Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

by Joshua Foer.

This book is on my read-again list. The book is part history, part technique and part travelogue, as the author digs into the techniques of memory improvident and tells his story on the road to winning the U.S. memory championship.

Reclaiming the Fire: How Successful People Overcome Burnout

by Steven Berglas

This is the 2nd time I've read this book. Things I want to remember...

When you choose a goal, ask yourself when you achieve that goal what will you do for an encore? What will you do next? These questions are good ways to identify hollow goals that add no long term value to your life.

Find ways to be generative-- to grow the people around you, the generation after you, in ways that you care about.

Sooner or later we all run into the skiver problem; to grow as a skier, you can challenge yourself to ski on larger and more risky hills. Sooner or later though, the risks are so great and the new rewards so small that this stops being a worth while goal. Your just risking your life and not improving your skills. You can deal with this in two ways-- instead of skiing, switch to a new sport. Or, you can be generative and teach other people to be great skiers as well.

Learn whats makes you angry. Learn what makes you afraid. Find a way to constructively deal with your fears and anger, not bury it, suppress it, manage it or avoid it, but actually deal with it. Be angry to the right degree, at the right time, with the right person, for the right reason.

Can I have your attention by Joseph cardillo

Skimmed.

The book is very pro-meditation. It espouses that practicing being centered and mindful is a great way to grow you focus skills. If you are not centered, then your focus is at the whims of you emotions.

The Ten Times Rule by Grant Cardone

I didn't make it through this book. The core rule makes sense, choose goals that will make you ten times more successful than anyone else. Put ten times the effort into these goals than anyone else.

The book has a motivational style.

The Myth of Work-Life Balance

The Myth of Work-Life Balance: The Challenge of Our Time for Men, Women and Societies by Richenda Gambles, Suzan Lewis & Rhona Rapoport. The is book is directed at high level government and industry polices that affect work life balance and the effect of those policies. It is not directed at individuals seeking to manage there own work life balance.

Ayn Rand

One should read Ayn Rand in a library. I'd like to think that's my own original thought-- At a recent lunch however, two people independently came up with this quip.

Even though I am a rationalist who believes strongly in individual liberty, Rand puzzles me. She got much right, but when I look at what she got wrong, it boggles me how people could obsess with her and how her philosophy thrives.

I don't think she understood the difference between communism, socialism and teamwork. her ideas were so... uh... objectivist that she lost nuance and failed to realize that two people can collaborate to create something greater than two individuals and both of them would be happier for the experience.

She was naive about elitism and the nature of invention. Her elites could do no wrong, only be oppressed or held back by the socialists. How different would Atlas Shrugged be if it was discovered that the new steel was radioactive, or rusted out after two years? What would have happened if some of Roark's buildings had structural problems and leaky roofs? (See Lloyd Write and Gehry) But no! These are elites! Everything they create must be perfect.

The unintended moral I always get from her books is perfect people should lead us and we should just respect them. I can't accept that. I don't believe in perfection. I believe in elites that makes mistakes. How they handle their mistakes is as much a marker of there status as any innate perfection.

Self Promotion for Introverts

Self Promotion for Introverts by Nancy Ankowitz.

The book subtly equates introversion with shyness or low self esteem.

I read the first half of the book, but then lost interest.

The Bed of Procrustes

The Bed of Procrustes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

To paraphrase Tycho, I'm fairly critical of Teleb precisely because I do love his writing, and want it to be better.

The Bed of Procrustes is a book of Taleb's aphorisms. They are smart and well written. But a whole book of them is disappointing.

I so wish this book had more depth, more meat. It's insightful for Taleb to say "never trust a man who earns a salary (or, more specifically, has a dependent source of income) – unless he is on minimum wage." But, that statement begs to start a debate, not be the witty conclusion. How should people live? Is it robust to build a society where everyone earns independent income? If so, how do we get there? If not, do we have to accept the fact that a large portion of our society, the wage earners, should be deemed untrustworthy?

Where is your deep insight Taleb? Your vision? Your philosophical leadership? The Bed of Procrustes is not worthy of you.

Taleb rightly says "a good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation." With whole book of maxims though, a whole book of last words, you end up with thoughts that's are aways ending-- that never start.

Another minor irritation, at least for me; Taleb frequently uses 'freedom' to mean 'free from responsibilities' and not 'free to choose responsibilities' or 'free to create' The these types of freedom are very different. While one man's freedom may mean he has hours of idle time, for another man freedom means that his days are filled with the responsibilities and creations of his choosing and acceptance of there consequences.

Having said all that, I've read the book twice and I'll probably read it again.

The 4% Universe

The 4% Universe by Richard Panek. A chronicle of the scientists quest to discover and explain why we can only detect 4% of the universe. The rest is filled with dark matter and energy which we can only indirectly detect.

The book spends as much time discussing the people and the politics of dark matter research as it does the science. For example, the book notes that historically, astronomers are tend to be loaners and very possessive of there data while physicists tend to be very collaborative because astronomy lends its self to individual research while physics experiments offten require the co-operation of hundreds of people. (See CERN, or the LHC) Problems result when the two groups have to work together.

A good read, but it won't go on my re-read list.

Rolling (audio) book list

How to manage multiple priorities when you're overwhelmed with work [audio CD] [1 v.] 03/17/11

Still need to read

How to effectively manage remote employees [audio CD] [1 v.]

Still need to read

01/14/11 Eat that frog! [audio CD] [3 v.] : 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time

01/14/11 Never eat alone and other secrets to success [audio CD] [10 v.] : one relationship at a

time

01/13/11 Yes! [audio CD] [5 v.] : 50 scientifically proven ways to be persuasive
Read again.

12/10/10 It's called work for a reason [audio CD] [5 v.] : your success is your own damn fault

A no-BS guide work that spends so much time calling out how no-BS it is that I lost interest.

11/15/10 HBR's 10 must reads on managing yourself

Didn't retain anything from reading this. Don't feel like reading again.

10/26/10 Life by design [audio CD] [4 v.] : making lifestyle choices that contribute to better physical and emotional health

Life planning.

09/07/10 Self-discipline & emotional control [audio CD] [6 v.] : how to stay calm and productive under pressure

08/24/10 Converse with charisma! [audio CD] [8 v.] : talk to anyone and enjoy networking

Did not enjoy

08/16/10 Nudge [audio CD] [10 v.] : improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness

Fun pop-psych

08/09/10 Punished by rewards : the trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A's, praise, and other bribes

read again

07/13/10 How to measure anything : finding the value of intangibles in business

read again

06/15/10 How to think like a CEO : the 22 vital traits you need to be the person at the top

Ink

I loved Ink. It has its weaknesses. It also plays to my soft spots-- beautiful visuals, great music and oozing with the creativity and effort of the director.

On the downside, some of the acting is weak, and the plot could have used more polish. In the end, I didn't care. Here is a film that took it's shoe string budget and made it look like millions of bucks.

Bravo!

Transitions Photochromic Lenses & 39DollarGlasses.com

Two reviews here...

1st 39DollarGlasses.com. I very much like this company. You really can buy decent glasses for $39.00. Because glasses are very personal, I was hesitant to buy a pair over the Internet. I heard good things elsewhere. In addition 39DollarGlasses.com offers a good return or exchange policy. So when got a scratch in a lens of my old glasses, I thought I'd give it a try.

I measured my old glasses to ensure I got a good fit, entered my prescription and selected frames. One week later my new glasses were in my mailbox. Great fit. They look good. The lenses were wonderful.

I opted for Transitions Lenses; lens that darken in the sun. They are nice, but not everything I'd hoped they would be. I will still need a pair of sunglasses. Transitions Lenses are activated not by visible light, but by UV light. This means that...

• The lenses go dark on a cloudy day at noon since UV travels though clouds.
• The lenses don't go very dark while driving on a sunny day since windshields block out UV.
• The lenses won't go dark at sunrise or sunset, even if you are driving into the sun.

Inception

Maybe all the hype about Inception meant that it could never be as good as I hoped it could be. Don't get me wrong-- it was a good movie. But so many of the dream world rules seem to be contrivances that serve no purpose other than to create drama. The movie wasn't a mind blowing experience.

Inception is visually luscious though. The dream worlds-- the rolling city, the zero-g fight and many other details are great eye candy.

Once

I can't help but compare Once to August Rush. The plots are very different. At their core both are tales of talented musicians.

In Once, the actors actually are *very* talented musicians. August Rush has actors acting as talented musicians. In Once you get watch and listen to the music with no misdirection-- no overdubbing, no tricky cuts that separate the hands holding the instrument from the actor playing musician, no by-standers saying "Wow! That's brilliant!" to nice but not great music.

Plus, Once is a very sweet move.

J.P. Muller's exercieses

http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/Muller/System/system-05.htm

Tim Gunn

"He sees right through shortcuts and stunts. He demands energy and thoughtfulness, not just of his duh-sign-errrrrrs, but Taylor Momsen and Anna Wintour and you and me. We have to try a little harder to meet Tim's approval. We have to do our homework. And when we don't, he will call us out on our own pathetic laziness. Yikes. It's harsh stuff. It's tough love, light on the love. But coming from the eminently sane, ultimately encouraging, telling-you-this-for-your-own-good mouth of Tim Gunn, somehow, he makes it work."

Mary Elizabeth Williams on Tim Gunn