Excellent at placing Churchill in his time - with access to more letters and papers, many myths about Churchill are revealed to have more nuances thanExcellent at placing Churchill in his time - with access to more letters and papers, many myths about Churchill are revealed to have more nuances than previously thought....more
Drugs. And drugs. And celebrity. Not Fry's best, but then Fry's not best is very very good indeed.Drugs. And drugs. And celebrity. Not Fry's best, but then Fry's not best is very very good indeed....more
This book is much like a Springsteen song from the early days - long, complex and poetic language, and sometimes it can be a bit hard to hear the vocaThis book is much like a Springsteen song from the early days - long, complex and poetic language, and sometimes it can be a bit hard to hear the vocals above the "wall of sound". But it has heart, and leaves quite a bit unsaid (and much said.) Good read, especially if you have Internet nearby and can search up the songs and bands mentioned. (Incidentally, here is a Spotify list of the 336 songs mentioned in the book: http://www.openculture.com/2016/09/he...).
An interesting twist - and something where I would have liked to read more - is Bruce Springsteen as a leader. His nickname "The Boss" comes from his ability to control and lead the bands he has been in - it has always been his bands, groups accompanying him as an artist, and I find it fascinating how he finds his self-confidence and remains in charge, working with some rather headstrong personalities. That is a management challenge I am curious to know why he undertook, and how he managed to see through.
But an interesting and very well written book. 500 pages plus, but not boring, and not more self-centered than an autobiography will have to be. Recommended....more
This is a Swedish Forrest Gump story, and the like the movie, it is great fun, though you can't really put your finger on why.
Allan Karlsson absconds This is a Swedish Forrest Gump story, and the like the movie, it is great fun, though you can't really put your finger on why.
Allan Karlsson absconds from the nursing home a few hours before his 100-year birthday is to be celebrated. Within minutes, he is on the run with a suitcase full of money, chased by gangsters and acquiring a motley assortment of friends (including an elephant) as he goes. Interspersed with this are chapters detailing his life as a global, slack-jawed globetrotter, forever stumbling in on historical figures at opportune moments.
Great fun - and some of the Swedishness of the humor makes it through the translation as well....more
I was lent this by my daughter's history teacher on the assumption that, since I am interested in both basketball and history, this would be interestiI was lent this by my daughter's history teacher on the assumption that, since I am interested in both basketball and history, this would be interesting. I love the premise - an obscure history professor and assistant basketball coach at an Ivy League college gets appointed as head coach, with nobody expecting much. By recruiting disadvantaged youth and reading passages of American history to them, he brings the team to the NCAA finals.
It should work, but it doesn't. The character is not believable, the history excerpts are too long-winded, and the adversities encountered (racist faculty, an NCAA looking askance at the newcomers and plotting against them, etc.) seem contrived. In the end, you start wondering whether the whole story is a figment of the main character's imagination - not just the author's.
Pity, it had so much going for it...watch Danny DeVito in The Renaissance Man instead, it has more going for it....more
Sam Fussell, a tall and scrawny son of two writers and academics (Paul and Betty Fussell) started bodybuilding in an effort to remake himself, and sucSam Fussell, a tall and scrawny son of two writers and academics (Paul and Betty Fussell) started bodybuilding in an effort to remake himself, and succeeded, to the point where, 4 years and 80 pounds later, he competed in and nearly won a bodybuilding competition. This is the hilarious story of how he did it and the outlandish characters he met on the way - all in search of size and definition. (Here is a blog post giving a fuller summary.)
A fun read, though there are occasionally too much detail on diet and training regimens - on the other hand, it nicely illustrates the obsessiveness needed. I understand Muscle has become something of a cult read in bodybuilding circles - the author, quitting after realizing the futility in it all, nevertheless leaves you with a feeling that for all the drugs and diets, he did enjoy being something different for a while - still comparatively safe that he had a somewhat privileged position to return to....more
A nice (I suppose you could say elegant) little book about why less often is more. Anecdotal, well-written, with at least some examples I found very iA nice (I suppose you could say elegant) little book about why less often is more. Anecdotal, well-written, with at least some examples I found very interesting (the "shared space", rule-free concept of traffic regulation exemplified in the Laweiplein crossing - see it on Youtube - for example, as well as the Nigerian clay pot vegetable coolers,) some I found rather repetitious (the iPhone's elegant simplicity) and others done better elsewhere (Christopher Alexander's pattern language approach to architecture.)
Much to like, some to admire, and the book is summed up in the four elements of elegance: Symmetry, seduction, subtraction and sustainability. A nice little read, recommended....more
This is a tour de force history of the birth of the modern computer - and, specifically, the role of Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study in it - tThis is a tour de force history of the birth of the modern computer - and, specifically, the role of Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study in it - their "IAS machine" was a widely copied design, forming the basis for many research computers and IBM's early 701 model.We hear of John von Neumann (who tragically died of cancer at 53), Alan Turing (stripped of his security clearing and probably driven to suicide at 41), Stan Ulam, and many others, some famous, some (quite undeservedly) less so. I continue to be amazed at how far ahead some of the thinkers were - Alan Turing discussed multiprocessor and evolutionary approaches to artificial intelligence in 1946, for example.
On a side note, I was pleased to see that a number of Norwegian academics, mostly within meteorology, played an important part in the development and use of the IAS computer. Nils Aall Baricelli, an Italian-Norwegian, was someone I previously had not heard of, one of those thinkers who is way ahead of his time and (perhaps because he was independently wealthy and led a somewhat nomadic academic existence, hence may have been considered something of a dilettante, though Dyson certainly don't see him as such and credits him with the ability to see a possible way from programmed computer to independently learning mechanism (and, perhaps at some point, organism).
The book is a bit uneven - partly standard history, partly relatively deep computer science discussions (some of them certainly over my head), and partly - with no warning - brilliant leaps of extrapolating visioneering into both what computers have meant for us as a species and what they might mean in the future. It also shows some of the power struggles that take place in academics, and the important role IAS played in the development of the hydrogen bomb.
All in all, an excellent history of the early days of computing - a more recent history than many are aware of. As George Dyson says in his Ted lecture in 2003: "If these people hadn't done it, someone else would have. It was an idea whose time had come." That may be true, but it takes nothing away from the tremendous achievements of the early pioneers....more
Elegant little book on bullshit - is it lying, is it humbug, what is it really. The question of whether the whole essay is bullshit, remains in the enElegant little book on bullshit - is it lying, is it humbug, what is it really. The question of whether the whole essay is bullshit, remains in the end unanswered - precisely, methinds, what Frankfurt intended the whole time....more
Bill Bryson is one of those writers whose books I buy sight unseen - so I can't really understand how I missed this one. I got it as a very welcome ChBill Bryson is one of those writers whose books I buy sight unseen - so I can't really understand how I missed this one. I got it as a very welcome Christmas gift and read it in small portions over the holiday - the book is ostensibly a walk through an old English house, room for room, but that framework serves only to very loosely organize a barrage of anecdotes and historical trends.
It is obvious that Bryson enjoyed this book - perhaps more than any other he has written. As one reviewer noted, it seems written in the pajamas. Many, if not most, of the stories he retells I have read before, but that doesn't take away any of the pleasure of hearing Bill Bryson tell them again.
And sometimes you find a local connection - I currently live in Brookline, MA, and liked the story of John Longyear, who moved his whole 65-room house from Marquette, Michigan to Brookline in 1904. Longyear, of course, is the same business magnate who founded Store Norske Kulkompani and gave his name to Longyeartown at Svalbard. The enormous house is just a few blocks up from where I live, now part of a condominium complex.
Like his "Short History of Almost Everything", this book is neither short nor a traditional history book, but it is immensely enjoyable. Preferably at home, with your feet up in front of the fire....more
Very straightforward and practically oriented - with lots of good examples. Search log analysis - seeing what customers are looking for and whether orVery straightforward and practically oriented - with lots of good examples. Search log analysis - seeing what customers are looking for and whether or not they find it - is as close to having a real, recorded and analyzable conversation with your customers as you can come, yet very few companies do it. Rosenfeld shows how to do it, and also how to find the low-hanging fruit and how to justify spending resources on it.
This is not rocket science - I was, quite frankly, astonished at how few companies do this. With more and more traffic coming from search engines, more and more users using search rather than hierarchical navigation, and the invisibility of dissatisfied customers (and the lost opportunities they represent) this should be high on any CIOs agenda.
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