http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/28908 en-US Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:42:06 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 11511921 Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:42:06 -0700
author: Chris Anderson
name: jamie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/30/08
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]]> 15302383 Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:34:37 -0700
author: Zadie Smith
name: jamie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/15/08
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review:
it was pretty hard to get into.
]]> 14386785 Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:32:27 -0700
author: John Brockman
name: jamie
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/15/08
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pretty interesting. a lot of the entries are informative as well as being... well, optimistic.
]]> 11840356 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:48:52 -0800
author: Louis Navellier
name: jamie
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2007
rating: 1
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/22/08
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I've liked other books in the 'Little Books Big Profits' series, but I didn't enjoy this one so much. In it, Navellier discusses his formula for identifying winning stocks. It has two parts: fundamentals and his so called 'quantitative grade.' The former is made up of 8 fundamental characteristics of stocks. The latter is a proprietary grading system based (apparently) on minimizing risk (minimizing beta and maximizing alpha) while also maximizing buying pressure. But because it's proprietary, he doesn't discuss how to determine it at all. (Presumably it has to do with technical analysis of some sort.) And this quantitative grade accounts for 70% of the overall grade of the stock. So he spends about 6 chapters on the 8 fundamentals (the last of these crams 3 fundamentals into one chapter - it seems as though Navellier got tired of writing about these), but doesn't disclose the proprietary secret. Great. He does have a website that identifies high-ranking stocks, or that will tell you the grade of any particular stock. But I would want to understand how the grading system works - that's the point of the book, to explain how the website works. Otherwise I could've just gone to the website and not wasted my time reading the whole thing (admittedly not a big deal, as it is a short book). I kept on waiting for a discussion about the 'quantitative grade' and it never came. Don't waste your time.
]]> 11512203 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:36:23 -0800
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: jamie
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/22/08
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True story: At a staff meeting, my boss wanted to discuss improving a process 10-fold in 6 months. Inspired by this book (out inability to predict, for example), I responded that, great, we could discuss it, but it needed to be clear that it was 10-fold, +/- 10-fold, in 6 months, +/- 6 months. At least. And while this got a good laugh out of my colleagues, it's absolutely true.
]]> 11511766 Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:20:36 -0800 happen.]]>
author: Aldous Huxley
name: jamie
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1939
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 01/02/08
shelves:
review:
either this book is too much a product of its own time, or i'm too much a reader of mine. the philosophizing was interesting, but bogged down the action of the story. i would have liked to have seen more happen.
]]> 10255024 Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:24:52 -0800
my opinion about the environment hasn't changed: we're screwed.

but this was perhaps more bleak than collapse, if only because diamond said that he wouldn't have written collapse if he didn't have hope. on the other hand, i didn't really detect any hope in the parts of this book that i actually read. just that the bush administration believes in 'sound science,' and that it 'acts, then learns, then acts again.' even if it really fails to act, and certainly doesn't believe a word of sound science. so - we're hosed.]]>
author: Elizabeth Kolbert
name: jamie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 12/10/07
shelves:
review:
i read about three chapters, the minimum that i could get away with and still not feel bad about showing up to literate urbanites. basically, it was interesting to see how the US politics have held up any progress, but more importantly, how hosed we are with china ramping up. we learned pretty much the same thing after collapse, with a lot more detail.

my opinion about the environment hasn't changed: we're screwed.

but this was perhaps more bleak than collapse, if only because diamond said that he wouldn't have written collapse if he didn't have hope. on the other hand, i didn't really detect any hope in the parts of this book that i actually read. just that the bush administration believes in 'sound science,' and that it 'acts, then learns, then acts again.' even if it really fails to act, and certainly doesn't believe a word of sound science. so - we're hosed.
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