone book, this book is probably not relevant to you. This is a wonkish book that talks in theoretical terms about how intellectual property and trade secrets can be used internally or transferred outside the company.
Just to start off, here is Will's stance on foreign policy: the less you try to change others the cheaper your relationships will be to maintain. This book supports the argument that there is a large and effective community of American voters who make Israel their first priority, and due to their influence, elected officials in America commit unconditional support to the country. Then the book goes on to explain how this is against America and Israel's best interests. In addition to the arguments that any libertarian or atheist would appreciate, the book responds to the question "is Israel an asset or liability to America". Mearsheimer enumerates instances where Israel has been of limited utility to the US when they wanted to use the state for military purposes if those purposes had not directly and immediately benefitted Israel. As to whether terrorist sentiment towards the US is related to America's support of Israel, the book refers the reader to a letter from Ramzi Yousef to the New York Times after he bombed the World Trade Center: "We declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel, the state of terrorism, and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region." [Will's note] here is a related quote from Osama Bin Laden on Sept. 14, 2009 titled "A statement to the American people:" "The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine." -- The book makes a poor case for quantifying the cost in dollars of America's direct support for Israel. After such a powerful book and argument, I was disappointed to lay eyes on a modern topic involving a price tag of only a few billions of dollars. For the future, I would like recommendations on counter arguments to this book, preferably matching this book point for point.
Peter Schiff is a permabull and makes predictions about collapse of the U.S. Dollar and U.S. markets, which will be decoupled from the rest of the world. The prose in his book and radio show is very argumentative and defensive, I am generally suspicious of these types of people. Some themes from the book are: U.S. GDP data is grossly inflated, a housing bubble will soon collapse, and America is way over-leveraged. The most valuable part of this book is an illustration of civil unrest in America, and a very skeptical view of government. These aspects are all useful. Peter's forecast on the specific path of America's economic downturn seems unlikely to happen within the next 5 years, but the book is still useful.
Another book recommended by my boss. My takeaways from this book include: how to prepare corporate reports for an external entity, and details about cost accounting. The best part of the book is Appendix 1, which has a list of sample questions is a dialog between an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Also included are sample legal documents to officiate the relationship.
This book was recommended by my boss. Notable topics include pricing acquisitions, swindling target shareholders with cash/shares offers, and integration phases.
I suppose reading a book titled "High Tech Start Up" from 2000 might lack an element of history that more recent books may have. Nevertheless, this book was recommended to me by Ron Blankenhorn as still relevant, and I trust his opinion. This book discuses the mechanics of successfully starting and eventually selling a high tech business. Quick fact: being the CEO of a high tech startup is less tiring than running a growing division at a large, public company. The book thoroughly discusses business plans and projection. Of course it boils down to the same lesson in business school: accounting numbers are useless, only cash matters. Another interesting thing about the book is that it discusses the relationships between all the parties, investors, VCs, management, lawyers, landlords, and it explains all the gotchas in dealing with those parties. Highly recommended for someone making deals, or starting a company.
This book makes the point that Greenspan has done America a disservice by consistently setting the Federal Funds Rate too low. The effect was that too much money was being deployed and bubbles formed. My favorite Volcker quote is in there: the fate of the world economy is now fully dependent on the growth of the U.S. economy, which is dependent on the stock market, whose growth is dependent on about 50 stocks, half of which have never reported on earnings. This book also makes some misleading uses of number like this: "... was an annualized rate of 44 percent over the last 10 weeks of the year." For comparison, the S and P 500 went down an annualized 99.98% over the past day, (August 7, 2008). So overall what it comes down to is: did we over allocate resources to tech stocks from 1998-2001. As you answer this, you should look at a graph of the NASDAQ from 1990 to 2010. My answer is maybe a little bit, but not that much. When you think of how your life has changed during 1999 and 2000 as a result of the internet, I think it's quite reasonable to say "this is the point when everything changed." And if you are going to misallocate capital, that is the perfect time to. However, after 2001 I agree with the author that money was too available, which resulted in a real estate and commodity bubble afterwards -- which was completely unfounded and delayed a much needed recession. (Older and wiser, a note from 4/14/2009: Of course, the solution is that interest rates should not be centrally planned.)
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This is an interesting analysis into best practices for businesses. It started as an academic exercise by using facts discovered during research. As the book goes on, it continues by including ideas that were not from the data, but the author felt should be included. Aside from this error, the book does have a consistent and, I feel, authentic tone. The main takeaways were that you should focus on long term results and focus on your competencies. It goes on to discuss leadership qualities that are necessary for an organizational transformation.
A better title would be: "Compulsive gambler loses money." In the beginning, he whines compulsively about how he lost money on WorldCom, there is zero value in all his words on this. Unfortunately, I have read several books by mathematicians and they are all identical. I will save you the time of reading this or any other of them: fibonacci has a series of numbers, things get large when you exponentiate, adjacent spirals on a sunflower have sizes that are proportional at a ratio called phi. Like other "math people" books, this one butchers mathematical ideas by trying to make them accessible to a larger audience. Mathematics is a system of patterns and analogies. People that have these models in their repertoire can use them to understand new things. However it is useless to make these obscure analogies accessible to lay people; it would be better to describe new ideas directly. A person with a background in math will enjoy a good laugh on how he shoehorns Wolfram's cellular automata to describing investor sentiments (pp170-171). You can read it by searching for "stephen wolfram" of the "Search Inside this book" feature on Amazon. (Older and wiser, a note from 3/25/2009: The counter point to the author, who expects uninteresting results in the future, is simply to read Black Swan -- also on this list. Another note, the only useful sentence in this book, which is basically a footnote is wedged between pages 182-183.)
For a book that makes a lot a predictions, this has one advantage: Greenspan's voice moves the markets. This book discusses the many dynamics in play today, and then draws predictions for what is in store for the future. We'll all have a good laugh over this book in a few years.
I never read this in school, and now was the time to catch up. Kurokawa recommended this book in our management of technology course. All of the information is timeless and can be interpreted relative to the situations you face in life (some will require more creative interpretation than others). It is best suited for adaptation to adversarial situations. It discusses many facets of strategy and attack, and even goes into advice on team morale.
This is an interesting look into human psychology. It describes how we look into a world of chaos and presume that things are orderly. We are therefore acting irrationally. This describes the problem, and how we can correct this error. This book has a finance tone, and there is practical advice that you can apply to your own decisions in life. It is also very accessible and provides laymen scenarios where you can see people acting with their erroneous logic.
This is a book written by a strong protectionist. The book focuses on joint press conferences of the United States, Mexico and Canada which are advancing the agenda of private leaders. At issue are the continuation of the SPP and several infrastructure projects. Our situation is compared to the European Union. It makes a strong case that several initiatives can be construed to lead our continent the way of the EU. However, the reasoning in the book sometimes makes the assumption that America is attempting to negotiate deals to its own detriment.
This was a light interpretation of human physiology. It cited many behaviors we take for granted and analyzed them from a darwinian perspective. My original motivation for getting this book was my trip abroad coming several months after, to learn about the different cultures and customs in the places I will be visiting.
This is a great look into the story of the White House leak about Joseph Wilson. It is written by the editor in chief of Time and shows the reader the important aspects of journalism with regards to confidentiality. This was a very interesting circumstance where politics, morals and confidentiality all came clashing together.
This book is a great in-depth look at the models and processes that run the analytical world today. Using analytics properly can allow organizations to be very effective. It also looks at the process for bringing an organization into the proper mindset to accept change and how results from analytics can be demonstrated.
This books entertains several philosophical debates and raises questions of what one's self really is. The format of this book was a little rough, with its made up words and occasional silliness. His main claim is that introspection can be recursive, due to the symbolic/material duality of perceptions in one's mind. What I gained most from this book is a map of more topic that I must learn about. It is interesting how many mathematicians are so interested in consciousness.
This book includes a practical set of tools to use in analyzing trends affecting your industry. There is a case study of how to apply certain trends to a specific industry. There are details on big trends that have an impact on most every futures analysis. And lastly, is practical advice on how to present your findings to peers in a relevant and appropriate discussion.
I picked this up merely because I knew nothing of the topic. The main argument is that giving money in foreign aid to countries for causes which the people don't think is bad. Since their government will become corrupt to game the system, this results in people being worse off than they were before the foreign aid. The solution is to promote causes that the people think are important and to monitor and hold accountable the agencies that intend to solve specific problems. There were a lot of good arguments in the book and I have come to agree with the thesis. (Older and wiser, a note from 3/25/2009: Human aid is a big task, gifting money and resources is not scalable, private enterprise is scalable, therefore private enterprise is the appropriate format to effect human aid.)
Makes many arguments against religion on the basis of rational argument and them explains the physiological and psychological reasons people have for being deluded. There are some interesting theories in terms of why people are deluded again and again. There are also some interesting moral tools and arguments that religion is strictly separate from morality. Some of the arguments against a deity are long winded of little use for quoting to the general public. The other insights provide many takeaways.
I picked up this book as a suggested reading from my managing technology class. It has many practical situations in diverse fields where strategic thinking can be applied. There are a few basic tools of strategy that are introduced and there are many examples of how to use them. An excellent introduction to game theory and decision making. I did however disagree with their price negotiating strategy for joint ventures, and will have to look into that. There was also a citation in there from Herb Cohen's book I read earlier.
This book was written by the editor of Wired magazine and includes insight derived from many rounds of writing columns and giving speeches. Markets have changed lately because of the reducing costs of storage and shipping. Ultimately, this produces more choice for consumers. This book argues that customers have a large demand for choice and that they will be the driving force for the change from mainstream media to subculture media. The book is filled with graphs and graced with conclusions from proprietary consumer data.
This is the follow up to The End of Faith by the same author. While this book was worthless for me to read since it contained no original thoughts since the unabridged version, the included sections will be most relevant for some people. The target audience is someone who has dogmatic beliefs in Christianity, and I think the arguments will be most compelling to someone of that persuasion.
This is the follow up to Winning, by the same authors. The format is question and answer, with questions coming from audience members of the speaking tour Jack and Suzy went on. The book is valuable because it shows the path to implementing the values the original book taught. Many of the questions are particularly relevant to someone like me, who is just getting started in the game.
The main idea here is that if we keep treating each other as less than equals (saying some are damned and others are saved) this will lead to mutual destruction due to nuclear proliferation. One profound device I found in here was a line of reasoning that shows how even religious moderates are responsible for this problem. There are also a nice set of moral evaluation tools in here that let you evaluate situations. These ultimately showed me that a few of my beliefs were inconsistent. While reading, some ideas seemed in line with something I read before. A quick flip to the bibliography confirmed that my boy Tor Nørretranders influenced these thoughts.
This book describes a new taxation system that is based solely on consumption. An interesting concept, this is quite different from what I'm used to. There are several points in the book where I was upset because the arguments were weak. For example, they explain that this new system will still charge you the same amount in taxes, but they keep saying how high taxes are the issue when talking about the current system. I do, however think the idea is worth considering. And the notion of pre-bates is novel.
This book talks about an interesting person who has been very successful in the securities industry. However this book leaves much to be desired. I'll start by tossing out a word that does not describe what is in the book: insightful. After reading the wonderful works of Buffet, you realize this book keeps all business knowledge close to the chest. The only person who should benefit from reading from this book would be a person already familiar with Weill on a personal level. Maybe a quote (the first one) from the rear jacket would illustrate this: "I've been friends with Sandy Weill for nearly thirty years, and this book is vintage Sandy: at every turn it's spirited, passionate, and brutally honest" (President Gerald Ford).
Excellent book. Probably gets the award for best fiction from me, but I still need to spend time thinking about what happens in it. There are elements of politics, minor twists, torture, psychology. This is what fiction was made for! Update 2021-04-02. I have updated and republished this book see https://amazon.ca/dp/B091DWSM5J
This book was a gift from graduation from Villanova. I though it was well written an interesting, but the political and historical references were lost on me.
This book was a gift from a certain holiday at the end of the year. I enjoyed reading every page of it. This book included excerpts written entirely by Warren Buffett and released in his annual reports of Berkshire Hathaway. This is a very interesting company and through the annual reports, Buffett is able to distribute a great wealth of business knowledge. This book is well-compiled and does a good job of separating the excerpts by topic.
This book was a gift from a certain holiday at the end of the year. There is an analysis of patterns in financial markets. It was a well-anticipated read from an interesting author I recognize from my math background. Unfortunately, I find no depth to his arguments and see no use in reading about these ideas when they fail to make any measurable application to the real world.
Good stuff. Talks about the causes and effects of macro events, and even dives into psychology. Written with many illustrative examples.
An interesting read of how Trump was able to make big things happen. One of his main points is that you should not be personally accountable for transactions and that when you are making big deals that you can add contingencies to the contract if you are unable to assume certain large risks.
I borrowed this from a classmate and it worked out very well. I generally enjoy books having some psychological element. I plan on continuing with his other popular book.
This was a good follow-up to reading about Long-Term in Fortune's Formula. One of the few history books I've ever enjoyed, this explains of the biggest financial ruts a company has caused. There is enough in-depth material so that you can gain a better appreciation of exactly what decisions were being made and how they affected the company and the economy as a whole.
Explains the best practices for organizing and leading teams. Sadly, I didn't know what a team was until this book explained how it is different from a workgroup. Just to spoil the first page for you, a workgroup is a set of people reporting to a boss, but a team is an autonomous group having its own leadership and division of work. The benefits of a team structure are: less overhead, no single point of failure, more collaboration, and more buy-in.
The author of this book is truly in a position to offer an experienced opinion on international trade. The book discusses the current dynamics of international trade and gives a practical perspective of economics, trade and politics. He explains the emerging practices of places he has traveled and offers insight from the perspective of each world power.
First, this book goes into the biographies of several key players in gaming theory and its implementation. I was surprised that I already knew some of these people from Engineering, but had no idea of their other involvements. Then there is an explanation of the theories and formulas that allow optimal gaming. Last, it goes into their attempts to take advantage of these strategies in the real world. I couldn't put this one down and I learned lot. Although the overtone is discouraging, it still motivates me to find something simple to take advantage of.
A very interesting and detailed look at a flat strategy for running an organization.
A very interesting look at the effects of many globalizing forces currently in play. There are many good examples in here that I can use in my discussions, which were all big surprises when I read them. It also discusses the way that developed peoples work with undeveloped peoples and how we can work together to take advantage of our new ability to communicate.
You can see elsewhere on this page how I came upon this book. It is a great way to hit the ground running towards the most sought after prize in cryptography (and therefore many other fields).
My second fiction book, hoping not to get burned again, I came across this popular piece. More than a couple people recommended this book, and I anticipated a big hit since it is based on a code and apparently there's a big twist. What I liked were the bite sized chapters and a couple of the foreshadowing hooks. Other than that the story is hardly noteworthy, another waste of my time. Brown clearly capitalizes on the inquisitive public and skepticism of the Catholic church. The "big twist", was hardly worth reading up to, aside from the massive plot hole. I do laud the attempt to bring some historically buried facts into light, though.
This is the first fiction book I've ever read, recommended by my Uncle. In school I've always avoided reading fiction, and this day I decided I'm going to try it. Utter disappointment. I read past the end of the cover looking for action in this book. The story involved a chase, that's about it. As some might say, teh lame.
Awesome fucking book! I bought this at a used book sale near in Philly, and I scooped this gem up on a whim. It talks about how specifically the mind works. This has huge implications for free will, religion, understanding sleep, philosophy/existentialism. I often use the ideas in this book when discussing any of these topics.
Where to start? Here, Wolfram notices a pattern in the sciences. Specifically, his thesis is that throughout biology, computing, physics, weather and other sciences, there are behaviors that are considered complex and that these complex behaviors can be modeled by using simple models in large scales. One telling example is when he models fluid dynamics, a field generally dominated by differential equations, with a simple bouncing particles approach. I'm not going to lie, I was upset to read 70% through the book and find that the book ended with 200 pages remaining of notes and bibliography. It will take a while for the effects of the methods created in this book to be seen.
Light reading, to say the least
I picked this book up because the genome was a very hot topic in the day. It talks about some of the intricacies of DNA and the mechanics that cause mortality.
I have no idea how I picked this book up, help anyone? It talks about specifics in the bible and shoehorns some of the ideas into now accepted scientific beliefs. I'm always interested in testing the faith of people that take their religion literally.
A classic. After reading this book, I just had to read further into physics on the macro and micro scale. I had a lot of questions after reading this book, which I had answered in the alt.physics.* newsgroups.
This is my second book on the business wave. I thought it was an interesting topic considering how commoditized the world is becoming.
This was a gift from mom, I believe. It is my first book in a series of management/business book. In retrospect, I can't help but wonder if my intrigue for this book was ultimately responsible for my grad school choice.
There's a little story about this book. I bought this book in Junior year of high school to try to pick up the pace on my math career. At that time, I had also been competing in the USA Math Talent Search sponsored by the NSA. I won a silver prize in this contest, which was a copy of this book I already owned. So I came in contact with them and they recommended another book for me. I also later went to get a job with them, but less on that later.
An interesting book about space and....